Tainted Touch Read online

  My yelp is startled, my whole pelvis tight. “Fuck…what are you doing?”

  He cracks a grin. “Making my innocent girl swear, apparently.”

  “But–”

  “You forget what I do for a living, babe.” The grin melts to a determined stare. “Now tell me, are you in some discomfort here?” He taps the very edge of my clit.

  I yelp again. It’s all the answer he needs.

  “Because you look kinda sore. So I’m just going to feel around, see what’s going on here…don’t want to bruise any muscles. You know.” His amber eyes glaze over. “Not yet.”

  It’s been months since I was touched like this. Actually, no–I’ve never been touched exactly like this, and not by anyone who sees my new body with appreciative eyes. My confidence grows in the wake of his scrutiny, frothing up to greet him in our patois of soft sounds.

  Art shifts to get comfortable, alters the position of my hips with his careful therapist’s hands–both of which then descend between my thighs to peel outer lips wide open. There, he peers down, his thumb skidding through sticky moisture to probe the mouth of my pussy. He draws the moisture over my clit with a slow, deliberate stroke and then dips down again to repeat, slipping left and right.

  “Just warming things up.” He’s almost slurring now. Drunk on his task. “I love how wet you are.” He bends two fingers at the knuckle and presses either side of my clit–the stretch and pressure make me cry out.

  “You best not be saying that to all your clients.”

  “Heh. No.” His tongue appears, tracing the line of his upper lip. “I’m going to work here,” he goes on in his almost-Professional Voice, his thumb grazing my clit again. “And also…here. Right in here.”

  A long finger eases inside me, instantly clutched at by tissues more sensitive than I’d known. I try to bite back my curses, but no use. He glides all the way into my pussy, hooks his fingertip up beneath my clit and cleaves into the sensitive pad of flesh there. Then, he holds still. Doesn’t move an inch.

  I moan with every throb–they spill inside me, overlap into the dull ache that precedes climax. With his thumb held solid on my clit and his finger pressed right there, it’s impossible to keep still. Or quiet. I rock up at him, trying to usher the movement I crave so desperately.

  Art eyes me and then, blessedly, begins to work his finger in and out. Whimpers stutter through my teeth; my thighs fall apart further, buttocks held fast to the mattress so he can reach deep. All the while, he drags along my inner walls, feeling everything. Pauses to work at tender corners.

  “You’re really supple here,” he breathes. “You have a few tight spots, like here…and–hold still, babe–there, right there.”

  “Fuck. Ow, you–” He’s back in that buttery spot beneath my clit, the one that makes me contract with longing.

  “But I kinda like tight spots,” he goes on, tone languorous. “Truth be told, there’s really only one way I can work those out.”

  I chew at my lip, close my eyes. Let him move both hands in tandem, very slow, building gradually. Skipping beats just to make me moan. In the end, I can’t take it–I reach down, pat up his thigh and clutch at the heavy swing of his cock. It slicks my open fist, heats my palm. And he groans at the squeeze.

  “Don’t interrupt my work.” He swats at me but it’s playful. With a sigh, he relaxes right into my grip. Uses it to get himself off. “You’re very…distracting.”

  I find his eyes, look right at him. Ignore the flush that blooms from my cheeks to my collarbone. “Fuck me.”

  He skips another beat between my thighs before removing his thumb entirely. It trails a wet path up to my left nipple, where it tweaks another yelp of pleasure from my throat.

  “Please,” I bleat.

  Art leans down to lick the mess from my nipple. “No,” he says into my breast.

  “But…but I want you. So much.”

  “Oh, I can feel that.”

  I slow my hand on his cock and trace my nails across the thin, hot skin of him. “Ditto.” I love the way he jerks right back into my grasp. “Kiss me?”

  He watches his fingers emerge from my pussy with a thoughtful little smile. The moonlight catches them, refracts off the sticky shine of me. He brings the glossy digits to my mouth. “Kiss these for me first. I want to taste it on you.”

  I’ve never done any such thing before but I grab at his wrist, suck his fingers in. Once, I wanted to lick his entire fist; I never imagined he’d taste like the warm musk of my burgeoning orgasm when I did it.

