Iris (The Wild Side)

CHAPTER TWO

Much to my chagrin, she actually meant it about wanting to go for a walk.
I’d so been hoping she’d intended that more loosely, like, say, a walk to my car, where we would promptly drive to my house, to do the things I needed to do, and soon.
The gym and coffee shop were in a large, busy strip mall. I followed Iris out onto the sidewalk, then walked beside her as she strolled along the storefronts, glancing at her out of the corner of my eye.
She faced straight ahead, her arms swinging lightly at her sides, making no effort to touch me, or even to look at me.
I didn’t last long like that, stopping abruptly, and grabbing her hand.
She didn’t react with even the slightest bit of surprise by my movements, in fact accommodated me by shifting to lean against the wall, letting me study, letting me take in the sight of her.
And I did.
It was both torment and solace to look at her again.
An agonizing comfort.
Me, I was simple. I was order. A very neat, efficient machine that ran on nothing but air.
Me plus anyone else, well, that was another matter.
And me plus Iris, that was a monster of a machine, with all gears going at different speeds, some spinning off their hinges, just going mad, but it was a wonderful madness, at full throttle, misfiring in all directions.
It felt wonderful and dreadful.
I was breaking down, and it felt amazing.
And terrifying.
What did she have planned for me this time? What ways would she find to coil me up and let me loose? Where would it end? And when?
And also:
Why did she have to wear white?
I was trying to be civilized, but I couldn’t stand not to touch her for even a second when she looked so touchable, every bit of her skin outlined just perfectly by the thin, light material of her skirt and blouse.
My hands went to her waist, and I stepped very close, still drinking her in, my thirst working its way up to her tender lips.
“You really aren’t going to tell me where you’ve been?” I asked her, my hands running from her waist up her sides to play along her ribs, then down again, all the way to her hips, then up again, rubbing, feeling at the soft material of her clothes, craving the supple skin beneath.
“I’m not. I missed you, though. I wanted to come back and see you sooner.”
“You should have,” I told her, pressing closer, slowly but steadily hemming her in. “Why didn’t you?”
“A lot of reasons. Some of them. . . complicated. I don’t want to talk about me. I want to talk about you. How have you been? What have you been up to?”
I shrugged. It was on the tip of my tongue to blurt out that I’d been doing nothing so much as missing her, but I stopped myself.
It would be just too pathetic.
“Have you been seeing anyone?” she asked.
I tensed. I didn’t like that question, didn’t like the way she asked it like it truly wouldn’t bother her if I were.
“No,” I said, stressing the word, because I wanted to say so much more, and moreover, was terrified to ask her the same question.
I was pretty sure I knew the answer, and I really didn’t want to hear it aloud.
“Really?” she asked, looking pleased, at least. It was the tiniest, most minuscule sop to my ego.
“Really. God, what did you think I would say?”
“I was gone for two months. It seems well within the realm of possibility that you may have moved on by now. Certainly, if you wanted company of the female variety, you’d have no trouble finding it.”
“You know I’m not a social creature,” I said through gritted teeth, that small sop to my ego soaring away on the briefest gust of wind.
“But you have been going out with your friends. Meeting up for coffee, even going to bars, right?”
What the f*ck? Had she been stalking me?
The idea was too ludicrous to humor for even a second.
“I have no notion how you guessed that, but yes, I’ve been going out a bit more with friends. Trying to join the land of the living, as it were.”
“How’s that working out for you?”
I shrugged, trying to work past my agitation and just seize the moment at hand. “Okay. I’m getting used to it. I do enjoy talking to my friends. I’d forgotten.”
“I read that magazine interview you did. I enjoyed it. And the pictures were phenomenal. I take it your friend, Lourdes, came back for that photo shoot.”
How did Iris know her name? Had I told her at some point?
I couldn’t remember doing that, but I supposed that was irrelevant.
“She did. It took a few hours, but it wasn’t too torturous. You really won’t so much as give me a hint about what you’ve been up to?”
She smiled and shook her head slowly. “Well?” she asked.
