Dark Desires (Dark Romance Boxed Set) Page 18

  “Can we get out of here?” she said. “I... I just need to get out of here, you know?”

  3

  His place wasn’t far from the bar. She’d chosen carefully when she suggested a place to meet.

  They walked the length of a couple of streets, an awkward distance between them, and in that time El managed to get her breath again. She couldn’t keep losing perspective like that. She had to stay in control.

  Danny had the ground floor of a small Victorian terrace, two steps up from a street crammed with tightly parked cars and vans. He unlocked the door and pushed it open, then stepped back to let El through.

  Somewhere nearby a siren blared and she flinched. Danny’s arms went around her and for a brief moment they paused in the entrance and she tucked herself into that strong embrace. He smelled of a peppery aftershave and that indefinable close-up scent of bare skin, hair, man. It had been a long time.

  “I...” She pulled away and he released her instantly, laughing.

  “It’s okay,” he said. “They’re not after you.” Then: “They’re not, are they?” He laughed again.

  The door had opened directly onto his living room. A leather sofa occupied the space just inside the bay window, big stereo speakers to either side, and most of the opposite wall was covered with the largest flat-screen TV El had ever seen. The place was clean, with only a stack of DVDs on the floor and a few magazines to disrupt the impression that she had just walked into a show-home.

  She turned to him, met those eyes and then immediately looked away. “I...” she said. “I’m not really sure what I’m doing here. I haven’t... It’s been such a long time.”

  He smiled, and gestured at the sofa. “It’s fine,” he said. “That place was getting crowded. I’ll get you a drink. It’s all fine.”

  She slipped out of her leather jacket and perched on the edge of the sofa.

  Danny went through a doorway and she heard a fridge door opening and closing, then the clink of glasses. He came back with two shot glasses and a bottle of Grey Goose, and lowered himself onto the sofa, leaving a generous space between El and him.

  She took one of the glasses and let him fill it, then raised it and chinked it with his, keeping eye contact with him all the time. Holding his look – such an incredibly intense thing, just then! – she raised the glass to her lips, tipped her head back and downed the drink in one.

  He did the same, and they laughed as he poured more.

  “Whoa,” said El. “I need to pace myself. I’m out of practice.”

  She sat back and it was as if the sofa was swallowing her up. Drawing a leg up, she twisted to face him. “I’ve enjoyed this,” she said. “It feels normal. I haven’t felt normal in the longest time.”

  His eyes kept wandering to those long stocking-clad legs. She shifted position slightly, and her skirt rode higher.

  “I haven’t felt much of anything in the longest time,” she added, resting a hand on one thigh, her nails the same deep bronze as her lips.

  He looked up into her eyes, raised an eyebrow, and then, very obviously, let his gaze roam down her body again.

  “I’ve been out six weeks,” she said, “and I haven’t done anything like this. Haven’t felt ready. But now...”

  “‘Now’?”

  She tipped towards him, put out a hand to the side of his face, drew herself closer.

  “Be gentle,” she said, and leaned in to kiss him.

  His lips were hard, his stubble a fine fuzz. He tasted of vodka, and mint from the gum he’d been chewing earlier. She let his tongue press, slip between her lips, find hers, and then she pulled away.

  Sitting back, finding that distance from him again, she wouldn’t meet his look.

  “Hey, hey,” he said. “It’s okay. We’ll take it–”

  “I shouldn’t be doing this,” she said. “Maybe it’s too soon. I don’t even really know you. All I do know is that you were involved in all that bad shit with Jeremy. For all I know you were involved in that ‘accident’ and... and...” Tears welled up. She had to stay in control.

  “Hey,” he said. “Take a breath, babe.”

  It was his turn to move towards her, to reach out a calming hand and put it on her arm.

  “Breathe. It’s okay.”

  She swallowed, then made herself look up, meet those eyes. “I’m sorry, I...”

  “It’s fine,” he said. “You can’t help but wonder.”

