IllicitImpulse (9 page)

She wanted both of them to know the agony of wanting more,
even here at the threshold of fulfillment. She wanted to savor every aspect of
this, the faint pulse she felt in her hand, the pressure of his cock head
pressed to her opening, the glorious stretch he created as he filled her. But
mostly she wanted to max out all her senses by taking him as slowly as
possible.

Then she began to move and her resolve to take this slowly
evaporated.

She let her muscles tighten around him like a fist until his
every breath echoed inside her. And then the need took over, the blazing hunger
she’d tried briefly to keep at bay, and she started to ride him hard.

The long waves of movement grew shorter, sharper, as her
need to relish all the building friction, all the slowly rising heat burned
away. In the distance, she heard Tal breathing deep and hard, and the
electricity between them coalesced into something palpable, the charge before a
breaking storm. The same elemental urgency took hold of her, a force she could
not name but which John needed to see for himself.

She wanted more, wanted him faster, harder, deeper. The
musky scent of their joining, the hiss of her breath between her teeth, everything
sparked this hunger for more. She was insatiable, but beneath her, Tal worked
fiercely to satisfy her.

Mounting pressure within her warned her of the impending
climax rising before she was ready, before she’d had enough. She reached for
the headboard, grinding her hips hard against him with each piston stroke, and
she wailed, making a sound that was equal measures of pleasure and frustration.
Tal took hold of her waist, meeting each motion with one of his own, driving up
into her with the force she craved.

He meant for her to come. When she opened her eyes, she saw
the proof of it in his smug half-grin.

Then he squeezed his eyes shut, his body galvanized by the
might of his orgasm, every muscle drawn tight as his cry broke from him. She
had only a moment to relish the sight of him before her own climax seized her,
pulling her backward even as she soared up to meet the heights of her pleasure.

She shuddered, wrung out by the force of it, and then
reality took shape around her again. Tal surged beneath her, riding out his own
aftershocks through clenched teeth. Her eyes adjusted slowly to the light as
she stroked his smooth chest. He covered her hand with his, pressed his other
hand to her back and pulled her down to him until she lay atop him, still joined
with him. His heart rushed beneath her, and as she caught her breath, rational
thought intruded.

He’s so quiet out there. What is he thinking about?

God. My God.

Tal reached up from beneath Grace and turned out the light.
John could still hear the two of them, catching their breaths and whispering,
but Tal had sent him a clear message. The show was over. John was alone now,
more alone than he would have felt if he’d actually been alone.

Stark against the lamplit white paper, the date stood out in
pencil in the corner of a blank page. He’d been too mesmerized by the sight of
the two of them together to begin taking notes, but he’d given up on it for
good just about when he’d acknowledged that he was getting a hard-on he
couldn’t ignore anymore. He’d reached into his lap and taken his cock in hand
as Tal had started to move eagerly from one breast to the other. The sound of
his mouth met her moans, the breathless sound of her demands, and John realized
that all this was for him. Right or wrong, awkward or not, they’d meant for him
to notice all the details, the rising intensity of it. They’d meant to pleasure
each other by working to impress him.

After John had kissed her, starting the chain reaction that
ended here, his imagination had added a rich, sensual dimension to the
experience of watching them. He knew what her mouth would feel like beneath
Tal’s. Watching the ecstasy on her face, the need in her body, the ferocity of
their coupling, all of this was much more real now that he knew her taste, her
scent, the incomparable silken softness of her skin and hair. In the wake of
Grace’s kiss, Tal had ceased to be a rival—someone who had access to something
he needed—and had become a perfect surrogate, whose every move John felt almost
as intimately as if he’d bedded Grace himself.

By the time Tal had unleashed that ramrod in his pants, the
pleasure of watching them came at John from all sides. The sensory experience
of watching them merged with the intellectual stimulation of wondering what she
would want next, how Tal would meet her needs, and what John would have done
himself. It hadn’t taken him long to come, spending himself into the blessed
cool of the paper towel that had been underneath the neglected glass of ice
water.

