Fly By Night (End)

Jon tipped his face up in January’s decadent shower. The rain-esque showerhead gave up a steady downpour, soaking into his skin, into the muscles he’d used and abused the night before. Nights of marathon sex were far and few between for him these days.

It wasn’t like he didn’t want to have a fuck-a-thon, it just wasn’t in his schedule to do so. But he had to admit, he should do it more often...he felt loose, easy and refreshed for the first time since his Christmas break. The kids always revitalized him. London had sucked at him--too much press, too much spotlight, and too little time to really dig in and play husband and father.

And the only time he and Dottie got going like the days of his teen years, they both needed to be drunk and frisky. Lining up that kind of evening was worse than his tour schedule. And who the hell wanted to plan a fuck-fest anyway? It was the spontaneity that made it memorable.

And if he was honest, he couldn’t call what he’d had with January a simple bounce. There’d been an intimacy he’d missed. He’d learned long ago not to share too much. People always wanted something from him, people were always looking for an angle to work. He was sick of being on all the time.

January hadn’t given two fucks who he was. She’d simply wanted to enjoy another person. To push away the loneliness for a little while. And the demons she carried around weren’t even close to being released. He could feel it in the way she slept, the way she gave her body, but nothing of her mind. And still, he couldn’t pity this strong woman.

Drying off, he hooked the crazy purple towel at his hip and walked back into her room. Seamus gave a low growl. Protective to the end, he thought, dropping his hand to the wiry grey muzzle to let him sniff. He bumped his hand, allowed a quick scratch and dropped his head back to the carpet. “Are you sure you’re not female?” He mused and stepped over the small mountain.

January laughed into her pillow, her golden eyes peeking out from the snowy sheets and pillow she’d snuggled down into. Sunlight crept up the bed, little fingers of light chasing their way up her feet and calves that peeked out the bottom of her cocoon. The only thing he really knew about her was that she hated her feet covered in her sleep, kicking out in the night, no matter how cool it had gotten.

He sat down next to her, tucking a lock of her hair away and behind her ear. “Morning.”

“Barely,” she mumbled.

He reached for his phone on the floor in his jeans, snapping them out quickly and tossing them at the end of the bed. He flipped off the cover and cursed his inner body clock. It wasn’t even seven in the morning. Of course he was used to the hotel rooms and their blackout curtains. Sunlight meant morning to his body. And a house full of windows couldn’t be blocked.

He peered up at the cloudless sky that stretched above them like a limitless blue heaven. “I’d never get anything done, all I’d want to do is lay here and stare up.”

“Right,” she snickered.

“What?” He climbed over her and stretched out, his arms folded behind his head.

“You don’t know how to stay still and stare at nothing.”

Frowning, he turned to her. “How do you know?”

“I know.”

Disgusted that she seemed to read him pretty easily and she was such an enigma, he stared back up.

“I’m not sure why you get such a bug up your butt when I read you correctly.”

“You don’t know me and yet you’ve pretty much nailed every little thing down about me in less than 24 hours.”

“Nah,” she rolled over, laying her cheek on his chest. “Your face is just expressive. And I make my living on the nuances.”

“You seem like you don’t see many people,” he said gently.

“Oh, I don’t, but I’m a graphic artist. I have to show things on a face, set a mood, make people feel everything within a glance.”

“Would I know your work?”

“How old is your oldest kid?”

He hooked his arm around her, idly playing with the ends of her hair. “Seventeen, but she’s a girl. My eldest son is fifteen.”

“He’d probably know me. I write The Darkside.”

“Well, shit.” Jon laughed. Jesse was fairly obsessed with January Wilde’s graphic novels. To the point where he’d pretty much bribed everyone he knew to get copies of the artist’s back work. Most of it had been underground before she’d hit it big with-- “Violet.”

January grinned into his chest. “That’s my girl.”

“My son Jesse would kill to meet you. He’s always going on about how you never go to the comic-cons and no one has a picture of you...hell, I thought you were a guy.”

She sat up suddenly, clutching the sheet to her chest. “You can’t say anything.”

He sat up as well, his hand on her shoulder, thumb grazing over the smooth skin. “Relax, January. No one will know about this, or us.”

“No one can know who and where I am--no one.”

She trembled visibly and Jon hauled her back into his arms. She resisted, but he just held on tighter. Something violent had to have happened to her, there was nothing else in this life that could strike fear into a woman like that. Add in the scars and the secrets, and she was a bundle of fascinating loneliness. And as with the last time she’d had a little freak out, Seamus was up and in his face, standing over him on the bed.

The musical lilt to her tear clogged voice had the dog easing between them, his head on his mistress’s lap even with the low keen of doggie distress. “What is that you’re always saying to him?”

“It’s Gaelic. He was trained to only listen to my commands.”

Jon dropped his hand on the dog’s head, but the low growl had him sliding his hand away slowly. “Easy,” he said on a low, even tone.

“Hush, Seamus.”

