Beautiful Mess (4 page)

“Every. Single. Time.”

Confession time: yes, I was a bad-ass at the park. I was the video game warrior of Uncomfortable Truths. I also spent the afternoon sobbing over the sugar craft swans I was making, and it was a relief when five o’clock rolled around so I could sort myself out with a cold shower.

Three hours later, I was on Linc’s doorstep with an inappropriate amount of cleavage on show, and I wasn’t entirely sure why.

What made me more nervous? The aftershock of adrenaline still curdling in my veins, or the fact that I was about to see Linc’s mythical flat?

I rang the doorbell. It was a very normal doorbell, too--no
Phantom of the Opera
, no Super Mario theme.
Hmm.

“Me answering the door to you, huh,” he said, half-smiling. “Weird role reversal.”

I propped myself up on one arm against the frame. “I should probably linger here for a minute and wiggle my eyebrows then, yeah?”

“Or you could give me the brownies and I’ll see you on Monday.”

“That’s just mean.”

He stood aside, gesturing, and I crossed the threshold into…drum roll…Linc’s flat!

I heard Olly’s voice, then: I
want regular updates by phone. Wait, no--a video tour. I bet he’s got a blow up doll. Or a blow up sheep. Or a real sheep, a dead one--

“Are you coming in, or what?” said Linc.

“Of course.” I draped my coat over the wire stand, which looked suspiciously civilized, and followed him into the sitting room. I was all prepared to start my spoof voice over, but--

“Candles,” I croaked.

He shrugged in the milky light. “That’s what they’re called, yeah.”

There must have been a hundred tea lights dotted about the little room, across the fireplace, along the bookshelves, on the coffee table. Four surrounded an antique-style globe.

“Just to confirm,” I said, “you don’t always have the place tarted up like this?”

He laughed. “Believe it or not, it generally
is
this tidy. The candles, though, those are for you.”

“Like, a joke?”

“No.”

I put the brownies down on the coffee table and wondered whether it was safe to look at him yet. The idea felt dangerous, so I talked to the carpet instead. “Anyone would think that you were trying to seduce me, Linc.”

“I think…I think maybe I am.” He nudged my shoulder gently. “Is that okay? If it’s not--”

“Craig came to see me today. At work. We talked about a lot of stuff.”

He gulped. “Oh.”

“I kind of got a new perspective on things.”

“Oh God. I can put the lights on, if this is as inappropriate as it seems.”

“No!” I lunged at him before he could flip the switch and landed against his chest with a dull
thud
. “That’s not--”

“You didn’t make up with him?”

“Gosh. No.” I swiped my cheek with the back of my hand. “It’s just, if you put the light on, you’ll see.”

“Bails. You retard.” He wrapped his arms round me then and there was nothing experimental about it, not like his words. My hands slid up to his shoulders in the slow mash. “Why’re you crying?”

“’Cause you’re being so nice to me. All this. He never did anything like this.”

Then Linc’s forehead melted against mine. “Yeah, but he’s…what did Olly say? A tosspot wank-bastard…”

“…fucktarded nonce captain.” I wiped my eyes again and my fingers brushed his cheeks; they were so close, and they felt so warm. “Trust me, that’s pretty accurate.”

“Well.” He swallowed. “I think I’d accurately like to kiss you, now.”

Silence. The air between us swelled until the words on my tongue burst. “Go on, then.”

Have you ever tried to kiss somebody when you’re both grinning like idiots? The taste of his breath--cool, earthy--hit me first, then his lips, smooth and firm. We eased back until I strained against the wall, and he stooped, breaching our difference in height to coil his tongue around mine. He finished with a slow lick of my collar bone and a satisfied, excited beam.

“Why didn’t you do that to me ages ago?” I said. “Are you just taking advantage because I’m all vulnerable?”

He inhaled against my neck. “Because it took this long to grow some balls. And…possibly.”

“Oh. Okay then.” Another kiss: slow, delighted. “I approve.”

“So, shall I go cook?”

I glanced around at the dancing lights and the tall chunk of man-flesh that was apparently now mine.
Mi-hi-hine
. “I’m not very hungry.”

“Oh, thank fuck for that.” He laughed. “Me either.”

I can’t remember quite how it happened but we were suddenly on the floor, squirming over his sheepskin rug. I was on my back and he was beside me, over me, everything. I kept finding new spots on his neck that I hadn’t kissed or licked or bitten, and I found he smelled different--and wonderful--everywhere. His hair had that sharp, salty air of the sea in the summer, and his skin was softer, sweeter. When his palms splayed across my breasts, I moaned into his mouth.

“I thought you weren’t a noisy girl,” he teased.

“I didn’t mean to be.” I blushed.

“No, no. I like it. Bailey.” He grazed his teeth along my bottom lip. “I want to do that thing for you.”

“The thing?”

“You know.” His voice dropped, all low and breathy in my ear. “I want to make you come.”

“Oh.”
Oh oh oh
.

“I mean, we don’t have to do anything, and I understand, you know, with Craig…”

Oh yeah. Him.
“I feel like I want this. I mean, other stuff, emotional stuff, it’s there but…” I tugged at his collar gently. “I want this. I want
you
. I just don’t want you to be disappointed.”

“I won’t, I won’t.” He pressed his face against the swell of my breasts and kissed a fizzy path to my mouth again. “Look at it like this, okay? I’ll do whatever you want, for as long as it feels good. I’m your willing slave.”

