27 - Things Changed

He immediately saw red - several different shades of red.  In fact, if he were gay, he could spend five minutes listing them all.  But since he was an eight-color-box-of-Crayons guy… he stuck with lots of red.   

Tony willed his fingers not tighten around Lilah’s neck like they wanted to tighten around the neck of the fucker responsible for those scars.  The fucker who made her ‘pay’ for it.  The low-life sonofabitch who made her beg with such pleading eyes.  This was not the way he’d wanted her indifference erased.

What else had the bastard done to her?

 “Lilah…”  He cleared his throat, wishing for a nicotine rush to quell his consuming urge to kill.  “How many more scars are you hiding?”

She dropped her feet flat to the floor, mouth set in a disgusted pucker.    Reaching up to pull at his wrists, she would have retreated if had loosened the grip he had on her nape.  Disgust quickly turned to annoyance, and she curled her arms protectively around her waist.

“None.  You’ve found them all, unless you’re counting stretch marks.”

With that, the indifference was back, and invisible shields came down over her eyes, locking away the emotion that he knew lived larger-than-life behind them.  He’d gotten a good look before she slammed the door, though.  The turbulent blue-green pools had been bubbling with naked desire – desire for him.

That was what he wanted to obliterate her damn indifference. 

It didn’t mean he wasn’t going to eventually push for answers, but the physical wounds were healed.  There was nothing he could do to erase them, and whatever she ‘paid’ was a done deal.    It could wait.

But the woman in front of him who needed something she thought was unattainable?  She couldn’t wait.  And Tony wasn’t going to ask her to.   He turned his head sideways, dipping in to take her mouth in a soft kiss. 

Lilah stiffened, her hands coming up to push at his chest as she tried to pull away.  “No.  I won’t be a charity case.”

“You treated me like one a few minutes ago, didn’t you?” he countered quietly, his index finger lightly running the length of the sizable scar.  “Did your good deed and then walked away like a satisfied humanitarian?”

“That’s not true!”  Her eyes blazed with indignation, bringing life to her face. 

The passion with which she made her vow gave her a vibrant aura that he was undeniably drawn to.   He got a kick out of flustering her.  It was the about only time he felt she wasn’t censoring every word – just like the chest thing earlier.  That instantaneous, “Just yours,” was far more revealing than anything she’d told him intentionally. 

“Isn’t it?  Seems about as likely as what you’re saying to me.”

“I’ve fantasized about that for months!”

Thatta girl.  Don’t think, just let it fly. 

Tony offered up a slow, sly grin and slid his hands along the line of her neck.   Using only the tips of his fingers, he kneaded the taut muscles in the hollow there before gliding them to settle on the balls of her shoulders.  “What else have you fantasized about?”

That one threw her for a loop and jump started her brain, sending her scrambling for a ‘proper’ response.   Rosy pink lips popped open and then closed again, and her cheeks filled with that same rosy color while her eyes danced with the answer to his question.  She didn’t put voice to the images he could see fighting to get free, but rather hugged herself more tightly.

“Let me in, Lilah.”  He gradually pried her arms loose so that he could guide her hands in a slow upward glide, bringing her hands to rest against his chest.  Holding them there and lowering his mouth to hers, he persuaded, “Let me show you what I see.”

She inhaled sharply, a good indication that his invitation was a welcome one, but she wouldn’t turn herself over to him.  Her fingers were curling into his chest, but she had her elbows pressed together, wedging folded arms firmly between them.  He was still being held at bay.

Or maybe she was holding herself at bay with the skeptical, “What do you see?”

What he saw was a woman dying to come unglued, but afraid she couldn’t.   Someone desperate to know that whatever porn reel was playing in her head could be every bit as good in real life.   A girl who needed to know that fantasy could involve flesh.  Should involve flesh.

“Passion looking for a way out.”

It was the key to the kingdom.