  His hand was still on her arm, the thumb gently caressing the bare skin.

  “But for the record,” he went on, “You know where I was that night. I didn’t have anything to do with it.”

  With the ‘accident’, as he’d insisted it had been.

  “But you must know who did,” she said.

  “Nobody crosses the man,” Danny said, looking awkward. “You know what I mean?”

  She looked down, away. “‘The man’?”

  “It wouldn’t do you any good to know,” said Danny. “And it’d sure do you one fuck-load of bad to ask too many questions. Not from me, but, you know.”

  “Maybe I could talk to this man?”

  “Believe me, babe, you really wouldn’t want to. And anyway, he’s not here any more. Not in the country.”

  She put a hand to the back of her head and started to rub the tense muscles there, dislodging his hand from her arm as she did so. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I kind of broke the moment.” Brief eye contact, a smile, then she looked away again, toying with him. But in that brief glance she had seen it in his eyes, the understanding that he had been reading the signals correctly and there had actually been a moment to break.

  “It’s fine,” he said. He moved his hand back, turning it so he could run knuckles down the smooth skin of the underside of her raised arm. Such an intimate touch. “It’s bound to fuck with your head, know what I mean? All of it. Everything that’s happened.”

  She stopped rubbing her neck, but kept her hand there, her arm raised. Now the only movement was his knuckles on the underside of her arm.

  It shouldn’t feel so good, damn it!

  This time his knuckles ran down farther, down the side of her ribcage. She arched her back, knowing how that pushed her breasts up against her t-shirt and emphasized the narrowness of her waist.

  Knuckles, working gently back up to the bare skin of her raised arm.

  Next time they ran downwards she gave a soft sigh and pushed up again, like a cat being stroked. She tensed the free hand, where it rested on her thigh, fingertips digging in. His eyes fixed on that tensing, and now she pulled her hand up, fingers clawed, raking the length of her thigh to where the stocking tops showed.

  Keeping going, she hitched the hem of her short skirt a little higher, revealing the pale flesh of her upper thigh, then slid back down, letting the hem settle again, covering her.

  Now when his knuckles stroked downwards, they pushed against the swell of a breast and then moved on.

  Control.

  She dragged those clawed fingers up again, this time taking a hold of the hem of her skirt and raising it higher until the black lace of her thong showed. Parting her legs a little, she pressed the heel of her hand against herself and gasped. Her own heat surprised her, and the wetness, too. She ground that hand into her soft mound, then ran it away again, down the inside of her thigh, allowing the skirt to cover herself once more.

  And all the time: eyes locked on his.

  “It’s been a while,” she said. She twisted more to face him, and now his knuckles were against the underside of a breast.

  The hand moved up, turned to cup her, taking the weight of that breast, squeezing. Then he closed the hand into a fist, gripping her shirt tightly so that he could pull her into a kiss.

  This time there was no hesitation, no gentle teasing, none of that damned sensitivity. His tongue drove deep, possessing her. He moved so that his body was against her and renewed the kiss, his hand at the back of her head now, fingers tangled in her copper hair. One knee p
lanted beside her on the sofa, his other leg lay against hers so that when she shifted and allowed her legs to part that leg slipped between them and ground against her.

  His muscles were so hard... As he pressed, she pushed up against him and felt that delicious awakening, a stab of pleasure opening up deep in her belly.

  He pushed her shirt up, clear of her breasts, and buried his face in her cleavage. The scrape of stubble on that sensitive skin... she could feel that stab in her belly transforming, building, just from his touch. Her whole body felt alive to that touch, right now.

  His mouth dragged down across the swelling of her right breast and his tongue stole inside the black lacy cup of her bra, driving deep until it found the hardness of her nipple. It pressed, it flicked, its wet, tactile touch making everything more sensitive.

  She groaned in response to the flicking of his tongue. She couldn’t help herself, unable to clamp down on the immediate, animal response.

