Perfect Strangers

27

He sounds nonchalant. Meanwhile, I’m starting to sweat. Is this why he asked me to wear a dress?

“I’m not sure we should—”

“Read me some more.” He pinches his fingers together, making me gasp. Then he slides his hand down my thigh, slips it under the hem of my dress, and slides it back up again. He settles his warm palm between my legs. Now the only barrier between his hand and my naked flesh is my panties.

The way he cups my s*x feels possessive.

“James—”

“Read,” he commands, his voice low.

I look at the pages, but the words have started to blur. With shaking hands, I flip a few pages, then focus on a line. “L-love in action is a harsh and dreadful thing compared to love in dreams.”

“Mmm. How eloquent. You see why I like the Russian section? It’s so romantic.” James slips his fingers under the elastic of my panties and glides them over my c******s.

I jerk, sucking in a startled breath.

Into my ear he breathes, “Guess you like it, too. You’re already wet.”

My heart bangs so hard against my sternum it’s painful. He winds his other arm around my waist and pins me against the wall of his body, then starts to move his fingers faster, stroking me until I’m breathless and throbbing.

“Read, Olivia.”

Panting, feeling scared and desperate and insanely turned on, I stare at the book in my hands. Pages whir past as I flip forward, then back, almost dropping the book in the process. I find a page and read, my voice shaking.

“You will burn and you will burn out; you will be healed and come back again.”

James kicks my feet apart wider, then sinks one finger deep inside me.

When I shudder and let out a soft cry, he whispers harshly into my ear, “Burn for me, sweetheart. Let me feel it.”

His erection is a hard, insistent heat against my ass. If he bent me forward a little, he could yank aside my panties and f**k me from behind.

I’m out of my mind with the thought of it.

The possibility that he could make love to me here, in a public place, in partial view of the patrons at the front of the store or full view of anyone who wandered into the alcove, has me so hot—and terrified—I can barely think.

He uses my hair as a leash to pull my head back. Then he kisses me deeply as his thumb works my c******s and his index finger slides in and out of me, over and over.

The book falls from my hands and clatters against the floor.

He winds me tighter and tighter, coiling me up into a superheated ball of nerves. Powerful waves of heat lash me, scorching my skin and hardening my n*****s to two aching points of need. I reach out blindly and brace myself against the shelf, clawing at the wall of Russians like I might start to climb.

James breaks away from my mouth. Breathing hard, in a guttural voice, he says, “I could f**k you here, sweetheart. I could take you right here. Do you want that?”

“No! Yes! Oh God…” I groan, frantic for release.

“Or I could get on my knees and push you up against the shelf and make you come with my mouth.”

My moan is soft and pleading. I’m so wet I can feel it on my thighs. Incoherent, I rock against his hand.

“Or I could put you on your knees and make you suck me off. Would you like that, sweetheart? Having me f**k your mouth with my hard c**k while you play with your wet p***y, on your knees in the Russian section?”

I picture it. My cheeks hollowed, his big hands gripping my head, his erection sliding in and out between my lips as I kneel in front of the open fly of his trousers, finger f*****g myself while taking the entire thick, hard length of him deep down my throat as all the shelves of books look on.

A sob breaks from my chest.

James whispers hotly, “Oh, yes, you’d love that. My sweet, dirty, beautiful girl.”

He tugs firmly on the swollen bud of my c******s, and I come.

He swallows my gasp with a kiss, holding me tightly with that arm like an iron bar around my waist as I convulse and shudder through a violent o****m. He plunges his finger deep inside me once more, setting off another series of hard contractions.

James turns his face to my ear and says through gritted teeth, “I need to feel your gorgeous cunt throb like this around my dick.”

I’m lost. Lost to his voice, his taste, his filthy words. Lost to pleasure, to sensation, and to a sudden, overwhelming fear.

This isn’t me.

This woman, so reckless and overtaken by desire, isn’t anyone I recognize. She’s wild and uninhibited and doesn’t care who might see her jerking helplessly through her o****m as a beautiful man in a beautiful suit holds her tight against his body and growls obscenities into her ear. She doesn’t care what she looks like, arching in ecstasy as he works his hand between her spread legs. She doesn’t care what anyone might think, seeing her so exposed.

The only thing she cares about is the man behind her and how he’s brought her back to aching, blistering, terrifying life.

I lean against James’s chest, throw my arms up and back around the mass of his shoulders, and tilt my head for his kiss.

Because f**k it.

I’ve already jumped off this high cliff I’ve been standing on since I met him. Might as well do it with my eyes open and my arms flung out wide.

At least I’ll be smiling when I smash into a million pieces when I hit the ground.