Free Sugar Skulls by Lisa Mantchev, Glenn Dallas Page B

every movement, begging to be grabbed and pulled and caressed.
    She presses her body close to mine and flicks her tongue across my lip before I can protest. Not that I do protest, because while part of me wants to, plenty other parts of me are more than thrilled with the recent turn of events.
    As her knee slips between mine, she smiles, triumphant, in control. Her hand moves from my wrist to stroke my neck possessively, trusting that I won’t push her away.
    I don’t. I won’t. Because, truth be told, it’s nice just to be touched again. To be wanted . My hand drifts along her arm, fingertips tracing the soft skin until I bury my fingers in her hair, pulling her mouth close to mine.
    With our lips almost brushing, I mutter, “I still don’t remember you.”
    Her answering smile is downright wicked. “You will tomorrow.”
    V
    I’m plastered against him like one of the sixty billion posters that Corporate’s hung all over town. The music’s getting louder, more distorted, the high end a shriek and the low a steady, throbbing bass line that reverberates in my chest. It’s been years since I was just another girl at the club. Just another set of lips to kiss and just another riot of fucked-up tangled hair he’s more than welcome to twist his fingers through. Just another set of wants and needs and aches.
    He doesn’t need to know my name to touch me.
    Better, really, if he never knows. That way, when the Facilitators pick him up at the Dome, he won’t connect The Girl in the Club to The Girl with the Voice.
    Maybe she’s the girl he really wants, but I’m the girl he gets tonight.
    I take a step back, bringing him with me like it’s a tango and I’m leading. There’s a bank of velvet-curtained alcoves not ten feet from where we’re standing, and a little privacy would be nice right about now. I tow him to the one on the end, push him inside when he hesitates at the entrance, follow him in. There’s a tiny bench and a mirror. The sconce on the wall burns bright and blue, painting my skin with frost.
    It’s only an illusion, a less flashy version of the thrum-collectors. I can feel myself burning up. By now I must be sparking enough energy to power the entire club on my own.
    One good yank, and I manage to rip his shirt open to the waist. Buttons fly in every direction and disappear into the darkness. He starts to object, but I’m already kissing his chest, mouth roaming over pale muscles and scars and ink. I bury my nose in the scents of clean sweat and soap and an unexpected metallic tang.
    New pennies. He smells like new pennies.
    I haven’t seen or held a coin like that in years, but I’m already past that revelation. The moment my lips touch his in earnest, everything inside me implodes.
    M
    My shirt’s open in a flash, and her lips are on me, her tongue tracing hot little swirls along my skin. My arms close around her, one hand still buried in her hair, the other stroking along her spine, fingertips trailing along the exposed skin, and she shivers despite the warmth radiating from her.
    She’s a whirlwind, a hungry, passionate, desperately fuckable whirlwind, and I’m swept up in her wake.
    The only furniture in the room is a little bench against the wall, since you need the space for couples, trios, and other gatherings of willing bodies. I sit down quickly, pull her closer, my hands on her ass as she climbs onto my lap, straddling me. Her afterthought of a shirt brushed aside, her chest against mine, I can feel her heart pounding like a speaker about to blow out.
    Grabbing two fistfuls of my hair, she yanks my head back, exposing my neck. She chuckles as she kisses along my jawline, then bites . . . not too hard, but not gently, either, like she’s marking me as hers.
    Her hands run down my neck and across my chest, her fingernails grazing my skin, one hand resting on the tattoo emblazoned over my heart. She pauses a moment and whispers the top name aloud—“Bryn”—before her mouth meets