Edge of Midnight (25 page)

She wiggled, restlessly, beneath the coverlet. He edged closer.

“I imagined your hand in your panties,” he went on. “Touching yourself til your pussy was hot and puffy and slick. It was agonizing.”

She nodded, her face still hidden.

“Tell me something, baby. Did you ever put your finger into your pussy and imagine that it was me?”

She looked up through a tangled veil of hair, a gleam of reluctant laughter in her eyes. “Duh.”

“Yeah? Really?” He edged closer still, so that he could sniff that honeysuckle smell. “Can I ask you an incredibly personal question?”

She shook with helpless giggles. “Like the last one wasn’t?”

He ignored that, intent upon his own curiosity. “Did you ever, ah, use a dildo when you thought of me?”

She hesitated. “None of your business,” she said primly.

He studied her hot pink cheeks, her averted eyes. “I’ll take that as a yes,” he murmured. “Wow. That blows my mind, babe. I just can’t picture you going into a sex shop and buying a—”

“I did nothing of the kind,” she snapped. “It was a gag gift. From my girlfriends. We threw a renewed virginity party for me once. To celebrate a full year of celibacy.”

He winced, at the very concept. A year? Ouch.

“We got toasted on frozen daiquiris, ate erotic pastries and trashed all the men we’d ever known,” she said. “You were included, I’ll have you know. After my third daiquiri, I went on and on about you.”

“I’m honored to have been included,” he said gravely. “So, uh, does it vibrate?”

She shook with silent laughter. “Of course it vibrates. You dork.”

His eyes were wide with fascination. “Whoa. And did you use it?”

“Certainly I used it,” she said tartly. “I hadn’t had sex for ages.”

He tried to wrap his mind around that for a while, and ended up squeezing a restraining fist around his cock, doing some deep breathing and muscle control to keep from coming then and there. The idea of Liv playing with a vibrating sex toy made beads of sweat spring out on his forehead. He couldn’t stop himself from asking. “How do I measure up?”

“To the dildo?” She let out a crack of laughter. “Oh, please. It’s much smaller than you, don’t worry. Less problematic, too.”

“Less problematic?” He scowled. “What the hell does that mean?”

She snorted. “It means that when I’m done, I switch it off, wash it with soap and water and put it back in its box. It doesn’t follow me around, and manipulate me into endless marathon sex sessions.”

“Mmm.” He did the deep breathing trick again, tightening all the muscles in his groin, his fist squeezing his aching cock. “Princess? If we get through this, when things calm down…can we play with it?”

She was startled into another burst of laughter. “Why on earth? Like the one you’ve got on your body isn’t enough for me to deal with!”

“I want to watch you use it on yourself,” he confessed. “The very idea makes me practically explode all over the sheets.”

She grunted. “Oh, please. What doesn’t have that effect on you, Sean?”

“Aw. That’s not fair.” He flopped down onto the pillow. “I just go nuts at the idea of you pleasuring yourself. You’re so sexy.”

“Oh, stop. Don’t overdo it.”

He nuzzled her hair, lifting it up to see the bright red color of her cheeks. It was working. “Sweetheart?” he asked softly. “Do you want to touch yourself now?”

She let out a shuddering sigh, and shook her head.

“It doesn’t mean that you have to have sex with me,” he coaxed. “It doesn’t mean that I won and you lost. It’s just pleasure. I want you to have it. I love it when you’re pleased. I love it when you take a bite of chocolate, when you laugh, when you come. It makes me happy.”

She shifted under the covers, and he felt her yielding as he cuddled closer and draped his arm over her tense, trembling back.

“Do it. Put your hand between your legs,” he urged, his voice a velvety caress against her neck. “I can’t even see you. It’s all under the covers. All secret, all hidden. Just do it. Give that pleasure to yourself.”

It took her a long time to struggle towards her climax. He loved holding her, tuning in, feeling the tension as she strove for completion, but it was torture to feel that sexual energy vibrating through her beautiful body, and remain outside. Waiting patiently.

She finally got there. Pleasure jolted and shuddered through her body, and knifed right through his own, by reflex. It made him gasp.

Every time, he made the same mistake, made it worse, took it further. Every time he fucked her, his seductive bullshit backfired on him, pulling him deeper and deeper into a vortex he’d created himself.

He nuzzled her hair, parting it until his lips touched damp skin. Touched her with the tip of his tongue, tasting salt, sweet. Pretending to be the slick, confident seducer who had it all together. Not a desperate man who would fall into jagged, broken pieces if she turned him down.

“Liv,” he said. “Do you want me now?”

