It seems like he’s come to torment me.
‘You OK? Kind of seems like you’re drooling a little, there.’
‘I’m not drooling.’
I
am
drooling. His eyes are a deeper blue in the dim, secretive light down here, and those black lashes surrounding them look nearly sinful. And, as I’m watching, he licks his lips a little. He licks them so that the lower one goes all fat and glossy looking, and I lose most of the saliva in my mouth down the sides of my chin.
‘Hoooo, baby, you’re gone. You been missing me, huh? I kind of wondered, to be honest, seeing as how you haven’t been around. But now that I’m here and can see that look in your eyes … that look is
hot
.’
‘This is just … my normal gaze.’
‘Really? Then how come it’s giving me wood?’
‘It’s not giving you wood.’
‘You want me to stand away from your desk and prove it?’
I eye the edge of the desk – the one that’s hiding most of him from view. And I swear, I’ve never been so thankful for its size. Usually I curse the fact that it could stand in for the Ark if Noah got into a spot of bother, but right now my desk is all that stands between me and certain destruction.
‘Absolutely not.’ I pause, as other words try to wrestle their way out. Sadly, it’s a fight my rational side loses. ‘Not at my place of work, anyway.’
Really, really shouldn’t have said that. I know I shouldn’t have said that. It’s like a clause on the end of the Contract of Me.
Kit Connor does not want to look at Dillon Holt’s penis, unless both parties fulfil the addendum in section B subheading seven. ‘Not while she’s in the presence of people who could possibly fire her.’
‘Ah, so you’d like to see my enormous erection at other times.’
‘Well …’
There’s something about the way he’s just said it that makes me think I should say no here. Just something – devilish, maybe – about his voice and his face, and his everything. I feel like I’m about to make a bargain with Satan himself, but the problem is … I can’t really think of a compelling reason why I shouldn’t.
Which is probably why my next word comes out sort of like a question.
‘…
yeah
?’
And of course he finds that utterly hilarious. His mouth skews sideways and he looks to his left, briefly, like he’s trying to hold it in. But I can see it bursting out around the corners of the fist he brings to his lips.
‘Is that so weird?’
‘No, no, God – no.’ He waves his hands and does his best to straighten his face, but I can still see how amused he is. ‘It was just the way you said it.’
‘And how did I say it?’
‘Like you were asking me if it’s OK that you want to see some cock.’
‘Can you blame me? You keep it hidden like it’s the Ark of the Covenant. I feel as though I should hire Indiana Jones to drop down into the snake pit in your pants, to get it back out again.’
This time, he doesn’t even try to keep his laugh in. It just bursts right out of him, louder than any sound I’ve ever heard in here before – so loud, in fact, that I almost run to the stone steps that lead up to the main library, to see if anyone has heard.
Not that they would have, of course, because the main desk lies approximately three miles from here. In fact, it lies so far away that sometimes I wonder what would happen if I died. Would I be found five hundred years later, as perfectly preserved as some of the dusty old tomes I look after?
I suspect so.
But that’s never seemed like a positive thing before. It mostly just scares the life out of me, instead of what it’s doing right now. It’s giving me permission, currently, to actually keep talking about this – though I still keep my voice to a tentative whisper. I have to, and not just out of deference to the silence down here.
There’s also the personal library environment that’s constantly in my head. It tells me not to say what I then do, but I manage even so. I get out what I’ve been wanting to for days and days and years and, oh, God, I’m sure it’s been centuries.
‘Seriously, Dillon, I was starting to wonder if you were deformed down there,’ I finally squeeze out, and only realise that it’s kind of a funny thing to say when he laughs again. I’m being a hilarious idiot without really meaning to, apparently.
So, you know: in for a penny, in for a pound.
‘Or maybe you have, like, only one ball. Or balls that look like three balls. Or … or … it could be that you have one of those really big thingies that kind of droops down instead of pointing up … I just don’t know. I don’t know.’
‘But you’ve apparently thought about it a lot.’
He crouches down a little and leans over the desk. Puts his chin in one hand, in this adorable sort of way. Like he’s my friendly therapist, or teacher, or some other fatherly figure. Only really, really bad.
