sommer marsden learning to drown-CALIBRE Read online

  I slipped one finger, then another, into my cunt. Pushed my feet further apart and thrust my fingers higher, stroking my G-spot. My fingers rolled faster over my clit as I fucked myself. He would be rough with me. In bed, he would be rough. In life, gruff. The sounds of my fingers sliding in and out of my pussy was an even wetter sound than even the falling water could make. My body coiled tight for release. My fingers flew, drawing warm wet circles over my clit as my over stimulated brain showed me beautiful scary Lucas kneeling, his full gorgeous mouth on me. The flash of his hot pink tongue on my pussy. Licking me slow, staring up with his dark, dark eyes to watch my face as he lapped at the pink flesh between my legs. Making noises just so I could hear him drinking me in. Eating me and make me come.

  God, he was so imposing. Harsh. But somehow he made me feel the world was spinning at just the right speed. Not too fast, which was how I felt a lot of the time. “And you’ve known him a whole hour, genius,” I whispered. The orgasm rushed over me. It took me down in a knee weakening rush and then started to die off a bit too fast. I could have drawn the release out but fatigue was winning. I was grateful for it, too, because it let me not examine what I was feeling for my rescuer. Or was he my warden now?

  I opened my eyes and screamed. My voice big and booming and then gone from my throat. I yelped again but nothing came from me but a wheeze. He stood there watching me, just a small grin on his face. I hadn’t heard a sound. Not the door or the curtain. No steps on the tile. He was like smoke. A voyeuristic ghost who had just watched me get off. And had heard me talking to myself. About him!

  “I’m pretty captivating,” he said.

  I wanted to liquefy right there. Swirl down the drain like a ribbon of water. “I…” Cracking from the stress of it, I started to cry all over again. I cried from my huge frustration, because part of me was completely turned on that he had just watched me. That he knew. Part of me was jubilant. What the fuck did that mean? I was so confused.

  “You’ll figure it out,” he said. “It’s very difficult sometimes to figure out just how you’re bent.” That was all he said. He ripped the curtain open all the way and held a huge red bath sheet open wide. I waited a moment. Stark naked, dripping on the cool tile, getting cold fast.

  Lucas stared. No embarrassment, no tell of any kind. I thought briefly that he must be a hell of a Poker player. But his face was kind. Handsome without being pretty. His huge hands holding warmth open for me. Comfort within my reach.

  I took a deep breath and stepped into the warm embrace of the red towel and Lucas Crow.

  * * * *

  The omelet was kick ass. Better than any I’d ever had in a restaurant. Some mild white cheese, mushroom, sautéed onions, a hint of garlic. And toast. Toast had never tasted so good to me. A few strips of crisp bacon and another steaming cup of coffee. I couldn’t remember being so happy to have breakfast for dinner, or more grateful to be safe and clean and warm. I was so peaceful I managed to not be mortified. I wasn’t angry at Lucas for spying on me or invading my privacy. Or any of the things I would normally be fuming about. Instead, I felt glowy and pretty and secure. “So you steal cars?”

  He stopped, mid-bite and grinned. That grin lit me up on the inside. Like taking a shot of liquor and feeling it warm as it traveled lower and lower. I shifted in my seat, determined not to feel the arousal I felt every time I looked at him. He laughed. “No. I repossess vehicles from people who have reneged on their commitment to pay.”

  “Ah. Got it. You’re like what’s his name in that 80s movie.”

  “I am in no way like anything from the eighties,” he said. He swigged some more coffee and then stood, opened a cabinet, poured a shot of whiskey into his mug. Without asking, he slopped a dollop into my coffee.

  “I don’t like whiskey,” I said. My head buzzed with how close and warm the kitchen felt.

  “Drink it. It’ll get your system all ironed out. You were cold to the bone. Then all that hot, hot water on top of it.” His gaze slid over me again and I felt naked as opposed to wrapped in his oversized sweat clothes. “It will reboot your system. Get you settled.”

  I sipped it and felt the burn of coffee and liquor on my tongue. Searing down the back of my throat. The whiskey warmed an auburn trail through me, I hummed. “Not as bad as I thought it would be.” Lucas put his hand forward, slow and steady like I might spook. He smoothed the hair from my forehead and shook his head, a frown bowing his mouth. “What?” I asked.

