Vigil (7 page)

Still, I might have to revisit my pajama choices if Vigil was going to make a habit of coming through my window in the middle of the night.

“About the knocking,” I said. “You could really try it.”

“This was easier,” he said, moving off the bed.

I would have gotten up too, but I was self-conscious about my lack of clothing. I stayed where I was. “Why are you here?”

“I saved another girl. I thought you might want to talk to me about it. You said the advantage that your newspaper has over the television networks is access to me. So, you want another story?”

“Oh,” I said. That was actually pretty decent of him. I was sure that Henry would be pleased if I showed up tomorrow with another exclusive on Vigil. Of course, it meant that I would probably have to stay up tonight and get a draft done after I interviewed him, but I could handle that. I pushed the covers aside, forgetting about my skimpy t-shirt. “Let me get my recorder.”

I got out of bed.

And then I remembered what I was wearing, because I watched his gaze travel over my body. His jaw tightened.

I grabbed the edge of my shirt and tugged it down further over my thighs. Damn it. My recorder was in my purse, which was hanging over the back of my desk chair. I picked up my purse and started to go through it.

His voice was deep and rumbling. “Are you wearing anything under that shirt?”

I turned to face him, clutching my purse against me like it would protect me. “I could put something else on. If you’d… turn around?”

He closed the distance between us in two steps. (My room wasn’t very big.) He took the purse away from me and set it down on my desk. He had to reach around me to do that. His body came sinfully close to mine, centimeters from touching me.

I licked my lips. “I need my, um, recorder.”

“Fuck your recorder,” he growled. “Do you ever wear actual clothes that cover any meaningful parts of your body?”

“What?” That wasn’t fair. I didn’t dress provocatively. Of course, the second time I’d seen Vigil, I’d only been wearing a kimono, and the third time I’d been wearing a halter top and tight jeans. “I didn’t know you were going to come through my window tonight, you know.”

He caught me around the waist, almost roughly.

The shirt rode up, dangerously so.

His lips found mine, and I melted into his arms. His body was hard against me, and I felt dizzy.

He ran his hand over my back, over my ass. His hand was hot through the thin cotton of the shirt.

I clutched him tighter, thrusting my tongue into his mouth.

He didn’t stop at the edge of my shirt. His hand kept going, exploring my bare thigh. He lifted it as his hand slid further toward my knee, bringing my leg up around his hip.

I gasped.

He pushed one of his legs between mine, and my naked sex brushed over the spandex of his costume.

I let out a strangled cry.

His lips pulled away from mine. “God damn it. What are you doing to me?”

“I…” My voice was a squeak. “You touched me first.”

He let go of me, moving to the other side of the room. Disappointment washed over me. I very much enjoyed being close.

My pulse was thrumming just under my skin. I felt lightheaded. I clutched the top of the chair to steady myself.

He was still staring at me, his gaze flitting from the top of my head to my bare feet and back up again.

I watched him too. He was lean and large, hulking and powerful, and the swell of each of his muscles glowed in the light coming in through my open window.

“Are you going to get your recorder or not?”

“Oh,” I said. Right. I turned around, bending over to look through my purse.

Too late, I realized that bending over exposed me.

I started to straighten, but he was already behind me.

He pressed against my ass, and his hands were inside my shirt, moving over my hips, my waist. “You can’t expect me to keep my hands off of you after you just did that. Not when you’re not wearing anything except this fucking shirt.”

My breath grew shallow at his touch. “I could put something else on,” I panted.

His hands moved higher, pushing the shirt up at the same time. He found my breasts and cupped them. “Is that what you want to do? You want to get dressed?”

I moaned, leaning back into his solidness. “I probably should, don’t you think?”

“No,” he groaned. One of his hands left my breast and slid down my body, nudging between my legs. “I don’t think you should do that at all.”

I twisted my head, finding his lips.

His gloved hands moved on me, sending swirls of pleasure through my body. I kissed him fiercely, writhing under his touch.

