Restricted Release Read online

  “Yes.” I shoved my hand down between us and found him hard again. Buried under a thin but frustrating layer of cotton. Curling my fingers around him, I held him, liking the heft of his cock.

  “Not at all. In fact I think it’s the smartest fucking thing I’ve heard in a long time. You got bitten, bruised and battered by it so you put life on your own terms. Until you heal, until you feel strong…” He shoved the sweatshirt higher, found my exposed breast with his tongue.

  He sucked once, twice and then again, the thrill shooting from my chest to my cunt. “That’s the way to go. Put things on your terms, Clara. Do what you have to do.”

  I freed him from his pants and we both went still for a heartbeat. Eye-to-eye, chest-to-chest, hip-to-hip. He watched me and I watched him and then he settled his mouth on mine and kissed me gently.

  “Whatever you want to do, gorgeous.” He said it into my mouth and followed the words with a stroke of his tongue. “You can put me in you or we can stay here all night. Just like this. I’m perfectly content.”

  But I was not. My body beat in a steady tempo for him. I wanted him, I needed him in me. So, I parted my legs more and ran the tip of his cock along my wetness. His eyes slammed shut as he relished my touch. I kissed him while his eyes were closed, taking advantage of seeing a big man so vulnerable.

  For the first time in ages I felt a rush of power. A feeling of control that made me shiver it was so intense.

  “What do you want, Clara?”

  “This.” I put him to my opening. With one hand I pulled at his back to get him in me, and once the tip of him was in, I surged up boldly to take him—to force his movement and get him in my body. His cock filling me and stretching me. My mouth sliding roughly against his and taking a kiss.

  His muscles danced under my clutching hands. I wanted my hands everywhere. His arms to feel the flex and bunch of his movements. His back to trace the hard ridges of his spine. His ass, his legs, his face. I pushed my fingers to his lips and he sucked them so I felt the draw in my cunt, my womb. I shivered, letting a sigh slide past my lips.

  “Are you cold?”

  “Not even close. It’s you. You do that…” Locking my legs around his waist, I opened my body to him, feeling the hot and slippery grind of his pubic bone to my clitoris.

  Matt made a sound that raised the fine hairs on my body. My hips shot up and our bellies slapped together hard enough to make me smile. Matt shook his head once, grabbed my roaming hands and slammed them up above my head. Pinning my wrists to the ground, he changed our tempo like a dance partner suddenly switching numbers.

  I groaned and he chuckled. “You had me too close. I don’t want to be that close yet, Clara.”

  “You like my name,” I said, sounding even to myself slightly mystified.

  “I fucking love your name.” He pressed his lips in a tight line and moved his body from side to side, his hips taking up a rhythm that had me right on the razor edge of coming again. I hovered there until he pinned me with his gaze. Big brown eyes watching me like he knew all my secrets.

  Already he pretty much did.

  Rock-rock-rock went his hips, and his fingers curled tight to the fragile bones in my wrist. The pain kissed pleasure and I felt the first shy flex of my pussy around him. He felt it too because he smiled that smile of his that made my stomach flip.

  He brushed his lips across my forehead and over my cheeks. The skin on my neck prickled with the sensation. His tongue darted out to trace the curve of my ear, the length of my throat, the thundering thump of my pulse. He licked the skin over my pulse point swiftly and my nipples steepled hard against his chest.

  I squeezed him with my internal muscles. It was all I had in my arsenal since his body was crushed down on mine and his hands kept me trapped.

  He smiled at me. “Cheater.”

  Then his mouth met mine and his tongue was sweet and warm. “Come for me, Clara,” he said. “And don’t swallow it down.”

  Matt chose that moment to drive deep and move just so. That subtle movement brushed every greedy nerve ending deep inside me and I came undone, the orgasm hitting me hard and fast. Hard enough and fast enough that I couldn’t stifle myself even if I’d wanted to.