  She put her hands to his head, that rough fuzz of stubble across the dome of his skull. Held him there, so that his tongue could continue to tease at her nipple. That repeated flick flick flick of his tongue and the pressure of hard thigh between her legs was taking her so close, so quickly...

  She couldn’t... she had to...

  “Slow,” she said, pushing his head away. “Slow.” She kissed the crown of his head, then down to his forehead, his eyes, his cheek and then – briefly, chastely – his mouth.

  He rocked back, taking his weight on his knee on the sofa while he extricated his leg from between hers. She sat forward so she could pull her black t-shirt free, then unzipped her skirt and tugged it clear. Now, only in her hold-up stockings, thong and bra, she sank back into the sofa, one hand on the flat of her belly, the other arm raised to lie along the back of the sofa.

  His eyes didn’t know where to come to rest, exploring her near-nakedness hungrily, as if he’d never seen a naked woman before.

  “You like?” she said, her voice a low purr.

  He stood, and her eyes were drawn to the hard bulge in his jeans. He was very clearly a ‘yes’.

  He pulled his football shirt up a body that was all rippling muscle and a mosaic of tattoos, pulled it clear of his broad shoulders and over his head. He stood, giving her eyes time to roam across his illustrated torso, a twisting, intertwined collage of dragons and flags and geometrical tribal markings.

  She reached out and hooked the fingers of one hand into the waistband of his jeans, her fingertips finding smoothness where she had expected a coarse mat of hair. She’d never been with a man who was shaved – waxed? – down there, but now she realized that there wasn’t a hair on his body, not even under his arms. There was something strangely sensual about that smoothness. As she moved her hand, pulling him a step towards her, her middle finger came up against the hard base of his shaft and a muscle in his belly twitched suddenly in response to that touch.

  Closer now, she brushed her cheek softly against the washboard ripples of his belly, teasing him with the soft brush of skin, the running of her hair across his abdomen.

  “I need answers,” she said. “I can’t just let it lie, Danny. You have to understand that.”

  She popped the top button of his jeans, turned her head, brushed lips across his belly.

  “The man... I need to talk to the man, Danny.”

  His body stiffened then, and she thought she’d blown it. “Oh no,” he said. “That’s not fair, babe. You can’t just–”

  She popped the second button, and his jeans parted enough for her to see the soft skin where a tangle of dark hair should have been. She breathed out, sending a draft across that sensitive skin.

  “I need to, Danny. I can’t let this lie.”

  Another button, and she could see the base of his shaft, engorged but forced to lie downwards by the constraints of his jeans. No shorts... “Mmm,” she said. “I love a guy who goes commando.”

  She kissed the smooth skin just above that shaft, her chin bearing down on hardness and then pulling away.

  “I told you,” gasped Danny. “I don’t know anything.”

  His hands found the back of her head now, drawing her in against him so that her cheek was on his lower belly, her lips pressing against the base of his shaft.

  Another button.

  “It must have been hard,” she said, emphasizing that last word. “Back then...”

  She felt the movement in his body as he shrugged.

  “It was,” he said. “It really was. Me and Jerry, we got on, you know what I mean? The man... The man got that. He said he looked out for his own, and he wanted to compensate me for my traumas, you know?”

  Control.

  She had to stay in control.

  She pressed her face into his belly, hoping he’d mistake it for... for anything other than a sudden upsurging of grief and pure, bitter anger.

  His ‘traumas’! His traumas!

  Now, Danny’s fingers started to knead her scalp, rubbing at the tense muscles, working her head against his body, his crotch.

  “A man like that...” she said. “Surely he’d be willing to talk to me? Can you contact him, Danny? Do you still work for him?”

  She pulled at the waistband of his jeans, felt them start to work down over his hips, exposing more of that shaft for her face to press against.

  “I can’t...”

  Easing those jeans a fraction lower.

  “This...”

  Her lips pressed against that hardness.

  “You don’t want to be asking questions, know what I mean?”

  The tip of her tongue.

  “I can’t...”

