All Other Things

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An Excerpt From: ALL OTHER THINGS

Copyright © CHARLOTTE STEIN, 2011

All Rights Reserved, Ellora's Cave Publishing, Inc.

He thought she was a prude.

“I’m not, Kieran, all right? He’s the—”

She cut herself off before the accusation could come out. Mainly because it felt as though she’d been manipulated into saying something again—but also because she couldn’t be sure. She just didn’t know if her husband was the very thing Kieran had just implied of her.

How did you judge levels of prudery? He didn’t flinch when she swore or act disgusted on the rare occasions they did have sex. He just didn’t seem to want it enough—or at least, not enough for her.

God, it was nowhere near enough for her. She could feel her sex aching right now, right this minute, and for no more than Kieran saying fuck, fucker, fuck me in a voice that curled up at the edges, like burning paper.

“So he just won’t do the things you want him to?” he asked, and this time it was a question. It brushed against her, gently, nothing about it too forward—as though he knew he’d gone too far with the fucks.

“Sort of.”

She thought about Tommy’s face between her legs, licking slow and steady until she felt sure she might pass out. Tommy with his big hands on her hips, that look on his face like someone concentrating too hard on a problem they couldn’t solve.

“He’ll do some things… It’s more like he just doesn’t want it enough.”

Yes. Yes. That was the crux of the issue. He’d go down on her, fuck her in different positions…most of the usual stuff. He just wouldn’t do it often.

“Doesn’t mean he’s having an affair.”

She glanced at him then. Of course, she couldn’t for the life of her tell if he was just trying to placate her or not. He sounded sincere, but with Kieran, sounding and being were two wholly separate things.

And there was this look on his face too…the low look again. The one that always reminded her of headlights dipping on a car—maybe as it sped toward a deer trapped and hypnotized in the middle of a road.

“You ever see him jerking off?” he asked, and she just couldn’t help it. Her body reacted to him talking like that—in a way Tommy never would. Yeah, that was one thing Tommy would never, ever do.

Talk dirty. He never talked dirty—hell, he rarely even moaned or gasped or did anything to show how good her mouth or cunt felt on him.

“No.”

“Not ever? Middle of the night, in the shower, while you’re watching—nothing?”

She stopped then, and considered. Really considered.

“I’ve never seen him jerk off.”

It seemed amazing to her, this realization. But it remained true, nonetheless. She had never seen her husband touch himself in any way, shape or form. Not even to get hard, in preparation for sex.

“Well believe me, doll, he’s doing it. But the question is—how often? If he’s getting his jollies elsewhere he’s not going to be fucking himself daily, is he?”

“He wouldn’t need to do it that much. He’s just…not very sexual.”

This time when Kieran laughed he made a sound. A real, honest-to-God sound—one that made her flush from head to toe. Lord, he thought she was ridiculous.

“I hope that’s not what he told you. Come on, Bea. You’re smarter than that. Most guys need a little something more than every Sunday night at half past ten.”

The flush deepened, to hear him say those words. How in God’s name did he know about every Sunday night at half past ten?

“Really? How often do you need it?” she asked, then couldn’t quite believe she had. He was going to say something abominable now, something she’d never be able to get out of her head.

“Why don’t you look at me and tell me what you think?”

She couldn’t resist. He had tractor beams attached to her eyeballs, and putting all power to the engines didn’t stop her head from turning.

“Twice a week?” she tried, but it sounded pitiful even to her ears.

His many-toothed smile, the way his tongue curled up to touch his upper lip—those things told her the rest. Or at least, they did until he decided to hit her with actual words.

“Honey, I’m lucky if I get away with twice a day.”

Of course she’d known. She read enough Cosmos to get a pretty accurate picture of what men liked sexually. But everything about this moment, right now, kind of made her wish she read a magazine called Denial Monthly instead.

“Yeah, but you’re pretty disgusting,” she said, then cursed herself for not going with a better word. A sweeter word that more accurately summed up how she felt about Kieran Murphy.

“You really think he’s going to be any different from me? Men are disgusting. We’re disgusting pigs who just want to rut and sweat and fuck everything that walks, and any man who says otherwise is a liar.”

How weird that she suspected—with some sort of surety, for the first time ever—that he was being just that—a liar. He was lying. Though about what, she couldn’t say. He certainly seemed like a giant man-slut.

She watched him flick away the smoldering end of his cigarette, body language suddenly jagged. An almost-sneer curling up the corner of his mouth as he pushed away from the bike-stand they’d been leaning on, in this little sheltered place behind the Werner and Marcus building.

Any second he would go back inside, back to his lair of IT. And then maybe next time he wouldn’t call her over for a chat as she made her way to the door with her lunch in her hand. He wouldn’t say her name—like every other person in this place, who didn’t know her from Adam—and ask her how she was doing.

And all because of the feeling growing inside her. The one that told her she’d said something wrong to him, something that required an apology.

Even if the notion of apologizing to someone like Kieran seemed ridiculous, on the face of it. He didn’t give a shit what people thought of him. He didn’t give a shit about anything. She wasn’t even sure if he regularly brushed his hair or ironed his clothes.

Right there, standing before her in the gloomy light with one hand in his back pocket, he appeared singularly rumpled. The start of a beard scratching over his sharp-boned face, dark hair tangled and half curly. He looked as if he’d just rolled out of someone’s bed five minutes ago.

Though it wasn’t the general air of lustful disarray that caught her attention. It was his gaze, his steady and unwavering gaze, and how cold it should have seemed.

Did the cold ever burn like this?

“I’m sorry—I didn’t mean that about you being disgusting,” she rushed out too suddenly, but he didn’t make her feel embarrassed for it. He smiled instead—with just the corners of his mouth. The middle part stayed downturned, and there was only the barest hint of light in those amazing no-color eyes.

“I don’t think your husband’s cheating on you, Bea,” he said, but he was backing away toward the building as he did so. It made her want to go after him, to pull him back, but just thinking about touching him flooded her body with heat.

And then by the time he next spoke he had to almost shout. He had to declare it from the rooftops.

“Because if I was your husband, I’d never stray. No force on earth would make me want to fuck anyone but you.”