Abduction (66 page)

Yes. Yes to him, to his words as they merged in a deep, eager kiss. And then that smile. That look. She imagined he could calm her through a bombing. But then, what was that other look that flickered through his features? It was only a second. One tiny shard of time. Some anxiety, some worry had jabbed through his tranquil joy. Then his placid smile was back in his mercury eyes.

“What?” she asked, feeling everything slipping away again, almost before she’d had a chance to believe it might last.

Vaughn’s mouth spread in that calm, reassuring smile and he pressed a kiss to her forehead. In the few seconds his lips lingered there, her anxiety ebbed almost completely away. His steady look when he pulled back erased the last trace of her fear.

“I just...after everything, I want to be straight with you.”

“All right.”

She felt small and cold, as if all her blood had seeped out.

“Oh, Dev,” he kissed her face over and over, “all I'm trying to say is that I...” He pressed a tender kiss to her lips. Then he smiled and something in his look made her world go bright and still.

“Dev,” Vaughn's voice. So low and gentle. It always promised her that whatever pain or fear she was feeling would end. That things were good. “I'm not big on declarations, but after everything I've put you through, I don't want to leave you wondering. I want you to know what I'm thinking, coming to you last night.” He barely had to move to give her a soft, lingering kiss.

“In some ways we know each other so well. The things we shared, that we went through together brought us so close so fast. But in other ways we hardly know each 601

other at all. So we can't know what will happen. And I know I've just shown up out of the blue, and I don't have any expectations. But I came to you because I think you're the person I could be happy with. I'm hoping, when you've had time, if it's what you want, we can try being together.”

“I don't need time, Vaughn. Every day, since the day we got back, I've hoped I'd see you again. That we could be together.”

As he caressed and kissed her, as she touched him and took him in and they made love for the third time since their reunion, she felt sure, dead sure, that nothing in the world, nothing outside of them, could do harm to what they had together.

They lingered around her apartment all day, remembering, re-learning what it was to be alone together, making love, murmuring, laughing, caressing, nuzzling. They kissed and touched and held each other, immersed in their togetherness but thirsty, wanting to feel, to hear, to see, to taste each other every moment.

Lounging naked on her bed, Vaughn was irresistible to her; she was compelled to look, to touch. The sculpted curves of his hip. His thick, muscled thigh. The incredibly smooth, delicate skin along the underside of his arm, taught and sleek over the graceful swell of tricep that formed one side of the triangle implied by the bend of his arm when he tucked his palm under his head.

Did he mind that she was more shy than he was? That she kept the sheet draped over her torso? Maybe he liked it, liked having something to draw back, something to expose.

It was new, seeing him soft. At the cabin, the way Conrad had run things, she'd hardly seen either of them, except fiercely erect. There was something tender, endearing, in his being so near, so naked, but not hard. His cock looked pretty, this way.

Smooth and pale, compared with how it looked when it was hard. Laying passive, innocent, against his body, in compliance with gravity.

Irresistible. The urge to look. To touch. To taste. Devan felt compelled to take him in her mouth, to feel him go from soft to hard between her lips, against her tongue.

Maybe he'd read her mind. He was grinning at her mischievously and his cock twitched faintly.

Holding Vaughn's gaze as she shifted, she brought herself within kissing range of his cock. She gave him a little smile, took in his anticipatory grin, the way his chest was already moving with quickening breath, and brought her mouth to him. Without touching him at all, so the soft wet touch of her mouth would be the first thing he'd feel, she parted her lips, brushed her tongue over the soft, smooth dome of his cock, and drew him gently in. His whole cock fit easily in her mouth, compared with the effort it took to take him hard, and she sucked and rubbed her tongue over him as he rapidly swelled and stiffened. When she put her hands on him she felt his legs quivering faintly, felt his belly pulsing with little panting breaths. Her cunt throbbed, slick-feeling as she shifted her weight onto her knees. Already he was fully hard, and she was moving her tongue and lips over the rigid length of him, licking along the faint ridge that ran along the length of the underside, nursing at the sleek head, noticing how his growling groans drove hot surges of electricity through her sex. Fuck, she loved the feel of him flexing and writhing 603

under her mouth, the sound of his panting, his moans. She was eager, anticipating how he'd spasm and grunt just before she'd feel the warm spurt of his orgasm in her mouth.

