Knight In Black Leather by Gail Dayton (ebook reader ink .txt) 📕

run. But he was turned toward her, watching her, eyes never leaving her face, like he wanted to stay. Maybe. He didn't speak.

"I need to know, Eli. What is it you want from me? Because I don't think I can go back to like it was before. We've moved on. We can't go back."

"Go back...where? To the apartment?"

She was still getting it all wrong. Stupid, stupid. "No, I--Eli, you haven't touched me since we've been here. I--is it--?" She couldn't say it, couldn't ask if whatever they had was ended.

"I didn't think you wanted me to. You were so upset..."

"That was just one night. And it was ages ago."

His crooked smile appeared and he scooted across the bed toward her, his foot leaving the floor. "It was Wednesday. This is only Sunday. Not even a week."

She felt stupid. Nothing new. "Are you sure? Feels like at least forever."

"Forever and a half." Eli caught her hand with his good one which had been propping him up. Deprived of the prop, he tumbled back on the pillows, pulling her down with him, on top of him.

He kissed her, his cast bumping her head as he tried to hold her in place while rolling to bring her beneath him. Marilyn didn't mind the bump. Eli was kissing her, rubbing his lean, hard body against hers.

"God, I missed you." He growled, pushing his knee between hers.

"I was right here. I didn't go anywhere." Marilyn stroked her hands down his back, fingers pausing as they found one of the odd little scars he bore.

"You might as well have been a million miles away." Eli lifted himself onto his elbows, pushing his hips and his erection into her as he studied her face. "I made you cry like you were coming apart. When I saw you folding that damn towel over and over again--I didn't know what in hell to do."

He brushed the wandering strands of hair out of her face. "The last thing you told me was that you didn't want...sex. I was trying to do what you wanted, and it was killing me."

"Oh."

The pale blue of Eli's eyes mesmerized her as they studied her face. Her brain felt full of just-popped bubbles and Marilyn struggled to recall what it was she wanted to know. "So," she managed to say, "you still want me?"

He rocked against her, that crooked smile still on his face. "Isn't it obvious?"

"Oh..." Her faint laugh was wiped out by a gasp when he slid fully between her legs and rocked again.

"You're not so obvious, though." He reached down and started pulling up her gown. "You have to tell me what you want, Marilyn. Or show me." He grinned as his hands reached her breasts and cupped them, at least on one side. "Come to bed naked and I guarantee I'll get the idea."

He whipped the nightgown off over her head and stared down at her, blocking her hands as they rose to cover herself. "You are so fucking beautiful."

"I'm not. I'm old and saggy."

"Real." Eli burrowed his face between her breasts. "Beautiful."

His mouth on her skin, the reverence in his caresses, almost made her believe him. God knew, she wanted to believe, but the truth was there in her mirror every morning, plain as the nose on her face and the gray in her hair. She didn't know what drove Eli's delusional desire, whether it was availability or gratitude or maybe even safety. A widow who'd only made love to one other man in her whole life was certainly safe.

Eventually, the illusion would fade, he would see her for what she was, and it would end. But until it did, she would take what she could get.

"Marilyn?" Eli lifted his head, looked at her. She must have been too still. "Do you want--?"

She pulled his head back down to her breast, fingers deep in the soft stiffness of his hair, and hooked her heels behind his knees. "Love me, Eli."

"I do," he said. His mouth opened on her breast, suckling, as he dragged his tongue across her nipple. She shivered as he switched to the other, reaching down to yank off her panties. He raked his mouth across her stomach as he rose onto his knees to wrestle the undergarment past her feet and toss it across the room. "I will."

Marilyn fumbled in the covers for the condom that had fallen out of his wallet when he emptied it, but Eli took it away from her.

"Not yet." He kissed her stomach again and kept moving, lower.

She felt her face burn as much with anticipation as embarrassment. It wasn't that she'd never done this before. She had. But not often and never with Eli.

And the lamp was still on and the door was-- "Eli," she hissed. "The door's open! Pete's just down the hall."

"He's asleep." But Eli was already moving, crossing the room to shut and lock the door.

Marilyn watched him, sleek and graceful even in the clumsy casts. "You still have your shorts on."

He paused by the door and looked over his shoulder at her. "Want me to take them off?"

She shrugged, blushing hotter. "Suit yourself."

He grinned. "I will, then. You're cute when you turn all red like that."

"Oh, shut up." Marilyn hid her cheeks behind her hands, but kept her eyes wide open while her young lover, his back to her, stripped off his shorts.

His buttocks were high, tight and round, perfect, save for one of those little scars. She opened her mouth to ask what they were when he turned around and drove every thought she'd ever had right out of her mind.

She'd touched every inch of his body, kissed most of it, and looked way too much when he'd been sitting around her place half-dressed all those weeks. He still took her breath away. Broad shoulders and powerful chest tapered down to narrow hips, his state of arousal all too obvious. Marilyn couldn't quite look, and she couldn't quite not look as he walked back to her.

"You