Tainted Touch Read online

  “Bea!” Art yells from the doorway. “Stop scaring off my girlfriend!”

  With balled fists, she gives me an exasperated look and then turns to yell right back. “I’m just telling her where to sit, you numpty!”

  “I’ve warned you about the n-word, you little–”

  “The n-word.” Her patent black school shoes scuff loudly as she twists back to me. “He’s so bossy.”

  “Tell me about it.” A laugh bubbles up in my throat, and I have to cough to suppress it.

  Art hops down the step, clutching a red schoolbag covered in cartoon characters. “I heard that, y’know.”

  “We’re bonding,” I say, my finger darting between me and Bea.

  She blinks at me. “I don’t even know what that means. Art, what does it mean?”

  “Get in the car, the pair of you. Before I get really cross.”

  Ten minutes and one hefty blast of the Frozen soundtrack later, we pull up outside a smart detached house in a cul-de-sac. It sports little hedges shaved into perfect cubes–the kind that whisper we can afford a gardener, peasant in a snide voice–and fat pillar candles sit half-melted in glass jars on a sideboard in the porch. Because the porch is big enough to hold a sideboard. I’d like to say you can tell a politician lives here, but nobody’s spray-painted a big red X on the door so it’s not possible to speculate.

  Art kills the engine and leans back from the driver’s seat to pat my knee. I chew my lip at his touch, my fingers creeping to cover his without a second thought.

  “I’ll just take madam inside, okay?”

  I nod. There’s a sharp tug at my coat sleeve; Bea’s yanking it with something between desperation and glee.

  “Are you coming in to play? Because we’ve got a Wii. Haven’t we, Art? We could show Cait how to do the jogging thing, or the one with the dancing…”

  “I would love to show Cait our Wii, Busy, but it’ll be bath time for you and I need to cook Cait some dinner, ‘cause I promised.”

  “Oh.” She sinks back into her blue carseat, deflated. “Well, if you promised…”

  I give her sleeve a tug of reciprocation. “Another time. And it was lovely to meet you.”

  Art slips out of the driver’s seat and yanks open Bea’s door, where he stands clutching her school bag, waiting.

  A scowl crosses her small, squishy features, quickly followed by a sheepish smile. “I like how you sing Elsa.”

  “I liked how Art did it,” I add, smirking at him.

  “Shove off. Busy–out!”

  “Okay, okay.” She reaches over to pull my sleeve a last time. “Byeeeeee.”

  “Night,” I call after her.

  The passenger door slams shut, and Art catches my eye through the window before turning to chivvy his sister along. Gravel crunches loudly beneath their shoes; I watch Bea skip to the door and wonder whether his parents are in. Not that I expected to be dragged in and introduced–the thought alone makes me nauseous–but it feels weird to be waiting outside. The mark on my neck throbs gently, little shivers streaking across broken capillaries; it’s like I have a piece of him with me, always. Like I’m somehow branded by the touch that once frightened me in an ironic attempt at exposure therapy. I can hear the feminists wailing from here.

  After a few minutes, Art resurfaces, gesturing toward the front seats as he approaches the car. I slip out to greet him, eyeing the doorway for a nosey parent–but it’s closed.

  “Sorry about that.” He strides around and curves an arm about my waist, tugging me in. I land against his chest with a hard thump of muscle and a waft of his spicy cologne. “Now. Let me say hello to you properly.”

  And with that, his hand finds my jaw, tips it; his nose finds my cheek, nuzzling; and his mouth finds mine for a measured tasting of a kiss. Slow seconds fade as I lose myself to the smooth texture of his t-shirt, the firm lines of his hips beneath my hands.

  “Art,” I mumble against his lips, “what if someone sees?”

  “Nobody’s looking. Hey.” He draws away to peer at me from beneath his dark hair. “I’d have taken you in to say hi, but as much as I hate to admit this, it’s the kind of house where you don’t visit unless you’ve been invited. Mom just pulls a face and then panics because she hasn’t tidied up.”

  “Let me guess–the place is always tidy anyway?”

  “The cleaner comes three times a week.”

