Read By CLARE LONDON for Free Online

that his mouth claimed me. I surrendered immediately and willingly and damn, damn eagerly!
    I’d always had a healthy libido. At least, that’s what I called it, if and when I felt I should be kind to myself. I liked to touch, I liked to kiss—I liked sex. At least… I used to. But it hadn’t always gone well. Jack joked about it with me earlier, but that had been one of the reasons I left Uni so easily. I’d been both excited and confused at the freedom I had there, almost scared to realize how quickly I could get carried away with it all. But I rarely held back. Within a few months of moving into the student flats, I gathered a complex and varied sexual history. I don’t think I was indiscriminate—just hungry. And I’d always been attracted to the person, not just the body. Or so I justified it, until I reckoned I needed a wider and more exotic playground, and I moved out at the first tempting offer.
    Like I said before: a case of jumping before I was pushed.
    But I could genuinely say I’d rarely felt this rush of consuming, desperate lust—not since I was a teenager, first discovering I liked men and all their strong, sweaty, solid sexuality. Tonight I felt swamped by a terrible need, just like this guy had said. A purely physical reaction that made my head spin and my heart tighten in my chest. A deep desire to touch—to grab—to possess. I didn’t know if the urgency was coming from him or from inside myself. His hands roamed over me as greedily and fiercely as if he were afraid I’d escape, so it seemed he felt the same way. Harsh breaths escaped him like gasps, as if he was startled or angry about it. I was too consumed by my own desire to ask which it was. How long had it been since I’d had a fuck? I genuinely couldn’t remember. Something strange had happened tonight, from the minute I saw him. Something had loosened all my bonds.
    We never spoke a word, though I’d have found it difficult with his probing tongue inside my mouth. I opened up even faster than he asked of me and I sucked him in, rolling my own tongue against him, tasting the hot skin and the cool taint of iced vodka in his mouth. He was panting, and I knew damn well that I was.
    We broke apart from the kiss and his hands landed back on my shoulders like a blow, pressing me down the wall. I struggled for a minute, not sure what game we were playing. I clapped my hands onto his shoulders, acting instinctively, seeking to restrain him in return. I tried the same pressure myself, seeing if he would buckle instead. To see who’d surrender first.
    Something flared in his eyes, but they were too close to me and he was too much of a stranger for me to understand it. But there was excitement there, and a challenge that I’d never had before.
    “Get down,” he growled. Out here in the fresh air, his voice reverberated in my ear. It was richer than I’d heard in the club, a match to his dark good looks. I slid, less than elegantly, down onto my arse.
    When I glanced back up, I saw tall, shadowed buildings looming above my head from over the wall. Nothing but the featureless rear view of converted flats, where no one would venture out again until the brighter morning. This yard was obviously private. It was quiet except for the beat from the club behind us and the occasional wailing siren from the direction of the marina. It was a pregnant quiet, as we waited for each other’s next move. I was fleetingly thankful the night was dry; I knew we weren’t going back inside for a while yet.
    His gaze had followed my path—my surrender—and now he reached for my hair, tangling it between his fingers. “I like this,” he said.
    I’d been white-blond as a child, or so the care system told me. There were no photos I ever saw, and over the years it turned a darker shade. Sometimes, covered in brick dust, it looked gray. But boyfriends had told me about the glint under certain lights, gold like an old sovereign. I wore it to my shoulders and