Tasting Fear (43 page)

Jack leaned over the cloth and picked up a fine lacework of antique beads and colored glass. “You sit on the floor to work?”

“I can’t wait to buy a table,” Vivi said.

He frowned. “I could have found you something.” He picked up a green bottle adorned with onyx beads and a filigree of silver foil. “These are beautiful. Unique.”

“Thank you.” She was uncommonly flustered by the compliment.

“You’re tired of making jewelry? That’s too bad. You must get tired of things quickly,” Jack said.

There he went again, poking his stick between the bars of her cage. Vivi suppressed a flare of savage irritation. “No,” she said tightly. “I love designing jewelry. What I’m sick of is mass-producing for the crafts fairs. That’s just assembly-line work.”

“Ah,” he murmured. “I see.”

“I have a good feel for what will sell,” she went on. “I study the colors and styles in the women’s magazines, make pieces to match, and they go like hotcakes. It was fine for a while, but I’m burnt out.”

“Remember, you don’t have to prove anything to me,” he said.

“Then stop jabbing at me!” she flared. “You’re pissing me off!”

He put the bottle down. “Sorry,” he murmured. “So if you’re not a jewelry designer anymore, what exactly are you?”

“I think I’m a sculptor, but ask me again in six months.”

“But who knows where you’ll be in six months?” He held a pair of malachite earrings up to the light, letting them dangle from his fingers.

Vivi did not dignify that with a reply. She stalked back into the kitchen.

She stuck her head around the door when the sandwiches were sizzling. “Lunch is on. Come get it while the cheese is gooey.”

Jack sat opposite her on the kitchen floor. They ate their sandwiches, and the usual tense, charged silence fell upon them after.

Vivi stared at the crumbs on her paper plate. “Would you like a cup of tea?” she asked, with rigid politeness.

“No, thanks,” he said.

“Then excuse me while I make one for myself.” She put the kettle on and stuffed napkins and paper plates into the garbage.

“You’ve been talking to Margaret?” he asked.

“That’s right. She’s got some good ideas for possible locations for me.”

“For your shop,” he said. “To sell your own designs?”

“Among other things. I know lots of excellent artisans, after all those years on the circuit. And there’s money around here, to support a business like mine. A gallery of wearable, usable art.”

“And aside from the danger issue, you think that’s a good idea?”

“Why wouldn’t it be?” Vivi stuck out her chin.

“It’s a big layout of money,” he said. “A big risk.”

“Yeah? So?”

“I hope you’re not being unrealistic. To say nothing of stupid.”

She decided to let the “stupid” comment slide. “Why? Lots of people start businesses. Sure, it’s risky. Life is risky. Why do you think it’s unrealistic for me?”

She had to ask, even though she was afraid of the answer.

He was silent for a moment. “I think you’ll regret it,” he said. “That kind of investment requires a huge time commitment. And a serious attention span.”

Vivi counted to ten. “I’m not going to play this game anymore.”

“Any woman who sleeps in a sleeping bag, eats off paper plates on the floor, and cooks with aluminum campware doesn’t impress me with her readiness to put down roots.”

Vivi grabbed up the last plate and stuffed it into the garbage. “I’ve been stranded here for five days with no vehicle,” she snapped.

The teakettle began to hiss. Vivi turned it off. She reached in the cupboard for a mug and pulled out a plastic travel mug with a sip lid and adhesive plastic on the bottom for sticking to the dashboard of a car. She stared at it, jaw clenched. Threw in the tea bag, poured the water. Everything she looked at felt like a slap, a reproach.

“Think what you like,” she said. She grabbed the broom and dustpan and began to sweep up crumbs. “It makes absolutely no difference to me. I’m just going to keep doing my thing.”

“Yes, I’m sure your intentions are good.”

The detached tone of his voice maddened her. “I can make my business work. I know I can.” She grabbed a dishcloth from the sink.

“Whatever.”

She blocked the bad language that wanted to burst out. Lucia had taught her that much. She shook the swept-up crumbs into the garbage and rinsed off her hands at the sink. His sudden presence behind her made her gasp.

“I can’t seem to stop making you angry,” he said. “I’m sorry.”

