Season of Gifts (Neighborly Affection #8)

22. Jay

Chapter twenty-two

Jay

A lice rang the bell for round two after a few minutes for deharnessing (her) and cleanup (him). Not like literally a bell, although if it was, it would’ve been a dinner bell, and Jay had the best seat in the house.

Arms resting on the headboard, head tipped down as she held him prisoner with her eyes, Alice knelt over his face and lowered herself slowly. “And if you need to safeword, tap out on my thigh, got it?

“Tap out on your thigh, yes, Mistress.” He nodded, too, pretending her musky scent hadn’t already overridden every brain cell he had left after their first round. Henry’s triple-tap signal for needing a break was embedded in his muscles, at least, so he couldn’t forget that no matter how hazy his head got.

“Mmm, good boy.” Alice swished her hips side to side, her body teasingly out of reach. “Otherwise, you don’t stop until your cock is ready to serve me or my legs give out from too many orgasms.”

That there was a win-win scenario.

Her body shadowed him, the bedroom lamps outlining her with an angel’s glow. The waves in her hair had tangled and frizzed from all the energy she’d thrown at him. He wouldn’t give her one bit less. Once she actually let him start. Making puppy eyes at her, he whined softly.

Her smile came with a soft whiff of laughter. “You’re adorable when you beg, stud.”

She sank lower, her knees sliding wider, until finally the taste of her wetted his tongue. His eyes closed in gratitude, or appreciation, or prayerful awe—whatever it was that made the first taste spread through him like fire in his veins.

Sneaking his hands up, he palmed her ass cheeks. Soft, smooth, curving perfection filled his hands.

She ground herself against his mouth, and he bumped his nose against her clit. Probably did, at least, by the way she jerked her hips and doubled down. “Not gonna punish initiative. I know how good you are at this. I want the whole repertoire.”

Between her thighs lay sweltering August heat. Stiffening his tongue, he pressed inside and drank her down in widening circles. His cock would satisfy her there when it was ready to rejoin the party, but for now it was a stationary bike. Wheels spinning, energy thumping, going nowhere. He thrust his tongue instead, good and steady, rolling his neck to add oomph and bob his nose in a hunt for that little trigger button again.

She squeezed his head between her thighs, a muffled fuck sounding from above. “Right there, mm-hmm, fuck, I could do this every night for the rest of my life.”

He kept his agreement to himself, because pausing would throw him off the beat. Her hips rolled with him, directing his pace whether she meant to or not. She’d have every right to kill him if he changed a single thing now. Feel her rhythm , Henry had told him. Move with her. You are partners, not combatants.

More intense than the scent of the newborn earth after a rainstorm, she filled him up. He breathed through his nose, bringing her into his lungs. Her heat fired his cheeks; her legs thumped against his ears. Nothing beyond Alice existed. He was her loyal stud; she’d written the words on him, making him a whole book of praises, and he meant to earn every one.

Alice rode him faster. Erratic. Grunts and groans and maybe his name, but hard to tell when she’d clamped around him so tight. Her wailing, though, that vibrated into his ears even through her thighs. That and the rush of her honey coating his mouth signaled a pause to regroup. He snatched a last sip of her before she inched back and straddled his shoulders.

They panted together, the summit so worth the climb. That view, fuck: Her breasts heaved, spilling out over the top of her Henry-green bra. She clung to the headboard above him, arms stretched out, framing her long and lean, like a swimmer in midstroke. Her hips kept twitching; when he tipped his chin to his chest, the muscles firing in her thighs flexed into his collarbone.

She shivered head to toe, gazing down at him, her nose scrunched, her smile sultry. “Great start, stud. What do you think”—one eyebrow lifted—“time to switch positions? Let’s check.”

“Ready to serve, Mistress Alice.” He didn’t have to check. His cock ached for her. Forget his earlier release; that was so thirty minutes ago. He crunched his glutes, thrusting his hips higher, wagging his cock like an exclusive invitation. “Very, very ready.”

Up on her knees, her head ducked as she peered back between the vee her legs formed over him, she rumbled approval. “Yes, yes you are.”

She dropped her hands from the headboard and flanked his face. Any second now she’d slide back, wrap his cock in her fist, and thrust herself down over him. Knees moved back first. She stretched herself low and flattened her breasts against his chest. Tiny kisses dotted his lips before she claimed a real one, gentle but still in charge, leading him with the pressure of her lips and the sweep of her tongue. She tucked her face against his neck. “Roll us over, sweetheart. Gotta give my pet a workout.”

Digging in elbows and heels, he tipped them left. She clung to him, slipping her hands behind his head and running her feet along his legs. Mostly he didn’t get this view of Alice—her hair spread across the pillow, her shoulders somehow narrower with her beneath him.

“Inside,” she murmured. “Come home.”

He quick fumbled with one hand to get lined up and not jab around like some college kid. She parted like water, letting him glide balls-deep and torture himself by not moving a muscle until she gave another command. Her and Henry, masters of making him wait. He settled on his elbows.

Her touch tickled at the back of his neck. She scratched him lightly. Twirled his hair around her fingers.

“I wonder…” She brought one hand down and wrapped his leash around her fist. “Can you do pushups like this, Jay?”

He could fucking try. One side at a time, he shifted from elbow to palm, extending his arms but keeping his hips glued to hers. “Anything you want.”

She tugged the leash. “One.”

He dipped. Added a flourish to his hips, the snapping dolphin kick from swim lessons. Pushing back up burned his arms. Firm for a mattress was too soft for good springback, more like working out on a sandy bank. “Least a few.”

