Page 90 of Kiwi Gold
PURPLE FOR MYSTERY
Lachlan
My head came up, and I listened.
There it was again. Three soft knocks at my back door.Tap-tap-tap.Then silence.
Some drunk student,my head tried to say, but my heart wasn’t listening. It was propelling me to the door, and when I opened it …
Laila, in a dressing gown, her dark hair in a plait over one shoulder, her arms wrapped around herself. Nerves, or cold.
I looked at her, and she looked at me. Then she opened her arms, and I stepped into her, and I couldn’t think any more about what was fair, or what was right. She smelled like jasmine, and she felt like oblivion.
Dark beauty. Night beauty.I had my hands around her head, feeling the silken texture of her hair, and I was kissing her mouth, her cheeks, then back to her mouth again, holding her like she was the last good thing in the world. Her hands were on my shoulders, and I could hear the hitch in her breath when I kissed my way over to her ear. I was smoothing her already-smooth hair with one hand, then walking backward through the door and into my bedroom, where my bag still sat undisturbed on the bed. I knocked it to the floor and sank down with her, feeling the bounce as we hit the mattress, and then I was kissing her better, her mouth was open under mine, and her eyes were closed. I could feel the excitement in her like it was a live thing, could sense the flutter of her heart under the silk, and the tenderness was rising in me along with the hunger.
Soft lips, and a mouth that tasted spicy-sweet, like ginger and honey. Her tongue touching mine, almost shy. My fingers at the nape of her neck, brushing over the baby-soft hair, feeling her shiver. Her hand running over my upper arm like she wanted to feel the muscle there, then gripping my shoulder, hanging on. My hand reaching under her, pulling her over me so she was in my lap, so I could kiss her better, and the gasp when I did it. And then, finally, my mouth drifting over to her ear and the tender skin beneath. My thumb brushing over that spot, because I still had hold of her nape, and then I was kissing her there, and she was shifting in my lap. Not making any noise, but the tension in her was winding up higher, and I could feel it like my body was wired to hers.
I had my mouth at her neck, grazing her skin with lips and teeth, my hand on her thigh pulling her closer, the fabric of her dressing gown thick and slippery under my fingers, until I realized, through the dark blood that was pulsing through my veins, that it wasn’t silk I was touching. It was skin, because the dressing gown had parted, and whatever she was wearing under it had ridden up high.
I was trying to be gentle. Trying to go slow, with my body urging me on, wanting to run away with this. I forced my mouth to soften against her neck, to listen for her signals, but I needed more. I needed something else.
I sat back, tried to breathe, and watched her golden eyes flutter open, her mouth part. She said, “W-what?”
My voice didn’t even sound like mine. “Take down your hair.”
* * *
Laila
I didn’t want to come back to myself. I didn’t want to think about what I was doing. I wanted Lachlan’s hand on my bare thigh again, and his mouth at my neck. I wanted to be carried away. I was in his lap, and I didn’t want to think about that, or to ask myself if it was a good idea.
His eyes, though. The look on his face when he’d opened the door. If he needed this, if it was helping him …
I shoved the covered elastic down over the tail of hair, and then I began parting the strands, unplaiting the sections of thick, wavy, coppery hair, the most troublesome, time-consuming, labor-intensive part of my life, my one vanity and my secret pride, and never mind that it had never been special to anybody else.
When I parted the final sections, Lachlan’s hand came up to comb through them for himself. He dragged his fingers slowly down through the strands, and then the other hand was there, too, and he was wrapping his hands in my hair, turning them over and over again, watching himself do it. When his eyes came up to meet mine, I caught my breath at the hunger there.
His hand at the back of my head, and his mouth on mine. Not careful anymore, because he couldn’t be. He was devouring me, and I was falling. I felt his other hand parting my dressing gown, slipping inside to hold me at my waist, and I had my own hands on his shoulders, his arms, greedy for the feel of him.
The doorbell rang.
Lachlan’s mouth stilled, but when my head would have come up, he held it tighter. “No,” he said. “Some wanker, that’s all. Student.”
I said, “What if it’s the girls?” and felt the knowledge of that hit him.
The doorbell rang again, and then somebody was pounding.
Bang. Bang. Bang.Lachlan’s bedroom was at the back of the flat, but I could hear that pounding just fine.
He said, “That’s not the girls.”
I got off his lap, and he took my wrist and said, “Stay. Whatever this is—stay. We don’t have to …”
The doorbell rang again, and somebody was shouting. Somebody wasroaring.
Oh, no.
* * *