Lilah pushed her hands up to lock behind his neck and stood on tiptoe.  This time, she was the one to close the distance between their mouths.  The kiss was short, hard and swift, and then she pulled back to peer into his eyes.

“If I don’t…  Well, if I don’t finish in the traditional way, it’s not because I don’t want this.  I’m still going to enjoy every second.  Okay?”

It wasn’t said in a needy, clingy, poor-pitiful-me, way.  Far from it.  She could have been explaining how to pop popcorn for all the emotion she showed.  Indifference in place, Lilah was more concerned about offending him than getting her groove on.

Yeah, those ex-husbands deserve ass beatings.  Both of them.

“Bluegrass, I let you have your way with me.  Now let me have mine.  Just sit back and enjoy the ride.”

Relief shone starkly in the features of her face, and she nodded.

Already knowing that she got lost in kisses, Tony started there.  He tasted her lips, he nibbled at them, licked them with the tip of his tongue until she was mewling impatiently.  Sliding wide-spread hands from her full, naked thighs upward over femininely rounded hips, he parked them at the indentation of her waist and clutched his fingers into the silky soft flesh, taking full custody of her mouth.

Her purr had the soft flesh of her tongue vibrating when she eagerly wrapped it around his.  Those noises were still a direct line to his below-the-waist blood supply, and he clutched her waist tighter pulling her lower body tight against his.  Bumping his swelling erection into the softness of her hip, he let her know without words how much the sound affected him.

“Taste good?” he teased softly, hands creeping higher to brush the lower part of her rib cage. 

Her skin was softer than any he’d ever touched, and he couldn’t hold his fingertips still.  It was like rubbing against fine silk, he assumed.  It was certainly softer than that satiny stuff they made fancy bras and panties out of – at least any he’d ever felt up.  Velvet, maybe.

“So good.”  The moist heat of her breath steamed their lips.   “So, so good.  You’re an amazing kisser.”

A cocky grin kicked up, creasing his face under the goatee.  He liked turned-on Lilah as much as flustered Lilah.  She, too, said whatever came into her head. 

Guiding her toward the bed, he stopped her when she would have climbed onto the mattress.  He had been force fed the band members’ faces enough in the last months, and sure as hell wasn’t going to be looking at them in bed.  Tony curled the hem of her t-shirt in his fingers, ready to lift it over her head when she put out a restraining hand. 

Wordlessly lifting his brow, he demanded to know what she thought she was doing.

“I’m not beautiful.  You should know that.  So you’re not disappointed.”

He wanted to shake her.  Sex should not be this complicated, and it pissed him off no end that it was for her.  It was meant to be mutually pleasurable and natural act between to consenting partners.  It shouldn’t have hang-ups and baggage attached to it.  Fun, not a fucking psychology session.

“Let go.”  The terse words were the best he could do.  He didn’t have it in him to be tender or kind right now.  His aggression towards those redneck mind-twisting fuckers was coming to a head, and he was going to channel it into her.  “Now.”

Her deep, bracing breath further pissed him off, and he snatched the black cotton away, sweeping the shirt over her head.  It hit the far wall with a soft ‘splat’, and she was left naked except for a pair of pink polka-dotted panties.

Based on the light complexion of her face, arms and legs, he should have known she would be pale.  Probably did know it at some random point in the back of his mind, but when faced with the full picture, Tony had to stop for just a second to take it all in. 

The expanse of lily-white skin could’ve been considered pasty on anyone else, but on Lilah it was more like porcelain. 

He lightly brushed his palms over her torso.

Smooth porcelain, touched only with a hint of color.  The pearl pink of her nipples and surrounding skin were the defining highlight of full breasts that weren’t artificially enhanced.  They were real, genuine feminine curves that were a pleasantly heavy weight in his palms.

He flicked his thumbs lazily over their tips, satisfied when the nipples puckered at the attention and Lilah sucked in a quiet breath. 

