The Big Fix (16 page)

The ride back to my place with Mark (it was easier to think of him that way as long as he was wearing the aura) was filled mostly with chitchat about the wedding. I tried not to roll my eyes when he called me “Howdy”—I thought Billy might be overplaying it a little because I hadn’t let him get away with calling me that since the time he’d called me “Howdy-Doody-In-Your-Pants” when we were eight years old.

When he got a small overnight bag out of the trunk, I raised my eyebrows again.

He looked a little sheepish—well, as sheepish as anyone wearing Mark’s aura could look—and said he was hoping his old room was free, since Tom and Laura were borrowing his boat for a few days. They didn’t have time for an extended honeymoon, but both loved sailing. The use of his boat was part of his wedding gift to them.

The room that had been his when he’d shared the condo with Thomas after they graduated from college
was
free, as Billy well knew. His sisters were staying at the hotel with their parents, and catching an early flight back to New York the next morning.

“Sure,” I said. “You know you’re always welcome to sleep over.”

Okay, I admit it. I laced it with a hint of innuendo. If Billy wanted to play, I could play. I thought he looked mildly shocked (again, hard to tell—Mark’s aura didn’t show shock easily), but not displeased. I guessed he was happy I was going along with the game.

Once inside, I took his bag, dropped it on the entry hall floor, and pushed him back against the door. Before he could say anything, I pulled his head down to mine and put my mouth on his. We’d see who veered off course first in this game of sexual chicken.

He froze, but only for a moment. An instant later, our positions were reversed, and I was against the door, lifted to his level, his lips moving on mine, his tongue exploring my mouth as my feet dangled off the floor. My shoes fell off. Or maybe I kicked them off. Who needed shoes?

My arms clung to his neck, more to hold him closer to me than to hold myself up. I knew he wouldn’t let me fall.

He pulled his lips away from mine, kissing his way closer to my ear. He was breathing hard. “Ciel … are you sure?”

I forced myself to take a steadying breath. Billy did tend to push me into things I might not otherwise do, but he always gave me the opportunity to back off if I needed to. Like the parachute in his plane. Well, I hadn’t needed it then, and I wasn’t going to wimp out now either.

I focused on his eyes, trying to read what lay behind the aura. Did
he
really want this? I was met with intense gray. The color might be different, but the desire was there, same as always.

“I’m sure if you are. I trust you,” I said.

With that, he hooked one powerful arm behind my knees, leaving the other supporting my shoulders, and carried me up the stairs. The door to my room was ajar. He kicked it the rest of the way open and crossed to my bed in the dark.

Holy crap.
I’d been Rhett Butler-ed. And, my God, it was every bit as exciting as I’d imagined it would be the first time I’d seen Clark Gable carry Vivien Leigh up that grand staircase in
Gone with the Wind.
I felt dizzy with the memory of it.

Instead of laying me on the bed, he stood me next to it. My hands slid from his neck down his chest, stopping at heart level. Impatient with the feel of cloth, I pushed his tuxedo jacket from his shoulders and tossed it onto a nearby chair. He yanked his tie loose and dropped it to the floor while I started undoing the tux buttons on his shirt. The cuff links were next, and then, like magic, his shirt was gone.

It was too dark for me to see his chest clearly, but I could picture it as I ran my hands over it. Lightly covered in blond hair, well-defined pecs, and a six-pack—no, make that an eight-pack—that wouldn’t quit.

I felt his hands at the back of my dress, searching for the zipper.

“There’s a hook-and-eye fastener at the top…” I said, and sucked in my breath when he found it.

He unzipped me in one swift motion, and swept the cap sleeves off my shoulders, letting the dress fall to the floor. My bra was next, undone in seconds and gone even faster. When he kneeled to slip off my lacy underwear, I had to hold myself upright by gripping his shoulders. His (I reminded myself to breathe)
very
well-muscled shoulders.

Before he stood, he kissed me lightly, right below my belly button. And that’s when my legs buckled. Man, I was never going to hear the end of that …

He caught me beneath my arms as he straightened. “Easy there,” he whispered, sitting me on the edge of my bed, and leaning down to find my mouth again with his own.

