Runner: The Fringe, Book 3 (19 page)

He took a deep, shuttering breath. “You’ve got to stop giving me orders, because I won’t follow them.”

When he withdrew, she growled like a frustrated animal.

He smiled wickedly. “You’re so close again, aren’t you? Right on that edge.”

“Yes.” She tried to press against him, but he withdrew entirely, picked her up and placed her over his shoulder. Again, she felt like a caveman’s bride.

“Where are we going?”

“My bedroom.”

“Why? The bridge was working for me.”

“I’ve got plans for you, lovely lady.” He entered his bedroom and strode swiftly to the turquoise-colored bathroom. He turned on the shower and swept both their bodies under the spray. “I want to do things to you you’ve never even thought of.”

Trembling, excited and a little bit afraid, she let him wash each ultrasensitive bit of her. She especially liked the attention he paid to the juncture of her thighs. Refusing to let her move, he brought her to the edge and stopped.

“You’re starting to look a little wild, like you’re just going to haul off and attack me.”

“You keep teasing me like this, and I might.”

“Then I’ll have to subdue you. Maybe tie you up.”

She closed her eyes and imagined her body bound before him so he could take his time with her. She knew they only played a sensuous game, but it excited her to a degree she’d never thought possible. When she opened her eyes, he looked down at her with that boyish grin.

He handed her the bar of soap. “But first you can return the favor and wash me.”

She took her time sliding her soapy hands all over his muscular body that put Michelangelo’s David to shame. Giving him a subservient glance, she dropped to her knees to wash his legs, paying particular attention to his cock. After soaping him fully, she stood and rinsed him. She bent over as if to inspect her work and took him into her mouth.

Her mouth was hotter than the water that rushed down his body. His hands shot out, gripping the neon-turquoise plastic walls of the shower. Fighting for control, he let her drive him insane for one more succulent moment, then placed his hand against her face.

“That’s enough of that.” Urging her up to stand and face him, he almost lost his mind when she drew his finger to her mouth and sucked on it while looking right into his eyes. He pulled his finger away from her lovely lips.

Coyly, she lowered her face but lifted her gaze. “So, you can dish it out, but you can’t take it.” Her hands captured and stroked him.

He tilted her head back. “You’re the one who put me in charge of dishing it out.” He gripped her wrists and pushed her against the wall. “Remember?”

Submitting instantly, she murmured, “Yes. I remember very well, Mr. Nash.”

“Who’s in charge.” Not a question but a demand.

“You.”

Rinsing them both off, he didn’t even let her towel dry all the way before he took her to his bed. He tossed her down and towered over her as he considered her. Pewter-blue motton sheets showed off the smooth perfection of her skin. Her wet blonde hair glowed in the subdued light.

“You look like an angel. A fallen angel. I can’t wait to corrupt the last little bit of IWOG lady right out of you.”

“Are you expecting me to say stop?” she asked with an arched brow.

“If you want me to.”

Considering him, her gaze taking in every inch of him, from his fingers to his feet, then settling on the prominent thrust of his penis, she said, “Go.”

Starting at her toes, he worked his way up, using his hands and the nipping bite of his fresh beard.

Tossing, groaning, she softly begged him up the inside of her legs. Tormenting her, teasing her, he touched and licked and bit and nibbled every part of her body before he finally settled between her thighs.

“Spread for me.”

Eager to please, to be pleased, she opened her legs wide and lifted her pelvis to him.

When he touched his tongue to her, she almost levitated off his bed. Gripping her hips, holding her down, he licked every secret place of her, whipping her into a frenzy. He brought her to the edge, then ruthlessly rubbed the sharp stubble of his chin across her clit.

Jynx hurtled up in a screeching burst. As her body lifted, he sat up on his bent knees and pulled her forward. Settling her bottom on his thighs, he draped her legs around him as he penetrated her slowly, feeling each contraction of her building orgasm around the now insistent swelling of his cock. Never in his life had he known such a sensual partner who let him express all his needs and desires.

He had a spectacular view of their joined bodies. Her head rocked, and her hard-hacked blonde hair twisted all around her face as she rolled her head side-to-side, lost in the madness. She was again close to that edge. He watched her cup her heavy breasts and twist her nipples hard. His moan matched hers. She slid her hands down her own body, seeking that wet heat enveloping him.