  She pulled his jeans down until they were around his thighs and his dick sprang out, slender and hard, his nuts a compact bulge at its base, shrunken by steroid abuse, she was sure. The soft skin around the base of his shaft was tattooed with angry, dark swirls, but his balls and shaft were unmarked.

  As she watched, his foreskin pulled back to reveal a purple mushroom head, wet with his juices.

  She took him in one hand and peered up at him. “You can’t what?” she asked.

  “I can’t talk about the man,” he said. “And if that’s all this is...”

  She pulled, feeling the skin slide around the hard core of that shaft, watching as the foreskin came forward, sliding over the shiny purple head, and then retracted again as she pulled down the length once more.

  She leaned forward, trailing that glossy head across one cheek and letting it run through her hair, then turned her head so that it slid across her cheek and across her lower lip to the other cheek and into her hair again as she buried her face in his groin.

  “When I was inside...” she said now, one hand wrapped around the end of his dick, twisting and rubbing, lubricated by his juices.

  He grunted.

  “When I was inside, well, sometimes girls get to talking.” Her lips trailed along the side of his shaft, teased the head, and then she pressed her face into his belly again, still working him with her hand. “I didn’t know what a sheltered life I’d led,” she said. “Me and Jeremy... well he was never very adventurous, if you know what I mean.”

  With her other hand she reached up and cupped those small balls of his, fingernails scratching at his perineum, teasing him. Reaching further back, she squeezed his tight butt, then let her fingers trail along his crack.

  “I discovered there are all sorts of things I’ve never tried. Things I’d never even imagined.”

  She slid a finger between his buttocks and pressed it against that puckered, dark opening.

  “There was one girl I spoke to. Japanese. She said that in some high-class brothels in Japan they practice what they call the atsui ari.” She let her middle finger trail down from his anus, forwards, and then she cupped his balls, squeezing and rolling. “While a prostitute goes down on her client she releases ants on his perineum and balls. They release formic acid, sensitizing the skin, intensifying everything. It sounds weird, but apparent
ly it feels incredible.”

  She twisted, running his dick across her lips again, flicking the head with her tongue.

  “It’s okay,” she said. “I didn’t bring any ants.” And with her middle finger she scratched his perineum hard, making him gasp.

  “She also told me about the Chapelet Thai.”

  “Hnh?” Her hand was steadily working his shaft now, pumping and twisting.

  “Teasing the male G spot, just behind the prostate.” She pressed her finger against his dark opening again, and felt him tighten in response. “The only way to reach it is through the anus. Do you like it when a girl fingers you, Danny?” Pressing at the opening, feeling it start to give and then tighten as she teased it. “They usually use anal beads. They feed them in and then, ever so slowly, pull them out again during sex or a blow job.”

  She let the tip of her finger slip inside him, dry without lubrication, knowing it would be uncomfortable.

  “I didn’t bring any beads, though, Danny. Are you disappointed?”

  She let her finger pop out of that tight hole, and moved her hand so she was cupping that tight scrotum again.

  “Did you learn anything else?” he grunted, barely able to form the words.

  She tipped back so she could look up at him, and make contact with those startling eyes of his. Both hands wrapped around his shaft, she nodded.

  “There was another girl,” she said. “We got very... close, if you know what I mean?”

  He smiled, nodded, clearly enjoying the image she had planted.

  “She was a Kurd. From a place called Arbil. She told me about a practice they call taqaandan. Have you ever heard of that, Danny?”

  He shook his head, his eyes flitting between hers and looking down at her hands wrapped around his dick.

  She tightened her grip, one hand at the base, the other wrapped around the head.

  “It’s a thing Kurdish men do for control,” she said. Another tightening. “And pleasure.”

  He groaned, then. She could tell he was close to climax.

  “What... what do they do?”

  “They hold the shaft just like this,” she said. “And then...”

  With a sudden jerk of her right hand she snapped his shaft sharply downwards. There was a loud click, and Danny made a shrill squeal like a wounded animal.