  “I should go kick his ass, is all.” His brown eyes had turned darker. Nearly black in the pale buttery light of the ceiling fixture. He swigged down the rest of his coffee and dialed on his cell. “Marcus? Hey man, it’s Lucas Crow, let me ask you a favor. Sure, I can hold.”

  I finished the toast and omelet. Sipped the coffee and managed a smile. It really wasn’t so very terrible once you took a few sips. Like the first time sampling red wine, at first it is intense and overpowering if not off-putting. But the more you sip, the more your palate adjusts, the more you want. I watched him on the phone. Resting my chin on my hand to hold my own head up I was so tired. I really studied him while he was distracted. Lucas paced the small kitchen. I was fixated on his faded jeans and how they fit him. His body was lean and muscular but not pumped. This was no gym-rat body, this was a man who worked hard and probably earned that body with heavy lifting, movement and time outdoors. “Yeah, let me ask, anything come through for a missing woman in the last few hours? Local. About a ten mile radius of the station house.”

  While he waited, I watched his broad back, his hard shoulders, his strong neck. Crow’s dark blonde hair swirled here and there with unruly cowlicks. His intense eyes made me think bad things. “You okay?” He frowned.

  I laughed. It sounded high and nervous and so fucking stupid. I downed the rest of the tepid spiked coffee. To him, I probably looked stoned or stunned. I wasn‘t any of those. Just muzzy headed, trying to figure out how I got from playing a sex game to where I was. Part of the confusion was my bizarre comfort being around him. “Fine. Just tired and very, very sore.” I moved my shoulders and winced. “Beat to shit from rolling around in the truck bed.”

  He moved behind me, kneading the hard muscles in my shoulders. His fingers, insanely strong, dug into my tight muscles. I moaned before I could stop myself. Lucas laughed but then Marcus, wherever he was, must have returned. “No, that’s too old. That one’s too young. How about mid to late twenties? Tall, blonde, blue green eyes, thin but not bony. Built.” This last word he said right into my ear. His voice had dropped a bit and it sent a zing through me. Singing in my blood, making my nipples go hard. My head had never felt more full of cotton, but in a pleasant way I didn’t want to end. I liked the way his voice alone could send my whole self into throbbing confusion.

  I tried really hard to breathe then. Tried to suck in some air as he hovered right there at my ear. His lips so close to me. My earlobe, my throat, the tingling nape of my neck. Just then his mouth could have found my shoulder, his teeth my collar bone. Right then it felt as if he could see straight through the gray billows of his sweat clothes and into my heart. Into the part of me that both feared and knew the truth. “He didn’t,” I said.

  As usual, he moved so fast it was hard to track him. Lucas trapped the phone between his ear and shoulder, hooked his foot in the chair leg and turned me a quarter turn. He dropped to one knee¾God, there he was, so close all over again¾and fixed stern dark eyes on me. What? he mouthed.

  I shook my head.

  He mouthed it again. Tapping my thigh with his hard fingertip. Like he was punching in a code to make me talk.

  I shook my head, eyes welling with tears that doubled my vision. What the fuck was with me tonight? All of my wires were crossed. I felt like a crazy woman from all the emotions swirling through me. One moment I felt sad, the next thrilled, the next scared.. It was all too much and I felt my lips tremble like I was freezing. Lucas frowned harder, then his attention went back to the phone.


  “Yeah. Okay, man. Thanks for checking. Listen, if anything does come in for that area that matches her description, will you ring my cell? Nah. Nothing to worry about. A friend. And she’s fine, but I don’t know if the guy will report her missing. Right.” Quiet laughter here, he stood. “Yeah. No sweat, Marcus. See you next Friday. Bring lots of money because I plan on whipping your ass. I’ve been brushing up on my mad Poker skills.” Lucas disconnected. “He’s a good friend. We grew up together.“ He squatted back down in front of me. “What were you saying? He didn’t what?”

  “Report me missing. He just…left me. Oh my god, that stupid motherfucker left me for dead.” That did me in. I started to vibrate with tears and it felt like I would vibrate apart right in his rustic little kitchen. Right there in front of a man who had watched my face while I came, daydreaming about him and his mouth, completely oblivious to his presence. I said it so I could hear it for myself. Nothing is as hard as the truth. “He didn‘t care. He left me for dead.”

