Reflex

by Madelynne Ellis

  “And you’re about to get the best orgasm you’ve ever had.”

  “Promise?”

  “Cross my heart.”

  She swallowed it down.

  Back between her legs, Spook thrummed his tongue against her clit again, while he worked two fingers inside of her and put pressure on that soft spot just above her pelvis. She started coming immediately.

  “That’s it.” Her muscles gripped him tight.

  “Oh, fuck. Oh, fucking, hell.”

  She was gone. Lost to the spasms arching her spine off the bed, and tightening all her muscles. And she was wet. So damned wet that if he wanted to slide into her he could do so down to the balls without any resistance whatsoever.

  “Oh, man,” she sighed, finally dissolving into the mattress. “That was amazing. Come up here, so that I can kiss you.”

  Spook reached up and removed the belt from her wrist. Immediately her arms came around him. Then raked across his back and tangled in his hair. She kissed him shamelessly, licking the taste of her body from his lips. “Don’t you go anywhere.”

  Spook laughed, as she jolted off the bed and disappeared into the bathroom. When she emerged again, she was wearing a smirk and nothing else.

  “Do I want to know where you learned that trick?”

  “The same place I learned the rest of my ‘tricks’.”

  She grasped hold of his foot, pressing her thumb into the arch. “That was the most excruciatingly intense, ecstasy inducing thing I’ve felt ever. And the fact that you can do that to me without shoving your cock into me is insane. I’m not letting go of you Spook Mortensen. Not ever.”

  It probably made him look like a sap, but he let a toothy grin spread across his face. “It’s just a wild speculation of course,” he said a few minutes later, “but I think your past hook-ups were too focussed on their dicks to realise there’s a whole world of pleasure beyond ramming it in and getting yourself off.”

  “True. They were pretty unimaginative. Just the notion of smacking my arse tended to give them palpitations.”

  “Understandable,” he muttered. “We’re not supposed to inflict pain on those we love.”

  “Except this isn’t the same, and you know it.”

  When his gaze slid sideways, she cupped his face, bringing it back into direct connection with hers. “Why is that a no for you at the moment, Spook?”

  He blinked. It was hard to hold her gaze and not confess everything.

  “I want it too much. I just think we need some restraints in place so we don’t wind up tumbling into a pit neither of us will emerge unscathed from.”

  “You think you’re going to hurt me.”

  “Alle, I don’t think it. I know it. Maybe it won’t be the first time, but at some point, we’ll cross a line. Then the marks won’t fade in a few minutes or even hours, they’ll mark your skin for days, or hell, permanently.”

  “Yet, you’d only do that if I’d consented.”

  He swallowed. “Of course.”

  “Then why not trust me to know where my lines are?”

  He chewed the inside of his cheek. “I’m working on that. Being with you… We’re working on it together. Building that trust.”

  “Okay.” She rubbed the tip of her nose against his. “So, do you trust me to give you the release you’ve definitely earned?” Her hand strayed down towards his cock.

  “How?”

  For a moment, her teeth troubled her bottom lip. “Fuck me between my thighs.”

  “Alle…”

  “What? It’ll be like the real thing but not, and don’t pretend you’re not enticed by the idea, I can feel what’s going on down here.”

  In fact, he’d been hard from the moment they’d set foot in the room together. With the taste of her still fresh on his tongue, and her moans still echoing inside his ears, he was extra eager.

  Alle pushed him onto his back, and straddled him, which landed his cock in a particularly luscious valley, and rather took the matter out of his hands. Ten thousand volts of electrical lust zapped through him.

  “Kiss me.” She groaned, welcoming the intrusion of his tongue into her mouth. He couldn’t stay in this position. Not riding this particular groove. She was wet and silky after her climax, so ready for him.

  “Alle,” he struggled to free his mouth from hers. “You said between your thighs.”

  “Easy tiger. I know the rules. You’re safe. We’re just enjoying some closeness. We’re not going to be doing any moving that you don’t initiate while we’re in this position. I just wanted to feel you. It’s an exciting prospect, having you so close, knowing that you could so effortlessly fill me.”

