Footsteps (28 page)

Her core flexed hotly, wetly, on his belly
very low, in the gap she’d made by opening his jeans, and his cock
ached to the point of real pain. Turning away to take a beat, he
gasped, “Bina, I’m losing control. I want to be gentle, but I feel
crazy.”

She was panting, too, and she didn’t stop
writhing in his arms. If anything, her movements became more
deliberate. “Do you love me? You were true when you said it?”

“Yes. God, yes. I love you.”

“You don’t want to hurt me? It won’t make
you come to hurt me?”

“Bina, no. Of course not.” He knew that
Auberon had suffered a horrible death, but it had not been bad
enough.

“Then I don’t want schoolgirl sex. I want
what you want to do. I know it will be good. It’s the best already
I’ve ever felt.” As an emphasis, she clenched her legs tightly and
drew herself, the scalding wet of her, against his skin. She sucked
in a moaning breath and arched back over his arms. Then she looked
him in the eye. “You needn’t be gentle. Only kind.”

With that, his eyes still locked with hers,
he lifted her up a little with one arm and brought the other hand
between them, pulling himself finally free of the binding of his
jeans. Before he entered her, he pushed his hand between her legs,
sliding through her folds, making sure she was as wet as she could
be. He thought she was, and he was ready, so fucking ready to be
inside her, but when he passed his fingers over her clit, she
gasped and jumped in a deliciously needy way, and he lingered,
rubbing gently, and then firmly, eliciting sound and touch and
movement from her that was sure to drive him insane.

He was losing his sense of balance, so he
brought them around to the side of her bed, careful to stoop as the
ceiling shortened, and laid her down, going with her so that he
wouldn’t have to let her go or even stop exciting her clit. As soon
as her back hit the mattress, freed then from having to help him
keep her off the ground, her writhing became more frenzied. She let
him go, her arms dropping from his neck and clutching the
comforter, her legs relaxing and sliding down his thighs until her
heels hooked behind his knees.

Lying down, he had so much more access, and
he took a plump, marvelous breast in his free hand and sucked its
dark nipple into his mouth. He’d been wrong—she hadn’t been as wet
as she could be. As he drew her nipple against his teeth, she
arched up, at the same time wetting his hand completely. “Oh! Oh,
Carlo! Oh!”

Holy
God
, the way she said his name
in passion. He’d imagined it, that full-bodied R undulating over
her tongue, but the reality was worlds better—like her tongue was
wrapped around his cock. Unable to hold off another minute, needing
to join her, to feel her pleasure on his body, he pushed back and
rid himself of his jeans, which had dropped almost off his hips
already, courtesy of her writhing body. Settling between her
thighs, he slid into her, and oh, Jesus. Oh,
God
. He closed
his eyes and paused, letting himself feel her, letting himself feel
the magnificence of this moment. For this woman, he had killed. Not
with his own hand, no. But he had set the pieces in motion. For
this woman, he would do the same again, if needed. For this woman,
he would do anything.

He thrust deeply, sinking into her tight
heat as far as he could go, and she went completely still. When he
opened his eyes, he saw her staring wide-eyed at him. He thrust
again, feeling the dense fire in his gut that said he was close,
and watched her eyes flare even wider. Another thrust, and he
reached back with one hand and caught her thigh, pulling it up to
his waist. Understanding, she looped her legs around him again and
crossed her ankles at the small of his back. When he thrust the
next time, she gasped “Oh!” and began to move, lifting and dropping
her hips.

He held for a few more seconds, letting her
find her own rhythm; then he began to move in earnest, with her and
against her until there was nothing slow or gentle about their
coupling. The storm crashed over their heads as they crashed
together, and Carlo spared a fleeting thought that he might yet
accidentally hurt her, the way their bodies were meeting, but then
she dug her fingernails into his back and drew up, leaving long,
fiery marks in his skin, and he stopped thinking.

“Carlo! Please!”

As she cried out, her body constricted
violently around his, and she bent her head back so far the veins
and muscles in her throat stood out. He pressed his lips to the
wildly beating pulse point at the base of her throat and then let
go the reins on his self-restraint, coming as soon as he did so,
the pleasure wrung from him with agonizing intensity.

When her body relaxed, he smiled down at
her, feeling sated and spent, cozy in this high little nest while
the heavens lashed the world outside.

But Bina wasn’t smiling. She look
distressed. Scared, even, and Carlo’s first thought was that he
had
hurt her, that in the frenzy of his need he had been too
intense. He thought about that ‘please’ she’d called out at the end
and wondered if she’d been asking him to stop, when instead he’d
gone harder.

“Bina, what’s wrong?”

She pushed at his chest, and he didn’t try
to hold her back. He pulled out of her, his body clenching at the
friction, and rolled to the side, freeing her to clamber out of the
bed—which she did, immediately, and then crossed the room to stand
naked at the dormer where her book collection was. The lights were
on, it was night, and that window faced the street. He doubted the
rain would obscure the view sufficiently.

“Bina?” Not sure what he’d done, he knew of
one thing to do. He stood and grabbed the comforter from the bed,
then went to her and wrapped her up in it. That she let him, and
didn’t shy away, gave him some small ease.

“Bina—baby, are you all right?”

She didn’t answer.

Sabina was angry.

She was so angry she was shaking, and she
couldn’t understand it or find a way to control it. What had just
happened, what Carlo had done, what he’d made her feel…it was
beautiful and astonishing, and nothing she’d ever known was
possible, and she wanted to curl into him and stay there
forever.

But she felt like she was about to break
into thousands of brittle pieces. A need to rend, to punch, to
scream was on her so hard that it took every ounce of will to stand
still and quiet. The weight of the comforter he’d laid over her
shoulders and wrapped around her seemed to her to be the only thing
keeping her intact.

