The Distraction Read online

  Cock still pulsing, he lowered his forehead to mine.

  “Again,” he said.

  Four

  We lay on the floor on our sides, a tangle of arms and legs and shredded satin, slick with sweat and our own desire. He kissed me gently, but though his lips were soft, there was a passion behind it that made my heart thunder against my ribs. His fingers trailed over my cheek, down the nape of my neck, over each individual vertebrae of my spine, as if relearning the contours of my body.

  “Black was a good choice,” I said quietly as he began kissing each one of my fingers. How many orgasms had I just had? Six? I’d lost count after he’d pulled me onto his lap in the chair—now overturned beside us—and helped me ride him until my legs no longer worked.

  He gave a little wince as he glanced at the teddy, now hanging by just a few small clasps around my waist. One thigh-high was gone completely. The other torn and pooling around my calf. He’d made certain to put my shoes back on.

  “I may have gotten a little carried away,” he said, reaching behind me to remove the rest of the tattered garment. He paused. “Wait. What do you mean, choice? Was there a second option?”

  His cock stirred against my thigh, making me laugh.

  “Yes. The super sexy pajama pants and T-shirt combo.” I didn’t need to tell him about the red bra and panty set yet—some things were better left as a surprise.

  He pulled the bodice free and tossed it behind me, then kissed the tip of my nose. I didn’t remember him being so sweet after we’d been intimate. I sort of loved it.

  “I liked the pajama pants,” he said. “Stretchy. Easy access.” His hand lowered down my stomach and I wiggled away as he grazed over the ticklish spot on the front of my pelvis.

  He pulled himself up on one shoulder and looked down at me. There was a calmness in his eyes now, the storm had passed. It was comforting, considering the anguish I’d seen there before he’d gone to jail.

  “I did like it,” he said, more serious now. “You in my shirt, making yourself at home. That wet hair.” He growled a little, and I smiled.

  I love you, I thought. But I didn’t say it. And even though his lips parted again, and his eyes filled with emotion, he didn’t say it either.

  “I thought things might be different,” I confessed. “All that time apart.”

  “Who says they’re not?” He nuzzled my neck, nibbling my earlobe. “They’re worse. Three months without a fix nearly killed me.”

  His words reminded me of something I needed to say, but had hoped for a better time.

  “Alec . . . there’s something I need to tell you.”

  He stiffened, pulled back. I wished I could erase the doubt from his mind, but only time could do that. He would have to learn to trust me again.

  “Have you seen your dad?” I asked. The man’s image immediately came to mind—dark hair, a flirty smile, his trusty Seeing Eye dog Askem at his side. Early macular generation had left him mostly blind before Alec was born, but that wasn’t the issue he struggled with now.

  His brows flattened. “I came straight here.”

  I took his hand and flattened it against my heart, circling his knuckles with my fingertips.

  “He fell off the wagon.” I searched his face for any kind of response, but there was barely a flicker of surprise. “I’ve been visiting him some. I hope you don’t mind.”

  Now he had a response. His eyes pinched at the corners, and his mouth pulled into a frown.

  “He called you? He’s a real pain in the ass when he’s been drinking.”

  “He was still sober the first time I saw him,” I said, glancing away. “You didn’t tell him you were going to jail.”

  Alec lay back on the floor, staring up at the underside of the dining room table. I rose on my side, my throat tightening.

  “You told him,” Alec said.

  “He’d been trying to reach you,” I said. “He was worried.”

  Alec made a noise of disbelief. According to him they got along all right now, but they hadn’t always. His father’s addiction had left them homeless, and driven Alec to sell drugs for money.

  I bit my lip, hard. “I didn’t know he’d start drinking again.”

  Alec laughed dryly. “Yeah. Well. That’s what he does.”

  I pulled back, remembering one particularly notable visit with Thomas last month. He’d been too thin, substituting booze for real food, and I’d made him an omelet, which he’d promptly thrown up on my shoes.

