The Mile High Club Read online

  His finger traced down my spine to my tailbone and through the crease, followed the string of the thong. I let my thighs spread open as he slid a finger between my legs and snagged the edge of my panties. He slipped a hand around my waist between me and the bed and took the hem of my panties in his hand, then withdrew his other hand and snaked it around my waist on the other side, gathering the fabric in that hand as well.

  His erection was pressed against my backside, and I couldn't stop my hips from fluttering into it.

  "Soon," he promised. "But first...these come off."

  I expected him to draw my thong off, but instead he pulled his hands apart and began to exert his strength. I felt the fabric stretch and pull against me, felt his hands tremble with effort, and then the strings parted from the patch of lace with an audible ripping sound. He pulled the panties free and tossed them aside.

  I twisted in his arms again and pushed him away, desperate to feel him inside me now, wild to feel his flesh against me, his heat on my skin and his hard muscles against my soft curves. I opened his pants and jerked them down, then pulled at his underwear, forcing myself to slow down, to tease both of us just a little bit more.

  The waistband of his boxer-briefs slid down over his erection as I revealed it, inch by inch, until it sprang free, wet and glistening with dewy pre-come, veins throbbing, tip engorged. The underwear joined the pants on the floor, and then my own control was broken as I gathered his cock in my hands and stroked him.

  I bent to take him in my mouth, just to taste him, but he pulled me away.

  "I won't last thirty seconds if you do that," he said. "You've got me all riled up."

  He kissed me, then, the first hot, hard kiss he'd given me in days. It snatched my breath away and curled my bare toes into the carpet, sent butterflies through my belly to flutter between my thighs. I lifted a leg to his hip, curling my arms around his neck to deepen the kiss, drowning in the breathless heat of his mouth.

  He put both hands under my buttocks and lifted me up. I hopped, pulling on his neck, and he caught me as I wrapped both legs around his hips, clamping down with the muscles in my legs and core. I felt his cock hard and probing at the wet folds of my pussy, and I curled my body into him as I sank down, impaling him into me.

  "Oh god, you're so tight," he whispered, his lips moving against mine.

  He lifted me up and then lowered my weight onto him, thrusting up with his hips at the same time. My nether lips stretched wide to accommodate him, each slow thrust spreading me wider, allowing him deeper. I bit his shoulder at the tingling burn of the stretching muscles, rolling my hips to slather his cock with my dripping juices.

  The days and days of teasing, the ache of unfilled desire, the strip-tease and longing anticipation and extended foreplay, all of it had turned this moment when I finally had Shane deep inside me into an ecstatic agony of pleasure. I couldn't breathe as he penetrated me, couldn't moan or gasp or speak his name as he plunged into me. All I could do was writhe in helpless satisfaction as he pushed into me.

  His weight pressed me down into the mattress, laying me down with my legs dangling off the edge, one of his feet planted on the floor and the other knee on the bed. His hands pulled on my hips to drive into me, pushing the rolling pressure of my rising orgasm into a series of small detonations. I was close already, within a dozen thrusts rising to the peak of climax...

  I gasped in surprise when his weight abruptly vanished, his presence within me absent. He'd sensed how near I was and pulled out.

  "God fucking damn it, Shane!" I lunged for him. "I was so close! Come back! You already got me back for teasing you."

  Shane laughed and climbed onto the bed, lifting me towards the head. I scrambled backward and reached for him to pull him down to me, but he resisted.

  "Oh, no. That was all just for fun." He leaned over me, kissed me, and the tip of his cock nudged into my thigh, smearing sticky wetness along my inner thigh. I pushed my hips toward him, seeking him, wanting him to press back inside me.

  "I'm gonna punish you for making me beg." He touched a finger to me as he spoke, slipped it inside and curled toward my G-spot. "I'm gonna make you pay, Leo. You'll beg me to let you finish."

  I felt a rush of genuine fear, then. I was already feeling the ache, the burgeoning pressure on my loins from unfulfilled need, and now he was threatening to make it worse? Oh hell.

  Thoughts were banished as he stroked the insides of my walls, then retreated to circle my stiff nub. I pushed into his fingers, rising, rising, so close, yes, so close...and then he stopped, traced a finger up my stomach and tweaked one nipple, then the other. He pinched, pulled, and caressed my breasts, kissed them, licked them, increasing the pressure between my thighs but not letting me nearer climax.

