Chapter 25 All the Fuss
all the fuss
BELL
Did I want to find out what all the fuss was about?
I could not work up enough saliva to answer. Or enough coherence to make my mouth form words.
But then Zion’s nose visibly flared again.
“My body is already telling you yes, isn’t it?” I asked with a full-face wince.
“I believe...” Zion shifted closer, his hand hovering near my hip. “That your body is conveying what you want. And it would bring me immeasurable joy to give this first-time experience to you. But, of course, I would not do so without your spoken, fully aware consent.”
I wanted to die of embarrassment.
But also, felt like I was about to die of curiosity. What would it feel like? Would it chase all the bad feelings I’d been carrying inside of me away?
“It would be touching.”
“It would,” he agreed.
Silence stretched between us. Charged, but not nearly as awkward as I would have expected it to be.
“I... I mean, if... I said yes to this. Is there a way to, um... show me what it’s like without going inside—without putting your tongue inside? And I don’t want...”
The image of Dennis plopping down between my legs with porn playing on his laptop came to lurk at the perimeter of my mind. “I don’t want you lying on top of me. I know that might be a deal-breaker.”
He regarded me for a long beat. Then said, “Your boundaries are never a deal-breaker, and there are plenty of ways to enjoy the experience without crossing either of yours. Do I have your consent to engage with you in this way?”
It was touching. It was touching, but...
I squeezed my eyes closed and nodded.
“Bell…” he said on the other side of my closed lids. “You’re aware how much I appreciate an exchange of words. I’ll need your yes. Spoken out loud.”
“Yes,” I whispered.
It only took a couple of tries.
“Alright,” he murmured. “Lie on your back. If it helps, keep your eyes closed.”
Actually, it did help.
I turned onto my back, letting myself get enveloped by the same peaceful dark I’d found in the graying black bear’s arms.
“I’m removing the blanket.”
“O-okay...”
The light summer chill of morning suddenly settled over my body, but not Zion.
“Spread your legs, sweetheart,” he instructed softly. “Provide a space for me to kneel at your altar.”
He was so unnecessarily dramatic with his wording. But I appreciated the opportunity to inwardly laugh at him as I made room for him beneath my “altar.”
And I didn’t jump when his legs grazed mine as he got in position.
“I’m unbuttoning your shirt, and eventually, removing your underwear.”
The panties I understood. That was an access issue. But... “Why the shirt?”
“I wish to look at you.” He undid the top button of his green shirt, then the next one.
“Why?” I asked, thinking of the chemise Dennis had made me wear to cover up my middle-aged body.
“Why?” Another button was loosened, and another. “Have we not made it abundantly clear how much we enjoy gazing upon you?”
I mean, I’d caught all of them staring, but that didn’t mean…
A knot of dread tightened in my stomach as he made his way down to the last two buttons.
I wasn’t a perfect specimen of anatomy underneath my clothes, like he was. He was going to be disappointed in my body. So dis—
“You’re beautiful, sweetheart,” Zion said, cutting off my despairing thoughts.
Maybe he was lying—being nice.
But I relaxed a little as he hooked two fingers under the band of my cotton underwear and even lifted my hips to help him pull them down my legs.
There came an audible sniff, once I was naked below. Then: “May I touch your breasts and lay my lips upon your skin?”
So this was what it felt like to be seduced by a Shakespearean character.
We’d watched the Kenneth Branagh version of Much Ado About Nothing a couple of weeks ago, and I was reminded of how very, very not unattractive at all I’d found the actors speaking highly stylized English.
My “yes” slipped out, breathless and eager.
“All right. I’m touching you now.”
The moment his hand made contact, I didn’t just flinch—I bucked off the mattress like he’d shocked me.
Just because he’d cupped one of my too-small breasts.
“Ssh, calm, Bell, calm,” he soothed immediately, voice gentle. “You’re safe. I won’t hurt you.”
Mortification immediately set in. “I’m sorry.”
“No need to apologize.”
“I’m not used to being touched there.”
“Tell me, are your nipples sensitive, then?” His voice took on an academic tone, even though he was palming my breast.
“No... I don’t know. I’m just not...”
“Let us put it another way. Your nipples are budded. Does that mean you like my hand here? Does it feel good, sweetheart, when I do this?”
He palmed my breast a little tighter, flicking a thumb over the budded nipple, and I felt the most delicious trill of pleasure in my core. Like he’d plucked a string on a musical instrument. Playing just the right note.
“It smells as if you like my hand here.”
I nodded. Then remembered to speak. “Yes,” I answered. “I think I like this.”
“I’m going to use my mouth here, then. First on the breast I’m touching, then on the other one.”
“Okay,” I whispered. My body thrummed with something that felt a lot like anticipation.
A pause. Giving me time to prepare, to change my mind if I needed to.
But the curiosity made me keep myself still.
Then his mouth was on my long-untouched breast, hot and wet, tongue swirling.
His chest must have been arched over my stomach because there was no pressure whatsoever other than his mouth.