  “Good. Very good,” he says, almost surprised. “You like that?”

  I mewl around his flesh.

  A faint crease appears between his eyebrows, flashing away. “So good, lovely.”

  And then I get what I want, finally. He pulls his hand away, rewards me with a kiss. I wrap my arms around his neck and pull him down, sucking his bottom lip like the greedy thing he’s made of me. Vaguely, I’m aware of movement between us. Of a snap of rubber. His kisses don’t falter until I feel the weight of his cock prodding at my clit, when he draws away to watch me take the length of him.

  It happens so easily. I’m too wet to resist his pushing cock, too taut to refuse the stretch it promises and God knows, too close to coming to play hard to get. Nevertheless, it feels like being broken in all over again; he’s worked me so well, so acutely, that I’m aware of his slightest pulse. The sigh that falls from my lips is like a magician’s silk scarf–long, ebbing, colours that flash. His hips meet mine and I’m full, so deliciously full that it makes me sore to move. But I love that.

  Art gathers my hair up and works one hand against my scalp to massage. His thrusts are measured, teasing things, though his uneven breath belies his need–with his mouth so close to my ear, I notice how incredibly responsive he is. Each time I thrust up to meet him, he exhales a little harder until he almost moans.

  This isn’t Art being a control freak, either; it’s me relinquishing it all to him. Giving myself up. Being hunted, brought down and won. Let him win me some more with these gradual undulations, and let his hips mark mine red as raspberries with each renewed assault. I wrap my legs around him, pull him in even deeper so he has no place to go.

  “I’m gonna put you in my lap,” he pants. “I want you to show me what you like.”

  Before I can figure out how I feel about that–performing for him, almost–he uses all his strength to draw away from me. Then he falls flat on his back, his cock strutting out in a blunt, thick invitation. I come up on my elbows and he grips my waist. Coaxes me to straddle him. My knees land either side of his hips with a hushed creak of the mattress.

  Gravity licks my spine with its rough tongue. I fall forward a little, catch my balance on his chest.

  “Cait.” He strokes gentle fingers across my belly. “Look at me while we do this.”

  “I…okay.”

  We groan together as he re-enters. His cock cuts an electric path inside me, this intimate position waking new nerves. I find myself aroused at the sight of my own breasts bouncing, and more, desperate to close my eyes and lose myself on his dick. His splayed grip of my buttocks is light but powerful, and he manoeuvres me back and forth until I curse at him and take over. An ache grows deep down, pushes me to greater speed. I tip my head back, scrunch the pillows in one fist. Smack at his hard chest with the other.

  Art loses his own battle with propriety. “Fuck, yes. Oh my God.” He jerks inside me, right against the tight spots he loves so much. That I love right back in return.

  Faster, deeper still. The air is liquid, pushed and pulled with strange and invisible force. We smell like sated flesh, like the sweet perfume of the candle, and I’m suddenly full of a hot, helpless ache, of the blissful realisation that he’s going to make me come and there’s not a thing I can do to stop it. When I look down, he’s following every shift of my hips and flash of my teeth; the boy is right there with me. In the moment. Damp hair swathes across his forehead and his cheekbones flus
h in streaks of sweat.

  I hear myself before I feel it–breathy, urgent cries. He palms my breasts harder than before, firm in his edge of torment, and his other hand finds its way between my legs to stroke with the flat side of his finger. It’s on that final contraction that I break and shudder and start calling to God for please, please, fuck me, oh God…something. Pleasure pulses from the throbbing bulb of my clit; Art bunches up beneath me and shoves his orgasm right into mine.

  My first thought is that he’s loud, so loud I have to cram a hand over his mouth in case he wakes Vicky across the hall. My second thought is that I’m shockingly wet, a slick mess that he’s still moving in, and then the aftershocks kick in and all I can focus on is the way my pussy pulls at his cock. It’s almost painful, and so delicious in its tight state. He rolls into every internal shiver with a gruff, satisfied sigh. Nips at my fingers.

  My last thought is that Fist Candy just made me come so hard, I can’t see straight. Really. I’m blinking like an idiot and the gorgeous bastard isn’t coming into focus at all.

