Closer and Closer Page 10

  “Tea cups.”

  “Tea cups? You count them?”

  She lifted her head away, just a little, and turned wide, completely sincere eyes toward him.

  “Well, yes. Doesn’t everyone know how many tea cups they have?”

  And that time he laughed out loud. He couldn’t stop himself. It was so absurd, so much like the Erin he was already coming to know, and the idea of her counting little cups and saucers settled into a place inside Walt that had been closed off for a very long time.

  “No, they don’t.” He worked his fingers into the elastic band holding her hair back and pulled it free. “Can we stop talking about cups?”

  “Tea cups,” she mumbled against his lips.

  “Whatever.” He couldn’t stop grinning, even when her hands traveled up his chest and rested at the back of his neck. Her nose brushed against his, she giggled, and finally her body shook a little with her own laughter.

  “You think I’m ridiculous,” Erin said as her fingers traced over the outside of his ear. “I probably am.”

  “No.” He kissed her again, harder, and cradled the back of her head in his palm. “Not ridiculous.” Distantly, he heard a series of beeps.

  “Popcorn,” she whispered against his lips as her fingers tugged the hem of his shirt free from his jeans.

  “No, thanks.”

  With a good bit of the important parts of Erin still pressed against him, Walt led her back to the living room, hoping his leg contacted with soft upholstery before it caught the stout corner of her oak coffee table. When he felt what he was reasonably sure to be a sofa arm press against his thigh, he sat, and found thick cushions waiting to meet him.

  Erin stood between his knees, her hair falling in a pale and wild tangle over one eye. She pushed it away and smiled down at him, her breath hitching in and out as she swayed against his legs.

  “Walt,” she said, pushing at the lock of hair tumbling over her eye again. “I know why she did it.”

  Stretching his fingers around her hips, he tugged gently, causing her to tumble against him. Gasping, she caught herself on his shoulders as her hair slid forward, curtaining around them.

  “Oops. Didn’t mean to do that.” He nipped at her earlobe, just so she was clear he wasn’t sorry at all.

  “No, why Claire did it. She thought you’re…” The past two days were coming together like a good string of code I just knew would work, elegantly and efficiently. Unfortunately, Walt was touching me all over, with his hands at my waist and his thighs around my legs and his lips right in the little dip behind my ear, and I couldn’t pull the final sequence together. “Oh, wow, that’s just…”

  “Thought I was what?” His teeth closed over my earlobe and my knees nearly buckled.

  I managed to tell him part of my theory before I gave up and sagged against him. He didn’t seem to mind, even guided my legs around him so we could see each other better.

  “Safe?”

  “Right, she—um…Claire? She asked you to sit with me last night because you’re safe. Y’know—here. Or there, I mean. She probably thought you weren’t going to try to scare me or something because of the…well, the atmosphere.”

  “Atmosphere?” There was that easy, half-smile of his again, but this time his eyes glinted, obvious even in my living room’s low light. Walt’s hand traveled, slowly, his fingers dragging hot points on the skin under my T-shirt. When he settled his palm under my breast, across my one side of my ribcage, my breath bundled up, more than it might if I’d cinched myself in a corset like so many of the women I’d seen the night before. Once again, I absolutely could not summon the will to look somewhere—anywhere—else but at him. “You got that wrong, Erin.”

  The something I’d ignored and attempted to rationalize and tried to placate with my own distant, anonymous investigation had a face, a body it lived in, and a voice pitched deep and low that found its resonator in me.

  “Pardon me?”

  “In the…well, in the atmosphere? I’m not safe. Not in the way you’re thinking.” He leaned back against the sofa, watching me. Walt’s eyes never strayed from mine.

  I fisted the plaid cotton of his collar in my hands and leaned into his neck. He smelled like wood and the mountain air we’d hiked in and the slight tang of his sweat. I couldn’t wait to taste him there or at the hollow of his throat or along the long, thickly muscled ridge of his inner thigh. His fingers skimmed over the skin under my bra. He cupped my cheek with his other hand, trailing his thumb over my bottom lip. The strong salt drew my tongue toward it like a magnet and I pressed my teeth against his skin, tasting. The denim covering his legs rasped as his ankles crossed—How did I hear that? But I did; he’s the only thing I can hear—shifting me further down his thighs. I drew away, pushing my hair behind my ear.