Not quite synesthesia. But something very close.

John turned off the lamp over the legal pad. Once he was in
the dark, he refastened his pants and found the trash can in the corner of the
kitchen. He rose from the chair as quietly as he could, feeling obligated to
preserve the quiet stillness that had descended between them. As he dropped the
paper towel into the garbage, Grace stopped whispering. He pulled his glasses
off and strained to hear.

“Yes,” she said, with the same insistence a teacher might
use to get through to a difficult student. “I’m
sure
.”

“All right.” The fire had faded from Tal’s voice. “All
right.”

John squinted into the dark from his place in the corner of
the kitchen. The light went on in the bathroom, casting a spotlight of sorts
over Tal for an instant before the door slid closed. In the renewed darkness,
the bed creaked as Tal shifted on it, and the wet, rubbery sound of the condom
coming off preceded the loud rustle of those breakaway pants.

“You get everything you needed out of that?” Tal turned the
bedside lamp back on and John felt like a burglar, caught by the homeowner with
an appliance under one arm.

He nodded and cleared his throat, gone dry because he’d
ignored the glass of water. “Yeah.”

“Good.” Tal hunted for his shirt and elbowed his way into
it. “I’m glad.”

The water went on in the bathroom just before Tal yanked
Grace’s silken robe free from the twisted sheets. He carried it to the bathroom
door and slid it open just a couple of inches, enough for him to leave the robe
inside for her. When the door slid shut, Tal headed toward the table.

“What’s your problem with this?” John asked. He folded his
arms and slowly went back to the table, standing just behind the chair. The
loft’s thick heat turned prickly as he slid his glasses on.

“My problem?” Tal put his hands on his hips and in the dim
light, the gesture made him very big indeed. “My problem is that you just made
a friend of mine into some kind of sex sideshow.” He pushed his hand
dismissively at the table. “For
research
. That’s my problem.”

Anger stiffened John’s back. “Tal, I didn’t come up with
this idea myself. In fact,
our
friend is the one who suggested it.”

“Yeah, I remember,” Tal said. “I was there. And I’m not
gonna speak for her, but I didn’t think you were coming.”

John gripped the back of the chair and tried to breathe
through teeth clenched so tightly they hurt. There. Someone had finally said it
out loud.

Tal shook his head. “All this time, I’m hearing that the
friendship means so much to you. It means too much for you to move to the next
level. So what happened? You don’t mind fucking up the friendship now?”

For the briefest of moments, John conceived of and then
hastily dismissed the utterly irrational idea that he should raise a hand to
Tal. He took a long, deep breath to center himself, to give himself the time to
respond instead of reacting.

“Tal. Grace offered me the chance to watch her. To see
firsthand what this stuff does.”

“Oh yeah? Well, just so you know, it’s working.” Tal pointed
behind him at the bathroom door. “If it’s supposed to turn you into a nympho
for a minute, and then shut you down like you don’t have any feelings, and then
make you all paranoid and nervous, then it’s working.” Tal spread his arms
wide. “Congratulations.”

John closed the distance between them, getting close enough
to Tal to catch the mingled scents of sweat and sex coming off him. “I
will
not
be
shamed
by
you
. You don’t get to talk to me about
turning my friend into a sideshow over something she chose when
you
started this.” He jabbed a finger at Tal. “
You
keep stringing her along.
You
don’t want anything from her but the sex. And now
you’re
pissed at me because she’s finally going to see there’s nothing more to you.”

Tal looked at the floor for a split second. Then he moved so
quickly that before John could fully grasp what was happening, he found himself
pinned to the wall, looking at the table over Tal’s shoulder.

His voice was a razor blade in the shadows, close enough and
sharp enough to be lethal. “If you take nothing else away from here, take this.
Grace and I have always—
always
—been straight about what we’re doing. The
only person who’s fucked-up over it is
you
.” The pipes squeaked and then
all was silent. “But let me get you clear on one thing. If I even think you’ve
hurt that woman, that’s your ass. Understand?”

