Tasting Fear (46 page)

She scrambled on top of him, folding her arms over his chest. Questions in her eyes. She wanted to talk. It terrified him. Too much reality would chase away that feeling. But even so, he wanted to know her. Her history, her dreams, her hopes, her plans.

No, on second thought, maybe he didn’t want to know her plans.

V
ivi felt so relaxed, sprawled on Jack. Her body just couldn’t get enough contact with him.

“So?” she prompted him. “Shouldn’t we talk?”

“Probably,” he said cautiously. “I’m not feeling very articulate.”

“Hmm.” She shifted, breasts brushing his chest, her crotch rubbing against his thigh. He hardened beneath her. Ready for more. The man was tireless.

“You just wait a minute,” she said. “We should talk before we make love again. This is too easy!”

“What’s wrong with easy?” He groped for a condom and ripped the package open. “We can talk if I’m inside you, can’t we? Nothing’s stopping us.”

“Like I’m supposed to chitchat while a two-hundred-and-thirty-pound sex god is nailing me to his bed with his enormous thing, giving me multiple orgasms? Puh-leeze.”

“Consider it a challenge,” he suggested, rolling the condom over his cock. “I won’t move. I just want to be inside you. Please?”

He nudged himself inside and stared into her eyes for the whole, long, tight slide to his balls. She fit over his pulsing shaft like a skintight glove. She blushed, from her chest on up. She was the one who started to move. She couldn’t help herself. Manipulative bastard. He knew she couldn’t get enough of him.

She’d have felt embarrassed, if she weren’t so busy working herself up to another climax. She flung the covers back and rode him, chest heaving, back arched. He touched her breasts, held her, played with her clit until she collapsed over him in spasms of pleasure.

After, she lifted herself up onto her elbows, hazy with residual pleasure, and realized that he was still hot and huge and hard inside her, staring into her eyes. “Ah, Jack?” she ventured. “What about you?”

“What about me?” he said. “I’m fine. Didn’t you want to talk?”

“But, ah…don’t you need to come?”

He gave her a swift grin. “It’ll wait. No hurry. I want to hang out, miles inside you. My dick is in heaven. It wants to take up residence.”

She buried her laughter against his silky mat of dark chest hair. “If you say so.” She pulsed her stretched, quivering vaginal muscles around him and tried to compose herself. Here went nothing.

“I was wondering…if you’d go with me into Pebble River, like Margaret suggested,” she said. “To look at rentals. For my shop.”

His face stiffened. “You know what I think of that idea.”

“It’s what I plan to do,” she told him. “I know you think I’m married to the road, but I took that path by necessity. Not by choice.”

“Please. Don’t make promises you can’t keep.”

She sighed, in frustration. “They’re not promises. I’m just telling you my plans. Why won’t you listen to me, Jack?”

He shook his head. “Duncan will kill me if I let you do this.”

She jerked up onto her elbows. “Duncan does not make my decisions for me! I am almost broke, Jack! And I cannot hide forever!”

He let out a heavy sigh. “I see that.”

She took another chance. “And you can’t say there’s nothing between us,” she said, resolutely. “Not anymore.”

“I’m not saying that. But let’s just stay in the moment. Let’s not look at it too closely. If we do…” His voice trailed off.

“It’ll disappear?” she finished.

His silence was her answer. She drooped down onto his chest, feeling him shifting and pulsing. Reminding her of his presence inside her.

“So we can’t talk about the future,” she said. “What can we talk about?”

“The past,” he said. “Tell me about your past.”

She blew a wisp of hair out of her eyes. “Big topic. Want to break it down a little for me?”

“Tell me how you became an artist,” he suggested.

“Ah. Well, it was a challenge. Lucia sweated for years, trying to turn me into a civilized human. I was a wild animal, even though I loved her to pieces from the start. Hyperactive, hot tempered, foulmouthed. I got bad grades. I had impulse control issues. I got into fights.”

“I’m not surprised.”

She ignored that. “Lucia was determined to make me respectable. She wanted me to study something that would make me good money, turn me into a pillar of the community. She loved art, but she liked classics. She didn’t understand wild experimental art. We had a hell of a time, fighting it out.”

“And you won?” He twirled her hair around his finger.

“Not at first. I compromised. I agreed to study graphic design. I tried, I really did, but I was miserable, and my grades sucked, and I ended up losing my scholarship. Lucia was furious with me.”

“And? What did you do then?”

