A Twist of Fate (20 page)

But soon he lowered his head and took the primed bud into his mouth while his hand moved to the other. Soon that was as rock hard as its twin.

I'd never come from breast play alone, but with Paul I believed I could. He sucked and pinched so sublimely, nipping, licking, circling, lavishing such devotion on my nipples that they became little sentinels of pleasure. He could stay at them forever. He pinched hard at one point and didn't let go. A stream of sensation poured through me. Pain, but not. I rode it out, arching up to his hands, not wanting to lose that feeling. My clit throbbed as the near-electric pleasure flowed into it. I eased myself through with incoherent moans and pants.

At length, Paul eased off and soothed my nipples with licks and kisses. His fingers now worked their way down my belly towards my sex, not a moment too soon.

His middle finger was poised, held over my clit. If he didn't touch it, I'd die, surely. I bucked with a grunt, seeking out his touch.

‘Oh God, please!' I couldn't help it. It was as though my body was plugged in but the ‘on' switch hadn't yet been flicked.

The downward movement of his finger stopped. ‘Please what?'

‘Touch me.'

‘I can do that, Callie, but …' he said, his voice cat-like smooth.

I moaned in anticipation.

‘You're not allowed to come.'

With a groan of despondency, I reached between my legs myself. His hand immediately encircled my wrist and pulled it away.

‘Uh-uh. Remember what I said. You need to be on the edge. Right on the edge, staring over the precipice, clinging on with your fingertips. But I'm going to hold you there. I'm going to have you pleading.'

‘I am pleading!'

‘Not enough, Callie.'

His fingers returned to my sex but deftly avoided my clit, which was pulsing in neglect. He inserted two into me, but even then avoided my G-spot. I pushed onto the fingers, trying to work them inside me, but he soon removed them and brought them to his mouth. Closing his lips around them, he sucked off my gleaming juices, then shuffled down between my legs.

‘Christ, that's sweet. I could drown in you. What do you reckon to that? I survive a crash into the ocean just to drown in you, Callie? Jesus Christ, look at you.' He licked, right from my perineum up, up, up to … No! Paul pulled back before he reached my clit. I sobbed and grabbed suddenly for his head, tangling my fingers in his hair, trying to pull him towards it. With a gasp of pain, he wrenched his way out of my grasp. ‘Fuck, that hurts!' I had strands of his hair in my fingers.

‘Pleeease!' I growled. Really, it was a growl, rough, guttural, propelled from somewhere deep inside.

His tongue and lips returned, and again they licked and sucked and delved, but they wouldn't let me come, they only pushed me further along towards that last crumbling ledge. Two fingers were deep inside me but were soon out. They moved to the rosebud indent of my backside and stroked it, coating it in my own juices. I was beyond question, beyond reason. I pulled up my knees to welcome him. He only put one finger in, or so I thought. It slid in easily, I was so ready.

‘Christ,' he slurred appreciatively. ‘You have been thinking about it.' He must have put in another finger, as I now felt stretch and pressure – but no more – deep inside. The pressure seemed to catch my G-spot too and I exhaled, relaxing more.

‘Yes, yes,' I sighed, starting to fuck his fingers, grinding on them, clamping around them.

Keeping his fingers embedded, Paul reached over, stretching himself, and opened the drawer of the bedside table. He pulled out a tube. Then his fingers were out and I groaned in loss. I glanced down. He was squeezing a thick, clear substance onto his hand from the tube. It was happening.

I watched as he coated his cock in lube, covering it so much it gleamed. It was to me the most magnificent thing I'd ever seen and my body responded by writhing in preparation. He then brought the tube to my exposed arse and dribbled it copiously over me. It was cold. I squirmed in shock but he shushed me by spreading it around and into my hole.

Paul tossed the lube aside and manoeuvred himself over me. ‘Now,' he said, his face harshly beautiful with desire, ‘you're ready.'

He stroked my thigh and whispered down to me. ‘Callie, do you want this?'

I nodded. ‘You know I do. I want it more than anything.'

‘You're not afraid?'

I didn't answer.

He held his cock against my tightly clamped hole, nuzzling it, daring it to let him in.

‘I asked you if you were afraid, Callie.'