“Wait,” I said, pulling back a little. “You’re really okay with this? I wouldn’t want you to … I mean, just because you know I—”

“Ciel, if you want this,
I
want this.”

Okay, then. My hands reached out to unhook the waistband of his pants. He got the idea, and took them off, along with his shoes and socks.

My eyes were getting accustomed to the dark. I could see well enough to notice the impressive bulge in his boxer briefs, at any rate. I swallowed hard.

He kneeled in front of me, parting my legs so he could get closer, wrapping his arms around me in an embrace that nearly overwhelmed me with its skin-to-skin contact. He rubbed his chest lightly against mine, until my breasts ached with the need to feel more. As if he knew what I was thinking, what I was feeling, he kissed his way from my shoulder to the hollow of my throat, and then downward, until I felt the hot, wet suction of his mouth on one breast.

I cried out. He moved to the other side. I moaned, trying my best to keep it inaudible. Not succeeding.

When he moved lower still, I bit my lip against the sound I was afraid I would make next. He eased me back until I was lying down, my knees bent at the edge of the bed. He spread them farther apart, and then … then I stopped thinking at all.

The next few minutes were pure sensation. I would have jumped right off the bed if he hadn’t been holding me down. As it was, I was pretty sure the bedspread I was clutching would never be the same again.

He didn’t allow me any time to recover before he was on the bed next to me, cupping me gently but insistently with one broad, strong hand as he kissed me deeply, until I felt the tension start to build again. I scooted farther up onto the bed, pulling him with me.

He settled on top of me, between my legs, kissing the most sensitive places on my neck as my hands played over the muscles of his back. Reaching lower, I was annoyed to find he was still wearing his boxer briefs. I slipped my hands beneath the cotton jersey and let them glide over the hard, smooth muscles, pinching to test their firmness. With a harsh sound in his throat, he ground himself against me, giving me a good idea of what was in store for me. I grabbed the waistband and yanked his briefs down, leaving it to him to kick them off entirely.

Finally as naked as I was, he rolled onto his back and pulled me on top of him. His hands slid over me, from shoulders to hips, heating every bit of skin they touched, until I was shivering from the contrast with the cool air. His fingers paused briefly over the small birth control patch I wore on one hip, circling it a few times before squeezing my ass with both hands. He sat me up and adjusted my position until my still ultrasensitive flesh settled against the hard length of him lying flat against his belly.

And then he started rocking his hips, ever so slightly at first, until I was gliding back and forth along him, so wet I would have slipped off if he hadn’t been holding me upright. It felt so … damn …
good
 … that I thought I’d go crazy with it. But I needed more. I needed to feel him inside me.

I gripped his shoulders, sliding up until I felt the tip of him at my entrance. A shaft of moonlight from a gap in my curtains fell across his face, delineating his hard-chiseled features, highlighting the intensity of his dark gray eyes. A tiny droplet of sweat made its way down one temple, with more of them spiking the wisps of new growth at his hairline.

He was holding himself in check, waiting for me. And it wasn’t easy for him.

In for a penny, in for a pound,
I thought, and reached down to adjust his angle. I watched his face intently as I lowered myself, taking his fullness into me slowly, until I had him completely engulfed. He held himself still as stone until I began moving.

Leaving me to set the pace of our lovemaking, he stroked my breasts, alternately kneading them with his palms and flicking his thumbs across the tips. When I started whimpering, he reversed our positions and stopped holding himself back.

If I’d had any fingernails to speak of, he would have had stripes on his back by the time we were finished. Lying there in his arms, too bemused to speak, I wasn’t sure if Billy had exorcised my fantasy of Mark, or had only succeeded in entrenching it more deeply.

Chapter 15

I excused myself to go to the bathroom, and then, needing more time to sort out my feelings, decided to put on my robe and go downstairs.

“I’ll be back in a sec—just getting us something from the kitchen,” I said, hoping he’d take the hint and give me a minute.

Staring into the freezer, trying to decide which flavor of ice cream the situation called for, I couldn’t help wondering if this whole thing had been a supremely bad idea. Sure, it had been exciting as hell, but—

No. That kind of thinking was puritanical, wasn’t it? Nobody was more comfortable with what it meant to be an adaptor than Billy was. Changing our appearance was a core part of who we were—shouldn’t we embrace that part of ourselves along with everything else?

