Life in Shadows (17 page)

“You mean
she was a bag full of crazy and you should’ve known better, or you’re the bag
and she should’ve known?” she smirked.

Kevin
smiled. As she suspected, he appreciated teasing more than fawning. How she
could read him so well, she didn’t know, but there it was. He liked her. The
more she spoke and the more he looked, the more he liked.

“I
shouldn’t rip on her. She had her reasons. I’m over it. What about you, though?
All I know is your face and your job. How long have you been a paramedic?”

“Few years
now. Technically my job title only says ‘EMT,’ because that lets the company
get away with paying me less, but my certifications all say ‘paramedic.’ I keep
hoping to move up to something better. It’s turning into kind of a trap.”

“You don’t
have to apologize for your job,” he shrugged. “I think it’s cool.”

“I’m not
apologizing. I used to think it was cool, too. It has its high points. I mean
you know what it’s like to feel like you’ve rescued someone, right? But after a
while it just...it just became a job. I wanted to stay in school and pay for
college. Obviously a lot of folks do the same thing, but that’s just...” she
trailed off. Something inside her said,
That’s enough of that. Not the way
to attract a man. Keep things positive.
 
Shannon
shook her head and smiled. “Not really what I planned to talk about tonight,
anyway.”
 

The waiter
came by with their drinks. “You had a plan for tonight?” Kevin asked.

Shannon put
her pinky in her soda and swirled it around. “More or less,” she admitted with
a shrug. “I thought I’d call up this cute guy I met at work today and see what
he was doing tonight. See if he’s as good a guy as he seems, y’know? And then,
if that all checked out, I figured I’d just... see if I couldn’t wrap him
around my finger.” With her gaze locked on his, she pulled her pinky out of her
glass and put it in her mouth.

His eyes
shined with interest. She withdrew her finger as slowly as she’d put it in her
mouth, giving it a gentle suck. To his credit, his jaw didn’t fall open. Kevin
grinned, appreciating the show but not taking it too seriously. Shannon
suspected his interest was greater than he let on. He simply didn’t want to
seem like a lech.

Shannon
wouldn’t mind that right now. “Hey, I’m gonna go hit the bathroom for a
moment.” She slid out of the booth, standing and smiling at him before she
turned. She felt his eyes on her backside, and on her stockings with the lace
tops that didn’t quite come up to the hem of her skirt. She knew he wouldn’t
take his eyes off of them until she was out of sight.

Others
watched her walk, too, just as they had watched her enter the diner. Excitement
welled up within her, but she kept a firm hold on it. She kept her cool. She
had a mission here, and she meant to see it through.

Her
confidence was quite the turn-on for both of them.

* * *

Kevin
pushed her up against the wall beside the door to her apartment. He meant to
wait until they were inside, but he just couldn’t help himself. She grinned at
his firm yet gentle treatment, and grinned further into his kiss. She’d grinned
into it outside the diner, too, and beside her car parked on the street
outside, and in the garage downstairs, and the elevator.

Shannon
slid one leg up along the side of his, bending her knee so she could hook it
around his hip. Her companion attacked her mouth without hesitation. She liked
that, but she wanted more.

“You’re
being way too shy,” she murmured when his lips moved from her mouth to her
neck. His hands on her hips felt good. They’d feel better elsewhere.

“Wouldn’t
want to make a bad impression,” he whispered, his cheek sliding up her neck so
his lips could softly attack her earlobe.

“That’s all
settled. The interview is finished. Now’s the practical exam.”

“Don’t I
get study time?” His hands roamed up and down her sides. “Seems like there’s a
lot to cover.”

