18. The Warning Bells Are Ringing
Chapter eighteen
The Warning Bells Are Ringing
F or as many times as we’d fucked, I’d only been naked with JP twice.
The first was three years earlier, obviously. I’d dropped his robe to the ground and stood in front of him fully naked, my heart pounding out of my chest as I lied about not being a virgin. The second was the beginning of this summer, since that was the last time we’d been somewhere I didn’t have to keep my shirt tucked under my armpits while JP licked and sucked my nipples in case someone pulled into the parking lot and I had to tug it back down before their headlights caught my headlights.
Or somewhere that I hadn’t purposely worn a skirt so all he had to do was bunch it around my waist and push my panties to the side to enter me.
Or where we weren’t trying to stay quieter than the trees and leaves rustling around us, my pants keeping my legs trapped together as they circled my thighs and his tugged down just enough that he could take his cock out.
I told myself that was why he luxuriated in the act of stripping me, why he peeled off my tank top and unhooked my bra like he was one of those nerds who saved the wrapping paper off a gift instead of tearing it to shreds to see what was beneath. He was indulging in the space around us, not confined by the backseat of a car or stuck kneeling on an air mattress.
After getting me topless, he pressed quick kisses to each of my breasts before reaching for the waistband of my shorts. Before he could pull them down, I pressed my thighs together, reaching down and touching his wrist. He looked up, eyes patient but curious.
“Shirt off,” I said.
I half-expected him to tease me for wanting to see him shirtless, but he didn’t say anything before pulling his T-shirt off. And yeah, maybe I didn’t get to slowly luxuriate in the way he got naked the same way he had with me. But I couldn’t deny the way he reached behind his head and tugged his shirt off by the neck before dropping it unceremoniously to the floor was hot as fuck .
I was going to stop him again once he had my shorts and panties off to insist he take his jeans off, but before I could speak, he put a hand on each of my thighs and parted them. Moving between my legs, he dipped down and took one of my nipples in his mouth.
“Fuck,” I breathed as JP’s teeth dragged along my nipple, sending shocks of arousal skimming across my skin. He smiled against the swell of my breast, reaching up to flick his thumb across one nipple while tugging gently at the other with his teeth, and the breathy moan dancing in the base of my throat twisted into a whimper. I squirmed uncontrollably beneath him, like it would soothe the sudden fire in my core, and JP hummed a low rumble of appreciation.
“Do you know how addictive it is to hear you make noises like that?” he asked, releasing my nipple so he could soothe it with his tongue.
“Like what?” I gasped.
He nipped at my nipple a third time, pressing a tender kiss to it before I’d even finished crying out.
“Like that.” He buried his face in my cleavage, kissing between my breasts as he squeezed one in his palm. “There’s only one thing more addictive than biting your nipples and making you squeal.”
“Let me guess,” I said. “Staring in the mirror at your own reflection while jacking off.”
He laughed. “That’s a close third.”
“Third?”
“Mm-hmm. Second is this.” He moved his lips to my nipple and tormented it with his teeth again. “And first…”
He didn’t finish the sentence, but I figured it out anyway. All it took was a few of the quick kisses he peppered down my ribs and stomach, pressing one after another to the spot above my belly button piercing and below it, then to the curve of my belly, top of my mound, and—
“F-Fuck,” I stammered as he worked his fingers between my folds and spread me open so he could place a kiss directly on my clit.
“In a bit,” he murmured. “Gotta eat first.”
And he fucking ate .
I couldn’t keep still as he licked me. His tongue was everywhere, not like he couldn’t find his way around a pussy but like he was tasting every inch so he could pick his favourite spot, comparing and contrasting and narrowing things down until he could decide.
And luckily for me, he decided on my clit.
“JP,” I gasped as he slipped two fingers inside of me and curled them so heated pleasure radiated from my core. “I’m getting close.”
He lifted his head for all of a moment, just high enough that I could see my wetness coating the lower half of his face. It was so slick I thought it might drip off his chin like juice and his eyes were wild, like he was so drunk on the taste of me that he wanted to drown in it.
“Grab your tits,” he said in a mumbled rush.
“Huh?”
“Tits.” He grabbed my wrist and shoved my arm up until I let it fall onto my breast. “Touch.”
I almost laughed at the pseudo-caveman speak he’d resorted to, but he lowered his mouth to my pussy again and started sucking on my clit. Lightning jolted through my body, along my skin and down to my bones. Moaning, I grabbed my breast as he’d directed, pinching my nipple between my fingers. He pushed his other hand between my legs and traced down my slit until he reached my asshole. So much of my wetness had collected on his finger that he dipped it in without warning, slipping it into the tight ring of muscle and sending me past the point of cognition and into a realm of sensation.
Slamming my eyes shut, I squeezed my breast harder. My other hand ended up woven in JP’s hair and my back arched off the bed. An orgasm erupted through me and I tensed, not able to stop myself from writhing, from hooking my leg over his shoulder so I could use it to both grind against JP’s tongue and push him closer, from nearly choking on the overwhelming pleasure that escaped as moans from my throat.
The whole time I was coming, his tongue didn’t stop. He kept licking, kept fingering, kept drawing out my pleasure until every moment of bliss had passed and all I could do was relax back against the bed. Only then did he slowly withdraw his fingers from my ass and pussy, dragging his tongue along my slit for one last lingering taste before sitting back on his knees, eyes on me as he ran the back of his hand across his grinning mouth.
He'd barely finished wiping his face before I was sitting up and curling my legs under me so I could dart forward and get his pants off.