  I cried out my orgasm to his high ceiling, his bare windows, his echoing house. I came loud and long and only when I was done did he pull his hands off my wrists, plant them on my hips and thrust the way he needed. It was only after he’d given me what I needed so badly that he took what he needed. When he came his teeth pressed to the curve of my jaw, the heat of him seeping into my bones.

  A lancet of fear shot through me.

  I swallowed hard, completely unwilling to show my hand. I buried my weakness and tried to focus on the steady and softening thump of his heart. It banged against mine because we were chest-to-chest, his arms wrapped around me.

  Eventually he whispered, “I can feel your tension. Just stay for a little while. Time enough for me to do one more thing.”

  I almost argued with him. I almost tried to lie. But when I looked at him, his eyes were kind and he didn’t seem upset. Just concerned. I nodded once and reached out blindly for the sweatshirt. He stilled my hand with his. “And no clothes.”

  There was that lancet of fear again.

  Chapter Nine

  He started arranging me. I let him, but my heart was pounding. My skin was tense with goose pimples and my stomach muscles quivered when his fingers skated over the flat of my belly.

  “Just let me draw you, Miss Clara,” he said. When Matt smiled I saw his slightly crooked teeth, the kindness in him and yes, the passion. When I looked at him now I could imagine the slide of his skin over mine and the blissful pressure of him filling me, moving in me.

  “I don’t think you want to—”

  When I tried to sit up, he stilled me with a splayed hand between my breasts. It felt like his warmth was slipping into my soul. “You can tell me no. You can tell me to get lost. You can even tell me to go fuck myself…” He cocked his head. “Although I’d rather fuck you. But you cannot under any circumstances tell me that I don’t want to draw you. Because it’s all I really want to do right now. Unless you’re up for round three that is.”

  Blood pounded in my temples. I simply nodded and arranged myself back the way he’d put me. Matt found a high-back chair tucked behind a stack of moving boxes and he pulled it out so it rested about three feet from me. Then he found his pad and a coffee tin of pens and pencils and sat on the woven straw seat to work.

  “You’re naked,” I whispered and then surprised the shit out of myself by giggling. I never giggled.

  “I don’t want you to feel all alone and whatnot. Solidarity in nudity.” He winked at me and joy spread in my belly. A sharp burst of pride for having amused him, having made him smile.

  It made no sense and yet there it was.

  He was utterly silent as he sketched me. His gaze darted over my skin and it felt like he was touching me. The cool air of the room and the way he looked at me had me wanting to squirm. And yet I repressed that urge and kept myself still.

  “You had no reason to eat only half a rice cake a day,” he said finally. His voice was like warm chocolate. I shut my eyes for a beat to keep from crying.

  More scratching of pencil on paper and then he went on. “No woman should be eating that. But my God, Clara, you are spectacular. I wish you could see you the way I see you. I think you should sit with me next time…”

  Next time…

  “And eat cheese and crackers and olives and cookies and whatever else you God damn please. I think you should eat naked and drink naked and work naked and dance naked…preferably for me.” He paused to smile and my pussy let loose a rush of juices. God, how I disagreed with everything he was saying, but God how I loved that he was saying it. Most of me anyway. The fearful part of me was just that—fearful.

  A bark of laughter burst out of me, making my breasts dance and my nipples go rigid.

  “The point is
, lady, that you are breathtaking and you should know it.” He held up a finger when I opened my mouth to speak. “I know we all have our hang-ups. I get it. You’re going to tell me that you can’t help it any more than I can help most days feeling like I draw rudimentary stick figures and have the talent of a monkey on cocaine.”

  I watched him, shocked silent by his admission.

  “But I am telling you that you are stunning. And I want you to try and do what I have to do very often.” His eyes were on me. I felt lightheaded.

  “What’s that?” I finally asked.

  “Step outside yourself and look at you as if you are another person. Look at yourself and try to see what I see. What others see. What the world sees.”

  “Richard saw imperfection,” I said, my tone a bit too accusatory for my taste. But I couldn’t help it.

  He looked up from the paper. “I’m not talking about one dick with apparent brain damage. I’m talking about all the clear-minded, well-sighted, sane people in the world who look at you and see a beautiful woman. Instantaneously,” he added with a laugh. “Beautiful inside and out.”