My brows drew together. I had no notion what was going through her head at any given time. “Well what?”
“Aren’t you even going to kiss me hello, Dair?”
Now that…
That I could wrap my mind around. At least we were on the same page about something.
I leaned in and rubbed my lips against hers, slowly, back and forth, smudging her pale pink lip gloss, eating at her mouth, licking it off, then delving inside to taste.
She pulled back within a few short moments, moving sideways so her back was no longer to the wall. “Wait. I wanted to do something with you. I saw this on my way in.”
She grabbed my hand, tugging me to follow her.
And, of course, I followed.
She led me into one of those ice cream shops that let you choose your own ingredients, and after they mixed them all together, and you tipped them, they sang some loud song that made me wish I wasn’t a habitual tipper.
“Sit down. I know just what to get, but I want to surprise you.” She smiled at me over her shoulder as she walked away.
Her eyes scrambled my brain. I couldn’t even properly check out her ass until she’d turned them from me.
She’d said she wanted to surprise me, but I watched the entire thing from my chair, mouth dry, fists clenched.
She chose the sweet cream flavor, mixed it with cinnamon and topped it with powdered sugar, shooting me that sweet, wicked smile of hers from time to time.
I was wearing a T-shirt, but I found myself pulling at my collar, as though the loose material was too tight. I’d thought about her a lot since she’d left, but my memories hadn’t done justice to the way she made my blood pressure rise with just a glance.
It was out of hand, to say the least.
She joined me, sitting close beside me instead of across, her left hand going to my knee to rub as she arranged the first small spoonful of the sin she was weaving for me.
“Let me take the first bite, make sure it turned out right,” said Iris.
I swallowed hard and watched.
“Do you think of me every time you taste cinnamon now, baby?” she asked, the most irresistible twinkle in her eye.
I didn’t even have words for that bit of torment.
She absolutely knew what she did to me.
And she loved every second of it.
I could only nod.
“Me too. It’ll never be the same.” She leaned in very close, giving me a stellar view of her cleavage.
Her voice lowered to just above a whisper. “Just the smell of it, Dair, and I’m wet.”
I swear I forgot my own name, where I was, and how I’d gotten there as she took that first luscious bite.
I watched raptly as the cold spoon pushed past her lips into her mouth, her tongue swirling over the bit of cinnamon flecked ice cream.
F*cking hell.
As though it wasn’t overkill, she kept that spoon in her mouth for a long while, licking it, sucking it until it went past clean and clearly into dirty.
Finally she pulled it free, smiled, and reiterated her earlier mind-boggling statement. “Wet.”
I shut my eyes, done for and aware of it.
She was soothing chaos.
Like that first taste of anesthesia, before you lost your senses.
Or the venom that numbed you before it killed you.
I really couldn’t decide which.
The verdict was definitely still out on that.
“Ready for a taste?”
F*ck me and her loaded questions.
But I opened my eyes, nodded, and took everything she offered with no hesitation.
And there it was. That flavor that had been assigned to a memory I could never forget. The sweet spice of the cinnamon, the powdery texture of the sugar, and that sweet creamy flavor that tied it all together.
Yep, I was ruined for cinnamon.
She’d known it and I knew it now.
“So good, right?” she asked.
I had to agree. So good, indeed.
The ice cream was nearly finished before I glanced around at our surroundings. I didn’t think I’d looked at anything but Iris since we’d walked in.
The place wasn’t packed, but it wasn’t empty either.
It wasn’t my imagination that we caught avid stares wherever we went. It made me extremely self-conscious, though the stares weren’t necessarily condemning. Mostly they were curious.
And who wouldn’t stare at Iris?
But it wasn’t only men that stared, it was women, and even children seemed taken with her. She was a sight—tan and healthy, buxom and happy.
And beautiful.
Above all, that.
It made it easier to tell myself that she was what drew most of the attention, but I knew that some of those fascinated eyes were also caught by the sight of a much older man, following her around, seeing through her clothes, and even, shamefully, looking down her shirt at every opportunity.
