In Too Deep (22 page)

‘I was going to spank you, you know,’ purrs Daniel in my ear as we draw apart, ‘like Stone and his lady love in the video feed. I really fancied that.’ He pauses, pushes my hair back from my face where it’s hanging in hanks across my cheek, then kisses my throat. ‘But then somehow, when we started, it just seemed enough to fuck … to make love.’

I want to grab him, pull him over me, get him inside me again. Bind him to me with desperate lovemaking, so he’ll never want to let me go. Instead, I just say, ‘Yeah, I thought it was going to go that way … then it sort of didn’t, did it?’ I take a deep breath. ‘We could try it now if you like …’

I don’t really feel like doing anything kinky at the moment, but for Daniel I’ll give it a shot. Funny, I never wanted to go the extra mile like this with my husband. But, of course, he simply wasn’t the man for me. And Daniel is.

‘That’s an exquisite offer, my sweet,’ he says, kissing my brow again. ‘And God knows I’m tempted, but somehow I just feel like lying here and being normal for a while, don’t you?’

I do. And I tell him so. Then add, ‘Although I suppose Nemesis will be disappointed if I don’t report any ultra perv –’

Daniel laughs, a warm, happy sound. ‘Yes, he does sound as if he’s the type to enjoy the kinkier byways, doesn’t he?’ A strong arm slides around me and, to my surprise, I discover I’m light enough to be hauled bodily into a man’s arms. ‘A man who sends explicit sex notes and emails must be a complete and utter freak, mustn’t he? The dregs of humanity.’ The laughter is still in his words, and it’s right on the point of
bursting
out again. In spite of my qualms, and my love, my own mirth bubbles.

‘Oh, he’s awful! A sick monster. Depraved and repulsive. I don’t know why I bother with him.’ I pause, and the flickers down in my loins start to gather momentum again. As I press sideways I discover Daniel’s got flickers of something too. ‘It must be because he’s so masterful. He tells me what to do, and I like it. I never did before, with other men, but I like it with him.’

Too much information? It seems not. I can’t see Daniel, but I can sense his smile, twinkly and impish, and almost see the gypsy-wicked look upon his face.

‘So? You like all that domination stuff, do you? I thought you did … Was that why you were such a hot and randy little bitch earlier?’

‘I suppose so.’

‘In that case …’ He releases me and rolls me on to my back again. ‘Spread your legs. Wide apart. Do it now.’

I feel a surge of something. It’s like a twist in my heart, a spike of fear, yet it’s delicious, like the champagne we drank earlier and never finished. I feel as if my free will is melting, out of control, and making me giddy.

‘Now, I want you to part the hair of your pussy. Comb it with your fingers and expose yourself. Really open yourself, bare your clit and your pretty little sex-lips.’

Hello, Nemesis.

I obey him, trembling all over. I thought I was sated, maybe ready to sleep a little, but suddenly all my neurons and pheromones are firing. I reach down and start digging in my sticky, flossy pubic hair. I’m a bit matted from the way I’ve flowed and sweated in our previous coupling.

A larger hand than mine comes down, checking for my obedience. I peel myself further open, allowing him to dabble
and
flick and play. He toys with me a minute, then nudges my own hand into position.

‘Now play with yourself. Really go at it. Be a bit rough.’

I gasp, suck in air. It’s hard to breathe. I feel pinned to the bed. As I begin to finger myself, his hand folds over mine, doubling the pressure, the action. I’m slippery and getting wetter. The onslaught is intense, overwhelming. The sensations gather so fast and hard they’re almost painful, and when the pleasure comes it’s so sharp and compressed it’s close to anguish. I cry out, like a bird in the night, my vagina clenching. I feel as if I’m floating up to the ceiling.

Then, while I’m still in shock, Daniel’s on the move. He flings the duvet off us, then climbs astride me and holds himself above my body. It’s an awkward position, but somehow we manage it. I’m all spread out like a washed-up starfish on a beach, and he’s kneeling over me, strong thighs wide and braced on either side of my ribs. Pressing his hands on either side of my breasts, he makes a deep groove between them and inserts his penis into it.

‘Oh, that feels divine,’ he groans, beginning to swing his hips a little and slide back and forth in my cleavage. He rocks and slides, rocks and slides, and gradually I surface from my temporary inertia. My pussy is on its own, out of the field of operations for the moment, but somehow a tingle gathers again.

