Growing and Kissing (19 page)

She brushed her hands through the leaves of a plant. To me, it looked just like all the others, but she said, “This one? This is going to be the best of all of them.”

She bent slightly at the waist to look closer, and I caught my breath as her ass thrust out towards me and a narrow slice of skin opened up between the bottom of her top and the top of her shorts. I’d never thought someone’s back could be sexy. But Louise’s lower back, smooth and arching and glistening just a little with the heat...that was the sexiest thing I’d ever seen. My hands twitched with the need to run them straight up under her top, my thumbs pressing either side of her spine, my fingers wrapped around to stroke her sides. All the way up…and then my thoughts grew darker, imagining her on all fours in front of me, my cock disappearing between her thighs as I drew her back onto me.

“I got the mix
just
right,” said Louise, jolting me back to reality. “This is our yardstick, now. Look how big the leaves are. Feel them.”

I blinked and swallowed, my eyes flicking from that entrancing crescent of skin to the plant.

“Feel them,” she insisted. And she suddenly grabbed my hand.

I caught my breath at the feel of her smooth, cool skin against my calloused fingers. She was so delicate, next to me: it took two of her slender fingers to equal one of mine. I had to step closer, as she drew my hand towards the plant, until the hard bulge of my cock in my pants was almost brushing her thrust-out ass. And she was completely unaware, of course. God, how did she do this to me? How could a blonde in some bar work her body all over me, giving me a full-on clothed lap dance, and I’d mentally shrug, but Louise could have me hard as a rock just from being close? Even over the heady smell of the plants, I could still detect the soft, clean scent of her, natural and magical. I wanted to bury my face in her and breathe nothing else.

“See?” said Louise, drawing my unresisting hand through the leaves. “It’s not just the color, or the shape. They
feel
healthy.” She turned to me and bit her lip guiltily and I damn near lost it. “I know it sounds dumb. It’s hard to describe, but...can you feel it?”

“Umm-hmm,” I grated.

She must have heard something in my voice because her eyes locked with mine and she let go of my hand. She slowly straightened up, turning to face me as she did so. Everything else in the world ceased to exist: all I knew about were those big green eyes as they came closer and closer and her sigh as she exhaled. All that red hair was spilling down over her shoulders like gleaming, liquid copper and I’ve never wanted to run my fingers through something so bad.

My hands hurt. I realized I was digging my nails into my palms to keep from grabbing her.

“I don’t know about this stuff,” I told her. I could hear the hoarseness in my voice, like I’d just sprinted a mile. “But...they look good.” I took in those moss-green eyes, the soft lips that drove me crazy. “They look really good.”

She nodded.

“Now I’ve got to go to the store,” I told her, each word a Herculean effort.

She nodded again. And...was there a hint of sadness in her eyes? Disappointment?

I turned away and forced myself to walk towards the door. I was almost there, almost safe, when she called out to me. “Wait! I almost forgot—I got you something.”

I spun to face her, mad as hell. Didn’t she realize what she was doing to me?

“It’s...outside,” she said in a small voice, jerking her thumb at the back door.

Outside. Outside where there was air, and there were people. Outside, nothing could happen. I nodded quickly, crossed the room and flung open the door.

Air.
Good, clean, fresh, wholesome air. In the shadow cast by the house, it was blessedly cool. After the stifling house, it was like jumping into a mountain lake. I knew I couldn’t just stand there with the door open, not with the reek of grass flooding out, so I stepped forward to let Louise out behind me. I heard her shut the door and then I slowly turned around to face her. With every breath, my mind was clearing. I figured that, out here, everything would be okay.

But when I faced her again, I had a new problem. It was easier to hold back the lust but hiding beneath that had been something even stronger. God, she was beautiful. And then she made it worse. She bent down and picked up a plant from beside the door, holding it out towards me. “It’s for you,” she told me. “It’s a rose.” She looked at it shyly. “I figured you’d want something...y’know.
Manly
and covered in thorns. And it’s Irish.
Irish Blood,
they call it. Made me think of you.”

I stared at it. This was the last thing I’d expected. It was bad enough that she was a constant fucking temptation, but...was she
being nice to me?!

“I’ve got no idea what to do with this,” I mumbled.

“That’s because no one’s taken the time to teach you.”

This was different. This wasn’t like the simple battle between my need to fuck her and my need to protect her. We’d suddenly moved into a whole new and unfamiliar arena. “Umm…” I said. But I couldn’t think of a bloody thing to say to get out of there without hurting her feelings. Normally, I’d just get angry. But every time I reached for my anger, those big green eyes made it slip away.

“C’mon,” she said, and knelt down on the grass, next to a patch of dirt.

I knelt slowly down facing her, my body dwarfing hers. The ground was pleasantly cool against my knees. I couldn’t even remember the last time I’d sat on grass. And the ground wasn’t dusty and dry, here, it was soft and even a little damp. She’d found a good growing spot, even in the middle of this hellhole of a neighborhood.

“Dig a hole,” she told me. She reached behind her. “I brought a trowel, or—”

I shoved my hands into the bare dirt between us, forcing my way through the soft earth until they were wrist-deep, then pushing them outward. An image swum into my mind: my hands pushing her pale thighs apart in just the same way.

“...or you could just use your hands,” said Louise, her eyes huge.