He couldn’t hide the need in his voice, even though it shamed him. All his stupid patter, and he was reduced to begging anyway.

She nodded. He almost wept with relief. “Tell me you want me,” he demanded. “Say the words. I need to hear them.”

She turned her face, and looked at him. Her eyes swam with tears. “I want you,” she said simply.

He grabbed the covers, wrenched them down over her body. The T-shirt had ridden up over her magnificent ass. He tugged it up over her head, tumbling her hair over her face, and tossed it away. “Roll over?”

She shook her head, and pressed her face down into the covers again. He stared down at her luscious, plump backside, his breath coming fast. Great. This position would do just fine.

He fumbled with the condom he’d slipped under his pillow, rolling it on with fingers that shook. Positioned himself behind her, stroking her satiny smooth ass cheeks, sliding his hand tenderly between her thighs. She parted her legs for him, tilting her ass up with a sigh as he teased her plump, shining pink pussy lips open. His bold caresses made her jerk and shiver as he spread hot lube all around, to ease his way.

They moaned when he slid his cock heavily into her tight, plush depths. He braced himself, and pumped, giving it to her nice and slow, but the rhythm quickened anyway. It was Liv who was pushing him, shoving back with her ass, wordlessly demanding it deeper, harder.

He gave it to her. He was helpless to do anything else.

“There’s nothing else like this,” he muttered. “There’s no one like you in the world, princess.”

She laughed at him, but the sound was punctuated by sobbing gasps with each heavy stroke. “Come on. In this position, I could be anyone for you. You could be Attila the Hun. I could be Sophia Loren.”

That crack slid right under his guard and made him furious. He slid his arm around her neck, bending her head back. “It doesn’t matter what position you’re in. I know exactly who I’m fucking. I know the taste of your sweat. The taste of your lube. The smell of your hair. The exact curve of your ass, your waist, every bone of your spine. Every beauty mark. This one—” he kissed her shoulder blade, “and this one, and this group of three. I know the dimples over your ass—”

“OK, I’m convinced. Stop pulling my head back.”

Her voice was choked and shaking, but she didn’t seem upset. He eased off, but not much, sensing that the roughness excited her. He stirred his cock around. “You know me, too,” he said. “You wouldn’t mistake me for any other man you’ve ever been with. Would you?”

She tried to speak, failed. Shook her head.

“You like this position, don’t you? I can tell, from that fluttery thing your pussy does when I rub this spot with the head of my cock.”

“Sean…” She clutched handfuls of the sheet with shaking fists.

“It pulls me, like it’s begging me to stay. Begging me to massage all those sweet hot spots until you…oh. Yes.”

She convulsed. He rode her out, eyes squeezed shut as he savored every little clutching pulsing wave of it, and pulled her face around to his. “You don’t look like a china doll now,” he told her. “All damp and soft and sweet. That hot rose color drives me fucking crazy.”

“You’re already crazy.” The sound choked off into a whimper as he started moving again. He nuzzled her hair, breathing in hungry gulps of that hot, damp honeysuckle smell. Licking away the delicate salt tang between her shoulder blades.

He’d always been good at getting inside a girl’s mind, intuiting what she needed to get off. Since he was thirteen he’d been good at it. But it had never cut both ways. Petting her clit was like touching himself. Every stroke of his cock was a sweet lash of mutual pleasure.

He drove her to the edge, but he was right there with her, shivering on the verge of the abyss. She clutched his hands, begging with every movement of her body for him to bring her off.

“Roll over,” he said.

She stiffened, turning her head. “Why?”

“I want to kiss you,” he said. “I want to look into your eyes.”

She hesitated, but he pulled out of her hot, clutching sheath and flipped her over onto her back. He mounted again, and slid deep and hard into her slick depths, jarring a gasping sound from her throat.

“One more,” he said. “One more, and I’ll come with you.”

He pried her hands off her face and stretched them wide. It wasn’t a confinement, she just stretched voluptuously against the resistance. It opened her wider to him, her chest, her throat. Chest to chest, heart to heart. A dam breaking, a geyser bursting forth.

Pleasure thundered, splintered through their fused bodies.

There was barely enough of him left afterwards to deal with the condom and then crawl back between the damp, crumpled sheets.

He hugged her jealously tight. He was as exhausted as she, probably more, but all he could do was stare at the sooty fan of lashes against the blush rose stain on her cheek. Awed, at how beautiful she was. Terrified, that this incredible thing might go sour on him.

He could make some butthead mistake, let T-Rex through his guard, and lose her. And even if he killed T-Rex, he had no clue who held the fucker’s leash. There was an endless supply of thugs for hire.

