Bone Deep (20 page)

She tug
ged
down the boxers
one-handed
. “All of you.”

His cock sprang free and thrust before him. “Every bit.”

She dropped to her knees and pulled his
underwear
the rest of the way
off, then
straightened so her face was level with his
cock
.
S
he glanced up and Tom was staring down with awestruck eyes.
“I want to show you
h
ow
much
I like it.”

She wrapped
a
hand around his cock and
brought the tip to
her mouth
. She slid her tongue
over the satiny head of his penis
and
rolled her tongue all around it, tasting the salty
, musky
flavor
. Her pulse beat fast as she took him into her mouth
.

Tom gasp
ed loudly
.

I must be doing it right
.
Her nervousness at
trying something new
disappeared as instinct took control. S
he sucked him
in
farther
and moved her
fist
up and down his length. She worked him steadily, sucking
,
stroking, savoring the texture and taste of his flesh.
In the background,
water splash
ed into the tub and
rising steam fill
ed
the small room
.
The floor was hard against her knees even through the bathmat
.
Details etched themselves into her consciousness:
the chill of the floor, the splash of the water,
the warmth of Tom’s body, his soft groan of pleasure
.
This moment was hers forever.

T
he green leaves of the Tree of Knowledge spread
across Tom’s groin
.
D
ark pubic hair
which was beginning to grow in
obscured some of the foliage
. Sarah
suddenly understood
Reed had kept Tom clean
-
shaven
everywhere
the better to display his artwork for
high paying
customers
.
The thought made her sick.

At the corner of her vision
Eve’s hand
reach
ed
toward
Tom’s
testicles. Sarah cupped them herself, fondling his sac.
S
ubmissively kneeling at her lover’s feet
, a sense of power filled her
.
Her hands and mouth controlled his pleasure. S
he sucked hard
before allowing
most of his glistening length to slip
from
her
mouth
. She nibbl
ed
and kiss
ed
his head then sat
back on her heels
and si
mply
gazed
at his cock, the
engorged
head and
the
pulsing shaft wrapped in ink
ed
barbed wire.

He thrust his hips forward, begging her take him back in hand and reached to touch her head
,
urging her toward him.
O
n trembling legs
,
his cock vibrating, Tom practically whimpered his need for more. She took pity on him
, o
nce more
grasping
him in her fist and enveloping him in her mouth.

After only a few moments of Sarah sucking and pulling, Tom
suddenly grasped her head and strained
into her mouth
. H
is
cock nearly gagged
her
as he
released with a strangled cry.

W
arm
th
hit the back of her throat and
she
swallowed reflexively.
When his cock finished pulsing, she let it go and sat back on her heels. W
iping her hand across her lips,
she
looked up at his
blissful expression
, eyes
closed
and mouth gasping.
S
mug pride
filled
her. She had
given him that ecstasy.

Sarah stood and
wrapped her arms around him
. They clung together until
she
glance
d
past Tom’s shoulder and noticed the bath water creeping alarmingly high. She turn
ed
off the tap and release
d some water
down the drain
before stepping
into the
tub
and
offering
her hand to Tom.

Together t
hey reclined in the bath
,
Sarah between Tom’s legs
with
her back against his
front
.
Steamy warmth engulfed her.
The ends of her hair floated in dark red swirls.
Tom
coiled and uncoiled her hair around his fingers, hefted the weight of her breasts
then set
them bobbing in the water.
He
slid
a hand
down her belly to toy with her clit.
I
nexorably, he stroked and circled and brought her to orgasm as she had done for him. She arched
into his touch
, thrashing
until the water sloshed
over the edge of the bath. Afterward she collapsed against him with a contented sigh.

He wrapped his arms around her body. The colors on his wet arms looked like
fresh
ink. Absently, Sarah traced the figure of the angel.

“This is really quite beautiful. Her expression is so serene.”

“It’s my mother. I mean, the face is hers.”

There was a long pause and she
felt
his chest rising and falling
against her back
.

“He loved her, I think.”

Sarah felt cold despite the hot bath. The tattoo artist was more twisted than she had imagined.

“Or at least he wanted to have her.”

The room was so quiet only the faucet
’s drip
and the
little
splashes
they made
as they shifted in the water disturbed it.