I grab his thighs, feeling the muscles tensing and relaxing as he thrusts, loving the feel of the light veil of wiry masculine hair on his skin. I slide my fingers upwards, stroking the inner slopes of his bottom, teasing his groove the way I did before … with predictable results. He shouts aloud, jackhammers his hips, rains warm salty semen on to my chin, my cheeks.

And all this in the dark. I wish I could see his beautiful face
as
he comes, but I console myself by licking his essence from my lips, sampling and savouring it.

He sways, fighting for control, resisting his natural male inclination to slump across me satisfied and sleepy. Instead, he flings himself to one side, gasping in the black night, then reaches back to hold me, his arm damp with sweat.

‘Thank you,’ he pants, ‘thank you, thank you, thank you …’

For a few moments he breathes heavily, his arm weighty across my middle. Then he shakes his head as if to clear it, his hand slides down my damp belly, and his fingers dive into my cleft again. As his middle finger begins to move, fast and hard at the heart of the matter, I lick my lips again and again, tasting him.

‘No! No! No!’

I fly up out of sleep, jerked awake by Daniel shouting and struggling and flailing about. I reach for the bedside light, catching sight of the time as I snap it on. It’s the early hours and we’ve been asleep, snuggled together, like old lovers.

‘What is it, love?’ I try to put my arms around his shoulders, but he’s shuffling into a sitting position, his shoulders turning this way and that, his hands across his face. The room is warm but he is shaking wildly. I try to pry his hands free, but he makes an anguished sound and turns away from me.

I can’t work out whether he’s awake or asleep, but, when I put my hand on his bare shoulder and feel his skin soaked with sweat, he doesn’t flinch. Thankfully.

‘Daniel, what’s the matter? Are you all right?’

He doesn’t answer, but his chest lifts in a huge gasp. He’s still clasping at his face and keeping it turned away, but he lets me slide my hand around his back. He feels cold and clammy.

I don’t know what to say. What to do. I just hold him and
absorb
the shaking. And the fear. He’s so afraid, desperately afraid, of something.

Gradually the shudders begin to subside, but he still won’t take his hands away from his face. It’s as if he’s hiding from something. Behind his fingers his eyes are scrunched up, and his brow is wrinkled in a heavy frown.

‘How about a glass of water?’ Well, that’s what they always suggest in the movies, isn’t it?

Another gasp. Then, ‘Yes … yes, thank you, I’d love one.’

I give him a squeeze, then rise naked from the bed and pad to the mini-bar. There are several kinds of water, and I pick a still Malvern, pour it into a glass and bring it to him. He’s still hiding his face, but I manage to pry his fingers loose and put the glass into his hands. He sips gratefully, but not once does he open his eyes.

There’s something wrong with his vision. I’ve worked that one out. But what? And how serious? Has there been a crisis all of a sudden? Can he even see?

‘What’s wrong, Daniel? Please tell me. How can I help you?’

He lets out his breath as if he’s been holding it and, still clutching his water glass, he opens his eyes. Blinking, he peers at the glass and his own hands holding it, then scrunches his eyes up again.

‘Bad dream,’ he says in a low, flat voice, then just stares at the water as if he’s never seen a glass before. It seems that he’s finished with it, though, because he lets me take it away from him and set it aside.

I reach for his hand and he clasps mine, quite hard, almost desperately.

‘What was your dream about, love?’

I’m not sure I should be calling him that, but it seems right for the moment. And at last he looks at me. His expression is
strange
, complex, stricken, yet I can see he’s fighting to get back in control, pull himself together, be the man. And his eyes don’t look quite right. They’re hazy, not quite focused.

‘I dreamt that I woke up and I couldn’t see. Everything was black.’ He stares at the bed-sheets, then glances at me, face full of troubles.

‘But it’s the middle of the night, and the curtains are thick. Everything
was
black in here.’

He shrugs. ‘No, this was different. Believe me … I know.’

‘How?’ I bring our clasped hands to my lips and give his knuckles a quick kiss. It seems to comfort him and he gives me a crooked smile.

‘This was blackness inside, Gwendolynne, not the room. I know it … I recognise it.’

A cold hand grips my heart. God, I was hoping that there wasn’t something wrong. That he was just having tension headaches, or suffering from stress, or whatever.

