Sheltered (19 page)

She hadn’t understood how it felt, to see yourself reflected in someone just like you.

“What were they like?” she asked, even though she kind of suspected he wouldn’t want to answer. She never wanted to answer, and he’d seen evidence of what her parents were like all over the place.

He could see it right now, in the way she’d laid against him. Back pressed against his chest, head decidedly not pressed against anything.

“Wealthy. Vain.” He paused, though she knew a third word was coming. “Cruel.”

“Do you ever see them?”

Again, she knew the answer. If she’d had the choice, she wouldn’t have seen her parents ever again.

“No. Even if I wanted to, it can’t happen. My father barred me from the house.”

She swallowed thickly. Squeezed the hand he’d laced with hers tight, tight.

“For what?”

“For not wanting to be a doctor or a lawyer, I guess. For being…I don’t know. Different.”

“You’re not different.
They’re
different,” she said, the words so suddenly fierce they burned the back of her throat. “You’re…amazing.”

“Really? I never tore hair out of my own head, just to get away.”

“That’s not amazing. My mother found the guts to take off, so I did it too.”

“Your mother left? She just left you to all of that shit?”

She shrugged, though it hurt to. It really hurt to, this time, even with Van squeezing her tight.

“Well, I’m glad you came here to me,” he said, like a reminder—
It doesn’t matter that your mother wouldn’t protect you
.
I can.
I will.
“Even if you just had to bike eight miles in the rain, find a place you’re completely unfamiliar with, and climb a fire escape to do it. You know what I did to escape? I took the money my grandparents left me and enrolled in an art course.”

“See, you say that like it’s not cool. But it is. Everything about you is cool.”

He made a sound she’d never heard before—a kind of snort.

“Is that honestly how you see me? Why? Because of the tattoos? They’re just armor. All of this is just armor.”

She closed her eyes and thought about how he seemed. So soft sometimes, so gentle.

“I know that. I know.”

It was the perfect time to say it back. So perfect. She could feel it, welling up inside her—those three words she’d never said to anyone either. But the further they climbed inside her throat the bigger they seemed to get, and by the time they got to her lips she could hardly get them out.

Instead she had to swap them, for something slightly less terrifying. Like turning her head to kiss him. Just softly, just sweetly, a little stand-in for all the things she couldn’t quite say yet.

And then a little less softly and sweetly, when his hand slid over her right breast.

She jerked the second he touched her. Couldn’t be helped. He just did it so abruptly, and after a second of feeling him actually fondling her she realized something else—he’d never made the first move in that way before.

He’d always waited for her to push and persuade, but something sure felt different now. He wasn’t even just cupping her there. He had her nipple between thumb and forefinger, and the more she squirmed the more firmly he tugged at it until everything cold and miserable inside her suddenly ran hot.

Of course, he chose that moment to pull away. Just as she could feel it buzzing and tingling between her legs, the urge to kiss him more greedily like a hand shoving at her back.
Go on, go on, go for it. The light is green.

Unfortunately, the light was not green.

“Sorry, sorry,” he said, though she at least had the luxury of seeing him breathe all rough and hard. As though just that one second of kissing and touching had made him as crazy as it had made her. “It’s just…you’re very naked.”

“You like it?”

“Of course I like it. Haven’t thought about much else since…”

Her mind immediately went to certain images, without him having to spell them out. The way his jeans had looked, shoved around his thighs. The thick curve of his stiff cock, just waiting for her to touch and kiss and lick.

Yeah, she understood that feeling, all right.

“Me either.”

He hesitated then, but she could feel it coming.

“I really don’t want to take advantage when you’re this vulnerable.”

Though it was better than what she’d expected. It gave her an in, at least, rather than the total shutdown of a flat-out no.

“You think this is vulnerable?”

“I don’t know. It feels kind of like you’re rubbing your ass against my cock.”

She tried to laugh but managed only a long sigh of pleasure, to hear him say the words.

“It’s good, right?”

“I’m not going to deny it’s good.”

She slid a hand between their bodies and found the solid ridge of his cock. Rubbed hard in that way he’d seemed to like.

“How about this?”

“Evie, seriously. You need to rest.”

“Are you sure?”

He’d started bucking into her hand around the word
seriously
. One hand on her hip, the other trailing somewhere around her breasts.

“Ohhh God. No. No,” he said, then a second later, “Keep doing that. Oh yeah just like that.”

“You want me to make you come?”

He groaned, loudly.

“You’ve got no clue what it does to me to hear you say something like that. Here—move your hand.”

“But I—”

“Move your hand, that’s it. Like this,” he said, but he didn’t wait for her to obey. He just pinned her wrist to her thigh, and pressed up close to her again. Found the rudest thing he could with the stiff length of his cock.

Like maybe the cleft between the cheeks of her ass. If he’d been naked she would have bucked away from it, and she knew it. But as it was the feel of him rubbing in that place—so hard and solid and rough from the material of his jeans—just made her sex ache. A fresh slick of liquid coated the delicate folds there, turning everything unbearably wet and unbearably good.

While his fingers found the tight point of her left nipple.

He could hardly reach it, with his arm around her shoulders the way it was. But somehow the strange restraint of the position they were in, his hand almost not reaching…it just made things hotter. He tugged the little bud and she turned her face in search of his mouth, his throat, just anything. Anything to focus on, while this pleasure thrummed through her.

