Along Came a Spider Ch. 04

"Say yes, Tabitha," he begged, a warm rush of sound that flooded over her and sent goosebumps prickling up her arms. Her fingers quivered as she entwined her arms around his neck, and he made a blissful noise at her touch. His firm torso molded against hers. She couldn't think straight---not when he was so close, not when he was touching her like this. However, she did know that this was a horrible idea. Nothing good could possibly come out of what was about to happen. But her traitorous lips were parting to speak as he continued to stroke her and kiss her and manipulate her, further and further until she was teetering back and forth on the very edge of her sanity...

"Yes," she whispered. It rang out in the silence of his room like a prayer. "Yes."

"Thank God," he said shakily, and she shifted further onto the bed as he removed his fingers and climbed hastily onto the mattress. She reached for him, but then he was gently tugging down her panties and rolling them down to her ankles. She felt herself blush a fierce crimson that deepened when she felt the air playing over the slickness between her thighs. She had never felt quite so exposed before, and it didn't help that he was still wearing his pants. He knelt down to crouch over her, and she watched helplessly as he fumbled with the fastenings of his jeans. Even though the room was quiet, there was a sort of deafening roar in her ears. His lips skimmed her knee, her inner thigh, and finally ascended to her hip, and delicious goosebumps prickled up her arms as his wet mouth moved over her stomach. As her fingers dug into the comforter, his blackout eyes rose to meet hers. "Are you okay?" he murmured, dragging his palm in a comforting stroke over the curve of her waist.

Tabitha's brain was swimming in a murky haze of want and nerve-wracking uncertainty, and, in that moment, she was positive that she had never been so far from "okay" in her entire life. Her eyes trailed over his bare shoulders, the taut muscles of his arms, the near-insanity that glittered in his eyes. His lips were slightly parted as he gazed down at her, like she was the only thing that existed. She wondered if she was staring at him like that, too.

Feeling weightless, she nodded her head and then lifted it to catch his lips as he dipped down to kiss her.

His hands were unsteady as he gripped her thighs and pulled them up to straddle his hips, jerking her down towards him in the process. Through the deafening thrum that had invaded her brain, she heard the buzz of a zipper. The rasp of fabric against skin followed, and then he was completely bare. They both were. That sort of closeness made her feel as if each and every one of her nerve endings was drowning in something warm and viscous. She could feel his flesh gliding against hers; cool on the surface but radiating heat deep underneath, like a hot spring trapped beneath a thick layer of snow. She didn't think she had ever wanted something so much before.

She felt a harsh ache between her thighs at his advance. His eyes fluttered shut and his lips parted as he pushed tightly into her, and Tabitha shook against the mattress, trying to embrace the fleeting sting of agony. He pulled out slowly and thrust back in, and this time, Tabitha was unable to stifle the little cry that was building up in her throat. His eyes opened when he heard her yelp, and the untethered hunger inside of them squeezed the breath from her lungs.

"Am I hurting you?" he rasped. The concern in his tone contrasted so spectacularly with the wanton chaos of his gaze.

"No," she said, inhaling shakily as he entered her with another impatient shove of his hips. A gravelly, satisfied noise sounded in his throat. His body was growing a little warmer on top of her, and she clasped him closer and squinted her eyes shut as he brought his mouth to her ear. "Oh...oh," she moaned as his lips dragged lightly against the tender skin, filling her with the rush of his uneven breathing, and she felt something low in her belly tighten and squirm when he pushed back into her.

"Tabitha," he groaned, melodious and yearning in her ear, and all of her bones dissolved into jelly. His pace was quickening, but only slightly, and she lay writhing and gasping beneath him as he thrust punishingly into her. Her fingernails raked trails over his shoulders, and he took in a hiss of breath through his teeth. There were practically tears at her eyes from sheer ecstasy, from the intensity and the tenderness of it all. "Baby, you feel so good," he whispered. Her heart leapt into her throat. Baby. Nobody had ever called her that before. She never thought she would want them to.

He pulled back to fix her with a lazy stare as he continued to take her slowly, and the right corner of his mouth lifted into a lopsided smile when he observed her quivering underneath him; fever-hot and frantic. Her hands clutched tightly at his shoulders, and she watched him with glazed eyes as he raised his left hand and grasped her wrist, then did the same with his right. Then, gently but firmly, he pinned her palms against the pillow on either side of her head and entwined his fingers in hers. The tempo of his thrusts was hastening, and she squirmed against his grip. A thrilling jolt assaulted her nerves as he brought his mouth to hover over her neck. He was so close that she could feel the pattern of his breath over her skin.