  I tried not to blame myself—it wasn’t like I’d handed him a bottle—but I still felt terrible for triggering his relapse. My own birth mother had been an addict, and more than once she’d blamed her inability to quit on the stress I caused her.

  I sat up and pulled my knees to my chest. I was small enough that my head still cleared the underside of the table. Right now I couldn’t even remember how we’d gotten under here.

  “I’m so sorry,” I said. “Maybe I should have stayed out of your business. It just . . .” I squeezed my knees tighter. “It just made me feel like you weren’t so far away.”

  His head lifted, eyes round with surprise. When he sat he had to duck because he wasn’t nearly as compact as I was. Giving up on getting comfortable, he scooted out from under the table.

  “It’s not your fault,” he said. “I’ll call his sponsor tomorrow.”

  “I already did.” I winced. “Too far?”

  Alec’s brows arched. He shook his head slowly.

  “Thanks,” he said, looking a bit perplexed.

  I nodded.

  “I have to work in the morning,” I said, looking for a change of subject. “But maybe we could meet for lunch.”

  He nodded. “I have to meet my lawyer. Then my parole officer.”

  I stiffened at the mention of parole. Sometimes it all felt too real. Alec had served time in prison. His life would be different now. Mine, too.

  “What?” he asked, like he expected me to bolt.

  “Nothing,” I said, not wanting to dampen the mood further. “You’re about to become a very good boy.”

  He smirked. “They gave me the rules with my discharge paperwork. No drugs, no fighting, no weapons.” One of his fingers slid down my breast and circled the hard point. “No running away to Mexico.”

  “How will you ever manage?”

  “I’ll figure out something.”

  His gaze was turning hungry again, removing any uncertainty from our previous conversation. He began to lay me back on the floor, mouth making a straight line down the center of my body.

  He had a talent for making me feel desired. The exploration of his tongue over my ribs was almost enough for me to forget the slipperiness between my thighs.

  “I should clean up,” I said, wiggling as he pinned my hips to the ground.

  “Later,” he murmured against my belly, causing my skin to pepper with goose bumps. “I’m not done with you.”

  I gave a little gasp as he blew on the damp skin he’d just kissed.

  “And here I was worried that you wouldn’t want me anymore.”

  He paused. Looked up. “You thought that?”

  I took the opportunity to twist away. “Maybe.”

  “That’s not possible,” he said. “The things I’ve dreamed of doing to you . . .” His hand lifted to my breast, cupped it gently, and then in contrast plucked at my sensitive nipple. My spine arched, and his arms snaked beneath my back to pull my breast into his mouth. He licked at it leisurely with the back of his tongue, a rough friction against such a sensitive bud, and I clenched my knees together because the pleasure was building again.

  “Not many people are fortunate enough to fantasize about the person they’re with,” he said.

  “I fantasize about you, too,” I admitted, giving a short moan as he switched to my other breast.
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  His fingers slid up the inside of my calf, easing my knees apart. “What kinds of things?”

  “Dirty things.”

  “Tell me,” he demanded.

  I bit my lip. “I’ll show you.”

  His face lifted, desire bright in his eyes. I wiggled out from underneath him and stood, pulling him by the hand behind me to the master bathroom, where I turned on the shower. When it was warm, I stepped inside, and lathered soap on the washcloth. Quickly, I cleaned myself off, and then moved behind him.

  Something caught my eye that I hadn’t seen before. A thin scar below his ribs on his left side. Slightly raised, it couldn’t have been more than a couple of months old. It had certainly not been there the last time we’d been together—I would have remembered. I couldn’t believe I hadn’t felt it earlier.

  “Alec, what happened here?” My fingers traced the line, at least four inches long. He twisted to face me, an anger I didn’t understand flashing over his features before he settled me in his arms and smiled.

  “Metalwork,” he said. “That was my assignment in prison. Making parts for boats and cars. Lost control of one of the pieces.”