And instantly the dog stopped growling. Evidently she was right about that. “I promise that no one will know where I’ve been. I don’t even have my GPS to show I’ve been here. The satellites wouldn’t pick me up.”

She leaned back on her pillow, still clutching the sheet close. “That was a fluke. We’re wide open spaces here.” She pointed up at the crystal clear blue sky above them. “Your GPS will work when you leave.”

He shifted until he could scoop her in close again. With a soft command the dog was back on the floor, though not at all happy about it. “It must have been the approaching storm.” She eased into him, but she wasn’t really there with him. She’d gone into whatever memories and demons haunted her. “Can you tell me what happened?”

“You don’t need to live with what happened to me. No one needs to imagine what happened, and even if you could try to understand--you don’t.”

Her voice was flat, even as she turned into him. Even as she climbed back onto his lap, he knew the soft and giving woman was gone. The peace he’d thought to find in her arms was only one of her facades. He touched her face, his thumb gliding over the impossibly high bones of her cheek. “All our life experiences change us, it’s up to you how you allow them to resonate.”

Her golden eyes shimmered with emotion, but no tears fell. “Be with me, one last time.”

If all he could give her was this, just a small measure of pleasure in her endless pain, that’s what he’d do. He wished he could give her more, wished that he had enough to give her more, but his family was his core and she needed more than he could give. But he would give her what he could, and hope it helped in some small way.

And as she took him inside her, as her smooth, pale skin and white silky hair curled around him, he watched her beautifully warm eyes go blind. It wasn’t slow, it wasn’t easy. He followed her lead, chasing her demons out as he filled her with something else for just a moment in time.

~*~

He clutched the printed directions, watching Seamus with wary eyes. His guitar case was by the door and the dog was waiting patiently beside it.

“I know I sound like a lunatic, but please don’t turn on your GPS.”

Brushing her bangs aside, he wished he knew what was going on in the lovely and haunted eyes staring up at him. Instead of asking questions she had no intention of answering, he nodded. He knew all too well what it was like to have people constantly thinking they were entitled to know everything there was to know about him. If she needed to keep her secrets to feel safe, he would abide by her wishes.

“I don’t mind doing things the old school way,” he said with a grin.

She pressed her hand to his chest. “I’m very glad you found me.” She looked down at her smudged hand on the cotton tanktop. He trapped her hand and she finally looked back up at him. “I never thought I’d say that.”

He brushed his nose along hers, then his cheek to hers—petal soft to stubble. “I didn’t come looking for you, but you were exactly what I needed.”

She stood on her tiptoes until their lips met. The kiss was soft and gentle. It was a goodbye kiss that was all giving, all open, and all the way honest. She cupped his face, tracing each line, each bone and ridge as if she was memorizing him. Her golden eyes were so sad.

He covered her hands one more time. “I hope you find what you need someday, January Wilde.”

She closed her eyes, one more kiss before she pulled back. That phantom smile flirted with her lips, her swan white eyebrow quirked and the woman that had lured him into her steel and glass fortress was there again. The sadness buried under some impregnable force of will.

And as he loaded his guitar into the car, he looked back at the steel door with their sunshine sentries. In the shadows she stood, a woman and her warrior dog.

That night, the wind kicked up and he signaled his brother for an audible extra to the setlist just before the encore. And to a Canadian crowd he and Richie sang Wild Horses under a single spotlight.

Fly By Night (3)

Jon stretched out behind January. She’d fallen asleep, leaving the room silent for the rain that had died down to a patter. The room was a ghostly grey and again, it showed little of her personality. White sheets and an oversized down comforter curled around them on a mattress low to the ground. One of those platform beds that reminded him of his time in Japan.

More dark wood behind his head as the dark slats rose up along the wall as a sort of simplified headboard. Shelves held a few knicknacks and one picture frame that he couldn’t see without waking her.

Content after a bone dissolving orgasm, he longed for one of the cigarettes he’d given up. She shifted restlessly against him, her curvy bottom sliding against his dick. It should be too tired to think about a second round, but he laughed lightly as he hardened anyway. The sheet pulled away from them and he finally noticed that her cotton tank hadn’t made it off in the quick rush of hormones.

It had ridden up her back and more of the distinctive purple of her tattoo came into view. Deep green leaves were outlined in a graphic purple, but underneath the tattoo there was a distinctive puckering to her skin along her hip. Without thought, he traced his hand over the obvious scar tissue with an inward wince. He didn’t have many scars, but those he did always seemed to hurt more when he got too much sun, he couldn’t imagine the stinging needle of a tattoo gun over one.

She moaned in her sleep, murmuring a semi-coherent, “no,” into the half light. Stroking her hair automatically, he tried to soothe her. She jerked awake, her golden eyes blind as she twisted and thrashed.

“January!” He said her name sharply and ducked as she threw an automatic punch. She glanced off his jaw and he caught her tight. “Hey!”