She shrugged. “I waitressed, I tended bar. Was a bike messenger for a while. Saved enough to reenroll in art school, one semester at a time. And I survived on art show openings for a couple of years.”

He looked puzzled. “How’s that?”

“You know those wine-and-cheese receptions at art galleries when a new exhibit opens? You can find one every night in New York, if you inform yourself. Cheese, crackers, grapes, strawberries, mini-quiches, puff pastries. If you’re too broke to buy groceries, they’re great.”

He stirred uncomfortably. “You were that desperate?”

“Oh, it wasn’t so bad. I saw a lot of art. It did me good. And then I met this gallery owner, Brian. I signed a contract with him. And he started to sell some of my stuff. My brief artistic golden age.”

He lifted his head. “Brian? He’s the filthy fuckhead ex, isn’t he?”

Vivi went very still on top of him. “Ah…what if he is?”

“Brian Wilder, right?” he said slowly. “Wilder Galleries. In Soho.”

She was shocked. “How in the holy
hell
do you know that?”

“It’s the age of information,” he said, innocently. “Shouldn’t be hard to find out where the prick lives.”

“You wouldn’t!” She felt panicked, as if that poisonous toxic waste from her past could contaminate this delicate, shining thing she had with Jack. “Don’t you dare! Leave him alone! Promise me!”

He stroked her back. “Shhh. Don’t worry about it.”

She hissed at him, anything but reassured. “If you mess with Brian, I’ll take you apart! I will deconstruct you and sell you for scrap!”

He pressed her ass, pulsing his cock inside her. Reminding her he was the man, no doubt. Hah. “I hear you,” he soothed. “So the fuckhead started selling your work, and then? What kind of work was it?”

“I met him during my barbed-wire and broken-beer-bottle period.”

His eyes widened. “Your
what
?”

“I was rebellious, at the time,” she explained. “I felt put upon because of my tragic childhood, I was mad at my birth mother for going to jail and killing herself, mad at Lucia for trying to control me, et cetera, et cetera. And I was drinking way too much espresso. I put it all into my work.”

“I see.” His voice was guarded.

“Anyway, Brian discovered me, you might say,” she went on. “Decided to clean me up, make me marketable.”

“And you got involved?” He cupped her breast in his hands.

“Yes,” she said, her voice catching breathlessly. “It was a disaster. On every level, not just a personal one.”

“What happened?” He began to rock his pelvis up against her, pressing his pubic bone against her clit in a slow, circular movement.

She pushed against his chest until she was upright, glaring down at him. “Don’t distract me,” she lectured. “You’re cheating!”

His pelvis surged, making her undulate on top of him. “Sorry. You’re so sexy. I forgot myself,” he murmured. “And then?”

“What happened was that he turned out to be an art vampire, in addition to being an evil fuckhead. All he wanted was to make me into his money-grubbing zombie slave.”

“I see,” he said.

“And…well, I couldn’t. I tried to be a zombie slave, but nothing came out. And he got really angry. And…well, you know the rest.”

“Yeah,” he said. “I do.”

He stared up into her flushed face. The deep rocking slide of his cock inside her was impossible to resist. He held her firmly, thrusting up, stirring her around, making her gasp and bite her lip.

“I…I destroyed his office,” she said, breathlessly. “After the last time that he…well, you know. I was so angry. Freaked out. Out of my head. I think I smashed probably fifty thousand dollars’ worth of art.”

“Good.” He thrust harder, jarring a whimper from her throat. “Did he say, ‘You’ll never work in this town again,’ et cetera?”

“Yes,” she said, bleakly.

“And you believed him?”

She braced herself against his chest. “Of course I believed him! It was true! He blacklisted me, Jack! The guy has clout!”

He stopped moving, petted her hair. “Okay,” he murmured. “Sorry.”

“I thought I was finished,” she went on. “Then Rafael stepped in.”

“Who’s this Rafael, anyhow?” Jack frowned. “Another boyfriend?”

“Rafael? Good God, no. Rafael’s just my buddy, and besides, he likes boys.”

“So you drove off with Rafael, and left the whole mess behind you.”

The flat finality of his voice made tension grip her chest. “Hey. Don’t you dare blame me for—”

“I’m not blaming you,” he said quietly. “You did the right thing.”

She was dumbfounded. “You think so?”

He pulled her back down on top of him. “Yeah. I do.”

Vivi relaxed against his solid warmth. His quiet statement soothed something deep inside her. “I think you’re the only person who’s ever said that, except for Rafael,” she said. “Lucia thought I was giving up. My sisters, too. It’s hard to go against everyone’s advice.”

