Hold Me Close. Megan Hart

her knees in front of him with her head tipped back and the pain arcing through her as hot and electric as pleasure, so little difference between the sensations that she could not have said which she was actually feeling. Everything was tangled up, knotted and twisted, one feeling useless without the other.

      Heath kept his grip on her wrist but let go of her hair so he could tug open the button and zipper on his jeans. His fingers fumbled and faltered as he managed to get his cock out. Thick and long, glistening at the head with clear, sweet pre-come... Oh, God, how Effie loved his cock.

      She closed her eyes and whispered the words once more. “Say it.”

      “I want to fuck your mouth, Effie.”

      She cried out, low and aching. Her head fell back again, and she opened her eyes to look up at him. Heath, her Heath. He stroked his length up and down, then held himself at the base and dragged his cock along her lips until she opened for him. She took him deep, all the way, letting her throat muscles go lax.

      Nothing mattered but this. The taste of him. The feeling of his flesh against hers, her lips stretched wide to take him in, the clutch of both his hands on the sides of her head, forcing her to let him do exactly what she’d ordered him to say. To fuck her mouth, slow and deep, then faster until her teeth grazed him and he wrenched her head back again to stare down at her with that open mouth.

      His open. Fucking. Mouth.

      Heath’s mouth made her crazy with longing. She wanted him to kiss her. To eat her alive and spit her out. To say her name the way he said it now, full of warning and that softness more dangerous than any threat. The sound of his love for her.

      It hurt worse than anything ever could, that sound. It made it impossible for her to pretend he was just another man. It made it unimaginable for her to remember that there had ever been anyone for her but Heath.

      Effie opened her mouth, unvoiced, offering herself to him. She’d begged him in the past, more than once. She might do it again now, if demanding didn’t work.

      Once more, Heath drew his cock along her mouth. Her lower lip. The upper. He eased the hot, thick flesh inside, then out before she could take more than the smallest taste, and at this denial, Effie moaned.

      “You want it.” His voice, deep. Hard. And somehow, always, always with the tiniest hint of wonder, as though he couldn’t believe she was doing this.

      That doubt made her hate him.

      He must’ve seen it in her face, because his expression hardened. So did his grasp in her hair again. When she didn’t wince or cry out, Heath pulled harder.

      “You want it,” he repeated.

      “Yes. Fuck my mouth. Let me taste you. I want...” She lost her words. There was only that pleasure-pain. Only oblivion.

      Heath pushed himself inside her mouth, then withdrew. He did it again. Effie lost herself in the leisurely rhythm of it. When he pulled her off his cock, she murmured a protest.

      “I want you,” Heath said.

      You have me, Effie thought but didn’t say aloud. You will always have me.

      She got to her feet and turned as he pushed her dress up over her hips. Heath hooked her panties down over her ass and thighs, then off. He kicked her feet wide as he pushed her forward over the back of the couch, one strong hand at the nape of her neck. The other guided his cock inside her. She cried out again at the forbidden stroke of his bare heat inside her.

      Heath was always risk and danger.

      He was always her safe harbor.

      “Tell me how much you love fucking me,” he said.

      Effie stretched out her arms and pressed her cheek to the backs of the cushions. She gripped the couch. She tilted her ass to urge him to fuck deeper inside her, deep enough to hurt.

      “I love you fucking me.”

      Heath’s fingers dug into the scant flesh above her hips. He would leave marks she’d have to explain away. Or maybe not. Maybe Effie wouldn’t say a word; she’d simply let the bruises speak for themselves.

      “Touch yourself.” Heath spoke on a grunt.

      Her hand slid between her legs, fingers finding her clit and rubbing, rubbing as he moved inside her. She would come from this, or from his thrusts, or from nothing but the thought of fucking him. That had happened, too. The pressure and slickness of her fingertips pushed her closer to orgasm. Faster, too, matching Heath’s pace. The sound of his breathing and the quickness of his pace told her he was close. Effie stopped her circling touch.

      Heath wasn’t having any of that. He slapped her ass, a sharp, stinging crack. “You’re going to come for me, Effie.”

      She wanted to come. She might not, in fact, be able to stop herself from it. They both knew it, though she sometimes wondered if Heath doubted the inevitability of her orgasms the way he doubted her love. She kind of hated him for that, too, for being unsure that he was getting her off even as he got closer and closer to coming himself.

      He slapped her ass again, harder this time. More bruises. The thought of dark purple and blue fading to green and yellow on her pale skin, that was what bucked her hips forward. Pushed her clit into her touch. That’s what, in the end, made her come with a harsh and rasping cry. She shook with the ecstasy, was made blind with it.

      Heath pulled out. Wet heat slapped her buttocks and lower back. It would stain her dress. She didn’t care.

      “Effie, Effie, Effie,” Heath cried. “I love you.”

      That was the thing about love, though, wasn’t it? When you loved somebody, you wanted to give them everything you could. You wanted what was best for them, no matter what. You wanted them to move beyond what was awful and terrible, beyond anything that had ever hurt them. She would never be able to do that for him, nor he for her. They would forever and always be a reminder to each other of all the things Effie wanted them both to be able to forget.

      So, although she knew he was waiting for her to say it back to him, Effie only listened.

       chapter two

      “Where’s Polly?” Heath, hair wet from the shower, tucked the towel tighter around his lean hips and slid onto the stool at Effie’s breakfast bar.

      “School, hello.” She glanced at the clock as she flipped the grilled cheese she was making. Just past noon. She had work to do, several paintings to finish and some paperwork to deal with. Updating her Craftsy store with photos of her new pieces was going to take some time, too.

      “What’ve you been working on?”

      He always asked her that. Effie shrugged. “Same old. I got a few new orders for some licensed products from a new company. They do mugs and mouse pads and stuff, not just T-shirts. And you know Naveen?”

      “He has those two galleries, right?”

      Effie nodded. “Yes. He hangs my pieces there in between regular shows, the stuff I feature online, and ships it for me when I make a sale. Well, I have a few things I need to get sent off to him, and I got some custom orders recently, too.”

      “Sounds like you’re busy,” Heath said.

      “It’s work,” Effie said. “Keeps the lights on. Pays the bills. Lets me afford grilled cheeses.”

      The first painting Effie had ever sold went for just over ten thousand dollars. Now her pieces went for under a grand. She priced them that way on purpose. More work, more sales, a steadier income. She was too aware of the precariousness of her popularity—people who collected bones from sideshow freaks and signed poems from incarcerated serial killers could be fickle, and she’d done her level best to stay as far out of the victim spotlight as she could. She could’ve sold more, earned more, if she’d been willing