Tainted Touch Page 24

  Art slip his palm around to my breasts and weighs them with firm thumbs. “Are you getting me hard on purpose?”

  “I thought that was just a normal morning thing for dudes.”

  He plants a lazy, wet kiss on my exposed throat. “You try getting that excited over a shower, a bit of ironing and a disappointingly limp bowl of Frosties. Mornings aren’t all this sexy.”

  “It’s a rock and roll life you lead,” I tease.

  “Hush up. You haven’t even heard me do Frozen.”

  I push back on him again, my buttocks fitting right against his hips. “Yeah. Haven’t actually decided if I want to.”

  “I s’pose me squealing do you wanna build a snowmaaaaaaan? in your ear is a bit of a moodkiller. Unless you’re into that sort of thing.”

  “I bet Aidan knows someone who is.”

  He snorts. “Living with him was quite the education.”

  The shower shuts off, and the bathroom door creaks open. Vicky pads down the hall and into the kitchen, humming while she slams cupboards and boils the kettle.

  Art clears his throat. “Just…out of interest…how soundproof are your walls?”

  I consider the odd nights Vicky’s brought a dude back, and try not to blush. “Erm. Proof-ish.”

  “So there’s a considerable chance that she heard us last night.”

  “Maybe. She might’ve been asleep.”

  “And if we were to do something now,” he goes on, his hand on my left breast tightening, “she’d definitely hear.”

  I bite my lip as he teases my nipple. It grows tight in his grip. “She’d hear you!”

  “Guess how many fucks I give?”

  “Art,” I murmur, but he’s already got me on my back and is suddenly far more awake than I’d anticipated. “We can’t–” His mouth descends, coaxes mine open to accept his tongue. There’s nothing to do but accept his naked weight, melt into the heat of it. Somehow, my thighs are already open and he settles comfortably between them as if it’s the most natural thing in the world.

  “If you’re going to rub all up against me with that gorgeous arse of yours,” he says thickly, “then this is what’ll happen.”

  He’s so hard, pressing into the slick lips of my pussy. I’m barely ready–it’ll be blunt and sharp all at once–but I can’t refuse him any more than I can count backwards in Russian. For a tense moment, he stays right there, just stroking the head of his cock over my swollen, hooded clit. I want to be fucked hard, shoved right into the pillows and the headboard and the wall. We’ll sound like I’m ironing his bloody cat.

  Outside the bedroom, Vicky flicks on the TV. A spoon clatters against a cereal bowl. Fuck our stupid decision to pick a flat with teensy living space just for the big wardrobes. The Boyfriend Fairy should have descended right after we’d taken the tour and pointed out that if we planned on having half decent sex without traumatising each other, we’d all have to be gagged.

  I try to distract Art with kisses–sucking at his bottom lip, pulling his hair in my fist. All it does is dare him to be noisy, and I have clasp him closer, muffle his low groans with my mouth. Vicky’s phone rings; she starts chatting away to her dad. Christ. And Art, with that playful smile he gets, starts kissing down my belly.

  Ah. Not that. So many of my fantasies centre around the feel of a man’s tongue between my legs; it hasn’t happened in so long. After last night, when he told me how he wanted to taste me, I should’ve guessed this would happen sooner or later but fuck you, universe–why does it have to be now?

  “Stop,” I hiss.

  He peers up lazily, hair in his eyes. “Hmm?”

  “I can’t…she’s right outside, Art…”

  “But you want this.” He licks along the tendon of my inner thigh. “I can smell it.”

  I blush with violence. Wince at his dirty observation, the kind of words nice boys definitely don’t say.

  Just to make his point, he puts a stubbled cheek against my thigh and runs the tip of his tongue along the sticky join of my outer lips. Prods at where my clit should be, breaks through. Hits right where I love it best: the exposed, fleshy underside that wrings a yelp from my dry throat.

  I clap a hand over my mouth. Contemplate a pillow. There’s no changing his mind, and I’d be lying if I said I wanted to; I’m so primed for this after last night. And he wants it, too–he keeps sneaking glances at me, his delight at our intimacy blatant. When he scoops my thighs up and rests them right over his broad, muscled shoulders, I pant out a sigh. It props my hips up, spreads me right out, and between the angle and the daylight spilling under the curtains, gives him the kind of view you get in brazen amateur porn.