  “Hmm…” That beautiful sound. He caresses my hips with warm hands. “You okay, lovely?”

  “Oh, I’m…I’m good.” I bear down on him one last time and savour the sharp ache I get in return. Then I peel myself from his still-hard cock. Our gluey skin complains at the separation, red marks misting in the spots we’d become joined–even the dark streaks of his tattoo. The sheets are cool when I land beside him, his torso clammy as he presses me against it.

  “Sure?”

  I tuck dark hair behind his ear. My breath still comes in uneven little breaks. “Very,” I whisper.

  Art dips to give me a lazy, hungry kiss. Tongue and teeth and all. “That was incredible.”

  Pride sings in my veins. I crack a wide grin. “I’m here all week.”

  “I planned on indulging a little longer than that,” he mumbles into my hair.

  “Oh…?”

  “Mmm. Much longer.”

  I kiss the hollows of his throat. “I like the sound of that.”

  “I should probably. Uh.” He gropes at himself, frowning. “Mind if I use your bathroom?”

  “Oh. Course not. I could probably use a glass of water, actually–you want one?”

  “Please.”

  The bed creaks its displeasure as the pair of us shift. Art throws his legs over the other side with a yawn, feeling about the floor for his jeans, and I scrabble for my silky little pyjamas. Before checking the hall, I smooth out my bedhead–nothing says “just fucked like it’s my birthday,” more than red cheeks and messy hair. Well…nothing besides the strapping hot guy standing behind me, his arms clasped around my waist before he sneaks a thumb over my nipple.

  “Which room is it?” he murmurs.

  “Straight ahead, just opposite.” I nod toward the closed white door. “I don’t think anyone’s in there.” Fingers crossed, Vicky–she of the sleeping through blaring alarms–has been out cold for all of this.

  “Back in two.”

  The kitchen lights are off, and I don’t bother switching them on as I fill two blue glasses with water. On impulse, I add a few ice cubes from the freezer too, and then take the glasses back into my vanquished bedroom. Vanquished. Heh.

  Oh God, I’m sore in so many places. My back isn’t the half of it.

  I feel like I just had the sex you’re supposed to have, the kind most people read about. Part of me wants to text everyone I know with smug smithery. The other part wants to strip off and starfish over the bed, luxuriating in the glow of I-Slept-With-Art-ness. The second one sounds wiser, so that’s what I do.

  “You look awfully comfy.” He stares down at me, his face soft with amusement.

  “Can’t think why.” I pat the empty half of the bed. “Just saving your spot, see.”

  He slips his jeans back off and turns to fold them over my overstuffed chair, giving me an illicit glimpse of his bare arse–which is as muscled as the rest of him. Ink flashes at his hip. “Expecting somebody else to fill it?”

  “Only the dog groomer.”

  Art grins as he climbs back beneath the sheet. “Ew.”

  The candle has burned down a little, and bathes our side of the room in syrupy orange. Never has light been so perfect for his eyes.

  “Water’s on the bedside table.” I nod towards it.

  “Oh. Cheers.” He reaches for me, and spreads my arm across his chest. My head comes to rest in the crook of his firm shoulder. “Cait?”

  “Yeah?”

  “I didn’t hurt you, right?”

  “Why would you think that?”

  He shrugs. “Just wanted to make sure. I can get…I get a little carried away.”

  “Same could be said for me.” I press little kisses along his clavicle. “It was amazing. You didn’t hurt me.”

  For a while, we’re silent. Just catching our breath. Art stretches to take a gulp of water, then settles back to draw his fingers through my hair.

  “That shit in the car park,” he says finally. “He hurt you, though.”

  Oh crap. I was not expecting that. I must’ve stiffened in his arms because he begins to rock me very gently.

  “I’m sorry,” he goes on. “I said it was okay, that you didn’t have to tell me. But I thought about it some more. A lot. Cait, if he’s dangerous, I should know.”

  “I don’t know that he’s dangerous, exactly,” I manage.

  “But who is he? Do you know him well?”

