Each Step Like Knives (2 page)

"Quiet? With that constant roaring and pounding? And
wait until hurricane season, Helena. You'll be lucky if this shack
doesn't just up and blow away. C'mon, the gulls shit on
everything...."

They did, but Helena held up her hand to silence her
friend. "Francine, what's your real problem with this place? It
can't be the house. I know it's no mansion, but it's not that bad.
And know it can't be the location because this is ten times better
than the Hamptons you adore so much. Tell me. What's your real
issue?"

Francine sighed and toyed with her mug. The look she
gave her friend made Helena step back from the level of naked
honesty in it.

"You're running away."

Helena couldn't reply at first. An image of Howard
flashed into her mind. "Howard said the same thing."

"I hate to agree with that bastard, but he's
right."

Helena crossed her arms over chest. "I'm not running
away."

Francine gave another snort. "Please. Nike should
give you an endorsement contract for their sneakers, honey. You are
running so fast your feet can't catch up."

"That's an exaggeration."

"It's not, and if you were honest with yourself,
you'd know it."

Helena sighed. "Fine. Have it your way."

"I don't want it my way." Francine got up and dumped
the coffee into the sink. "I just miss you, that's all. Hey, lots
of people have bad breakups. They don't all move away because of
them. New York's a big place, Helena. You don't have to leave it
just because your fiancé turned out to be a philandering, lying
son-of-a-bitch."

Helena cut her gaze to the answering machine. The
red display blinked "27." Twenty-seven messages, and she'd bet all
of them were from Howard. "I'll admit, I came at first to get away,
but now I'm staying because I like it here. Everything smells so
fresh."

"If by fresh you mean like dead fish, yeah, I guess
you're right." Francine came over and took Helena's hand. "We're
just worried about you, doll."

"I'm fine." Helena squeezed Francine's fingers. "I
have plenty of money. I like it here. I'm fine. Really."

Francine gave a long-suffering sigh, but then smiled
and shook her head. "I can't change your mind? Get you to come back
with me? Leave this place to the gull shit and the wind?"

"No. But thanks. For everything." Helena hugged her
friend tightly. She was surprised to see tears glittering in
Francine's dark brown eyes when she pulled away. "Frannie?"

Francine swiped at her face with a chuckle. "I just
worry about you, girl."

"You don't need to. I'm fine. Really!"

"Really, really?"

Helena laughed. "Yes. I promise. Pinky-swear.
Whatever you want to hear."

Francine shrugged into her lightweight sweater and
hung her bag over her shoulder. "Not all guys are assholes like
Howard, Helena."

"I know."

I do know that, Helena thought as she watched
Francine drive away. But knowing and feeling were sometimes two
very different states of mind. Her relationship with Howard had
ended badly when she discovered him on top of his secretary after
another "late night" at the office had led Helena to check up on
him. She'd suspected his infidelity, but that didn't make her feel
any better about seeing the man who supposedly loved her enough to
make her his wife crotch-deep in a bleached-blonde with fake tits
and a genuine attitude.

Helena had walked out of Howard's office and hadn't
seen him since. She'd sub-let her apartment in the city and moved
down here to Chincoteague to the run-down beach house her
grandparents had left her several years before. She needed the time
to be by herself, in the quiet. She had plenty of money left from
her grandparents' inheritance, her free-lance consulting jobs
provided for extras, and the rent she got from sub-letting was
sufficient to take care of her debts.

If she wasn't exactly happy here, it wasn't because
of lack of funds.

Helena closed the rickety screen door, then the
solid door behind it. Night wouldn't fall for another few hours,
but she was tired. Francine wasn't used to the quiet island life.
She was more accustomed to late-night cappuccinos and caviar than
warmed milk and a piece of toast. They'd stayed up late playing
cards and reminiscing, which had been wonderful at the time but
left Helena with a headache from too much wine and too little
sleep.

Napping was out of the question. She had enough
trouble getting to sleep at night. She'd take a long, warm bath
instead. Not even the summer heat could keep her from enjoying
that.

She ran the water in the claw-foot tub and added
bubbles. She lit a lavender-scented candle, shed her clothes and
stepped into the water with a sigh. There was nothing like a long
soak in a hot tub to put things to rights.

For a little while, she just drifted, floated, let
her mind follow one thought after another like a butterfly flitting
through a field. The phone rang discordantly, and her eyes flew
open, while her hands banged against the tub's metal sides. After
two rings, the machine picked up and Helena lay back in the water.
She'd check it later. It would probably be Howard, begging for
another chance to prove to her how much he loved her.

Helena made a face and resolved to put him from her
mind. There was nothing he could do to prove anything to her other
than what a complete and utter asshole he was. She slipped back
into the water, eyes closed again, and sighed.

If she'd been the one caught with her pantyhose
around her ankles, she had no doubts about how quickly Howard would
have forgiven her. She grimaced. How about never? However, no
matter how tempted she might have been to take up the few offers
she'd had, she'd remained faithful to her fiancé. She couldn't
regret doing the right thing, but looking back and recalling the
body and face of the man who'd asked her out to dinner after
spending an hour on the subway with her, well.... She sighed again.
Missed opportunity, that's all.

She hadn't had any such luck since coming to
Virginia. The local population consisted mostly of families on
vacation and some long-term residents she knew on a nodding
acquaintance from the summers she'd spent here as a kid with her
grandparents. She hadn't met any eligible bachelors, but then, she
had hardly "hit the town" either.