Her knees splayed wide. “A few is still impressive as hell, stud.” She tugged the leash again, her eyes dark as a shadowed glade. “Two.”

She met his snapping hips with her own, their waves crashing together. His dick protested the slow slide out, her heat trapping just the tip, the extra squeeze she definitely did on purpose.

“One more for me. And then…” She licked her lips, their cherry-red edges smeared but lush and ripe as the taste of summer. “Hold me tight, Jay. As tight as you can, as close as you can, and drive as hard as you can. Fuck me, stud.”

She yanked the leash hard; the harness dug into his back. “Three.”

Fastest fucking pushup he’d ever do in his whole life.

Down, up, and down, down, down. He dropped to his elbows and tented his arms around her face. Lowered his head, his breath blowing her hair out of his eyes. His lungs burned. His hips snapped. Their abs slapped together, a crackling soundtrack of thunder. Her fingers dug into his shoulder; her other hand still held the leash coiled between them, her knuckles bony points against his ribs. She clamped her legs to his thighs so he hardly pulled back at all between thrusts, just pistoned in her heat, the two of them building an inferno.

She climbed his neck, her hand landing at the base of his skull, fingers clawing through his hair. “Fucking love you.” Her breath whistled past his ear. “All that passion. All that purpose. You—” Groaning, she panted. “You’re—”

Her back arched. She jammed up against him, lifting off the mattress, her shoulders flexing deep as he held on and pressed his lips to her neck, pouring his spiraling need into her skin. He drove his hips harder, relentless, his balls tight and his dick begging him as she tightened around him, her body a coil, a vise she meant to crush him in.

“With me,” she gasped. “Be with me.”

The inferno swept over him, turning his vision white.

He stumbled back to the here and now who knew how much later. Fuck, he’d smother her if he didn’t move. Easing up, he earned a grumbly growl and a dig at the back of his neck. He dragged his head alongside hers, rubbing their sweaty foreheads together. “Am I too heavy?”

“Not yet. Just right.” Sighing, she unwound her hand from his leash and spread her fingers across his chest. Her thumb moved in a slow arc, tracing the metal ring at the center of his harness. “Am I…” She took a shivery breath. “Am I too soft?”

Too soft? What would that even mean? If this was a fat versus muscle thing, he did not want to step wrong. He kissed her hairline. “Your soft bits are some of my favorite parts.”

She giggled.

Thank fuck, he hadn’t crammed his foot in his mouth.

“No, I mean…” The hand at his neck swept down his back and up again. “As a dominant. Am I too soft? Too easy? Not stern enough?”

Why would—

How could—

“You’re a fucking badass, Alice.” She’d made him earn his orgasm with pushups for chrissake. She’d had him on a leash for the last hour. And he’d loved every damn minute. In fact, his strength training routine was about to get more upper body work, maybe on a stability ball, for the next time she wanted him to flex. “You’re amazing. I don’t even know—is it ’cause I don’t tell you enough?”

“No…” She shook her head gently, but she clung to him with more ferocity. “I don’t know. I get these thoughts, and I don’t know what to do with them.”

Therapy. That’s the thing he did with them now. Alice of eight months ago would’ve run away rather than confess her feelings. Would’ve forced herself to stay away for a whole week, because she was so damn stubborn. He swallowed hard against his racing heart.

“This, what you did tonight?” He rolled them on their sides so he could wind his arms around her. “It was incredible, Alice. You only had today to improvise it, and you nailed it. You made tonight so special, and so us . If Henry was here, it would’ve been different, still incredible, but three-of-us us . This was you-and-me us .” He nuzzled in for a kiss. She hadn’t released the scene, so he waited for her to take his invitation before he moved his lips against hers in a rolling wave. “You’re not too soft, Alice. And I’m—thank you for trusting me enough to ask. Have you…” He slipped his hand under the back of her bra, in the flat space between her shoulder blades, where if he held her tight enough, he could feel the strength of her spine in his hand. “Have you talked to Henry about the thoughts?”

“Not yet.” She stroked the edge of his harness, the leather strap angling up toward his shoulder. “I was going to, and then…”

His mom’s heart attack.

“Yeah.”

They drew their heads back at the same time. He waited, not wanting to be the first to say it. Especially not after her fretting about not being in charge or being in charge but not enough in charge.

She gave him a sideways smile. “Let’s finish getting cleaned up and check our phones. I want to hear from him before bed, too, you know.”

He breathed easier. She knew; she felt it. Voicing how he missed their husband wouldn’t make her feel less than. “I wish he’d let us go up for a visit.”

“I know.” Her mouth twitched into a frown that disappeared quick. “I think he just has a lot on his mind, a lot to juggle. But I know he misses us. He’ll tell us when it’s the right time. Medical stuff, it changes day to day. It’s not just how he feels—it’s how she feels, too. She might not want more people in the house right now.”

“Maybe.” But it had been six days, and Henry hadn’t even sent a picture of his mom sitting up in bed or eating terrible hospital food or coming home. Seeing for himself that she was okay would be better than waiting at home and wondering. “I just feel…”

“Left out.”

Yeah, she understood.

Henry hadn’t made him feel that way in a long, long time. Not since those first few weeks, that night Henry had tried to teach him introductions and negotiations and manners. When he’d thought for sure Henry was looking to pawn him off on someone else because he’d decided Jay wasn’t worthy.

He pressed his lips to Alice’s forehead. “Let’s go check those phones.”