Complementary Colors (2 page)

I hooked a leg around his thigh and ground against his body. His cock hardened. Well hung and fast recovery. I’d hit the jackpot.

He attacked my neck, grazing my skin with his teeth. I had to get him home. “In the cab.”

He clawed at the door handle. As soon as he opened it, I shoved him inside and straddled his thighs.

“Hey.” The cabby turned. “This isn’t the hourly motel.”

I threw a wad of cash over the seat.

“The Royaute Building.” I caressed the stranger’s jaw. The shadow of his beard rasped against my fingertips. “Now where were we?”

With a few pulls, I had his tie off and the front of his shirt open. Dark hair dusted his chest, thickening in the center of his pecs and forming a line down his stomach before disappearing under the waist of his slacks.

I pinched his nipples hard enough to make him whimper.

The man sank his fingers into my long bangs and pawed at the shorter hair on the back of my head.

I rocked against him. “Touch me.”

His hands followed his gaze down my body. He stopped at the juncture of my legs and rubbed my cock through my pants.

I hissed. “Yeah, like that. Just like that.”

He fumbled with the button, and my cock spilled out into his trembling hand.

I pumped my hips, and he chased the head of my dick with his thumb through the tunnel of his fist.

Halogen lights beat against the interior, etching out the details of his parted lips, his wanting stare, the lines of his nose and jaw.

The clumsy kisses we started with vanished. He worked his mouth against mine, meeting the tilt of my head with his own.

“Mmmm—feels good.”

He tightened his grip.

“Even better.” I sucked on a tender spot near his ear. He responded by dragging his nail across my slit. “Oh, fuck.” A prickling rush spread through my limbs. “Harder, squeeze harder.”

His eyebrows came together, and reluctance shadowed his eyes.

“Please.” I wrapped my arms around his neck. “I need this. I need you.”

He did, and every beat of my heart was followed by an ache in my cock. I moved up on my knees so I could slam into his fist. The squeak of the vinyl seat accented my breathing.

“I want you inside me.” I nipped his earlobe. The movements of his hand stuttered. “I want you to fuck me until I can’t walk, can’t see, can’t breathe.”

He huffed against my neck.

A few more thrusts and the pain I begged from him ignited the wildfire inside me. I didn’t even try to be quiet. I yelled, I shouted, I keened, and shot all over the front of his cheap suit. The euphoria withdrew, leaving me limp in his arms. He stroked my hair, and every so often, he brushed a kiss against my temple.

It was then I realized the cab had parked at the curb in front of my building. The rearview mirror reflected the cabby’s pale face and sweaty brow. There was a crease in his bottom lip from chewing on it.

I caught his gaze, and his eyes widened.

“Did you like the show?”

The rush of red to his cheeks was instant. I laughed and threw another hundred dollars at him.

The stranger and I fled from the cab.

My unbuttoned shirt fluttered around me as we ran across the lobby. No one was there but the doorman. Unlike the chauffeur, I could trust Bill. The thousand dollar Christmas bonus I gave him every year ensured his silence. Considering the things he’d seen me do, he earned every penny. This year, I would double it.

I pushed the stranger inside the elevator, and his shoulders hit the wall. I seized his mouth, worked his lips, and raped him of his breath. In return, he cradled my face and fed from my mouth with long gentle strokes of his tongue. His green eyes burned with something unfamiliar to me. Or maybe it was just the lighting and it was nothing at all.

That’s what I wanted to believe. Maybe I could have believed. But then he traced a finger down my cheek, and I found myself struggling to hold his gaze.

The doors opened.

“I take it this is your floor?”

Was it? Behind me, the dimly lit foyer with its cream-colored marble.

I nodded.

He moved, and whatever spell he’d woven shattered. We were barely inside the studio before I shed my jacket, threw my shirt over a chair, and kicked off my shoes.

He stood in the doorway. His eyes followed the movement of my hands as I traced the thin line of hair running down the middle of my stomach.

My pants slid down my hips. I massaged my cock through my boxers. “Don’t make me wait.”

The width of his shoulders, his height, it expanded in front of me. He stalked me in long powerful strides, wearing the expression of a man about to fight for the last drop of water. Along the way, he worked the remaining buttons on his shirt.