I couldn’t help it. It had been so long, and if I couldn’t touch, if I only got to look, I was going to look my fill.
“Did you think about me much?” Her voice shook me out of my reverie.
I flushed, pulling harder at the neck of my shirt. “God, I thought about you. You don’t even want to know how much or what I thought about. I f*cking abused my cock, thinking about you.”
Why did I feel the need to tell her that?I mentally chastised myself.
But she cocked her head and smiled, and I knew why I’d told her.
I’d been positive it wouldn’t trouble her. On the contrary.
“You think that bothers me? I was counting on it, baby. Thinking about you thinking about me got me through some rough times these past few months.”
“What rough times? Is everything okay?”
She’d never made a comment like that before, about having it rough, but she’d thrown it out like it was common knowledge.
I found myself instantly troubled by it.
She didn’t answer, just leaned forward until all of her soft heat seemed to envelope me, the sweet flowery scent of her inundating my senses.
We were sitting side by side, only an inch apart, her lips hovering at my jaw.
“I’m glad you still have this scruff. You know how I love it,” she breathed against my skin, then rubbed her lips slowly back and forth across the edge of my jaw. Her lips were so soft, and I knew from experience they bruised easily. They were already red and swollen from the little bit of kissing we’d done earlier.
She didn’t kiss her way down so much as run her lips lightly to my throat. There, she kissed, finally letting her tongue play against my skin.
I gripped two hands into her hair and pulled her back enough to angle her for my mouth.
I started kissing her, rough, hungry kisses, where I tasted cinnamon and cream mixed with the sweetest, wildest flavor in the world.
Iris.
She moaned and pulled back.
I didn’t let her go easy, but when she said, a breath away from my lips, “Not in here. Let’s walk,” I let her pull back completely.
I followed her outside, watching her move, my cock throbbing in time to her every swaying step. To say I was disappointed when she actually started walking again was like saying I was hard.
An understatement.
I was f*cking solid rock.
“I’ve reread all of your books over the last few months.”
That drew me a bit out of my lust haze.
Her wording . . . It was off.
Reread implied she’d read them before, though I knew she hadn’t read them all before she’d left me.
“Are you saying you’d read my books before that? As in, before you met me?”
She glanced at me, her eyes amused but steady. “Would that bother you, Dair? Do you think I’m some crazy fan that’s been stalking you? Your tone tells me that you’d take that as something sinister. You think you and I are, what, the erotic version of Misery?”
She was too young to be so well referenced, but that was beside the point.
“You said before that you hadn’t read my books. I recall you were working on the first one. For the first time.”
“I never said that. You may have taken it that way, but I never said it. I said I was a hundred pages in, but I never specified that it was my first time reading it.”
“It was implied.”
“Perhaps. Does it matter? Back to my rereads. Something stood out to me. Well, something has always stood out to me, something about the way you write women.”
I tugged her hand to make her stop walking.
She really thought I was going to drop this at a subject change?
I needed some honest answers from her—for once.
“You still haven’t answered. Had you read my books before we met?”
She smirked, moving close. “Dair, I swear you always want to know the least interesting things about me. But I’ll give you the truth on this one. I started reading your books when I was thirteen, and I’ve read them all. Many times. There’s your answer. Now back to what I was saying. This has always, always fascinated me. In your books, the way you write your male/female dynamic, the women always hold all of the power. They always call the shots in the relationships. Why is that?”
My mind was a whirlwind of confused chaos at her revelation, but she’d managed to fascinate me with her question, which was just so Iris.
“Men are ruled by passion,” I told her. It was an easy answer, one I’d thought about before. “Women are more romantic, sure, but men are controlled by our desires, we’re slaves to it. I write women that hold all of the power, because you do. And if you don’t, you either don’t want to, or you’re doing it wrong.”
She seemed pleased by that answer, though I’d be damned if I knew why.
She must have known that already.
If there was any woman alive that could turn a man’s brain to putty with just one look, it was Iris.