East Rising (Naive Mistakes #2) (14 page)

"I'd actually wanted to" — he cleared his
throat — "do a little bit of talking tonight," he said.

"M-hm?" I moved down and kissed his neck. He
pushed the back of his head into the pillow. I put my right leg
over his crotch. He rubbed my thigh.

"That was a good idea to put on my
shirt."

"You mean, it was a good idea to take off my
pants, don't you?" I kissed him across his neck, feeling more
confident. Feeling, for the first time, like I was on equal footing
with him. Like I would be the one to control things, at least
sometimes, in the bedroom.

I also thought,
This is the first time we're actually doing
anything
in
the
bedroom!

"Yes, that's actually what I meant. Your
bare skin feels good under my hand."

I moved down to his chest, licked his chest
hairs.

"You're more tanned now.
Showing people your tattoos?" His hand eased over to my butt, under
the strap of my underwear. His index pressed lightly against my
anal hole, not penetrating it. My confidence shriveled, and a flush
of cool, exhilarating air washed over my skin. I had
not
been expecting that.
The move had been gentle, caring, and maddeningly
arousing...

I started sweating.

He moved his hand down, touched me at my
crotch, on the lips, just on each side a little.

Nope, I wasn't going to control this. I
stopped kissing him, put my forehead to his chest, and just waited
for him to make the next move. I was all his now. As I always was
when he started moving his hands confidently around all my hot
spots.

He kept tickling me there,
just moving around lightly on the outside, making me more wet with
every move. I straddled him, pressed against him, getting some
friction going on my clit. He still had on the jeans he'd changed
into and it helped. I got more turned on and pressed harder,
rubbing and rocking my pelvis back and forth, slowly,
grinding
. My mouth
opened, my breath got hot. I was going to come already! Just like
this, gentle, easy. It didn't have to be sizzling and intense all
the time with him. It could also be easy like this, like a slow
morning fuck. I thought of this as I rode him, pretending it was
the morning already. My eyes were closed so I could pretend
whatever the hell I wanted to.

I rubbed harder. My eyes tightened. I was
ready to come, almost there, pushing, hard —

Huh!?
"Wh — ?"

Conall's hands had gone to my waist and he'd
lifted me straight off him like so much paper! He threw me on the
bed next to him. I was heaving with heavy breaths! He turned to his
side, smiled and looked at me intensely.

"What the fuck was that?" I
said, tingles all around my thighs, my middle throbbing like a
motherfucker,
so
goddamned tense... All I needed was one finger, just one, he
could do it, right now! He could touch me, just slip it in... I
was
so
close!

He looked at me, his smile becoming
stronger, a naughty grin, enjoying watching me suffer!

I dug my head into the pillow. "You're such
a fucking asshole!" I said, not meaning a word of it. I put my
right hand in my panties but before I could even rub myself Conall
had grabbed my wrist and lifted it away. "Fucking sadist!" I said.
I moved my left hand in there. He grabbed it as well!

"Urgh, damn it!" I was still throbbing. I
was so goddamned close to coming! All I needed was one rub, just a
touch. One. Frickin. Finger!

I exhaled like my life depended on it, felt
the sweat of passion on my hair, under his shirt that I was
wearing, on the insides of my thighs. I breathed, looked at Conall.
He was smiling so fucking widely...

Jesus H!

"You're a total asshole,
you know that?" Only, I was smiling now. And then I laughed. I
don't know why, but I did. "Do you know I am
so
frickin horny that you could've
put your hand in there and made me
explode
with pleasure with just the
slightest touch? Heck, I would've fucking screamed my lungs out so
that even your neighbors would've heard it!" (His house and grounds
were so big that his neighbors were practically in another
city...)

"I believe it." His smile was so pleasant,
so friendly. It looked like he was about to give me a frickin
candy-cane!

"I'm
still
horny," I said, putting on my
best mean face.

"It'll ease off."

"No it won't. It never does
with me. After a certain point, it's got to go all the way. I
mean,
got
to."

"Have you ever tried stopping yourself?"

"Hell the fuck no! Why!?" The conversation
was slowly cooling me down, but I still throbbed, I was still
swollen, and I was still producing goddamned moisture!

He shrugged. "It makes the end better."

"Huh? How would you know? You're a man!"

He shrugged. It was a such a confident
"fine, suit yourself" shrug that I absolutely knew he'd learned
this art to a fine fucking skill with some other woman!

"It works for men as well,
but more for women. I assume." A knowing grin flashed across his
face.
I "assume." Yeah right.

I frowned. And, OK, the
throbbing had eased.
Thank God!
"You can let my wrists go now," I said, feeling so
friggin turned on by him holding them and looking down at me on his
comfy white bed...

His eyes locked on my crotch — still goddamn
smiling!

"If you're going to put
your turn-me-on eyes on my kitty then we'll
never
make it through this little
dilemma we have here."

He guffawed (and let go of my wrists.) "Your
'kitty'?"

Damn it. He had such a beautiful smile, and
perfect teeth, and bottomless eyes, and comfy hair...

"Yes, my 'kitty'!"

He laughed some more, too
taken aback by my use of the word. I didn't get why. I quite like
it. It's better than those other words they use for it, the one
with the P
and
the
other with the C. I'd come up with my own name for it. Kitty suits
me just fine thank you very much.

"Um, Conall, I figured that
this stopping-me-from-coming business was going to eventually lead
to, well, I dunno,
me coming
eventually! The way it looks it seems we're
getting nowhere near that!"

"So it seems." He raked my body with his
eyes, scraped his nails against my right thigh.

"Fucking...God." I writhed.
"I don't know
why
I love you."

