Downbeat (Biting Love) (23 page)

Abruptly he thrust forward, driving his cock to the root in my hands; once, twice, as he pounded his fingers along my groove and I almost peaked with him. I barely held back.

His cock convulsed in my hands. Hot liquid shot over his shoulder into my rear window. A second spewed onto his chest. A third hit his chest and spattered onto my hands.

My breath stuck in my throat and my blood rushed in my ears.
I’d made him come
. I’d made Dragan come.

His hand was still between my legs. “
Bůh
—God, Raquel, you slay me. I can’t think, I can’t move.
Drahý
. Hand me my sweater.” His hand thumped on the seat beside me, searching blindly for his top.

I leaned over and snagged it from the floor. “Here.”

He used it to wipe his chest. “Now. Snuggle against me and I’ll give you your due.”

“You don’t have to.”

“Oh, but I want to. I truly want to.” He pulled me gently against his chest. His left hand slid into my panties and his right circled my back. He buried his lips in the crook of my neck. His hot tongue steamed me. “
Sakra
, you smell good. Dear heart. I wish so much to taste you.”

“Aren’t you tasting me already?” I wriggled against his stroking hand. His strong fingers felt amazing, emphasis on zing.

“Not fully.”

Something sharp pressed into my flesh. Pleasure spiked through me. “What…?” I was starting to pant again.

“Let me bite you,
drahý
.” His fangs traced tiny edged circles on my skin, followed by licks of his hot, hungry tongue. “I want you, need you so badly.”

“You need to bite something?”

“I need to bite
you
.”

Maybe if I hadn’t been empowered; maybe if I hadn’t stripped him of his clothes and made him come, I would have been too frightened and said no. But feeling my own power combined with his ravenous need made me a little insane. “Then bite me.”

“Thank you,” he breathed.

Sharp needles of pure pleasure skewered my neck. I jerked in reaction, wrenching my hips on his driving fingers, impaling myself. Air rushed out of my lungs through vocal cords tight with diamond-hard lust; I screamed. He bit down harder. My sex clenched around his fingers as everything lit like exploding fireworks, boom, boom. He licked my neck and his chest rumbled with his purr and my whole body came apart and was remade in his arms.

He rumbled and licked while I shuddered in a climax that went on half of forever. Gradually I came back to myself, secure in his strong arms, to a degree of peace that was beyond anything I’d ever felt. Because of him.

“Don’t you dare,” I croaked when I could finally speak.

“What?” His purr interrupted as he swallowed. Hot liquid beaded on my skin. I might have been grossed out but for the deep pleasure I’d had and more, the loving way his tongue caressed me.

“Don’t you dare say this was tutoring.”

He chuckled softly. “When I so thoroughly lost control? You were the master, Raquel.”

“Oh.” I rested my suddenly hot face in the crook of his neck. “Okay. Good.”

“By the way, I’ve made arrangements.”

“Mmm?” I thought,
How nice. He’s going to buy condoms.

Then he said, “Luke and I will pick up you and your mother for the ball.”

I suffered in anticipation for the next two days.

No, that’s not quite right. While every time I thought of attending the ball on Dragan’s arm my hands got sweaty and my heart thumped louder, some part deep inside me sang.

Still, my mind wasn’t on my morning flute practices, I had three policies come back from quality control and I went through half a bottle of pink stomach medicine in those two days.

Yet even through seemingly infinite dread, time marches on.

Saturday, I finished teaching at three p.m. Promptly at four-thirty, still dewy from fresh showers, Mom and I headed out. She’d booked five o’clock makeovers at Meiers Corners’s premiere beauty salon, Dolly Barton’s Curl Up and Dye.

We could afford Dolly because she charged outrageously low prices—I suspect because her main income wasn’t styles and makeup, but the gossip she picked up.

Dolly herself was a seventy-year-old platinum-blonde dynamo. She was four foot eight, forty-two D, and looked exactly like the country singer except older and shorter. Like a Dolly Parton Hummel. She wore pink fifties diner-style uniforms and chewed a wad of gum as big as your head.

