Standing in the Shadows (33 page)

She was still on top of him when she woke up. Dawn had lightened the dingy brick wall outside the window, turning it a charcoal gray. She glanced up at Connor's face. He was gazing at her with his usual intensity, but it no longer flustered her. She liked it now.

She shifted on top of him, murmuring with pleasure. He was so solid and warm. Her thigh was flung across his, and his erect penis pressed against her, as hot as a brand. She poised herself over him so that her hair fell around them in a shadowy curtain, and touched his lips with hers. His mouth opened at her urging. Their tongues touched, a delicate, questing flick that melded into a deliciously sensuous kiss. It brought her body to tingling wakefulness.

She expected him to spring to action, but he just lay beneath her, rigid and trembling. She lifted her head. "Connor. Don't you want to… ?"

He rolled his eyes. "Like you have to ask." She dropped a kiss on his jaw. "Then why don't you?"

"You gave me a hard time last night. About pushing you around."

She was indignant. "I never said—"

"I'm sick of it. I'm just going to lie here and see what happens. If you want something, take it. If you need something from me, ask for it."

He folded his arms back behind his head, and waited.

She was disconcerted, but not for long. She didn't need instructions. She had ideas coming at her by the truckload. If he wanted to be a love slave, he'd come to the right place.

She flung back the quilt and rose up onto her knees. This was going to be fun. She leaned over and kissed him, thrusting her tongue aggressively into his mouth, the way he so often did to her. He murmured in surprise, and his body shook.

"Give me your hands." The ring of command in her voice was so unfamiliar, she barely recognized it as her own.

He unfolded his arms. She seized his hands and pressed them against her breasts. "Touch me," she said huskily. "Lightly. With your fingertips. Like butterfly wings."

He obeyed her. His eyes were bright with fascination, and his gentle fingers traced lines over the curves of her breasts. She flung her head back and danced above him, letting pleasure lead her. His breath got harsher, his erection harder. She leaned over so that her breasts dangled in his face. "Suck on my nipples," she commanded.

He writhed beneath her and gripped her waist, murmuring in a pleading voice. He covered her breasts with his hot mouth. She shook with excitement. The tremors were shaking her apart.

She pulled away, panting and flushed. They stared at each other, their eyes bright with discovery.

"Wow," he whispered. "Oh, my queen. What is your royal will?"

She shimmied down his body until she straddled his thighs, and tormented him with her fingertips, exploring every line and curve. He squeezed his eyes shut and moaned when she took his penis in her hands. She swirled her hand around the head, so smooth and bursting with pent-up need. She poised herself above him, and slid the blunt tip of him up and down her vulva. She wiggled, shifted, seeking the right angle, and forced herself down, enveloping him with a shuddering sigh. He was so amazingly thick, as hard as a hot club throbbing inside her.

"God," he muttered. "Please. Erin."

She rose up again, sank deeper. The small, quivering muscles inside her sheath clenched him with loving, jealous tightness, caressing the whole, delicious length of him.

"I'm not wearing a condom," he told her. "If you haven't noticed."

She smiled. "So don't come inside me. You have such excellent self-control. I've seen it in action, so you can't pretend you don't. So use it, Connor. Use it… in my service."

She rose up, and took him in again, a hot, slow glide of pleasure.

He panted beneath her. "You know this is stupid," he said. "We've got them, so there's no goddamn excuse for not using them."

She kissed his chest. "Something about you makes me want to play with fire. What an awful bitch I am. Torturing you like this."

He made a sharp, angry sound. "You've been acting strange ever since we got back to town. I'm not saying it doesn't turn me on, but it's starting to really piss me off."

"Oh, no. I'm just terrified." She rocked against him, rising up and sinking slowly back down with a sigh of bliss. "I'm tired of doing the smart thing and being agreeable and sensible and proper. I've been a good girl all my life, and I've only just realized that it doesn't do a damn bit of good. You just get slammed anyway. So why bother? What is the point of all that stupid effort? You just end up feeling like a fool."

He shook his head and opened his mouth. She pressed her finger against his lips. "Ever since I seduced you, I don't want to be a good girl anymore. I want to do naughty things. Get a tattoo. Show my cleavage. Pay my rent late. Drink tequila shots, dance on the tabletops. Blow my paycheck on pretty shoes. Rob a bank wearing a leather mini-skirt."

