Walking on Sunshine Read online

  I swore. “Damn you! Stop it!” She kicked me on the shin. I picked her up and threw her over my shoulder and carried her off the basketball floor.

  As I went, I saw a lighted patch of the floor flicker a bit, and looked back over my shoulder.

  Someone was standing at the front door, blocking the streetlight, trying to see into the Lair.

  I carried Sophie through the workshop to the loading dock and our vehicles, as far from the living quarters as I could get.

  She went completely still as I carried her.

  When we were standing in the dark among the parked cars, I dumped her on her feet and gave her a shake. “What do you think this is? Play? Am I the wind, that you shake off my words?”

  Under one dim light bulb in the loading dock, she looked very pink, perhaps from being carried on her belly over my shoulder. Her eyes glistened and her lips were parted.

  Now I would reap the whirlwind for abusing her. I saw her gather herself—to scratch my eyes out?

  She threw her arms about me and kissed me.

  I lost control in that instant. She took me by storm.

  Soon we had our arms locked about one another, mauling and devouring like teenagers behind the ice cream parlor. Her small body was a glowing coal, burning through me from front to back. Where our tongues met, life poured into me.

  She broke free to gasp, “You kiss better than any boyfriend I’ve ever had!”

  She was bent backward over the hood of Baz’s miserable old BMW sedan, and my cock ground against her thigh. I knew we had to leave the building as soon as possible. I didn’t want to let go of her flesh.

  I forced myself away. “How many boyfriends have you had?”

  Her eyes were glittering again. I realized that this signified defiance. “Oo, grand-père, you are very strict!” She pointed at the bulge in my trousers. “Take care you don’t mess yourself.”

  I stepped farther away and brushed myself off. “This is not play,” I repeated.

  “Of course it’s play! Life is all play. Or punishment.” She stretched seductively. “But with you, life is an adventure!”

  I snorted. “I’m an adventure, am I? Your first black man to kiss?”

  She tossed her curls. “Oh, no. My second and third lovers were black. Moroccan and South Indian.”

  Her composure had returned, but mine tottered. “Third. Out of how many?”

  She laughed up at me. “I don’t know. I can’t count you yet because we haven’t had sex, except in my dreams.”

  I found myself sputtering.

  Now she was back to flirting. “Why do you care?”

  I scolded like an uncle, “You’re a child, and my kouzen, and you lack common sense. Of course I care.”

  A strange sound came from upstairs. I turned my head and saw a blaze of light in a very odd color coming from that second-floor window.

  My skin tingled. Big magic was happening nearby. If Baz and Yoni were here, no doubt it was happening in a bed.

  I gripped her arm. “We have to leave. Immediately.”

  “But why?”

  “I must get you to cover somewhere. That paparazzo is outside. Maybe we’ll go to the botánica.” I didn’t much relish the thought, but I had nowhere else to take her.

  “Pooh, so uncomfortable!” Sophie made a face. “Jake’s bed is beastly!”

  My eyes popped. I blurted, “Have you slept in Jake’s bed?” She had only been here two weeks, according to Jake. He had been sick, dying, stinking the whole time!

  She primmed her lips and lifted her black brows. “Are you jealous? That’s an excellent sign!” I scowled, and she shook my arm. “Come on, M’sieur Sérieux, I have une clef—a—a key—to a friend’s place. She won’t be home now.”

  We slipped out the back of the Lair. I double-locked the door behind us. Stealthily we crossed the alley, entered a neighbor’s property through their alley gate, flitted through their back yard to the front yard and out onto the next street over. Sophie took a map out of her cargo shorts and handed it to me.

  She said, “Look for—hm, for Blossom Street? I can’t remember the number, but I’ll know the place when I see it.”

  I walked slowly beside her, trying to read the map by streetlight while she examined every house we passed. “Blossom Street? I don’t believe there is such a street in this neighborhood. Magnolia Street is nearby.”

  “Yes, yes! That’s it! I know it is!”

  Rolling my eyes, I put the map in my pocket. “Let’s go.”