One day when I did this, when I brought a stranger home with me, he was going to be a serial killer or just some maniac who would beat me and leave me for dead. The thought that this might be that day sent a shiver through my body.

I shed my boxers. “You don’t talk much, do you?”

He seized me, one hand on my throat, the other smashed against my ear. Fear ran in cold rivulets over my skin.

“I thought you wanted me to fuck you.”

“Yeah.”

“We don’t need to talk to do that.”

I grinned because he was so goddamned right.

We tumbled into my workbench. A palette and tubes of oil paint hit the floor. He bent me over the wide slat of wood, and my elbow caught a jar full of brushes, ejecting the contents. Wooden handles ticked off their landing.

He trapped me with his thighs and brushed his hands over the globes of my ass. The buckle on his belt clanked against the tile floor and the length of his cock slid down the crack of my ass. He moved his powerful hands up my back and over my shoulders.

I widened my legs, offering myself. The deep breath he took was exhaled on a growl.

Heated flesh pressed against my hole. Slick with precum, he only needed to push.

He hesitated so I grabbed a jar of vegetable oil I used to thin the paints. “Here.”

The metal lid scraped against the glass. “How much?”

Was he serious? “As much as you think it will take.”

A stream of oil ran down my crack. “That doesn’t mean the whole damn jar.” I think he apologized, but I was too drunk on the need for release to be sure.

He put the jar out of firing range of my elbows. Then returned the thick head of his cock to my opening. He rubbed the puckered flesh but didn’t push hard enough to enter.

“Goddamn it, will you fuck me already?”

He increased the pressure enough to make the ring of muscle give, but once again, not enough to breech my hole.

I slammed back, forcing my body to take his cock in one stroke. My insides clenched, and my ass burned. I’d forgotten how big he was.

His weight pressed against my back, and he made small hesitant thrusts. I writhed, trying to take control, but he pinned my wrists above my shoulders.

“More.”

He peppered the back of my neck with small kisses.

I bucked. “Damn you, fuck me or get off.”

He froze. Would he walk away?

The weight on my back disappeared. I was about to tell him to wait. Then he dug his fingers into my hips and thrust so hard the bench moved.

Over and over, he slammed into me, knocking the air from my lungs.

I think I said faster, or harder, or maybe nothing but some sort of animalistic howl. Whatever it was, he understood.

He pulled me by my shoulder. The change in angle allowed his long thick cock to reach parts of me that were never meant to be touched. My vision darkened, and every beat of my heart fought the constriction in my chest.

I went beyond pleasure, into some realm where sensations worked like a creature eating me alive. All I could do was suck in air through my gaping mouth and pray I wouldn’t pass out.

Droplets of sweat rained down on my back with every violent surge of his hips. He readjusted his grip, lowering his body, tilting me farther over. Then he pummeled my ass so hard I was lifted to my toes.

His thigh muscles rippled down the back of my legs. Some of his weight returned, pushing me forward. Every hot, ragged breath that escaped him blew against the skin between my shoulders.

Static wove around my bones, and the cool air in the studio burned away.

“Almost,” I said. “Almost there.”

The edge of the bench kept me from reaching down and finishing myself off. I needed him; harder, faster, relentless.

He gave me everything.

His rhythm broke, and he buried a cry into the back of my neck. At the same time I buried my shout against the table. A second later, the pulse of his cock echoed through me.

Then the quiet of the studio blanketed us, and he cradled me against his body.

I don’t know why, but I put my hand over his. And I didn’t fight it when our fingers entwined.

After a long moment he said, “Do you have a shower?”

No one ever asked me that before, but then no one ever stayed beyond a quick fuck and the time it took to button their pants.

“Sure.” I led tall, dark, and silent up the stairs.

He hesitated at the bathroom doorway, and his soft gaze wandered over me. Modesty was something I’d never had, but I found myself looking at anything but him.

“I thought you wanted a shower?”

“Yeah.” He trailed a finger along the edge of the counter, touched the brass towel holders, then cast a look over the stone alcove where six shower heads pumped hot water into the air.

“I take it you like my bathroom.”

