Lost in You (11 page)

When morning came it was still storming. The wind was wicked and the rain was still lashing. I could hear it hitting the roof even from the fancy bed in the fancy store. Dorian was nowhere to be found but I heard music coming from somewhere. I got dressed slowly, studying the bed we’d spent the night in. Studying the mussed and rumpled sheets, the impressions of me and him.

I touched the bed and smiled, then headed out to find the source of the music. I had a feeling that when I found the music I’d find Dorian.

He was back in the café, frying the eggs he’d found yesterday, that were not out of date, and watching the news. When he looked up and saw me he smiled. The smile made my chest crimp tight and my face flush. I wanted to see that look on his face over and over again. I wanted to see it every day, if I was brutally honest with myself. But that was silly – a young girl’s dream of winning the rich boy’s heart with her goodness and affection. I shook it off and tried to focus on breathing and not sadness.

‘Clover! Damn, I was going to try and surprise you with breakfast in bed. Foiled again,’ he said, flipping an egg and taking a tray of cured ham cooked like bacon from the oven. ‘There’s coffee,’ he said, pointing to the full coffee maker.

I staggered over and poured myself a cup, hoping it would wake me up. Then I wanted a shower and to shave my legs.

‘Thanks,’ I said, raising my cup. I sipped the warm fragrant brew, thankful that he liked his coffee the way I liked mine. Strong as hell.

‘Bacon here, eggs are done and English muffins in the toaster oven. I’ll be right over to the table,’ he said. ‘Pick a table, any table.’

I laughed and claimed the same table we’d eaten at yesterday. ‘This one’s my favourite.’

‘Good choice. Good news!’ he said. ‘Well, two bits of good news.’

‘Oh, yeah? What?’

‘I found frozen blueberries in the walk-in so this breakfast will at least have some factor of health to it. And –’ Dorian waved his spatula at the TV ‘– they say the storm should pass by this evening. We can probably go home tonight!’

‘Oh,’ I said, around the lump in my throat. ‘Yeah. That is good news. It’s great news!’ I put the coffee down. ‘I’ll be right back,’ I said, feeling the urge to cry grow even stronger. ‘I just want to try Gram.’

I hurried out, pretending I didn’t notice the confused and concerned look on his face. I dialled with shaking fingers, not really expecting to get through, but needing an excuse to get myself together.

I was surprised when the line clicked and I heard, ‘Clover, honey, is that you?’

‘Gram? Oh, Gram!’ I said and then damn if I didn’t burst into tears.

‘Clover! Are you hurt? Is everything OK? Where are you?’

I turned to make sure Dorian was still in the restaurant. I swallowed hard and tried to calm down some. ‘I’m fine, Gram. I’m still at the Rotunda. I just … I guess I’m emotional.’

I heard Brani in the background and my grandmother snapped at her. ‘Hold your horses, Bran.’

I knew she was upset if she snapped at my aunt. ‘I’m sorry,’ I said. ‘I didn’t mean to scare you. I’m fine.’

‘Well, Brani wants to know if you’re still with that good-looking rich man.’

‘I am.’ My voice warbled as the tears wanted to come again. ‘We’re here. We’re safe.’

‘Good, good. So why in the devil are you crying, girl? You gave me a heart palpitation.’

I smiled. She had nothing wrong with her heart. It was what she said when I pissed her off. ‘I’m sorry. We tried several times last night and I couldn’t get you. I guess I was relieved.’

It was worth a shot. But she called me on it.

‘Bull crap. Now tell me the truth.’

I dropped down onto the wooden stool and curled myself around the phone receiver. ‘I … I like this man. I know I shouldn’t and I know it’s only temporary and it’s probably due to the stressful situation –’

‘But?’ my grandmother interjected.

‘But I do.’

‘And does he like you?’

In the background Brani started making noise. My grandmother covered the receiver and said something to make her stop.

‘I think so. Yes.’

‘I take it something has happened to make you think that.’

I blushed, nodded, realised she couldn’t see me. ‘Yeah, Gram.’

‘Well, I won’t ask you any embarrassing questions but I will say trust your heart, Clover. You don’t trust easily. You don’t take to people easily. And it’s understandable. But if you take to him, if something in you reacts to something in him, then don’t ignore it. Life’s too short to play games with your heart.’

More tears. I brushed them away fast. ‘He’s very out of my league, Gram.’

