Tainted Touch Read online

  Is the universe actually listening, for once? Or is this what happens when you start grinding on each other on holy ground? Are we being…smote?

  Squealing, we jump up and yank back the sleeping bag, sheltering from the icy assault. Hailstones pound into our champagne glasses and bob cheerfully to the top of the gold froth. Art holds me tight against him.

  “Told you,” he says wryly. “Jesus doesn’t like me.”

  “Always check the weather forecast before a picnic,” I chide. “Even a borderline illegal one at ten P.M.”

  “I checked! It said clear skies,” he grumbles.

  “I’m teasing, you twit.”

  He nips at the top of my ear. “That’s for insulting my big manly intellect.”

  “Oh?” I give his toes a quick stamp. “That’s for your dad being a Tory.”

  His low rumbles of laughter ripple through my hair, his face pressed into it from above. I join him and the sleeping bag shakes as we do, shedding caught pools of stones in clatters.

  “Now you’re just being cheeky.” He feigns offense but there’s a languor to his tone, a laziness that’s plain filth. “Come on…looks like it’s turning into rain. Might as well start home.”

  Art’s house is closer; it would make sense, in this awful weather, for us to go there. But he doesn’t even appear to entertain the idea as he hurriedly packs up. The champagne gets dumped in a bin on the way out–both of us wincing at the waste–and we huddle beneath the sleeping bag, still shaded from fat spatters of rain.

  “We must look ridiculous.” I have to skip to avoid a puddle, and my neck hurts from craning to see beneath the bag. “Is this even waterproof?”

  “Showerproof.” He gives a chuckle, shaking water off the top of the bag. “Though I suppose we’ll see exactly how proof it is in a bit.”

  “I feel like we should be drunk for this.”

  “Don’t say I didn’t try.”

  “I can’t believe we had to throw away most of the champagne.”

  “It was a bloody amazing bottle, as well,” he laments. “But I did manage to rescue the sweeties. Bonus.”

  I squeeze his arm, giggling again. “My hero.” I’m half tempted to call him Fist Candy out loud, but don’t want to expose the poor smithery I stoop to in moments of brainless lust.

  It seems as if we drag the moon home with us. A pearl button of a balloon. Unfortunately, we drag the clouds as well, and rain skitters behind our damp, huddled bodies like a stray dog, gaining time whenever we pause to readjust the sleeping bag. By the time we reach my building, it’s soaked almost all the way through and both of us are damp at the edges. Art rolls it into a thick sausage in the lift, shoving it under one arm.

  I put my hands on my hips. “On a scale of one to drowned rat, where am I?”

  He gives me a good once over, and doesn’t hide his delight in doing so. “Somewhere between light shower and wet t-shirt contest. But hot either way.”

  “Really?” I say this like some excited idiot. Will blame the whole half-glass of champagne.

  “Yeah. Really.” He steps forward to reach for me, but then the lift pings and the doors roll open.

  I shuffle back out, cheeks blazing and pulse wired. It’s stupid to be surprised that he finds me attractive, but hearing it said out loud is like being dosed up with crack. I’m not used to compliments, even from a partner–and especially not someone like Art.

  As soon as I think I’ve escaped his embrace, he comes up behind and grabs me around the middle. We’re inches from my door. The scene is familiar, and his smell is becoming so, too–but not his touch. No matter that I practically sigh as I feel him; I’m a roiling ball of conflict inside. I want him more than anything, yet a bitter voice in the corner of my mind wants me to be careful. Trust is like virginity. Once you give it, you can’t get it back. You’re indebted to that person, vulnerable to every fuck up and controlled by an ever-stretching benefit of the doubt.

  Art turns me to face him in the dim light of the hall. He drops the sleeping bag, kicks it aside, and pushes me gently against my front door. His jacket smells faintly of rain and grass; I rest my forehead there, try to hide from what’s coming.

  “There you go again,” he murmurs. “Getting all embarrassed. And looking even fucking hotter in the process.”

  “Art–”

  “Gorgeous, in fact. I haven’t told you this, have I? But I should, and you deserve to hear it. I think you’re amazing. I love the way you talk.” He winds thick fingers into my damp hair and gives the slightest pull–a massaging motion, almost. It throws sparks all over my scalp. “I want everything to be so perfect with you that I have to give myself a good talking to on a regular basis. And I should probably feel stupid for telling you that, but all I can think of when I’m doing it is that it’d make you laugh.”