"Oh, God, Erin—"

"I want to become a cautionary tale for young women. Don't do what Erin did, girls! It's the path to doom! And you know what else I want? I want this. With you. Right now. Give me your hands again."

He offered them, a gesture of surrender, and she placed them gently at the curve of her hips. "Hold me," she said. "Move under me, Connor. Make me come."

His fingers bit into her waist, and his hips bucked as he seized control of the rhythm. All she could do was gasp and hang on for the ride, sometimes deep and pounding, sometimes a sensual dance that slid over and over that glowing ache of need inside her that was wired to everything that mattered, her eyes and throat, her spine, her nipples, her heart, until ripples of bliss overflowed and unraveled her.

He withdrew, panting, and she lost her balance and slid off the bed. He caught her arms, but her legs tumbled off until her knees hit Aunt Millie's braided rag rug. He sat up and pulled her onto her knees.

She knelt between his spread thighs, his penis jutting in her face, hot with the scent of her own pleasure. He wound his hands into her hair, staring into her eyes. "Make me come, Erin," he said.

She took him deep into her mouth without hesitation, gripping him eagerly with both hands and mouth. She followed the cues his body gave her: his sobbing pants, his fingers tightening in her hair, the slick, bursting heat of his penis in her mouth, the salty drops against her tongue. She drew him in as deep as she could, sliding and suckling.

He was primed to explode. In just a few long, luxurious strokes he erupted into her mouth in hot, pulsing spasms.

She hid her face against his scarred thigh. He sagged over her, trembling, and slowly slid off the bed to join her on the floor. He pulled her into his arms and rested his head on her shoulder.

Connor lifted his head a few minutes later. "You feeling any mellower?" he asked. "You work out any of those bad girl demons?"

"Not really," she murmured. "I still feel pretty naughty."

"Oh, God. I'm a dead man."

His tone was light, but dread still chilled her at his careless words. "Don't say that!"

His eyes were puzzled. "Huh?"

"It's bad luck. Don't ever say that again. Please. Ever."

He started to speak, stopped himself, and gave her a brief, crooked smile. He pulled her into his arms again. "OK," he said gently. "Sorry."

She squeezed him tightly, until her arms shook with the strain.

"Let's get one thing clear," he said, stroking her back tenderly. "When you go to drink your tequila shots and dance on tabletops in your leather mini-skirt, I get to come along. With my gun."

She giggled against his chest. "Oh, please."

"I mean it," he said sternly. "No banks, though. There I draw the line. I'm sworn to uphold law and order and all that garbage."

"Don't worry," she said. "One jailbird in the family is enough."

Connor went rigid in her arms. The air in the room was suddenly chilly against her damp skin.

Connor dropped his arms. Erin scrambled to her feet. "I'll, urn, just jump in the shower," she babbled. "I'll be right out."

She scurried into the bathroom. The door slammed.

Connor wandered around the room, trying to breathe away the tension in his gut. He stared at the corkboard over her desk. Photos and postcards were push-pinned all over it. Erin and Ed on a ski trip, squinting and sunburned. His arm was flung over her shoulder. They were laughing.

He realized that he was rubbing his scarred thigh, gritting his teeth so hard his jaw throbbed.

The phone rang. He decided not to touch it. She had a machine. If it was Cindy, he would pick up. Otherwise, it would be suicide to touch the thing.

The shower stopped running just as the machine clicked on. The bathroom door burst open as a woman's bouncy, fake cheerful voice began to speak.

"Hi, Erin, this is Kelly, from Keystroke Temps. I'm afraid I've got some bad news for you—"

Erin burst out in a cloud of steam, naked, her hair dripping.

