Captivated (Stranded) (8 page)

She pursed her lips just long enough to feel the firm warmth of his, and then opened her mouth to him. Cupping her face in his hand, he gave her tongue a languorous stroke with his. She could taste herself on him, but below that was
his
flavor, a little sour from nerves, maybe. She arched up at him to get more, then started laughing.

“What?”

“That was our first kiss,” she said.

“Yeah,” he said warily. “Was it okay?”

“Of course,” she said and gave him a reassuring peck. “We just have everything backward is all.”

“No complaints here,” he said and bent to kiss her neck.

“Nor here, but we have some ground to make up.”

He raised his head. “This isn’t a race, is it?”

“No.”

“Good.” He toyed with the hem of her shirt. “I like to take my time.”

Oh boy.

“Tell you what,” he said, lifting her shirt to expose her navel. “You figure out our itinerary. I’m just going to do a bit of exploring here.” He planted a kiss on her belly, then in the hollow under her sternum, then on a rib.

“Right,” she breathed. At his urging she lifted her shoulders and he peeled her shirt up and off.

“Jesus.”

“What?”

“Nothing,” he said. “Just praying.” He bent his head to her breast. Closing his eyes, he took her nipple into his mouth and groaned against her.

Or maybe that was her groaning.

He teased her with a hot, insistent tongue (flick, swirl, flick) ending with a forceful suck that pulled her nipple tight before letting it go. He watched her breast bounce, then drew his free hand roughly up her ribs on the other side and squeezed that breast. Rolling its nipple under his thumb, he lowered his head to suck on her again. She began to feel a tightening, as if her breasts and pussy were connected by cords, and every suck and nip from Evan’s talented mouth plucked them, twisted them, until she felt herself dripping. She squirmed, digging her hips into the grass, and scissored her thighs to get the friction she craved.

Evan pulled up to watch her struggle. “You want some help?”

“God, yes.”

“You only have to ask, Iowa.”

The hand on her breast drew a hot swath down her belly and curled around her mound. The heel of his hand pressed on her clit, drawing a cry from her and a shove back from her pelvis. He dragged his fingers up through her folds.

“Goddamn, you’re wet.”

“Please,” she said, not sure what she was asking for. Just, “More.”

Without hesitation, he slid two fingers into her pussy. She shouted and pushed against him, grabbing his hand to make sure he gave her every bit of length he could. He pushed into her, hard, mashing his palm against her clit, before drawing his fingers out. He kept contact with her skin, spreading her lips with the upward sweep of his fingertips, before pushing back into her on a long, slow glide. This time, he pressed against the front of her on the inside, curving his fingers before dragging them back out. The friction and pressure drew a trail of pure pleasure, and fuck itineraries, this was the only path he needed to follow.

“Yes. Again.
Please.
”

He buried his face in her neck and then kissed her ear. “Whatever you want, Laine.”

She moaned at the sound of her name in his voice, and then he took her breast into his mouth again, matching his rhythm there with his fingers in her cunt. She bucked against him and he took the hint, driving his hand harder, smacking her clit on each impact of his fingertips inside, then sucking off of it with every drag out of her. She clutched him inside and out, panting and twisting, and she heard him curse, once, before her climax blasted through her. He gripped her tightly, not moving, as her muscles ticked against his fingers. As soon as she let her ass settle back in the grass, he pulled his fingers out and rolled away.

“Sorry, I gotta.”

She opened her eyes to find him on his back beside her, fisting his cock in a punishing grip. It glistened in the moonlight—coated with her cum on his hand, she realized with a physical aftershock. Evan’s teeth were gritted, his breath puffing through them harshly, as he stroked his length in rough pulls that brought his sac up with each tug. Watching his cock, he reached his free hand over to her, cupping her pussy again, pressing his fingers into her wetness. “Fuck,” he grunted, and then cum spurted from his slit, marking his ridged belly in small, pale pools.

As he milked the last of his orgasm, Laine rolled over to look at them. In the moonlight, his semen stood iridescent against his skin, as if he had managed to melt pearls. Without thinking, she licked one of the pools off him, drawing a startled chuckle from his chest. One by one, she cleaned the liquid pearls from his skin, rolling each over her tongue before swallowing it. When she finished, she found him watching her, his expression as open as she’d ever seen it.