“You’re making me crazy.” She closed her eyes. “You say, don’t go, stay safe. Then you insult me and try to drive me away. Then you flirt with me, mess with me, seduce me. What am I supposed to think?”

“I’m sorr—”

“Stop! Shut up.” She twisted around. “Not one more word. You’ll just piss me off worse.”

He drew in a breath, opened his mouth. She put her finger on it, but when she started to lift her hand away, he trapped it there, pressing it against his hot, soft lips. His breath tickled her palm.

She snatched her hand away and turned her back again. “Don’t. You’re making it worse.”

The proximity of his body transformed into the pressure of the lightest touch against her back. His lips pressed against her nape. Exquisitely soft. A point of warmth, of silent tenderness that spread and grew. Like the sunrise, slowly turning snowy mountains pink.

This was as bad an idea now as it had ever been, she told herself.

But she felt so pink and soft inside. So hungry for the feelings he triggered. For what happened to her body when he touched her.

Like a junkie. Craving the poison that was destroying her. She’d watched that drama play out when she was a kid. She’d never touched drugs, but look at her now. Doomed to repeat that nightmarish trap in a different form. People got sucked into their ancient bullshit all the time, in spite of their convictions, their best intentions. They were imprinted. There was no escape.

And she couldn’t stop. She could not push his hands away.

He stroked her breast, brushing the tight nipple that poked through her tank top against his palm. He slid his other hand down her spine, his fingers tracing every bump of her backbone until it hit warm skin under the hem of the top—into the waistband of her gauze skirt.

It was hanging a bit loose these days. Ever since the Fiend had started circling around, stealing her appetite and shrinking her ass. He slowly, tenderly petted her ass cheeks.

“Why?” she whispered. “Why torture me like this, if you think so little of me? Why not just kick me out? It would be kinder.”

“I don’t think little of you. On the contrary.” He kissed her bare shoulder, lips moving in a caress that left shimmering warmth in its slow wake. “I think you’re amazing. Talented, beautiful, fascinating. So amazing, I can’t do anything except speak the truth to you. Even when you don’t want to hear it. That’s respect, Viv. That’s the real thing.”

“Your truth,” she said.

He shrugged. “Only one I’ve got.”

“But it’s not the only one there is,” she informed him.

Silence was his response to that. Slowly, he lifted his lips from her shoulder. “I know you’re scared to leave because of what’s happening in your life. But I also know that once that situation resolves—”

“If it ever resolves,” she broke in, her voice bitter.

“Once it is resolved, you’ll pack up your van and drive away. As soon as it really sinks in.”

She twisted around to stare at him. “What sinks in?”

“What it means to look at the same damn place, day in and day out. Or the same person.” His voice was quiet but utterly convinced. His hand stopped, barely touching the quivering, hot fulcrum of excitement between her legs.

“And I can’t convince you any different?” she whispered.

He paused for a moment, motionless, and said, “No.”

Her laugh felt more like a sob. “But you still want to fuck me.”

“I still want to be your lover,” he corrected. “And I want it respectfully.” He pressed his hot face against her shoulder, his hands delving deeper, making her squirm. “I ask it…respectfully.”

She clamped her thighs around his hand. “You call that respect?”

“I love to make you feel good,” he offered. “That’s not disrespect.”

She could hardly breathe. She tried to hold his hand motionless with her thighs, but he kept caressing her, and it felt…so…
good.

“I don’t want to get hurt,” she blurted.

“I don’t see any way to avoid that.” His voice was muffled against her hair. “It already hurts. It’ll hurt no matter what we do.”

“So we might as well make the best of it?”

He pulled her against him, tightly. “I will make it the best.”

“One question. What happens if I just don’t leave? Is there a statute of limitations on this notion that I’ll run? If I’m still here in five years, ten years, what then? Would you be glad? Disappointed? What?”

He declined to reply, but she could see his answer in his eyes. That door in his mind was closed, locked, barred. Nailed shut.

He would never give himself up to her completely.

And still, she wanted what he offered. No matter what was held back. She wanted every last fragment. Every tiny crumb she could get.

“Yes,” she said. “I want you.”

J
ack’s eyes flashed, and his fingers tightened on Vivi’s ass cheeks. She waited until she got impatient. “So? Jack? Did you hear me?”

“Yes, I heard you.”