His fingers stroked over the back of her hand, between her fingers.

“Dev.”

She stopped what she was doing at looked up at him, his face rapt.

“Come here,” he sighed, smiling, and coaxed her up.

She'd thought he was close. But maybe she'd been doing it wrong. Badly.

“If that wasn't good,” she whispered, feeling her face go warm, “you can tell me what to do. So you like it.”

He laughed.

“Oh, that was good all right, Dev. I was about ten seconds from finishing.” She smiled and her cheeks cooled.

“I thought so,” she sighed, relieved. Triumphant, even. But confused. “So why...”

“Do you like doing that?” he asked her, his voice and his smile small and soft.

She just laughed and nodded. Her sex was still pulsing with rapid, hot little throbs. He smiled sweetly, almost sheepishly, and gave her a tender little kiss.

“You know, when we do that, you don't have to finish me that way, if you don't want.”

“Swallow, you mean?” she asked with a teasing grin.

“Because I realize there's a lot of pressure...some women feel they're supposed to do that, supposed to like it. Giving head. I don't want you doing anything just because you think you have to, to be a good lover. To please me. There's lots of ways for us to enjoy each other. I don't need that particular thing.” 604

“You don't have to worry about stuff like that, Vaughn. Obviously I don't have a lot of experience in the realm of sex, but in general, I'm pretty good about trying stuff out, and speaking up if I'm not into it. I won't just passively go along with doing something I don't like.”

“Good.” He laughed softly. At himself, it seemed.

“And same goes for you,” she teased. “Don't go enduring anything unpleasant just to get me off. All right?”

“It's a deal,” he swore playfully.

She laughed again.

“What?”

“You were laying here, worrying, and I was getting thoroughly turned on.”

“Really?”

“Really.”

His smile got huge. Then he laughed.

“What?”

“Just the thought of you getting turned on turns me on.”

“Enough to get you off?” she teased, “or shall I carry on?” She smiled and glanced from his still-stiff prick and back again.

He pulled her in for a deep kiss that seemed to pull at that heavy feeling low in her belly, revived that aching throb in her sex.

“Want to try something a little different?” he murmured, his hot breath tickling her ear and neck, sending a cascade of tingles over her shoulders and down her back.

He kissed her neck, his lips and tongue and teeth tying a knot of pleasure taut in her belly, then turned himself around on the bed. A flicker of heat moved over her face, her chest, her whole body as he kissed her knee, then drew it across his chest, coaxing her to straddle him. She was suddenly shy, unbearably aware that her naked sex was just inches above his face, and when she shifted to plant her hands on either side of his hips, his flushed and rigid cock was aimed up at her as if it was begging for her kiss. He wasn't touching her, except for the faint caress of his palms over the backs of her thighs, her bottom, her back; and she was shocked at the thrill of that feeling, her legs necessarily parted wide to accommodate his shoulders, her wet, wanting sex open to him, the cool air and his warm breath teasing her cunt.

He was playing with her so deliciously, making her wait in such a pleasant agony of self-consciousness—an incredible awareness of her body—that she wanted to tease him a little, too. Instead of sinking right down on his hard, seeking cock, she brushed her lips over the smooth, soft flesh of his belly, which shuddered under her mouth to the sound of him sucking in his breath. Then she licked and gently raked her teeth over him there, making him grunt and squirm a little. And then, emboldened by her arousal, she reached her hand between his thighs, and, careful to be gentle, caressed his balls with the tips of her fingers. For that she got a long, low sigh. Still lightly teasing his balls, finally she dipped down and brushed her lips over the warm, silken crown of his cock, along the firm, textured shaft, noting the feel of the different parts of him against her lips, his scent, and finally the salty taste of his skin as she licked the length of him, the curved firmness of him, and drew him into her mouth.