She half-expected an emotional declaration. He certainly had the look of a man about to spill his feelings, and in that moment, she was sure she would meet him wherever his heart stood.

But what he said was, “I need to show you something.”

Chapter 9

Stopping only to track down her discarded panties and pull on his boxers, Evan led Laine to the stairs.

“Watch your step,” he said over his shoulder and stepped down first, ready to catch her if she stumbled. He would always catch her, he told himself, and he knew it sounded goofy and overdramatic, but if that fucker back home was idiot enough to push her away, Evan wasn’t about to squander the chance to give her everything she deserved. But he had to come clean first.

All the way clean.

Ducking through the kitchen window, he helped her into the dark apartment, smiling at the damp underwear and shirt she hadn’t bothered to put back on, or more accurately, at the parts of her now accessible to his hands. As soon as she stood on two feet inside, he stepped close and kissed her. She kissed him back, enthusiastically, and he slid his hands down her back to her butt, kneading her gently.

She chuckled and grabbed his. “I’ve spent two months trying to get peeks of your ass.”

He pulled away, surprised.

She gave him a squeeze. “It’s your own fault; I only ever saw you from behind. Sometimes, in the afternoons, I’d have to duck into the bathroom.” She nipped his ear and whispered, “You were there with me.”

Jesus.
Little did she know. “I saw you, too,” he admitted.

Her smile looked shy. “Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

“See anything you like?”

He palmed her ass. “This.”

“So I gathered.”

He lifted her hair from her shoulders and held it in one hand. With the other, he stroked the nape of her neck. “This.”

She shivered. “Nice.”

He tugged down a lock of hair from her temple—“This”—and tucked it behind her ear.

“Oh.”

“And this.” He kissed the corner of her jaw. “I actually tried sketching you. Is that okay?”

She frowned a little. She looked from him to the sketches on the walls. “I guess so. It was art, right?”

Sort of. “The thing was, it never looked right. So I tried something different.” He sighed. “Come on, before I lose my nerve.”

She gave him a bemused look. He took her hand and pulled her to the closet door. Inside, he flipped on the light switch, causing them both to groan. Candlelight probably would’ve been better, he thought, his eyes smarting. Way more romantic.

But is this romance? Or confession?

Behind him, Laine pulled her hand away from her eyes, and stepped into the closet. “So this is the secret space.” She scanned the crude pallet he’d made of sheets and blankets and extra clothes. Her attention caught on the sketch pad next to his makeshift pillow. “Is it in there?”

“No.” He tipped his head toward the long interior wall.

Her gaze traveled up the shelves to the bits of paper glued to the wall above. She studied it with polite interest, head tilted, eyes skipping over the collage’s surface, and one glance back at him that said,
What am I looking at?
The same kind of expression he’d worn at more than one modern art museum.

He slipped a hand to her bare waist and moved her to his usual vantage point. “Now let your eyes go blurry,” he said.

Her lashes fluttered, and she gasped with delight, but a general pleased sound, as if she’d thought of the right word for a puzzle. She saw something but still didn’t see herself.

He waited, intent on her face as she squinted at the piece.

Then it happened. Her eyes widened in recognition, and for a moment her brows rose in happy wonder, and he wanted to drop with relief.

But then she frowned and took in the whole thing again, edge to edge. His throat tightened at the series of expressions that played over her face, from confusion to alarm.

“It’s a collage.”

“I know what it is,” she said. “Did you start this yesterday, after we met?”

“No.”

“When?” Her voice didn’t sound right. It came out flat and forced, as if someone were pressing her chest like a bellows to work her voice box.

Panic beat wings against his ribcage. “About a month ago.”

Wrong answer. She hugged her shirt to her chest, then tried to pull the bottom down to cover her crotch.

Shit.
“Don’t—”

She reached down and jerked his top sheet up to wrap around herself, then looked at the bed again. Slowly, she looked back to the collage. Then she sank down to sit on his bed, her eyes on the wall the whole time. She shifted around, testing something. When she turned to him, her face was as blank and taut as a newly stretched canvas. “Do you masturbate to this?” she asked in a tone too casual to be anything but dangerous.