“So? What now?” She clamped down on the giggles before they could turn to tears. “Do we just, ah…do it?”

His grin flashed, but his face was wary. “Sounds good to me.”

She groped for a tissue in her skirt pocket, and blew her nose. “I’m so embarrassed. It’s been so long. I don’t even know where to start.”

“I do,” he said baldly.

She covered her face with her hands. “So? What’s the plan?”

He sank promptly to his knees in front of her and pressed his face against her mound through the thin fabric of her gauze skirt.

“Oh, God,” she said weakly. “That, again? You’re obsessed!”

He lifted up the yards of fabric, seeking his prize. “God, yes. Your pussy is so pink and salty sweet. I want to make it puffy and slick. I want to lick you like candy, till you melt into hot woman juice.”

She could barely speak. He shoved the wad of skirt into her hands and murmured with approval at the skimpy white lace thong. “On my knees,” he continued, flashing her a mischievous grin. “Have pity on a desperate supplicant.”

“Oh, stop it.” She shook with a new attack of giggles.

He pulled aside the gusset of her panties and tucked it to the side. Her legs buckled when he pressed his mouth to her naked flesh.

“I can’t handle it,” she whispered. She had no experience with oral sex. Brian had been uninterested in it. In performing it, at least. He’d been happy to receive it. Had considered it his God-given right, in fact.

The fierce glow in Jack’s eyes transfixed her. “You’re small,” he said. “Relax. I’m going to take my sweet time with you.”

Her legs trembled. Jack looked around for a chair, saw none, and hoisted her up onto the kitchen counter. He tugged the tiny wisp of stretch-lace thong off her legs, tossed it away. She balanced there, clutching his head and trembling, skirt wadded against her chest. So aroused, the feeling bordered on terror.

“I love your taste,” he murmured. “I could lick you for hours.”

“I wouldn’t survive it,” she quavered, and he laughed, pleased.

He knew instinctively just how to touch her, how deep, how hard, how soft. Voluptuous thrusts of his tongue, lapping up and down, plunging deep. His long fingers opening, stroking, while he suckled, insisted, pushing her to that screaming point of no return…and
oh.

Pleasure flooded through her, deeper and wider and sweeter every time. She floated back, and found herself draped over him. He’d caught her, held her as she came.

He lifted her up so that she straddled him, and braced her against the wall, reaching down to fumble with his belt—

And her shimmering pink warmth flash-froze. Her heart skipped, bumped. Panic flashed through her. Faintness, suffocation. It was happening again.

The sickening black fog rising. Those last awful times, with Brian.

Brian had liked that position, especially when he was snorting coke. On his feet, pinning her to the wall. Or else holding her down, immobilized. His face, a taut, stiff mask of lust. Eyes fixed, staring. A million miles away. Not listening when she told him that it hurt. Not caring.

She hadn’t been able to be intimate with a man since. She’d tried a few times, but nothing but nothing wrecked the mood faster than a stress flashback. Finally she’d let it go. Learned to do without intimacy.

But goddammit, she wasn’t going to do without this.

She grabbed his shoulders. “Just a minute,” she said, gasping for breath. “Just…let me get myself together. Don’t go away.”

She could hear him talking, from far away. His tone was urgent, anxious, but she couldn’t make out the words over the frantic, deafening trip of her heart.

Breathe, silly. It’s now, not then. It’s Jack, not Brian. Get a grip.

“…okay? Jesus, Viv! What did I do?”

“It wasn’t you,” she forced out, through shaking lips. “I’m sorry.”

“What the fuck? What happened to you?” he demanded.

“It’s just…it was that position,” she said. “It just triggered some bad memories, that’s all. No big deal. I’m okay now. Really.”

“What do you mean, that’s all?” His face was pale with alarm.

Crap.
So close to getting through this stone wall in her head, and she had to have a meltdown right when she got to the good part. So freaking typical.

“…memories? Can you talk about it?”

The look on his face told her that he wasn’t going to let this slide. She sighed, and gave in to the inevitable. “It was a bad boyfriend I had once, years ago,” she explained. “The relationship went sour. So did the sex. It took a while for me to pry myself out of the situation, and in the meantime, well. It left me hung up. He was heavy into control.”