  Anxiety clamored in my chest and I felt like I was drowning. He put the pencil down and I was so grateful, I sat up, clutching his sweatshirt to me, finding my stuff. “I have to…I have to go,” I muttered. I couldn’t look at him. I felt so ashamed of my fear but powerless to deny the urge to run this time.

  He didn’t stop me. He simply grabbed me at the last second as I had my hand on the doorknob and kissed me. “Call me when you’re ready, Clara,” he said. He pushed a piece of paper into my hand and let me go.

  * * * * *

  It’s really silly but sometimes I still look for him in my home. Richard. Not the Richard who fucked with my head and my heart but the Richard I met at first. The one I fell in love with.

  But he wasn’t here and neither was the girl who met him. The untainted girl who at first just felt a harmless sense of not being good enough sometimes. Something everyone felt from time to time. It had been a minor character flaw before my disastrous marriage had turned it into something more.

  Some days the person who lived in my house was the me who had learned and grown from my marriage and its fated end. But some days the woman who lived here was the same sad and mangled soul who had believed every septic thing said about her.

  I slammed the door and locked it and had that moment—that flashing moment where I expected to look up and see Richard. But after being with Matt for hours—several, the living room clock told me—I was looking for the toxic Richard. The one who pointed to airbrushed women in nudie magazines and said, “You know, if you just worked out, Clara, you could look like this too.”

  Beautiful inside and out… It ran through my head and a sob ripped out of me. I pushed my hand to my mouth to stifle it. What the hell? What was wrong with me? It was just a fuck. And yet…

  The phone started ringing and I froze, wondering if it was Matt. He said to call when I was ready. How in the world could I be ready? It hadn’t even been five minutes.

  I mentally ran down the checklist of what I might have left there that would make him call and came up blank. But then my fingers worried the gray sweatshirt I was wearing—his gray sweatshirt— and it clicked.

  I grabbed my phone and steeled myself. “Listen, I know I have your sweatshirt. Let me wash it and—”

  “Clara! Are you okay? I called and called and—” My sister abruptly stopped talking and I heard her suck in a breath. “Wait! Whose sweatshirt do you have, sissy?”

  “No one’s,” I muttered. I was screwed and I knew it. When it came to dirt my sister was like a bloodhound on a scent.

  “Tell me! I was so worried. My God, girl, you have to get over this pseudo shut-in thing. You’re twenty-six, I should not be having a heart attack because you don’t answer your phone. I should just assume you’re out getting lucky.”

  I bit my lips and walked to the living room sideboard and found a wineglass. I filled it almost to the top and took a swig, settling in for the fallout that was about to happen.

  “Clara? Oh. My. God!”

  “Don’t.”

  “Tell me all!”

  “I can’t,” I said. “I’m so tired, Catty.” It was my pet nickname for her and I usually reserved it for moments in time where I needed my sister’s understanding.

  She blew out a weary sigh that made me smile a little. I was glad she couldn’t see me. I adored her and her patience was definitely saintly. I had put my sister through the wringer when things with Richard and me imploded. She had been my rock.

  “Fine,” she said. “But I am calling you tomorrow.”

  I nodded even though she couldn’t see me. “You deserve the dirt and I promise you’ll get it. Okay?”

  “Okay, Tig.”

  That was her nickname for me. I had been christened Tigger at a young age. I was always bouncy and happy and goofy like Tigger from the Hundred Acre Wood.

  I wished her good night and hung up. Wondering where the Tigger spirit had gone. And why something that should be planting a seed of hope in me was simply scaring me to death. Where had the warrior, ass-kicker, name-taker Clara gone? She’d been here once upon a time. And now she was missing.

  “I want to find her,” I said out loud.

  I dropped to the sofa and found a truly cheesy B movie on the Science Fiction Channel. Somewhere around the very poorly done TV apocalypse, I fell asleep.

  Chapter Ten

  It was snowing. February in the city brings a hush when the snow comes. Roads that are always busy, supplying a sibilant background noise, go silent. The silence can be deafening.