“No.” Her hands sought that tight nub of her clit. Three good hard strokes and she’d climax, but he stopped her by grasping her wrists. “Look at me.”

“Foster, please, I don’t think I can take anymore.” Fighting to pull her head up as she lifted her eyelids, Jynx blinked slowly, her lovely violet eyes hit his with a dazed, dreamy expression.

One brutal thrust startled her eyes wide. “You’ll take it.”

Something in her eyes registered, dark and deep, fully exposed to the light for the first time. “Give it to me.”

Opening herself wide to him, Jynx couldn’t maintain eye contact when her eyes rolled back as he thrust into her again and again with forceful, almost vicious strokes. Submitting fully, willingly, she angled her body up so he could thrust even harder. Sweat covered his chest as he ground into her. Feeling the driving need for climax, anticipating hers, he took an almost scientific detachment in his own pleasure. Her gasping pleas egged him on as did the view of his body meshing with hers. Wet, slick, her tight heat entranced him, physically, visually, as he worked his way ever closer to critical mass.

“Look at me,” he demanded.

Enraptured, overcome, she was barely able to meet his eyes. “I’m yours, Mr. Nash. Absolutely utterly yours. Call me what you will. Take me. Finish me.”

“You’ll take what I give.” He rammed her as a reminder.

“Yes.” One word of capitulation hissed wicked and low as she brazenly met his gaze.

“Anything I want.” He thrust deep, then held tight.

“Yes.”

“Everything I need.” He pulled back, thrusting to her again.

“Yes.”

“Do you trust me?” He leaned near to her face.

“Yes.”

“Do you love me?” He pulled back, then filled her wantonly slow and sweet.

“Yes.”

She didn’t even have to think. She answered automatically. Startled by her own admission, she peered up at him, utterly stunned.

Knowing the truth, he finally succumbed. Pressing down, wrapping silken legs around him, he kissed her as he rocked against her, filling her so quickly he pushed the air from her lungs.

“Please, look at me,” he begged.

She did. Naked honesty, trust, passion and love shining in every bit of her otherworldly eyes. “End this torment.”

He moved slowly, kissing her with soft nibbles as he held her gaze. “I want to look right into your eyes. I want to see your pleasure and mine reflected back. Mutual satisfaction. I want to show you that.” Peering intently into her eyes, he worked his body slowly against hers. His finger pressing and rocking and insistent. “Breathe with me.”

Jynx matching her breathing rate to his, which increased their connection.

Careful strokes, building fascination, finally erupted.

Her climax compelled his. Burying his face to her neck as he lost control and succumbed, his body trembled as he sought her mouth and swore, “I’m never, ever, letting you go.”

Utterly spent, Jynx kissed Foster as she wrapped her legs and arms around his sweat-slick body. “I have never felt so thoroughly ravished.” And so vulnerable. She’d confessed she loved him. He demanded the truth, and she’d told him without a moment’s hesitation. She hadn’t even known the truth of it herself until he’d asked.

“Did I hurt you?” He angled himself up on his arms. “I just—”

Kissing him to silence, she said, “I enjoyed every dark look, every thrust. Heaven help me, when you demanded I take it, I thought I was going to have an orgasm right then.”

He chuckled and bit his bottom lip. “I still can’t believe I said that.”

“Very sexy. Even more so than your entrance into my shower fully dressed.” She stroked the fringe of bangs back from his eyes.

“I feel things with you I’ve never—well, I’ve felt them, but never felt free to act on them. To be aggressive like that. I’m afraid I may have gone too far.”

In what you did or what you wanted to know? she wondered, but she said, “If you pull out whips and chains, we might have a problem, but otherwise, no.”

He grinned as he balanced above her on his arms. “That gives me a pretty big leeway.”

“Yes, I know.” She stroked his face. “Just like with the game, if you do something that hurts me or frightens me, I’ll ask you to stop.”

“Okay.” He snuggled close and rolled so they could lie side by side. While stroking her face, he settled on the tiny scar above her right eye. “How did you get this?”