So bad I can’t say yes to something like that.
‘Not really.’
‘You just suggested re-enacting
Raiders of the Lost Ark
to get at my penis.’
‘I was just … joking.’
‘So you haven’t been obsessing over what I’ve got in my pants.’
‘Not at all.’
‘You don’t think about my hot, hard cock day and night, sliding through your slippery fingers, filling your hot little mouth, fucking your sweet, tight pussy … ohhhh, that pussy of yours. Don’t think I haven’t imagined that last one myself.’
I dart a look at the doorway, again, though this time it’s not because of the noise. It can’t be because of the noise. His voice is barely above a whisper – my
breathing
sounds louder than him. But, oh, the
words
he’s saying. Those filthy, forbidden words, in a fusty old place like this …
I’m surprised the books don’t leap off the shelves in protest. Upstairs, Eileen Dorridge is probably fainting, due to the psychic sexual energy he’s throwing out all over the place. Hell,
I’m
close to fainting, and I’ve had all the time in the world to get used to it. I’m practically an expert by now in the lascivious ways of Dillon Holt, and yet I still can’t manage more than this, in response:
‘I might have … considered those things.’
‘Come on, baby. Be a little more specific,’ he says, and I shake my head.
‘I
knew
you were just doing it to torture me.’
‘Doing what to torture you?’
‘Keeping your pants on.’
‘Actually, I just enjoy patience – as I’ve told you in some detail. Now you tell me in detail: what have you been thinking about, huh?’
I can’t believe he actually assumes I’m going to say, amongst all of this oppressive quiet. In my workplace, with my happy little mug not a foot from me and that sign on the wall above my head.
Silence Please
, it says, and I’ve always obeyed it before.
How on earth am I supposed to change now?
‘I can’t really tell you
here
.’
‘I see. And there’s nothing I can do to persuade you?’
He has this look on his face that makes me want to tread carefully. This heavy-eyed, predatory sort of look that reminds me of crouching animals getting ready to pounce – though I’m prepared for it if he does. I’ve braced myself against my desk, and folded my legs one over the other.
He couldn’t get in if he tried.
I’m impenetrable. I’m a fortress.
‘Absolutely nothing.’
‘So if I stand up and come around there, it won’t loosen your tongue,’ he says, and suddenly my battlements are looking a little shaky. One of my hands drops off the desk and my body turns halfway towards him, like a flower seeking the sun. Instead of Fort Knox, firing at him with machine guns.
‘Don’t come around here, Dillon. Don’t come around – no. Stay there.’
I point to the spot I’d like him to remain on – around seventeen miles from my current position. But of course he doesn’t pay the slightest bit of attention. He just keeps coming until he’s all the way around my desk, and once he’s there he doesn’t leave a comfortable distance between us. He leans right over my chair, and puts his hands in places that hem me in. I’m trapped between my seat back and his body.
‘What’s wrong with me being round here? I mean, if you’re so certain about your ability to stay silent.’
‘I am certain. I just … I just … uh …’
‘You’re really not finishing that sentence, Kitty-cat.’
‘How am I supposed to finish it when your crotch is in my face?’
‘Oh, come on. It’s hardly in your face. No, no.
This –
’ he yanks the back of the chair and I know what’s going to happen. I know, but I can’t stop it. I just have to let the wheels on the bottom do their work, skidding me right up against him before I’ve had chance to get a hold of myself ‘– is in your face.’
He isn’t wrong. My cheek actually smushes against the shape of him, briefly, and oh, Jesus, it’s just as hard as he claimed it was. The sensation is sort of like running into someone’s forearm, only much, much sexier than that. It’s someone’s really rude and arousing forearm, thick and stiff enough to nearly knock me unconscious.
And that idea leaves me far less calm than I’d like. I actually rub my cheek against him, without really meaning to, and it’s only when he moans that I realise what I’ve done. It’s only when he puts his hand in my hair that I realise I’d love to do more. Another thirty seconds and I would have probably pulled down his zipper, so it’s good that I get a grip right then. I sit back in my chair and put a firm discouraging hand on his belly.
But that’s a mistake.
As is thinking I can maintain control under pressure like this.