  “You look fucking obscene,” he drawls. Another glance up at me, his eyes glassy and bright. “Just so you know…I love to do this. So you take your time.”

  He crooks one arm around my thigh, his hand resting on my mound with a pressure that pulls everything up and keeps me still at the same time. It leaves his other hand free to sit where he needs it. Where I need it. Right in the syrupy mess already gathering at the split of my buttocks.

  Vicky laughs at something her dad says, and Art sucks my clit into the wet heat of his mouth.

  A groan dissipates to moisture in my fist.

  That lovely hmm sound, it rumbles around his throat while he eats me. A grunted lullaby to my hips. No teasing, not like the last time he pleasured me; he finds my rhythm in seconds and works his tongue across my clit in even, deliberate strokes. Nobody warned me Fist Candy liked to be listened to…Jesus, does he like to be watched as well?

  I find relief in bursting sighs. They grace the air lightly, tearing a little with their jagged edges but soaring off like birds all the same. It’s not enough for Art. Two fingers ease their way inside me to coax my clit from beneath, and they twist deep. Now every third sigh is a bitten-back moan.

  Vicky starts clearing up crockery. The dishwasher creaks open, and then finally, her chatter dissolves further down the hall. She’s in her room, hopefully getting ready.

  I too am nearing the end. Oh, God. Every thrust of his fingers loosens this burgeoning, spiralling ache, and his tongue catches the tail end of it to spin harder. He starts to talk to me, to my flesh, breathing a yes or a fuck in husky, drowned tones. I’m getting tighter–can actually hear myself getting wetter, with the slaps of his moving fingers–and he knows this. Knows I’m close. Is pushing, pushing with everything he has.

  I’ve never come in anyone’s mouth before, unless you count about three hundred and seventy two times in my head. But I’m so afraid it will slip away. I want to tell him not to stop, to do that harder, to give back some of his dirty boy’s words. It’s just part of it. What I need. But if I whisper, he’s too wrapped in my thighs to hear me, and if I’m louder, I’ll let go and won’t be able to stop. Close is relative; I could be a groaning mess for minutes before my climax hits. So I try to take solace in talking–just guttural, barely-there words he doesn’t need to understand. Yes, yes, yes. Oh, please. Ow. My hands are in his hair now, groping at dark clumps of tresses; he scoops my clit from the underside with a rough, soaked tongue.

  Vicky’s door closes with a thump, and she totters back out into the kitchen in what sound like her heeled boots. No phone this time, and she switches off the TV. Opens more cupboards.

  For the love of God, why won’t she LEAVE?

  In desperation, I try to wriggle a bit, but he yanks my legs right back over his shoulders and plunges his fingers in deep. They remain there, slowly circling, spitting sparks into soft tissue and threatening to push me over. I arch back. Pull his hair, then feel instantly guilty and rub his scalp with my palm.

  Art comes up for breath. His voice is hoarse. “You going to come, lovely?”

  Vicky treads up the hall and stops by the sideboard. Keys jangle practically outside my door.

  I ignore him, but I want him back between my legs before the urgency inside me falls away. And he won’t give it to me. He just stares up at my
flushed face while he slowly, slowly turns his fingers.

  “Come on,” he murmurs. “Come on.”

  “Please,” I manage. The word barely makes it out of my mouth alive.

  “Mmm.” With a grin, he drops back down and zig-zags a wet tongue tip over my clit.

  Vicky flicks the door catch. It shoots open with a click. Then she heaves it open and swears to herself, her heels stomping back a few paces.

  Art takes me right back into his mouth with a firm suckling motion. He stays there, letting my aching clit ebb against the edge of one canine tooth. A sweet bleat of a sob gurgles out of me, and outside, I swear Vicky pauses. Fuck, fuck.

  I can’t hold back anymore. He won’t let me and I don’t actually know how to stop. So I close my eyes, the dark fooling me that I’m invisible; I push my hips up and force his fingers in that last sensitive quarter of an inch.

  “Yeah,” he whispers. “Yeah, that’s it.”

  The front door slams.