  “It’s okay. Besides.” I stare at the gravel, trying to find the least offensive way to phrase this. Tact, as Rich pointed out, is hardly my forte. “It’ll be a while before I introduce you to Mama McCoe.”

  “Still waiting to see if I’m a dick?”

  “Yes,” I say, probably too honestly.

  Art snorts.

  “I mean, no. I mean–” I cringe to myself. “She’s not exactly your dad’s biggest fan.”

  “Neither am I. Ace. We’ll have something in common.” Strong hands glide across my back, coming to rest on the cheeks of my ass. He spanks playfully. “Anyway–let’s get back. I want to give you the grand tour.”

  ***

  The house, I learn, actually belonged to a relative of Art’s who left it to the family. In the joyful spirit of nepotism, Sebastian Lyons gifted it to Art when he went to university, on the proviso that he rented it out so the proceeds would become his allowance. Mr Lyons wasn’t best pleased when it ended up funding a long trip to India, followed by a “dalliance” in London. Art’s new career as a massage therapist is, as he puts it, tolerated but barely acknowledged, and certainly not applauded around the dinner table. I tell him that I can’t think of a better waste for half a degree; he laughs into his beer bottle and makes me eat more naan bread–which I do, because it’s delicious. And I reserve the right to binge.

  Now we’re lounging on his cracked brown leather sofa, barefoot, our stomachs full and our temples fizzy. Some tacky gameshow plays on the TV, but we’ve been talking over it for so long that I’ve got no idea what’s going on with the green swimming pool they keep tossing midgets into (another quality Channel 4 show). Art slumps back against the cushions, a beer bottle in one hand and my hair fisted in the other. I lie across the sofa with my head in his lap and my knees drawn up, watching his mouth while he talks.

  In the living room, Art has stacked a bunch of old uni textbooks and cookbooks, and balanced a glass sheet over the top to create a coffee table. It looks all kinds of quirky cool. His coasters are finger-painted by Bea in muddy shades of green and brown, like autumn leaves, and his boxing gear sits in one corner, battered black gloves hanging over his black rucksack (like many dudes, he’s adventurous with his palette. Not).

  All the while, he keeps his fingertips swirling across my scalp and trailing through my loose hair; he must’ve learned the technique from his massage course. Absolute bliss. Judging by the fact that his erection’s been pressing into the base of my neck for the past half hour, he’s enjoying himself too, and there’s something indulgent about the way neither of us has acknowledged it yet with words–like there’s no rush. We have all evening, all alone.

  “You’ll have to teach me how to do this.” My eyes fall closed, and tingles spill down my spine to caress the curves of my buttocks. “I want to repay the favour.”

  “Hmm.” His lust-drunk, throaty trademark sound. “Other favours are higher on my priority list, as it happens.”

  “Oh?”

  “I’ll give you three guesses.”

  I open my eyes to gaze up at him. A lazy, satisfied expression turns his features soft in the lamp light, and his mussed-up hair casts a bedtime monster’s shadow on the woodchip wall behind.

  “Cooking?” I ask. “‘Cause I haven’t cooked for you yet–”

  “Which is a complete travesty, by the way.”

  “–But you have for me.” Tonight, he made a daal with chickpeas and spinach, something Tandoori with chicken, and the freshest naan bread I’ve ever tasted. “So…not cooking?”

  He shakes his head with a vague smile
. “Guess again.”

  Obviously the answer is something to do with sex, and as much as the thought pleases my filthy mind, I like teasing him too much to waste the chance. “I haven’t offered to punch any of your exes in the face.”

  Art stiffens a little beneath me and his fingers tighten in my hair. Relaxing again seems to take a big effort. “If one ever shows up in a car park, I’ll let you know.”

  It was mean of me to dangle that one. I’m so conflicted over Priya that curiosity threatens to iron my cat–yet I’m the one with the weirdo ex. Such a hypocrite. “Sorry,” I mumble.

  “Don’t be silly, babe.”

  I stretch my legs out, point my toes. Lactic acid diffuses in stiff waves. “So. Guess number three. Suppose I should make this a good one. What do I win?”

  “Me doing the washing up.” He laughs.

