Page 23 of Edge of Ruin (The Edge Trilogy #3)

Chapter Fourteen

Vivi

I felt so relaxed, sprawled on top of Jack. My body just couldn’t get enough contact with him.

“So?” I prompted him. “Shouldn’t we talk?”

“Probably,” he said cautiously. “I’m not feeling very articulate.”

“Hmm.” I shifted, breasts brushing his chest, my crotch rubbing against his thigh. He hardened beneath me instantly. Already up for more. Wow. The man was tireless.

“You just wait a goddamn minute,” I said with a teasing smile. “We should talk before we make love again. This is too easy!”

“What’s wrong with easy?” He groped for a condom and ripped the package open. “We can talk if I’m inside you, can’t we? Nothing’s stopping us.”

“Right,” I said. “Like I’m supposed to chitchat while a two-hundred-and-thirty-pound sex god is nailing me to his bed with his enormous thing, giving me multiple orgasms? Puh-leeze.”

“Consider it a challenge,” he suggested, rolling the condom on. “I won’t move. I just want to be inside you. Please?”

He nudged himself inside me, and stared into my eyes for the whole, long, tight slide.

I felt like I fit over his broad, pulsing shaft like a skintight glove.

I was blushing again, from my chest on up.

And I was the one who started to move over him.

I just couldn’t help herself. Manipulative bastard. He knew I couldn’t get enough of him.

I would have felt embarrassed, if I hadn’t been so busy working myself up to another climax. I flung the covers back and rode him, chest heaving, back arched.

He touched my breasts, held me, playing skillfully with my clit until I collapsed over him, gasping and sobbing, in spasms of pleasure.

After, I lifted myself up onto my elbows, hazy with residual pleasure, and realized that he was still hot and huge and hard inside me, staring into my eyes.

“Ah, Jack?” I ventured. “What about you?”

“What about me?” he said. “I’m fine. Didn’t you want to talk?”

“But don’t you need to come?”

He gave her a swift grin. “It’ll wait. No hurry. I just want to hang out, miles inside you. My dick is in heaven. It wants to take up residence.”

I buried my laughter against his silky mat of dark chest hair.

“If you say so.” I pushed myself up, pulsing my quivering pussy around him, and tried to compose myself.

Here went nothing. “I was wondering if you’d go with me into Pebble River, like Margaret suggested,” I said. “To look at rentals. For my gallery.”

His face stiffened. “You know what I think of that idea.”

“Yes, but it’s what I plan to do,” I told him. “I know you think I’m married to the road, but I took that path by necessity. Not by choice.”

“Please. Don’t make promises you can’t keep.”

I sighed in frustration. “They’re not promises. I’m just telling you my plans. Why won’t you listen to me, Jack?”

He shook his head. “Duncan will kill me if I let you do this.”

I jerked up onto my elbows. “Duncan does not make my decisions for me. I am almost broke, and I cannot hide forever.”

He let out a heavy sigh. “I see that.”

“And you can’t say there’s nothing between us,” I said, resolutely. “Not anymore.”

“I’m not saying that. But please, let’s just stay in the moment. Let’s not look at it too closely. If we do ...” His voice trailed off.

“It’ll disappear?” I finished. “You really think that about me?”

His silence was my answer. I drooped back down onto his chest, downheartened, feeling him shift and pulse. Reminding me of his presence inside my body.

“So we can’t talk about the future,” I said. “What can we talk about?”

“We don’t have to talk at all,” he suggested.

I laughed at him. “Nice try, buddy. No, we’re talking right now. So buck up.”

“Okay, then,” he said. “The past. Tell me about your past.”

I blew a wisp of hair out of my eyes. “Wow, Jack. Big topic. Want to break it down a little for me?”

“Tell me how you became an artist,” he suggested.

“Ah. Okay. Well, it was a challenge. Lucia sweated for years, trying to turn me into a civilized human. I was a wild animal, even though I loved her to pieces from the start. Hyperactive, hot tempered, foul-mouthed. I got bad grades. I had impulse control issues. I got into fights.”

“I’m not surprised,” he said. “You have a certain uncompromising quality.”

I ignored that and went on. “Lucia was determined to make me respectable. She wanted me to study something that would make me good money, turn me into a pillar of the community. She loved art, but she liked classics. She didn’t understand wild experimental art.

We had a hell of a time fighting it out. ”

“And you won?” He twirled a lock of my hair around his finger.

“No, not at first. I compromised. I agreed to study graphic design. I tried, I really did, but I was miserable, and my grades sucked, and I ended up losing my scholarship. Lucia was furious with me.”

“And? What did you do then?”

I shrugged. “I mostly waitressed and tended bar. I was a bike messenger for a while. I saved enough to reenroll in art school, one semester at a time. I survived on art show openings for a couple of years.”