She tensed, the shudder as all consuming as the passion she’d shown him just a few moments ago.

Seamus barked, the dog’s nose about three inches from his. Where the fuck had he come from? She murmured something lilting in an otherworldly language and the dog settled, leaning heavily against the bed until he could slide down to a prone position. He gave a small woof of dismay, but put his head down on his paws.

He could feel her relax by degrees in his arms, almost as if it was an exercise she did often. The only outward reaction was the grip she still had on his arm as she took measured breaths. “I’m sorry,” she whispered.

He pressed her cheek to his chest and stroked her hair at the nape of her neck. It was as soft as goose down, light and whispy around his wrist. “It’s okay, shhh.”

She rolled her forehead against the center of his chest. “Man, talk about sexy, right?” She blew her bangs out of her eyes and looked up at him.

He traced his thumb down her cheek. “We all have demons.”

She blinked away the tears from her dream and looked down at the two of them, very naked, and very intimate. Then back up at him. “Um...I--”

Sensing that she was about to head into uncomfortable post-afterglow territory he grinned at her, settling her more comfortably around him. “Hey, I like to play the big strong guy. It doesn’t happen very often.”

That smile returned to her oddly golden eyes, but her pretty face was still deadpan. Damn if that didn’t amuse the hell out of him. “That’s because you’re too busy being a pampered rock star.”

He hooked an arm behind his head, gathering one of the scattered pillows to get more comfortable. “Oh really? How would you know I’m pampered?”

She tunneled her fingers through the hair on his chest, following the lines of  his body. Suddenly rather glad that he’d kicked it up in the gym, he relaxed under her touch. “Your hands were just all over my body. They’re softer than mine.”

He lifted her ink smudged fingers. “Well, I don’t play in finger paints like some people.” When she tugged on his chest hair he winced. “Hey, I write songs, my hands look just as smudged when I’m in the studio.”

“Or when you color with your kids?” she asked with a tap on his ring.

He looked right into her eyes. Guilt stabbed at him, but he swallowed it down.  Unconventional life or not, he rarely cheated on his wife these days, but it did happen. “I’m not an angel, January.”

“And that’s exactly why you’re in my bed.” She leveraged up until she straddled his thighs. The tank rode up and she tugged it down. “I know you’re going to leave in the morning. And I know you’re taken. You’re about as safe as I can get without using my vibrator.”

He let out a bark of laughter. “Well, that’s one way to look at it.” Relief and an ache he didn’t want to think about hit him square in the solar plexus. He cupped her face, his thumb tracing her bottom lip as she sucked it into her mouth. He felt himself harden immediately. Christ, there was just something about a woman’s mouth with a little suction that never ceased to entice him.

She found him, her fingers gripping the base of his shaft as she loomed over him. He pushed at her tank, wanting all of her skin to skin as she rode him. She pushed it down again, even as his hands fished underneath.

She shook her head, her hips undulating against his shaft, trying to take him inside her body. And he wanted it. Wanted to lose himself again inside her welcoming heat and peace, but the peace was gone.

He could feel it in each desperate grasping pull of her fingers. She already knew just what button to push, and the secrets of a woman’s knowledge dragged him under as she fit herself around him. He arched up under her, his fingers digging into her hips as she rode him hard and fast.

Her head was thrown back. She pushed him to the brink with a roll of hips, the way her body tightened and welcomed him. But distantly he knew manipulation was a large part of the quick trip up. She was hiding with only half her body on display, only half of herself open to him.

She didn’t look down at him as she sought her release. He was just a tool this time, just a way to escape. He reared up, seeking some sort of connection again. But biology took over and he came, hard and deep inside her--even if it was one of the emptiest orgasms he’d ever had.

Breathing heavy, he clamped a hand around her wrist before she could get off him. His system was still on overdrive, but something was off. “Where’d you go?”

“What are you talking about?” She swiped her forehead with her free arm and smiled down at him, but it certainly didn’t reach her eyes.

He sat up, throwing her balance off until she fell against him. “Hey, I’m all for a mindless orgasm, but I really didn’t need to be here for that one. I could have been anyone.”

She rolled off him, her back to him as she sat on the side of the bed away from him. “Let’s not get this complicated here.”

Christ, he felt like a girl, but he scooted up onto his knees behind her, the sheet tightening across his hip as he tried to get closer to her. “I don’t want complicated. What this is, doesn’t have anything to do with complicated. It’s just that you’re hurting--and sometimes it’s easier to tell a stranger.”

She looked over her shoulder, he ultra-fine hair curving against her chin. “You just don’t know how to be an asshole guy today now do you?”

“Oh, I can be an asshole.” He sat back on his feet. He drew a knuckle across her back from one shoulder blade to the other. “But this little interlude wasn’t about that, right?”

She sighed, her head lowered. “Even anonymous sex can’t truly be anonymous.”

He leaned forward, pressing a kiss to her shoulder. “You don’t have to tell me anything you don’t want to. I’m just a good listener. Just putting that on the table, that’s all.”