  I knew his game, then, and was determined to ride it out without pleading. He had begged; I wouldn't. I could wait him out.

  He moved up and kissed my mouth, nipped my chin and my earlobe, and then pressed a long, slow series of nibbling kisses down to my belly. He kissed each hipbone, then licked the crease between my leg and pubic area, which I'd shaved smooth. He traced each labia with his tongue, then probed the entrance, soft, slow licks that had me stifling gasps and swallowing moans. He took my hips in his hands and pressed his mouth to my opening and circled my clit with the tip of his tongue. I began to hope he'd abandoned his game as I neared climax once more, the pressure mounting and building, his finger slipping in beneath his mouth to swipe my walls and slide against my G-spot, and then I was mere seconds away, one lick, one stroke, one well-placed flick of his tongue from exploding....

  But he stopped.

  I nearly cried out, then. He smirked at the desperate writhing of my hips, the way I clutched his back and clawed my fingernails ungently down his spine, hard enough to make marks, surely, if not draw blood.

  "I'm so close, Leo," Shane said, kneeling above me. "I might let you come, if you help me out first."

  I glared up at him, refusing to rise to his bait. The problem was, his massive manhood was right above me, begging to be touched, and I thought maybe I could trick him, get myself off just by making him come. It was worth a try, surely. I reached for him, got a hand around him and pulled him down. He let me touch him, let me take him in my mouth and suck, just a little, and then he pulled away.

  It took effort. I could see the strain in the bulging of his muscles, the veins throbbing and the gritting of his teeth. He was close. It wouldn't take much, I didn't think, but he kept himself out of reach, then. He changed tactics, bringing us both away from the edge by kissing my body in non-sensual places. He kissed my arms, the crook of my elbow, my side, my shoulders, my neck, and even though the placement of the kisses weren't in erogenous zones, it still heightened my anticipation, still added to the ever-mounting pressure between my legs.

  I had a stroke of genius, then, and acted on it before I could second guess myself.

  "Please, Shane. Give it me." I didn't have to act much to sound convincing. "Let me come, please. I'm begging you."

  "You can't trick me, woman."

  I writhed in his arms, rubbed my body on his. I wasn't acting anymore, I was merely giving in to the torment and the temptation. "I'm not playing a trick, I promise. I need you. I can't take it any more. Please, don't make me wait."

  I could sense his hesitation, the indecision. He covered it by stroking my entrance with the tip of his cock, holding himself in his hand and painting my thighs with his leaking essence.

  "Please, please." I lunged for him with my legs, wrapped them around him. "I need you inside me. I'm dying, Shane, please let me have you inside me. I'll never tease you again, I swear."

  I had him in a leg lock, and I reached down to grab his shaft, tickling his tip and slicking my thumb around the head. I pulled him toward me, curling my legs inward with all my strength. He resisted, hard, but the angle was wrong and I was winning. His tip neared me, touched the sliver of a gap between my lips, moved centimeter by centimeter i
nward.

  I was gasping with need now, abandoned to my desire. "Please, Shane. Just a little farther. Yes, yes, like that." His resistance was waning, slipping. He wanted in, too.

  I snaked my other arm around our legs and cupped his sack, felt the taut softness of his scrotal skin in my palm and massaged gently, touched a finger to the small strip of skin just behind his sack and pressed, a mere brush at first, then, as he began to let himself slide in, an increasing pressure, moving in circles.

  "Oh, the hell with it," Shane growled.

  He slid his hands under my ass and lifted me toward him. He sat up and settled me on his lap, and we groaned in tandem as he impaled himself into me. He buried himself to the hilt, grinding his base into me, thrusting his hips against mine and grunting with each motion.

  Our foreheads bumped together, sweat commingling and breathing matched. I lifted up with my legs and sank down, clutched his body against mine, crushing my breasts against him and crying his name, our climaxes rising together, our motions rhythmed to the same desperation.

  I lifted up and plunged down, he thrust up, and we both groaned, gasped, clawing at each other, seeking to get closer, to bury ourselves in the other. The pressure inside me was at critical mass, an impending explosion boiling within me, a supernova on the brink of release.