A tinkling bell announced our arrival. “Hey, sugars,” Dolly greeted us. She called everyone sugar. “I’ll be right with you. Have a seat.” She was ratting Mrs. Weiss hair into seven big spikes. “You’re going to the ball? Emestine is going too.”

I groaned mentally. I’d hoped to only embarrass myself once at the ball, whatever blunder I committed forgotten as soon as the next juicy bit came along. With Mrs. Weiss there, I was doomed to hear about it the rest of my life. She’s a cornerstone of the MC gossip network and she’s married to Allrighty-Allnighty convenience store owner Kurt Weiss. Whatever disaster struck me at tonight’s ball—and come on, it was me and a rich shindig,
something
was bound to go wrong—everybody in town would know it by tomorrow and like an elephant, the Corners never forgot.

Dolly arranged the spikes around Mrs. Weiss’s head in a Statue of Liberty crown, then sprayed it gold.

My eyes bugged out. “Nice ’do.”

Dolly shrugged. “Emestine wanted something, and I quote, ‘Different, that will stand out’.”

The spikes certainly stood out, both in the noticeable and radiating sense. Apparently Dolly was quite literal—or she had a wicked sense of humor.

I coughed. “Maybe I can have something a little more mainstream.”

“Not me.” My mother sat in one of Dolly’s pink pleather chairs and opened up a magazine. Rita Hayworth was on the cover. Not really, but it always seemed like Dolly’s was caught in a time warp. “I want style. I’ve got me a studly escort to the ball.”

“Who?” Mrs. Weiss asked brightly.

“That hottie Luke Steel.”

“Ooh, you’re so lucky. He’s one of two guys who make me wish polyandry was legal.”

“Who’s the other?”

“Dragan Zajicek, of course.”

Of course. I hung my head, wishing it would fall off so I wouldn’t have to go through with this. Although knowing Dolly, she’d only stick it back on with alligator clips and hair spray and I’d have to go anyway.

“Okay, Emestine,” Dolly said. “That’ll do you.”

She whipped the cape off Mrs. Weiss, revealing an ankle-length dress eaten by a swarm of sequins. The bodice was blue with white stars on the bias; the skirt was pinwheel stripes of red and white. Add in her pendant necklace, a flag of sapphires, rubies and diamonds, and it edged the outfit into rockets’ red glare territory.

She slid out of the chair, glittering so hard she caused seizures when she walked. “Thanks, Dolly.” She pressed a Jackson into Dolly’s palm. “Keep the change.”

“Thanks.” Dolly pocketed the twenty. She wasn’t being sarcastic. In the Corners, rich doesn’t mean profligate. “Trudi, you’re next. You can sit in the washing chair.”

Mom carried her style magazine with her as she slid into the chair in front of the basin. She pointed at a picture. “I’d like one of these.”

I shuddered to think what she’d picked out to impress that “hottie” Luke. I snatched up a
Sass-Cgal
magazine from the pile, blazoned with cover story “Ramp Your 69 to 70 With Our Tips” which I assumed was about faster driving, buried my nose in it and tried not to watch the impending disaster in Dolly’s chair, but the theme from
The Towering Inferno
played in my head.

“Oh, Rocky, I forgot to tell you,” Dolly said as she shampooed and conditioned. “Your guy stopped by last night.”

That took my attention from an article that definitely was not about speed limits. “I don’t have a guy.”

“You keep believing that, sugar. Dragan Zajicek, who is not your guy, brought in a couple ensembles for you both. Evening gowns, shoes, jewelry, all of it matching and all of it very lah-di-dah.”

That was even more confusing than the pictures that went with the article. “Dragan bought us dresses? But I can’t afford to pay him back.” I started panting and my heart was making
thuck
-marks on my breastbone from the inside. “Besides…we brought our own dresses.”

Dolly flexed eyebrows at me in the mirror. “Sugar, once you see what Zajicek brought for you to wear, you won’t care how much it costs. That man has sweet taste.
 
Go change while I do your mom. Everything’s in the waxing room in back.” She turned from the mirror to hit me directly with her eyes. “Shoo, now.”