Soon, I felt squirmy beneath him, core clenching air. My hand came up instinctively to my other breast, palming it and trying to tease its nipple, like Zion had.
He stopped sucking with a low laugh. “Is she jealous, then? Wanting my attention?”
“Yes,” I admitted. Feeling like a bit of a brat.
But Zion kissed his way over to that breast, and when I started squirming for real, he trailed kisses down my torso.
He kept a hand on my breast while using the other to drape one of my legs over his shoulder.
Then he stopped at my pooched stomach—the part I always tried to hide—to flick his tongue around my belly button.
I tensed, waiting for... I don’t know what. Disgust? Hesitation? A request to hold off on finding out what all the fuss was about until Ravik could get me a chemise from Barrington’s?
But Zion just hummed appreciation against my skin.
He was being so nice and careful, but also cruel. It felt like he was taking too long. On purpose.
I whimpered, achy and wanting more, but didn’t dare complain.
But I guess I didn’t have to.
“Oh, your altar’s a bit impatient,” he said against my stomach, obviously scenting something I couldn’t. “Don’t worry, goddess, I’m almost...”
The “there” never came, just the shock of his tongue making direct contact with my clit.
I bucked again—and this time there was no question of how I felt.
Good. Too good. As his tongue swirled around my button, keeping his promise not to go inside, I lost his hand on my breast because he had to bring it down to keep me still.
Zion tended toward the hyperbolic, but he had not been exaggerating about this. Jolts of pleasure shot through me as he worked his tongue over my most intimate place. My hips rose off the mattress again, pressing desperately into his shallow licks.
No matter how much I bucked, he kept grounding me with his tongue. Slow, deliberate strokes. Almost educational.
He was teaching me—oh God, he was definitely teaching me what all the fuss was about. Each lick was a lesson in ecstasy.
The orgasm with Boone had been a blast of fire, obliterating me in a burst of white light.
This was different. The pleasure spiraled through me, intertwining with my muscles, somehow melting them and drawing them tight at the same time. A slow, pulsing current turning them into sweet taffy.
One of my hands found the back of his head. It nested in his soft, wiry curls as I helplessly ground my hips into his mouth.
I used the other hand to cover my own mouth.
Something was building up inside of me. Making whimpers fall out.
But then Zion sucked that button of pleasure between his lips.
The flimsy barrier of my hand could not stop the moan that tore out of me.
Loud and uncontrolled.
I shocked myself with how much noise I was making. I’d been a silent corpse underneath Dennis, but this seemed to be the only way I could handle what he was doing... what he was doing to me with his tongue.
I’d never felt anything like this. Didn’t know it could feel like this. The pleasure twisting and building until...
A waterfall of heat flooded through me, nerve endings igniting as liquid ecstasy replaced all my blood.
It was warm inside this climax. A cascade carrying me over the edge, floating me, floating me until I eventually found myself washed up on shore.
Boneless and unable to form words.
Eventually, I opened my eyes.
To find Zion crawling up beside me, his chin and mouth glistening around a huge grin. His eyes were glowing even brighter.
“You made that quite the experience, sweetheart.” He complimented me, as if I’d done all the work.
Even though I could feel him still hard against my leg.
“Can I...?”
An image flashed—Dennis forcing my head down after he’d hit me, taking what he wanted while I bled….
I shoved it away. Tried to focus on now. On Zion.
“Can I return the favor?”
Zion stilled. Then said, “Look at me.”
“No, just let me...” I reached down for his long length.
But Zion caught my wrist gently before I could. “I haven’t given my consent for you to touch me. Look at me first. Look at me, Bell Winters.”
I reluctantly raised my gaze to his.
Zion studied me with a shrewd expression wrinkling his forehead.
Whatever he found in my eyes made the glow in his own fade, returning them to brown.
“No,” he answered in the end. “Not this particular morning, I believe. You’re not ready for that step.”
He was right.
Relief crashed over me so hard, followed immediately by an abject, all-consuming guilt. He’d just given me that incredible experience, and I couldn’t even—
“Stop that,” he murmured. “I can smell your guilt, too.”
“Can you really?” I asked, shocked that his scent receptors were that specific.
“No, not truly,” he confessed with a dry smile. “But I cannot stand that you think you owe me anything after that.”
He took my chin between two fingers. “If you had any idea how good you taste, there’d be no question of what a privilege this has been for your poor vassal.”
My guilt lifted a bit. Flatterer.
And did I mention even older artists love flattery? Apparently, in all aspects of life.
“May I hold you while I calm down a bit?”
That was touching, but...
I tentatively laid my head on his shoulder while we both breathed and watched his length slowly, eventually soften.
“It was the thoughts of returning to school on Monday for an entire week of math testing,” he explained. “I detest math.”
I found myself letting out an empathetic laugh against his chest. “Me, too.”
The laughter faded, and I knew then that Zion couldn’t really smell guilt. Because the old ugly feelings started to rise inside of me.
I don’t deserve this! I don’t deserve this! I don’t—
“So,” Zion said, interrupting my spiral, “is this when we make sugar cookies?”
A beat.
Then I said, “Actually...”