  Nothing could stop me now from reaching my peak, from scaling the heights of ecstasy with Shane. I curled down to kiss him, breathing into him, feeling the vibrations of his moaning against my teeth, feeling his mountainous muscle bunching and coiling beneath me, his powerful arms around me, holding me in place.

  I was on the edge now, and couldn't work my muscles except to writhe my hips on his. I was held upright only by his arms. He lowered me slowly to my back, never ceasing his motion inside me, spreading his bulk on top of me, weighing me down but not crushing me.

  His name was the only word I could summon, gasped in breathlessness as he powered into me, each thrust driving me higher, closer. I wrapped my leg around his back and my arms around his neck, holding tight to him, whimpering now as he increased his tempo.

  And then it happened, between one gasp and the next. I shattered, came apart beneath him. At the furious clench of my muscles, the helpless shriek of my breath in his ear, he exploded as well, releasing his seed in a gush of heat, driving me further into the wilds of orgasmic detonation.

  His climax seemed endless, a flood of thick liquid pouring into me, his breath fast panting grunts in my ear, his thrusting into me a frenetic thrum of motion, pushing my climax past the peak and into something else, past explosion and into a blind fury of spasming bliss. And still he came, still he dove his shaft into me, until all I could do was hold tight to him, muscles locked around him, and ride out the rapture.

  At last he slowed and stopped, slumping beside me, both of our bodies shuddering and sweat-slick.

  And then he ruined it.

  "God, you won," he gasped. "You beat me, you crafty bitch."

  Oh, that word. How I hated that word. I tensed and went still, forcing myself to remain motionless, rather than leaping across the room and screaming like I wanted to.

  He felt me tense, felt the sudden, instant distance. "What? What's wrong?"

  "Nothing." I tried to remind myself he wasn't John, wasn't my father; he couldn't know.

  Shane had been laughing when he said it, clearly meant it as a compliment. I had won, too. I knew it, and the pride at the fact that I'd outmaneuvered Shane Sorrenson still shone proudly in my chest, but his casual use of that word had thrown me off.

  "Leo, come on. I hate it when women do that. 'Nothing,' you say, but it couldn't be more obvious that there's something." He propped himself up on an elbow and tried to catch my gaze. "Hey, I can't fix it if you don't tell me what's wrong."

  What a typical guy. Always fixing.

  "Just don't use that word around me again, okay?" I forced the anger away, forced myself to recognize his innocence. He hadn't meant anything by it.

  Shane brushed a wisp of hair away from my face, kissed my cheekbone. "Sure. I'm sorry. I didn't mean anything by it. I was just impressed. You got me to do what you wanted. Nobody ever beats me in a contest of wills. I always, always get my way."

  I only half-faked a laugh. "Well, it looks like you've met your match, buddy."

  He kissed the corner of my mouth, my chin, and my other cheekbone. "Looks like it." His eyes turned serious, then. "Why does it bother you?"

  I sat up and tucked a pillow behind me. "Just...it's old news. I should let it go. I know you didn't mean anything by it. It really is fine."

  "No, it's not." He touched two fingers to my cheek, turned my face to his. "Tell me, please."

  His honest sincerity had me sighing, and the intense focus of his eyes on me had me relenting. "Ugh. Okay, then. It goes back to my dad. It's his thing. He says it all the time to my mom." I lowered my voice to mocking male tone. " 'Come on Marnie, don't be a bitch.' Just like that, all the time. He doesn't mean anything by it either, usually. It's just something he says when my mom is irritating him, or when they're joking around. But he says it all the time. He's said it to me, too, in the same tone. 'Come on, Leo, don't be a bitch.' My mom hates it, and so do I. She's always hated it, and she's called him on it at least once a week for the last twenty-five years.

  "The reason it really bothers me, of course, has to do with John. He heard my dad say that to my mom once, and realized how much it bothered her, and me. So then, the next time he and I got into a fight, he said it to me, just like my dad used to, just to piss me off. 'Come on, Leo, don't be a bitch.' "

  "What a dick."