‘Have you got something wrong with your eyes, Daniel?’ I ask firmly. I’m not going to shilly-shally about any more. If he’s got a problem, it has to be faced. And if it’s something that can be better faced by two, I want to be the one he can rely on. I need to be that one, because he’s the one for me.

The words ‘in sickness and in health’ flash through my mind. They were just words in a ceremony at my wedding. Now I mean them.

He still seems unable to look at me, but he begins, hesitantly.

‘Well, it’s not so much my eyes as in here.’ He rubs his head, at the back, ruffling his curls. ‘There’s something in here that shouldn’t be. I’ve been having tests, and scans … and I have a tumour. They think it’s benign, but it’s got to come out.’ He drags in a deep breath. ‘And soon.’

At last he looks at me again. His eyes are more focused now,
but
I can see both acceptance and fear in his expression. The cold hand squeezes harder. I fight not to give in to it, but it’s hard not to be swamped by horror. For him. How it must gouge at him … the fear, the prospect that he might go blind … that he might die. The cold hand throws me into a surging sea of terror and grief and anger.

No! Not this man! This can’t happen to him! Not now I’ve found him! Maybe we won’t have more than his fling-type thing, but still, I don’t want any harm to come to him ever. Because I love him. And I don’t even care if I can’t have him forever. I just want him to be well and to be happy. But at the same time I don’t want to drown him in pity and woefulness. Men don’t like that sort of thing.

‘That’s hard. A tough thing to deal with, Daniel,’ I say cautiously. ‘I’m sorry to hear it. Is there anything I can do? Any way I can help you complete your research or anything? Type up notes, whatever?’

Miraculously, his eyes sharpen, and he turns to me. Gives me a slight smile, his head tilted on one side.

‘You’re a very special woman, Gwendolynne.’ This time it’s his turn to kiss my palm. He does it once, twice, then he rubs his stubbly cheek against the back of my hand. ‘A very special woman indeed.’

His smile is in his eyes now, and I know that right at this moment he can probably see me perfectly.

‘How do you mean?’

‘Most women would go all smothering and Mother Teresa on me about now, but you, you’re all calm and practical and no-nonsense.’ He kisses me again. ‘And I like that. I’m grateful for it.’

In spite of his world-shaking revelation, I feel a bubble of something great, something wonderful. A real communication between us that’s not just to do with sex. ‘Well, I didn’t think
you’d
want fuss and pity and mothering and all that. I … um …’ I pout, not sure how to express what I mean. ‘I don’t want you to think that I think you’re less of a man because you’ve got some health thing going on.’

He laughs, and it’s a pure, sweet sound.

‘I swear that you must be a genius or a psychologist or something, my lady librarian.’ He shrugs again, and gives me the fondest look. An expression that makes my heart turn somersaults, despite everything. ‘That is exactly how I was – am – feeling.’ The look turns serious. Intense. ‘I want you, Gwendolynne. I desire you, and I care for you. And I want you to desire and care for me. The last emotion I want from you is pity.’ His eyes narrow. ‘I’m still a man and I still get horny, regardless of whether I’ve got a lump of God knows what in my head.’

‘Yeah, I get that.’ I look at him, so beautiful, so tousled, so male. He’s just dropped a massive bombshell into our relationship, but we’re still sitting in a bed, naked, together, and he’s still the most gorgeous man I’ve ever met. Am I some kind of sicko to suddenly be wanting him all over again? ‘You don’t want any pity fucks.’

He laughs again, then gives me a sly, narrow look. ‘No, none of those …’

But what about the other sort? I can’t tell, the sheet is across his hips. The threat of darkness and mortality hangs over him, but the human spirit and the male libido are notoriously defiant in the face of adversity.

I wonder though. An uncertain future explains his desire for a temporary relationship, his wariness about deeper commitment. Might it also explain his strange way of initiating a liaison? Being Nemesis gave him distance, clandestine thrills, a chance to have perverse fun with a woman without direct involvement. It’s the product of a devious mind, but
then
, he is Professor Hottie, as brilliant as he is charismatic and handsome.

He frowns slightly. ‘What? What are you thinking?’ He might have problems with his vision but he can see right through me. He knows I’m working things out.

‘I can see now why you might employ some, er, shall we say “unorthodox” methods to seduce women, to keep things at a distance. Not get in too deep.’