She was afraid to look at Jack’s face. Pity would make her cringe.

But when she finally looked, it wasn’t pity she saw. It was a blaze of fury that made her heart do a weird galloping skip of primitive fear.

“Tell me his name, and where he lives,” Jack said. “I’ll rip that filthy piece of shit to pieces and grind him into the fucking dirt for you.”

She blinked at him, stupidly. “Ah, well. Um, thank you,” she said, flustered. “That’s a very kind offer, but I’m okay with it now.”

“You didn’t look okay two minutes ago,” he said grimly.

“I’m sorry I—”

“Stop apologizing!”

The harshness of his voice startled her. He looked away, shaking his head. “Fuck,” he muttered. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to yell at you.”

“We can’t seem to stop apologizing to each other.” She kept her nails dug into the muscle of his shoulder, as if afraid he would run away, but he didn’t. Not at all. His hands crept up, crossing his chest, to cover hers. Enveloping hers. Flooding her body with reassurance.

“Do you want to, uh, just leave it for now?” he suggested.

“No!” she yelled. “I want this! I will not let him fuck this up for me, too! He has taken enough from me already, goddammit!”

Jack started to grin. “You don’t know how happy I am to hear you say that. Just tell me what I need to do. Or, uh, not do.”

“It’s not that complicated. Just do what you do. You’re fabulous. Just not…shoved up against the wall. And don’t pin down my hands. Or my throat. And we’ll be fine. I think.”

That tightly leashed fury flashed again in his bright wolf eyes. “That sick, filthy fuckhead,” he said.

“Yeah, maybe, but now he leaves the scene,” Vivi said sternly. “No more airtime for the sick, filthy fuckhead. It’s just us now. Just Jack and Vivi,
capisci
? Because I don’t want any more company.”

He nodded. The silence grew so long, they both started to laugh.

“I feel really shy, now,” Jack admitted. “I think you’re going to have to choreograph this one. I’ll just follow your lead.”

“But I don’t know where I’m going,” she protested. “That is to say, I have a rough idea, but I might drive us into the swamp, you know?”

“I’ll give you a tip. Take my hand and lead me into the bedroom.”

She lifted her hands from his shoulders and grabbed his hand, pulling him into the adjoining room. It was practically empty but for the futon with her sleeping bag and her suitcase tucked in the corner.

The walls were alive with shifting green shadows from sunlight sifting through oak and maple leaves. She longed for the cover of dusk, or night, but no. It was all going to be so visible. So terribly deliberate.

She gave him a questioning look. “Next tip?”

“Take off your clothes,” he said.

She giggled nervously as she began, but she put her brave and brazen all into it. Kicking off her sandals. Peeling off her top. She stretched and preened as she pulled pins out of her hair and tossed them to the floor. The tinkle as they fell was loud in the green, flickering silence.

He watched her uncoil the long, twisted tail of red hair, shake it down into loose waves over her shoulder, her breasts. She began to circle him, and he followed her with his eyes. The movement felt ancient. A ceremony, a spiral dance, an invitation. Entwining their male and female energies into pure magic.

“The skirt,” he reminded her. “Lose the skirt.”

She loosened the drawstring and let the skirt drop. Naked, but for Lucia’s little necklace with the emerald V that she never took off.

She scooped her hair up over her head, arching her back, tossing her hair. Turning, in front of the raw hunger in his beautiful silver eyes. Not a nervous thought for her itty-bitty boobs, or her not-so-little ass, or her in-your-face tattoos. Flaunting herself. Sure that she would please him.

“Now my clothes,” he told her, kicking off his sandals.

Wow. Even his feet were sexy, and she’d never given a thought to feet before, as long as they smelled okay. His were beautiful; long and brown, with graceful toes, square nails, elegant bones.

She attacked his clothes. A goofy grin wasn’t the right heavy-eyed, sensual temptress expression she’d wanted to assume for the occassion, but she was having too much fun to pretend to act serious.

She peeled his T-shirt off inch by inch, taking the opportunity to explore his torso with her fingertips. Feeling the grain of his hair, those lean, cut muscles. Every detail sumptuously lickable.

She flung the shirt away and attacked his belt, but as she started to shove his jeans down, he stilled her hand, dug into his pocket, and fished out a string of condoms. A long string. He flung them onto the futon.