“They still call something this fancy a bathroom?”

I pulled him into the shower, and water rolled over his shoulders, following the valleys of the muscle on his arms and chest.

“Tell me about yourself.” Once again, the sound of his voice went right to my dick.

“What do you want to know?”

“You could start with your name.”

“Paris Duvoe. And you?”

“Roy Callahan.” Soaking wet and surrounded by steam, we shook hands.

He grinned. “I guess we forgot the formalities.”

I picked up a bottle of body wash and a cloth. “What do you mean?”

“People normally exchange salutations before…” He jabbed his thumb over his shoulder. “You know.”

“Before fucking?”

He winced. “Yeah.”

“Maybe where you come from.” I smiled, but he didn’t.

Roy took the bottle and washcloth from my hands.

He loaded up the rag with some sort of earthy smelling soap Alice bought. She picked out all the lotions, colognes, and aftershave. My other sister was all about making me look nice. Not the formal kind of nice, that was Julia’s job, but the daily kind of presentation.

“Here,” Roy said. “Turn around.”

“You plan on fucking me against the wall?” Sex in the shower wasn’t my favorite, but I never turned down sex in any location.

“No, I want to wash your back.”

He ran the soap-swollen cloth over my skin. “You were serious.”

“You sound surprised.” His touch traveled down my body to the cleft of my ass. There was nothing sexual in the way he cleaned me.

I didn’t know what to make of his actions so I faced the wall. His presence surrounded me in the hush of spraying water. A weight formed in my chest.

He said something.

“Huh?” I glanced back.

“Do you go to those art gatherings a lot?”

“You mean a showing?”

“Is that what they call them?”

“Yeah,” I laughed. “But I like to refer to them as a communing of the socially constipated.”

Roy swept the washcloth over my hip. He knelt and placed a searing kiss on my left ass cheek. Then he washed me all the way down to my toes.

“If you don’t like them why do you go?”

I asked myself the same question every time Julia announced the schedule for my next showing. “The boss doesn’t give me a choice.”

“You work for the artist?”

“Sorta.” I hid my grin against my arm.

He stood and turned me around. “Is he as much of a jerk as the curator says?”

I raised an eyebrow. “Hiram says he’s a jerk?”

“The words he used were more colorful, but I’m pretty sure that’s what he meant.” Roy’s eyebrows came together. “How did these happen?” He traced the line of fading bruises on my shoulder with his thumb.

“I probably ran into something.”

He caressed a spot near my hip. “And here?”

What would he say if I told him? “Do you fix air conditioners full time?”

“I’m kind of a jack of all trades.” Roy washed himself with a distracted efficiency.

“Are you married?” A lot of the men I took home were. They came with me because I would give them the kind of sex they couldn’t get from their spouse. None of them had ever worried about the bruises. Why should they? I was nothing but a couple of holes waiting to be filled.

“No.”

It didn’t sound like the complete truth. “You sure?”

He finished rinsing and shut the water off. “I’m divorced.”

“Kids?”

“God no.”

“You don’t like them?”

“They’re okay. I just hate the idea of anyone being forced to live with…her.”

The towels were folded on the counter. I handed one to Roy, but before I could grab another, he was drying me off.

“Boyfriend?”

His gaze flicked up and was gone again.

“It’s not like I care.” It was his problem if he got caught.

“No.” He stood. “I haven’t had the opportunity.”

I threw my arms around his neck and toyed with the thick dark curls of his hair. “You make it sound like I’m the first man you’ve been with.”

A dark flush spread up his face.

“Roy?”

He dried himself.

“You’ve never been with a man?”

He shrugged.

“Never?”

“Is it a requirement?” He folded the towel and looked around.

“Just toss it on the floor. The maid will get it. Or Alice.”

“Are you married?”

I barked a laugh. “You’ve got to be kidding.”

“Then who’s Alice?”

“Why, are you jealous?” I walked into my bedroom. The bed was covered with black on red. Not silk or satin. I hated both. The rest of the room was occupied by a few pieces of furniture, a thick rug on the floor, and two of my personal paintings on the wall. They didn’t harbor the terrible things that lived in the ones I sold. That’s why Julia hated them.