  But in Magnolia Street Sophie suffered another attack of amnesia. Twice, we walked up and down the street before she said, “Of course, I don’t remember it from the front. She drove me here. We parked in back. I left by the front door but I didn’t look at the house from the front!”

  We went to the alley and marched up and down, setting off automatic garage lights as we passed. Sophie cautiously opened one garden gate after another and poked her head in, peering at each house in turn.

  Sophie gave a hiss. “We are here!”

  We entered the back yard and tiptoed up the back steps. “Does your friend have a dog?” I said uneasily.

  She was digging in her pocket. “You watch the alley. Make sure that man didn’t follow us here.”

  “Good thinking.” I turned to scan such part of the alley as I could see, extending my woodcraft senses as well as I could, with the smell of Sophie hot and ready beside me. All appeared quiet in the alley.

  I murmured, “I hope your friend doesn’t mind my visiting.”

  She was fumbling at the door, keys jingling, making exasperated sounds. As I turned to offer to help, she opened the door and we went inside.

  “No lights,” she said. “That man might be outside.”

  We went through the darkened house, saved from blundering into furniture by Sophie’s pocket flashlight. She led me upstairs to an untidy bedroom with a giant, unmade bed, its floor strewn with shoes, books, and a man’s clothes.

  “Your friend is married?”

  “Her boyfriend stays here sometimes.” Sophie turned to face me at last. The street light from Magnolia Street shone in the window on us. Her pale skin looked yellow in that light, and my hand, as I reached for her, looked like a branch of some rain-wet winter tree.

  She came to me and bumped her body against mine in a friendly way. I pushed the black curls out of her eyes.

  SOPHIE

  My heart thumped, close to his. He put a fingertip under my chin, a touch I normally dislike. “Perhaps we should talk about your impersonation of the vicomte.” I was unaccountably nervous.

  “You did not bring me,” he murmured, leaning close. “To this enormous bed.” He breathed on my forehead. “To coach me.” Shivers ran up and down my side.

  I pulled back so I could see him. Street light from the window cast a pallor on his face. He looked younger with his tattooed cheekbone in shadow. His mistrustful gaze softened.

  He likes me!

  My thumping heartbeat doubled. “True.”

  I had brought him here for un plan cul, but now, watching his eyes open to me, I regretted the location. We needed many hours—

  He bent his head and his lips parted.

  Many hours—

  I lifted my face.

  I waited for him to ravish me. But no, this was a slower, sweeter exploration between our mouths. All around us beat an ocean of want, demanding, demanding in waves, but he was so gentle that I was tempted to do the ravishing myself.

  I expected to be taken by a badass tattooed gangsta. But he came to me carefully, more like a schoolboy.

  The next kisses were hotter. I began to unbutton his shirt, but he stopped me and did it himself, kissing me all the while, playing tongue games to distract me from tearing the shirt off his shoulders.

  He pulled back. “It’s a nice shirt,” he explained, as if he knew precisely what I wanted to do.

  I panted, “It is.” It was linen, custom-made. He slid out of it and laid it over a chair.
I was impatient. “So. The trousers?” I was sweating all over. My pulse gonged in my throat and in my delta.

  He showed his teeth in a not-smile. And voila, his trousers lay across his shirt.

  He wore no undershorts.

  “I think I love you,” I said.

  But he was against me, sliding my long-sleeved tee shirt up and over my head, heating my breasts with his bare chest, lapping at my lips with his tongue in little cat-licks, sliding his hands down into my gear-loaded climbing shorts and releasing the front snap so that they fell to the floor with a clink and a clonk. I felt more naked than I had with a man in a long time. His cock lay warm against my side. I would have to climb him to get onto it.

  “Let’s get level,” he said. He picked me up as if I were a baby and laid me on the bed.

  Satin sheets. Very nice. I would have to come here again.

  I thought he would climb onto me at once, but he stood by the bed, leaning over me, looking. I felt very naked.

