The Other Man - Page 21/77

Think of the devil.

“You,” I said, breathless now, heart rate accelerated with more than fear with those three rough words.

“Me,” he agreed.  “Come here.”

I shouldn’t have listened.

I should have turned on a light and demanded to know why he’d broken into my home.  I should have asked him ‘Was the door unlocked this time?’  Because of course it hadn’t been.

But all I could remember when I heard that rough, bar brawler voice was pleasure that remained so acute in my mind it made my whole body tingle just with the memory.

I moved toward the chair he sat in slowly, just making out his shadowy figure by the dim light cast from the street lamps out front.

I let out an embarrassing yelp when he snatched me by the hips and set me astride him, both of my arms held behind my back by the wrists.

God, he was fast.

All my traitorous body could seem to remember about that speed of his was how fast his hips moved as he hammered into me.

“You’re kissing him now?” he asked me, voice low and mean.

I swallowed, then licked my lips nervously.

I was stuck somewhere between fear and desire.  I knew he was dangerous, every cell in my body knew it, but it didn’t seem to be any kind of a deterrent to my damned libido.

“I haven’t heard from you in weeks,” I said steadily, tone matter of fact rather than plaintive.  “You come and go as you please, fuck my brains out, and leave while I’m still sleeping it off.  Why shouldn’t I be seeing other people?”

“Don’t go out with him anymore.  And if I catch you kissing some guy on your porch again, I’m warning you now, you aren’t going to like his face much when I’m finished with him.”

“You have no right to tell me what to do,” I told him firmly, even as my body quaked.  “I don’t even know you, and I certainly don’t know where you disappear to.”

“I’ve been out of town,” he said, tone surly.  “I’m back.  And you know me well enough.  Certainly enough to know how this night will end.”

I struggled against him briefly because he was pissing me off with every word, but that only seemed to add to my problem, as every shift of my body had me rubbing against his obvious hard-on.

“Missed you, too, sugar,” he rasped, pulling my face closer to his.

I gritted my teeth, pissed off by his attitude, and more pissed off by my body’s increasing reaction to it.  “Really?” I asked archly, a sarcastic bite in my tone.

“Really.  It’s going to be a rough night for you.  That little kiss out on your porch has gone and pissed me off, so I’ve got some frustration to fuck out of my system.  But first, I need you to wash your mouth out.

Who did he think he was, telling me what to do?  If anything, it should be the reverse.

I was pretty much old enough to be his mother.

He set me on my feet, and I backed away on unsteady legs.

I went to my bathroom, bending over the sink to brush my teeth, but only because I thought it was fair.  I’d want him to do the same if he’d just been kissing some other woman.

My eyes shot up as he gripped my long hair, wrapping it around his wrist once, twice, slamming his hard-on against my ass.

“You can’t even begin to know how screwed up it was for you to kiss Dair like that.”

I blinked at his reflection in the mirror, spitting out my toothpaste.  A chill ran through me.  Fear.

“How-how do you know his name?” I gasped.

He gave me one of his cold smiles, his eyes scary, even while he kept rubbing against me from behind.

“I know a great many things about you and your life, Lourdes.  And there’s a thing you should know about me.”

I didn’t want to ask, didn’t want to know.  He was really freaking me out now.  But it seemed called for.  “What?”

“It’s unwise to rile me.”  He reached his free hand around me, cupping my sex crudely.  “This is mine.  It will go much better for all parties involved if you stop questioning that.”

My body was throbbing, but it was a distraction I didn’t want right then.  I wanted to focus.  He didn’t get to say a thing like that and not explain himself.

“How?”  My voice was a hoarse whisper, but I got the word out.

“How is it unwise?” he asked.

“No,” I answered, voice gaining strength.  “How do you know ‘a great many things about my life’?  How’d you know his name?”

“I told you I work in security.” He paused.  His fingers never stopped moving, rubbing, stroking.  “It’s part of my job to,” longer pause, “vet anyone I might be,” longest pause of all, “seeing.  And also, anyone they might be seeing.”

I mulled that over, or tried to.  He shoved a finger inside of me, but I still managed to tell him, voice as firm as it could be with a quaver in it.  “I’m not okay with that.  Don’t do it again.  It’s an invasion of my privacy.”

He pulled his finger out, both of his big hands going to my hips.

He gave me a pretty scary look for that.

I knew it should have made me more scared.  All of this should have.

So why didn’t it?

It was becoming clear to me that infatuation could trump caution.  Lust like this overrode my instincts, making them hazy, distant.  I couldn’t focus on them, let alone heed them.