Skin Trade

No, whatever was wrong with me, feeding the ardeur really was the lesser evil. A quick feed, and then back to solving crime. I looked at the tall, handsome man beside me and said what I was thinking. “I’m sorry that our first time has to be quick. You’re worth taking the time, Wicked.”

He smiled, and it softened his face. “That is the nicest thing you’ve ever said to me.”

I smiled, too. “Once I release the ardeur after not feeding for this long, it can be a little rough.”

“I’ll be careful,” he said.

“I don’t mean that.” I shook my head, and just took off the T-shirt that we’d gotten at Trixie’s. I sat there in just the bra, in the strangely hot night.

Wicked gave me wide eyes.

“I mean we might end up ripping our clothes enough that we won’t have anything to put back on.”

He shrugged and started undoing his tie. “I’d have preferred a more sensual reveal, but you’re the boss.”

I sighed. “I wish that were really true.”

“You say Get undressed, and I’m doing it; trust me, that makes you the boss.” He had the tie off, and the trench coat went next.

“You wanted to get undressed eventually, right?” I asked, hands hesitating on my belt.

“I did.” He took off the torn remnants of the shirt, and just seeing him bare from the waist up made me have to look away. That first nudity with someone I didn’t know well always made me uncomfortable.

My rule used to be that if I was uncomfortable stripping, then maybe I should stop, get dressed, and go home. I’d told Jason, in St. Louis, that I was losing myself. Here I was, far away from home, and it wasn’t the men in my life stealing me away from myself, it was the power inside me. And that, I couldn’t run away from. It was like that old joke: everywhere you go, there you are. I couldn’t leave myself behind, so I couldn’t get away.

Hands came from behind to slide over my ribs, to hesitate at the base of my bra. I reached for the straps, to move them down my shoulders, but his hands got there first, and he lowered the straps, slowly, laying kisses on my shoulders as he bared them. His hands slid to the back of my bra, and unsnapped it. The underwire gave, and the whole thing slid down my arms, so that my breasts spilled out.

Wicked’s hands slid over them, cupping them in his big hands, squeezing them, kneading them, exploring them. I felt myself grow damp, just from that. Those practiced hands drew a small sound from me. My hands slid to the unbuckled top of my pants, but his hands were there first, sliding down from my breasts, to unzip my pants and ease them open, so that his hand slid down the open front to brush the hair between my legs and reach for lower.

I laughed. “Your hand is too big, and the pants are too tight.”

“We can fix that,” he said, voice low and rough next to my ear. He pulled the pants down my hips in a harsh jerk that bared me to the tops of my thighs. My underwear had come down with the pants, so I was bare to the night.

His hand touched my bare ass, caressing, cupping, exploring. It sped my breath and put my pulse in my throat. “Wicked,” I said.

“That’s the way I want to hear you say my name.” And his hands slid to the front of me as I knelt on the ground. His fingers slid between my legs, brushing that most intimate part, tickling, teasing, until I cried out. His other hand pushed the jeans down until he could spread my thighs wider, and those knowledgeable fingers could reach more, touch more, caress more.

He tried to reach farther between my legs, but the angle wasn’t quite right. His hand was too big for the space he’d made. He made a low, frustrated sound in his throat and moved his hand to put a hand on either side of my jeans and jerk them down to my knees. Then he pulled me against the front of his body, and I could feel how large, how hard, how ready he already was, but his other hand went back between my legs. His finger slid inside me, and I cried out again. He pushed his fingers inside me, then slid them out, so he could play my own wetness against that small, sweet spot, near the front of me. His other arm tightened around my waist, pressing me against the hardness of him. It made me grind myself harder against him. His fingers played between my legs, caressing, teasing, until I felt the building weight of pleasure.

I breathed, “Close.”

He changed the rhythm of his fingers, faster, over and over and over, until I gasped, “Wicked!” And his fingers spilled me over that edge, drove a scream from my throat, sent me spasming against the front of his body while his fingers played, and coaxed, and kept the orgasm coming, until I couldn’t decide if it was all one big orgasm or if he was bringing smaller ones so fast, one after the other, that they blurred into one.

I screamed my pleasure to the shine of stars, and only after I collapsed in his arms did his hand stop moving, only then did he move me a little from his body, and I felt the head of him begin to push against me. My legs weren’t working yet, so he held my weight with one arm around me, while the other helped him find the angle he was looking for. I said his name again, “Wicked.” Then he laid me on the coat he’d spread on the ground and moved away from me.

“What’s wrong?” I asked.

“Nothing,” he said, “absolutely nothing.” I lay there waiting for more of my body to work again, and watched him. He was fumbling through his clothes until he found a condom. I was on the pill, but the rule was that any of the men who weren’t my main sweeties had to use a condom. If there was going to be an accident, it needed to be with someone I loved. That I’d forgotten that rule, and he’d had to remember it, said just how far gone I was tonight.

Wicked crawled back to me, the condom already spread down the length of him. He put his arm around my waist and lifted me off my stomach, so I was almost on my hands and knees. He went back to searching for that perfect angle; the feel of him brushing against me tentatively brought small eager noises from me. I said his name again. Then he found my opening and began to push his way inside, and I had no more air for words.

He spilled me forward onto the coat he’d spread, with my cheek pressed to the coat and the ground beneath, and the rest of me up, with him inside me. He pushed his way inside me until he couldn’t go any farther, his body and mine meeting, stopping, wedded together. He hesitated like that for a moment, then he began to find a rhythm, in and out, pushing himself in long, slow, deep sweeps of his body, plunging into me until he couldn’t go any farther, but gently, as if he were afraid of hurting me, then pulling out again.

I managed to say, “You won’t hurt me.”

“I’m bumping your cervix; I will hurt you unless I’m careful.”

“I like it.”

“What?”

“You’ve done the prep work, Wicked, it feels wonderful.”

“Let the ardeur out, and I’ll go faster.” He kept that careful rhythm going, though I could feel the tension in his body as he fought himself.

“Harder,” I said.

“Ardeur,” he said, in a voice that showed the strain, like the trembling of his muscles, as he fought to be so careful of me. I didn’t want him to be careful.

I did what he wanted, I did what I needed, I reached into that part of me that was the ardeur, and it wasn’t a shield that came down, it was more like I simply stopped fighting it. The ardeur broke over us both in a rush of heat that made us both cry out.

“Fuck me, Wicked, just fuck me.”

He stopped being careful, and used all that length, all that width, hard and fast, pounding himself into me until the sound of flesh hitting flesh was loud, and I screamed for him, shrieked for him, orgasming from the feel of him hitting that spot deep inside me, and having to stop, and still he wasn’t done. He started again, this time a little more shallow, a little different twist of hips, and I felt the warm, heavy weight growing inside me again. I started to say his name, over and over, my words growing in the ryhthm of my body and his, “Wicked, Wicked, Wicked, Wicked. God!” The orgasm screamed out of my mouth, left my hands scrambling at his coat and the ground underneath. If I could have reached him, I would have cut my pleasure on his skin, but I was left scrambling to find ways to get all that passion out.