  “Never seen a white woman with her clothes off?” I asked, and then I could have bitten my tongue out.

  He only nodded absently. “Oh, yes.” But he didn’t stop looking.

  I wanted to pull him to me. His self-possession bothered me.

  “You look as if it’s your first time.”

  “I look,” he said, turning his eyes from my vulnerable bare body to my face, “because it arouses you.”

  My awareness of his nakedness, dense with color and weight and smooth muscle, made me stammer, “You want me aroused. What a gentleman.”

  His gaze traveled over me again, down, lingering there, and up to my face. He shook his head again, as if to say, No, no gentleman.

  I thought if he did not touch me soon I would—I couldn’t think what to do—but thank heaven he put one hand on my upper thigh and leaned, leaned hard, rolling my thigh open. His other hand went to my shoulder, also leaning firmly, pressing me into the bed with all his weight. And then, having opened me like a tin of sardines, he bent slowly and took my throat in his hot jaws.

  I was so shocked, I stiffened. Shivers ran over me from head to foot and back up, making my scalp tingle. I melted to liquid inside. My back arched. For some reason I didn’t reach for him. My hands gripped the bedclothes under me. As he descended slowly, slowly over me, a wall of heat and smooth skin warming my crazed limbs, I remembered my dream.

  Wasn’t there a cock?

  Indeed there was. He had already put it to my vulva. Both of us were warm and slick already. He barely touched me and stayed there, as if he were too gentlemanly to come in. And meanwhile he was devouring my throat, chewing at it, licking, licking up my cheek, biting my earlobe, my lips, diving ruthlessly into my mouth with a plundering tongue, possessing me so satisfyingly that I could only sigh and squeak and moan and squeeze the sheets, waiting for him.

  But his cock stayed there, against my opening, not entering.

  Apparently it was my turn to be seduced, not his.

  With that thought I remembered the rest of my dream. I bucked my hips against him and his cock bumped my clit and I shattered absurdly quickly. Just like my dream.

  As I climaxed, he descended fully onto me, resting his face on my hair, plastering our chests together.

  His cock throbbed between my thighs. He wanted more. Why didn’t he take it? I was throbbing too, already about to fall over the edge again. I squirmed under him.

  “Will you let me touch you?” I said plaintively. I squirmed again, pinching his erection between my legs, begging for penetration. I was wet for him.

  He shook his head, rubbing his face in my hair. His soft voice tickled my ear, sending quivers all down one side of my body. My breath quickened—shortened—

  He murmured, “You are too rough. I might break.”

  I laughed, and my hips moved again, and he entered me a fraction of an inch, and climax threw me down from a height onto something soft that penetrated me everywhere and sent me into convulsions of echoing pleasure.

  When I could breathe again, very carefully I put my arms around his back.

  “How can you do this? You’ve barely touched me.” My eyelids were sweating from coming so hard.

  “It’s what I do.”

  I made a little quoi? noise on his sweat-salty shoulder.

  “Sex demon, remember?” He lifted his head and looked at me. “I have touched you. I am touching you. But I make you aware of it.”

  Dizzy with rising lust again again oh no I haven’t recovered from the last one I was sure there was profundity énorme in this statement but he had me going again, was that his cock inside me?—wait, how had he got all the way inside?—oh, no, it was only his thumb, making the faintest movement inside me like a snake uncoiling lazily in the sun.

  His cock burned against my thigh.

  “Don’t you want to come inside?” I said helplessly.

  He lifted himself off me and looked at me. Then he smiled. I think it was the first real smile I ever had from him. “Well. Just for you.”

  VEEK

  Her pupils were dilated—oh yes, she wanted more. But in this moment she was thinking of me. I had to smile.

  Behind me, like bats skittering in the night of the past, Jake warned, Never jizz inside them—then they have your seed. It gives them power over you. Even longer ago, the games masters at school belabored their health precautions. Use a sheath, you don’t know where she’s been. The French games masters, that is. All the English schoolmasters pretended there was no such thing as sex.

