Page 52 of Skin Trade

Her entire being pulsed in rhythm to his touch and her mind lost itself to the heat of his mouth on her, somewhere so intimate. She heard her own moans, but they were so far away, and he was relentless, his tongue playing a tormenting dance bringing her to the moment when her back bowed from it all. She didn’t want it to end yet, but it was so close, so close she had to try and chase it away, try and cool herself, but that was no use.

He didn’t stop, didn’t pause. His hands gripped her hips and lifted her so he could press his mouth harder against her.

No. She couldn’t hold off. She was done. It all exploded in her in a wave of heat through her body that spread from between her legs all the way along her spine and ended somewhere in the rest of her body.

“No more,” she said, breathless, unable to form any words as her body rocked from the sensation of his mouth. “Please.”

He moaned against her, sending vibrations along her already highly sensitive body. “Are you sure?”

Her legs trembled and she nodded weakly. “I can’t …”

She didn’t know when he had done it, but his pants were missing by the time he came up along her body. The steal hardness of his erection pressed against her and she settled herself under him. The sight of his perfectly toned muscles took her breath away and had her wanting to touch him … to touch him like she’d never touched anyone before.

His skin shimmered with perspiration under the faint light that came from the bathroom. She barely had time to register it. One movement and he slid his hand under her buttocks to scoop her up. The thick head of him pushed at the entrance to her body and she opened herself more to him, needing him right then.

He kissed her, a forceful, open mouthed kiss that knocked her even more off balance than she already was. Her skin was hot, scorching with need. “Seth.”

And then, when she thought he wasn’t going to move, he pushed into her in a single hard push, forcing her open in a way that made her senses explode. A moan ripped from her body, her fingers dug into the firmness of his biceps and she pressed her face into his neck.

He didn’t move for a few seconds, his own heart raced in erratic pleasure. But, gripping her hip in one hand, the other used to brace himself over her, he moved, thrusting himself into her and pushing her body to the limits with his long length.

Her legs tightened around him as he moved, picking up the pace as he buried his face in her neck. Fangs nipped along the delicate flesh of her neck, but he didn’t bite. She wanted him to. She wanted to scream at him to take her. All of her.

This was raw and powerful and primal. A kind of lovemaking she’d never thought to experience. The power of Seth as he rode her body, sent her spiralling to the edge of another climax. He didn’t stop, though. Didn’t stop as wave after wave of pleasure wracked her body.

Not long after, Seth let out his own moan against her, deep and hot as his body shuddered inside hers. He was breathless with it.

He stayed on top of her for a moment, still inside her, breathing hard.

“I told you to go back to your room,” he said, stroking a hand along the length of her naked body.

“I didn’t want to.”

Chapter Thirty-One

It could have been a day or a week later. Time was relative in Seth’s room, in his presence. He commanded it the way he commanded everything else. But this was different. Like they’d been caught in a bubble where the outside world, and time had ceased to exist. Her body throbbed from every touch he’d laid on her, her fingers tingled from every place she had touched him. He had been electricity and she had been starved, needing that touch. She could have lain on that bed all day long, her body pleasurably exhausted.

Seth’s warm body pressed against the back of hers. He curled around her in delicious heat she was sure she’d not be able to get enough of. His arm was draped over her, his hand loosely covering her breast. She pressed her mouth against his arm and let her eyes close.

Sleep didn’t take long to arrive, and her dream came soon after. A montage of images appearing to her in black and white, rather than a full colour movie going on in her head. This was more like flipping through an old photo album of images she didn’t recognise.

Sleep was a clawing hand that wanted to keep her under, but she fought against it, pulled herself out of the mud. She stretched, pushing her back into an arch and her arms above her head as she tried to shake it off. She yawned, and for a second, when she was caught between sleep and wakefulness, her vision blurred and turned the furniture in Seth’s room into disfigured monsters. She yawned again and rolled onto her front. The scent of him was in the bed, against his sheets, his pillow. She pressed her face into it, savouring it. “Seth?” she said, her voice heavy. He wasn’t in the bed, but he was close by—a blip on her radar.

“Seth,” she said again, this time pushing herself up a little. The bathroom door was wide open, and steam rolled out in a thick fog. He was in the shower. The water ran in a cascade of noise she must have tuned out. Now it hit the tiles, hitting him, bubbling as it went down the drain. It was comforting. Perhaps in the same way rain was a comfort. Not that she heard the rain here.

The roof on this place was somewhere above her, floors above her. They were on the top floor as far as rooms went, but this place was taller than thirteen floors. It had to be double that at least. One day she would find how to get up there and explore, see what he was hiding. Across the other side, from what she could see from her balcony, the rooms went all the way up more floors. She’d counted at least another fifteen.

When she was living with Creven, rain was a comfort. They all stayed down in the basement, but at one part, it came out of the ground and ran longer than the house, meaning their tin roof echoed with the rat-tat-tat-tat. They even had a bucket in one corner of the room where the drainpipes had come loose.

The water stopped a few minutes later and Payton listened for Seth. His wet feet sloshed through the water in the bottom of the shower, but perhaps he was making that noise for her. She could trace his steps with it. Out of the shower, over to the towel rack, to the mirror. His towel landed in the shute. He was walking, and there he was, a small towel against his head as he dried his hair, and the rest of him, completely naked. There wasn’t a part of him she couldn’t see—there wasn’t a part of him that didn’t take her breath away and make her have to clench her thighs together before she asked him to come back to bed.

She covered her eyes. No. She uncovered them. Her cheeks flushed with heat.

He turned, everything on display. “Something wrong?”

“No. I--” She clutched the sheet to her, covering her own nakedness. “I fell asleep?”

“You did, but then of course you would.” He winked. “I’d have been underperforming if you still had the energy to get up and walk.”

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