‘A little.' I wouldn't lie. ‘But …'

‘Go on.'

‘I don't mind being afraid with you. I think I like it.'

He let a smile play on his mouth. ‘That's right. Use it. Can you imagine a world where everything goes according to plan? How dull, how fucking mind-numbingly lethal. I'll ask you again, Callie. Are you afraid of me?'

‘Yes.'

‘Do you trust me?'

I hesitated but then answered with total honesty. ‘Yes.'

‘Then take me.'

He pushed in slowly. Oh God, that stretched me! My eyes opened and I gasped with sudden sharpness.

‘Use it, use it,' murmured Paul through gritted teeth. ‘You can take it but your mind'll play tricks with you. It'll shut me out, but you can let me in, Cal, only you. Close your mind and just think of me inside you. Picture it. Ready?'

The head was sitting just in the opening. It felt even bigger than it was. I nodded, a furtive little nod. He pressed in again and his Adam's apple lurched erratically along his neck as he swallowed back his pleasure. ‘Fuck!' he exclaimed. ‘Fucking glory!'

He was opening me, breaching me. I pictured him in my mind's eye, his cock pushing its way to nestle snug in my warmth. Oh God, big, so incredibly big and full!

Fill me, Paul, fill me. More. I pushed down and drove him further in. He cried out incoherently and suddenly it was easier. He'd gone through that barrier, that last vestige of my resistance. He was in me and the world stilled.

There was intense pressure, stinging, and stretching, but I was glowing. I had him, was full of him. He stopped moving, but I could feel his whole being reined in, primed, straining to let go.

‘You all right?' he asked through pants.

‘Yes.' It surprised me to say it, but I was.

He started to pull out. The pressure was eased and I almost missed it. But then he was back, slowly, and I welcomed it. Just then his fingers moved to my clit, which was so alive that it made me buck involuntarily.

‘Easy,' he soothed.

There started to form inside my brain a strange symbiosis of pleasure and pain, each wrestling with the other for supremacy, but deciding it was better to meld together as one. Paul moved inside me and the pain dulled to a warm fullness. As the sensations from my clit collided with it, the on switch was at last flicked. I loved it. I loved it all. This was as close as two people could be. Him and me.

His breath grew ragged, his rhythm disjointed. I replaced his fingers with my own and worked my clit hard. I was peering further and further over the edge and Paul was holding me, then pushing us both, closer … closer …

As I registered one more full thrust of his cock deep inside my arse, I let go of my grip and brought him with me. Together we fell, tumbling and twisting as our bodies hurtled unstoppably through the oblivion of pleasure. I was vaguely aware of Paul roaring, and I let out my own cry to meet his. He carried on moving, pounding me now, but my orgasm carried me beyond pain. The air was thick with the sound and heat of sex; thick, dirty sex that clings and sticks to you, creating a moment that burns itself onto your body and soul.

I could feel his hot release, creating another layer of sensation that cut through my pleasure only to magnify it.

It took a while for it all to stop. I wasn't sure it ever would. I wasn't sure I was even in the bed any more. Eventually, when I thought I could trust my senses again, I looked around me and registered pillows and bedclothes. I was still here. My arse throbbed. Paul was still deep inside me.

For once, I wasn't sure what to say. Pillow talk had never been a problem for me, but this had robbed me of words. I knew what I wanted to say, there was only one thing, but when I opened my mouth nothing came out. Someone else said it.

‘I love you.'

Was that Paul? It sounded like him, but it was said as if he had let out a thought without realising, as if he had just opened his mouth and it had been breathed out. He wasn't looking at me. His eyes were closed, his head held up slightly awkwardly, as if he hadn't quite regained control of his body. I didn't reply. And, despite all my best intentions, I loved him back.

Twenty-three

Eventually, Paul glanced down and pulled out, slowly and carefully. I pushed a little to help and exhaled as I felt him leave me. I could feel the trickle of him, warm and wet.

Still not looking at me, he pulled himself off the bed and padded to the bathroom. I reached for a tissue, pressed it to the tingling point of our union, and curled myself up.

When he returned he crawled in next to me and lay looking into my eyes, stroking my face. Neither of us mentioned what he had said.