He groaned and shuddered, and then she felt him take hold of her—his arm curving around the small of her back, drawing her down to him as his other hand curved against her thigh, down by her knee, and pushed her legs even further open. The first soft, wet touch of his mouth jolted her with a shock wave of pleasure so intense she whimpered loudly and jerked involuntarily against his grip, which only tightened, pulling her more firmly against his mouth. She felt so open. A strange feeling—wantonness mingled with vulnerability—exacerbated the thrill of Vaughn's caressing tongue. When he gripped her ass cheeks with his large hands, and in gripping her to him spread her—maybe accidentally, maybe on purpose—her arousal hit the pitch of frenzy, even though he was licking her only delicately, almost teasing her with small, intermittent touches of his tongue.

Desperate to give him back some of the incredible pleasure swallowing her, she sucked his cock with a frantic, mindless hunger. Her whole body was a cord of taut, quivering want, part of her straining for his mouth, the other begging for his climax, desperately seeking to coax it from him. She wanted. She wanted. She was writhing, pulling away from him to keep from coming too soon, but succumbing to his clutching embrace because his mouth was too delicious to resist, filling her mouth with the hard, twitching length of him, caressing and cradling and gently squeezing his warm balls—

taut and firm, now—and whimpering because the wonderful pressure in her sex had gone so high pitched she knew it would come undone any second. She tried to buck away but he gripped her tight and she whined because she was coming but she wanted to wait for him but he growled and clutched her and licked her, hungrily now, not teasing her any more, and she sobbed out her groan as her cunt throbbed and spasmed 607

incredibly, over and over, on and on, and under her own sobbing groan his voice rose up, and his body strained under her, and the thick, salty cream flooded her mouth in warm spurts.

She was still shaking, shuddering when he came back to her. He pressed his body to hers, cupped her face between his palms, smiling a little, gazing into her. Then he kissed her. Just a brush of lips, at first, then took her mouth in a deep, melting kiss that went on and on. The lingering taste of him in her mouth mingled with a higher, tangier taste—her sex on his lips, on his tongue. It startled her a little. Then roused her sated body.

“Do you mind it?” he asked, his voice quiet, but kind of rough and heavy.

“No. Do you?”

“No.” he smiled. “I think it's incredibly sexy.”

Curled up behind her, fingering a loose strand of hair at the nape of her neck, he watched over her shoulder as she tipped back the lid on the vintage overnight case.

“The way I look at the pictures, the feelings and associations I have are so influenced by what pictures I've just been looking at,” she mused when he'd asked about her unorthodox archival approach. “If I see a picture of myself at seven just after looking at a picture of my mom, my reminiscences are different than if I come across that same picture after seeing, say, my high school graduation picture. If I see the picture of me after seeing the picture of my mom, I might think about how, when I was seven, my mom made me go to bed and have the lights out at a certain time. But I could never fall asleep when I first went to bed. I'd lay awake for an hour or two, making up 608

weird adventures in my head. So sometimes I'd sneak a flashlight under the covers and write these funny little stories. But if I see the picture of me as a kid, and my grad photo, then maybe I'll think of how I thought my life would be, my little seven-year-old idea of twenty-year-old Devan. I like that, how the context is different every time, because the pictures get all shuffled up whenever I go through them. If they were in an album, it would always be the same.”

He was happy. Buoyant and swollen with happiness. It was like masturbation, stroking his joy as he walked back toward her apartment, a sack of wine in one hand, the bag of Thai take-out in the other, remembering moments from their last twenty hours together, imagining words, looks, touches they might share in the next twenty hours.

Weeks. Years.

A young man—maybe twenty or so—was walking ahead of him, and Vaughn wondered if he was happy, too. Or if he felt as Vaughn had felt for so much of his life; a resigned numbness tinged around the edges with anxiety.

These meandering thoughts evaporated as the guy ahead of Vaughn turned and climbed the slab steps up to Devan's front door. As he made the turn himself seconds later and began mounting the same steps Vaughn saw and heard the man's playful knock.