I felt him leave me and duck into the locker room. I kept my eyes closed. There was the sound of coins going into a machine and then the metal clank as it dispensed something. Then he was back, grabbing my hand again and towing me along.
When I opened my eyes, I glimpsed the condom in his other hand. A deep, hot throb went through me.
He pushed through a door and led me down a hallway I’d never been in. There was a stairwell at the end with aNo Admittancesign hanging on a chain across it.
He stepped right over it, and lifted me over as well. Then we were climbing the stairs. Halfway up, he started kissing me again and we stumbled up like that, blindly feeling for the handrail. At the top, wepushed through another door, eyes still closed. I felt the sudden warmth of sun on my skin….
I opened my eyes and saw that we were on top of the building, the city spread out around us. A low wall around the edge would provide some privacy...if we lay down.
My stomach flipped over and then exploded into deep, dark heat.Jesus, are we really going to do this? Now? I could be dead in a few weeks!
And part of me answered,that’s exactly why we should.I needed to feel alive. I wanted this more than ever.
He pushed me up against an air conditioning duct, the metal sun-warm through my top. He raked his fingers through my hair. “Christ,” he muttered, “Christ, I’ve wanted you. Since I saw you in that fecking dump of a place.”
I remembered him looking at me, back at The Pit. “Then why didn’t you—”
He gritted his teeth and shook his head. “You shouldn’t get involved with me.”
“Why?”
“I’m...bad, Sylvie. I’ve done bad shit.”
“I don’t care.” And I realized I didn’t.
“You should.”
“Well, I don’t. I don’t care what you did in the past.”
He grimaced. I could see him tensing up, battling with himself. Any second, he was going to tear away from me and stomp away down the stairs and I might lose him forever. That was unthinkable. I grabbed his head in my hands and, this time,Ikissedhim, showing him how much I needed him.
He growled. “This is a bad idea.”
“No, no, it’s a good idea,” I babbled.
He stared into my eyes. The wind whipped my hair into my eyes and he brushed it away, letting the strands slide through his fingers.
“Ah, the hell with it,” he said. And kissed me full-on and completely, his whole body flattening mine against the air conditioning duct. I gave a low moan of relief. My hands came up and felt for him, grabbing at his sides through the soft cotton of his tanktop. God, he felt like oak underneath. My hands had been tingling for weeks at the imagined sensation of him under my palms. Now it was real, the hard ridges of his ribs and then, sliding around, the firm muscles of his back.
His hands were under my t-shirt, lifting it up. I felt the tickle of wind and sun on my exposed sides and then the cloth was peeling up over my sports bra, off my arms...off completely. We had to break the kiss as it slid over my head and I opened my eyes, staring up at him. He held my gaze for a second...and then he looked down over my body, eating up the sight of me. The raw hunger in his eyes made me squirm, the feeling twisting down and turning to warm slickness between my thighs.
His hands stroked outwards across my stomach. Every individual cell in my skin seemed to come alive, tingling and crackling. I arched my back away from the duct, pushing myself into his hands. The pain in my side came back as I moved, but the pleasure sluiced it away. His hands slid higher and higher, moving towards my breasts.
“Wait,” he muttered. He tore himself away from me and stepped back, but only half a step. “I’m nothin’ if not a gentleman,” he said breathlessly. “I have to check you’re not concussed. You seeing double?”
There was only one gorgeous, muscled Irishman in front of me. “No,” I panted.
“Follow my finger.” He moved it back and forth in front of my eyes. I tracked it, resisting the urge to grab it and shove it into my mouth.
“What day is it?” he panted.
“Thursday!”
“Friday.” He shrugged. “Feck it. Close enough.” And he was grabbing my head between his hands again, cupping my cheeks as he kissed me. His hands were on my hips, spinning us around so that I came away from the air conditioning duct, and his hands were sliding up under my sports bra, hooking it off, peeling the fabric away from my body. My breasts lifted and then bounced free, the shock of theoutdoor air on them making me gasp. He pulled my bra off and tossed it away.
I opened my eyes to see him gazing down at my breasts, his eyes heavy-lidded with lust. “Christ,” he said. “You’ve got the best tits this side of the Atlantic, girl. Feckin’ perfect.” He filled his hands with them, lifting and then squeezing with just the right amount of pressure, and I groaned. Then his thumbs started to stroke across my nipples, making them rise and harden with soft, expert swirls. I felt my hips begin to grind and thrash, trying to get friction on my sex. It was everything I could do to resist shoving my hand straight down there to rub myself. But my hands were busy exploring his back, roaming over the thick muscles of his shoulders, delighting at the way the landscape bunched and changed every time he moved.
I grabbed the hem of his tank top and pulled it up, peeling it off his muscled core and then over the wide swell of his pecs. He reluctantly let go of my breasts for a moment while it came up and over his head, then recaptured them. I slid my hands around to his front, feeling the shape of his chest, caressing the pecs and stroking my thumbs over his pink, dime-sized nipples until he growled.
