Lead and Follow (21 page)

God, she missed him.

She turned her face to one side, blinking back emotion that had no place in that moment. Paul had knelt by the side of his bed, his head pillowed by his forearms crisscrossed on the mattress. Just watching. He was smiling with a gorgeously dazed expression, as if his every fantasy were in the midst of coming true. Despite the shadows in Dima’s bedroom, Paul remained a sunny center of light.

Lizzie reached out to touch his brow. She needed that. No matter what fierce pleasure Dima wrung from her body, she needed the safe port he was not.

Dima grabbed her hand and flung it around his neck. “Hold on to me.
Me.
Don’t let go.”

She would’ve fought back if not for the gruff, unexpected pleading in his voice. So much emotion there. So unexpected. Her heart tightened around a protective twinge. She’d cared about him for years, but that moment cemented something vital and surprisingly tender. Something well beyond simple caring.

“I’ve got you.” Finding his earlobe, she licked the entire curve. “You’ve got me. You lead and I follow. Take us there, Dima mine.”

A strangled sound dragged her attention to his throat. She lifted her head and latched her mouth on his taut skin. He’d see her mark the next morning when he shaved, wear it all day when he practiced at the club.

“Again,” he grunted as he shoved deeper. His lean dancer’s hips were brutally strong. Lizzie rocked back with every pulse and grind. She scratched her nails along his shoulders and sucked until his demand for more and more sank into a hoarse moan. “Tell me you’re close, Lizzie.”

“You know my body better than I do,” she panted. “You know I am.”

Braced on his knees, he wrapped an arm around her lower back, bowing her breasts to his mouth. His other hand clasped and kneaded. He tugged one nipple to a hard point and suckled. The stroke of his tongue matched that of his prick. Lizzie slid her taut fingertips down his slick, straining biceps until the texture became rougher. He kept his chest waxed for performances, but his forearms glittered with pale brown, sweat-sleek hair. From boy to man, he had always been hers, but never like this. Never as if their skin would soften and their breath would fuse two people into one.

He spoke against her second nipple. “So wet, little one.”

Apparently to prove the point, he slipped free of her pussy. Lizzie cried out. Filled…and
empty
. Just like that. He dragged his hand up from between her legs, painting her stomach with her arousal. Two times, three. Without taking his eyes from hers, he thrust out his arm and smiled only slightly when Paul edged forward to lick his fingers.

“Yes, you are so close,” he said. “But most of the time, close isn’t good enough.”

Lizzie shivered at his foreboding comment, but she had no time—no inclination—to parse his meaning. Dima was a puzzle, but their pleasure was not. She trusted implicitly that he would see this to the explosive conclusion they both craved.

“Paul, you still with us?” he asked.

“Right here.” Lizzie didn’t need to see his face to hear the grin, but she looked anyway. He nodded once, a little sign of encouragement. “May I be of assistance?”

Dima’s wide mouth twisted. That same determination. That same darkness. “Lube. Your fingers. Our Lizzie needs her ass fucked too.”

With that he brought his mouth down on hers with surprising force. His tongue pushed inside. She grabbed his head with both hands, feeling his jaw work beneath her fingertips. More delicious hair, this time the bare scrape of stubble. She rubbed her mouth, her cheeks, her inner wrists along his jaw, savoring that tingling burn. Every nerve ending had gone numb, poised between pleasure and release, and she needed it hard, harder still.

They drank each other. Just the two of them. Until Paul’s fingers, cold with lube, found her asshole. She breathed into Dima’s mouth and arched. All she could do was anchor herself with a firm grip on the strong cords running from his shoulders to his neck. He lifted her feet until her knees neared her shoulders, holding them to one side with his powerful left hand. The pose exposed her pussy and asshole—and kept his right hand free.

“God I love a flexible woman,” Paul whispered, his voice awed.

“Shit, yes,” came Dima’s reply. He seemed to catch himself, reining in his appreciative lapse. “You’re going to be still, little one.”

“Dima, no. Can’t— Oh!”

Paul’s finger pushed inside. First one. Two. Oh, fuck,
three
.