She leaned back on him and he curled his arm around her waist, dragging her back into his arms.  He spooned around the back of her, their legs tangling as they settled against the pillows. For awhile she didn’t say anything. Then finally, she took his hand, pushing her shirt up.

Delicately, he traced her belly, finding more raised ridges of scars. “I don’t want to go into it, but I was hurt.” Her voice was softer than air. “Hurt so bad, that it took seven surgeries and countless grafts to try and put me back together.”

He eased back until he could look down at her.  He looked into her eyes as he traced each scar and overlapping purple edged leaf that peaked from the top of her neckline with his tongue. He tugged at her shirt, drawing it up so he could see all of her. Her breathing stuttered and her arms raised to help him. She was beautiful, no scar could hide that beauty. So he reinforced that with reverent touches until she eased. He wanted her to show him everything--to be as naked as two people could be. He finally looked away from her eyes and outlined each leaf and curling bell of the flowers that bloomed on her skin.

She shuddered under his hand, her skin sensitive to his touch as he lowered his mouth to her breast and traced the ink that climbed there. He could see silvery lines under the art and he ached. What kind of monster could have hurt her like this?

He gently rolled her over, following the scars and the purple lines that created a forest of flowers that told a story. And in the center of her back, right along her spine he found a Celtic symbol among the vines. He flicked the tip of his tongue over the knots. “Strength,” he said softly.

She rose on her elbows, lifting to his mouth and the pleasure he sought to give her. He pushed the cornsilk curtain of her hair over her shoulder and found her neck. Slowly and gently he drew on her ear, tasted the salt of their combined sweat, and trapped her legs between his.

“Will you let me inside you again?”

She nodded mutely as her hips lifted just a little. He didn’t pity her for the pain she’d suffered, but could only marvel in the strength she showed by using her scars to make something beautiful. He buried himself deep, the angle tightening every part of her around him as he watched himself slide in and out of her. The pure white skin and the unrelieved graphic texture of her art left a stark honesty that touched him.

And instead of two people looking to lose each other in a mindless bounce, it became about giving. He didn’t have much to give these days. Too many people wanted something from him, but here in this moment he couldn’t think of anything but giving to this woman that had lost so much.

His hand slid under her until he could find where they joined. Slick with intimacy and the slow build of excitement, he could feel each glide of his cock inside her. He could feel the light quiver of her body’s reaction to the angle. It would be good for her this time.

It would be good for him.

As the sweat pooled at the base of her spine, he couldn’t hold on any longer. He lifted her off the bed and slid deeper, his arm holding her up as she cried out for him to drive harder. And the mindless took hold until all that filled the room was the slick slaps of skin and rain, until all that mattered was following her off the edge into a tangle of limbs.

~*~

“God,” she curled up her knees into her chest and held on as her body still spasmed in the aftermath. “God,” she muttered once again as his soft lips kissed the nape of her neck with a low, satisfied laugh.

Utterly wrecked, she let him hold onto her lulled by the rain and an orgasm that defied her plane of existence. She’d never felt more beautiful and wanted in her life. She didn’t think she’d ever feel either of them after what happened to her.

But here, in the kindness of a stranger’s arms, she couldn’t begin to thank him. He’d seen all of her and had still wanted her. He’d wanted her more if that was even possible. She blinked away a quick rush of tears. Damaged goods--that’s how she’d seen herself for far too long.

The only damage that had been done this afternoon was the sexually liberating kind. She turned in his arms, her lips brushing his chin, then his neck, then finally his lips as she settled into him.

A few hours later she woke to a dark room and the soft chuff of Seamus at the side of her bed. She detangled herself from Jon’s arms and reached for the robe on a chair in the corner. He moaned, curling into the pillow, his face away from her. Absently, she stroked down his back where all those muscles bunched and moved. Mercy, he was beautiful. Stepping back, she looked down at her oh so patient companion.

“I’m sorry, baby,” she said on a low, toneless voice. The poor dog was probably ready to cross his own huge legs. She padded down the stairs, her body ached in the most amazing ways.

She’d been invaded in the best possible ways that day. She flicked open the peephole and looked around. Only her truck and Jon’s ridiculous sports car sat in her driveway.

She hated to let Seamus out of her sight, even long enough to go to the bathroom, but he needed to run. Well, as much as an Irish Wolfhound could run. Intimidation and stature were his strengths, but it left her feeling naked when he was gone.

Rubbing her arms against the slashing rain, she jumped when Jon came up behind her. “Christ,” she said between clenched teeth. “Don’t do that!” The rush of fear was absolute and blinding. She bore down on the doorjamb, forcing herself to relax.

He ran his hand down her hair. “Sorry.” He shook his keys, stopping as he noticed her grip. “Are you okay?”

She forced her voice to sound natural, even though the adrenaline coursed through her like fire. “Yeah, you just startled me.”

