Chapter Twenty-five #2
The slight tension in his shoulders told me it wasn’t a question he’d expected.
He exhaled, relaxing at the same time. “I know. It’s strange.
Like I borrowed someone else’s body, only it looks the same.
” He reached back with his left hand, pressing it to his lower back.
“As far as I can remember, it was here.”
When his hand fell away, I replaced it with my own, fingertips tracing unblemished skin as hot water rained down on us. “Would you rather have a scar?”
“I don’t know. Maybe. Sometimes it feels like an elaborate fantasy I made up. At least a scar would be…”
“Grounding,” I finished for him. “Proof you weren’t mad.”
“Yeah.”
I crouched, replacing fingers with lips against the same spot. Baxter let out a little sigh. “Tell me about historical figures with scars.”
I smiled, my mouth lingering on skin someone had once dared to desecrate with a knife. “Historical figures as foreplay. I’d call you kinky, but I think you’ve found my level.”
Baxter’s laugh was low and throaty. “Go on. Give it to me. I can take it.”
The double meaning wasn’t lost on me, my erection throbbing.
“Nelson, of course. He’s well known for having lost an eye and an arm in naval battles.
Van Gogh and his ear, or should I say the lack of it.
” My mouth slid lower, from back to buttock.
“A lot of famous warriors had scars gained in battle. Alexander the Great. Fidel Castro. Napoleon.” I paused, giving Baxter time to comment on Napoleon being mentioned again, but he didn’t.
“Abraham Lincoln had scars from wrestling injuries in his youth.” I pulled his arse cheeks apart, eyeing the prize that lay before me. “Tsar Nicholas II bore visible scars from assassination attempts.”
Baxter arched his back slightly, and I accepted the invitation, my next words spoken with my lips mere millimeters from the sensitive skin of Baxter’s hole. “Julius Caesar reportedly had many combat scars, but none on his back. Roman writers cited it as proof of his bravery.”
“Enough talk,” Baxter said hoarsely.
“You were the one who―”
“Lake.” Both a warning and a plea. I listened, abandoning the conversation and focusing on giving him the rim job of his life.
One of us turned off the shower eventually, but I couldn’t have said who. We didn’t bother drying, tumbling onto the bed in a tangle of wet limbs and fused mouths. There was no talking, just gasps and groans.
Somehow, amid the chaos, Baxter had remembered to pack condoms and lube. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d been that grateful for anything. If I hadn’t already been kissing him, I would have done so out of gratitude.
Baxter was so well-tongued—I almost presented a good service award to myself there and then—that penetration was easy. I kissed him again as I held myself there, letting him adjust, letting anticipation about the fuck to come build, until I wasn’t sure who was more desperate.
He held my gaze as I began to move, slow, steady thrusts that built in intensity.
If he was reading my mind, he wasn’t getting much beyond your standard porn movie dialogue.
I couldn’t function at a level beyond how stunning he looked against the stark white hotel sheets as he took my cock, and how incredible he felt, each movement sending sharp ricochets of pleasure through me.
“Yes!” he cried as I thrust deeper, throat flushed.
“Give it to me. All of it.” He hitched his legs higher, opening himself further, and I did exactly that.
The sight of him jerking his cock as I thrust into him undid me, my orgasm tearing through me only a few strokes later.
I kept moving, Baxter close enough that he reached his own orgasm before I went soft.
After dealing with the condom, we collapsed together, neither of us able to summon the energy to clean up. I traced idle patterns over his skin, Baxter luxuriating in it like a well-pleased cat.
“I guess it’s true what they say,” he murmured eventually.
I made the effort to turn my head toward him. “What’s that?”
“Fear’s an aphrodisiac.”
“Hormones,” I said, already drifting. I’d gotten some sleep before Baxter called.
But not enough. “Adrenaline, cortisol, dopamine, endorphins… They’re all present in the fight-or-flight response.
” I yawned, barely able to keep my eyes open.
“Same physical responses as arousal. The body gets confused.”
“Huh.” A pause while he considered it. “Well, I enjoyed the confusion.”
“Me too.”
My eyes were already closed.
“Do you think one of us should keep watch?”
“Probably.”
I didn’t remember anything after that.
We slept until mid-afternoon, both stirring around the same time. Baxter rolled onto his back. “You know how you said things would look better today?”
“Yeah.”
“I’m struggling to see it.”
I maneuvered myself up to sitting, the hotel room exactly as we’d left it. “Well… neither of us got murdered during the night. That’s a positive.”
Instead of comforting him, it made him frown. “You should get as far away from me as you can.”
“Not happening.”
“Hear me out.”
“It won’t change anything, but go on.”
“It’s not you he’s after. If you cut ties with me, he’ll leave you alone. You can go home and get your next book written. Find a nice man your sister approves of.”
“I’m not convinced such a man exists.”
“Glenn,” Baxter reminded me. “She approved of him. She was the one who set you up.”
“Glenn and I wouldn’t have worked.”
“Why not?”
“Not enough oomph.”
“Oomph?”
“Oomph,” I repeated. “We have oomph. We had it from the moment we met.”
Baxter smiled, his blue eyes twinkling. “I tried to oomph you and you weren’t having it.”
“Yeah, well… Sometimes I think with my brain rather than my cock.”
“Show off.” The smile faded. “I’m serious. No one could blame you for walking away from this.”
I nodded. “I’ve heard you out. Just like I promised.”
“And?”
“Makes no difference.”
He sighed. “I don’t know whether to feel pleased or annoyed.”
“That’s up to you.” I reached for the room-service menu. “Besides, I’ve found a man who can put me up in hotels, and is about to buy me whatever I want for breakfast.”
“Oh, am I?”
I grinned at him. He lunged for the menu, but I was quicker.
It was ridiculous, given the circumstances, how much it felt like a honeymoon, but there were definitely elements in common, like being alone and uninterrupted.
Yes, it was a Holiday Inn rather than the Maldives, but beggars couldn’t be choosers.
We spent the rest of the day doing very little, both of us in silent agreement that mental respite was necessary. “Tomorrow,” we kept saying when anything practical arose, like my lack of underwear. It hardly mattered because we spent most of the day naked, wrapped in towels, or in bed.
Despite sleeping so late, we were yawning well before midnight and drifted off to a comedy on the TV, neither of us was really paying attention to. We were both aware that we were avoiding talking about what mattered, but neither of us broke the unspoken pact.
The ringing phone was a brutal awakening. I reached for my own before realizing the screen was dark. “It’s yours,” I muttered. Baxter grabbed his phone as I switched on the lamp. The clock told me it was four a.m. Who called at that hour?
“I’ve been getting these calls,” he said, staring at the screen without answering it. “When I pick up, there’s nothing but breathing.”
“Since when?”
“For a few days.”
“And you never thought to mention it?” He shrugged, aiming for casual and failing miserably. “Are you going to answer it?”
He took a deep breath before bringing the phone to his ear, his exploratory “hello” laden with caution.
He listened for a moment, his expression tightening.
“Jamie, slow down. Tell me what’s going on?
” A long pause. “Who told you to call me? What’s his name?
What does he look like? Tell me something. Jamie? JAMIE?”
Even listening to the call had my heart in my throat. “Did he hang up?”
Baxter shook his head, already swinging his legs off the bed. “No. I think someone hung up for him.”