Sweet Christ. Her body was opening to another man’s touch, but she couldn’t take her eyes off Dima. He knelt above her, hands at her ankles. He was like a conquering warrior—just waiting for Paul to find the perfect slow, sliding rhythm. Shadows arrowed between Dima’s pectorals. Shoulders and arms had been perfectly molded by years of holding her, lifting her, guiding her. His taut stomach that defined what it was to be a fit, ripped man. His erection jutted up from his groin, thick and long, all beautiful phallic power.

Paul shoved deep. Lizzie squeaked in surprise. Dima caught her throat in one hand. “You’re going to be still,” he repeated. “Understand me?”

She tried to speak, but he pressed on just the right spot to block her air and surged inside.

Gray swam over Lizzie’s vision. Her thoughts blew apart. Dima was relentless. His pause in the action had dried her a little. So much more friction now, glorious and sharp with pleasure. He cracked past her conscious mind and threw her into a place of pure, greedy sensation. She fought for it, strove toward it, even as she knew it was beyond her ability to bear.

The gray darkened to a thicker haze. Her blood sizzled and her heartbeat became Latin drums in her skull. Dima’s huge cock beat the tempo of thrust and withdrawal. Paul’s worked an intimate counterpoint, with his three fingers quick and sure. And Jesus, that muscular hand still held her throat, truncating another inhale as she climbed right to the edge of the cliff.

Dima grabbed her jaw, anchoring her. “Little one,” he growled. “Come back to me.”

And suddenly she could breathe again. The air rushed in on a cool, glorious gasp. Dima. She found Dima. Dark eyes nearly black, nostrils wide, expression pained as he fucked her. Nothing held back. In her mind Lizzie began to chant
no, no, no, no. Too much.

“Make me happy, little one,” he whispered, every syllable a fight for breath. Sweat rolled down his lats and his elegant ribs. “Let go. Let it all go.”

Her climax would not be denied, not with that softly pleading command—as if he needed her release more than she did. She burst apart on a shriek she’d never recognize as her own voice. “Dima. Yes. Dima, oh God.”

The word slurred, but not before he grabbed her legs right where they met her body. Palm to hipbone. Leverage. Power. Distantly she felt Paul slip away as Dima’s mind drifted toward bliss. She loved seeing it happen. Dark eyes rolled closed. After a sharp, grunted, “Fuck me,” and a last hard thrust, his expression lost its tension. His lower lip went slack on something close to a smile. Pure wonderment. He was shaking as badly as she, like they’d just practiced to the point of total muscle collapse.

He withdrew and sank to all fours, reminiscent of the pose he’d struck to receive Paul, but his fight was gone. All the tightness. He slumped to her side, his hands coming right to her waist. Neck bowed, he tucked his mouth to her temple, still breathing hard. “My Lizzie,” he whispered, feather soft.

Slowly, as Dima’s sleepy exhales counted the rhythm, she straightened her legs and blew out the last of the stiffness. Only a floating rush of satisfaction remained.

The faucet in the bathroom turned off. Paul emerged wearing a towel around his waist. The hair at the back of his neck was damp. “You’re so beautiful,” she heard herself saying.

Beside her, Dima grunted something that may have been an affirmative. She petted the back of his head, down his nape and up again. Soothing them both, away from the eye of the storm. He may have drifted out to sleep and back—or maybe not—while Paul cleaned up.

“If you say so,” Paul said with a chuckle. He sat on the edge of the bed. Boxy stomach muscles folded together like perfect origami. His thighs were
lovely
. “I gotta scram though. Not that I wouldn’t love to cuddle.”

Lizzie felt drugged. Nothing worked right, which was an odd sensation for a dancer. Not worthy of panic like an injury, but that she could disconnect for a while. What a gift.

“We can make room,” she said. “Even for a big boy like you.”

“I have to be in Westchester in…” He looked over to Dima’s glowing red alarm clock. “Shit, four hours.”

“Crash on the couch. Leave tomorrow?”

“Nope. Gonna head home. You stay here and enjoy this for both of us, okay?”