  My God, what a beautiful man.

  Walt still watched me, but there was a difference—he wasn’t just looking or affecting some sort of heated male gaze. Suddenly, I was more than sure of his evaluation, I knew it, just like I’d known that day in the dentist’s office with Claire. I felt his curiosity, but it was more than that. This was a second-by-second sizing-up and marking my accounts. But as the echo of my breath surged in my ears, an icy, blue-fire sensation spread through my torso. It twisted my nipples taut and chilled my spine.

  Inside I scrambled, looking for a safe distance from the sudden, wide-open vulnerability I felt as he looked back at me, his hands holding me in place. And he knew. His head dipped, acknowledging—not even a single millimeter would have been apparent to anyone watching us—but I saw it. He looked on, appraising me, and completely aware of my body reacting to him.

  He was pleased, too.

  Mental pathways I relied on, the foundation of the logic I lived by, faltered, then shut down, so obvious it surged over my skin like the vacating, energized air of large engines powering down, a streetlight at the snap of an electrical blackout. A data center going quiet.

  This was like a face-off between a predator and its cornered, dread-aware prey. One more move would break the current between us wide open.

  Perfectly stock-still was the way to go. I couldn’t begin to predict how this odd sensation might change, or even if I’d know the same circumstances—being nowhere, knowing nothing more than seeing him seeing me—again. And I wanted to. It was a decision of odds—either move with the possibility of escape, move and bring the watchtowers of logic and propriety back online, or move and end the seductive, cool hum radiating through my body. It was a dilemma of should, must, and want.

  I swallowed at the dry knot in my throat. And I stayed still.

  Being so close to him, being the only thing he saw, was too luxurious to give up so soon. Everything about Walt felt too good to push back from, he was an exotic banquet laid out on a perfectly set table.

  How long had I been starving?

  My body gave in, moved two inches—maybe three—toward him.

  Air rushed from my lungs in a long, steady sigh.

  “See, I’m not safe. But I’m not reckless either, Erin.” His thumb crested over my lip again.

  “No. I don’t think you’re reckless.” I squared my shoulders, forced myself to smile and damn sure to remain steady. I couldn’t let him see my teeth close to chattering with the adrenaline flooding my nerves. And before I could stop myself, I prattled on. “Maybe you’re too good at being careful.”

  “You think so?” The tanned skin beside his left eye crinkled, barely, and Walt’s head dipped closer to mine. His voice came in low, husky enough to draw me in to him, just to be certain he was still speaking. “Well, then, I could fill up a book with all the careful I see in you.”

  His jaw jutted forward a little under his unwavering smile. He was thinking about it. In front of me, he was savoring me. Considering unraveling me. The sight of it was comfort and condemnation. He wasn’t too genial to back down from me and wasn’t pretending for the access to a receptive, submissive woman.

  This ma
n—all contrast in big biceps and bigger dimples, swinging leather falls and mating butterflies—well, it seemed he was interested. In me. And no one’s interest had ever turned me inside out like this Walt Easton, man of the forest, already had done.

  I nudged closer to him. Under the faded denim stretching across his hips, he was hard. So hard. Over me. My hand dropped between us and I stroked the curve of his erection under my fingertips.

  “God damn,” he said, guttural and grunting. His hand pressed up, palming my breast, and closing, in agonizing, slow, steady increments, around it. When his fingertips scaled over the edge of my bra and sank further into my flesh, I whined, my head swaying against my shoulder. His eyebrows rose. “You like that, don’t you?”

  “Yes.” I meant to say it. But even as I gathered the necessary sounds for such a commonplace word, Walt’s fingers compressed more. I don’t know if I managed to convert that single, simple word from thought to speech. My T-shirt fluttered past my face, catching around the tanned skin at his elbow.

  “More?”

  I nodded heavily, licking at my lips, and let my head fall into his shoulder. Pushing the nylon and lace cup aside, he lifted me free of it. His thumb and forefinger closed around my nipple, coaxing it to an aching point.

  “Walt,” I sighed into the warmed skin behind his jaw. “Oh God, Walt…”

  “More,” he said, his hushed voice rasping across my earlobe.