He frowned, but took a step down.  “I’m going to grab something out of the car, okay?”

She nodded. Almost there. Focusing on her breathing, she forced her system to ease. She was safe. Pasting on a nonchalant smirk, she leaned on the jamb. He truly didn’t need to know just how nuts she was. “Are you hungry?”

“Starving.” He ran outside, his jeans still unsnapped, and no shirt on, and her body went haywire for a totally different reason. He really was the most beautiful specimen of male. Turning her back on the door, she wandered to her kitchen.

She was totally safe.

After only a minor archaelogical dig into her freezer, she found a Tupperware bowl labeled, veal and peppers, and shoved it into the microwave.

Getting the initial frost off the edges, she plopped it into a pan and turned it to simmer. Every few months, she drove out to Edmonton for supplies and part of that run was an Italian place that made nice, big portions.

The door shut, and the flap of Seamus’ wet fur and floppy ears as he shook himself off, immediately eased her. An oddly tuneful whistling started in the living room, making her grin as she filled a pot of water for the pasta, leaving it turned off. The sauce would take a bit.

“I hope you like veal and peppers,” she said as she walked back into her living room. He was settled on her couch, a guitar on his lap, his chest bare and dotted with rain.

“What’s not to like there?”

She swallowed her tongue and curled into her favorite chair. Indeed, there wasn’t much not to like at all. A scattered sheaf of papers littered her coffee table. She picked one up, realizing it was a setlist. Jon’s bold print was on a few of them, and some were blocky type from a computer printout.

A lot of the songs were the same, but a few different songs were peppered in. She didn’t have a lot of knowledge when it came to live music. She enjoyed music, but her concert going days had...she swallowed and put the paper down. Best not to think about how long it had been.

“Are you studying your own setlists?”

He sighed, sitting back on the couch. A battered black guitar settled against his belly. The natural curves of his body seemed to follow the guitar and it only highlighted how different he could be. Jon the man was blurring into Jon the musician here.

Fascinated, she saw the entire conversation in his mind before he sat up. She knew and valued privacy, so she just waited, a smile curving her mouth.

Jon sat up again, his fingers automatically curling around the neck of the guitar as his other arm hung low off the body. Muscles shifted and flexed as he got himself more comfortable. Her fingers suddenly itched. She’d already known his blue eyes would follow into her work. Would her editor freak out, or crow with delight when black and purple got a dash of blue in the mix?

Finally, he spoke. “Setlists are my own personal hell, right now.”

“Why?” She snagged her notebook off the table and a shard of graphite as she crossed her legs and settled.

He looked down at his strings, strumming absently as the words swished around in his mouth like hard candy. She made a few slashing gestures to the page, capturing the high cheekbones and unruly hair until his face popped from the page.

“I’ve been taking the easy way, and I know it. I hate being called on it.”

She could see the frustration, and the disgust on his face and it translated into her drawing. Making a brief outline of his guitar, she started a new study in the corner of the notebook. His fingers around the neck, the quick and graceful as he picked out random notes.  Random to her, no less beautiful in their randomness, but she didn’t know the tune.

Instead of answering him, she just let him talk it out. Sometimes all you needed was an outsider to dump on. She was pretty sure he didn’t really have that with anyone. She could physically see him stiffen up, winding up in his head with a frustration that she understood. The Jon that had first come to her door was emerging again.

She set her notebook on the chair, stepped over a snoring Seamus and climbed behind him to sit on the headrest of her hugely oversized couch. He laughed, but leaned back against her thighs as she hugged his ribs with her knees. Digging her fingers into his shoulders he hissed, then groaned his appreciation.

“So, you’re the boss right?” He stiffened, but she dug in again until he relaxed. “C’mon, Jon, you radiate boss. I’m sorry, it’s true.”

He sighed, disgust and ascent in the shake of his head. “It sucks sometimes.”

She wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed his scruffy cheek. “It’s supposed to suck. Being a leader is three parts stress and one part pleasure, no matter what anyone thinks.”

He rubbed his cheek against her jaw as she dropped behind him, her feet splayed. “Yeah, and that’s what this little drive was about. It’s been four parts stress and no pleasure for way too long.”

She scraped her teeth over the freckles dotting his shoulder. “Play for me. Play something you love--play something for you and let it be for me as a side benefit.”

He strummed for a few minutes, then a rough and smoky voice buzzed along her chest and resonated through her thighs. She didn’t know the song at first, but then smiled and tucked her chin in his shoulder.

His fingers picked over the strings, strumming softly as his voice strengthened with each line as if he needed to warm up. As the song came to a close, she laid her cheek on his shoulder. “The Rolling Stones never sounded so good.”

He laughed and trapped her back against the couch. “Right, the Stones are the Stones, darlin’. I just like to pretend I can do a good impression.”

She wrapped her arms around his waist, her fingers teasing the line of hair that trailed into his jeans. “I’ll never hear Wild Horses quite the same way again.” She flicked a tongue over his freckles. “Sing one of yours.”