  “Score. Okay….hmm.” I reach for his free hand, tug the beer bottle away and set it on the makeshift table. Then I separate his index finger and draw it up to my mouth. My red lipstick faded as we ate, and again as we kissed, but faint remains of crimson still stain my lips enough to leave light marks on his skin. “Give me a moment to think.”

  Art lets out a little gasp as I suck his finger in. I drag my tongue along the underside, flick it around the base, dart into the sleek web of skin in the joins between. Ripe spices burst on my taste buds; his wrist is cool in my palm.

  “If this helps you to think,” he murmurs, “I’m going to start coming to your classes.”

  While I lick the tip of his finger, my eyes find his and my lips curve into a grin.

  He puts his head back and groans. “Shit. Where’s your third guess, anyway?”

  “I think I already made it.”

  His cock, now straining inside his jeans, jerks up into the hollow of my bare neck. “You’re a piece of work, lovely. You know that?”

  I giggle around his finger, still tipsy from the beer we shared over dinner. “Like you’re so subtle.”

  “I was angling for a back massage, as it happens. But if you want to do…the other thing…Christ. I’d be rude to refuse.”

  For the first time since I arrived, I let my mind wander through the possibilities now we’re all alone. No roommates to disturb, no first-time nerves to cloak our inhibitions. I do want to repay his favours to me–all of them, and slowly. If he’s loud when he’s holding back for me, I want to hear just how feral he gets when I’m doing it all for him. It’s all part of touch, all part of the package.

  Sometimes, I stare at him when I think he isn’t looking, speechless that I have permission to touch him at all. But he is looking, now–his pupils dilate in the sweet anticipation of desire–and I still can’t tear my eyes away.

  I let his finger drop from my mouth and roll off the sofa to push his knees apart. Then I shuffle forward on my own knees, coming to fit neatly between his thighs. The pulse at my clavicle becomes a giddy thrust of blood; I can’t believe I’m going to do this. I can’t believe I waited this long.

  “Off,” I whisper, yanking the hem of his t-shirt.

  He complies, arching back to shrug off the black fabric. In the dim light, his torso is cut into precise muscular portions, and his biceps bulge and splay as his arms fall back against his body. Without waiting for my request, he reaches down to loosen his fly, and I wait with nerve-wracked patience while he works each button free. His cock, still covered by the grey cotton of his boxers, swells instantly through the gap. Breath makes a song and dance as it leaves him.

  I press my hand over his erection and glance up at his pained face. “You’re wet here.” A damp patch sticks to the firm head of his cock, syrupy beneath the pads of my fingers.

  No response. Art works his jaw, rolling his bottom lip back and forth in a bid to distract himself. When that fails, he yanks my hand from his cock and starts to pull down the remains of his clothes. I sit back on my heels, watching him emerge from the boxer shorts. Fascinated by the sight of him up close.

  I take my time just looking at him, absorbing the moment, letting my gaze travel up the fine dark hair on his thighs before coming to rest on his naked cock. It stands ripe and full and prodding at his belly, bobbing to soak my breath up and anxious to reach my mouth. The muscles in his thighs pull taut; he watches me with glazed eyes, a hand snaking down to fist my hair again. So it begins. The disassembly of the boy.

  I nuzzle into the crease where his groin meets his thigh. Drag my tongue tip through fine hairs and rough skin. At the thick base of his cock, the skin is stretched and pulled to bruised raspberries–I make sure every long exhalation warms him there, clutches him in a fist of steam. The closer I get, the deeper his sighs dip to warn me. No matter. This is revenge for all of his teasing, and an act of worship besides. When he sinks back into the sofa and presses gently at my scalp, I give him just a little of what he craves: my tongue, curving around the head of his cock. Salt, sweet, sticky–I whimper to taste him, and he groans right back. His cock thumps against my closed lips, impatient as the rest of him. Eager as I am to have him in my mouth, I, like Art, will not be persuaded to alter my plans.

  The room grows quiet, game show noise fading into a smudged bubble from another time. This place is just me and Art and the sound of the wet, sucking kisses I plant along the underside of his cock. He breathes along in the same rhythm, air hitching in his throat as each kiss begins, and spewing out when I let his cock bounce back on his belly. I love the sound it makes–heavy flesh on muscle.