  "Yeah. That's the kind of thing he does. He doesn't yell when he's angry, he just makes these evil little digs, all calm as can be. He does it to piss you off, and then when you lose it, he acts like he's got the upper hand 'cause he hasn't even raised his voice."

  "That kind of thing would drive me batshit," Shane said, twirling a lock of my hair around his finger.

  "It did. Made me absolutely crazy. It's why I broke up with him so many times."

  "Well, I'm sorry I said that. I didn't know--"

  I darted at him, smashing my lips to his to silence him.

  "I know," I said. "It's just a trigger, for me. Now, shut up and tell me again how I beat you."

  Shane chuckled and pulled me on top of him. Marvelous sex-beast of a man that he was, Shane was firming up again. I slid my pussy against him, feeling him thicken and harden. As soon as he was hard enough to slip inside me, I guided him in, pulsing my hips onto him as he continued to fill out to his full size within me.

  "You won," he said, his words muffled by a mouthful of my breast. "You beat me. You tricked me into giving you exactly what you wanted."

  "Don't you forget it," I told him. "I'm very determined, when I want something."

  "That's one of the many reasons why I love--um, spending time with you."

  It was a quick slip, easily forgotten as our passions rose, and I let it pass by, but I didn't miss it. He watched me carefully as he passed over it, but I only closed my eyes and leaned back on him, stretching him away from his body, and rode him, my hands flat against his stomach where our bodies joined. His hands went around my hips and pulled me down onto him.

  There was no ruse, this time, no teasing or foreplay, just a slow, gentle roll of our hips, a matched rocking of our bodies, a building of the tensions within us. Sweat beaded on our bodies and our breathing turned from long heaves into moaned gasps.

  "God, yes," I whispered, falling onto him, pressing my face to his shoulder. "Yes, yes."

  His thumbs dug into the crease of my hips, pushing me faster as he began to climax. "Don't...don't stop," Shane said. "God, I'm coming, I'm going to come so hard..."

  I pressed my lips to his ear and breathed the words, "I love to feel you come...oh, god, I'm right there with you, I'm going to come with you."

  I used his word, the one he'd hoped I hadn't notice him use.

  Hi
s eyes shone like shards of mossy granite and he claimed my mouth with his as we imploded together, sensation and emotion twining and tangling through us as one entity, collapsing together, unsure where I began and he ended.

  Neither of us spoke of his slip-up, but it hung in the air between us in the afterglow, thick and nearly-visible. As I drifted off to sleep, I wondered how deep the slip-up had gone, if he really had just meant what he said, that he loved spending time with me and he'd simply stumbled over the word itself. The other option, that it had been something deeper, scared me. I wasn't sure whether I wanted it to have been something deeper or to have been a merely casual use of the word.

  *

  Cairo, Egypt

  The heat wasn't just a temperature difference, a matter of degrees. It was a living thing in and of itself. The heat was a monster that slunk through the alleyways and prowled the main streets, clung to windows and walls and ceilings, coiling between the stars and the moon even at night.

  Shane claimed I'd get used to it, but we'd been in Cairo for nearly a week, gathering supplies, rendezvousing with the rest of his company, and I still had to struggle for breath as I stepped out of the super-cooled air of the hotel every morning. The difference between indoors and outdoors was shocking. Inside the hotel it was so cold as to make you shiver and your skin prickle: outside you couldn't move for the boiling heat, couldn't breathe for the dry pressure of the sun's rays on your skin.

  Shane's brothers were just like Shane, massive men with hard, sculpted bodies, features as planed and angular and handsome as if they'd been carved from stone by an artist and brought to life. They couldn't have been more different in personality, however.

  Where Shane was warm and genuine--with me, at least--and possessed of a razor-sharp intellect, his brothers were more physical men, their skills of the hand and eye and foot variety rather than cunning and calculation. They were cold-eyed and suave, slow-speaking and spare with the smiles.

  They were openly surprised by my presence, and by Shane's clear display of possessiveness. We met in a little cafe where old men smoked in circles from long tubes around a thing like a metal, orange-glowing spider, which Shane called a hookah. His brothers were drinking tar-black coffee from tiny cups made all the tinier by their dinner plate-sized hands. They each stood when we arrived, my hand firmly grasped in Shane's.