  “Because I draw great mirth from your crises of confidence,” I say wryly.

  “Disgusting behaviour, Cait. Make it up to me.”

  Finally, I find the confidence to look up. His eyelids are heavy with desire.

  “Any suggestions?” I ask.

  “How long do you have…?” His mouth falls.

  I catch it with mine.

  He tastes like a sweet shock of champagne and a wet walk home. Memories. Kisses aren’t the only thing we share now; a history is building, straining at the seams. My senses ramp up and I hear everything vividly–the faint groan of door hinges, each hurried breath exchanged for another lick, another kiss.

  “I should go,” he whispers.

  “You can’t go back out in that. I’d feel terrible.”

  He smiles against my lips. “Maybe I need cooling off a bit.”

  “Seriously? I’m freezing.” That’s not all true. But any heat I hold is through nervousness and arousal, and rain-steeped clothes do not a snuggly bunny make.

  “I noticed. You’re trembling a little.” He smoothes the hand in my hair, pulls again. “You need to go in and get warm.”

  I want to tell him that my bed is perfectly warm and he’d find it very comfortable. But Art is always as forward as he needs to be–if he wanted to come in, he’d let me know about it. And he hasn’t. Which kind of sucks.

  “You sure you’ll be okay?” I try not to sound deflated, but I’m pretty sure it doesn’t work.

  “I’ll have to employ a few survivalist skills. Maybe make a raft out of used beer cans, eat some bugs, that kinda thing.”

  “Sure you don’t want me to drum up some sponsorship first?”

  He grins. “Not unless I’m allowed to do the Cait’s Naked for Africa page. And I’m pretty sure you vetoed that one.”

  “Yeah…can’t think why.”

  He bends to kiss me again, slower this time, like he’s thinking through each sweep of his tongue. Then his hand slips from my hair, leaving a gaping space in its wake. “Night, lovely.”

  “Night.”

  “I’ll miss you,” he says gruffly.

  I bite my lip. “I’ll miss you too.”

  One more kiss–just a light peck on the lips–and he turns to scoop up the sleeping bag before walking down the hall. A last grin is thrown in my direction before he disappears into the lift, and my hand hangs limply in the air, afraid to wave.

  Perhaps he wants everything to be so perfect that sex requires more of his plans. How do I tell him I’d rather it was a hailstorm?

  I flatten against the door–which is getting to be my ‘thing’, gah–to take huge gulps of air.

  My phone goes off in my pocket, the soft song of a text vibrating into my hip bone. Ugh. Probably Vicky, teasing me about the noise we made out in the hall.

  It’s not Vicky.

  Art: I want to make your body do amazing things xx

  It’s like the moment I scooped my heart off the carpet, only it’s a fat ball of a hailstone and I’m smashing it against the wall.

  So the next minute goes something like this: I sprint down the hall, smack the stupid-fucking-closed lift, dart towards th
e stairs. I’m supposed to be fit, but four flights later and I’m panting like a bitch. Maybe it’s the adrenaline spitting through me like wildfire, or the heat that makes me run like a drugged, dizzy creature; maybe it’s because I’m within punching distance of this hallowed jar of honey that is sex. With him.

  I scan the lobby for Art, but nothing. Just a dimly lit porch and single, forlorn spider plant in a worse-for-wear ceramic pot. Then in the corner, the lift pings and he steps out. It takes all of five seconds for him to clock me. He stops dead.

  I dig my fingers into the bannister, and bring the phone into his line of vision with my free hand. “Go on, then,” I make myself say. “Do it.”

  Art’s Adam’s apple bobs as he swallows. He walks toward me with full-on swagger, shoulders swaying, amber eyes unusually dark. I can taste smoke just looking for him–the earthy, bonfire kind–and it gets stronger with every step he takes.

  Although he stands on the next stair down, he’s still a good few inches taller than me. More powerful. The look on his face…he’s somewhere else, gone with the sparks.

  “You sure about this?” he asks.

  I nod.

  “Then take me upstairs.”