Being outside hadn’t cooled my lust at all. It had just brought everything into sharp focus. And the way she was treating me was defusing my anger, the only thing that had helped to keep me in check.

“Now take the plant,” she said, holding it out towards me. “Careful of the thorns.”

I gazed past it, straight into her eyes. “I can’t do this,” I muttered.

“Yes you can,” she said, her voice growing softer. Then, “I believe you can.”

This is stupid. This is fucking stupid, just get the thing in the ground and get out of here.
I grabbed the stem in my fist, not caring about the thorns that stabbed into my flesh, and slammed the roots into the hole. My whole body had gone tense, every muscle quivering—

But suddenly, Louise was beside me, her hand between my shoulders. All the tension eased away—however much I tried to cling onto it.

“Cover up the roots,” she told me. “Gently.”

I bulldozed the piles of dirt inward with my palms until the hole was filled.

“Pat it down a little,” she whispered. Her mouth was almost at my ear, each word tickling.

I put my palms on the mound of soil and patted at it, feeling stupid. But then her cool hands were on top of mine, the smooth softness of them sliding over my knuckles, and my patting died away. And then we were just kneeling there, me like a hulking beast and her like some foolish maiden wrapped around me, her red hair blowing against my cheek, her hanging breast brushing my side.

I need to get angry. I need to get angry right now.

“It’s okay,” she breathed, so softly I wondered if I was imagining it.

I told myself that she couldn’t possibly understand, that she had no fucking idea what was inside me. But then she said, “See? You can grow stuff. Instead of just tearing it down.”

And her hand slid down my back to the place where the scars were.

Suddenly, my anger came back, a flash of heat that filled my whole body. I grabbed her wrist and wrenched, tossing her over onto her back and, before I even knew what I was doing, I was on top of her, my knee between her legs. “
What are you doing?
” I yelled. “
What the fuck are you doing?
”

Her eyes were big and liquid, but she was staring up at me in defiance. She was scared as hell, but trying to put up a front. “I just want to help you,” she panted.

“I don’t need your help!” I yelled. “It’s
me
helping
you!
There’s nothing wrong with me!”

We stared at each other, both of us breathing in ragged gasps. I knew she must be terrified. I wanted her to be terrified, because then she’d stop.

“Stay away from me,” I told her. “Or I’ll—”

I stared into her eyes...and I couldn’t say the words. Not even for her sake. I couldn’t so much as think about doing her harm.

“No you won’t,” she whispered.

My hands were flat on the ground on either side of her head. I felt my fingers claw into the dirt. “
You
don’t want this,”
I told her.

She took two big, shuddering gulps. “Yes I do.”

The look in her eyes, the concern she had for me, siphoned off the last of my precious anger. And then I lost control completely, leaned down and kissed her.

Louise

I’d had the rose stashed away out back for days in the hope he’d show up, watering both it and the ground to keep it all ready for him. I’d just wanted to do something nice for him, to apologize for asking about the scars. Then, when he’d been about to walk out, when I thought of him getting in his car and driving back to that world of violence....

I couldn’t let him go.

I’d watched myself kneeling down on the grass with him and touching his back, like putting my head between a lion’s jaws. I’d screamed at myself not to do it. But the need to help him, to find that man he used to be, the one someone had cruelly scarred, was too strong.

And now I was facing the consequences.

It was a brutal, hard kiss, his strong lips mashing down on my softly panting mouth, a kiss that forced me open and damn well took me whether I wanted it or not.

And I wanted it. Oh, God, I wanted it. My lips flowered open and I welcomed him in. I even reached up to slide my hands into his hair—

He grabbed my wrists and slammed them down into the dirt, and I went weak inside.

As he kissed me, the muscled chest I’d fantasized about so many times was pressed against my chest, warm hardness grazing my aching nipples through the thin layers of cloth. One knee was thrust between my legs and I could feel the outline of his cock, rock-hard and burning hot, against the top of my inner thigh.

Both of us were panting for air through the kiss, him caught between anger and lust and me caught between lust and fear. I wasn’t scared that he’d hurt me; I was scared of the cliff I was about to jump off of, the descent into blackness if I let this happen.

Let
this happen? I wanted it to. Needed it to.

The kiss changed. His tongue found mine and drew it into a dance, hard and fast and building rapidly, exploring my limits and demanding to know how much I could take. Testing me,
wanting
it to be too much for me so that he could release me and end this. But every touch of that expert tongue against my sensitive flesh whipped the hurricane inside me faster and faster. I welcomed him in with a groan of pleasure that vibrated against his lips. And with every second that I let the kiss continue, I could feel him getting more and more out of control, his whole huge body growing hard against me.

He broke the kiss and glared down at me, those scalding blue eyes hooded with lust. He leaned down and caught my upper lip between his teeth, biting gently, and I groaned again. I pressed up with my wrists, needing to move, to respond, but his hands were like iron bands. And that only made me hotter.

He gazed down at me for a second, eyes locked on mine, and then darted in again, this time pushing my head to the side and finding the edge of my jaw with his lips, kissing the line all the way up to my ear, making me squirm and thrash under him with every burning contact. And when he reached my ear, he hissed into it. Molten air that carried syllables of brimstone, left rough by the Irish in his accent. “Is this what you want?” He nipped my earlobe in his teeth and I moaned. “This isn’t a fuckin’ game, Louise. I don’t care how innocent you are, I’ll pound you into the dirt.”