Make Me Sin (26 page)

“Because he was insane. And I was shot, remember?”

“Yes, and when you wake up after being shot, there’s a pastor sitting in a chair beside your bed who’s convinced you’re a gift from the heavens above. And he and his wife adopt you, and furnish you with a loving home and all the necessary documentation to cover your past. I mean, really A.J., that’s a movie-of-the-week special right there.”

“They died,” he says flatly.

“As everyone does eventually,” I respond, my voice very soft. “And through no fault of your own. Wouldn’t they have had that space heater on in their room, even if you weren’t living with them?”

He’s silent.

“And Sayori would have died, too. Only not with the help of someone she loved. And not with the same peace of mind.”

He says harshly, “And Pavel? Maksim?
Matushka
? In what fantasy world am I excused for them? How can you wash their blood from my hands?”

I press my hand to his cheek and look into his eyes. “You were born into hell, A.J. Everyone in hell has blood on their hands.”

He sits up abruptly and turns his back to me. “I don’t accept it.”

I know I’m on fragile ground with him here. I also know I’d do anything—
anything
—to make him feel better, even if it’s only for a little while. I decide to go out on a limb.

“Have you ever considered the possibility that maybe you’re being tested?”

He turns his head. I see him in profile, straight nose and thinned lips and a hard, unyielding jaw, softened by candlelight.

“I’m not saying by God; I don’t even know if I believe in Him. Her. Whatever. But I do believe in Fate, A.J. I believe things happen for a reason. And everything that’s happened in your life, and mine, has led us to this moment. Right now. Us, in this room together. Would you ever have predicted something like this would happen to you? That you would feel this way for another person?”

His throat works. His lashes lower. After a long time, he says, “No.”

I touch his strong, bare back. “Me neither. Maybe, in a way, that line from scripture is actually true. Faith doesn’t necessarily have to mean faith in God. Maybe being sure of what you hope for, and certain of what you don’t see . . . maybe that’s about
us
.”

He turns and stares at me.

“Maybe it’s not about religion at all. Maybe it’s about love. Because I’ve hoped for something like this my whole life, and now here it is. Here you are. And honestly—please don’t think this is stupid, but it’s the only word that fits—it kind of feels . . . holy.”

There are no words to describe the expression on his face. His eyes, though, I’ve seen that look before. His eyes are haunted.

I crawl into his lap. He holds me, and as I always do in his arms, I feel utterly safe. I rest my head in the crook of his neck, and listen to the sound of his breathing.

We stay like that for a long time, not speaking. Finally A.J. exhales, and presses a kiss to my hair. I tilt my head back to examine his face. He looks calmer now, but there’s still something behind his eyes, some worry or pain that hasn’t been relieved by either his confession, or my reassurances.

With a little shiver of anxiety, I wonder if it’s because he still has secrets left to tell.

I whisper, “What are you thinking?”

While he strokes his hand over my hair, I hold my breath, praying he’s not going to shut down, shut me out, or run away from me for good.

“I’m thinking we need to spend some quality time in the bathtub,” he says, voice husky. He traces his thumb over my lower lip, and I can’t help but smile.

“Oh, yeah? You need a good soak?” I tease, relieved.

His eyes flash up to mine. The darkness recedes, and they kindle. “It’s your hair, Sunshine. I wasn’t going to say anything, but you’re starting to look like Ziggy Marley’s little sister.”

“Hey! I’ve been sick!”

He stands, lifting me with ease in his arms as he rises. He’s smiling now, and my heart soars. He carries me into the bathroom, sets me on the toilet lid, and bends over to turn on the water to get it hot for the bath. When he straightens, he says, “Be right back.”

“Where are you going?”

Looking down at me, his hair falling into his eyes, he smiles at me so tenderly my breath catches in my throat. “Bath time calls for music, baby. I’ve got the perfect thing.”

He goes into the other room. Moments later, above the sound of running water, I hear a song begin to play. It’s “Take Me to Church,” by Hozier.

A.J. returns with his arms full of unlit pillar candles. He sets them on the floor in the corners, around the sink, on the ledge above the tub. From the medicine cabinet he takes a matchbook, and lights all the candles, one by one. When he flicks off the overhead light, the room glows gold.

He steps into the bathtub, turns to me with eyes like fire, and holds out his hand.

“
Don’t move.”

“I promise I’m trying not to.”

“You’re not trying very hard.”

“You’re not making it very easy for me.”

A.J. presses his erection against my bottom. “For you, it will always be hard.”

“Not funny,” I gasp, gripping the sides of the tub.

A.J. sits behind me in the bathtub, his knees on either side of my hips. I’m reclining on his chest. One of his hands has a firm grip on my wet hair, keeping my head against his shoulder. The other hand is between my legs. His fingers stroke me slowly, around and around, up and down, gentle pressure and delicious, wet heat. Hot water swirls over his hand, my hips, my spread thighs, sloshing when I fail to hold still, as he’s commanded.

