Breaking Joseph (17 page)

“What?”

“Don’t stand
up.”

“Joe.” I
resisted the urge to wiggle my hips at him. Bad Charlotte. “We’ll
never arrive.”

“Oh, I’ll
arrive.” He strode over and squashed me against the floor. A thick
finger traced along my jaw, down between my breasts and to the apex
of my thighs. “I’d arrive here and here, and here…” One hard kiss,
and then he tore away to check his watch. “Fuck it. Shower.”

In the
bathroom, we undressed in clouds of swelling steam. Each of his
shirt buttons popped with a precise little flick. The clink of his
belt buckle was melodic as it fell to the tiled floor. We never
lost eye contact. I kept forgetting to breathe, and when I
remembered, the breath caught in my throat. On his slight nod, I
peeled off my own clothes and then he followed me into the hot
froth.

It summed us up
rather well that there was no need for soap. We weren’t together to
be made fresh and clean, and the stains only made us more
interesting. I liked to taste the layers of him, and he wanted to
be sticky with mine.

At first, I
faced the wall. Hot water battered my closed eyelids. From behind,
he squeezed my hips before cupping my breasts. Then he pushed his
weight against me and I lay back, fell, arched into him. He stroked
wet hair from my shoulder and began his measured line of
bites–always the same pattern, like it was written on my skin in
Braille and he was the only one blind enough to read it. He’d
carved his name into my flesh but neither of us guessed that it was
already there.

He was stiff
and hot and desperate in the valley of my spine, and there was no
hope for me, caged in his tangle of limbs like that. I had to turn,
had to commit grievous harm on that mouth. The cascade quivered
above me as he pulled the showerhead loose. Oh no, no. Not fair.
This was just meant to be a quick fuck, a nutshell–yet I was the
one about to crack.

The water was
sharp on my nipples, and the pleas flew from my lips already,
no, not yet. Please.
Little tremors pierced my flesh and
rolled down between my legs, pulling me tight on impact, forcing
shudders. By the time he switched to my other breast, I was a
moaning mess.

“Go on,” he
murmured, the showerhead hovering at my mound.

I walked my
fingers down. Ticktock, ticktock. With a little moan, I spread
myself, exposing my clit to the humid air.

“Good girl.”
His firm thumb teased me out of the hood. The water spilled down.
He swirled the jet until I cried out–
right there
–and then it
closed in, a hundred tiny fingers of liquid ribbon and heat. As if
it might hold me upright, my free hand smacked against the
tiles.

Our slightest
gasps echoed behind the glass, and my own cries permeated, shot
down and infused my contracting muscles. He filled me with fingers
and I kneaded them violently; he wielded the showerhead as he had
the knife, and the lightest stroke seemed to do the greatest
damage.

On Sunday, I
had shown him this, letting him in on my lazy little secret. Then,
he delighted in how hard it made me work and how quickly it made me
come. Now, he exploited it for every opportunity to tease and he
wore that faint, ruthless smile that told me he was already gone
with it all: consumed by the desire that simmered, and charged with
the adrenaline that made him superhuman.

My whole pelvis
snapped down as I came. Fast and brutal, I was too busy sucking in
air to moan, and I didn’t make a sound until I succumbed to sweet,
relieved laughter. The shower reappeared above me, his fingers slid
under my buttocks and I wrapped my arms around his neck, my legs
around his waist. Cold tiles rubbed roughly against my spine,
reminded me of the warmth I was otherwise wrapped in. A moment
later, he crushed a kiss on my lips as I was split and stretched,
and as he watched me take his cock, his forehead lingered on
mine.

“Do you know
how tight you are like this?” He panted.

I shook my
head. I was taut from the manic effort of my orgasm, but it was no
fun to tell him
yes
.

“Let me show
you.” He slid back and then slammed hard.

I winced,
squealed, but there was no space to recoil.

“It hurts like
that, doesn’t it?” He did it again with renewed force.

Clenching my
thighs didn’t make me any shallower, and he shoved them back open
anyway. I clung to his shoulders and sagged back against the wall.
Though it made his thrusts feel no less acute, the submission was
peaceful in a drunk, light-headed way, and just as we both knew it
would, the pain turned to sandpaper pleasure.

After at least
three bruises, I realized that the warm trails on my cheeks were
not from the shower. Joseph spread the tears with his tongue.