“Nope. Test
time. Better start getting naughtier or I don’t open this do-oooohh,” she
moaned with delight as his hand came up under her skirt and his palm found the
warmth between her legs. He skillfully teased her with the pressure and warmth
of his palm, their skin separated only by her thin panties. She was surprised
at how wet she felt. She knew he had to feel the dampness, too, but he didn’t
seem at all put off. A week ago—hell, a day ago—she’d have felt scandalized by
her forward behavior. Now she couldn’t see anything wrong with this at all. Her
head rested on his shoulder as she enjoyed his touch. “That’s better,” she
approved.

“You really
want me to be naughty?”

“Yesss.”

His hand
relaxed enough to make her pout. She opened her eyes to find his taunting grin.
“Open the door,” he told her. Kevin didn’t move away as she found her keys in
her purse, nor as she unlocked her home. That made her happy. Something about
feeling the touch of an aroused, attractive man while she did common things
greatly appealed to her. Something about his increasingly open lust appealed to
her even more.

“I don’t
normally do this,” she admitted.

“Me
neither. I’ll cool it if you want,” he offered, though he didn’t move away.
“Should back off? I don’t want to make you uncomf—”

“I want you
to do something to me that would shame your mother if she ever found out,” she
told him with a wicked grin. “You can go back to being sweet in the morning.”
His eyes sparkled. So did hers.

Shannon
threw open the door. Kevin refused to remove his hand from under her skirt
until they were inside. It made the next few steps a little awkward, but
Shannon reveled in his touch. With the door safely shut and locked behind them,
Kevin brought her over to the back of the big chair in her living room just a
few steps away. She felt him unzip her skirt before he bent her over, hiking
the skirt down and then her panties. He did it all with one hand. His other arm
stayed wrapped around her shoulders from behind.

When his
fingers came back to her wet flesh, Shannon let out another moan of delight.
She trembled and gasped and moaned at his touch, loving his exploring fingers
and his animal lust. Yet for all his physical power, Shannon had no doubt who
called the shots here.

She leaned
against the chair, arching her back as jolts of pleasure punctuated the
delicious sensations of his fingers sliding over and probing into her sex.
Shannon cooperated as Kevin paused to rid her of her skirt and panties. Happy
to be toyed with, she gave no thought to the way he crouched behind her, or the
shift of his hand, and was all too happy to oblige when she felt him nudge her
legs further apart. She bent over further at his wordless instruction.

Then she
felt him kneel between her legs. Shannon’s breath quickened with excitement and
suspense. Could he really be going for that? Brad rarely did anything like this
for her, nor had her previous boyfriend after the first time. Kevin didn’t
hesitate to knee between her stocking-clad legs. She felt his lips trail up the
inside of one thigh while his fingers moved up the other and then—”Ooooh,”
Shannon sighed as she felt the first gentle, probing lick.

His mouth
held to the softest, most agonizingly light touch. It only heightened her
excitement. Shannon wanted to arch her back as pleasure shot through her, but
she knew that would only make the angle more awkward for him. Instead, she made
herself give in and relaxed her torso against the back of the plush chair. She
let him get to work and adored him for it.

His hands
spread across her ass, groping and caressing. Never before had Shannon felt
like her butt was particularly attractive, but sometime during her bath or
perhaps while she dressed she realized she had a little to show off. She felt
better about the rest of her body, too. She was fit, tone, and appealing.
Shannon felt sexier than she ever had in her life.

Her
enjoyment grew as his kiss went deeper. “Oh, that’s incredible,” breathed Shannon.
“I’ll give you about... oh... all night to... to knock that off.”

“Hm,” he
responded. His breath and the vibration of his skin against hers as he spoke
drew a shiver of delight from her core. “I might need all night,” he confessed.

Shannon’s
wicked grin returned. He loved the taste of her. She could hear it in his voice
and feel it in his touch. She relaxed and let him indulge her. A teasing
thought crept around in the back of her brain:
No. He’s the one being
indulged.

