Caught for Christmas (Stripped 3.50)

“I was thinking you could eat,” he says. “To begin with. You look like a stiff wind could knock you over. There’s only so long instant noodles can hold a person up.”

“How do you know what I’ve been eating?” I stiffen in the soft leather chair, suspicious. “Have you been in my apartment?”

He raises one eyebrow. “Jesus, woman. It was an exaggeration. At least I thought it was. If I’d known you were living on instant noodles, I probably would have been in your apartment, doing this before now.”

Great, so I’m actually a cliché of a hungry person. “You know that’s still breaking and entering, right? Even if you’re only doing it to bring me food.”

“You’re really going to talk to me about breaking and entering?”

Fair point. “Well, I wouldn’t have appreciated it then, and I don’t appreciate it now.”

He smiles, a little mischievous and somehow shy. “That’s because you haven’t tasted this vodka cream sauce. I have a feeling you’ll be singing a whole different tune then.”

My stomach clenches hard at the thought, and I’m afraid he might be right. I’m so hungry, both for food and for someone who gives a damn. He’s standing in front of me, offering them both.

It’s just a mirage though. When I drag myself through the sand to get to him, I’ll find he was never really there. What future can there be for us? At some point he’ll have to turn me in. He can’t let me break in and go free. He’s too much of a Boy Scout for that.

His gun is sitting beside the bag, and it’s a painful contrast. The way he’s taking care of me and the way he’s threatened me. The hard soldier and the man who could have been my boyfriend.

He pulls out an aluminum container and opens it, revealing stuffed pasta in a cream sauce. Another package reveals a jumble of glistening garlic bread, studded with golden-white flecks of garlic and green herbs. His strong hands rip a piece of the bread and dip it into the sauce.

Then he holds it up to my mouth.

It smells delicious, almost painfully good, and my stomach caves in on itself in anticipation.

I force myself to wait, though, because I’m used to denial. I’m used to wanting. “You could use a fork,” I say, my voice only a little unsteady.

“I could,” he says, “but I like it better this way. I’m hoping you’ll trust me a little more if I’m the hand that feeds you.”

“Very funny,” I say darkly.

“Who’s laughing?” he counters, pressing the food to my lips, making them wet and slick with cream.

I can’t ignore it any longer. I can’t deny myself what I want—what I need. I open my lips, and he presses the bread inside. It’s like rapture on my tongue, a burst of salty flavor that resounds through my entire body. A moan escapes me, long and low, and I actually clench my thighs from the sensual force of it.

His fingers follow the food, his calloused flesh a contrast to the soft bread. He slides them along my lips before pulling out again. His eyes are dark, and I know he’s hard as a rock behind his jeans.

I swallow and beg him with my eyes for another bite. He’s already ripping off another piece, already dipping it in the cream. We perform again without a word, his offering at my lips, my acceptance and his entry. He touches me again, finger pad over my tongue, and this time I moan for a different reason.

I swallow again, knowing that I’ll follow him anywhere tonight. “What happens after this?”

He looks down at his hands. In a slow, deliberate motion he brings his forefinger to his mouth and sucks it clean. The motion is straightforward, the way someone might lick a crumb off their own finger. Except there’s nothing there except a lingering taste from my mouth. It’s like he’s kissing me, tonguing me, without even touching me, and I feel the sensation to my core.

“Then it will be my turn,” he says.

Chapter Nine

He opens more containers and feeds me lasagna and gnocchi and braciole that falls apart in my mouth. There’s enough food here to feed me for a week or maybe longer, but he’s only giving me bites of each dish. My stomach has tightened from a month without much food, and I fill up quickly. He seems to notice that, and he reaches for one black container he had set aside.

Inside is a layered cake, rich brown on the bottom and lighter layers of cream on top. Without a word he spears a fork inside and holds it up for me to eat. Chocolate sweetness bursts on my tongue, and I think my eyes roll to the back of my head. It’s too much pleasure, too much goodness.

A soft sigh escapes me, along with the question I’ve been holding in. “Why?”

“Why what?” His eyes are dark, and I know exactly why. This thing between us has turned sexual. Or maybe it was sexual all along. When he tied me up, when he waited for me in the dark.

All of it was leading to this.

My voice is low, a side effect of the decadence, the richness he’s been feeding me. “You could do anything you want to me. Why this?”