  The moment I opened my eyes, before I even drew the blinds up, I knew it either was snowing or had snowed. Nothing brought silence to Remington Avenue that way. Nothing but snowfall.

  I clamored to the window in my leggings and his sweatshirt. Snow still made me feel like a child. It awakened something in me that felt fresh and alive. It seemed fitting that since the night before I had considered the possibility of hope—for me and for my life. Before fear swooped in to take me over.

  The white, pristine, untouched snow out front added to that the memory of my hope. No one had trampled it yet, not even a squirrel. It was utterly crisp and virginal.

  I made coffee while keeping one eye out the window at the drifting flakes. It soothed me, the no-sound sound of a winter storm.

  I booted up the computer, added raw sugar and cream to my coffee and sat at the kitchen island on my stool and read my emails. Two students needed extra counseling on papers. One on global warming, one on the life cycle of a caterpillar. I made my notes and drank my coffee and listened to the nothing. The TV was silent, the radio too. I didn’t want to hear anything other than my house and what was going on inside me. I didn’t even notice it at first…I was humming.

  Humming was a happy thing for me. I didn’t hum often, though in my younger years I used to drive Cat batshit crazy doing it.

  “More coffee,” I whispered, refusing to focus on my apparent peaceful nature.

  I set the water on to boil and dumped my coffee grounds from my French press into a big jar of scraps I kept as half-ass compost for my tiny kitchen garden. My mother had called it a kitchen garden because it was right outside my kitchen door. My grandmother would have called it a Victory garden. I just called it the place I puttered in the summer and grew some tomatoes and herbs and squash.

  I measured out two spoonfuls of coffee and when the water started to boil, I poured it in. Flipping my three-minute egg timer, I wandered to the window, thinking instead of turning up the heat I’d just put on some big wool socks.

  He was at his window. Moving around, maybe making his own coffee or tea. A dark-colored thermal shirt hugged his shoulders and biceps. His face, even from a distance, was peppered with dark stubble and I could see his mouth moving.

  Jealousy lit me up as I wondered who he was talking to so early but then he tilted his head back and appeared to
let loose and I heard myself chuckle. “He’s singing!” I chided myself.

  When he looked up, he caught me mid-laugh. It was an illusion but I swore I could see the flash of amusement in his dark eyes. He raised a hand and instead of waving, pressed it to the window.

  I froze there, watching him, wanting to raise my hand up and press it to my window to mimic him. But it smacked of a romantic gesture. Of true affection. And that made my stomach feel like I was in free fall. So instead I tossed him a wave, a smile that felt more like a rictus and turned away quickly before I could change my mind.

  My chest cramped. Had I hurt his feelings? Was he angry? All of it swirled through me but I didn’t have time to worry about it anymore because someone was banging on my kitchen door. I jumped, thinking for a second it was him. But unless he was a superhero along the lines of some of the art I’d seen scattered around his house it wasn’t Matt.

  It was Cat. She raised a fist to me through the glass and I heard her muffled voice. “For the sake of all that’s holy let me in, woman!”

  I unlocked the three locks on the old kitchen door and swept it wide. My sister rushed in, grabbed me in a hug I knew had everything to do with getting laid and kissed me with chilly lips. “Coffee!” she moaned.

  I moved to put more water on and watched her tear off her wet boots and shake off her hat on my welcome mat. She dropped into a red kitchen chair and stared me down. “Now, spill.”

  “Good morning, Sister Catherine dear, how are you today?” I teased, keeping my back to her so she wouldn’t see me grin.

  “Oh my God. That is utter bullshit. You’ve barely left your house in a year and now you’ve gotten boffed to the point of grinning with your back turned to me.”

  “Jesus. You are creepy,” I said, setting the cream and sugar out on the counter. The water was just starting to hiss.

  “Not creepy. I’ve been your sister since you were a big lump in mom’s stomach that kicked me when I pressed my hand to it. I can read you like a very well-used, old and beloved book. Something like Story of O.”