Her mind
wandered to strange places as she enjoyed his attention. Such exquisite
physical pleasure clouded her thoughts, but it wasn’t as if her brain turned
off completely. Shannon could count on one hand the number of men she’d ever
slept with. She was shy and slow to trust on this level. It wasn’t as if she
didn’t want a wild sex life. She fantasized about it, but she rarely overcame
her personal barriers, and when she managed it, her partners more often than
not left her disappointed or hurt.

So what
made her so confident all of the sudden? Rebounding from Brad couldn’t explain
this. Something about her behavior with Kevin felt so easy. Her fears were
nowhere to be found. The dirty talk, the invitations and innuendos, and now
this intimate service all carried first-time thrills. At the same time, though,
it all felt completely natural.

She ceded
more and more of her conscious control, and before long it was no longer even
hers to give up. Shannon’s body trembled and her mouth fell open as she gasped
once, then again as she hit a wall inside of her, only to have Kevin’s lips and
tongue and hands push her through. She moaned loudly, not giving a damn about
the neighbors—in fact, she didn’t even remember having neighbors anymore. All
she knew about in the entire world was her own body, the chair that supported
her and the man sending her into orgasm.

It hit
harder than ever. It lasted longer, and brought greater satisfaction... but
only briefly. Slumped over the back of the chair, still shamelessly exposing
herself, Shannon found herself wanting even more. She didn’t want recovery
time. She didn’t want to cool down. She wanted him. Now.

Shannon
turned around, leaning back against the chair. She liked the awed look on his
face as he saw her from the front, naked from the waist down. “Shoes. Now,” she
said, pointing to his feet.

His grin
told her that he liked her take-charge attitude as much as her previous few
minutes of submissive behavior. Kevin quickly slipped off his shoes and socks.
As soon as he was finished, she grabbed his collar and pulled him up to meet
her face to face. She planted a hungry, deep kiss on his lips, tasting herself
on him.

In the back
of her mind, she confirmed her initial thoughts. She couldn’t blame him for
taking his time on her. The lingering taste on his lips aroused her even more.

She tore
open his shirt and wrenched it off of him, sending buttons flying. Their kiss
only broke off long enough for her to pull his undershirt over his head. Her
hands came to his chest, pushing him backward down the hallway to her bedroom
until he hit a wall beside the door. She scratched her nails from his shoulders
to the top of his pants, then assaulted him with another kiss while she slipped
his belt free and shoved down on his pants.

“Gnh!”
Kevin grunted. Shannon paused and realized what she’d done wrong. Her rough
treatment of his pants had also been a little rough on his erect flesh. Though
she nearly gasped and pleaded an embarrassed apology, that particular
revelation instantly distracted her. Shannon grinned and slid down his front,
keeping her eyes on his the whole way.

“Sorry
about that.” Her smirking face looked up at him from right beside his cock as
she pushed his pants the rest of the way off. Kevin froze against the wall.
Shannon only brushed his erection with her cheek, then offered the lightest of
kisses on his shaft before rising back up again. “Later for that,” she promised
with a wink as one of her hands softly closed around it.

His eyes
fluttered. She felt the thrill of control and decided she could not let it go.
Seeing him completely naked now, Shannon discovered another way in which Kevin
represented a considerable step up from her last partner. She guided him into
her bedroom, once more pushing him backward until he fell. She looked down with
a grin on the fit, attractive man laying diagonally on her bed.

She let him
watch as she discarded her top. She held his gaze as she unfastened her lace
bra, and smiled as she saw his appreciation for what lay underneath. Then she
put one knee up beside his hip and crept in, placing her hands on his chest for
support.

Antics out
on the living room aside, Shannon normally needed more warm-up than this. Her
idea of a good time included much lengthier foreplay. Tonight, though, the
thought of any further flirting, cuddling, or teasing seemed like madness.
Shannon held his gaze again as she spread her legs over his hips and guided his
cock to her center with one affectionate hand.

“Hey,”
Kevin said, gesturing to the bedroom door, “there’s a condom in one of my pants
pockets, unless you’ve got some?”