  “Christ. … Do you grasp how hard it is not to move when your lips are kissing me like this?”

  “A little.” She grinned demonically. “You know, I don’t know what it’s like for a man, but there’s something special about being in this position for a woman. It’s a crazy thrill being poised right on the brink of penetration.”

  “Alle, I haven’t been inside a woman for nearly a decade. This is way more temptation than I can handle.”

  “Nonsense, your control is just fine. Trust me, Spook.” She kissed his chin, then began exploring the line of his jaw and his throat. It hurt a little when her touch strayed too close to his remaining bruises, but it was stingy, not entirely unpleasant pain. “For starters, I’m not going to let you slide in bare because that would be irresponsible. If you want to fuck me, you have to suit up. And secondly, I’m not sure my bladder is up to being prodded so soon after what you just did.”

  That set them both chuckling, a dangerous turn of events if ever there was one, as it made them both shift at the same time. They both gasped as he slid way too close to entering her. Spook pushed himself into a sitting position.

  Alle fell onto her haunches.

  “Come here.” He piled a stack of pillows, and tipped her over them face down, bottom up. Spook covered her from behind. “Do you have anything we can use as lube?” It wasn’t something he carried around, and he really wasn’t about to run next door and ask Xane for such a thing.

  “I’ve a tin of Vaseline I use on my lips.”

  “Where?”

  “In my bag.” She pointed to where she’d dropped it on the bedside table.

  Spook snatched it up by the strap, and upended the contents. They spilled everywhere, toppling off the table onto the carpet, and escaping under the bed.

  “There.”

  He caught the circular tin just as it was about to fall. “Are you sure about this, Alle? It’s not too great an indignity.”

  “Warm my arse first and I won’t care.”

  Fingers on the verge of dipping into the pot, he paused. “Oh God!” He ground his teeth. “Okay.”

  He was already on his knees, and she was already perfectly positioned. “Ready?”

  She barely finished nodding before he landed the first crack across the plumpest part of her cheeks. She squealed as her skin bloomed pink. His patience endured only so long as it took for her to un-tense a few muscles, and he was straight in with another strike.

  Alle’s cry echoed off the walls, and ignited fires that had hitherto been banked. When those same cries dissolved into strings of pleas, “Yes. More. Oh, my God. Stop. Don’t stop,” he got engulfed. Her arse was a fierce shade of red by the time he slathered lubricant over his shaft and then folded himself over the top of her. Two firm thighs captured his cock.

  No finesse.

  None.

  Was it even possible in such a position? He ought to have been fucking her cunt. It incensed part of him that he wasn’t, but he wasn’t so out of control that he couldn’t see that giving in to that desire would be disastrous. Instead, he rode the space between her thighs, made slippery smooth for him with the Vaseline, with frantic determination. His palm stung. There was something wet between his fingers. He’d probably reopened one of the cuts in his palm with his antics. Fucked if he cared right now. All that ma
ttered was the release that he could almost taste, and… And her being there with him.

  It involved a bit of balancing, but he circled an arm around her. Still perky from earlier, her clit quickly stiffened against his finger.

  “I don’t think I can, Spook. I don’t think I ca—” That last word got swallowed up by a gasp.

  “Are you coming for me, Allegra Hutton? Are you?” She was panting like she’d just run a steeple chase.

  “Yes. Are you?”

  Was he? He could no longer even jerk against her with any sort of efficiency. The control of his body was out of his jurisdiction. He was so fucking there. No more than a whisper away from squirting his goddamn stuff. Nothing could stop it or even slow it down.

  Alle’s head jerked back, almost colliding with his. Face against her hair, breathing in the sweet gardenia smell of her, his orgasm kicked at both the base of his cock and his brain. It took him on a whiplash rollercoaster ride that crashed through solid barriers like they were rice paper sheets, and eventually left him gasping for breath flush against Alle’s back with his whole weight on her.

  “Sorry,” he slurred, attempting to make his muscles work enough to lift off her. Instead he wound up tumbling onto his back.