Internally, I began scolding myself. What the hell was I doing? This man wore a mask and a spandex costume. I didn’t know who he was. I didn’t know anything about him. And here I was, practically naked with him, letting him touch me in all my most secret places. The right thing to do was to stop him. The right thing to do was to tell him to get away from me.

I broke our kiss, filling my lungs with air. I was going to tell him to stop. I was.

He pinched my nipple.

I cried out. Sensation shot through my torso, lighting up a fiery line directly to my clit.

He was touching that too, his fingers making languid circles around it, teasing me. Torturing me.

Everything felt so good.

I was lying to myself if I thought I was going to be able to end this. I didn’t want it over. I was really enjoying it.

I arched my back, pressing my breast firmly into his hand, my ass into his pelvis.

And I felt his erection, long and hard and hot, pushing into my backside.

Oh mother of god, the crazy masked man was hard for me, and I liked it.

I ground my hips into his, rubbing against his hardness.

He grunted. His hands moved from my breast and clit to my hips, holding me in place. “Fuck,” he whispered in my ear, his voice ruined.

I let out breath long and slow, sagging against him. My shirt had settled back over my chest. The cotton rested against my hardened nipples. I was excruciatingly turned on.

“I want you,” he said. “Do you want me?”

“Yes,” I breathed. “But… I don’t think…”

“No, that’s exactly the problem, I can’t think. Whenever you’re close, all I think about is how much I want to touch you.”

I reached up for him, let my fingertips graze over the spandex. “You’d have to take this off.”

“No,” he said. “There’s a flap.” He grasped my hand and guided it down between his legs. He moved the fabric aside and freed himself. He put my hand on him.

I swallowed. He was thick. So thick. My thumb and middle finger just barely touched around his girth. I made an exploratory stroke. He wasn’t hurting in the length department either.

He gasped.

I stroked him again. “This is a very bad idea.”

He thrust his hand between my legs again, rubbing my clit. “I think it’s a good idea.”

Damn it, it was hard to keep my thoughts together when he was doing that. We shouldn’t do this. Because… because… “Condoms. You don’t keep some inside your suit somewhere, do you?”

“No,” he said. His fingers stopped moving.

Damn it all to hell, it wasn’t like I didn’t have condoms. There were two in my purse. I always carried them for emergency hook-ups. And there was box in my underwear drawer, which was on the other side of the room. “I have some,” I muttered.

His fingers moved again. He chuckled into my ear, the sound rich and dark. “Good.”

I moaned. I reached into my purse again.

When I pulled the condom out of my purse, he snatched it from me.

He wasn’t touching me anymore, and I started to turn in his arms, but he stopped me. “Hold on,” he rasped.

I twisted my head.

He seized me by the neck and turned my head around. “Don’t. Don’t look at me.”

I sucked in breath, a thrill of something like fear going through me. “I can’t see you, anyway. You’re wearing a mask.”

Then he was against me, the length of his firm body pressing into me from behind. His fingers went between my legs again, rubbing my wetness, moving it over me. “I think you might like that, though, Cecily.”

I whimpered.

The head of his thick shaft settled against my opening.

“I think it might turn you on that you don’t know who I am. I’m just a shadow that snuck in your window, and it makes you wet to bend over for me and spread your legs for my cock.”

I moaned as he pushed into me, splitting me open. He was so wide and huge and solid. My breath quickened, coming in gasps. “Big,” I managed.

His voice was soothing. “You can take it.”

I moaned.

He prodded himself into me, stretching me for him, and it was agonizingly sweet. “Shh. Take me. Take all of me.”

And I did. I could feel every inch of him inside me, filling me up, up to the brim, cramming me full. I groaned, writhing in place. He’d pinned me down and impaled me.

He let out a slow breath, the sound whistling through his teeth. He grunted.

He didn’t move for several seconds, and it drove me mad. I began to buck against him, trying to move on his cock.

But he seized my hips and held me in place. “Hold on.”

Hold on? He was killing me here. I need to feel him thrust inside me, needed to feel him drag his thick cock in and out of me.

He groaned. “Shit, Cecily. You feel…”

And then he inched out of me and plunged back in again.