His fingers slip inside me, and I moan.

He turns my head and kisses me deeply. As his tongue invades my mouth, I yield to him, concentrating on the sensation of his lips and tongue against mine, trying with all my might not to rock my hips as he begins to stroke my clit with his thumb as two of his other fingers delve deeper.

“Please. I have to move.”

He murmurs against my mouth, “Move and I’ll spank your pussy.”

My eyes fly open. “You wouldn’t!”

Slowly, his lips curve upward. He releases my hair and cups my breast, rolling my hard nipple under his thumb until it’s all I can do not to arch my back and purr.

Jesus, this man is a genius with his thumbs.

“Try me and find out.”

He pinches my nipple. I suck in a breath.
God that feels good
. Then he slides his hand across my chest to fondle my other breast. His cock is hard as an iron bar against my behind.

I have to grit my teeth to keep myself still. “Why are you torturing me?”

I feel his low, deep chuckle all the way through my body. “Call it payback.” His laughter dies and he gently bites my shoulder, with just enough pressure to sting. “But mostly because I love to make you squirm, angel. I love seeing how you respond, how I make you feel. And watching you try to hold back is the sexiest fucking thing I’ve ever seen.”

Oh. Well, since he put it that way.

He sucks on my throat. I let my eyes fall shut. Biting my lip, I hold perfectly still as he increases the speed of his fingers. When that gets him no reaction, he lifts me slightly and I feel, underwater, the head of his cock nudge my entrance. My mouth opens, but I manage not to make a noise, or otherwise move.

For this, I’m rewarded.

Gently, oh so slowly, he eases inside me, replacing his fingers with his throbbing, amazing cock, all the while continuing to stroke my clit.

I grip the sides of the tub so hard I can’t believe it doesn’t shatter in my hands.

He winds his arm around my waist. He holds me tightly against his body as he starts to slowly fuck me, his face turned to my neck, his hand working its magic between my legs. The water begins to slosh around our naked bodies in earnest, slipping over the edges of the tub, pooling on the floor.

“I can’t—A.J.—I don’t think I can stay still much longer.”

His breath is hot against my neck. His beard is a rough scrape against my jaw. He bites my earlobe. “Do you
want
me to spank your greedy little pussy, angel?”

His voice is so sexy, playful yet so damn demanding, his words so dirty, I groan in frustration. I need him, the wild and unleashed side of him. And I need it now.

“Is that a yes?”

“A.J., please . . .”

Then I can’t stand it anymore. Whimpering, I grind my bottom against his pelvis, taking him even deeper inside.

Suddenly he raises his hips, using the water’s buoyancy to help lift me all the way out of the water, and gives me a light, stinging slap between the legs, right where I’m most sensitive.

I jerk, crying out as shockwaves of pleasure pulse through my body. I can’t believe he did that!

I can’t believe I liked it.

And dear lord, he knows. He
knows
. I’m trembling and panting and my nipples are diamond hard, and he realizes the effect he’s just had on my body.

All humor gone, he whispers into my ear, “You want another, don’t you?”

“I . . . I . . .”

“Yes or no, Chloe. We have to talk about this. You need to tell me what you like. I need to know your limits.”

My heart pounds wildly, drunkenly, as if it can’t decide whether to burst or faint. “I don’t do kinky. I don’t do
Fifty Shades
stuff. I’m . . .
I’m . . . not into that.”

He falls still. His lowered voice is full of concern. “Are you worried I’ll hurt you? Are you afraid I’ll try to push you into something you don’t want?”

I have to admit the truth. “No. I trust you. I’m just . . . it’s embarrassing. I’m not used to talking about what I like. No one’s ever asked, to be honest. It feels a little weird.”

After a moment, he relaxes. He begins to thrust in and out of me again, gently, controlling his speed, holding me steady with that strong arm wrapped around me.

“Don’t be embarrassed. I only want to make you feel good, whatever that means to you. I won’t ever do anything you’re not comfortable with. But that means communicating with me. So if you want something, you have to ask for it, baby.”

The room is almost unbearably warm. Everything smells like hot wax and sex. My breasts bounce with every move of his hips. His muscular thighs bunch and flex around mine. Candlelight dances over the walls, and I’m slowly going mad with passion.

Subtly, I arch against his chest, tilting my hips, giving him a better angle to slide inside. He’s so big, stretching me open. It feels like paradise. I love the way he claims me. The way he owns me. The way he takes control.

Cheeks flaming, my eyes squeezed shut, I say, “Yes, I want you to do it again. But not too hard, okay?”

I feel the tremor that passes through him. His fingers dip lower between my legs, to where our bodies meet, and he exhales a rough burst of air. “How about like this?”

He raises his hips again, lifting me from the water, and slaps my exposed pussy. I twitch, moaning. It feels so good I almost come, but I’m still trying to be good for him, I’m still trying to hold still, hold back, hold on to my sanity.