  “Yes. Please.”

  I wanted to say it. Sir. I wanted the release of using that word, of falling under his control. I hardly knew Walt, but I knew my own instincts, and some still unidentifiable thing about him felt safe and right and brave and terrifying.

  Walt’s head slanted away from mine again, his eyes narrowed.

  “Erin.” He said my name with purpose, so it took on a different intention I couldn’t quite grasp. “If I keep going, I’m gonna bruise you.” But his touch never wavered. His fingers still clenched, turning my ghost-pale skin into taut, round rises between each of them.

  “Please.” Please, Sir.

  For now, asking—saying please—would have to suffice.

  The pressure of his fingertips increased as he drew my breast closer to him. He dipped his head, still watching me, and flicked his tongue across my nipple. His teeth followed, scraping the tight, pebbled skin, and his tongue touched me again. Orgasm hovered, so close. I rocked against his hips, whining.

  “Shhhhh,” he said, withdrawing his mouth enough to speak, still so close his hot breath skated over the wet skin he’d left behind. With a quick lift of his eyebrow, he licked again, grinning to himself as I whimpered from his mouth so near the single part of me he’d claimed. “No, not yet. Keep your hips still.”

  I needed to touch more of him. Shirt buttons fumbled under my shaky fingers and then fell loose. Another, and another, and still Walt’s hands and teeth and tongue played hard and heavy with my breast, wrenching frustrated, groaning calls from me. The final button hung, refusing to slide free. Walt’s other hand closed over mine and pulled, hard, sending that last stubborn button pinging across the wood floor under us.

  “Oh…crap, I’m sor…” I said, pushing against his shoulder as I stood. “Your button.”

  “I’ve got more damn buttons—get back down here,” he growled as he grabbed my hips and tugged me back to his legs. As I pushed the dark cotton from his chest, he leaned away from me so I could pull his shirt free of his arms.

  Without his shirt covering his bicep, I noticed his tattoo, the head of the big, Celtic-looking creature that had been hidden in shadow last night at the club. Under the bird ascending from stylized flames were words in another language. Gaelic or Breton, maybe. Agus fós titeann sé liom. It was a phoenix, rising from its own ashes. I nearly wept at the jagged, black edges and long swirls of red and orange ink circling his shoulder, disappearing down his back until it peeked from under his ribcage. Here was every marker, every cataloged desire and secret whim I’d collected since I noticed a man could call my body and mind to recognition.

  A fine thatch of dark hair covered his chest, curving around the hardened nubs of his nipples, narrowing to a single line that disappeared behind the faded denim circling his waist.

  “Walt,” I said, swallowing hard to control my voice. “If we’re going to—”

  “We’re going to.” He touched his thumb to my bottom lip again and a beat skipped against it. His or mine? I wasn’t sure and couldn’t have diverted the mental capacity to separate my pulse from his. “Aren’t we?”

  “Yes,” I said, nearly saying the new it—Sir—as I answered. But his mouth was on mine again, lips and tongue pulling against mine as his hand slid under my jaw. Once more held just where and how he wanted me. I shivered against him. “W-Walt…then I need to…”

  I tugged at the buttons holding his jeans together. Walt hissed through his teeth and pushed both of us off the sofa, sending me teetering away from his body. Before I could stumble, his arms were around me.

  “You okay?”

  “Yeah, fine.” Inhaling, shaky and shallow, I steadied myself against him. “We need a condom.”

  “We do.” He grinned, cupping my cheek as he leaned down to kiss me. “You have thirty seconds to find one.”

  “Um…okay,” I mumbled as his lips skated over mine again.

  “Hurry.”

  I set off down the darkened hallway, pinballing from wall to doorframe to wall, nearly a stranger in my own home. And condoms? When was the last time I needed those on a regular basis?

  Condoms…Weekend in Cabo with Danielle. Unused because she met that lifeguard and spent the weekend in the room, and I read all day under one of those straw umbrellas…palapas…they call them palapas…

  I bounded down the hall, hoping Walt wasn’t keeping time, but if he was, he might be a disciplinarian about a few extra seconds spent scuttling around my house. Heart pounding and stumbling in the dark, I felt my way across the bed in my spare bedroom, wondering if my suitcase was where I last saw it.

