Jenn Bennett - Grim Shadows

“Lowe.” She tried to say something more, but nothing came out.

A second later, he let go of her hand, only to wrangle her around the waist, pulling her down to sit sideways on his lap. His chest was a warm brick wall against her shoulder. So much bare skin. A little shiver of panic raced through her as one hand slid around her back and settled on her hip. The other tilted her chin toward his face.

His voice was low and firm. “I understand why you’re uncomfortable with other people touching you, but you can’t be that way with me, and that’s all there is to it. Because when I told you in the car that it didn’t matter if you weren’t interested in me, I lied. It does matter. It matters a lot.” He slowly released her chin. “Did you lie to me when you said you never wanted to kiss me again?”

Her gaze dropped to his chest as she whispered, “Yes. I lied.”

The muffled noise from the yawning city outside her windows sounded far away as she listened to his breath. Movement stirred against her thigh. But with her nerves stretched tight, it took her several moments to comprehend what was happening—plenty of time for him to gentlemanly move away or shift positions. He clearly had no intention of doing so.

Good God.

Her face heated in embarrassment, but that quickly changed into something else when her nipples stiffened into hard points. Her hands lay in her lap. She clenched them, fingernails biting into her palms, as she pressed her thighs together, praying he wouldn’t touch her.

Praying he would.

He brushed a slow touch along the curve of her shoulder and spoke in a deep, rough voice. “You’ve made yourself a fine little island, not getting close to people, haven’t you? But you can’t survive like that forever. I think I’m going to have to send out a rescue boat and haul you back onto the mainland.”

“Lowe.”

He nuzzled his nose into her hair and inhaled. “This is what’s going to happen. You’re going to kiss me. And I’m going to touch you.”

“I—”

“Nuh-uh-uh,” he warned. “I’m in charge now, Miss Bacall. Here, hold my hand again so you can be sure I’m not lying . . .” He forced open one of her fists and threaded three long fingers between hers. “This hand only, that’s all I’ll use. We won’t move from this chair, and I promise not to touch any skin. I’ll only touch you over your clothes. That’s all. Nothing more. Agreed?”

“Over my clothes?”

“Yes.”

“Where?” she whispered, and immediately regretted the question.

He whispered back, lips brushing her ear. “Wherever I choose. Yes?”

Her heart galloped inside her chest. “Yes.”

“Good.” His lips grazed hers. “Now, kiss me like you did on the wharf.”

She hesitated, but only for a moment.

A carnival of current jolted through her center when their mouths met. Lips pressed against lips. Closed. Firm. A tentative investigation that soon opened to something deeper. Not rough and breathless like their last kiss. A slow-moving, rolling one that tasted of scotch—but sent a hotter flame through her belly than the liquor had. She was lightheaded and stupid within seconds, melting against him.

His fingers untwined from hers. She pulled out of the kiss.

“Now, now,” he chastised. “If you stop kissing me, my promise goes out the window.”

How absurd. She was not playing these games with—

He clamped a hand around her bare arm and slid it upward, into her sleeve. “Will you kiss me, or shall I touch your bare skin like this?”

No-no-no-no! She anxiously pressed wet lips to his to stop him.

“Good girl,” he whispered into her mouth before swiping his tongue over hers. His hand abandoned the skin of her arm and moved to the safety of her waist. But it didn’t linger there long. She felt its warmth tracing a slow line down over her hip, and up again. Up further, brailling over her side.

Old, critical words from George resurfaced, and for a moment she worried he’d feel her ribs and think her too skinny. But there was no hesitation in his touch. No recoil or pause in his kiss. He touched her like he enjoyed what he found, and when his fingers curved over a breast, all her old worries dropped away.

“Mmm,” he said against her lips. “A nice palmful. Just enough.” His thumb found the hard peak of her nipple. Pleasure shot through her. She gasped. He groaned, pushing his erection into her hip. A joyful sort of carnal amusement weighted his voice. “Feels good, does it? Let’s try the other. Put your arm around my neck.” As she did, he pinched a nipple, worrying it back and forth through the fabric of her dress. Her legs wantonly parted like the Red Sea in front of Moses. She nearly fell off his lap.

“C’mere,” he whispered, shuffling her around to face him.