  Alle immediately cuddled up to his side, resting her head in the hollow between his collar bone and the top of his pec. Her hair tickled where the ends brushed against his skin. “I love how uninhibited you are when you come,” she whispered.

  Like there was a choice in the matter. A huff of laughter pushed its way up from his lungs. “Fuck, I’m jellied. I’m not sure I can raise a finger.”

  “Then don’t. Stay put and let me hold you.”

  Her lithe body wrapped around him like a coverlet certainly was cosy, but he’d come like a fountain. That meant there was mess to see to. “Don’t you want to get cleaned up?”

  The covers being tugged over him filled him in on that answer. “We can shower together in the morning.”

  That there was a reason to love her. Considering how frazzled he felt, he wasn’t sure he was up to finding a wash cloth, let alone mastering the coordination to clean her skin. “You’re going to sleep covered in my come?”

  “Hmm,” she sighed against him so he could feel the vibrations. “Is that dirty of me, or just nasty?

  “Delicious.” That possibly wasn’t the exact word he’d been looking for, but it’d serve. “I think I need about a decade of recuperation time.”

  “Yeah, well I’m giving you six hours. Then I’m going to soap you up in the shower and get you off again.”

  “Babe,” he drawled sleepily. “I think you might kill me.”

  -24-

  Alle woke at three and then a little after six, both times as a result of Spook crying out in his sleep. The first time he rolled over when she nudged him and he fell into easier dreams. The second, his clammy skin left the sheet beneath him damp. Whatever nightmarish vista he kept straying into had him in an iron grip. Even calling out his name and shaking him couldn’t pull him out of it. Instead, she could only hold him tight, and pray that offered some comfort. The sun had begun to rise before he was peaceful enough that her own eyelids willingly drooped.

  He’d already showered and dressed and ordered them breakfast by the time she finally stirred to the smell of coffee wafted under her nose. “Rise and shine, sweetpea. Xane’s hired us a yacht. We’re checking out and meeting in the harbour at ten.”

  They were what?

  She blinked blearily at the bright blue sky visible through the open window. “Where are we sailing to, if we’re checking out?”

  “Cannes. It’s about an hour or so down the coast, but we’ll take it easy, and probably stop for a while en route to enjoy a swim. Did you bring a cossie?”

  She hadn’t.

  “We can pick something up from the boutique downstairs before we leave.”

  Right. Her bank balance would probably never forgive her. An itty scrap of material from said boutique probably cost more than the rest of her wardrobe combined.

  “Stop worrying about money. It’ll be my treat.”

  She wasn’t. Okay, she totally had been. Alle yawned and stretched, then pushed herself into a sitting position. Spook handed her the coffee he’d brewed exactly as she liked it. Mmm, heaven in a cup.

  “What about Ronnie, is he invited on this jaunt?” It wouldn’t do to run off and leave him, not when he was the reason she was in Monte Carlo in the first place. Bad enough that she’d deserted him yesterday.

  Spook looked up from where he was picking at a bowl of fresh fruit. “He and Paul are now best buds, what do you think?”

  “That I need another four hours sleep.” She probably needed an actual caffeine drip.

  Spook paused to squint at her, a grape halfway to his mouth. He bit and chewed. “Did I keep you awake again?”

  It took effort, but she nodded her head, before allowing it to loll against the padded headboard. “Whatever dreamscape you were in had a fast hold on you. I couldn’t wake you up. I did try.”

  “Ah.” Some of the sunshine that had imbued him this morning seeped away.

  “Was it the same one as the night before?” she asked.

  In place of an answer, he turned away and padded barefoot outside onto the veranda overlooking the harbour.

  “Spook?” She followed a moment later, the bed sheet entwined around her body, and her brew clutched tightly in her hand. He stood, forearms resting against the iron railings. “Maybe if you told me about it—”

  “I don’t want to talk about it, Alle.”

  So, he could remember it.

  “But maybe if you did it wouldn’t have such a fast hold on you.”

  “I don’t want to talk about it.”