  Behind my running shoes, this afternoon…

  I couldn’t really think about what was happening, or I’d stop banging through doorjambs and actually have to stop and consider it. The other, not hard to say it—that was sex. I’d met Walt the night before, barely twenty-four hours earlier. And now—sex, which was something I understood. Though I hadn’t done it recently, I was certain the basics hadn’t changed.

  But would there be more? Would he expect to tie me up or make me hit my knees in front of him or even turn me over his knees and take the broad, just-right-rough palm of his hand to my backside?

  “Erin?” he said as he ducked his head into the hallway. “You okay?”

  Plastic bag in hand, I collided headfirst with his shirt-free chest. It was still broad and muscled and heated, all woodsy-smelling skin and springy dark curls. His jeans hung at his hips, a line of silver buttons open and revealing more dark, springy curls—and a hint of the smooth, flushed cap of his penis, tucked beside his hipbone. No underwear.

  I fumbled and nearly dropped the condoms.

  “I’m fine,” I managed to say as his arms crossed around my waist. Skin to skin again, our lips followed. Just as I began to fall back into the haze of feeling Walt’s mouth and hands on me, he stepped away. His fingers linked through mine, and he led me back to the living room sofa.

  “This is quick. Are you really sure?” He looked so…concerned. Not stern or demanding or even mildly miffed.

  I glanced at the bag of assorted condoms in my hand, idly wondering if condoms had expiration dates. “No. It is quick, but I’m okay.” Straddling his legs again, I handed him the bag. His eyebrows rose and he chuckled softly as he turned it over in his hands.

  “All of these? Looks ambitious for nine o’clock on a Sunday night.”

  “It’s a selection. There’s latex and ribbed. Large? Oh, and non-latex, and some with spermicide and—” Before I could finish, his mouth was on mine again. From the corner of my e
ye, I saw the zipper bag of condoms fly over the back of the sofa, followed by a single wrapper.

  Walt pushed my hair from my shoulder and nestled his head against me, his teeth grazing over the curve where my shoulder met my neck. After a few seconds he shifted his body toward mine again and caught my earlobe between his teeth, flicking his tongue over the tiny aquamarine studs I always wore.

  “You smell good,” he said in a husky voice so soft it could only be just for me, and his lips skated over the contours of my ear. “I noticed it last night. Before Claire told me your name, I knew what your skin smelled like.”

  I nodded, and my temple nudged at his. “I watched you with her.”

  “I know.”

  “I wanted to be her,” I said, and flinched as soon as I’d confessed it. In the weeks prior to going to Area 51 with Claire, I’d never given her a true and complete account of what my interests were. I’d never said them out loud.

  Walt’s eyes came in line with mine as his head turned. He slid my glasses off and set them on the small table beside us.

  “I know.”

  “I don’t know how to…” I didn’t even know the right words. Maybe he was right. If I couldn’t tell Walt I wanted him to hurt me and tease me with it, needed him to show me how to say and do the things I’d been watching and reading about for years, how ready was I? “The other things, I—”

  Leaning back on his knees, I turned, reaching for my glasses. Walt’s hand went around my wrist before I could find them, his fingers steady, but not confining.

  “Shhh. Let’s do this now.” His thumb stroked over the inside of my wrist again, just as he’d done earlier when I’d been overwhelmed. “The other stuff—we can figure it out later.”

  “Okay.” I relaxed my arm and he took my hand again. “Let’s do this now.”

  A raspy, concurring purr rumbled through him. We stood simultaneously, as if a starter’s pistol had fired, tugging at the remains of our clothes. I sent my fingernails skimming down his chest and found the shock of hair under his navel. Walt’s hands responded, moving from their already natural resting place across my backside to the top of my thighs. His fingers curled and he stroked the length of skin inside my legs with his knuckles, to my knees and up again, just fluttering his index fingers across me where thigh gave over to coarse hair and wet warmth. I allowed my voice and body to react to him, let myself return his blatant stare. I even reacted with a similar trailing, teasing touch, watching as my fingertips skimmed across the heavy lines of inked knotwork on his hipbone, black hair, and a tiny freckle that caused me to pause and smile at him over discovering it.