‘Are you all right?' he asked.

‘Yes.'

‘You're incredible.'

‘So are you.'

‘That were the best orgasm I can ever remember.'

I smiled and just nodded.

‘Are you sore now?'

‘A little.'

‘You will be. It'll get better when we, you know, do it again. If you want to.'

‘I do want to. With you.'

‘Aye, well, I'm not giving you to anyone else.' He turned onto his back and bent his arm behind his head with a sigh. ‘I'm sorry I behaved like a twat. You're right. It's better if they think you're spoken for. I don't want them knowing about us. I want to keep it just for us, because it's fucking perfect.'

I stroked his chest, kissing along the hard rise of his muscles. ‘Perfect,' I repeated.

I was so sated that night that I slept well, even though my mind was fighting with me to stay awake and dwell on all that had been done and said. I couldn't, and that told me enough. I was happy here.

The next morning was Saturday. We woke late and just lay there – not making love, just cuddling. Cuddles were as good as the best sex, warm and fuzzy.

And then I just said it. It just slipped out as I was lying against him.

‘I knocked over a pile of stuff when I was here the other day. I'm sorry.'

‘That's all right. No harm done.'

‘My foot just knocked against it and it tumbled over.'

‘It's OK, Cal.'

‘Some newspaper articles fell out.'

‘Oh right.' Was that a tightening in his voice?

‘About the army. The SAS.'

He didn't speak.

‘It was about a soldier being investigated for the killing of Afghan civilians.'

I waited, wondering how he'd react. He didn't, but his silence made my stomach churn.

‘Did you know that person? Was he in your troop?'

The seconds stretched out unendurably.

‘It was me.'

My mouth ran dry. ‘I see.'

‘No, you don't see. Nobody sees unless they were there.' He sat up awkwardly. ‘I was cleared, that's all there is to it.' His voice was strangely casual, as if he was trying to downplay it.

‘You never told me,' I tried.

‘Why should I? It's in the past. Done.'

‘Is that why you left the army?'

‘Suppose, aye.'

He moved to stand up but stopped and just stayed sitting on the side of the bed with his back to me, his muscles shifting as he moved, rubbing his hands together in that way he did when he was anxious.

I put a hand on his shoulder and he didn't immediately move away, but he leaned forward so that it became harder for me to do so without it feeling awkward. I removed my hand and asked in a voice which sounded self-consciously caring, ‘Can you tell me about it?'

‘Can do. Not sure I want to though.'

‘OK. I understand.'

He looked over his shoulder at me, his expression set. ‘I don't want you to understand, Callie. I don't want you to know. It's not something
you
want to know, believe me.'

‘But it's you. Perhaps I need to know.'

He leaned ever further down and his muscles strained tight. My heart was beating so hard I could hear it throbbing through my head.

Paul held his head in his hands and shook it. ‘Ah, Jesus. What more do you want, Callie? Am I never fucking going to be enough as I am?'

Panic started to take hold. I'd gone too far. I backtracked quickly. ‘All right, I'm sorry. Forget it. It doesn't matter.'

‘It does though, don't it?'

‘No. Look, Paul, I'm really sorry. I didn't mean to mention it, it just slipped out.' I started to get up and reached for a top, slipping it on, then pulling my knickers up.

‘Where are you going?' he asked.

‘Nowhere. Just … a glass of water.'

‘No, stay there. If you really want to know, you should know.'

‘Seriously, please …'

‘No. Stay there and listen.' I was constrained by his voice.

Paul had pulled on his boxers and came back to sit next to me in bed. My legs were outside the covers and I pulled them in tight to me.

‘It was 2006. Helmand. There'd been problems with insurgents in the villages, rumours of kidnaps and threats and murders of non-conformists. They'd closed a school. They were taking kids as young as ten to train, just humanitarian chaos really. There was one guy in particular, who was the ringleader, called himself Kazal the Reaper. He operated by fear and hatred, pure and simple. There was no empathy in him whatsoever, no concern for fellow humans, and he had the audacity to proclaim he did things in the name of his religion. He was a disgrace to his people, a butcher. We'd been after him for months but he kept evading us. At last we thought we had him.