A metallic rasp from the bathroom signaled Grace’s emergence
from the shower. She’d be out any minute now. John met Tal’s icy gaze. The
other man didn’t give an inch but lifted his brow.

“I get it,” John said. “I get it better than you.”

Tal pushed him against the wall one last time for emphasis
and then released him. “We’ll see, Einstein.”

He stalked off toward the bathroom, where steam was pouring
out through the now open doorway, and pushed past Grace as she came out in her
robe, biting her lip. She glanced at John and looked away, first at the floor
then at the bed.

“I’m glad you’re still here,” she said quietly. “Not that I
thought you were going to, you know, leave or something.”

She found her clothes folded over the footboard and turned
her back to John. Her robe, once unfastened, fell open to form a curtain of
sorts between them, so that she could shimmy into her basic but nonetheless
sexy black panties in relative privacy. How quickly things had changed.

The pipes whined in the bathroom. “What’s with him?” John
asked, gesturing at the bathroom door.

She sighed and looked over her shoulder. “I don’t know. Did
he say something?”

The truth suddenly seemed like a bad idea. “He just wanted
to make sure you were okay.”

She let the robe drop and shouldered into her bra before
turning to face him, arms crossed. “People keep asking me that.”

“Well, are you?”

“
Yes.
” She snatched up her shirt and pulled it on. “I
thought that was the whole idea.”

He told himself he was just confused and not distracted by
the sight of her long legs, the matching bra and panties. “What is?”

“My being okay. I thought the idea was that I could do this
and be okay afterward. Is that not right?”

She had a point. This was the whole idea. When you took away
the urge to cuddle—and she’d warned him about this—this discomfort was what
remained. It had just settled in so quickly, without any postcoital contentment
to stave it off.

Grace was pulling up her jeans. “You told me I wouldn’t feel
like cuddling and I haven’t. I told you I’d be really horny, and I have been.
So none of this should be a huge surprise.” She went to the dining table and
drank some of his water before replacing the glass in its pool of condensation.
“Look, I know. It was my idea. And I don’t know what I thought it would be
like.” She sighed, lifted her hands and then let them drop against her hips.
“Right now, I just want to go home.”

He nodded. They’d be able to talk about this soon enough.
“Okay. Me too.”

He set about shoving his things into the messenger bag and
was nearly done when the pipes bleated again. The water lapsed into silence.
Whatever else could be said about him, Tal Crusoe didn’t waste time in the
shower.

“Tal?” Grace called.

“Yeah?” His voice was still a little impatient. John
finished cramming his things together and got his coat on.

“We’re leaving,” she said.

The silence went on for just a half-second too long. “Right
now?”

Grace put on her coat. “Yeah.”

“Okay.” Tal’s voice lay at the midpoint between frustration
and surrender.

“I’ll call you,” Grace said, sounding no more convincing
than any number of men who made the same promise. This time, Tal was quiet for
a long time, long enough for her to step into her shoes and head for the
stairs. It was the fulfillment of John’s dreams for the project—a woman’s
freedom to say “I’ll call you” on the way to the door. It tasted like ashes.

On the sidewalk, the night turned Tal’s wannabe gentrified
neighborhood back into the sketchy part of town it looked like at first glance.

“Where are you parked?” John asked. “I can walk you back to
your car.”

Grace jammed her hands into her coat pockets. “It’s okay.
I’m right around the corner.” She began to back away and then stopped, shifting
her weight from one foot to the other. “You want to call me when you get ready
for that interview?”

It wasn’t “I’ll call you”. It wasn’t what he’d hoped for
either, but she wasn’t blowing him off.

“Yeah, that sounds good.” Before she could turn away,
committed to her walk alone, he called out to her again. “Listen, Grace, I’m
sorry if I—”

She cut him off with an uplifted palm. “Hey. It was my idea.
You don’t have anything to apologize for.”

So why did he feel like an asshole?

She waved at him. “Gotta go. Cold out here.”