After one last, desperate slam of his hips, a shudder wracked his body, and Tabitha moaned as she felt him throb inside of her. His lips stayed a fraction of an inch away from her throat, gushing hot, ragged gasps over her flesh. There was a horrible air of restraint in the tension of his shoulders. She tried to wriggle her hands out of his, but he held her fast.

"Don't," he said breathlessly against her neck, and she felt herself go pale. "Don't move. Please." She went compliantly limp beneath him, and her eyes shut tight as he pressed his lips to her throat in a slow kiss. After waging an invisible sort of battle, his fingers finally loosened between hers, and he rose up onto his knees. She winced as he slid out of her. She was already sore, but his sudden absence inside of her evoked a fleeting sensation of something like agony. Shivering, she repressed the urge to drag him back down to her and instead pressed her rebellious hands against the mattress.

"Can I move now?" she asked.

"I think you should," he said, his voice husky. He was watching her through shadowy eyes that were still hooded with lust, and his angular features seemed dark and hungry. "I have half a mind to start touching you again." Tabitha twitched. She hoped that was all he was worried about. Almost immediately, realization and regret came crashing through the barrier of bliss that had cocooned her brain, and she rolled to the edge of the bed and rose to her feet.

"I...I should probably go," she muttered. He raised an arm to graze her shoulder with his fingertips.

"I never pegged you as the type who ate and ran," he teased, but there was a little pain in his expression. He seemed to be calming down. "Stay with me. We can watch a movie," he finished softly. He sounded so innocent and hopeful that she felt her worry falter.

"What kind of movie?" she bit out after a moment, and he smiled up at her.

"I don't know." His hands touched her hips, drew her a bit closer so he could press his lips against the area just below her collarbone. Almost instinctively, Tabitha's fingers knit themselves into his hair. "How about one with a happy ending?" he murmured. She took in a deep breath as he pulled away, then gave him a slow nod.

"I think that would be nice." She felt herself turn pink. "I have to go to the bathroom first," she said quickly, scrambling out of the room and dipping down to snatch up her clothes along the way.

He watched her in amusement as she skittered into his bathroom and shut the door, then leaned forward and stood to find his own clothes. As he yanked up the hem of his jeans, his gaze wandered towards the mattress, and his brows rose suddenly in stunned realization. But before he could attempt a closer inspection, the bathroom door opened again, revealing a now fully-dressed Tabitha.

"Do you have The Princess Bride?" she asked as she wandered back into his room, her brown eyes large and hopeful, and he furtively tugged the corner of his comforter a few inches to the right. She didn't seem to notice.

"Of course I do." He tilted his head. "Is that what you want?"

"It's my favorite. And it has a happy ending."

"Then I'd love to watch it with you." He pulled on his shirt and wriggled his arms through the sleeves, and once his face was visible again, he grinned. "But I'm warning you---I have most of it memorized, and I'm prone to spouting out lines."

After a moment's pause, she raised her chin in a gesture of mock scorn. "Only most of it?"

The two men at the kitchen table---a rickety old thing covered in scuffs and scrapes and, in the middle, a very deep crevasse from a wayward machete---glanced up at the open window as a breeze fluttered the ragged curtains. Another gust rippled their gold-and-silver hair, and seconds afterwards, a burst of wind like a living tempest flared into existence inside of the kitchen. A plate skidded off from the counter and shattered on the grimy tile, papers swirled in every direction, and the men clutched at the lapels of their coats until the whirlwind died down. When the debris cleared, there was an emaciated, naked woman sprawled out in the middle of the kitchen floor.

Her bare limbs twitched, and the men watched impassively as she lifted a horrifyingly thin wrist and reached for them. "Please," she rasped, in a voice that sounded like dead leaves tumbling across asphalt. Big pink eyes that were much too large for the rest of her face gazed imploringly up at the two of them through ropes of stringy black hair.

One of the men simply took another sip of whiskey, but the man sitting across from him beckoned her closer. Trembling, the woman heaved herself up onto her hands and knees and began to crawl towards them in a slow, jerky gait. Her elbows, which were much thicker than the rest of her arms, quivered with the effort of holding up her body. The waxy skin of her abdomen strained over her ribcage with every shallow intake of breath. When she was within reach, the man captured her jaw in his fingers and pulled her head forward.