  Okay, she got it. His deliberate, precise emphasis conveying that with absolute clarity. Though really, what was the big deal about sharing the details of a nightmare? Unless it involved her in some way. She opened her mouth to ask, but thought better of it, and filled the awkward moment with a slurp of coffee instead. It didn’t stop her yawning.

  “I’m sorry I’m not such a great sleeping companion. There’ll be plenty of time to catnap once we’re on the water if that’s what you feel like.”

  “Maybe.” A second hippopotamus yawn stretched her jaw.

  “Would you like me to turn the shower on for you?”

  “That’s sweet, but I think I’m going to sit in the sun for a minute and drink this cuppa first. I have time for that, right?”

  Spook checked the time on his phone. “There’s time.” He guided her onto a sun lounger. “Stay right here. I’ll fetch you a croissant.”

  -25-

  Soaking up the sun aboard a yacht, and swimming in the gently bobbing waters of the Mediterranean weren’t what Alle had expected to find herself enjoying when she’d agreed to board a flight with Ronnie in order to see the last gig of Black Halo’s Requiem tour. Actually, her expectations had been pretty low, and her goals rather narrowly focussed.

  Priority number one – make sure Spook was in actual fact okay and that Xane wasn’t lying.

  Two – figure out where she stood.

  And three… There hadn’t precisely been a three, but if there had been one, then it would have been to convince him that fucking until they both collapsed from total exhaustion was an ace idea.

  So far, she was hovering dubious about number one, working on number two—he seemed very content to be around her—and as for three… Last night had certainly felt a lot like they were fucking, even if they hadn’t precisely done it in the biblical sense. She, for one, was definitely exhausted.

  “Get yourself in here,” Rock Giant hollered, as she dithered at the top of the ladder hanging off the side of the yacht. They were anchored not far off the Île Sainte-Marguerite, and the bass player had been splashing about from the moment it was possible. The rest of the guys—for it had turned out she was the only woman on board—had taken a more sedate approach to getting wet.
In fact, Xane and Luthor were both yet to leave the deck.

  She slid into the waves, bracing herself for the chill, but it wasn’t as numbing as expected. Spook splashed over to her immediately, leaving Rock Giant to his fun with Ash and Ronnie. “I wasn’t sure if you were going to come in.”

  “Kinda felt like I should. Oughtn’t to waste opportunities, as Ewan would tell me. I don’t know when I’ll have such an opportunity again.”

  On her budget, the chances of a Riviera holiday were microscopic.

  “Is this what it’s normally like? You all hang together, even during down time?”

  Spook slicked a few wet strands back off his face, most of his blond hair having been fashioned into a messy topknot. “For a day or two. Then we’ll head our separate ways. Ash and Ginny are taking off tonight, probably right after we dock.”

  “Where is Ginny?” She was certain neither Ash’s fiancée, nor Xane and Luthor’s girlfriend was aboard the yacht.

  “Shopping, I expect. Dani doesn’t swim.”

  “Let me do a few strokes,” she said. “I don’t think I’m going to stay in long. I’m not keen on the fact that I can’t put my feet on the bottom. That, and I’m at risk of frying to a crisp.” Despite numerous layers of Factor 50, her face, arms, and shoulders were already a web of freckles. Sunshine played havoc with her quest for a porcelain complexion.

  Alle swam the length of the boat a couple of times, then got out. The guys were chucking an inflatable banana back and forth between them. They seemed to have divided into teams, but she couldn’t fathom the rules or the objective of whatever game they were playing.

  Back on deck, she fastened a towel around her torso, and padded over to the table on the main deck, where she helped herself to a glass of something fruity looking from an iced jug. “Pimms?” she enquired aloud to no one in particular.

  “Sangria,” Black Halo’s lead singer corrected her, regarding her over Luthor’s shoulder while he worked sun cream into his lover’s skin. “Made with a kick, so watch how much you drink if you’re thinking of taking another dip.”

  “I think I’m done swimming for the day.” She found a seat on the bench that ran along one side of the deck, and turned her face to the sun. Two minutes later she was thinking better of her drying method. “Mind if I borrow some of that sun cream?”