‘Bull crap again,’ she said. ‘No one is out of your league. You’re you. You’re worthy of any damn man you choose.’

‘Cussing. I really got you hot,’ I said, laughing.

‘Well, you scared me … Not good scaring an old woman like that.’ In the background Brani snorted. ‘Oh, hush up, Brani,’ my grandmother said with a chuckle. ‘I am an old woman. That’s not an exaggeration.’

I talked to her long enough to confirm they were both home and safe and still had power. Then told her what Dorian had told me about the storm. Then I hung up feeling a little better and a lot hungry.

I rushed back. ‘Sorry! I actually got her and I’m sure by now I’ve missed –’

‘Nope,’ Dorian said pulling a tray from the warming oven. ‘When I realised you must have gotten through I assembled the contents into a killer breakfast sandwich and kept them to warm. I’m a man of many talents.’

I had a vision of him staring down at me, moving over me. Filling me and kissing me and making me come. ‘Yes, you are,’ I said, smiling.

‘Hungry?’

‘Starved.’ I took a seat and sipped my now tepid coffee.

‘Better now?’ he asked, touching my hand. He reached up and wiped a stray tear away.

‘Fine,’ I said. ‘I guess I just … in the moment I got a little emotional.’

‘Understandable,’ he said and leaned in to kiss me. ‘Now, Clover?’

‘What?’ I asked a little breathless from the kiss.

‘Let’s eat before I faint from malnutrition. I’m a delicate creature!’ He grinned, his green eyes merry, and I couldn’t help but laugh. The laughing part felt better than the crying part.

Ed’s office didn’t just have a shower. Ed’s office had large windows that showed me the storm blowing through my town down below. Literally. I watched lawn furniture blow down King’s Road as easily as cars usually rolled past. And speaking of cars, I didn’t see a single one. An ambulance, yes. A police car, a fire truck, a big official Humvee marked EMS. But no civilian cars.

I leaned on the wide windowsill and pressed my forehead to the cool glass. Wind bent the trees and then, finicky and cavalier, tossed them in the opposite direction. The rain slanted gently against the glass one moment and when the wind changed direction it began to pound.

‘No wonder they don’t want anyone on the road,’ I said. ‘I worry about my grandmother in this.’

‘She was fine when you spoke?’

Dorian moved up close behind me, his body pressing against mine. He wrapped his arms around my middle, his fingers resting on and occasionally stroking my ribcage. I leaned back against him, relishing the contact. There probably wasn’t much more of this in my future. Might as well enjoy it.

‘Yeah, she was fine. They were kind of driving each other nuts but that happens when they’re cooped up together,’ I said, laughing.

He kissed the back of my neck. The breath froze in my lungs.

A tree, in a thicket that bordered the Rotunda, gave up its fight and bent low, then snapped. It was a young tree, small and thin, but from our vantage point it looked as if an invisible giant had lost its patience with it and simply broken it in half.

‘Crazy,’ he said, kissing the back of my neck again.

‘That drives me nuts,’ I confessed. My voice so husky, I didn’t sound like me. To cover it, I laughed softly.

‘Does it now? How about this?’ He pulled the Nantucket sweatshirt to the side and kissed my shoulder. His tongue streaked heat where the kiss had just been laid. My nipples pebbled tight with pleasure inside the huge sweatshirt. Dorian moved his hands higher on my ribcage and finally cupped my breasts through the thick black fabric. I wished heartily that he’d move so his hands were underneath, touching my bare skin, nothing between us.

He made my wish come true in a way by whisking the sweatshirt over my head, sending my hair flying and making me gasp.

‘What if –’

‘People see us? Who’s looking up here to see anything? People are fully grappling with this storm. We’re up here. Alone. Looking down on our city under storm siege and I want you, Clover.’

I want you, Clover …
Those words were magical. They made me forget everything else. Even the melancholy of knowing that, when real life intruded on us, I’d be nothing more than a memory to Dorian Martin as he moved on.

I hung my head and let his mouth awaken every nerve ending on my skin. He started a row of fires down my spine, his lips branching off every few seconds to kiss my shoulder, my side, the small of my back. But he’d always return to the path of my spine, his fingers stroking my skin, his breath steady and even. When he unbuttoned my jeans and tugged them down, groaning to find me bare beneath once again, he knelt and kissed the swell of one buttock, then did the same to the other. His finger slid gently down the cleft of my ass.