  At that, he groans again. “You’re driving me crazy.”

  “I like looking at you.” And I do. There’s something so deliciously naughty about telling him so. My clit swells in response, full between fuller lips. “I like thinking about how good you feel inside me.”

  “Easy, Belle.” He lets off a strangled burst of laughter, then the hand in my hair slips to cup my jaw so I’ve no choice but to look at him. “What happened to my innocent little Cait?”

  “You corrupted her.”

  “All my fault, huh?”

  I brush his cock with the tip of my nose, and it thwacks back in a demanding stutter. “I like the way you taste, too.”

  “Go on then,” he says thickly, sitting back again. “Tell your beast a story.”

  So I do.

  It starts with me taking him into my mouth, getting him good and wet. In my head, I’ve dragged him away from the punch bag all sweaty and throwing off electric blue sparks; he’s punched and punched toward a release he can’t fathom, can never reach. Here I am to show him just how to get there, a nymph to suck him a fairytale, a balm for the nightmares his fists failed to slay. He swells against the roof of my mouth, begging–and he can keep begging, my Fist Candy, because I’m not about to send him gently into the good night.

  I play games with him. Shove my head forward, let my teeth graze his groin, but never close in enough to fully encase his cock. When I lick right into the cleft that splits his head, he groans louder.

  “See, once upon a time,” I breathe, “I took this man home and he pulled me into his lap, made me ride him.”

  Art pants and flinches. “Did he make you come?”

  “His cock made me come.” God, this is fun. Foreplay with invisible fingers. “He grabbed my hips and shoved right up inside me so I had nowhere to go except to just come, and come…”

  “Fuck.” He mirrors my words, pushing my mouth down so he can buck up into it.

  And I let him, because I want more of the curses he spills in posh boy’s shapes, more of the hmms and the whimpers. I suck him hard until he grunts in surprise, then I go about the business of easing him further in, letting his cockhead throb into the soft tissues of my throat while he grows fatter and wetter. Before long, he slides easily, and I bite down through my lips to create a ring of pressure. He’s so responsive that it’s not hard to guess what pleases him–we speak the same language, the one they call You, Now, Please…

  A rhythm builds between us. His hips rock slowly, side to side; h
e twists into my throat mid-tide and I sink down to meet him. Each stroke is tainted with promise and helpless heat. Each mouthful is a little harder to contain. I’m hyper-aware of the melty lamplight and the golden glow around him, a warmth that mimics the scent of his need. Our silhouettes have merged on the wall to create one bucking, moaning creature, and I’ve sucked his nightmare backwards, painted it in pale shadows and kissed it to bliss.

  Art’s fist closes tighter in my hair. He tastes sharper and of musk; his blood ripples beneath taut skin to follow the lashing curve of my tongue. My throat aches, my neck aches. Nothing matters but the burgeoning release pulling his thighs hard as steel beneath my palms.

  “C-Cait,” he pants.

  I slow while he strokes the hair from my face. “Mmm…?”

  “Take your knickers off.” Short, blunt words of desire. He fires them off like bullets.

  I run my mouth over his cock a last time before easing up to my feet. The world quivers; everything in my vision swims.

  “Now,” he says through his teeth.

  Down comes my underwear, flirty little slip of black satin that it is. The damp gusset catches on my bare toes as I shift it aside–it lands somewhere near the TV stand, and both of us watch as if it’s a champagne cork flying across the room. Then I’m just standing over him, wet, waiting and wanting. My jaw trembles, confused at my empty mouth and buzzed on filthy adrenaline. Deep, heavy breaths spike the air from both sides.

  It seems to happen in slow motion: Art gets up, kicks off the jeans and boxers puddled about his feet. Looms over me. His mouth twists in a curious little smile.

  “Turn around,” he says. “Get on your knees.”

  With a single nod, I obey. The old floorboards groan softly at my weight.

  “Now bend over. Put your arms on the coffee table.”

  Once more, I do as he asks. I have to slide painted coasters aside, but the table feels sturdy enough, and cool–so cool it sends goosebumps shooting up my forearms.