The Sweetest Taboo (21 page)

Her fingertips slipped beneath the elastic—finally—and she eased down the band, but only far enough to expose the head of his dick which she summarily took into her mouth to suck. He huffed out several short breaths and this time it was Erin who pulled off his shorts when he lifted his hips and begged.

She took him fully into her mouth. He hit the back of her throat and felt her lips wrap around the base of his shaft.
Unbelievable.
He hated to move, to dilute the sensation, but when she pressed her most intimate kiss around him and pulled upward, he followed, thrusting because she made it impossible to do anything less.

She wrapped her hand around his erection and held him still. Her mouth moved up and down, her tongue swirled over the head, her lips caught the ridge where sensation centered. Her hold tightened, the pressure and the rhythm of her mouth increased.

And then she slid her other hand between his legs, stroking behind his balls and finding the source of his building pressure. She pushed hard, pushed harder. He groaned and she took her exploration lower, fingering him in places he most wanted her touch.

But he was going to come and this wasn’t what he wanted. He wanted to be buried as deep in her body as size and position allowed. “Erin,” he grunted, his voice hoarse and ragged.

She released him, her hands and her mouth moving back up his torso, tickling and teasing until, still wearing her panties, she straddled him. Her smiling face hovered inches over his.

“Damn you, woman. Tell me you have a condom.”

Her smile widened and she reached into the drawer of her bedside table and handed him the packet. She worked herself out of her panties while he worked himself into the latex. And then she positioned her body above his and lowered herself completely.

He couldn’t stand it. He couldn’t handle anything else that was slow and easy. He wanted her now and he flipped her over, driving his body deeply into hers. Fingernails scraped down his back. Heels urged him forward, digging into his backside, her long legs moving up to wrap around his waist. She cried out. It hadn’t even been a minute and she came. He continued thrusting, driving, pumping into her.

His orgasm consumed him. There was no other word for the overpowering sensation of being ripped in half, burned alive, torn apart from everything safe he’d ever known. He couldn’t wait to come down, to finish, to be free of her hold. He pulled out, rolled up to sit on the edge of the bed.

For a moment all he had the strength to do was sit, elbows on his knees, face buried in his hands. Sit and breathe and do what he could to pull himself back together. He felt Erin turn toward him, felt the touch of her hand to his back and, before she had the chance to call out his name, he left the bed.

Once in the bathroom, he pulled off the condom and flushed. And then he looked into the mirror. And he didn’t like anything about the man looking back. The man who lived alone for a reason and had known the first time he’d crushed his mouth to Erin’s that he was making a huge mistake.

He’d abandoned every one of life’s lessons for what he’d tried to tell himself was nothing but a great piece of ass, when the reality was that he was in over his head, far beneath his comfort zone of emotion with no possibility of ever surfacing for air. Taking her down with him only furthered his sensation of strangling. Which was why he would save her.

But then he would destroy her.

There was nothing else he could do.

ERIN NEVER WENT TO THE bar on Sunday. Never, because Sunday was her one and only completely free personal day of the week. She’d promised herself never to do more than attend church and buy groceries. The rest of the day was for shopping or the movies or anything else she deemed fun.

But here she was, unlocking the back door into the bar having walked the several blocks from the loft. She’d woken with an insane headache and spent too long in the shower trying to steam it away. The shower, in fact, only doubled the pain’s intensity because the ache spread down her neck, over her shoulders, and wove a web around her heart.

The resulting nausea had convinced her to skip buying groceries—who could eat when on the verge of vomiting? And, since she’d already missed church, she figured she might as well use the time to catch up on Paddington’s accounting, having slacked off the last three nights.

She turned on the lights and the ceiling fan low to stir the still air. Dropping into her desk chair, she wondered if Tess and Samantha were tired of her yet. She opened her e-mail program but hesitated before starting a new message, waiting while the usual spam mail and Eve’s Apple digests filled her inbox.