“All I do is sing mine.”

Undeterred, she pushed him forward. “Sing one that you love. Don’t play for the crowd, just the audience of one.”

He sighed, but she could feel the build inside him. Songwriting was his art, singing others was for fun, but his own soul was in his songs, just like her art was a looking glass into her mind.

His voice instantly changed, whisper soft and resonate at the same time. Her whole body shivered in reaction. He sung of loneliness, of endless nights, and losing yourself in a strangers arms. Of holding onto someone for just one night. As the last strains told her there was a helluva lot of lonely out there.

She moved his guitar, setting it into the opposite corner of the couch and climbed on top of him. Her lips on his before she could stop herself. “You sing what you want,” she said against his mouth. His fingers dug into her hair, holding her there as the kiss deepend.

The man had no idea just how emotion could come out of him when he let it go. She didn’t know how she knew that, but she could feel it. As she lost herself in his distinctive flavor, she held onto her lonely stranger, and hoped they could both keep it at bay for one night.

Fly By Night (2)

What are you doing? Jan quelled the voice screaming in her head. She was doing what she needed to do. It had been three long years since she’d even let anyone in her house. Being alone suited her. She hadn’t lied about that. It was safer, it was easier, and it left her plenty of time to do her work. 

The world outside was overwhelming and included far too much pain. She could see it on the stranger--yet not a strange--standing in her hallway. But sometimes she got lonely. Sometimes she just wanted to have someone touch her. But never here. No one had ever touched her here in her home. 

Jon, with his sad eyes and weight-of-the-world stress carving into his too good looks, seemed like he might just be feeling the same. She lifted on her toes and cupped his cheek. He watched her intently. His blue eyes with their prism facets swallowed her. Was he starving for a connection too?

Boldly, she brushed her lips against his. Not a real kiss, just a maybe kiss. Just a taste to see if it settled right, or if it was a--and her breath left her as he dragged her into the hard planes of his chest. His fingers almost bruising at her back as he devoured her mouth.
Like one of the ground leveling storms that rocked her house in high summer, his taste wiped out every other thought. Her fingers grappled for his shoulders and into his hair to just hold on while his mouth completely obliterated all the sensory memories she had about kisses. This wasn’t a kiss. This was a melding that transcended something as simple as the definition of lips meeting. 

He lifted her up, his arms crushing her in as his tongue found every secret she’d never known she had about herself. Fear and lust pumped inside her. He was way too much for just a fling. He was like raw lightning in a tight, disciplined body that was going to break free. 

But her body was more than willing to ride his lightning. She drew her legs up and tightened around him until they ended up against her door. Stronger than he looked, he held her tight against himself and his back thuded against the steel. Her palm slapped into the cool metal and it knocked a little bit of sense into her. Enough to rip her mouth from his, both of them heaving out a breath. 

“Stop me now. Send me on my way, January.”

His eyes held self-censure, but he wanted this as much as she did. To connect on a basic level that couldn’t be found in any other arena but skin to skin. To feel his hard flesh inside her, and to match him passion for passion. To feel a man’s hard body on top of her, the weight and the pleasure that was human contact. 

“Up the stairs,” she said in a voice that couldn’t be her own. “I don’t want to stop. I just want to feel for one day, for one night.”

He hooked his arm under her knee and shifted her until she was in his arms. She gripped his shoulders. “Hang on.”

Like she had any choice. He took the stairs two at a time, carrying her like she weighed little more than her weekly load of laundry. The upstairs was as wide open as the rest of her house. She hated to feel closed in. The entire upstairs overlooked the downstairs and the ceiling was pure glass and steel. 

Jon gasped. “Sweet Jesus,” he said and stared up. The storm had swirled into a violent black and purple cloud full of lightning and rain. It pounded down on her little house with all the fury that the July heat had fueled. 

But she’d seen it all before. She’d had this house built with the strength to withstand all the weather her wide open spaces could give. She pulled his head down to her and caught his mouth, drawing in one of those devastating kisses. The man kissed without reservation, without thought, and with enough power to light up the sky, forget the lightning.

He lowered her to the glossy dark hardwood of her bedroom. The space was almost sparse with her oversized bed and two pendant lights on either side of her bed. But there was no need for light right now. The storm blew in and took away the sun, but it was still mid afternoon and the teeming rain gave it a cozy feel that belied the nerves alive in her blood. 

Her fingers smoothed over the ultra-fine linen of his shirt. She noticed the ink on her hands and curled them into her palm, but he pressed her hand to his chest. “Just touch me.”

Her stomach flipped, but she opened her fingers again and roamed over his chest. He was incredibly firm under the shirt. Discipline and job security had to mix to put someone in that good shape. He wasn’t young, but to her it was the character of his lines and the way he held himself that had moved her. A bone deep loneliness that she could identify with.