Helena let her fingers drift along her belly, then
down to her thighs. It had been a long time since she'd made love.
She'd grown suspicious of Howard's fidelity when the marathon
lovemaking sessions they used to have had dried up and become
once-every-other-week, perfunctory, passionless fucking. By the
end, they'd barely had sex at all, and when they did, he'd had zero
interest in making sure he'd pleased her.

She'd learned to take care of her own needs, but in
the aftermath of the flight from New York, Helena hadn't done more
than think about sex for months. Now, her nipples puckered in the
hot water as she imagined a man's mouth on them. She touched them,
rolled them gently between her fingertips. The soft buds of flesh
stiffened under her touch. She tweaked them both again and felt her
body's response between her thighs.

The oiled water had made her skin supple and slick,
but the moisture her questing fingers discovered between her legs
had its own source. Helena slid a finger along her folds, then
dipped inside. Heat covered her finger, and the pressure on her
sensitive inner flesh made her bite her lip and roll her head on
her shoulders. God, it felt good to be touched, even if it was her
own fingers doing the touching.

She circled her clit, already plump and straining
with arousal, then slid back inside her heat. The heel of her palm
pressed her button as she slowly moved first one finger, then
another, in and out. Then up again to put the pressure on the spot
where she craved it most.

Helena teased herself to the edge of orgasm in
minutes, something no man had ever seemed able to do as well for
her as she could do for herself. Her past lovers had varied in
skill, desire and physical accomplishments, but they'd all had the
same thing in common. They could make her come, sometimes even more
than once, but not one of them had mastered the art of slow,
torturous arousal that could turn a mildly pleasing orgasm into a
climax so mind-blowing it nearly stopped her heart.

She didn't let herself slide over the edge into
oblivion--not yet. She had all afternoon and all night to please
herself, if she wanted. The porcelain tub had a smoothly curving
back that cradled her in perfect comfort. With an inflatable bath
pillow beneath her neck, Helena could float here for hours. She
intended to just that.

Now she pinched her clit lightly between her thumb
and middle finger and moved the small, hard button of flesh slowly.
She concentrated on the feelings radiating through her body while
her other hand caressed each of her nipples in time to the stroking
of her clit. Her legs fell open and she arched her pelvis against
her hand.

The perfect man would know how to do this.

The thought startled her enough to make her open her
eyes and stop her fingers in their delicate circle. Where did that
come from? Perfect man? There was no such thing. Helena wasn't
foolish enough to think she'd never date again, but open up her
heart? Not bloody likely.

Her clit pulsed under her touch and she let out a
breath she hadn't realized she'd been holding. Perfect men simply
didn't exist, and even if one did, she wouldn't want him. How hard
would it be to live with someone who was perfect?

The thought made her laugh, which came out more like
a gasp. So the perfect man for her wouldn't have to actually be
perfect. She let her hands start up their exploration again. He'd
touch her like this, softly, then more fiercely as her arousal
grew. He'd know how to do it without being told. Hell, without even
being shown. He'd just know.

What would he look like? The man from the subway
flashed into her mind's eye again, but then faded. Dark hair. She'd
always loved dark hair on a man. Dark eyes, too. Dark like night. A
man who looked like he wasn't afraid to get dirty. Ahhh.... Her
clit thrummed and she thrust upward in the water. She left her
nipples to slide her fingers inside herself while the other hand
kept up its circular motion on her clitoris.

Tall, dark and handsome. Oh, and silent. Helena let
out a low moan that echoed in the tiny bathroom. She didn't want a
talker. Let him use his hands to tell her anything he needed her to
know.

"Yes." The word bubbled from her throat and past her
lips in a pure burst of pleasure. She said it again and again while
her clit turned to fire under her touch and her tunnel clamped down
in fluttery ripples on her fingers.

She lifted her hand from her clit but kept the other
one locked deep inside. For another moment, she pumped her fingers
in and out, slowly, just enough to keep her on the edge, but not
enough to send herself over. The water washed over her bud and sent
shivers of ecstasy shuddering through her. My perfect man would use
his tongue to do this, she thought, and her pussy contracted in a
spasm of climax that made her cry out.

She withdrew her hand and settled herself deeper
into the water.
This is how it would feel for my perfect man to
go down on me.
The thought was slightly incoherent, but what
could she expect this close to the first orgasm she'd had in she
couldn't remember how long? He'd bend his face between her legs,
and he'd lick her, and lick her....

"Yes!"

Helena rolled her hips to make the water slosh
across her clit, which now felt the size of her thumb. The water
rolled over her heated flesh, caressed her, teased her, and brought
her even closer to climax. A fingertip touched to her button would
have made her splinter, but oh, doing it this way was
so...much...nicer....

She couldn't hold on any longer. The delicious
pleasure-pain had built up in her center to the point she could no
longer stop it. She was coming in a rush, a flood, a hurricane of
ecstasy washing over her in waves so strong she felt as though she
were going to lift right out of the tub and ride them to the stars.
Her body convulsed, making the water push that much harder on her
clit. She came again, hard on the heels of the first climax, which
hadn't quite ended.

Helena flew. She gasped. Her cunt and clit spasmed
and rippled, and each contraction made another burst of sensation
tear through her. Then, finally, her body's movements slowed and
faded, gentled to nothing, and she lay back in the water, trying to
catch her breath.

If I could find a man who could do that, she
thought, I'd follow him to the bottom of the sea, if I had to.

He rose
again through the water's blackness toward the blackness above. He
burst from the surface, this time not fearing the air's sting.
Maybe he was getting used to it. His gill slits fluttered, open and
closed, but couldn't process the air they way they could filter it
from the water. He opened his mouth to take in a gulp of the stuff,
but it was flavorless as well as without color, and he felt only an
uncomfortable heaviness in his chest when he did.