He looked puzzled. “How’s that?”

“You know those wine-and-cheese receptions at art galleries when a new exhibit opens? You can find one every night in New York, if you inform yourself. Cheese, crackers, grapes, strawberries, mini-quiches, puff pastries. If you’re too broke to buy groceries, they’re great.

You can choff a day’s worth of calories all in one go. ”

He stirred uncomfortably. “You were that desperate?”

“Oh, it wasn’t so bad,” I assured him. “I saw a lot of art. It did me good. And then I met this gallery owner, Brian. I signed a contract with him. And he started to sell some of my stuff. My brief artistic golden age.”

He lifted his head. “Brian? He’s the filthy fuckhead ex, isn’t he?”

I went utterly still on top of him. “Ah ... what if he is?”

“Brian Wilder, right? Wilder Galleries, in Soho?”

I was shocked. “How in the holy hell do you know that?”

“It’s the age of information,” he said innocently. “Shouldn’t be hard to find out where the prick lives.”

“You wouldn’t!” I felt panicked, as if that poisonous toxic waste from my past could reach out and somehow contaminate this delicate, shining thing I had discovered with Jack. “Don’t you dare! Leave him alone! Promise me!”

He stroked my back. “Shhh. Don’t worry about it.”

I hissed at him, anything but reassured. “If you mess with Brian, I’ll take you apart! I will deconstruct you and sell you for scrap!”

He pressed my ass, pulsing his cock inside me. Reminding me he was the man, no doubt. Hah. “I hear you,” he soothed. “So, back to your story. The fuckhead started selling your work, and then? What kind of work was it?”

“Well, I met him during my barbed-wire and broken-beer-bottle period.”

His eyes widened. “Your what? ”

“I was rebellious at the time,” I explained.

“I felt very put upon because of my tragic childhood. I was mad at my birth mother for going to jail and killing herself. I was mad at Lucia for trying to control me, et cetera, et cetera. And I was drinking way, way too much espresso. I put all of that wild mojo into my work.”

“I see.” His voice was guarded.

“Anyway, Brian discovered me, you might say,” I went on. “Decided to clean me up. Make me marketable.”

“And you got involved with him?” He cupped my breast in his hands.

“Yes,” I said, my voice catching breathlessly. “It was a disaster. On every level, not just a personal one.”

“What happened?” He began to rock his pelvis up against me, pressing his pubic bone against my clit in a slow, circular movement.

I pushed against his chest until I was upright, glaring sternly down at him. “Don’t distract me,” I lectured. “This is hard stuff to talk about. You’re cheating!”

His hips surged, making me undulate helplessly on top of him. “Sorry,” he murmured. “You’re just so sexy. I forgot myself. And then?”

“What happened was that he turned out to be an art vampire, in addition to being an evil fuckhead. All he wanted was to make me into his money-grubbing zombie slave.”

“I see,” he said.

“And ... well, I couldn’t. I tried to be a zombie slave, but nothing came out. He got really angry. And you know the rest.”

“Yeah,” he said. “I do.”

He stared up into my hot, flushed face. The deep rocking slide of his cock inside me was impossible to resist. He held me firmly, thrusting up, stirring me around, making me gasp and bite my lip, trembling with wild excitement.

“I destroyed his office, at the end,” I said. “I was so angry. Freaked out. Out of my head. I think I smashed probably thirty thousand dollars’ worth of art.”

“Good.” He thrust harder, jarring a whimper from my throat. “Did he say, ‘You’ll never work in this town again,’ et cetera?”

“Yes,” I said, bleakly.

“And you believed him?”

I braced myself against his chest. “Of course I believed him!” I said tartly. “It was true! He blacklisted me, Jack! The guy has clout!”

He stopped moving, petting my hair. “Okay,” he murmured. “Sorry.”

“I thought I was finished,” I went on. “Then Rafael stepped in.”

“Who’s this Rafael, anyhow?” Jack frowned. “Another boyfriend?”

“Rafael? Good God, no. Rafael’s just my buddy, and besides, he likes boys.”

“So you drove off with Rafael and left the whole mess behind you.”

The finality of his voice made tension grip my chest. “Hey. Don’t you dare blame me for?—”

“I’m not blaming you,” he said. “You did the right thing.”

I was startled. “I … you really think so?”

He pulled me back down on top of him. “Yeah. I do.”

I relaxed against his solid warmth. His quiet statement soothed something deep inside me. “I think you’re the only person who’s ever said that, except for Rafael,” I said. “Lucia thought I was giving up. My sisters, too. It’s hard to go against everyone’s advice.”

He stroked my back without replying, warm and comforting.

“Poor Lucia,” I murmured. “I was a heartbreak to her. I defied her in every way. From my clothes to my ill-fated career choices.”