Ah. Well and good that he was prepared, but the calculated gesture struck her as a provocation. He shoved his jeans and briefs down and stepped out of them, naked, kicking them away.

He was perfect. His huge cock thrust out, thick and high, bobbing with its own swollen weight. “Touch me,” he ordered.

Her hands rejoiced as they closed around that velvety supple skin, vital pulsing heat, steely hardness. More than filling her hand.

She loved his gasps as she stroked, pulled him. It made her feel like a goddess for real, like she was handling storm clouds, thunderbolts. Fearlessly playing with devastating power as if it were her own personal toy.

“I know this thing of me leading started out as a precaution to keep me from freaking out on you,” she commented, breathlessly. “But it’s changed. It’s turned into a kinky power game.”

“Maybe,” he admitted. “But if a woman as proud and strong as you plays along with my kinky power game without telling me to fuck off, it means she really wants me, right?”

She swirled her hands around his cockhead, making him gasp. “It turns you on,” she challenged. “Telling me what to do. Admit it.”

He grinned, busted. “Everything about you turns me on.”

“You think you’re so smart, huh?” she teased him.

He gave her a quick, rueful smile. “Not at the moment.”

“I know your tricks,” she said breathlessly. “You’re showing how completely you’re in control of the situation, right?”

His eyes went thoughtful. “No,” he corrected. “I’m showing you how completely I’m in control of myself. I think you need to be reminded.” He gathered up a hank of her hair, bent low and kissed it, with that lovely, secret smile glowing in his eyes.

He was so sweet, it made tears well up in her eyes, for no reason that she could understand. “I don’t know how you do it,” she said, her voice wondering. “You have a split personality, Jack. Either you say the exact wrong thing that makes me want to smack you, or you say the exact right thing.”

“Yeah?” he prompted. “Which makes you want to…?”

“Um, grab you,” she said primly.

His grin flashed. “Go for it. I love how you grab me.”

She took him at his word, caressing him with slow, sensual pulls. His hands clenched, flexed, trembled. “So I never say anything simple and neutral, like please pass the peas?”

“We haven’t gotten that far in our relationship,” she told him.

And we never will. According to you.

She shoved the bleak thought away. She would not let anything screw this up. Not her fears, not Brian fallout. Not even the plain truth.

To hell with the plain truth. Who needed it. Live the fantasy.

She decided it was time to change the vibe, distract them both. She knelt down and unzipped her bright purple down sleeping bag with the lavender nylon lining, spread it out over the futon mattress.

She curled up, tits stuck out, hair wild and frowsy, and looked up seductively through her eyelashes at him. “So?”

He sank down, his face still cautious. “Do you need to be on top?”

She thought about it for a moment. “I’m shaking too hard,” she confessed. “I don’t think I’d even be able to stay upright. I’m melting.”

He looked worried. “But I’m big. I wouldn’t want you to—”

“Uh-uh,” she said, shaking her finger at him. “Don’t worry. I won’t flip out on you. I know where I am, and whom I’m with.”

He smiled, cautiously relieved. “You’re sure?”

“Oh, God, yes,” she assured him. “And I love it that you’re big. Bring it on.” She swirled her hand over his cockhead.

His face and neck went rigid. “Oh, God,” he muttered. “You’re laying all the responsibility on me, huh?”

“You can take it,” she informed him cheerfully. “I have faith.”

He put his hand on her belly, stroking her with a light hand. As if she were some delicate, exotic creature that he didn’t want to frighten.

She stared at his hand, blinking at another rush of tears. Moved by how worried he was. How tender and gentle. Why, that big, yummy, succulent sweetheart. And he needed to get on with it. Like,
now.

She grabbed his hand that petted her and gave it a yank. “Get down here,” she ordered him. “I want to feel you. On top. All over me.”

He allowed himself to be dragged down on top of her. Vivi opened her legs and tried to jerk him closer, but he pulled away.

“Hold on,” He groped for the condoms. “Let me deal with practical details before I lose my mind.”

He fumbled the latex on one-handed, and finally, she managed to pull him down on top of her. She twined her arms and legs around him and squeezed. The sweet shock of his hot body against hers opened the leaky tear faucet again, and off she went.