“My brother. When we were kids, he got mad at me—I can’t remember what about—and he picked up this gigantic glass ashtray off our father’s desk and threw it at me. I ducked behind a chair. The crystal hit the edge and shattered. A sliver of it nicked my face. It bled profusely, as even the smallest head wound does, and my mother swooned to the floor when she saw me with blood all over my face. By her reaction, you would have thought my brother ripped my entire head off with a polo mallet. Horrified, my brother stood transfixed as mother demanded an ambulance and the best surgeons on Banna when soap and water would have been adequate.”

“You could have had the scar fixed once you turned eighteen. Thirty minutes in and out the door and anyone could have a whole new face on any IWOG planet with enough money.” He was referring to the quick-stop reconstructive surgical centers that could be found in any city.

“I know. When we went to have it stitched up, one quick swipe of instistitch, medicine became my passion. They tended to my simple wound but tended more to my hysterical mother, who was convinced I was maimed for life. They patched my silly hurt, then spent a good three hours dealing with my mother. Honestly, she lost sight of me as I followed the nurses around. Ten years old and trying to fix every hurt. My mother harped on me about that scar for years after I turned eighteen. But I never did get around to getting it fixed. It seemed so small, and truly no one noticed it but her. Not even my lovers. But you. And then—” She shook off the thought. “Well, it just never seemed that important, after.”

“After what?” Foster curled her close, twirling her hair around his finger.

“Roberts didn’t tell you about my family?”

“No. Well, yes. That they were…”

“Deceased.”

“Yeah. The report didn’t say how. No living relatives, no living associates. It’s on your bonafides.” He stroked her hair back from her cheek. “You don’t have to talk about this if you don’t want to.”

She took a deep breath, readying herself to speak of something she hadn’t told anyone in years. “It was holiday season. You know how it is on the IWOG worlds at that time. All the rush and fuss. My family was going out to Shanagan’s.”

“For the big parade with all the lights and songs and desperate merriment.”

“Yes.”

“My family did that one year as our big gift to each other. Expensive as hell, but me and my sister, we were little kids and my parents spent the whole day with us. I remember all the lights and robotic toys, but mostly I remember just being with my parents for the first time in my whole life. Got to know not only my sister but my dad and mom on that day. A whole day of just our family walking around and doing things together.”

His voice held fond memories like the ones she carried. Memories now tainted by tragedy.

“My family went to Shanagan’s for the holidays every year since the time I was born. Like you, it seemed to be the only day I really got to spend time with them. I cherished it, but then I became a doctor. Holidays on IWOG worlds are not so cheery and bright for everyone. I started missing my family at Shanagan’s, more and more often as the years went on. Hospitals fill with human stupidity during the holiday season. Rather than spend my time with my family, I spent my time healing people I did not know. People I wonder to this day if I really helped.”

“Poor people?” He stroked and then kissed the tiny scar as if his lips could heal.

“Money poor but rich in some powerfully strange ways.” She bit her lip, considering the thousands of faces that flashed in her mind. “I’d missed so many trips to Shanagan’s since I took up medicine. I missed the last trans by less than twenty seconds. I stood on the platform and watched the doors close on their frantic faces as they hurtled down the tracks. I knew Mother would be furious. As a doctor, I always ran late.”

“Emergencies.”

She nodded. “I’d really tried to meet them on the platform so we could all go together. Me, my parents, my brother, his wife, their six children, my maternal and fraternal grandparents along with—my entire family was on that trans.”

“The hospital held you up?” He stroked her hair over her shoulder.

“Not this time. That’s what’s so perverse. A woman who dropped her purse held me up. Her bag went one way as her child went the other. Before the pickpockets could prey, I scooped up the battered bag as she went after her child. It took a minute of my time to help her. I didn’t save her life, just her purse, but she saved my life, and she doesn’t even know it.”

“How?”

“It’s funny how the slimmest moments can have the most impact.”

“Jynx, I don’t understand.”

“My mother hated my job. I stopped being a surgeon to take up general practice in the hopes of appeasing her. It didn’t. I became just as passionate about that. Mother wanted me to be a housewife and mother like her, because then I could be counted on to show up for important family functions on time. Dark irony in that I helped a housewife and ended up betraying my mother for the last time.”