  Vicky echoes down the hall, each thump a blessed step further away from us.

  Art releases my clit, breathes hot air over it, and his next lick rips my orgasm free.

  I’m as loud as he was, but no fist gags me. I just have to let it all out. He’s relentless, each finger twist guiding me through sore, sharp little spasms. Everything throbs beneath the slick force of his tongue. When he shifts up to kiss me, I’m still coming, and when he forces his cock down into the thrum of my tight muscles, I’m still coming, and when his hips dart suddenly and hard, I’m still coming and coming like a record that skips before it sings.

  Then…the beat drops.

  Ah, ah. I’d sob a melody, but it’d be lost under the growling bass of him.

  ***

  Best. Monday. Ever.

  The flat is full of vanilla cheesecake perfume, I have no lectures, and last night was just about the best of my life. The last time I felt this buzzed, I’d had nine mojitos. And then I threw up, which somewhat spoiled it.

  I can’t wipe the shit-eating grin off my face, even though I read three more chapters of The Waves earlier. Grace is pot-roasting more seagulls and watering her lover-plants with freshly milked tears, but not before running around in a storm and screaming like a banshee because she just realised that even if she committed the rest of her sorry life to the task, she wouldn’t be able to count every last grain of sand on the beach. No longer could she stand the thought of an individual being gone to waste, left anonymous. She would taste each grain and suck the storm from it. Commit its flavour to memory. At no point does she make sand gravy for the seagull, but I’m heartened to note she’s mashing some potatoes.

  Also, she’s getting pissed at the lighthouse, which is understandable since it hunted her down and shut her away. Part of me thinks the lighthouse is a metaphor for patriarchy; phallic, possessive, predatory. The other isn’t so sure, because anyone could find themselves in a lighthouse. Like Mills. Or me. Maybe even Art, who has yet to explain his troubles. This he is forgiven because he fucked me so hard that the world turned over, and because he was so kind last night when I cracked.

  He pushed you right into me. I guess he did.

  After I finished reading, I threw Mills a text about my patriarchy theory and tried not to be so unsubtle about checking that she’s okay. Probably failed and she’s probably annoyed, but I feel weird knowing my little sister is struggling. And I feel kind of helpless, too, knowing there’s little I can do at this point.

  Now Rich and Drew are watching their cheesecake bake–mostly by staring into the oven and making sounds of manly encouragement, as if it’s about to score a penalty goal–and I’m trying to get my dissertation notes together from their various hiding places in my room. We all have personal tutor meetings on Friday to discuss possible topics, and I need to at least look organised.

  A sudden screech in the kitchen makes me jerk around.

  “Spider!” Drew screams. “Kill it with fire!”

  Rolling my eyes, I put the papers back down and hurry through. Drew is holding a knife aloft a chopping board half-smattered in sliced red strawberries. His eye sockets have stretched to twice their normal size.

  “What the hell?” I ask.

  “It crawled out of the punnet. Was fucking huge!” Drew says through his teeth. He stalks along the counter, knife still poised. “I’mma kill this fucktoad. Don’t get too close.”

  Rich, who’s kneeling next to the oven and clutching an iPad, purses his lips. “You’ve never witnessed Drew versus a spider before?”

  I shake my head. “Phobia?”

  “More of a Clockwork Orange-style irrational anger,” Rich says casually.

  Drew throws him a venomous look. “You never know if they’re going to bite your ass. Little bastards keep cross-breeding, and we all know what happens when one crawls out of your fruit…”

  I tut, although I like the idea of a poisonous spider moseying around the flat about as much as he does. “It’s cruising for something savoury?”

  “It’s probably deadly.” Drew takes a breath, calms himself, and then pauses beside Vicky’s green teabag jar. “Huh. Hang on a sec–”

  “Drew!” I shout. “You can’t just stab our–!”

  “Gaaaaaaah!” He swipes the jar aside and the world’s tiniest spider staggers off the tiles at the back. “Die, you boggle-eyed little fuck!” Drew brings the knife handle down again and again, pounding the poor smidge into crumbs.

  I glance at Rich, lost for words, and he feigns a sympathetic smile.

  “You said the spider was big,” I manage.