‘Turn around for me,’ he said. His voice was rough, intense. It really left no room for argument. Not that I had planned to argue.

I turned so my bottom pressed the wide edge of the windowsill and watched his big hands push gently at my thighs.

‘Open your legs for me, sweetheart.’

I didn’t have enough air in my lungs to make a sound, so I simply nodded. My breath was a thin and wispy thing. He parted me with his finger, breathed heat onto my clit and then sucked it into his mouth to soothe it. I gripped the wooden sill so hard I feared I’d shatter my fingernails. I tried so hard not to move, to just let him do what he willed, but when his tongue stroked over me again I went mindless. My hips moved up, my voice came back, I moaned softly and pushed myself against his soft, wet tongue.

‘Good girl,’ he said, chuckling. ‘I don’t think you realise how much it gets me off to know I’m getting you off.’

Eyes still shut, I blindly shook my head. No. I didn’t know. And, to be honest, it had never occurred to me. I didn’t have a ton of experience, but what I did have was the knowledge that no intense connection had ever been made like this one. No man had ever talked sweet and dirty to me when we were together. No man had ever inspired me to move and cry out or bond like this one did. The immensity of it was frightening. And we’d known each other for roughly twenty-four hours.

Dorian’s fingers slipped inside me. He drove them up easily, thrusting gently before nudging my G spot with his strong fingers. ‘Where’d you go, Clover?’

‘What?’ I shook my head, eyes still closed. I focused on the place where we were coupled. Where his body entered my body. Where we were joined. ‘No, I didn’t.’

‘Yes, you did. You floated off and left me. And me here doing nice things for you. For me …’ He sucked my clitoris again and I gasped. He soothed it with his tongue and I felt the first tightening deep inside me. The first hint that a release was headed my way. ‘Don’t leave me,’ he went on. ‘I want you to open your eyes and watch me.’

His mouth was gone. Cool absence replaced hot invasion.

I opened my eyes, blinking as if coming out of a deep sleep.

He smiled up at me, still on his knees. His fingers were in me but simply filling me. He was utterly motionless. ‘Now keep your eyes on me. Open. Keep your mind on me.’ He chuckled. ‘Also open.’

I nodded, feeling suddenly nervous. Our physical connection had progressed to well beyond just flesh touching flesh. With our eyes locked this way, as his tongue parted my nether lips and his mouth worked over my pussy, I felt as if he could look right into my soul. It was a frightening feeling. And it was wonderful.

I watched him as requested. Watched every single flick of his tongue. Every time he changed tactics and flattened it to lap at me with firm, even drags. I studied his surreal green eyes as he sucked my clit and then opened his mouth to cover all of my pussy and suck that way too. His strong jaw grew taut and when I was panting, literally gripping the windowsill, the first rush of pleasure assaulted me and I said, ‘Dorian’.

His eyes were the ones to drift shut in pleasure. When that happened, I gripped his hair instead of the sill and came. My voice a wild free thing set loose in the big empty office.

He stood up quickly and growled, ‘Turn around, Clover.’

The tone set me alight, punched a hole in my almost drunken happiness. The fine hairs along my arms and neck stood on end. My scalp prickled. Before I could turn as ordered, he seized the back of my head, his other hand curling against my throat, almost but not quite cutting my air off. I gasped and, when he plunged his tongue into my mouth and thrust it against mine, my body briefly spasmed, a short, sweet aftershock of my orgasm heating my pussy.

‘God, I want you,’ he said, lips against my hair now. Then he turned me before I could obey on my own.

He planted my hands on the sill and knocked my feet wide apart. All the while my heart beat desperately, like a fist inside my chest pounding to get free. I hung my head, my long hair touching the sill, my forehead pressed to the cold glass.

I heard his zipper and held my breath. Heard the rustle of his clothes and prayed for him to hurry. I watched the wind-tossed watercolour city down below. And when he put his hand on the small of my back, pressed me forward just a touch, I whimpered with a need I’d never felt before. An urge to give him anything he wanted. Whenever he wanted it.

He ran his cock along my drenched split, teased me by pushing into me just enough for me to feel the stretch of our union. Then pulled back. I realised he liked it when I needed him. Liked it when I begged.

I could do that. I could beg. I wanted him so it was really no stretch at all to say: ‘Please, Dorian. Please …’