Page 61 of Glitterland
“They should be, dancing like that.”
I put a hand across my mouth, but it was too late. I was laughing. There was nothing for it. I turned him round and kissed him, clumsy with amusement, breath and warmth and mirth mingling in the chalice of our pressed-together lips.
“Want me to get the light, babes?”
I shook my head and, before my courage could fail, yanked off my dressing gown in the world’s most impulsive and ineffective striptease.
Darian’s eyes blurred to stormy grey. “Wow, babes, all this time you didn’t even ’ave your pj’s under there. You should’ve said. I wouldn’t ’ave bovvered wif the paintings.”
I spoke, once again, without thinking. “Sure you want me?”
His fingers climbed my ribs and then skated the ridged flesh that marred my arms from elbow to shoulder, raising a trail of goose bumps almost lost in the ruin.
“Course.” He kissed me lightly. “You’re so pale, babes. Fink I must have some kind of fing for vampires or summin.”
I laughed. Again. “Well at least I’m not an orange-utan.”
“Ooh, that’s aht of order.”
“Going to make me sorry?”
He let out an unsteady breath. “Yeah.”
I pushed him down onto the edge of the bed and knelt across his thighs. He cupped a hand at the back of my neck and pulled me into another kiss, sliding his tongue into my opening, moaning mouth. It was strange to be naked when he was not, slightly vulnerable, but, just then, it didn’t trouble me. It brought with it a patchwork of sensation, the cool air and the heat from his body, the roughness of denim and the softness of velvet, all mingled with the pressure of his lips and hands, the places where his skin brushed against mine. My cock rose between us and he wrapped a hand round it, rolling his palm slow-hard-perfect across the head. I closed my eyes, gasping, and he did it again.
“What was I being sorry for?” I said.
“Dunno. But are you?”
“Oh yes,” I murmured. “Very.”
“Yeah?”
“Y-yes.”
His other hand glided over my shoulder and slowly down my chest, nails scraping lightly over a nipple. I fell into him, hips driving my cock into the channel of his hand, as I shuddered, helplessly wanting. His breath curled across the top of my ear, and he made a sound of encouragement, pleasure, I wasn’t sure.
“I ’aven’t nevva,” he whispered “…wif anyone like you.”
I ground myself against him, my mouth pressed against the side of his neck, flooding with the taste of his skin, a touch of salt, the sour edge of his cologne, and the indefinable essence, spring water clear, that was Darian himself.
“You mean,” I panted, “posh? Insane? Selfishly devoted to the pursuit of my own pleasure? What?”
“Like…free. And you’re not selfish, babes. ’Aving a good time ’ere wif you doing that and being like that. It’s well special.”
But, after a moment, I caught him by the wrist, stilling us both. “Yorite?”
I tugged the lapels of his jacket. “Too many clothes.”
He laughed. “And I should’ve said bossing me arand.”
I tumbled off his lap and pulled him to his feet, remembering unexpectedly his body covering mine in a dark room in Brighton and how much I had wanted to see him. And then watching him in my living room, wanting to touch him. I’d turned away from both at the time, and the vulnerability of giving, like the thief I was.
Such a fragile thing, wanting to please someone else. Such endless scope for disappointment and failure. How much easier just to take.
“Yorite?” he said again. He put a hand under my chin and made me look at him, though I half pulled away, resisting.
“Yes, I just…want to touch you.”