  “It had a big arse on it, like one of those black widows.” Drew yanks a piece of kitchen roll free from the roll and then cleans the remains of the spider neatly into its folds. “Baby black widow. That’s some scary shit. Lucky for you and Vickdemort, I was here to deal with it.”

  “Right.” I give a slow, sarcastic nod. “So…now you’ve finished damaging the property, how’s the cheesecake looking?”

  “I dunno.” He shrugs. “That’s Rich’s job. I’m just doing the topping.”

  “Okay. Rich?”

  He gestures to the oven window, where a smooth, round baked cheesecake glows creamy in the yellow light. It’s not quite browned, but has at least firmed up. “What’s the verdict, Dr Cake?”

  “Needs another ten minutes, I reckon.” I wrinkle my nose at him. “Dr Cake?”

  “What, like it’s bad?” Rich holds up the iPad. “You want this back?”

  “That’s mine? What the hell?”

  Rich straightens the neckline of his striped Abercrombie mandigan and bursts into a very white, toothy grin. “We had to check up on your boy somehow.”

  “Yup.” Drew turns back to the strawberries. “If you won’t provide the info, we have to go a huntin’.”

  The colour drains from my face. “Please tell me you haven’t been going through my Facebook.”

  “Only his page,” Rich says, as if this makes it all better.

  “What? Why?” I squeal.

  “His socks are in the bathroom,” Drew says matter-of-factly. “So he’s staying over. So he’s…serious. And he needed an appraisal.”

  “They could be someone else’s socks.” I fall back against the wall, folding my arms defensively.

  Rich snorts. “Nah. If Vicky brought someone back, you’d have already found a tactless way to tell me.”

  “She’s renounced all men until after her show, you know,” I warn.

  “Yeah, she doesn’t want me, doesn’t want anybody. Blah blah.”

  “See.” Drew slides a heap of sliced strawberries into a plastic tub, and sprinkles them with white sugar. “We know you too well, Cait. So stop trying to pretend this bloke isn’t a big deal.”

  “Oh.” I pat my hot cheeks. “So…what did your forensic analysis unearth, exactly?”

  “Good question.” Drew jabs the knife at Rich. “Do the honours.”

  “Dude. Do not point that thing at me.”

  “Why
? Afraid I’ll drop it on your handbag?”

  “Sod off.” Rich glares at his brother and then turns back to the iPad, shifting to get comfy. “Let’s see. Yeah. Now I did all the photos, but I’ve only gone back about three years on his actual page–”

  “You’re insane,” I cut in.

  “As I was saying.” His upper lip twitches in disapproval. “The most important thing is, he doesn’t appear to be a dick. No exes bitching on here, no grammatically poor rants about shit he knows nothing about…it’s all very PC. Wildest it gets is a status or two where someone else tags him in a night out. From the photos and the dates, he’s not looking like much of a manwhore, either.”

  “Well cheers.” I pull at the skin on my knuckles, trying to look like I’m not listening too hard. “Always a bonus.”

  “Last girlfriend I could see in the pics is like, four years ago. Some Indian chick. Hot, but not Cait-hot. Obviously.”

  “Obviously,” Drew chimes in, grinning at me.

  Indian chick…? He went to India, didn’t he?

  “She sure liked him all sweaty and beat up after his boxing matches. Lots of lovey photos you don’t want to see, Cait. Don’t look at those.” Rich wags a finger at me. “No good will come from that. You hear me?”

  “For a boxer, he’s got a very non-beat up face,” Drew says with an edge of suspicion.

  “He quit,” I mumble. “A couple of years back.”

  “But anyway. Yeah.” Rich gives a final nod. “Single for a while. Either he’s got a very private private life, or he’s not seen much action.”

  “His brother told me that he’s…picky.” I really don’t like where this conversation is going.

  Drew cocks a thick eyebrow. “He said that? Either he’s overcompensating, or this guy really likes you. Like, really.”

  Okay–now this bit, I tolerate. “I hope it’s the latter.”

  “He did take you to London. Which was nice,” Rich muses.

  “Now that we’re done with the massive interference in my love life, you want to get that cheesecake out? It needs to cool for an hour before you decorate, and if you want it done in time for Vicky…” I gesture to the clock above the stove. “Best get a move on.”