  Chapter Twenty

  He stays behind me the entire way there, watching. Not a word is said; it feels like we’ll shatter the moment, that we’ll taint it with something lesser than it deserves. I slip the key into the front door with more grace that I’m expecting, and Vicky, thank God, is nowhere to be seen.

  Art closes the front door with a careful click, and then we’re both in my flat. Alone. Peeling off our coats. The sleeping bag sits in a forlorn heap by the sideboard. We step out of our wet shoes, him somewhat awkwardly.

  “You, um…” I’m still not looking at him. For some reason, I fixate on Mr March in the kitchen, strategically placed helmet and all. It’s like he’s winking at me. Cha-ching, Cait. Gerrin’ thuuuur! “You want a coffee, or something?”

  Art comes up behind me. Wraps his arms around my waist. “No.” His mouth falls to the bare expanse of my neck. “But you could show me your room.”

  “Okay.” I cover his hands with mine before taking one to lead. “Just…in here.”

  I’ve only ever been with Dominic, and he rationed sex like some gruesome power game. I never knew when he’d go all George RR Martin on me and just randomly slay my advances, even if he’d encouraged them before we got to bed. This will be different. I understand what it means now to float like a cannonball–you’re always waiting for gravity to let you drop. I look at Art, and I have a long, long way to fall.

  At least I thought ahead and put on pretty underwear. I’m wearing Elle Macpherson’s finest in candyfloss pink lace, a set I bought months ago, shy with the thought of ever showing it to a man. Now I blossom to think of it. The fabric is its own giddy foreplay, rubbing my skin in swollen places and growing wet in others.

  Panic snaps in tiny seizures as I show him into my room. The curtains are open and moonlight is milk spun in silver, sloshed across my walls with a lazy hand. I head straight for the candles, strike a match, hold it to the wick of the Pink Dragonfruit jar. I need to keep him in the shadows while I get used to naked skin because I thought I could handle this–have longed for it–but now it’s happening, I don’t know how I’ll stay together. Not without the butterfly stitch of his kiss.

  “Cait?”

  I jerk around, smoking match still in hand. “Mmm?”

  In this light, his features are unreadable, but he’s trained on me. “Do I make you nervous?”

  “A–a little.” I mash my tongue between my canines. “Sorry.”

  “God.” Three steps and he’s with me, cupping my chin in his palms. There’s a tremble to his eyelashes, one that belies the confidence of his words. “I don’t think you should ever apologise for that.”

  “Then I take it back.” I squeeze my eyes shut. The match drops to the floor. “I’m not sorry that you’re in my room, or we’re all alone, or that…that I want you.”

  He lowers his head to murmur in my ear. “I wanted you first.”

  This is what it’s like to be seduced, this slow dissolve. I’ve never felt anything like it.

  “You have no idea,” he edges us back towards my bed, “how much I’ve been looking forward to this.”

  We’re kissing before we even hit the pillows. He braces my fall with a thick arm, curving it about my shoulder to raise my mouth level with his. I’ve lain here so many nights and imagined Art beside me, on top of me, inside me–now here he is, in my space and on my white, white sheets, at war with every normal part of my life. Unrelenting.

  Art rolls off me and comes on to his side. Bears over me like a shadow. He splays a hand across my belly, teases up the hem of my sweater to reveal a white streak of skin. His brow dips as he inspects his little discovery.

  “See, here’s my problem,” he whispers. “I’m going to enjoy undressing you so much that there won’t be time left for anything else.”

  I close my eyes as his finger trails the sweater all the way up to the line of my bra. “Some things, I could make time for.”

  “Huh.” Now he ducks down, presses his warm lips to my stomach. “And some things, they’ve got to be worth ending. The end has to be pretty damn intense.”

  I should’ve guessed his teasing would only worsen in the bedroom. He’s talking about orgasms. About making me come. My breath hitches at the thought, and my hips buck so I undulate beneath him like a flag in summer wind. For every sucking kiss he plants on my belly, a soft sound grows in my throat: a moan of delight. It erupts as his hand rests along my inner thigh and his mouth finds the button fly of my jeans.

  “Jeez, Art…”

  “What?” He looks up at me, flushed with mischief, and then nuzzles into the apex of my thighs. “You like that?”

  I struggle against the feel of his hot breath through my clothes. It strokes the most sensitive spots. “Uhuh.”