She followed the natural dip of his pectoral muscle and parted the open shirt to find a cotton so soft she wanted to make sheets with it. “Oh,” she groaned, slipping his rougher linen shirt off his shoulders. Springy chest hair tangled above the line of his tank and lightened at his clavicle. Muscle bulged lightly at his shoulders and coiled down his arms like thing rope. 

Absently, she walked around him, tracing the patch of freckles along his shoulders and the faded S that would be just as much his as Superman’s. His back was warm and more muscle rippled under her fingers deliciously. She’d always been sensory. Everything in her home was built to curl in and comfort her. 

And he was hard--everywhere. She followed the line of his spine and belt with its rockstar steel nubs stamped into the leather. Standing behind him, she followed the line of his belt until she found his buckle, digging her fingers under the heavy silver, but not releasing the catch. 

She heard him hiss, and her nipples tightened at the sound and the heat of his back. Could he feel the twin points through both of their layers of cotton? Instead of unbuckling the worn and loved leather she scraped her nails over the hair she’d found under the cotton and denim. Flat and warm, his belly quivered under her touch. 

His head tipped back and she could feel his hands flex into fists. She could feel it in every line of his arms and flicked her tongue over the shifting deltoid muscle at his shoulder. He shifted his feet and she dipped into his jeans to find the tip of his cock reaching for her touch. She teased along the warm, silky head with her first knuckle and then raked her way up his belly. 

He had an an intriguing dip that climbed out of his jeans and firmed into a six pack that would make any man from fifteen to fifty jealous. She traced each ridge as she pulled the tank higher. The quiet groans as she touched him made her bolder. She raked her way across his abs and there wasn’t an ounce of fat on him. 

“Your body is fascinating,” she whispered from behind him. 

“I’ll--” he broke off in a hiss. “Christ, that feels good,” he breathed in as she dug her fingers into the muscles. Her thumbnails found the tight nipples hidden in his chest hair and she flicked them. Again, he hissed and again her body hummed. She missed touching. She missed a man’s body and this man’s body was made for touching. 

She walked around him, his hand tracing over her ass as she came in front of him. He slid one thigh between hers, watching as she molded him with her fingers once more, this time with her eyes to guide her, not just blind touching. 

The friction of his denim over her yoga pants heightened the pleasure and his fingers gripping her butt didn’t hurt either. She nuzzled her nose into he spiky but soft hair of his chest and there was the flat, little nipple so incredibly tight under her tongue. It was hot, searing hot, so she blew on it and watched it tighten even more. 

“Jesus, you’re killing me here.”

She looked up and his eyes had darkened, the crazy facets were as intense as lightning. She could feel him holding himself back. “Do you want me to stop.”

“No!” 

She laughed, looking up at him as she twirled her tongue around his nipple. “I don’t think I’ve ever handled a man quite as well put together as you.”

He tried to answer her, but she saw the quick bob of his Adam’s apple as her hand lowered to his zipper and curled her hand around his shaft. Instead of laughing, she just trailed her tongue down each ab muscle and squatted in front of him. 

Looking up at him, she nuzzled along the line of his cock trying to break out of its denim prison. And he watched--everything. Power and lust crackled inside her as her room shook with the thunder bowling its way down the plains outside. Impulsively she opened her mouth and lightly bit him through the denim. 

His mouth dropped open and she smiled up at him even as she nibbled her way up to the head, then she stood up and screeched out a laugh when he grabbed her and tossed her on the bed. It was intimate and playful where there had been an overwhelming intensity only moments before. 

She propped herself up on her elbows and watched him as he dragged his white tanktop over his head. The weight of the large square buckle left an interesting shadow just where his V got interesting. He was trimmed and so male it made her teeth hurt. 

This sleepy hooded stare was probably on about seventeen billboards over the years, but right then it was just a man looking at a woman. Right now it was just Jon and January, just wanting to feel a moment together. Just maybe wanting to feel.

It had been so very long since she’d even done that.

With one knee on the bed, her heart stuttered at the clink of his buckle opening. But he stopped, the leather open and the top two buttons showed a triangle of darker hair and lighter flesh. But just lighter flesh. 

Oh yeah. 

That one little rockstar thing had her entire body tingling in 3.5 seconds. Commando. Sweet Jesus, she was going to get her world rocked by an honest to God rockstar.
“Care to share the reason for the smirk?”

With one foot, she dug her toes into the heavy denim covered muscle on his thigh. Christ, did he have muscles everywhere? “Nope.”

He snagged her foot, and she tried to pull away, but he just twisted the lightweight cotton of her pants and jerked. She gasped as the low slung pants hit her thighs before she could save them. His eyes lit at the electric purple cotton underwear she wore. “I don’t think I’m going to be able to look at purple the same way again.”

She grinned up at him as her pants flew over his shoulder. “Purple is ma signature colllla,” she said in a perfect Steel Magnolia’s voice. 

Laughing, he crawled forward, his hand at his buttons again. 