Stay with Dima. In his bed. Wake up in his arms. Lizzie bit her lower lip and closed her eyes on a rush of pure want. An exhale shuddered out of her chest.

Paul traced a finger over where Dima had held her throat. “We weren’t too rough, were we?”

At least that was a topic she could discuss without a greed so swift it left her lightheaded.

Sex? Easy.

A heart full of forever? No way.

“You were just right. All of it, just amazing.” She grinned big time. “And you? Something to write home about?”

“Oh, fuck no.” He chuckled as he stroked a strand of hair off her shoulder. “But it was damn, damn good. Tell him that for me when he wakes up, yeah?”

“Paul…”

“You promised. This was a reprieve. A filthy hot reprieve. Now you have to fix this.” He glanced down to where Dima’s legs had tangled with hers. “Liz, how can you not?”

“I’m scared.” Admitting it was like talking with crushed glass in her throat.

“Think about the alternative, then think about scared.” With one last kiss, his lips warm and gentle, he stood away from the bed and got dressed. The same white tank, jeans, cowboy hat. Their sunshine was leaving. “I’ll be back for Dima’s big performance, yeah? I hope the waters are calmer by then.”

“No repeat of tonight?” One last try. She forced herself to keep petting Dima with the same quiet strokes. Casual. Easy. Even though her pulse had climbed up from her chest and into her mouth.

“Fun time, remember?”

Lizzie understood the unspoken reciprocal. She and Dima weren’t fun anymore. They were complicated. Paul was one hell of a smart guy.

“You deserve better than being used as a life raft.”

“Don’t you dare think this was some mercy mission. You two have been an education.” His lopsided shrug and endearing smile were so damn adorable. “I’ve never had any ideas otherwise.”

She nodded, as tight on the inside as a rubber band stretched near to breaking. “Thank you, Paul. I hope the job goes well.”

“Me too. Good night, Lizzie.” He kissed his fingertips and touched them to Dima’s shoulder. “And good night to you, you stubborn Russian bastard.”

He tipped his cowboy hat and left. Lizzie flinched only a little when the front door closed behind him.

She snuggled into Dima’s arms and closed her eyes, enveloped by their shared scent. Sex and sweat and satisfaction. Tomorrow would come soon enough, as exhaustion scratched behind her lids. She had a promise to keep and a partnership to save. Or more like, to mend and transform.

Sink or swim, Dima. We have to do this without him now.

As they lay there cradled and wrapped together, she realized—no matter how scary—that was exactly what she wanted.

Chapter Twenty

Dima woke in the middle of the night with Lizzie in his arms. They were spooned together on their sides, like a crescent moon. His hand was wrapped low over her hips, with her head pillowed on the biceps of his other arm.

It wasn’t the first time they had fallen asleep together. They’d spent plenty of nights watching crappy rental movies in borderline seedy hotel rooms while waiting for the next day’s competition. Nearly every time, Lizzie fell asleep first with her head on Dima’s shoulder. He’d indulged in stroking her hair as he finished out the movies, mostly missing that she no longer poked fun at the poor kung-fu dubbing. Occasionally he’d fallen asleep as well. He would wake up completely twisted together with Lizzie, who slept like a goddamned log.

So waking with his thigh hugged between Lizzie’s smooth legs wasn’t new. That both of them were naked, with his cock pressed against her soft, bare ass… Yeah, that was new.

His dick woke up so damn fast.

The room remained dark with night and thick with the early season heat of a city summer. The comforter was long gone and only a top sheet twisted around him and Lizzie. Although Paul had left hours earlier, his cologne layered over the fainter smell of sex. What a fucking night that had been. In both the best way and the worst.

He’d fucked his Lizzie for the first time in a decade. More than that, the experience had gone beyond anything he’d imagined. Anything he’d instinctively thought could be there. What he had hoped for was nearly too big to think about, but the night had shown him the hard, stark truth. He was so desperately hungry for Lizzie that he wouldn’t be satisfied with less.

Hiding his face against her soft hair did nothing but reawaken temptation. She was everything tender. Good. The light to carry him home. She challenged him in new ways every moment.