"You must be hungry," he said. Something in his tone emulated pity, but his eyes stayed coldly affixed to her sallow face.

"Yes," the woman croaked, but her eyes grew huge when his other hand dropped down to his pants zipper. She writhed in his grip, but the man held her fast until his cock was freed from the waistline of his pants, thick and dark with arousal. Then his palm moved to the back of her head. She tensed under his hand, resisting the steady application of pressure, but within seconds, her mouth was pressed flat against him.

"Come on. Open up," he crooned. Across the table, the other man snorted and looked back down at his book. The woman's eyes fixed themselves on the porcelain plate in front of him, which was still cluttered with remnants of bread crusts and a handful of potato chips, but she quickly transferred her gaze back to her captor when he wound his fist in her hair and gave it a jerk.

"I did what you asked of me," she hissed, her voice muffled against the length of his cock.

"And now I'm asking for something else."

"You cowar---" She was cut short as the man plunged her lips over him mid-syllable. He draped one arm over the back of his chair, and with the other, he began to maneuver her head in long, slow strokes.

"Suck it a little. And don't you bite again. You remember last time," he said lazily. Her eyes burned with fury when they met his, and he let out a groan as her pale lips tightened over his cock. "Now tell me what you found," he said, pulling her back with a savage tug. She sucked in a gasp of air as she surfaced from his lap.

"A girl," she said breathlessly. He leaned forward.

"But we're not looking for a girl, are we?" he said, and she let out a jerky yelp as he thrust her mouth back over him. She sucked him desperately into her throat, eliciting another grating sound from the depths of the man's chest. "Just like that," he sighed. The man at the other end of the table rolled his eyes. One of her hands tugged frantically at the fabric of his pants, and after a moment, he pulled her back up again. "Make it quick."

"She was rife with magic," the woman gasped. "Nervous. Knows something. Wait," she said as he began to push her head back down, her hands braced against his knees. "She works across the street. I followed---" With another shove of the man's palm, her mouth engulfed his cock again.

"So you spent a whole night tailing this girl," he said in a voice that was dripping with forced patience, his green eyes following the rise and fall of her lips. "Plenty of time for some flighty creature to hop a bus, or skitter off to another city. The asshole could be crossing state borders by now and we'd be none the wiser. And we like being in the know, don't we?"

The man across the table grunted his assent into his cup of whiskey.

"The case is as good as dead now. I might as well just keep you here from now on, on your knees, doing something useful." She shook her head wildly, and he simply pushed her down further, sliding deep into the tight curve of her throat. She choked. His eyes closed blissfully as she constricted around him. "Why not?"

Her hands clenched into fists, and he watched in amusement as she struggled to pull away from him, his cock sliding slowly out from her lips. When she finally broke free, she turned to the side and spat. "There was blood on her shoe," she snarled. "Human. Stale. The building she walked to stank of it."

The man gazed down at her thoughtfully for a moment, and she wet her lips. Then, still tapping his fingers in a pensive pattern on the back of his chair, he pulled her back down and began to slam her mouth over him---eagerly now, with a new sense of urgency. She let out a strangled moan. As his tempo quickened, thudding against the back of her throat, his eyes began to slide shut in a dreamy expression.

Finally, he thrust her down one last time, buried to the hilt. Her chest heaved with the effort of taking breath, and his lips parted in a shuddering sigh. When his grip loosened on her hair, she reeled back in a coughing fit.

"Maybe we do have some use for you," he said, staring at the wall with satisfied, half-lidded eyes. She straightened and rubbed her mouth angrily, and he glanced down at her with a smirk. "You've got a little something on your chin."

She bared her teeth in a hiss---a fierce expression that narrowed her pink eyes into glittering slits of spite. "I'd be far more helpful to you, I think, were I stronger," she said through gritted teeth. The man plucked a shred of bread crust from his plate and dangled it just out of her reach, grinning as she swiped for it.

"You've been useful enough tonight." Her eyes followed the crust with increasing hopelessness as he lowered it into his mouth. He chewed it painfully slow, and with an inordinate amount of appreciation. Her lower lip quivered as he swallowed, and he rolled his eyes. "Here," he grunted, and she watched with wide eyes as he dropped the plate in front of her knees. She fell upon the shattered potato chips and bread fragments with terrifying enthusiasm, letting nary a crumb escape her. The two men watched her as she licked the salt and grease from her fingertips, then turned back to one another.

"Think we've found it?" one man said.

"No harm in checking it out," said the other.