"No,” she stilled his hand and his head jerked up, his eyes on hers. 

“Okay,” he said and retreated a step.

She curled her finger past his hand and to the denim button fly. “No, you’re not going anywhere, but God, I can’t tell you how sexy it is to see a man in button fly’s.”

His grin was back. The way his mouth quirked up and the devil gleamed out of his eyes was so sexy she had trouble breathing for a minute. How they’d gone from intense to playful in just a flight of stairs she didn’t know. All she knew is that it felt good--it felt better than anything she’d ever experienced. And all the pain she’d been dragging around was happy to be stuffed away for a few hours.

She had a feeling it would be a few hours. The man seemed to like to take his time. She dragged him on top of her and cupped the denim and the man between her thighs with a good long sigh. “Oh yeah,” she sighed as he fit himself just a little tighter into the cradle of her thighs. She rose up and moaned as the denim and the hard flesh buzzed along her swollen center. 

He loomed over her, all straining muscles in his arms and intense gaze never leaving her. She reached inside his jeans and cupped him and he finally closed his eyes for a moment. The rapture on his face guided her with each touch. He was silky and warm, hard and sensitive. 

She knew a man like him had been with a lot of women, but the sensory discovery of a new lover only happened once. And if you let yourself fall into that, the one time was could be every time. She arched up until she could reach his neck, her tongue flicking over the whiskers at his Adam’s apple, following the whorl of hair that grew around the knot there.

He dropped with a sigh, his elbows framing her hair and her head as he pushed himself into her hand.

“Harder?” she asked and increased her grip. 

He groaned and slid along her palm. She teased the delicate vein under his head and felt him jump in her hand. But she wasn’t prepared for the retribution as he buried his head into her neck and dragged his tongue up along the side of her neck to her ear and scraped his teeth over the lobe. 

He curled his fingers around the base of her neck and tilted her head back. The stubble of his jaw and the softness of his lips crossed all her wires and flooded her panties. “Mercy,” she moaned as he did it all again, this time on her left side. 

His teeth scraped over her chin and the follow up kiss had her hands falling away from him in pure female shock. But it didn’t last long. Her nails bit into his sides and dove under the back of his jeans confirming the commando theory. She gripped his ass, dragging at his jeans until his shaft was pushing hard at the cotton barrier. 

She writhed under him as his bristled chin dragged down her chest and under her own tank top. It was one of those sports type ones, with the shelf that was supposed to support a woman, but never really did. The only support it gave, was to lift her breasts and put them on display for him.

With a focus that frightened as much as it turned her on, he traced his tongue around her nipples slowly. All the while he rocked against her in a brain numbing swivel that bumped his shaft right along the hood of her soaking wet lips. Sucking in the rock hard tip of her breast, he reared up at the same time and she shouted with the pure pleasure.

She’d been so focused on touching him, she didn’t realise just how much she’d worked herself up in the process. Drenched for him, she pushed at the panties. “Inside. Inside me,” she muttered as he did that hip thing again and her whole room went black with spots. 

His other hand lifted her up, dragging her panties down as the tip of him pushed inside her and stopped. “Fuck,” he growled. 

She crossed her ankles and tried to drag him inside of her, but he wouldn’t budge. 


“Fucking muscles,” she muttered and gave a low growl of frustration. “Don’t you think we teased each other enough?” She was going to scream her very expensive windows down if she didn’t get this orgasm up and out of her system. 

Trapped.

Trapped like she was in this house some days.

It was dying to get out.

“I don’t have anything,” he said and rested his forehead against hers. “I don’t do this sort of thing anymore,” he said with a rueful smile. 

The lightbulb went off in her head. “Condom,” she muttered. Fuck, she’d totally forgotten about one of those. “Fuck responsibility,” she said and drove him inside her. 

He hissed ans stayed very still inside of her. She could see all the tendons in his neck tighten with the need to slam into her again. “Oh God,” he said and gulped in a breath. 


“Jan-” he tried to back off of her but she just rolled her hips.

“I can’t get pregnant,” she said into his neck. “Now fuck me, dammit. I’m going to scream if you don’t.”

He looked down at her, she could see the responsibility trying to break out of the lust that had them both in lockdown. “No one could hear you,” he said on a strangled laugh.

She laughed and he slid deeper if that was at all possible. She dug each fingernail into the...surprise, surprise...muscular ass that was clenched as the rest of his body. And he slowly dragged his hips back and slammed back inside of her. “God, yes,” she managed as he nailed her into the bed.

He lifted her knee higher and angled himself a little to the side and that was all it took to find that elusive spot. She’d found it a time or two on her own, but there as the rain pummelled her window, Jon did the same to her and she shouted out her thanks to all the gods she could think of, and moved onto the angels in her head.

Used and abused in the best sense of the word, she felt him curl around her from the back, leaving their bodies joined as long as they saw fit. She didn’t want to sleep--she didn’t want to waste a minute of the day, but her body had other plans.