She stroked his
fore
arm. “Did he
e
ver have her?”

“Did he fuck her? No. I don’t think so.
… Maybe.
”

She stiffened at the word ‘fuck.’ It sounded so harsh
yet
so casual when he said it. She wasn’t used to hearing profanity and despite
everything
they’d done together, it shocked her.

She laid her hand on top of the water and brushed her flat palm across the sur
face
. “How did she die?”

He brought his palm up from be
low
the water to press it against hers. “She was sick. She had a bad cold in her chest. Greta tried to fix her, but she died.”

“Greta?”

“The woman with the beard. She takes care of people when they’re sick.”

“Your mother was that sick and no one took her to the doctor?”

He shrugged. “I wasn’t there when she died. When she got really bad, he sent me to stay
in
his trailer
. I didn’t get to see her again. He buried her wherever we were.”

Sarah knew ‘he’ meant Reed. She
’
d never heard Tom refer to him by name, only with that
distancing
pronoun as if
Tom
were speaking about God--or Satan.

“After my mother died,
Greta and Julianne took our trailer and I
stayed
in the back room of his.”

She wondered if Reed had abused him
in other ways
, but couldn’t
bear to ask
. If he wanted her to know, Tom would tell her. She laced her fingers through his, allowing him to draw her hand underwater until it disappeared beneath the rippl
ing
surface. “Do you still have a headache?” she asked. “I forgot to give you an aspirin
powder
.”

“A little. Not so bad now.”

S
he looked up at him
over her shoulder
. “My skin’s
like a prune
and the water’s getting cold. Shall we get out now?”

She pulled the plug and they
rose
, dripping, and wrapped themselves in towels.
After they were dried and dressed,
Sarah
gave
Tom
aspirin powder from the medicine chest
.

“
Take this then
lie down a while? I’ll call you when supper’s ready
.
”

“
The animals.
I should
—
”

“Rest.
You need it.
There’s nothing that can’t wait until after dinner.” She stood on her toes and kissed him.

Tom’s face was haggard and the fact that he didn’t argue let her know how
exhausted
he was. He heade
d toward John’s room, not hers Sarah noted, and s
he went down to the kitchen where a mound of wilted cabbage
lay on the counter
. She scraped the shreds into the compost bucket
and sliced into a new head
to make coleslaw
.

S
he too was
drained
from the stressful day,
but
she moved around the kitchen, going through the familiar, homey tasks of slicing bread, peeling potatoes,
and
breading pork chops. Keeping her hands occupied helped keep her mind off of bigger worries
, b
ut she couldn’t help dwelling a little on how the townsfolk were going to react to Tom living with her. She hoped th
e
people she considered friends would prove to be true
allies
.

The kitchen
was
rich with the smell of baking pork chops and apples when Sarah heard a car coming up the drive. She wiped her hands on her apron and went to the front
door
, steeling her nerve to face whoever had come to see her. She
had no
doubt what the subject up for discussion would be.

Grace May cut the engine and climbed out of the Ford with a wave. “Got time to talk?”

Sarah gestured her to the
porch
swing. “
Sit down.
Let me guess what you want to talk about.”

“Where is he?”

“Upstairs sleeping. The search really wore him out.”

“The whole thing is amazing. I didn’t believe in that kind of thing, but
Mike told me
what
happened and
it seems real
.
The fact that this guy knew where to dig for Aileen proves it. Unless he buried her there himself, or happened to be there and saw the cave-in, there’s no other explanation for it.
” Grace shook her head. “And you hiding him here all these days. I didn’t know you could keep secrets so well.
W
hy didn’t you tell me?
”

“I didn’t see you right away
then
,
when I did
,
you were with Mike and Andrew
so I couldn’t talk freely
. Besides,
I didn’t want to break Tom’s confidence.” Sarah wasn’t sure that was all of it
. She knew what a gossip Grace could be and hadn’t really trusted her to keep such a big secret. And m
aybe there
’d been
a certain
element of
excitement to having a
clandestine
life
that not even her friend knew about
.

“So, what’s he like? Mike said he’s not mentally slow
,
just quiet, and that he was kept some sort of prisoner at that carnival.”