Or was I over-rationalizing?

I was reaching for the Rocky Road when I heard Billy’s voice.

“Hey there. Couldn’t wait to get out of the dress, huh? Too bad. I was looking forward to ripping it off you with my teeth.”

I froze, suddenly colder than the ice cream in my hand.

Oh, God.
NO. No, no, no, no
 … It couldn’t be.

He hugged me from behind.

“Billy?” I said weakly.

“Who else?” he said, and kissed my neck.

Normally, that particular action would make me turn around in his arms, ready, willing, and happily anticipating anything he might have a fancy to do. All it did now was paralyze me with guilt. My mind went numb, absolutely refusing to consider what his presence here in my kitchen, at this moment, meant.

No,
I thought again. It had to be a joke. He’d put on some of the clothes he kept in my spare room, and followed me downstairs. He was teasing me again. Please, God, he
had
to be teasing me. He
always
teased me.

“Ciel? Are you all right?” He turned me to face him, concern filling his gorgeous eyes. “You’re not sick, are you? The caterers didn’t give you food poisoning, did they?”

I shook my head. He wasn’t teasing me. He just got here. Which meant—

“Everything okay, Howdy?”

I spun my head around to see Mark had come down. My one reprieve from total fucking disaster was that he was dressed. Maybe he’d heard Billy come in—his hearing had always been incredibly sharp. His collar was undone, and his tie was hanging out of his tux jacket, but Billy wouldn’t think that was strange. Ties were a pain.

“Hey, Mark,” Billy said matter-of-factly. He knew Mark often stayed in his old room when his boat wasn’t available for whatever reason. “I got everything finished up, no problem. Subject showed up shortly after you left, and has been safely delivered to your bosses. He’s singing like the proverbial canary.”

“Great. Thanks again,” Mark said, a bit stiffly, I thought. He had his “assessing” face on, sizing up the situation, and, I was terribly afraid, coming to the correct conclusion. “It means a lot that I didn’t have to miss Tom and Laura’s wedding. I’m sorry you did.”

Billy, still oblivious to the load of shit that was about to be dropped on his head, draped one arm casually over my shoulders and pulled me away from the fridge.

Mark’s eyes narrowed.

“No problem,” Billy said. “I’ll catch it on video. I’m only sorry I didn’t get to see Ciel in the infamous yellow dress in person. But no doubt there’ll be plenty of pictures.”

I felt a little sick, remembering exactly where the dress was, and whose hands had removed it from me. “Trust me, it’s not a look I wanted to have commemorated,” I said, my voice hollow.

Billy tugged my hair. “Bet you were beautiful, cuz.”

“She was,” Mark said. “The prettiest one there.”

He seemed to be waiting. For an explanation, probably. A confession. Something. I stared into his eyes, silently begging for understanding. For time. Because I had no fucking clue what to say that could possibly make this situation all right.

How could I ever explain this to Mark? Right now, either he was thinking I was a duplicitous bitch for throwing myself at him with no intention of breaking up with Billy—and maybe feeling guilty for participating—or else he’d figured out what had actually happened, in which case he would be feeling used and maybe even violated.

Neither option left me smelling like a rose.

When no words found their way out of my mouth, Mark smiled—it didn’t reach his eyes—and said, “Well, I better get going.” He dug into his pocket for the car keys and laid them on the closest table. “Here you go, Billy. Nice ride, as always. Mine out front?”

Billy tossed him the set of keys he still had in his hands. “Yeah, right behind the Chevy. Thanks for seeing Ciel safely home.”

Mark pierced me with one final look. “It was my pleasure.”

*   *   *

I locked the door behind Mark and turned to face the music. From the look on Billy’s face, he was beginning to hear traces of the tune.

He took me by the hand and led me to the living room. I sat on the sofa, tucking my legs under me, and hugged a red chenille throw pillow to my chest. If only it were shaped like an “A” it would be perfect.

Billy sat next to me, for once not immediately pulling me into an embrace.

“The spook seemed a little tense. You gonna tell me what’s going on?” he asked. His voice was low, almost hesitant.