He didn’t even know where to start with this crazy shit. He hadn’t gotten anywhere with it fifteen years ago. He had even fewer ideas now.

And even if he did resolve this mystery, that was no guarantee at all that he could hang on to the princess. He was perfectly capable of fucking this up, even without the help of a homicidal maniac.

He’d been a fuck-up since he could remember. He’d driven old Eamon nuts with his nonstop chatter, his off the wall energy, his shit-for-brains impulsiveness. But even the most severe punishments his father came up with never calmed him down, or shut him up, or taught him sense. He just ended up bouncing off the walls that much harder.

Davy and Con loved him, he knew that, but they were always on edge, scared he would do something crazy. Hurt himself, or someone else. The only person he’d ever been able to relax and chill with, who wasn’t always irritated and aggravated by him, had been Kev. And Liv, for that brief, fabulous interval. And then they’d both disappeared.

He’d been passed from one prison to another his whole life. His father’s degenerating illness had been the first, then the hell of public school. The coursework had been a joke. It was staying square with the powers that be, keeping out of trouble, that he couldn’t seem to grasp. No matter how he tried, he kept fucking up. Like college. Losing his scholarship, for some sweaty afternoon quickies with the dean’s wife.

Then he’d met Liv. That had felt so effortless, so precious, so exquisitely right. Til he’d been forced to destroy it with his own hands.

Then Kev’s death. Accepting lies for truth had put him in still another prison. A metal box in the dark for his mind. He’d huddled in that box for fifteen years. It was like he was under a goddamn curse.

But now the bonds were broken. The box was open. He felt so lost, so disoriented. Cut loose, scared shitless. Liv. His need for her was stronger than any bond he’d ever felt. So was the fear, that she might decide she didn’t want him anymore.

He couldn’t take that. He’d lost enough, suffered enough, fucked up enough for any one lifetime.

This time, losing her would kill him.

It was coming from her own throat. She opened her eyes, blinking in the morning light. Incredibly warm, held tight against a hot, hard male body. Her thighs were splayed, and Sean’s skillful hand moved between them. His fingers made wet sounds as they stroked and delved and circled. She was sopping wet, squirming with excitement.

Oh, please. Again? This was beyond ridiculous. This was insane.

He smiled into her eyes. “Sleeping beauty,” he whispered.

He was outrageously beautiful when he smiled. She was so dazzled, she just smiled helplessly back as he rolled on top of her, and entered her. Her inner flesh fluttered in protest at the slow stretch, sore from all the unaccustomed sex, but she was too aroused to care. He gathered her into his arms and moved, staring into her eyes with fierce intensity, as if he were trying to tell her something.

She wrapped her arms and legs around him, and moved with him, trying to listen.

It was a slow dance, a lazy, sensual heaven of tender intimacy. He started kissing her, his warm, soft lips coaxing hers open, exploring, claiming. The thrust of his tongue in her mouth echoed the thrust of his penis. She had never felt so alive. She was so present in her body it was almost frightening. Everything was so bold and sharp. She surged against him, rocking on heaving waves of delicious sensation.

She didn’t want it to end, but the shimmering glow between her legs kept growing until it brightened and swelled to bursting. The wave carried her sweetly away. When she drifted back, she found him still inside her, still hard. She blinked at him. “Um, didn’t you come?”

“I had more orgasms than I can count.” He kissed her jaw, nuzzled her throat. “I just didn’t ejaculate.”

She lifted her head, blinking. “Don’t you need to?”

“There’s no law says I have to.” His voice was soft with amusement. “And I’m not wearing latex.”

“Oh. There is that,” she murmured. “I didn’t know guys could do that. Is this another one of your dancing bear tricks?”

He grinned his appreciation. “You could say that. It’s just manipulating energy, controlling your breathing, knowing what muscles to squeeze, and when. It’s a trick of concentration.”

“And practice, too, right?” An edge crept into her voice. “Years of daily practice, I bet.”

He slanted her a cautious look. “You always start whaling on me when we get anywhere near that subject. I’m tired of being pounded.”

He dragged himself slowly out of her body, with a long, hissing indrawn breath of pleasure, and flopped onto his back. His penis lay stiff and hard against his belly. Gleaming wet from her juices.

She gazed at him, bemused. “You can just leave it like that?”

Mischief flashed in his eyes. “You want some more?”

“No, thanks,” she said hastily. “I’m done for now. It just looks like you’re, ah, not done. In the least.”

Sean was enjoying himself hugely. “I’ll live,” he said, his voice offhand. He stroked his penis and brought his hand up to his face, inhaling. “Your smell makes my mouth water. Can I go down on you?”