  I frowned. “The cut’s on your back.”

  He kept smiling. “It’s a risky job. That’s why they pay big money.”

  “Big money, huh?” I had a bad feeling about this, but Alec had promised never to lie to me again, and I wanted to believe him.

  “Sure,” he said. “Eighty cents an hour. You impressed yet?”

  I couldn’t help but grin. “Not as impressed as you’re going to be.”

  I turned him back to face the spray, then reached around his body to slide my soapy hands over his stomach. He tensed, jerking a little as I reached his cock. He was already hard; he’d been that way for most of the night. It pleased me immensely that he was so insatiable, that I was the object of his lust. It made me feel powerful, feminine. Wanted.

  He grew thicker in my hands, heavy and impossibly smooth. My breasts slid against his back and he uttered a sharp curse.

  “Come here,” he said, his intent clear. If I let him have his way, I’d be halfway to my next orgasm right now.

  “No,” I told him. “Not this time.”

  I stroked him with both hands until his back muscles began to clench, then I reached lower and cupped his balls. They tightened immediately, giving me room to rub the smooth skin behind them with my middle finger. All the while my other hand squeezed his shaft, drove to the head, and then returned to the base.

  “I fantasize that you touch yourself like this and think of me,” I said, my cheek pressed against his back. “That you can’t wait between the times that you’re buried in my pussy.” The word made me blush, but a harsh breath came from his throat as I said it, making me realize how much he wanted my naughty words.

  “Do you like it when I say that?” I whispered. “Pussy?”

  “Fuck yes.”

  “What about cunt? I want your big cock in my cunt.”

  I stumbled over the word, but the shudder that raked through him told me he didn’t notice. I returned both hands to his shaft.

  “But right now I want something else,” I said.

  I slipped around his body, never letting go of him. He was radiating pure energy, but it was captured, and only I could set it free. His piercing stare, flexing muscles in his neck, even his knuckles, white from his fingers gripping his thighs, sent a potent thrill through me. In that moment, he was mine.

  “Do you want to come?” I asked.

  “Yes,” he hissed, flashing his teeth when I squeezed hard.

  “You’re going to when I say,” I said, a little worried that I was being too bold. “And I’m going to watch you.”

  His eyes narrowed. “You want to watch me.”

  My cheeks flamed. I glanced over his shoulder, then forced myself to look at him. “I want to see what I do to you. That’s my fantasy. Well, one of them.”

  He chuckled softly. “Do your worst.”

  I stroked him twice more, then let the water wash away the soap. Pushing him back a little, I lowered to my knees and began to tease the underside of his cock with my fingertips. A bead of precum formed on the tip of his head immediately.

  “You’re going to kill me,” he said tightly. “Look at my dick. Look how hard I am.”

  I bit my lip, trying to maintain some illusion of innocence. I drew one of his balls into my mouth and slowly began to swirl my tongue around it.

  “Fuck.” He gripped my hair. I closed my eyes, lapping his scrotum as I moved to the other side. Above, his abs flexed, and he began to breathe roughly.

  Yes.

  I wanted more. I wanted to see him lose control.

  I sucked him harder, all the while stroking his shaft. A stunted groan came from his throat as I circled the engorged head, and my sounds echoed his as I drew him into my mouth, because I knew just how it felt pushing past the threshold into my cunt.

  “You like that,” he rasped. “You want me to fuck your mouth.”

  “Yes,” I said, briefly wondering if that was wrong. Was I supposed to like it this much? Did it make me dirty? Too far gone, I pulled him deeper. I stroked him all the while, my fingers rising to my lips and pushing back down. My other hand slid beneath his balls, massaging gently. I pulled my knees closer together, desperate to still some of the need coiling inside of me.

  He kept watching, lips parted.