‘You like the feel of my body, huh?’ he asks, but only because he knows I do. The muscles in his stomach are gloriously firm and, even better, they’ve gone all jumpy and tense. Like he can’t stand to hold himself back like this.
So it’s really no surprise that I’m stroking all over them, when I fully intended to stay completely still. I thought I was fending him off, but apparently I was just fooling myself. I wanted to touch him, and any old excuse did the trick.
‘Tell me what you want to do to it.’
I think it’s fairly obvious what I want to do it. I’m almost under his T-shirt, by this point, and thirty seconds ago I rubbed my face all over his erection. The message couldn’t be clearer, though I don’t know how it’s leaking out. I cut off all access to my vocal cords, and still I’m sending him signals, loud and clear.
I should have chopped off my hands. And maybe my legs, too, because they’ve somehow uncrossed themselves, and now there’s all this open space between my thighs. He could just dive right in, if he wanted to, but I think I know why he doesn’t.
Because it can’t be
him, I think.
Because it has to be
me.
‘I can’t,’ I say, even though that’s half a lie already. I’ve pushed his T-shirt up and am quite blatantly snogging his stomach, and my right hand is definitely somewhere it shouldn’t be. I’d like to call that place the top of his thigh, but several anatomy books would beg to differ. It’s quite clearly his backside that I’m squeezing – much to his delight.
‘Even though you’re doing most of it already?’
‘This isn’t anything.’
‘Groping my ass isn’t anything?’
‘You can hardly fault me for that.’
‘Oh, really? And why not?’
‘Because your ass is really amazing.’
‘It is?’
Of course, I realise what he’s doing here. He’s trying to get me to talk by stealth. He’s creeping in some unguarded back door, to take me unawares – but I’m on to his game. I’m not going to talk dirty to him in a library, no matter what tricks he tries.
‘Maybe.’
‘Ah. So it more than likely isn’t. You were just trying to make me feel better, then, about my completely unspectacular backside.’
‘No – I really wasn’t. I –’
‘Actually you think it’s kind of ordinary. Dull, even. Flat and featureless.’
‘Oh, God, no – are you kidding? Your ass is amazing, honestly. It’s so firm and round … I swear, I can hardly get enough of it. When you bend over or … or when you were just wearing that towel … it’s all I can do to stop myself crawling over to you to bite it, you know, to just bite it all hard and –’
Goddamn him.
I glance up – mid-poetry recital to his ass – and of course he’s laughing at me again. And he deserves a triumphant giggle, too, because he got me without even trying. I was busy watching the South entrance, and he snuck in the one marked
make Dillon feel better about his flat ass.
‘You’re a fucker.’
‘You just said fucker in a library!’
‘I’ll say more than fucker, in a second.’
‘Ohhh, I’m hoping so, baby. I am really hoping so. Think I can get you to babble breathlessly about my cock by going all emo about it, too?
I’m so small and flaccid, Kit, I don’t know what I’m going to do
,’ he says, in such a ridiculously false way that no one could possibly be fooled. And I’m not, I’m really not in the slightest.
So why do I get the urge to tell him otherwise, anyway?
What is
wrong
with me? I’m so polite I want to respond seriously to a joke.
‘I’m hardly likely to fall for that a second time,’ I say, but I just sound so unsure. He has to know he’s got me on the ropes now – and a second later he confirms this.
‘No? Then I guess I’ll have to try something different to get you to talk.’
‘Like what?’
I shouldn’t have asked. I should have gone with my first instinct:
since when did this become an interrogation in Communist Russia?
Then maybe he’d have thought of pulling my teeth out or breaking my kneecaps, and totally killed the mood.
But I didn’t, and now the mood is sky-high. The mood is so thick and intense; it’s become a supernatural fog bank, rolling in from a James Herbert story. I can’t even see the door any more, and I’m definitely not paying any attention to what Eileen Dorridge might be doing. I’m only thinking of him, and the answer he then gives.
‘Like lifting you onto the desk.’
I’m swooning before he’s even done it. In fact, it’s so swoon-worthy that I kind of suspect he won’t. He’s just having me on with words I last heard in some romance novel – words that never happen to the likes of me.