Erin groaned. She was
so
behind on reading Anaïs Nin. No doubt the group had already discussed
Little Birds
—which she hadn’t picked up since reading those few pages after work on Wednesday night—and moved on to
Delta of Venus.
If she didn’t get busy and participate, she’d lose her spot in the queue for choosing the next author, and she was determined to introduce the group to Emma Holly’s erotica.

Neither Tess nor Sam had said a word about the goings-on with Eve’s Apple, but she hadn’t thought to ask, being so caught up sending them her Man To Do missives. She hated whining to her cyber-girlfriends as much as she hated whining to Cali. Besides, Tess and Sam would both be well within their rights to give her a big fat, “I told you so.”

Not only had Erin
not
gone to Starbucks for a brownie and a Frappuccino à la Tess, she’d also stupidly done all the things Samantha had warned her not to do. Especially the worst offender. The infamous chick cliché. Mixing up
I love sex
with
I
love you.

Erin had known Sebastian Gallo now for two and a half days. If anything, she was a victim of sex at first sight. More than that would’ve been a true stretch of her credibility as a savvy, independent woman, assuming that’s what she was. And she was. She knew she was. She just hadn’t been terribly savvy about opening up her emotions to a man she only wanted to screw.

She should’ve kept her opening up to her girlfriends. But she knew Tess and Samantha had to be rolling their eyes that she’d managed to botch things so quickly. And then there was Cali who had her own issues with Will and didn’t need to be hit first thing this morning with a blow-by-blow of Erin’s night.

Erin’s morning would be going a lot better if she could understand why Sebastian had left her bed so suddenly. For the first time this week she’d felt as if they were on the verge of making love. No, she
had
been making love. And she had a feeling that was exactly what had driven Sebastian away.

Because he was right. If all they were doing was sleeping together, she didn’t need to know more of who he was than the little bit she’d learned. And the very fact that she’d asked meant…what?

“Yes, Samantha. I know. I know. I’m in love with the sex, not with the man,” she grumbled to herself while pulling up her accounting software. But for some untold reason, Erin didn’t believe a single word she said.

She went back to close down her inbox, stopping when the subject line
Anniversary Party—Paddington’s On Main
caught her eye. The sender’s name wasn’t familiar, doubling her curiosity.

She opened it up, read through, read through a second time while her heart pounded wildly in her throat. The note was from the publicist who represented Ryder Falco.
The
Ryder Falco, the bestselling horror novelist dogging Stephen King’s heels.

Falco was to be in Houston the weekend of Halloween and his publicist understood she was hosting a good-versus-evil themed party. Would she be interested in having Falco sign advanced copies of his newest Raleigh Slater release,
The Demon Begs
to Differ?
Af ter all, was there a single pop culture figure to better embody good-versusevil than Ryder Falco?

Erin rocked back in her chair, shoved all ten fingers into her hair. This was totally insane! Unbelievable and wholly unreal! The post-party results of implementing every single one of last night’s
Save Paddington’s
brainstorming ideas wouldn’t have half the impact of a Ryder Falco signing.

But how? No one knew of the recent conflict with Crewe Courtland’s pre-grand opening event but Cali and Will and Sebastian…

Of course! This was Sebastian’s doing. Erin hadn’t a single doubt that this man about whom she knew next to nothing was responsible. Tied into his reticence to reveal personal information and the incredible library of books he owned, this made perfect sense. The business associates he’d mentioned had to be in publishing.

Surely he’d realize she’d put two and two together? Had he planned to tell her about making this amazing contact on her behalf? The very fact that he had made it…

She rocked her chair forward again, propped elbows on her desk, chin in her hands and stared at her electronic salvation. How would she ever be able to thank Sebastian for the invaluable gift when the very fact that he’d given it had her struggling for words?

HALLOWEEN NIGHT ARRIVED, finally, only to find Erin pacing madly through the bar, checking on the caterer’s serving tables and fretting over decorations. The black and white, good-versus-evil theme had been played out from glittering snowflakes falling through shadowy spiderwebs to the jailhouse black and whites worn by the caterer’s staff to the incredible array of visually contrasted food and drink.