  I smiled down at my little anemone. She hadn’t even asked me to put on a condom. There was no need—among the many conveniences of being a sex demon is knowing that one leaves no trace and takes nothing away. But she didn’t know that.

  And now I was unprepared.

  I couldn’t bring myself to set her a bad example.

  As if she knew what I was thinking, she turned her head. “I think condoms are in the nightstand drawer.”

  I reached past her. My cock got pressed between us and I nearly lost control. I got the drawer open and groped inside—yes, thank her friend and her friend’s boyfriend, foil packets. I took some, dropped all but one by the pillow, and held up that one.

  “I’m sorry, but we must part for a moment.”

  She made a face, but she allowed me to draw away and lie beside her. Her eyes followed my every move as I tore open the packet. She said, “I wonder—”

  “Yes?” Would she never stop talking?

  “What it feels like for you. With or without a condom. All the European boys hate them. The English, eh. Americans seem to go off like touchwood, regardless. Is it really different?”

  Chattering again already. How many orgasms would it take to silence her? I looked at the rolled condom in my hand.

  She took it from me. Her eyes danced. “Let me.”

  She bent over my cock and went to work. I was no longer surprised at her experience, but her skill! First, she capped my cock with the rolled condom. Then she unrolled it over me with lips, teeth, and tongue. She licked up the length of my cock like a child licking a popsicle, circled the rim, and flicked me on the tip, making me gasp.

  “Lie back! You are so stiff!”

  “I thought that might help,” I murmured.

  “You will explain to me exactly what it feels like,” she instructed. “Then later, with the condom. Science!” She smiled brilliantly.

  I sighed.

  She thrust me back until I couldn’t see her face. She wanted to know what fellatio felt like?

  Time for more sex demon magic.

  I closed my eyes and let my awareness drift partly out of my body and into hers.

  Her little mouth managed my cock as a cowboy manages a green horse, gently, firmly, with little sounds of scolding and encouragement, and her hands helping from time to time.

  Let us be one, I thought.

  We merged.

  I could tell how smooth and hot was my cock on her tongue, how tightly it filled her
throat. At the same time I knew my own sensations and shared them with her, the exquisite squeeze of her fingers on my root, the play of her tongue-tip on the head of my cock.

  Did she notice that we both felt the same things? She giggled—the giggle echoed in my ears, in her throat, on my cock, in her ears. I think she liked that, too. She giggled again, gagged, and withdrew to wipe spit off her chin.

  I let myself merge more deeply under her skin, feeling her nerves as if they were my nerves. Let us be one for now.

  “How are you doing that?” we said, and, “What? Did you say that or did I?”

  She burst out laughing, and I laughed with her.

  Both our bellies trembled with it.

  We looked in one another’s faces, our eyes perfect mirrors echoing our startled pleasure back and forth between us.

  I had never done that with Jake’s clients—looked in their faces.

  It led to vertigo, to deeper merging, a sense of timelessness.

  She saw me seeing her through my eyes and felt what I felt, and it shocked her, too. Echoes rolled back and forth between us.

  I saw myself through her eyes and realized why she didn’t fear me. She saw a frightened boy, stiff in his school uniform, lost, lonely, and hungry for love.

  At the same time I knew she was seeing herself as I saw her, and it shocked me to realize that here in my deepest place I saw a leopardess, fearless, avid for life . . . but kind. Even in her power she was kind.

  She liked me.

  I quivered like a blancmange, boneless with amazement.

  Moreover, she now knew I was smitten with her. I was in her power, seed or no seed.

  Was I beguiled by my own love philtre? Subservient to the navel string? Had Yoni’s singing worked this magic on me?

  Nonsense, I heard her think. As she shared my mind and heart in this moment, she knew that I knew I had no defenses. Something in her had conquered me—no power greater than ordinary love.

  Worse, she knew it. I supposed because she was a woman. They always know.

  I felt myself dissolving.

  Panic caught up with me.

  I dissolved in fact, letting her sink to the sheets as my body evaporated under her.