“Um…actually…” She stared at him for a long moment, and gave in to the impulse. “I have a better idea.”

She rolled over and reached for him, gripping the broad stalk of his penis, and took him in her mouth, tasting herself as well as his own hot salt tang. He groaned, shuddered. “Oh, God, Liv.”

She murmured something soothing, petting and licking him.

It was by no means easy to perform fellatio on a guy of his proportions. Particularly since her jaw was still sore from her pit-bull imitation with T-Rex. She didn’t care. She wanted this. She was hungry to pleasure him, to reduce him to a state of writhing desperation.

Hungry to wrest the sexual upper hand away from him, for once.

But he gave it to her generously, abandoning himself with his usual wholehearted sensuality. He curled his body over hers, clutching her hair, her back, shivering and moaning his incoherent appreciation.

He reached down and touched her cheek when she took a moment to breathe and relax her jaw. “Stop if you’re tired,” he said gently.

She milked him with her hands, smiling. “Gotta get going early if I want to make a dent in that forty-eight-hundred-dollar bill.”

Laughter jerked in his chest, but he tilted her face up again. “You know that’s just a joke, right?” His eyes looked worried. “I know I come on strong, but if you don’t want it, it stops. Is that clear?”

“Um, OK,” she faltered. “Does that mean you don’t want…?”

“Fuck, no.” The words burst out of him. “I love it. I’ll beg, plead, suck your toes. But you decide when and how much. Understand?”

“Um, yes, thanks,” she said demurely. “Can I continue, now?”

He ignored the question, caressing her cheek with his fingertips. “This means a lot to me,” he said. “I don’t want to mess it up.”

The earnest, worried look in his eyes made her heart swell with tenderness. “You’re not,” she told him. “Believe me, you’re not.”

She tried to scoot back down and pick up where she’d left off, but he grabbed her and spun his body around until they were sixty-nined.

“I can’t wait,” he said. “Let me play, too.”

He pushed her thigh up and put his mouth to her.

Liv stiffened, at first. Sixty-nining was not her thing. Oral sex required concentration, and to have the guy bend her into a pretzel and stick his face between her legs, tickling and prodding while she tried to pull it off…um, no. In her opinion, a proper blow job, like driving an expensive sports car, or chopping vegetables with a sharp knife, was a thing best done without serious distractions.

But like everything else she thought she knew about sex, that turned on its head when Sean was concerned. Being twisted into a pretzel was great if a girl was relaxed to virtual bonelessness from multiple orgasms, and Sean’s lapping, lashing, trilling tongue was so unerringly skilled at keeping her in a state of quivering delight.

It was perfect, twining and luscious and ravishing. Each inspired the other to more sensual, ravenous excesses with each suckling stroke, each voluptuous caress, his pleasure amplifying hers and vice versa until they melded into a shining whole; his hardness to her softness, his rough to her smooth, offering satisfaction to every secret, wordless yearning. They crested the wave, exploded into crashing foam together.

She lay incapable of moving while the light in the room slowly brightened, inhaling his warm man musk smell. She was petting the gilt tipped hairs on his muscular thigh when she noticed something that looked like a small, irregular bruise. She looked closer. It was a tattoo, written crookedly on his thigh in small, blurry, letters. SEAN.

She traced it with her finger. “Did you do this yourself? It doesn’t look like a professional tattoo.”

He grunted. “It’s not. Dad put that on me when I was about eight, with a hot needle and a ballpoint pen. Bottle of Scotch for disinfectant.”

Liv froze, her hand tightening on his thigh. “Eight years old?”

“Yeah. He was pissed at me and Kev for playing tricks on him. That was back when it was real hard to tell us apart. Dad didn’t have much of a sense of humor. I think that’s the first thing to go, when a person is mentally ill. So he labeled us. He did Kev first. When I saw what was in store for me, I took off for the woods. Took him days to track me down, but I let him find me, in the end. I got hungry.”

“My God.” She stroked the mark with her finger, horrified. “Sean, that’s awful. You poor baby.”

He looked uncomfortable. “I’ve had worse experiences. I’m just glad my name didn’t have more letters. Kev only had three. Cured me of any impulse to get a tattoo, I’ll tell you that much.” He pondered for a moment. “Maybe that’s why I hate Scotch,” he added thoughtfully. “Even the smell of the stuff makes me gag.”

She wondered if he even knew how much that confession revealed about his childhood. She could see so clearly the little boy he’d been, hiding in the woods. Hungry and scared. It made her chest hurt, but she sensed that her sympathy would embarrass him.

She wiggled closer, and gently kissed the faded tattoo. Silently grateful that all that pain, all that darkness, had not put out his light.