  He grips the undersides of my thighs, spreads them open, settles comfortably between. Scatter cushions tumble off the bed to crunch softly on the carpet. Then he runs kisses up the inner seams of my jeans; takes his time, presses right into them. I can’t keep my hips still and shame balms nothing. Rubs me raw.

  Fuck it–I’m not ashamed, or embarrassed. Not anymore. I’ve never been so ready to be…had.

  The Dragonfruit candle burns brightly in the corner of the room. Its perfume hangs heady, tart as pomegranate, milky lilac riding on smoke. Art looms over me in its flickering shadows, tearing the sweater up over my raised arms and then falling into the cradle of my cleavage. Stubble skims the top of my breasts. He licks along the red marks, leaving them wet and warm. All the while, I find myself needing the release of a moan or the relief of a sigh–I’ve never been so musical in pleasure.

  Art, too, is not silent, responding to every noise I make with a whisper. We breed our own language in the dark. I arch up as he nudges the small of my back, stay put as he releases the clasp on my bra. My nipples are almost sore with arousal, but nothing prepares me for the sudden pulse between my legs as he takes one pink tip into his mouth. He might as well be sucking somewhere else.

  “You,” he says around his mouthful of flesh, “make the sexiest fucking sounds,” which stretches my next sigh into a smile.

  He brings a hand up to examine my breasts. Weighs them. White teeth play over his bottom lip as if fighting to contain another urge. I push myself into his touch and feel it more this time, the acid complaint of strained muscles overruled by slick need. I want out of my clothes and his clothes and into skin, sweet skin, the slap-on-slap of flesh singing until we both fall victim to the breakdown of its beat.

  I feel my way along his back, find the damp mess of his hair, pull him back up to kiss me. His weight is a comfort, and the solid press of his cock brings my hips up further. Our kisses have changed in the wake of lost eloquence, and the thrum of desperation guides our tongues, relentless. I always thought we had chemistr
y. This is so much more.

  Art strokes towards my fly and tugs it open. He eases my pink knickers down with my jeans and in a rustle of clothing, I’m naked. For a moment, I stay down, my eyes closed; I let him drink in the sight of me with that curious, delighted expression of his, the one that pulls a slight smile from the swollen pout of his mouth. But when he goes to lay a hand on my hip, I catch his wrist. Squeeze him.

  “Take your clothes off.”

  “Well.” He bends over me for another kiss, already pulling his t-shirt up. “Since you asked so nicely…”

  I undress my Fist Candy with eager hands. He pulls off his t-shirt; I rush up to stroke his chest. He flicks open his belt; I’m already working on his fly. Urgency drives us both, makes us pant and giggle, though he manages to plant a condom packet on the bedside table without knocking over the lamp. At last, only his black boxer shorts remain, and he lets me tease them down until the heavy heat of his cock slaps out to brand my wrist. Then, I lose concentration. I skim a thumb over the thick head of him, sliding through a well of pre-cum that makes him growl.

  “I’m trying to go slow.” But he looks pained with bliss, the way only aroused men do.

  I close my fist around his cock. Explore it. He bobs in my fingers, this delightful jerk that will pull into just the right spot inside me–I can almost feel him now. “Slow’s overrated,” I gasp.

  “Like that, is it?”

  It is. It is. He calls me the dirtiest kind of innocent, and I don’t know what he expected, but the innocent part combusted the minute I pulled down his shorts. All I can think of is how well we’ll fit together, and how I’ve never felt this damned wet for anyone, not even afterwards. Christ.

  Art stills my fingers before reluctantly peeling them away. My legs are still spread and he sits back to kneel between them, his bottom lip bitten harder with every second that passes. One hand comes to rest on my mound.

  “If you get a good look at me,” he murmurs, “it’s only fair that I get a good look at you.”

  Only on observing at him from this angle do I understand that Art suits nudity. He’s cut for it. Stripped of clothing, he is the boy back at the punch bag or sluicing through the pool, displaying more than he ought to in public. But we’re not in public now. His only opponent is me…the girl who lies splayed beneath him, waiting and wild. And he’s pressing a fingertip to the hood of my clit, easing it up to let cool air wash over the tense, blood-stuffed bud.