"For this very reason." He
kept scraping his fingernails up and down my bare leg. And, damn
it, I was getting horny again.
Heart-thumpingly
horny.

I steadied my breathing...

"Look, it's all fine to get
me all hot and ready for an orgasm, but it's
not
cool to not give it to
me."

He stopped scraping.

Had I said something wrong? "No, don't
stop!" I said. I moved my hand to his, trying to get it going
again. I couldn't read his expression, but he was thinking
something now. The thought had grabbed him and taken him
elsewhere.

"Baby? What is it?" I sat up, suddenly a
little concerned.

"Would you like to spend a weekend away? Or
maybe a week?" he asked abruptly.

I scratched my head. "Sure, um, I mean, I'd
need to clear it with work. I got someone to cover my shift there
yesterday and today. But I don't know how much more time I can take
off. I don't wanna be fired or anything..."

He gave an inquisitive
chuckle, then looked at me curiously when I didn't understand.
"You
like
working
at a pub?"

"Sure."

"Oh, I mean, I would've thought that
maybe..."

"What, that I would've taken all of mommy's
money and lain on the beach all day?"

"'
Lain
'? Impressive. Most English
people don't even get that right..."

I punched his shoulder, then regretted it
because my wrists still hurt from earlier! "Would you stay on
topic! God almighty, you're worse than me."

He laughed, and fell onto the bed. Well, so
much for the orgasm, and I'd lost the mood of it all anyway by
now...

"Anyway," I continued, "I
like working. I mean, my money's back home but, well, I don't wanna
use it. I like paying rent and I like seeing what I can get at a
second-hand bookstore for fifty P, which is
so
much cheaper than getting the same
thing at
Waterstones
— " Conall turned and glared, some type of shock apparent on
his face. "What!?"

"No, nothing, sorry. It's
just, I remember when we met in the states... You're so different
now. And you talk like an English woman. It's cute. I mean, it's
just odd hearing you say 'P' instead of cents and talking
about
Waterstones
instead of, I don't know, what do they have in the
states?"

"Dunno, I guess the
equivalent would be
Barnes &
Noble
or something... But, that's not the
point! Damn it. Are you paying
any
attention?"

"Of course I am, and I'm loving hearing what
you have to say."

I looked at him firmly, trying to see if he
was joking. He wasn't. So I continued. "Well, yeah, I mean, I like
starting out from scratch. My dad did it, worked himself up from
nothing from The Bronx. Would you believe it? All the way to the
Upper Sleaze Side from The Bronx!"

He smirked briefly.

"Yes, I said Upper Sleaze Side. And thank
you for not interrupting!"

Conall gave a tight nod like a good little
boy. I chuckled.

"So, anyway, I just wanted
to do this for myself, you know. I wanted to...I don't know, be a
grown up or something. I mean..." I was hedging. Because what I
wanted to say was:
Losing you killed me,
and I needed to know that I could make it alone, without you,
otherwise I knew I'd never make it at anything...

"So, that's the story," I
said. "And, yes, I have a bank account here and I count up my
savings and my tips each night and, well, I'm happy. I also have a
piggy bank with little coins in my room. I'm sure I've secretly hit
a million pounds in there by now. Feels like it when I shake it by
my ear at least. And I shake it
a
lot
."

Conall thought a moment. "That's fucking
amazing," he said, still staring at the ceiling.

"Huh? What?"

"I said that's amazing." He was completely
sincere.

"Really?"

"Of course. I wish I'd done the same.
Everything was handed to me on a platter."

"Not
everything
. I mean, you can go to
Oxford but you have to have a brain to pass the exams and learn
that shit, don't you?"

"Yes, I supposed you have to 'learn that
shit.' Very well spoken Ms Caivano!"

"Hey, like I said, my dad's from The Bronx
and, well, I love him..." I twirled the comforter, thinking of
him.

"You two close?"

"Very." I wanted to tell
him what dad had said before I'd left:
Pride, Leora. Never forget pride. That's all you ever got.
Nobody and no amount o' money ever gonna give you that. That's the
only thing in life you ever give yourself. And you will be the
poorest person in the world if you lose it.
Only, when dad had said it, "forget" was "
fuhget
." And "ever" was
"
evva
."

He'd said that in relation to Conall. I'd
told him a little about him, not much. Conall didn't need to know
that.

"That's great that you're close. He sounds
like a great man." Conall sat up, turned his back to me.

"I take it you and your dad don't get
along?"

He stood up, shrugged. "No,
not really. Nothing dramatic. I mean, he wasn't abusive or cruel or
anything. He's just...well...
rich
. And he thinks... Anyway, I
won't put him down when he's not here."

"You're not putting him down. You're just
telling me how it is."

"He's a good man, a successful man. A
'proud' man, I suppose. But there are two kinds of pride — the real
kind, and the kind that comes along by always insisting on your
rightness with others and fighting with them to their graves just
to prove your own idiotic bullheadedness. Anyway" — he walked to
the window, looked at his backyard — "I don't really want to talk
about him. I always bad-mouth him when I get onto the subject. And
he doesn't deserve that. He's a good man. Never beat us. Always
provided for us. That's what a man is supposed to do, I guess. So,
what do I have to complain about?"

You probably have to
complain about the fact that it seems like the commodity he
didn't
provide was love.
Isn't that the most important thing for a parent to
give?

Of course, I never voiced that. "I see. OK,
well, we don't have to talk about him."

Conall's phone buzzed. I sat back by the
headboard, pulled my knees to my chest as he went to grab it from
his mirror-less dresser. The room was darker now, lit only by a
full moon which washed over Conall's weighty body and expansive
shoulders. He looked at his phone awhile, as if considering what to
do about whatever message had arrived. He hefted it in his hand,
put it back down, then looked at me.