“Your burn,” she protested.

“Hush, Nurse Bacall.” He pulled one leg across his lap until she straddled him like she was riding his motorcycle, dress rucked up around her thighs. Only, instead of a cold metal bar threatening the vee between her legs, the tented bulge of his erection loomed between them. A very significant bulge. The academic part of her wanted to reach between them and run her hand over it for analysis.

Shocked at the thought, she looked away and circled his neck with her arms to keep herself in check. Dear lord, his body was hot. “Lowe—”

“Rule still stands. No skin. I just need to feel this.” He helped himself to two handfuls of her backside, kneading her flesh with abandon. “Lush.” He wiggled her cheeks in his hands. “Best ass I’ve ever seen in my life. Goddamn, you feel incredible.”

It felt incredible to her, too. All her muscles had turned to jelly.

“What’ve you got back here? More peacock feathers?” He craned his neck over her shoulder and lifted her dress before she could protest. “Purple. Are those grape vines?”

She reached back to pull her dress down. “Don’t make fun.”

“Believe me, I’m not. I’ve fantasized about your fancy lingerie since the first night I met you.” He swept his hands up and down her back while he nipped at her neck, just under her ear. She groaned in surprise, and that was distraction enough to overlook his straying hand until it was now already under the front of her dress, sliding over her stocking.

“Oh, God,” she murmured.

“No skin,” he assured her, sounding almost gleeful with victory as he came to the rubber garter clamp holding up the top of her stocking. He slowed there and walked his fingers up the narrow garter, chuckling low when she meeped in distress. Then he found what he’d been hunting. Over her tap pants, he cupped her and slid a finger over the silk between her legs.

She lifted off his lap and cried out, her back bowing as she shuddered in pleasure. He kept a steady arm around her waist, holding her in place.

“Soaking wet. My, my,” he whispered, slowing rubbing the damp fabric back and forth over her clitoris. “Right here?”

Her head fell against his shoulder. “Yes.”

“Mmm. I feel it through the silk. Think you’re almost as hard as I am.”

Good God. No one had ever talked to her so candidly. A shaky inhalation was her answer.

“Want to know a secret?” he whispered, changing the direction of his fingers, side to side. “I stroke myself to sleep every night thinking of you.”

His words sent an electric bolt of pleasure through her center. She rested her brow against his. “God . . . Lowe.”

“You feel marvelous. So damn marvelous.” Fingertips slid farther back, and even with the barrier of her tap pants limiting his explorations, he did his best to dip into the wetness pooling at her center. Nice, but not as nice as what he’d been doing.

“Please don’t stop.”

“Yes, ma’am, so sorry,” he said, not sounding sorry at all, but returning to his previous ministrations and rubbing her sensitive bud. “I couldn’t help myself. Better?”

He knew it was. She bowed her head, cheek against cheek, and moaned.

It had been so long since she’d been touched this way. So very long.

And it felt so spectacular and new that she wondered if she’d ever been touched at all—everything in the past was a dream and this was her new reality. The standard by which any other touch should be measured.

“Tell me how it feels,” he demanded.

“So good” was all she could manage, but he made a pleased noise in the back of his throat, as if it were exactly what he wanted to hear. So she repeated it like a mantra between hard breaths until—

What was that noise?

The door. The door!

“No, no, no!” She jumped off his lap to pull her dress down before moving in front of the chair, as if she could block the view of a six-and-a-half-foot-tall Scandinavian with no shirt and an enormous erection.

Keys jingled as an elderly woman with white hair stepped into the apartment. She looked up and stopped dead in her tracks, eyes big as dinner plates.

Hadley straightened her posture and pasted on a smile. “Good evening, Mrs. Wentworth.”

LOWE PRETENDED TO LEAVE. He parked the Packard across the street and sat in the driver’s seat half the night, watching Hadley’s apartment building to make sure they hadn’t been followed. No flaming lioness goddesses, no suspicious cars. The lights in Hadley’s windows flicked off. Maybe she was in bed now. After conjuring the memory of her moaning on his lap, he unbuttoned his fly and pleasured himself in the darkened car until he came on his hand, hoping she was doing the same, nine stories above him. When the milkmen began making their rounds in the wee hours of the morning, he finally went home and slept.