I cried out. The walls of my sex were so sensitive. I could feel all of him, even through the condom.

He let out a sigh, sounding almost relieved, and picked up the pace.

With one hand, he held me against him as he stroked in and out of me. With the other, he explored my body, teasing first one nipple, then the other, then plunging down to caress my clitoris.

He nuzzled my neck, nipping my ear. He spoke to me in low, low whispers, telling me how good I felt to him, how nice it was to have my snug pussy hugging his hard cock, how he wanted to fuck me forever.

“Forever,” he whispered. “I could do this forever.”

I didn’t have a problem with that. He filled me completely. His hands fondled my sensitive places. His cock collided with the aching center of me. Over and over again. I could feel my climax building.

My eyes rolled back in my head. I grasped the chair in front of me, tightening my knuckles around it, letting out guttural moans, losing myself to him, falling apart.

I felt the edge of my orgasm begin to spread through me, hot, liquid pleasure, loosening and tightening me at the same time.

I began to work my hips against him, urging it forward.

It started at low intensity and then grew stronger.

I moaned in delight, lurching into him, my motions growing spastic and uncontrolled.

And my release rolled over me, a white hot torrent of ecstasy, making me twitch and spasm around his thick shaft.

“Are you coming?” Vigil’s voice. Harsh.

“I…” I couldn’t talk.

“Say it,” he demanded.

“I’m… I’m coming,” I managed.

I could feel his hot breath on my neck. “You tell me when you’re coming,” he grunted, crushing me tightly against him.

The last aftershocks of my climax pulsed through me.

And he speared me, deep into my body, a sharp thrust of half-pain, half-pleasure.

I felt him release inside me as well.

He was tense against me for a moment.

And then he relaxed.

We both slumped into my desk, gasping for air.

CHAPTER FIVE

“Do you consider yourself a hero?” I said, tucked in the crook of Vigil’s arm and shoulder. We were lying on my bed. One of his arms wound around me, holding me close to him.

My recorder was balanced on his chest.

“A hero?” His voice was a deep rumble, but he sounded more relaxed than he ever had. “No. Nothing like that.”

“But you’re saving lives. Some people would say that’s heroic.”

“I just can’t let those women die, that’s all.”

I lifted my head. Ostensibly, I was asking him the questions for the interview, but I was also genuinely curious about him and why he did the things he did. “Why not?”

He reached over and touched my cheek. “You want a nice sound bite for your article, don’t you?”

“I want the truth.”

He closed his eyes. When he opened them, he addressed the ceiling instead of me. “I feel like chance plays a big part in who we are as people. You can’t chose who your family is or what kind of situation you’ll be born into. You can’t choose the circumstances that shape you into the person you are. When it comes down to it, there’s very little you do have control over. There aren’t very many choices you can make. But this is a choice I could make. To save those women. And so I did.”

I let what he’d said sink in. “Is that why you wear a mask? To choose to be someone else?”

“Maybe,” he said.

I waited for him to say something else. When he didn’t, I reached up and turned off the recorder. “I guess that’s enough.”

He kissed my forehead. “No more questions?”

“No.” I moved the recorder to my bedside table and snuggled close to him again. He was so hulking that he took up most of the bed. With his arm around me, he engulfed me. I loved the feeling of being surrounded by him.

His hand traveled lazily over my thigh. I was still only wearing the t-shirt, but I didn’t feel self-conscious about it anymore.

“Mmm.” I shut my eyes. “I should get up. I should bang out a draft of that for tomorrow. If I had it first thing, Henry would be impressed.”

“You’re going to try to write? Now?”

“I should,” I said.

“I guess that means I should go.”

I dragged my fingers over his chest. I didn’t want to get up. I didn’t want him to go. I liked the way it felt safe in his arms, our bodies pressed together.

His hand traveled higher, cupping the curve of my hip. “I don’t want to go,” he whispered to me. “I’d like to hold you until you fall asleep.”

Such an intimate thought for a man who wouldn’t let me see his face or his skin. He confused me. I pressed closer. “Well, I guess I could get up early and work on the draft.”