“Laine—”

“Do you?”

She already looked ready to run, hands clutching the sheet tightly, shoulders rigid. He couldn’t lie to her. Still, to admit it out loud. He stared at her, hoping his silence would give her the answer, but no, she was waiting. She wanted the word. “Yes,” he said.

She glared at the piece, and then shot up from the bed and stalked to the walk below the collage. Planting her hands and feet wide against the shelves, she let the sheet fall to the floor, leaving her entire backside exposed. “Is this what you’ve been picturing?”

He stared, unable to reconcile the furious woman across from him with Laine,
his
Laine, from the roof.

She looked up at the collage, then pulled her hair up with one hand, leaning her elbow on the shelves. She yanked loose a curl with her free hand, then braced it again. “I don’t have my glasses on, but is this close enough?”

He picked up the sheet and draped it around her, hands shaking. “It’s not like that.”

She turned on him, and the sheet fell again. “It’s not?”

“No, it’s a portrait,” he said, hearing the gears whine as he backpedaled.

“In the closet?” Her eyes challenged him to hold her gaze.

“You’re mad because it’s not in the apartment?”
Please let that be the reason.

“If this was something you were proud of, it wouldn’t be in here.”

“It’s in here because I work with a bunch of busybodies!”

She flinched.

He stepped back and lowered his voice. “I’m sorry. It’s a portrait, Laine. I couldn’t capture you on paper, so I tried to do it in collage.”

“Capture me,” she whispered. Her eyes narrowed at him. “Did you lock me in?”

“No!” He held out his hands. “No, I swear. God, I’m sorry, I didn’t know you’d be so upset.”

“Didn’t know?” She pointed at the door. “You’ve kept this room shut tight. Right before you showed me, you said you were about to lose your nerve.”

“But I
did
show you. I knew I had to. I wanted you to know.”

She closed her eyes.

He wanted badly to touch her but knew he couldn’t. “I’ll take it down. It’s just…you’re only here for so long, Laine, and you’re so pretty—”

“Don’t.”

“I wanted something beautiful to look at for a change.”

“Stop it!” she shouted, her voice shocking in the narrow space. “Talk about pity. You’re not some monster who has to hide in the attic!” She stepped up to him and, miraculously, touched him, her hands gripping his shoulders. “You’re a good man, Evan, a good, generous, talented,
gorgeous
man.” She lowered her head and growled, frustrated. Then she smoothed a thumb over the scar tissue on his left cheek. “I’m sorry if some people have made you think otherwise, but you owe it yourself not to buy their bullshit.”

He stood stunned as she bent to scoop up the sheet, then one of his blankets.

“I’m going to sleep downstairs.”

“No, I will.”

She held up her hands. “Please. I’m going to the archive. Don’t follow me.”

“Laine. How can I make this right?”

“Go back a month and say hi instead?” She shook her head, helpless. “I’m feeling a lot of scary shit right now—no, stay there. I want to be alone, okay?”

He felt as if two big fists were wringing him out. He bent and picked up the second blanket, handed it to her. “It’s cold down there,” he said, hating himself. He’d scared her, and he was giving her a blanket? Useless.

“Evan.” She looked like she might cry, but turned away before he could respond. A few seconds later the apartment door clicked shut behind her, and then he was alone.

Fuck.

Chapter 10

Laine lay on the floor, surrounded by Evan. His scent, stronger in these bedclothes than hers, wrapped her up. When it got to be too much, she threw them off, only to grow chilled and have to pull them back over her. She even tried breathing through her mouth to avoid him but gave up with a sigh. He wasn’t just in the sheets. He was all around her, in the keeping of this place.

This place she had thought was safe.

Oh don’t be so fucking dramatic,
she told herself. He hadn’t locked her in, and hadn’t known it was going to happen. She knew that. She knew
him
well enough to feel sure of it.

But that collage. It had come as a shock.

Actually, that wasn’t quite right either, if she was completely honest with herself (and who else did she have to be honest with, shutting herself in the basement). At first, it had seemed only a jumble of colors. A nice jumble, well-coordinated, but with no shapes putting themselves forward for her eye to discern. But then she’d unfocused her gaze a bit and seen a woman in quarter profile.