He’d called her ‘baby,’ and she’d felt the
word like a caress. He was worried, and she knew he thought he’d
done something wrong, but she couldn’t ease his mind. She thought
if she opened her mouth the only sound she could possibly make was
a scream.

So much anger. Rage. Fury. Why? Her head
spun and twisted, and she couldn’t understand. She needed to
understand. The storm outside, churning the sea into angry grey
foam, was nothing against the storm in her head.

“Bina, did I hurt you?” He brushed her hair
back from her face, and she flinched away. She hadn’t meant to—she
wanted him to touch her, she
needed
him to touch her—but
she’d done so in reflex. His hand fell away, and he stepped
back.

“I did, didn’t I? I’m sorry. I’ll go.” She
heard the jingle of his belt buckle behind her.

The thought of that, of losing him, broke
her control, and she wheeled around. “No! No!”

He’d picked up his jeans and now was
standing near the foot of her bed, the denim dangling from his
hand. He was so perfect—long and lean and well-muscled, his cock
hanging impressively even in its sleeping state. And his eyes—so
dark with worry.

“Bina, what? What can I do?”

“I don’t know! I’m—I’m very angry, and I
don’t understand!” She hugged the comforter more tightly.

He went on with pulling his jeans on, and
her heart and head got louder, raced faster. But he left his belt
undone and came back to her. “You’re angry at me?”

“No! I want you to hold me!” He lifted his
arms at that, and she stepped back. “But I feel like I’ll go crazy.
I don’t know why I’m like this!”

“Okay…” His voice was calm, and she could
tell he was trying to soothe her, to talk her down. Part of her
wanted to be angry at that, too, but the rest of her wanted his
calm. “When did you first feel so angry? What were you thinking—or
feeling?”

She took a breath and tried to focus her
rampaging brain. “When…when I came. I thought that I’d never felt
anything like that before, and then…then I had to get away. I
wanted to scream and tear my hair.” Having assigned that moment to
her current insanity, Sabina started to see the path that had led
her to be standing here, wrapped in a comforter, Carlo on his way
out, rather than where she wanted to be, which was in bed,
surrounded by him.

“I never felt anything like that. Mother
Mary. Carlo, I have thirty-five years! I am a fool. A middle-aged
child. Fifteen years I lost. Fifteen years he took and twisted and
turned black. Sex was pain and humiliation. To be forced and bound
and…and whipped and hurt and…” her words died on a sob, and she
shut her mouth. Crying now would only make her angrier.

Carlo crossed back to her in two long
strides, and pulled her into his arms. But she didn’t want
that—yes, she did, but it made her body jump and ache as if his
touch were electric, and she could feel the last threads of control
fraying. She struggled, but he held on, wrapped her up tightly, and
tucked her under his chin, not letting her go.

“You’re not a fool. You’re not a child.
You’re not middle-aged. And he’s dead. Bina, you can have what you
lost.”

“No, I can’t!” Her hands, which had been
holding the comforter around her, were caught between them, but she
pushed and pushed, fighting his hold. Finally, he took her arms in
his big hands and looked down at her.

“Did you like what we did?” He smiled, a
smile that went all the way to his eyes, that came from his heart,
and in that gentle look, Sabina found some more focus. She took a
deep breath.

“Yes. Very much.”

“We can do it again. We can do it until all
you think about when you think about sex is you and me. And we can
keep doing it until long after you don’t ever think about him at
all.”

“We can write over him. Like with my
name.”

He cocked his head at that, and she realized
that she’d never told him that Auberon was the only other person
who had ever called her Bina. Deciding she wanted to be finished
talking or thinking about that man, she didn’t explain. She simply
smiled, feeling his calm transferring to her. “I would like that—to
make new memories. Memories that I want to remember.”

She leaned forward and kissed his chest, the
hair lightly tickling her nose. He was warm and smelled brilliant,
like man and sex. She breathed deeply and kissed him again and
again, sucking his nipples, nuzzling him, making him groan and
pant. She let go of the comforter so that she could touch him with
her hands, too.

He caught it and wrapped it around them
both, bringing her naked body firmly against his denim-clad one. He
was hard again. “Are you ready to make another good memory?”

“Oh, yes. Yes, please. I’m sorry for the
crazy.”

His eyes crinkling, he bent down and kissed
her. “I’m thinking of it like this—I made you come so hard you lost
your mind.”

She laughed—and the last dregs of the
darkness that had filled her head washed away. “It’s true. You
did.”

~oOo~

The world outside was quiet and bright when
Sabina woke in the morning. Her head was quiet and bright, too. Her
first waking thought was that she felt safe and snug, with Carlo’s
arm around her and her head on his chest.

Her second thought was that she was a little
sore, but in a good way, nothing like her life before. Her body
felt worked out, and the slightly puffy feeling between her legs
brought good memories, memories that made her squirm and
stretch.

Last night had been a series of revelations.
After that one breakdown, she had found some balance and was able
to stay simply in the moment with Carlo, to feel him, to see him,
and to think of nothing else but him and what they were doing
together. And he had helped her make many new memories.

To have a lover who sought
her
pleasure first—to have a
lover
at all, who sought her
pleasure at
all
—it still grated on her heart that she had
gone so long without even knowing this feeling was possible, but
she had it now. She had it, and she would not let it go.

Carlo took a deep breath, and his arm
tightened around her. “Hey—good morning.”

She turned her face up and found him smiling
at her. “Good morning. Are you rested?” She scratched her fingers
through the beard on his cheeks. She loved his beard, the way it
looked, the way it felt on her fingers, her lips, her
breasts…everywhere.

He turned his head and kissed her palm.
“Yeah. I feel good. You?”