“Baby,” he
murmured.

The white tiles
flashed red in their bloodbath, red like a wall of shiny apples.
Charlotte was terrified that some
thing
had come for her
soul.

Then he spent
himself with stuttering hips and furious breath. The scythe stilled
inside me. The arms that held me were trembling, and as I sank back
down, he mashed me against the wall.

“Shh.”

I blinked,
uneasy. Not so far away, yet still buried inside me, a girl
cried–Charlotte shook with slivers of sobs. “Oh, fuck. Sorry.” I
went to wipe my eyes.

“It’s all
right.” He stroked my cheeks with his thumbs, and I looked away,
suddenly coy.

“Just got a bit
caught up. I think…I think I needed that.”

“I gathered.”
His kiss was unwontedly gentle.

We drove to the
airport in easy silence. We were late, but so was the flight, and
waiting, we curled up in a corner of the arrivals lounge.
Exhaustion seeped in and I dozed on his chest. I was dreaming about
having a bath in the middle of a supermarket when he shook me.

“What?”

“They’ll be
through shortly. This is their flight.”

We ushered
Elise and Kenji out, congratulating them on their engagement as we
navigated toward the car park. Elise was bright, full of excitement
and energy, but Kenji evidently needed some caffeine. I felt bad
for finding his sulkiness funny.

Their
glass-fronted hotel reached up toward the stars like a balled fist,
and their suite afforded them a view of a million twinkling
streetlights. If fairytales were wrought in steel and concrete, we
had climbed the beanstalk and they were playing out before our very
eyes.

Joseph appeared
behind me at the window. “What are you looking at?”

“Just enjoying
the view. A little like New York, don’t you think?”

“Smells
different.” He wrapped an arm around my waist and inhaled against
my hair. “Smells gorgeous.”

“Should we
order up some Champagne? Celebrate the impending nuptials, and
all.”

“No, no. I’m
going to take Ken down to the bar for a bit, I think. You can keep
madam company.”

“Madam, hmm?” I
grinned up at him. “Have you been eyeing her up too?”

“Elise?” He
shrugged against me. “She’s not my type either. Although.” He
cleared his throat. “I’d be lying if I said I hadn’t thought of
what she’d look like stuffed with a rolling pin.”

I tried very
hard not to snort.

“Stuffed
whatnow?” Kenji emerged from the bedroom, his eyes wide. “Do I want
to know who you’re talking about?”

Joseph released
me and shook his head. “Probably not, no.”

“Awesome. Can
we find some alcohol?” Kenji rubbed the back of his neck in
discomfort. “I need to loosen up after that flight and I’m not
allowed
to do it the traditional way.”

“Oh, stop
complaining!” Elise bounced through the door, her chocolate hair
shimmering behind her. “Leila. Help me get rid of these men.”

Joseph brushed
warm lips my cheek before heading for the door. “I’ll be back in an
hour, sweetheart.”

“Have fun.”

The door slid
shut. There was a beat–I recoiled, knowing–and then Elise ran at me
and exploded in a flurry of skin and perfume.

“Oh my God!”
she shrieked, hugging me. “I’m getting married!”

“We established
that.” I hugged her back through the laughter.

“I’m sorry, I’m
sorry. I’m just…so…I never thought we’d actually do it. And here we
are! We’ve come to buy a ring and everything!”

“And to do
business.” I cocked my head to a stack of files on the sideboard.
“Joseph left those for you.”

She paused,
briefly infused with her usual excitement for the job. “Yeah.
Well.” She tugged me toward the bedroom. “Screw those for a bit.
I’ve got
Cosmo Bride
.”

Oh, dear
God.

It wasn’t that
I hated weddings. On the contrary, I envied people the strength to
commit, and I remembered tearing up as Will and Angus talked about
conquering the world together, all their hopes and plans. If
anything, I longed to do that with somebody else–bed hopping was
one thing and life hopping was quite another. Here I was, really
feeling
for a man for the first time, and now the whole
white dress, organ music, floral-table-centre act of marriage, it
seemed like a plastic bouquet: a poor representation of the real
thing and in my eyes, pointless.

Elise had been
well and truly sucked in by the corporate marriage machine.

“Do you
need
personalized table cameras?” I mused. “Can’t people
just use their phones?”

