Thick Love (Thin Love, #2)(12)
We were senseless, lost to the communion of music, sweat, sensation all coalescing together, writhing friction that took me where I hadn’t let myself go since I was sixteen, and she breathed out into that dark room, hollowing her whispered pants until I couldn’t hear the music any more or the low hum of the overhead lights; until all that mattered were her soft breathy moans, and the deep groan of my voice mixed with the sensation of her searing heat, the smell of sweat and the labored realization that this beautiful woman I didn’t know was making me come.
Finally. Oh, god, finally… and I let go. I f*cking let go against her and away from everything that had held me back…
My gasp—shocked, overwhelmed—became a growling shout, louder than hers, deeper and I only came back to myself when she shuddered, when the bite of her fingernails left me blinking, understanding what had happened right as she came down from her own peak.
“Oh…oh God…” it was all I could manage, that level cry of surprise, confusion. “I just…God.”
She didn’t say anything.
Seconds passed with our breaths mingling, gazes focused, coming together just as reality broke apart the lost moments we had given ourselves instinctively, like it was usual, like it wasn’t some naked desperation that blinds reason, blankets thought.
I saw the question in her eyes, that desperate curiosity that choked down my own. What do you say? What do you feel when this happens with a complete stranger? There was a rush, a booming zip that began to fade just then. It had started the moment she came to me, the second I grazed my fingertips on her wrist. Now it was dimming, numbed by the awkward silence around us.
Seconds lengthened with her damp skin, her heavy breasts resting in my hands and the wet, uncomfortable mess in my jeans making me feel as if I’d pissed myself.
“Um…” it was her voice that broke the trance and the discomfort came in a like soaking splash into that dim, quiet room. Behind that mask, her eyes were shut and the tremble in her hands then wasn’t from arousal. The stiff bearing in her shoulders returned and she sat up, eyes blinking and one small line crowded on her forehead.
“I’ll just…I can’t.” Then she exhaled, cleared her throat. “I’ll…go…” My hand fell away from her and that awkwardness felt thick, full as she stumbled off my lap before I could speak, before I thought I should stop her. She ran from the room leaving nothing behind but the echo of her heels against the hardwood floor and the heavy sensation of surprise and guilt thick in my mind.
I’d been warned.
Warnings weren’t enough, I thought, stumbling through the backstage, fastening my corset, shoving thick curtains out of my way.
What did I just do?
I couldn’t get my arms tight enough around my body, couldn’t make the hard tremor in my hands to stop.
What the hell did I just do?
If I were weak, if I had been some innocent idiot who’d never felt that sensation, who’d been clueless about men and clubs and nakedness, then I probably would have cried. But that wasn’t who I was. That wasn’t who I’d ever be.
Ransom. Why did it have to be him?
Ransom, who’d never noticed the girl behind the shadow, watching, wishing I wasn’t so invisible to him. Ransom, who didn’t even remember rescuing me from my father. Me zanmi, I let him touch me.
Even my hand scrubbing over my face, my knuckles in the corner of my eyes wouldn’t take the image of his fingers, the sound of his deep, heavy pants from my mind. A year and a half I’d watched him. A year and a half I’d wanted him and then this…
Somewhere in my head there was the voice I always heard when I’d done something particularly stupid. It sounded a lot like my grann. I crossed myself at the thought of her, tried not to think about how much I missed her. I tried harder not to acknowledge that two minutes ago Ransom Riley-Hale had his fingers inside me.
You wanted him to touch you. Grann had always been a dirty pervert.
No, Leann’s warnings that hadn’t been near enough. “Be careful of the people who run Summerland’s,” she’d told me. “Be wary of certain elements.”
She hadn’t defined who those certain elements were. Some of them loitered around the stage, mostly dancers, a few of their boyfriends. I ignored them, weaved through the crowded backstage with my head down.
“Hey, sexy.” I didn’t bother replying to the drunk bata making a grab for my arm. But he blocked my path, moving his huge body in front of me as I tried to skirt around the small line of dancers in position for their march onto the stage.
The drunk had cropped blonde hair that was ridiculous, bangs covering his eyes and he reeked of bourbon and cheap cigars. “I’m talking to you!” he tried again, gripping at my leg when I moved out of his reach.
“Hey! Get off me, *!” A quick shove against his huge chest and the guy went down, but his fingers had threaded through the fishnet of my stockings, and they tore when I jerked away. Half of the back of my leg was exposed and I jerked away again, tried to kick him when he stared too long at my legs and thighs.
“Come on, baby. I just want a kiss.” His words were slurred, his movements sloppy but before I had to resort to kicking again, two of the bouncers from the floor jogged toward us, taking the jerk down with ease.
“You okay?” one of them asked me, but I waved him off, sick of the smell of liquor and sweat, ready to be done with this entire night.