  I dropped my head even as he cupped my chin. He said into my hair, “Basically, he did. And at some point, I’m going to kick his dumb ass until it’s in front of him instead of behind.”

  Lucas pulled me into his arms again. How many times this night had he done that? I’d lost count. It was pity. It had to be. I told myself that even as he stroked my back, a dry kind of anger radiating off of him in invisible but nearly tangible waves. God help Damien.

  “Come on, let me make you another cup of coffee.”

  “I hate whiskey.” I reluctantly let him break the embrace. He had an inch long scar on his left jaw line. Another through his right eyebrow. There were golden flecks in his eyes and his front tooth was crooked.

  “Why are you staring at me?”

  “Your tooth is crooked.”

  “So’s yours.” He grinned.

  I ran my tongue and then a finger over my front teeth and noticed he was right. It was crooked right like his. I smiled. “We match.”

  “Wine?” He brushed the bangs off my face. In need of a trim and way too long to tame, they fell right back in my eyes.

  “I would like wine. I’m freezing. I’m pissed. I’m pissed and freezing.”

  “I hear you. Now tell me. Why would you bother playing games with that turd? That cannot have been the first time he was an asshole. You had to have known.”

  Before I could answer, his phone beeped. “Yeah, Max? Personal emergency. Send my calls over to Toby. He needs the extra work with the baby coming. Yeah. I’ll be back on tomorrow. No, I’m fine. Probably a bad crab cake.” Lucas laughed long and hard, but never took his eyes off of me. He mouthed the word boss. I huddled with my wine, worrying his borrowed sweatshirt between my fingertips to soothe myself.

  Chapter 5

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “You can go to work. I can go to a hotel.”

  “And pay with what?”

  “Um. I can go to a shelter?” My stomach bottomed out at just the thought. But I had no family here. They were all in West Virginia. And I had no good friends. They were all back home, too. There were two women from work that I was on the verge of friendship with. And there was Damien. But now I didn’t have Damien any more. I bit my bottom lip and steadied my breathing. Freaking out and acting like a victim would not change this awful mess. There was no reason to make Lucas Crow responsible for me in any way. It simply wasn’t fair.

  “September,” he said, frowning at me. “Look, I know we just met, but I cannot picture you in a shelter, sweetheart. They’d eat you alive.”

  “Well…I can’t stay here!” I threw my arms up and let them fall into my lap. A gulp of wine burned my throat. Careful, don’t drink it too fast. You just had whiskey.

  Down he went again. On his knees on the jaunty red and yellow floor tile. I really loved his kitchen. Or was it that I loved he even had a kitchen like this? “Why not? Do I scare you?” His smile was boyish and playful but under it all he really wanted to know.

  “No,” I mumbled. “Maybe. Just a bit.” But in a good way, I wanted to say. Like my blood was flowing faster and cleaner. I forced myself to look him in the eye. He smiled wider, still kind but a bit devious.

  “What was that? You just turned bright pink. Is it because I saw you?” He traced the nearly invisible line of my kneecap through the huge sweatpants. The fingertip must have been dipped in lava because it blazed up my leg like a brush fire. Hot and fast and right to the heart of the matter. Right to my pussy where I had yet to be satisfied the way I’d originally intended for the night.

  “Yeah. Most women would turn pink if someone caught them…” I trailed off. I could force myself not to cry but I couldn’t push these words past my lips. I traced my other kneecap to keep my focus, to keep a balance between his touch and mine. His fingers were making my head swim. It wasn’t the alcohol. It was him.

  Lucas leaned in and his face was close enough for me to see each individual hair that pushed through his tan skin. I could make out each tiny wrinkle at the corner of his eyes, showing how much he had laughed in his life. And how much sun he had gotten over the years. I could smell coffee on his breath and oil on his clothes. He was so striking it made my heart hurt. “Masturbating?” he asked softly. His lips a fraction of an inch from mine. His warm breath on my lips, my cheek.

  “Yes, that.” Not much of an answer. I wasn’t even sure he’d heard me.