  I took him as far as I could go, sucking hard as I backed to the head. He seemed to like that; his whole body tensed each time. I reached around him, feeling his firm, perfect ass as I went faster. Faster. He fell back a step, the tile wall supporting his weight as his hips gave small, uncontrolled thrusts into my mouth. I nearly gagged but kept going, sealing my lips so hard around his shaft they tingled. His head tilted back as he siphoned in a hard breath. Then he looked down again, a wild need in his eyes, and I knew I had him.

  “Anna,” he said. “Enough.”

  Not enough. Not yet. I clenched my thighs together. My heavy breasts were bouncing with my exertions.

  You want me to fuck your mouth.

  I moaned around his dick. I could practically feel him inside my cunt, pulsing the way he was now with each stroke of my tongue.

  “Anna . . . fuck. Fuck.”

  I scraped my teeth down his shaft, and his grip on my hair tightened. He gave a hoarse shout, and I felt the first blast of come coat the insides of my cheeks. I pulled back, hot liquid spurting onto my lips and chin. But I was looking up at his face, at the carnal look in his eyes, stunned and impossibly turned on by the single moment he’d stopped caring about anything but finishing. The sound of my name on his lips staggered me. How could I possibly have thought I had control of him? He owned me.

  I rose, rinsing off in the spray. He said nothing, and for a moment we stood a foot apart, both watching each other. His chest rose and fell, and then gradually steadied. His cock stayed semihard.

  “Was that what you wanted?” he asked.

  A sudden dose of shame heated my veins, followed by uncertainty. Strange, uncomfortable feelings that had been placed on hold after I’d told him I’d helped his father. We clearly connected on a sexual level—there was no denying that. But what about the rest? It had seemed so second nature to decorate his house and check in on his family, but he’d barely said a word about it. Was there more to that, or simply the shock that I’d done more than what was asked?

  Time had changed him. There was a harder, more severe look about him than before. Of course there was; he’d been through so much over the past months. It softened when we were intimate, but now it was undeniable.

  “What do you want?” I asked quietly. I’d been so focused on him coming home that I hadn’t bothered to consider where we might go from there. We were in uncharted territory, and not exactly working with a
fairy-tale scenario.

  He stayed against the wall, his brows pulling inward. “What do you mean?”

  “When’s your birthday?” I asked.

  His frown deepened. He reached around me to turn off the shower.

  “November third,” he said.

  “What’s your middle name?”

  He sighed.

  “I don’t have one,” I said. “Or if I did, I don’t remember my birth mother ever saying it.”

  “What are you doing?”

  The awkwardness was back, the space between us filled with all the things we didn’t know about each other but should have, considering the strength of our feelings.

  “I don’t know,” I said.

  I reached for a towel, but he stopped me with one hand on my lower back. I froze in place, a shiver racing up my spine. Heat seemed to pulse through his hand into my tensed muscles, giving me the calm I craved.

  “You smell like sandalwood,” he said. “You bite your lip when you’re nervous.” His fingers moved slowly to my hip. “You think you’re afraid of being left because your mom fucked you up, but really you’re afraid of being the one who leaves.”

  I turned, holding the towel between us. My teeth pressed together. I didn’t want to talk about that stuff. Especially not when I was already feeling vulnerable.

  “I know the sounds you make when I’m inside of you,” he said, stepping closer, and moving the towel out from between us. “And I know it tears me up when you cry.”

  I felt like I might cry right now. He was unraveling me, the way he did when we made love, only now it wasn’t with my body, but my heart.

  “I don’t know everything about you, Anna. But if you give me time, I will.”

  I could barely breathe. What he was proposing scared the hell out of me—the prospect of being known, really, truly known, and knowing someone in return. It was exactly what I wanted from him, but it came with a price. He could hurt me, worse than Bobby or Maxim Stein could hurt me. He could rip me apart, and I would be helpless to stop him.

  I tilted forward, until my forehead came to rest on his chest. He wrapped the towel around my shoulders, and pulled me against him. Gently, he kissed the top of my head.