“You make me feel so good,” she said, because it was true—but also because the words tasted sweet in her mouth. Like eating a spoonful of aniseed, after a jug full of vinegar. “Make me feel good.”

He didn’t hesitate.

“Spread your legs, baby,” he said, just like that first time—only surer now. More eager. “Let me see.”

She did as she was told without even thinking about it, then felt him shift a little behind her so he could look all the way down, down to her completely open pussy. To her stiff clit and already slippery lips, all of it so clear even in near darkness.

He didn’t go for the obvious, however. Instead his fingers slid through her folds all slow and easy, mapping various parts of her out. Finding that little hollow again, and testing it, testing it. Then easing back up again with such painful deliberation.

First a stroke over one plump curve. Then a little circle all the way around her stiff bud, without actually touching it. And finally, finally, for the big finish…

“Ohhhh yeah. Just there, there.”

“Where do you want it?”

“You
know
where.”

“Say it, and I might.”

She hovered on the brink, half-agitated, half something else.
Reckless
, she thought it was, and her mouth proved her right a moment later. Her mouth wanted her to say something other than what he was clearly expecting, and she delivered.

“Okay. Take your clothes off, and then fuck me.”

Hell—he’d given her the opportunity. Had he really thought he could say something like that and not get a stronger response now? She’d felt his hands on her, felt his mouth.

She wanted the last one. Even if it hurt the way everyone said, she wanted it.

“You don’t really want me to fuck you,” he said, but as he did so he found her clit with that one maddening finger. Pressed there, over and over, until her legs made a weird straight shape and her stomach clenched tight with the pleasure of it.

“I do. Ohhhh God I do.”

“You want to feel me inside you?”

She almost sobbed to hear him put it like that. His voice just sounded so urgent suddenly, so heated.

“Yes—ahhh Van. Oh keep doing that.”

He made little tight circles around her clit in response, sliding downward through her slit every now and then, to gather more wetness. Of course, each time he did the sensation intensified. By the time he made his next offer she’d turned almost mindless, body trembling under the pressure. Orgasm just a stroke away.

“You want me to make love to you?”

Whatever fears she’d had lurking inside her fled. He’d used those two words.
Make
and
love
. He hadn’t said fucked, or screwed, or any of the other things she’d heard it called, in the middle of lectures on what not to do.

And a moment later he said them differently too—different order, which made her put a hand over his. Made her press his teasing fingertips right over her clit.

“God I want to make love to you,” he said, so breathless and horny and good, as her climax swelled through her sex. More liquid coated her folds, more sounds burst from her lips, and all of it for him.

For the things he said and the things he did, without even trying.

“Oh yeah that’s it. That’s it, baby. Oh you’re just spilling all over my hand.”

She groaned on the word
spilling
. How did he know the exact right rude things to say, to get her going? The moment he’d done it another contraction tied itself to the end of her orgasm, so briefly intense she couldn’t even get the sound she wanted to make out.

And then he just pulled her to him, both arms forming a kind of cross over her chest. Mouth pressed tight to the side of her face in an almost kiss, most of him still as strung out as he’d been a second ago

But different, different. Not as urgent, she thought, which disappointed her even as she sank into a warm haze of bliss. If he wasn’t as urgent, he wouldn’t want to go that one step further. He wouldn’t want to strip off, get her on her back, slide between her legs.

Or at least, she assumed so.

“How do you want me to do it?”

Her eyes had been closed. They opened now. He meant…he actually meant to do the thing they’d said, in the heat of the moment. She knew it, even though realistically
it
could have been suggesting anything.

“Will you take off your clothes first?”

She felt him tense a little. As though he hadn’t quite expected her to take the ball and run with it. Maybe he’d just offered because he’d thought she was near to sleep, lax and unmotivated to answer.

But it was too late now.

“Are you sure you want this?”

She rubbed herself back against him in answer. Felt the unbearable hardness of his cock right between the cheeks of her ass again, only this time…this time she could feel her own wetness there too. She’d made an awful mess, and even better—he seemed to know it.

“
God
you get wet. I can almost feel you through my jeans.”

“Imagine how good it would be to get that wetness on your cock.”

He sucked in a breath so quickly she was surprised he managed to get words out, after.

“Jesus—don’t say that. Don’t talk like that. Just…gimme a second, okay?”

The old reflex kicked in, of course.

“Sorry.”

“And no sorrys, either. I
like
it when you talk like that, but I need a moment to think.”

“About what?”

“About whether I want this because my dick’s hard, or because you’re asking me.”

“Can’t it be both?”

He made the oddest little chuffing sound, before squeezing her suddenly close.

“I guess so.”

“It’s okay for you to want me like that. I want you.”

“I know.”

“So what are you waiting for?”

He made another sound—louder this time, and more like a laugh.

“Honestly? I don’t even know if I’ve got any condoms.”

She had to admit, that pulled her up short. The other stuff—his resistance, his need to be good about things—was expected, but this thing…no, she hadn’t thought of that at all. She’d imagined his backpack full of Trojans. She’d thought of other girls he might have had, without even knowing she’d started thinking about things like that.

Surely such a consummate ladies’ man had to have condoms.