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The gold went from his eyes. They glowed like wet amber. Wild, ancient, and powerful. Suddenly, as if it was too much to resist, his hand reached out and grabbed a handful of hair from the back of my head. My mouth went dry. I swayed toward him. I could smell him. Soap. Alcohol. At this time of the afternoon? And something else. The smells of his day? Impossible to tell. Intriguing nevertheless.
The other hand, rough with urgency, curled around my waist. Hot, solid and possessive. His lips traveled downwards. It must have been only a second but it seemed to take ages. Breathlessly I waited for his lips to find mine. I felt him inhale before our lips touched. And then all hell broke loose and I lost all sense of time or place.
The brutal warmth of his mouth was incredible. All that was cold and lost inside me went up in flames like kindling on a dry night. I laced my fingers through the lushness of his thick hair and moaned. His tongue was fire. Irresistible. A madness that swept along my lower lip. When he bit the edge of my bottom lip hard enough for me to gasp with a mixture of pain and pleasure, his tongue snaked into my open mouth, muscular, cocky, and tasting indescribably delicious.
A rush of heat flared between my legs. I stood on tiptoes like a child reaching for a treat on a high shelf, and sucked the hot and silky flesh like it was toffee. I could have sucked him forever. The greed that flashed inside me was as shocking as the impatience that poured out of me.
I was starving for him.
My hands moved of their own volition. Sure, they were very sure. They knew exactly what they were doing. They had done this before. Definitely. With whom I had no idea. But definitely my hands knew what they were doing.
They moved to his belt and unfastened it with an expertise that I could never have expected. His zipper slid down the way it was designed to do. My palm was rubbing his bulging erection through cloth. I felt the massive head of his cock jutting out over the waistband of his underwear. My fingers hooked into the top of his briefs.
Abruptly and with a grunt of dismay he pulled away from my restless hands. Holding me firmly by my upper arms he took a long step back. His eyes were glazed. ‘This is fucked up,’ he growled harshly. ‘I can’t do this. It’s wrong.’
The magic shattered. My heart started to ache. ‘I don’t care if it is wrong,’ I cried desperately.
‘I do. I could damage you, Olivia,’ he said harshly.
‘So damage me,’ I challenged.
He looked at me with anguished eyes. He had vowed to abstain… But how he wanted me. He took another step away and I saw something haunted in his eyes. A raw, bare look. Unbearable hurt. The kind of hurt you never recover from. I recognized it because I had seen the same look in the mirror. All broken pieces and jagged edges. Of a lost soul.
‘No,’ he said, his voice coarse with lust. ‘It’s too complicated. You don’t understand.’
‘I’m not an animal or a suspect to be observed and monitored from afar,’ I shouted.
‘Don’t you think I know that?’ he spat at me.
‘Fuck me then,’ I cried.
At the tone of my voice he changed. As if I had slapped him. As if I had made him remember where he was and what he had been about to do. How close he had come to doing something he would regret. He zipped his jeans. ‘You’re soaked through. We need to get you into a hot shower,’ he said in a brisk, businesslike tone.
It was a rejection. He was rejecting me. I started to shiver, my teeth suddenly chattering.
‘Come on,’ he said, taking my arm. He took me to his bathroom, where he switched on the shower, and undressed me. I saw his eyes skim over my scars. When I was naked he stood me under the hot spray. The heat was good. I stopped shivering and looked at him through the water running down my eyes. He stared back wordlessly.
‘I’m going to leave you now,’ he said through clenched teeth. ‘There’s a bathrobe behind the door. Use it.’
I listened to his footfalls leave the tiled floor and the door closed. I stood in the steam and the heat for a long time, my silent tears mingling with the water. I felt so empty. So lost. I had offered myself to him and he had turned me down. And then I remembered the look in his eyes when they skimmed my scars, and I had to put my palms against the tiles to support my suddenly weak knees.
God! I’ve been blind. So blind.
11
Marlow
Hearse was playing in the background—bittersweet, gutterfolk songs. Fireworks came on and the twanging sound of an electric guitar filled the air. A man’s voice sang, ‘Gonna be here all night’.
She stood at the door wrapped up in my bathrobe. She had rolled the sleeves up, but it was way too big for her and it trailed on the floor. Her skin was red, her eyes swollen. We stared at each other. She moved her arm and I glimpsed a curve of pale soft skin.
She was naked under my robe! Music swirled around us. Lust raged inside me. That’s what one taste of an obsession does. It makes you a savage. What did she know? Coming here and telling me to go on and damage her. I wanted to open her up and fuck her until she screamed for mercy in that touch-me-not voice of hers. My breath came heavily. Get a grip. My fists clenched. This couldn’t be about me.
‘I’ve made coffee,’ I said.
‘Thank you, but no.’ Her voice sounded strained.
‘Your clothes will be ready soon.’