In spite of everything, he still shone so bright.

“How romantic. Nuzzling each other’s genitals, like puppies.”

The cool voice issuing from the stairwell made them jump. Liv scrambled to wrap the sheet around her naked body, her face heating.

Sean sat up and glared at her. “Holy shit, Tam. You could knock.”

“Where’s the fun in that?” Her head and shoulders poked up over the stairwell. She sniffed the air. “Hmm. I see you two have been busy.”

“Disappear, Tam,” he snarled. “Wait for us downstairs.”

She laughed, and vanished down the hole. “Since when have you gotten so prissy?” her voice floated up from below. “My sources led me to understand that you liked kink.”

“Your fucking sources led you wrong.” He yanked on his jeans and clattered down the spiral staircase after her.

Liv hastened to pull on her T-shirt, longing in vain for her under-pants. She started down the stairs, bracing herself for anything.

Tam propped a taut buttock on the edge of a couch as she lit up a cigarette. She was dressed in black jeans and a silver-gray tailored blouse. Her hair was swept into a roll that looked both careless and perfect. She took a deep drag on her cigarette, nostrils flaring in disgust as Sean rooted through cold leftovers from last night’s dinner.

“Garlic, at this hour?” She shuddered delicately. “God.”

“Something tells me you’re not going to serve us coffee and croissants,” he said, dropping a slice of filet mignon into his mouth.

He twitched the cigarette out of her mouth, and scowled at it. “What is this, Tam? Your breakfast?” He ground it out in the empty taboulleh container. “Are you trying to starve yourself to death?” He grabbed a sourdough roll, smeared butter onto it and held it out. “Eat a goddamn piece of bread, already.”

Tam recoiled. “Carbs. Ick. Back off.”

“Why should I?” He took a bite of the roll. “If you’re going to be rude and invasive and in my face, I’m going to return the favor.”

She sniffed. “That’s gratitude for you. I got up early and went shopping this morning, for your friend.” She turned her gaze up, and ran it over Liv. “Morning sex becomes you,” she said, her tone approving. “Makes your lips red and puffy. You barely need the makeup I got. There are your new clothes. Have fun.”

She gestured towards a cluster of shopping bags near the door.

Liv stammered for a moment, bemused. “Um…thanks.”

“No need.” Tam shrugged. “I wouldn’t have bothered doing it if I didn’t enjoy it. Shopping is relaxing. Particularly when someone else is paying. Which reminds me.” She pulled a handful of credit card slips out of her jeans pocket and held them out to Sean. “These, I believe, are yours,” she said. “Pay me back in a timely manner, please.”

Sean took the slips of paper, studied them. His jaw dropped. “Holy shit. What is this stuff? Is it cut out of cloth of gold?”

“Shame on you, you cheap bastard,” Tam scolded. “Aren’t you man enough to buy your woman some decent threads?”

Sean stared at another one of the charge slips. “It’s not that I’m not man enough,” he said. “It’s that I’m not rich enough.”

“Bullshit.” Tam clucked her tongue. “You’ve just never stayed with any one woman long enough to be obliged to buy her clothes.” She shot a glance at Liv. Her mouth curved. “I think you’d better get used to it.”

“He doesn’t have to get used to anything,” Liv broke in. “I don’t need a man to buy me clothes. Don’t worry, Sean, I’ll pay you back, as soon as I get the insurance money from the—”

“Stop!” Tam’s voice rang with sharp command. “This is a teachable moment, cupcake. Don’t spoil it for him.”

“But I don’t need anyone to buy me—”

“And besides, this extravagant boy is a walking fashion plate in his own right. I never see him but he’s wearing Prada, Dolce e Gabbana, Armani. Custom tailored this, leather-tooled that.”

“My wardrobe is none of your goddamn business,” Sean growled.

“Don’t let him tell you he can’t afford it, either.” Tam’s eyes gleamed. “I’ve seen his tax returns, his investment portfolio, the income from his rental properties—”

“Hey!” Sean was outraged. “How do you know my private stuff?”

“Don’t be stupid,” Tam cut in, rolling her eyes. “Privacy is an illusion in today’s electronic world. And I always investigate the people who interest me.” She pulled out another cigarette, lit it. “And we haven’t even gotten to his toys,” she continued. “The motorcycle, jet skis, boat, hang glider, deep sea diving equipment. He’s not as rich as he would have been if he’d participated in some of my projects, but he can afford decent clothes for you. Don’t doubt it.”

Sean peeked up at her, abashed. She tried not to laugh. He made a big show of rifling through the credit card slips. “Eight hundred bucks at one store? What the hell is Melinda’s Intimates?”