“When the hell
else will I get to buy personalized table cameras? Have you seen
them? Look.” She thrust the magazine at me. “Seventeen different
colour combinations.”

“That’s…that’s
something.” I pushed the page back down gently. “On the phone, you
said you wanted to get married, rather than buy things.”

She patted my
hand in sympathy. “Never let anyone tell you that the two are
mutually exclusive.”

“I’ll remember
that.”

“Good.” She
peered at me over Cosmo. “Anyway, I did mean what I said. Stuff has
changed between me and Kenji, definitely for the better.”

I reached for
the Prosecco and sloshed it into glasses from the mini bar. “Should
I be asking how?”

“You know what
I mean!” She tilted her glass, watched the bubbles rise. “I’m
lightening up, I guess. Realizing what’s important. Appreciating
him.”

I watched her
lips as they curved like slices of autumn fruit, plump and vivid
against her skin.

“You were
talking about what he was willing to compromise about,” she went
on, “and you were right about what that meant. At first, I thought
you were saying that his desire…it isn’t important.” She tipped her
head. “Then I realized you were saying that maybe if I wanted
commitment from him, I needed to make it
more
important. To
me.”

“This is
awfully deep considering that we’re sober, you know.”

“I know. I
don’t often tell people that they’re right, Leila. It’s not part of
my job. But I think you are…and I wanted to ask you a little
favour, while I’m still feeling brave.”

“Oh?”

“Please don’t
think I’m weird, but from what we’ve talked about before, I
wondered…”

I listened,
nodded. Might have flushed a little in curious excitement. I didn’t
think she was weird–I hadn’t expected it of her, certainly, but I
had also gathered that Elise was not a woman you could expect
things of.

That made it
all ten times more interesting.

“So?” she said.
“What do you think?”

“If you’re
happy with that, and you think it’s what he’d want, I don’t see why
not.”

“Oh, he will
want it.” She laughed. “What about Joseph?”

“He’ll be fine.
Trust me there.” I held my glass up for a toast. “Tomorrow night,
then? After the ball.”

“So long as one
of us doesn’t turn into a pumpkin.” She finished her drink and
rose. “Come and give me a hand with this paperwork?”

“I’m not sure
I’m supposed to see that stuff. I haven’t even signed my contract
yet.”

She waved a
hand. “Oh, don’t worry about that. I could use your help. Come
on.”

“If you say
so.”

* * * *

I didn’t
realize how tired I was until I sank back into Joseph’s car for the
ride home.

“So.” I
stretched and yawned. “Did you tell Kenji about the rolling pin,
after all?”

“How would that
conversation have gone? Let’s see.” He raised his brows. “Ken, you
know that lovely girl you’re going to marry? Yes, marry. Do you
remember that talk we had about marriage, by the way? The one where
we’d only ever do it if we met interchangeable Swedish twins?”

I started
laughing and he held up a hand.

“Anyway, this
lovely
girl. I’ve been thinking about how I’d like to get
her knickers off and splay her over my kitchen island. Then I’m
going to shove my fist in a butter pat and–” He jutted his hand
aggressively and I fell about, tears pricking my eyes. “For fuck’s
sake, Leila.” He tried not chuckle too–his mouth twitched toward
shining eyes. “You’re ruining my monologue.”

“Okay, okay.” I
did a rather weak job of composing myself. “Where were you?”

He pouted. “The
moment has passed.”

“Sorry.” I
patted his thigh. “Did you treat Isobel to such tasteful
verse?”

He teased my
fingers up and placed them over his stiffening crotch. “Still
there, isn’t it?” he said.

“Mmm hmm.”

He nodded.
“Well. There’s your answer.”

* * * *

Despite the
tiredness, I lay awake for an hour after Joseph dropped me off. I
had to know where the tears had come from, why I’d wept without
realizing in his arms because…God. How mortifying. It was as if
being pressed between his thick body and the cold tiles was the
greatest relief of all, as if to purge everything I had to push out
with the heave of a sob. He had, unknowingly, drawn long-buried
panic out with each savage kiss.
Whore. Ever worried that no man
would want you because of what you are?
I shuddered as I felt
the rough velvet of his tongue on my cheeks again, winced as I
heard him exhale at the taste of my tears.