Dolly’s not a vampire—at least I don’t think so—but she has a commanding force beyond compulsion. She holds the shears. If I didn’t want to look like I’d been trimmed by a lawn mower, I’d do what she said.

I shooed.

Dolly said the dresses were “sweet” but her sense of style was formed in the 1940s. So I wasn’t expecting much when I entered the waxing room, maybe mustard yellow sacks.

The dress on the right wasn’t mustard yellow but a lovely deep purple, like a glowing amethyst, with softly flowing folds that would look perfect on Mom. Encouraged, I turned to the dress on the left. A single-strap gown hung from the hanger, twists of black and white flowing into a long skirt. Simple yet lovely. Reassured, I lifted it from the hanger.

The material ran over my skin like perfumed oil. This was what money felt like. More, this was what caring felt like. I stood there grasping the dress, the stupid O on my face and my brimming eyes reflected in the wall mirror, the poor thing crumpling in my dampening palms.

I let go in horror. It fell onto the floor. I’d crushed it and now it was getting dirty. I’d ruined it, I’d ruined everything, like always. I snatched up the dress and petted it as if I could make it feel better.

After a few moments I managed to look at the damage I’d caused.

The material was perfectly smooth and clean. The knit was forgiving, and the floor was Meiers Corners clean. I hadn’t ruined it. The dress was a miracle. Dragan, who’d picked it out knowing me, was a wonder. I stripped to my underwear, then, considering the cut of the dress, removed the underwear and slipped the dress on over my nude body.

Not only was it a knit that wouldn’t crumple, the material was slightly stretchy and the dress itself had no moving parts to screw up. Yes, the man knew me. I was momentarily grateful to him.

I caught sight of myself in the mirror.

Black swirled over one breast, white over the other, twisted in the middle to reveal a dramatic cleavage. Black and white braided together over my left arm, leaving my collar bones delicately exposed. White and black spiraled down my torso, a second beautiful skin on ribs and hips, to flare at the thigh into a symphony. I took a step. The skirt swirled against my legs and belled out in flowing spirals. I looked like I was sweeping elegantly across the floor while I barely moved.

My glasses didn’t match. I removed them—and didn’t know who the woman in the mirror was. So I put them back on.

There were accessories to go with the dress. Black and white crystal sandals. Thigh high hose and a white thong. A tiny evening bag. A pair of sapphire earrings. And a sapphire pendant the size of a goose egg. I picked it up but didn’t put it on. My hand trembled. I hoped it wasn’t real.

“Ready for you, sugar,” Dolly called from the salon.

“Be right there.” I had to work to keep my voice steady. Nobody had given me a gift like this. Either Dragan was rich enough to throw away big money, or…

Or he meant it. I was special to him.

I put on the thong, hose and shoes, then swept up the jewelry and went to get my hair and makeup done.

My mother met me in the hallway. “Oh, look at you. You have a figure, Rocky.” She snared my hands and spun me around. The beautiful dress felt like heaven swirling through my legs.

“What about you?” I took her shoulders and studied her face. Her dishwater frizz was sleeked into short, bouncy ringlets framing her round face. “You’re beautiful.” I smiled; I’d never seen her looking so good. It wasn’t simply the makeup bringing out the blue of her eyes and the roses in her cheeks; it was the bright beaming happiness. “Wait until you see what Dragan picked out for you. And the jewelry! Go put it on. I’m excited to see you in it.”

“Jewelry?” Her eyes twinkled. “This is like Christmas.”

With Dragan Zajicek as a dark, refined Santa.

While she changed I got myself shampooed, styled and made up. I deliberately did not look at myself in the mirror while Dolly was working her magic.

I kept the jewelry on my lap the whole time. I needed to ask Dragan if it was real, and if it was, whether it was insured; and if it was insured, whether the insuring company was CIC. I was already spinning worst-case scenarios in my head and losing thousands of dollars of jewelry was at the top of the list.

Then Mom came out in her amethyst ensemble and I forgot all the upcoming horrors. She was even more beautiful as she danced around the waiting area like Cinderella. Whatever Dragan wanted, I’d give him, because he’d made her happy.