No, she wasn’t as firm and taut and a twenty-year old, but she wasn’t twenty, and he had no interest in having sex with someone young enough to be his daughter.   The fine, silvery stretch marks that she’d warned him about were faint and far between on her belly and the sides of her breasts.  To him, they only proved she was a woman who had done what women were ultimately designed to do – carry a baby. 

Which brought to mind an important detail, if they were going to have traditional sex.

“Do I need to use a rubber?”

Her eyes closed and she nodded mutely.  “I have some if you don’t.”

She did?  Interesting.

“Oh yeah?”

Her arms tried to close around her waist again in a self-hug, but he caught her hands and knotted their fingers together. 

“Regular Girl Scout, huh?  Always prepared?”

“Mm.”

There was more there, but he didn’t care enough to push it.  For now.  Other things needing pushing at the moment.  Tony untied their fingers and pulled her close enough to push her breasts between them.

“Then we have plenty.”

Ducking his head, Tony recaptured her mouth with a fervor he’d kept in reserve until now.  He was tired of playing around.  The woman spent too much time thinking.  She needed well and truly fucked to rid herself of that nasty habit for a while.

And he was just the man to do it. 

Fingers buried deep in her hair, he devoured her mouth.  Under the soundtrack of her breathy sighs and purrs, he explored every corner with a curious tongue.  Sliding across her teeth, delving into the hollow beneath her tongue, the insides of her cheeks…  He wanted it all, and he took it while rocking his shoulders just enough to scrape her nipples with his chest.  The result was two diamond-hard points digging into him, just the way he liked. 

The mattress bumped into his left knee, and he twisted them around so that he could coax her back onto the bed.  Leaving his shorts on, he parted her legs and settled between her thighs.  Kisses peppered along the underside of her jaw, then skimmed over the scars to focus on her collar bone and down.  Down her sternum and out to the swell of her left breast and lower, until he’d captured that puckered nipple in his mouth.

Tony bit down gently, and was rewarded with a soft cry.  Lilah arched her back, pushing herself into his mouth while she dug agitated fingers into his hair to hold him close.  Tugging at the other nipple he continued to alternate between suckling and biting until she was writhing beneath him. 

Mission accomplished, the ultra-soft globes were abandoned so that he could kiss his way down her abdomen.  He nuzzled at her tummy, repeatedly brushing over it with his goatee when he found that it tickled her.  Her sharply drawn breath and squirming only got worse when he dipped his tongue into the hollow of her navel.

“Oh!  That feels…  Ohhh, Jersey....”

Frigid, his ass.  He could probably have her shooting for the stars by just swirling his tongue in her belly button.  She was already worked up enough that he could smell her arousal.  The crotch of those polka-dotted panties was going to be wet when he got there, no doubt about it.

He worked his fingers in under the elastic at her hips, crawling backward as he shoved them down her hips and thighs, then off her ankles.  Fingering them, he gave a lecherous grin and tossed them aside.  The crotch was soaked.

And she was spread out naked in front of him.  Although ‘spread out’ was an exaggeration because, at that moment, she was bringing her legs together to hide what he wanted most. 

A firm hand clamped around the inside of her thigh.  “No.”

Lilah blinked owlishly at him, but didn’t offer any resistance when he pushed her knees apart.

“While you’re in my bed, your body belongs to me.  Don’t try and keep it from me.”

She trembled under his touch, but a soft smile lit her face when she playfully reminded him, “That’s not what you said earlier tonight.”

“Things changed.” 

He combed his fingers in the neat patch of dark curls that were, indeed, damp to the touch.  His thumb brushed over a block of ink next to her mound and he took a good look at it before putting his glasses on the nightstand.

About the size of a block of four postage stamps, it was a swirly blue Chinese symbol encased by a frame of black film.  Simple, yet wildly appealing against the pristine white of her flesh.  The impulse to put his mouth over it was irresistible, and he bent to bathe the pretty little tattoo with a slow swipe of his tongue. 

His action had her going stiff beneath him.