Never in a million years would she have believed in the neutral color scheme’s sensory appeal. But she had to admit the bar had never looked better. Even the black and white cookies worked, she realized, thinking about scarfing down a quick dozen. Nerves had kept her from eating for days and she suddenly found herself famished.

Yes, all the work she’d poured into the party had paid off—at least in presentation. She wouldn’t change a thing. And her ace in the hole, Ryder Falco, virtually guaranteed she’d pull in the crowd she needed. She laughed, amused by the ridiculous understatement.

Ryder Falco guaranteed more of a crowd than she could ever fit into Paddington’s and remain within code. Which was why she’d put two bouncers at the front door to man the line of Falco fans here for the autographing only. She realized she was dealing with a logistical nightmare and prayed for cool tempers and a zero percent chance of rain.

Once the bar hit capacity and hopefully stayed that way, the success of the night would be out of her hands and solely contingent on the work that had gone before. All she could do would be to cross her fingers that the party paid off at the cash bar and in returning customers.

She’d been a total wreck for the past three weeks, working to pull everything together and thinking this night would never arrive. The anniversary had loomed like an execution date when it should’ve been an exciting celebration marking the past year of her dedication on top of the dozens of years Rory had spent behind the bar. She hated that she still felt so bound to Paddington’s instead of reveling in her success.

She and Sebastian had continued to see each other, their affair losing none of the initial intensity, settling into an intimately comfortable accord. She’d been grateful beyond reason for their shared schedule. More than once she’d stepped into her building’s elevator at 3:00 a.m. and pushed “7”, not bothering to stop on her floor before heading for his.

He was always awake as she’d known he would be. And he was always waiting, never surprised that she’d been drawn to his door. What had surprised her, however, was the way she’d so quickly grown secure enough in their involvement to invite herself into his shower instead of cleaning up in her own.

Sebastian’s shower did come with one benefit hers didn’t offer. Sebastian. She’d come to think of him as Poseidon, king of his water-filled domain. And, yes. Serving at Sebastian’s feet had become one of her life’s greatest pleasures—even if they’d yet to have sex in his bed. They’d slept there together but, the mornings she’d come awake in his place, she’d hurriedly dressed and left.

She’d never forgotten his first hasty flight from her bedroom almost a month ago. He’d never explained; she’d never asked. But she hadn’t again made the mistake of thinking their coming together was about making love. They were here for the beauty of joined bodies. Love was the antithesis of having a Man To Do.

Her Man To Do had dodged her inquiries into his connection to Ryder Falco and the Halloween night signing, admitting to nothing more than calling in a few favors. After that, she hadn’t asked him anything else personal. He seemed to prefer to talk about her, or to not talk at all.

She wouldn’t be surprised to learn she was the first person he’d ever told about his showers. Or about the little toy truck, the ashes of burned-out fires, and a five-yearold’s crushed birthday cupcake. And an intuitive female part of her doubted her knowing those crucial parts of his past sat well with the way he now lived his life.

More than once on the nights she did go straight home, she arrived to find him sitting outside her front door, waiting, wordlessly watching as she walked down the hall. Her heart blipped each and every time, and it was all she could do to rein in her emotions before she reached him. Harder still was the struggle to keep her feelings hermetically sealed while he stripped off her clothes and covered her with his bare body.

Tonight her emotions clashed in a virtual riot of ups and downs, sky highs and barrel bottoms. When deciding on her costume earlier in the month, she’d wavered between good and bad, uncertain whether or not embracing the dark side would reflect negatively at all on her position as hostess and as Paddington’s owner.

Next she’d considered coming as the opposite of Sebastian, except that he’d never mentioned a costume or even his intent to attend. She’d tried not to be hurt, though it was difficult to maintain the detachment when she had started thinking of them as a couple of sorts.

Once this party was put to bed, she’d make the decision she knew she had to make about continuing their arrangement of seeking out one another for sex. Yes, it had been her idea to pursue Sebastian as a Man To Do, but it was also her female prerogative to change her mind. Continuing to deny her emotions was bound to blow up in her face. She loved him. Not that it did her a bit of good…