“Harder or softer?” His voice has gone all low and rough. His breathing is deeper, more irregular.

“A little softer. And . . .
more
.”

He stretches out his long legs, braces his feet against the wall above the tub, thrusts into me with more force, and gently slaps my pussy four times in quick succession.

My reaction is instant and violent.

I scream. My body bows toward the ceiling. I come, hips jerking, muscles contracting, blindly exploding with pleasure.

Beneath me, A.J. gasps. “Fuck! Angel! Fuck!”

He loses control. He grabs my hips and pumps into me fast and hard, riding out my orgasm as I writhe on top of him, completely helpless to stop any of the wanton sounds or movements I’m making. My cries echo off the walls.

When he bucks and groans and I feel a spreading warmth deep inside me, I’m still coming furiously. Water flies everywhere. The candles on the floor nearest the tub are extinguished with a hiss in a hail of drops. Smoke drifts lazily up into the air, and hangs in widening coils near the ceiling.

It doesn’t occur to me until much later that he isn’t wearing a condom.

F
or the next two days, A.J. and I exist in a strange and beautiful kind of suspended animation. It feels as if all the clocks in the world have stopped ticking, that for us time itself holds its breath.

The hotel becomes our lovers’ playground.

We make popcorn the old-fashioned way in the large downstairs kitchen, frying hard kernels of corn and butter in a sizzling cast iron skillet on the six-burner stove, laughing and ducking when they explode. We put the hot buttered popcorn in paper bags and take them to the screening room, where we eat while watching old movies, the plush upholstered chairs we sit in draped with clean sheets so we don’t get covered in years’ worth of dust. We play hide-and-seek in the vast, dim attic, crouching behind antique armoires, peeking around floor-standing mirrors, darting in and out of the forgotten remains of decades of prior owners.

A.J. always finds me. Or maybe I always let him. Because I know when I’m caught there will be hugs and laughter and sweet, sweet kisses that quickly turn hot.

We spend hours exploring the library, the laundry, the overgrown gardens, all the upstairs guest rooms and downstairs storage rooms. In the subterranean parking garage, we discover one entire room A.J. didn’t even know existed dedicated solely to broken televisions, cracked mirrors, and lamps missing their lampshades, relics from when the property had paying guests. In the cavernous ballroom with the vaulted ceilings and grand piano, I learn A.J. knows how to play more than drums.

“What, you thought I was a one-trick pony?” he asks with a wink while I sit transfixed beside him on the wood bench, watching his big, tattooed hands bring Mozart to life with an effortless dexterity that leaves me awed.

“Where did you learn to play the piano?”

“Church.”

He says it like it’s the most normal thing in the world, as if everyone learns to play Mozart in church. The most interesting thing I learned in church was how to sit still for long periods of time without falling asleep.

We talk and nap and shower and eat and make love.

Everywhere, we make love.

He shows me his music collection. I’m introduced to jazz greats John Coltrane, Nina Simone, and Thelonious Monk. From jazz he moves to opera, much of which I’m already familiar with. We listen in silence to Maria Callas sing “Madame Butterfly,” and I’m moved to tears.

“She wasn’t the most technically gifted soprano who ever lived, but she was the most honest, the most passionate,” says A.J. reverently at the end of the song. “She lived for her art. I see it in the colors of her voice. Opera was the love of her life.”

He turns to me with his gorgeous golden eyes ablaze with emotion, those words hanging between us.
The love of her life
.

I turn away before I make a fool of myself, and ask him to show me more.

We cover big band, swing, blues, hip-hop, R&B, soul, grunge, reggae, Goth. His knowledge of his industry is remarkable. He talks at length about the origin of punk rock, the best musicians who never made it big, why disco was the worst thing ever to happen to music. He knows the lyrics to a seemingly infinite number of songs by heart, singing along as the song plays, carrying a tune perfectly. We play a game where he bets me I can play any song in his collection and he’ll be able to immediately recognize it, and correctly sing the first line.

“If I’m wrong, or I miss any of the lyrics, you win. But if I’m right, I win.”

“Anyone can get lucky and guess one song,” I scoff, folding my arms across my chest.

“Okay . . . how about twenty songs?”

He’s already told me he has over five thousand CDs in the wall unit in his room. I’m crap at math, but figure if each CD has roughly ten songs, that’s around fifty thousand songs we’re talking about. I begin to feel smug.

“What do I get when I win?”

He grins. “A kiss.”

“Hmm. And if you win?”

His grin grows wicked. I roll my eyes, pretending that smile doesn’t do all sorts of bad things to my body. Bad and very wonderful things.

He wins, of course. I halfheartedly accuse him of cheating, just before he throws me over his shoulder and heads for the bed.

Those forty-eight hours are the most magical of my life. I don’t want our time together to ever end.

But, of course, it does.

Just not how I’ve been expecting.