"—had some complaints about you from Winger, Drexler & Lowe, about your attitude, and your decision to be unavailable for work this morning was just the last straw for them. So the office manager told me to tell you just not to come in tomorrow. And, uh… Keystroke Temps is making the same decision. I'm really sorry, Erin, but the decision is definitive and final, and if you mail in your timesheet, we'll mail your last check to you, so there'll be no need for you to come in and—"

Erin lunged for the phone. "Kelly? It's me—yes, I know, but I came back early—but that's ridiculous! I was a perfect employee! My attitude was excellent! I came in early, I worked late, I did ten times as much work as—that's crazy! They can't possibly—"

She listened for another moment, and laughed bitterly. "Kelly, you know, I don't envy you having to tell me this. But let me give you a tip for the future. Don't tell someone to have a nice day after giving them news like that. Trust me, it's the wrong thing to say."

She slammed the phone down and whirled on him, naked and dripping and stupendously beautiful in her towering rage.

"That stupid cow," she snarled. "Have a nice day! As if!"

He backed away. "Uh, Erin?"

She advanced on him. "What could they possibly have complained about? I reorganized their database! I worked out all the bugs in their financial program! I rewrote every single document those idiots ever dictated and turned it into real English! I even got coffee for those bastards, and all for thirteen lousy dollars an hour!"

"I'm sure you did," he said meekly.

"It's not in my nature to make people complain about me! Except for when I work too hard and make everybody else look bad, but I didn't do that this time, I was really, really careful not to, I swear!"

She had him backed up against the wall. He was fascinated by the wild energy blazing out of her. "Of course you were," he soothed.

"I never give anybody any trouble! Ever! It's like a sickness!"

"Only to me," Connor said. "You give me no end of trouble."

She put her hands on her hips. "You, Connor McCloud, are a special case."

"I'll say," he muttered. "Just lucky, huh?"

She cocked her head to the side. Water trickled seductively over her tits. "You do bring out elements of my personality that I didn't know I had," she admitted. "But I never showed those sides of my personality at Winger, Drexler & Lowe, and I certainly—"

"You damn well better not be showing them to anybody else." The words surprised him as much as they did her. "Nobody but me. Got it?"

She blinked. "Connor. I, ah, wasn't talking about sex."

"Well, I am," he said. "I just thought I'd take this opportunity to make that point crystal clear. Since we haven't discussed it yet."

Erin glanced down, seeming to realize that she was naked and sopping wet. "Uh, what exactly do you mean by that?" she asked warily.

He crossed his arms over his chest. "What do you think I mean?" Her mouth tightened. "Don't play games with me, Connor."

"I'm not playing games. It's a valid question. I want to know how you interpret that remark."

Her eyes slid away from his. "Why does it always have to be me who goes out on the limb? It's not fair to—"

"Just answer me, goddammit."

She studied his face for a moment. "OK. Here goes," she said carefully. "I think maybe, ah, that this might be your bossy, oafish way of asking me if I'm interested in being exclusively involved with you."

He felt his face go red.

"Did I get it right?" she demanded. "Do I win the prize?"

"That's the gist of it. I would have phrased it differently."

"Oh?" Her eyebrows climbed. "And how would you phrase it?"

He thought about it. "Never mind," he muttered. "Let's stick with the way you said it. It sounds better."

"No, Connor. Your turn. Tell me exactly what you were thinking."

What an idiot. He'd boxed himself into a trap. "We already are exclusively involved, Erin. We have been since you decided to go to bed with me. It's a done deal. I know it, and you know it."

Her eyes went very big and thoughtful. "Hmm. So the key point here is that you're not asking me. You're telling me. Right?"

He shrugged. "Guess so," he mumbled.

"I see," she murmured.

Her cool tone maddened him. "I sure hope so," he snapped.

She wrung her dripping hair out over the sink. "If I have a problem with you, Connor, that's it," she said. "You don't ask me. You just tell me. But you know what? The world doesn't work like that. And more to the point, I don't work like that. I will not take orders from you."

"Goddamn it, Erin—"

"If you would just stop trying so hard to control me, then maybe you'd discover that all that effort really isn't necessary."

She shook her wet mane back over her shoulders. His proud, gorgeous, wet, naked, intergalactic princess. She turned to face him.

"You do not own me," she said quietly.

He didn't remember deciding to move. He just found himself all over her, his hands moving over her damp, shivering skin. Pinning her against the wall. He cupped her face in his hands, opened his mouth, and the dangerous truth just fell right out of him, no holding it back.