He stroked her back without replying, warm and comforting.

“Poor Lucia,” she murmured. “I was a heartbreak to her. I defied her in every way. From my clothes to all of my ill-fated career choices.”

“Were you one of those girls with spiked hair and safety pins?”

She snorted. “Not quite. I did have thigh-high lace-up black leather boots, though.”

“Wow,” he commented, eyes wide.

“They were the centerpiece of my wardrobe. I wore them with ripped fishnet stockings and a purple velvet miniskirt.”

“My God,” he said, with feeling. He reached down to slide his thumb tenderly into the top of her labia, circling around her clit.

“Do you still have them?” he asked.

She writhed against him, eyes shut. “Have what?”

“The boots.”

Her eyes popped open, and she started to laugh. “I don’t think so,” she said. “Maybe in a box, in Lucia’s attic. It was a long time ago.”

“Oh.” He sounded disappointed. She giggled harder. He frowned at her. “What’s so funny?”

“You,” she said. “I thought you would disapprove of my slutty boots. Brian hated them. You surprise me, that’s all.”

“Brian was a sick, evil fuckhead. Don’t compare me to him. Of course I want to see you in those boots. I’m a normal guy, okay?”

“You’re not a normal guy, Jack.”

He kissed her fiercely into silence, and lifted his head some time later, when she was dazzled with lust. “Besides. You’re a fine one to talk about normal. Barbed wire and broken beer bottles, for God’s sake.”

“Oh, shut up,” she murmured, and kissed him back hungrily.

A moment later, she pried herself up and touched his cheek. “Jack?” she asked, tentatively. “Would you do something for me?”

He froze, eyes guarded. “If I can,” he hedged.

“I want to try something,” she said hesitantly. “I want, um…I want to roll over. And for you to, ah…hold my hands down.”

His face went blank, and he jerked up onto his elbows, rocking her back. His body was rigid. “Why, for fuck’s sake? That’s sick, Viv, after what he…why would you do that to yourself? Or me?”

“Shhh,” she soothed. “Nothing sick about it. I think that it would be okay, with you. Sexy, even. But I can’t know until I try.”

“But I’m the one who feels like dogshit if it doesn’t work out!”

“Please, don’t get mad,” she pleaded. “I just thought…I don’t want all these dead zones and ‘danger, keep out’ signs in my head. I want to feel free. And if anyone in the world could do that for me, it would be you. Believe me. I would never ask such a thing of you if I didn’t trust you.”

Even though you don’t trust me back.
She held the thought at bay with difficulty.

He stared into her face for a long time, as if trying to read her mind. “You’re sure about this,” he said, carefully.

She nodded, swallowing hard, and smiled at him.

“And you won’t blame me if—”

“God, no,” she assured him. “Not in the least. I swear.”

In one swift surge, he rolled them both over, pinning her beneath his weight. He folded her legs up high, hooking them over his shoulders, and then grabbed her hands, pinning them beside her head.

He waited, staring fiercely into her face.

She gave him a tremulous smile. “I’m okay,” she whispered.

He leaned down and kissed her deeply, possessively. His tongue thrusting and twining boldly with hers. “Look into my eyes,” he said. “The entire goddamn time. Or else. Got it?”

She nodded. Speechless. Her throat was quivering, and her heart felt full, as she stared into his face, but she wasn’t panicking. No stabs of fear, no numbing black fog. Her heart pounded from excitement, not fear.

He was not gentle. She had not wanted him to be. He took her hard, his body challenging hers, and his face looked angry as he did it; eyes burning, mouth grim. Except that she knew him now. She could feel his concern for her, his tension, his need. His awareness of her.

And she was aware of him, too, on levels she’d never imagined. She sensed that the conquering hero pose excited him, and his excitement fed hers, in a confused feedback loop of emotion, sensation. No playacting. Her surrender was as real as his conquest.

She gasped for breath, jerking up to meet his hard thrusts. Staring with wide, tear-blinded eyes into his face. Struggling voluptuously against the implacable strength of his beautiful body, his steely arms, his gripping hands.

She could go there with him. She could go anyplace she wanted with him, as far as she could dream of going, and know that he would carry her back, completely safe, all in one happy, sated piece.

Afterward, they lay tangled together, limp and damp. They roused themselves at last to take a long, lazy shower, washing each other. Jack’s tireless cock rose to full salute, but Vivi laughed at him.