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

under her hips, lifting them to meet him as he pounded into her. The waves of climax kept coming.

They wouldn't stop. He wouldn't stop. Cries poured from her throat into Eli's mouth as her last tiny bits of control were stripped away. She was screaming when at last he shouted and convulsed along with her.

She didn't know how long it was before he collapsed on top of her, or when he reached up to turn off the lamp. She couldn't move. Couldn't think, couldn't talk, couldn't...just couldn't.

Eli curled up next to her, laid his head on her breast, his mouth mere fractions of an inch away from her nipple. "You okay?"

"Mmm." She found she could move her hand when it was moving to touch Eli. She stroked it over his shoulder.

"Does that mean yes?"

"Mm-hmm." She found one of the little scars and paused, covering it with her finger. "That never happened to me before."

"What? Coming the second I got inside you?"

"Um, well, that too." Her hand slid to the next scar, just under his shoulder blade. "But I meant--was that a multiple orgasm?"

"I wouldn't know." He straightened, putting his head on the pillow next to her, but it was too dark to see him in the shadows. "It never happened to me before either."

His change of position brought her hand around to his chest and she sought out the first scar there, high up in the hollow of his shoulder below his collarbone.

"Really? I thought you used to have sex with anything that moved." She found the next one half-hidden by his nipple ring.

"That's probably why. It was just sex. I usually tried to make sure she enjoyed it too, but I didn't really care."

Her hand started moving over, to the little scar nestled in the hair in the center of his breastbone. He brought his cast up, interposing it between her hand and his chest. "Marilyn, what are you doing?"

"Hmm?" What did he mean? "I'm not doing anything."

"Yes, you are. What--? Are you counting my scars?"

"Oh--" She pulled her hand back. She wasn't--was she? "I didn't realize. I wasn't counting them. Not consciously anyway. I was just...touching them. Wondering about them. I'm not--not kinky about scars or anything."

"They don't turn you off?" Eli caught her hand and tucked it under his cheek. Away from the scars. He didn't mind her touching them, but the way she was going from one to the other was a little unnerving.

"No." She stroked his cheek with her thumb. "I didn't really notice them till--well, until we started making love. Until I touched them. What happened? What are they? Did you get shot?"

"I've never been shot."

"Good. So how did you get them?"

Did he want to tell her? Could he tell her? She already knew more about his life on the streets than anyone else since he left it. One hell of a lot more than he wished she knew. Even Fitz didn't know so much. Not that he'd told her, but she saw it. She knew about Flash and Teresa. She saw Teresa. She met Detective Jackson. And she was still here, still letting him touch her, letting him make love to her.

"Don't tell me if you don't want to. It's not my business."

So maybe he wanted it to be her business. "I don't care if you know. Just--don't tell the world, okay?"

"You know I won't." She leaned forward and kissed him.

Eli breathed in her scent, tasted her in the back of his throat. It made it easier to remember the past was past. He was out of that place and would never, ever go back there. "When I lived in Pittsburgh before, there was a guy--he kind of ran things--a bunch of kids--in that part of town. He--uh--liked to..."

How could he put this so it wouldn't totally horrify her? He wasn't sure he could. "He smoked. And when he didn't have an ashtray handy--which was pretty much all the time--he'd hold us down and use us--the kids--as, um, his personal...ashtray."

"Oh my God, Eli--" Her arms went around him and she gathered him in, holding him tight. Anytime he got to be next to her, got to hold her, especially naked, he wasn't about to object, and yet...

"It was a long time ago." He didn't want pity from her.

"I don't care. Shut up and let me hold you. My God, you have eighteen of them. Eighteen times he-- Dear God in heaven, you're lucky to be alive."

"I thought you weren't counting." He didn't know how he felt about that. Weird mostly.

"I wasn't. I just...know. There's five on your chest and stomach, eight on your back, three on your arms, one on your leg and one more on your hip. You're my lover. I know your body."

That thought he actually liked, that Marilyn was so familiar with his body she could name off his scars.

"I want to kill him, Eli," she went on. "I never thought I'd ever say anything like that, but I do. I want to hold him down and burn him eighteen times, and then I want to kill him."

"Relax." He couldn't help smiling as he kissed her eyelids, then her nose. "Damn, I didn't know you were so bloodthirsty."

"I'm not. Except when it comes to people hurting children. How old were you? Thirteen? Fourteen?"

"I was probably fifteen, the last time. It wasn't all at once. It took years to get all these. He quit doing me because I learned how to keep from reacting."

"I want him dead." The grim tone of her voice made him laugh and hug her tight. "Don't laugh. I mean it."

"I know you do. That's not why I'm laughing. You are so damn fierce." And all because somebody had hurt him back when he was a kid.

"Damn straight. Where is he? And don't lie because you think you have to protect me."

"He's in Shady Oaks Cemetery, Lot 517. Somebody beat you to him, ferocious woman of mine."

"He's already dead?"

"Afraid so."

"Well...good." She paused. "Was it that Fat Fred