  “Touching yourself?” Closer now. His fingers still rubbing circles and patterns and whorls on my knee, though my own finger had stilled. My pussy literally thumped now. A wet, hungry heartbeat at my very center. Wanting so badly for him to grab me, shake me a bit and take my mouth in whatever way he chose. Yes, it was unsafe. Not wise. Maybe just stupid, but here I was with him looking at me that way and those were the pictures running through my mind.

  “Yes. Touching myself.” Lucas pushed his fingers higher when I said it. My confession earned me a rough rub of his wide thumb over my clit. He went right to it like he had that X-ray vision I feared. Simply ran a line up my leg and centered in on me there. He stroked, the pressure soft and perfect. My eyes fell closed and my head tipped back.

  “Does that feel good, Ember?”

  I nodded, it was all I could do. Lucas removed his hand. I opened my eyes and he stared at me like I had been here a thousand times and we’d known each other forever. I read that look and said, out loud, “Yes. It feels good.”

  I was rewarded for my verbal skills. His finger returned and pushed me more firmly, rubbed a half-assed, lazy circle that curled my bare toes on the cool tile floor. Watching his face made me uncoil inside. Pieces of the horrible night lifted off of me, fell away in dirty chunks as he moved closer. I would have been surprised if a sheet of paper would fit between our lips, and yet, he did not kiss me. Instead he said right up to me, so close I couldn’t lie. “What were you thinking about?”

  My breath stuttered and I blew it out softly. My lips shivered belying my nerves. The truth? Lie? I found his eyes. So close and so brown, gold flecks like some gorgeous but dangerous animal. His hand had left--he wasn’t touching me. I felt the absence of his touch. Lying wasn’t an option. “You. I was thinking about…” I forced the last word out. “You.”

  This time he did not touch me through the sweatpants. He pushed them down just in the front. Just enough to expose the angle of my hipbones, the smooth hill of my shaved sex. I watched, my breath stalled in my lungs, my ears rang. He pushed a finger into my cunt. Slow. It disappeared to the first knuckle and only then did my brain and body reconcile the sight and the sensation. I inhaled the air I’d been denying myself. Middle knuckle. All the way in. He stopped, one finger deep in my wetness, smiled. That fraction of an inch disappeared and he kissed me. Softly at first. Gentle.

  “Oh,” I said. I didn’t take the time to feel stupid. It had slipped out and this bizarre but perfect moment in time could not be wasted with worrying that I was stupid.

  “Yeah. Oh. You’re very wet down there, Ember. Your pussy is w
et. For me.” He flexed deep inside me and it was as if he had pushed an invisible switch with the pad of his finger. My nipples went taut, my belly fluttered with a delicious pressure. “Your cunt is wet. For me.” His lips pressed to my earlobe and he pushed another finger inside.

  “Yes, it is. It is for you.”

  “Say my name.”

  “Lucas.”

  “Say it.” His thumb slipped over my clit, wet with my own silken juices. Had I stopped breathing? It felt like it.

  “Yes, Lucas, for you.” My hips bumped up under him. I gripped the sides of his ladder back chair. Holding hard to the woven seat like it would crumble under me. I watched his hand in my pants. Watched his eyes track my movements. I sat trapped and mesmerized as he leaned in, kissing me again. He bit my bottom lip. Pain and pleasure warred in my nerve endings.

  Holding the pink flesh between his sharp white teeth he said, “Say it.”

  My mind scrambled for a moment. Frantic beats of anxiety pulsed in me. Say what? What should I do? But then he pressed my clit, circled, pressed harder and harder until my vision was peppered with little white spots. I started to come and he almost pulled his fingers free to deny me. Magically, mercifully, my brain kicked in. “Yes, Sir,” I whispered. “Yes, Sir. For you.”

  “You’re coming for me.” He bit my throat above my collar bone. The sparks of pain accenting the liquid pleasure that rolled through my cunt, filled my womb.

  “Yes, Sir, for you,” I managed before my head fell back and my hips shot up. His hand in my pants, his mouth at my throat and what wanted to be fear in my mind. But I tamped it down. Just for now. I could worry when it didn’t feel so fucking good.

  Chapter 6

  It all stopped. Everything. The whole world. His hand was still in my pants. Hell, still in me. I could feel the two hot spots of red on my cheeks. Could hear myself panting. The wet liquid sounds of his fingers in my cunt so loud it filled my head as my orgasm unwound in a slow warm spiral.