“Now there’s a risky thing to say.” I giggled.

“I mean it. I trust you.”

Oh, oh.

It wasn’t that I never noticed how gorgeous Linc was. None of them had been thwacked by the ugly stick, not him or Olly or Tom. I just got a bit anesthetized--they’d never come on to me, I never thought I was that much to look at. That was why Craig had so much power. He probably still had a tiny bit.

But now, the way Linc looked at me sent three quarters of the blood in my body below the hem of my knickers.

I
’m panting. He’s undressing me with those long, shapely fingers, and I’m panting. In the dark. With candles. This is awesome with a side of fuck-yeah fries. I’m not sure I deserve this, really.

“Hips up.” He smiled. Down went my jeans; off came my sandals. I lay there in my underwear and his fingertips traced the seams.

“I’ve imagined you like this hundreds of times.” He teased my nipple through the purple lace. “Wait. Does that sound creepy?”

“Depends. Was there also a midget?”

“You can save the midget talk for when I’m trying to stop…stop myself from coming inside you.”

Ow,
those words. We both groaned aloud at them like they were weighed down with blood and magic (and midgets).

“Take your clothes off, Linc. I want to see you.”

“I did promise to do what you said, huh?”

I’d seen him almost naked plenty of times--at the swimming pool, on holiday. I knew he had a slender, defined chest, but never did I notice how his shoulders broadened his silhouette, or how oddly graceful his long legs were.

There was one part of him I’d never seen, but suffice to say, as it nudged at his belly so proudly, it was definitely befitting of a guy his height.

He bent over me on all fours, filling his hands with my hair and kissing me breathless. He unclasped my bra with shocking skill, and then that warm mouth fed slowly on my nipples, each taste eliciting a sigh.

Below the hemline of my knickers, I tightened like a vice. For every stroke along my breasts, my pussy pulled inward, contracting out again in a sharp, pleasing ache. There were no words for how good that felt. It wasn’t just the sensation, either; my confidence in him was growing.
He knows what to do, he can do this for me
. I
can do this for me.

Before long, his fingers moved to my thighs. He started on the outsides, just dappling the tips along in shivery paths as he sucked on my nipples; then the heels of his hands circled inwards, spreading, stroking the sensitive skin there. My hips rolled up to follow.

Before this, I’d never realized how much pleasure I could get just from my breasts. Each time his mouth left one peak, the other swelled in searing anticipation, despite the cool air. All the while, the lace of my knickers got stickier and I longed to feel his fingers there. His mouth. His tongue. Jesus.

I’ll do whatever you want, for as long as it feels good.

“How long do you have?” I murmured, surprised at the sound of myself.

His reply was muffled by flesh. “Long enough.”

Now the hands that massaged my inner thighs crept upward. He was going to play with me. Going to tease. I knew it from the way his eyes crinkled in the darkness and the nimble brush of each digit on my skin.

He caressed my pussy through the lace, at first. He stroked the lips, sought out my clit with the pad of his thumb. I knew he could tell how wet I was.

When he sat up, leaving my breasts so neglected, I yelped.

“That’s more like it.” He grinned.

“Linc!”

“I’m going to touch you…lots of ways…and I want to know exactly how it feels.” He pulled at the gusset of my knickers. “I’m going to
make
you noisy, babe.”

I nodded and closed my eyes. Couldn’t watch him.

He used both thumbs to part me, the lace barrier still thin and gluey between us. I whimpered before I could calculate the volume of it, and again as he opened me. In and out. And in. My clit took a good, aching stretch with each ministration.

“Good?” he whispered.

Another whimper.

“And this?” Now he lifted the gusset so it wedged between the bare lips of my pussy; it scraped over the plump flesh there as he lowered and raised the fabric. “Do you have any idea how delicious you look?”

Delicious
. Me. It was a weird thing to hear him say, and all the more arousing for it.

“This?” He tugged the fabric right up so that it soaked into the syrup at the mouth of my pussy.

“That,” I panted, smiling at him. “All of it, actually.”

“This is just the appetizer, Bails.” He freed the gusset and it snapped back over my tense clit.

“I think these are my new favorite knickers.”

He inhaled deeply. “I think this is my new favorite toy.”

A finger eased into me, quick and deft.
Ow
. I contracted around him before I could stop myself.

“God, you’re utterly soaked,” he gasped.

“Mmm.” I rocked on his finger, the curve of his knuckle my new language. A pleasure code.

He dropped his head, teased my underwear aside, took my clit in his mouth, and for the first time in my life, I cried out a man’s name.

Don’t ask me what was different. I couldn’t tell you. It felt right because it was what he wanted. I loved his little intake of breath as the sound hit his ears, and so I did it twice, three times, four times. Like an electric circuit, I passed on the charge.

When he moved back up, I wailed in complaint and it was only his mouth that silenced me.

“Don’t worry, babe. All in your own time, yeah?” More kisses; I could taste myself, and I liked it.

“But…but you stopped…”

“I’ll start again. It’ll be even better, I promise.” Then he tugged my knickers off and then kissed his way back down my belly.

When he took his tongue to the wet flesh there, I understood. Those first few minutes were slow. He stroked my stomach and thighs with strong palms as he ate me, lingering at my outer lips before suckling at the hood of my clit. Just before the heat of his mouth descended a second time, I realized I’d forgotten about everything but the bracing for his next blow.