  “Unfortunately.” I chew the edge of my tongue, nervous. “His name is Dominic. He’s my ex. We split up last year, but he appears to have…changed his mind, I suppose.”

  Art slides a palm slowly down my back, and begins to massage around the tops of my buttocks. Maybe he can feel the sudden jump in my pulse. Wants to ease it. “Does he have a history of this kind of thing?”

  “What, showing up in car parks unannounced? No. When we were together…God, it’s complicated.” I don’t want to tell Art that Dominic didn’t want me; it will suck all my newfound confidence away. Yet I don’t know quite how to explain things without that important bit of information. “He wasn’t the most devoted boyfriend in the world.”

  “Am I right in guessing that he was the one to end things?”

  “Yeah,” I say quietly.

  “When did this start?”

  “About a week ago, maybe two? He sent me a message, but I ignored it and blocked him. Then he sent this old photo of us together to the flat. Delivered it, actually.” I sigh. “I had no idea he’d end up coming to see me in person. He’s weird, but I never expected that kind of…well. That kind of effort.”

  “Lovely. It’s not your fault.” Art brushes a kiss to my forehead. “I was this close to stepping in when I saw him, you know. But I couldn’t see quite what was going on, at first. Didn’t want to interrupt your business. And then when he grabbed you, he saw me…think I scared him off.”

  “Yeah. Thanks for that, by the way.”

  “You don’t need to thank me. Ever.”

  The room grows silent again. Truths keep bubbling up on my tongue, prickly ones about Dominic, but I can’t find the bravery to cast them Art’s way. I want to be rid of the secrets and the burdens. It’d be a relief to tell. So why can’t I grow the balls, and why am I nearly crying? Jesus, Cait. Get a grip.

  “Hey.” Art pulls me in tighter. “It’s alright, seriously. Nothing’s going to happen, okay?”

  “It’s not that.” My voice wavers. Cracks. And then it all comes spewing out. “I just…I was awful in that relationship. Such a doormat. I mean, he was awful too–I don’t even know what he saw in me, he was so bloody coarse sometimes–but he poured this shit all over me and I just let him. I let him, Art. And when it got really toxic, I didn’t even leave.” I breathe hard, trying to stem the tears that threaten. The disgust in my words is evident. “I had to be pushed.”

  “So what? What’s wrong with that?”

  “I don’t think it makes me a good person,
” I force out. “I just thought you should know.”

  “Oh, Cait.” Art tips me on to my back and hovers over, his hand warm on my cheek. The candle light shades his profile into a handsome charcoal sketch. “So you made choices that you regret. So he made you miserable. So he pushed you. So what?” Now he leans in to murmur in my ear. “Don’t you see it? He pushed you right in front of me.”

  Chapter Twenty-One

  I wake to the last dregs of the spluttering candle. Sex has become a fire risk. Bad Cait!

  I’m struggling through the sheets to blow the mess of pink wax out when a heavy arm lands across my ribs and drags me back against a warm, warm body. Art is a rumpled, sleep-stained heap of a man–mussed-up hair, heavy eyelids, creased sheet pattern pressed into his cheek. He purrs contentedly in the hollows of my neck, clouding warm breath that spills down to pull at my nipples.

  “It’s nearly nine,” I whisper. “Art. Do you have anywhere to be?”

  “Day off,” he says, eyes still closed.

  “Me too.” Though I have Rich and Drew descending at three o’clock to bake Vicky’s favourite food group: the New York cheesecake. “You want some breakfast? We have eggs.”

  “Mmph.”

  “I’ll take that as a no.”

  Out in the bathroom, the shower clicks on and the flat is full of waterfall sounds; liquid spattering our white bath. Looks like Vicky’s up.

  “Is that your flatmate?” Art mumbles.

  “Yeah. I’ll introduce you. I mean, you know…when I get chance.”

  “When I have clothes on.”

  “It saddens me that such things occur, but yes. That’d be best.”

  He titters at that one and yanks me closer. His cock prods the valley of my buttocks, and I writhe back against its velvet heat. I take a moment to remember last night, and to appreciate the beautiful, naked man in my bed–the one who gave me an orgasm so intense I can still feel it in sharp, momentary flutters.