“I didn’t make you come hard enough to need a recovery period?” he asked as I worked his button open.
“Are you saying you don’t want me to fuck you?” I asked, tugging his zipper down.
I expected him to laugh, but he didn’t.
“Don’t put those fucking words in my mouth,” he growled instead, and it was a surprising enough sound that I glanced up. Darkened blue eyes met mine, hungry and deep and eager, and a second later my hands were swatted away so he could take over and get his pants off.
The gravel in his voice might have been unusual, but the eagerness and urgency of his actions weren’t. The way he pushed his jeans down, the way he twisted on the bed, the way I crawled back onto his lap: there was so much familiarity in all of it that it went unspoken. I knew he wanted me on top, wanted me to sink onto his cock in that one smooth, sudden motion, wanted us to go from stripping to kissing and kissing to grinding and grinding to riding, skin to skin and thick cock buried in wet pussy.
I knew he wanted me to fuck him, really fuck him, bouncing on his dick like all that existed was our bodies and our pleasure. He wanted to feel me stretch around him as much as I wanted him to stretch me, the sound of our skin slapping together a beat to the melody of gasping breaths and primal moans.
I knew all of that because we’d done this so many times. Which meant I also knew how long it should have taken to make him come.
And when that time passed and passed and passed , and I made myself come on his cock again and was working my way towards a third and he still hadn’t finished, I knew I’d been right about something being weird.
“JP,” I murmured, slowing my pace.
“Mmm?” His fingers were digging into my hips and he had his eyes closed, his head tilted back.
“I know I’m not doing anything wrong because I’m really good at this—”
He made another humming sound, paired with a soft chuckle. “You are, babe. You’re so fucking good at this.”
“…but?”
His breath hesitated in his chest. I bit my lip.
“You can tell me if you need something different,” I said. “If this isn’t working for you.”
A heartbeat passed before he opened his eyes and looked up at me. “Yeah?”
“Yeah.”
“How different?”
I gave him a scolding look. “ That doesn’t happen until after the Diamond Gala.”
He laughed again, his hands tightening on my hips. “But something a little… more different?”
I had no idea what that was supposed to mean. My guess was something kinky. And while I was usually up to try something kinky, I wouldn’t try it with just anyone. But with JP…
Well.
With JP, I would.
“Yeah. More different is okay.”
His tongue poked out and he hesitated for another moment, then sat up, his cock still inside of me.
And yeah, I’d said we could do something different.
But I didn’t know it would be different like that .
That it would make something ring through me, something like a warning.
That the little voice I’d ignored to fuck him and fucked him to ignore would rise, barely more than a whisper but as clear as calm water.
I didn’t know any of that would happen. But it did, and the hands that had been squeezing my hips one moment were around my waist the next.
One moment, he’d been watching my tits bounce. The next, his eyes were boring deep into mine.
One moment, I was riding him hard, giving our bodies what they’d been craving.
The next, his chest was pressed against mine and he was kissing me, giving into a different kind of craving. Our pace slowed to a stop and I fell in his arms, letting him guide me onto my back again.
Suddenly we weren’t fucking. Not the way we usually did. He was moving inside me, his body connected to mine, quiet words brushing my lips as he whispered how good I felt.
How he'd been dreaming of being inside me.
How hard he got when he remembered how hot and how wet and how smooth my pussy was.
How much he'd needed this.
How he'd needed me .
My legs wrapped around his waist and my arms around his back. His cock was buried inside me as I held him close, kissing him back as our breaths synced and pleasure built and built and built, and it wasn’t fucking.
That wasn’t fucking .
And I…
“Fuck,” he said, the words a breathless gasp.
Fuck.
“Nellie.”
I opened the eyes I didn’t remember closing, looking up into blue ones hazy with need and clouded with confusion.
“God, what are—” He cut himself off with a groan, bowing his head as he pushed deep.
I liked it.
“Why is this—"
“I don’t know,” I whispered. I wouldn’t have known even if he had finished what he was saying. “Just don’t…”
Fuck.
We couldn't. Shouldn't. But…
Fuck .
“…don’t stop.”
He groaned, moving his face so it was buried against my neck.
“Keep holding me,” he whispered. “Please.”
That sensation of ringing rushed through me again, something silent that resonated around my spine, but I kept my arms wrapped around him. I held him like that until I came again, shaking in his arms and clutching him against me.
And that should have gotten him over the edge. It wasn’t like I had a magical pussy or anything, but I mean, if it felt good when I made a girl come with my fingers or my face, I imagined it had to feel amazing on someone’s dick. But when I finished, he still wasn't done. I turned my head, pressing a kiss to the side of his. There was another soft groan, desperate, his breath hot on my skin.
“God, I can’t… fucking…” he mumbled, then trailed off.
“Can’t what?” I asked.
He shuddered, his shoulders trembling beneath my palms. I tried to finish the sentence for him in my mind, telling myself that he couldn’t hold back, that he was close, that he was going to come inside me and then we’d figure out what the actual fuck was going on here.
But a moment later, he lifted his head, blue eyes full of contradiction like he was holding back and pleading with me at the same time.
“This is gonna sound stupid,” he whispered as he slowed his thrusts.
“Most of what you say sounds stupid,” I whispered back.
He laughed. “Can you lie to me?”
“Lie?”
"Yeah."
“About something specific or…?”
“Can you just say something like, uh…” He trailed off, his throat flexing as he swallowed. “Say you’re mine.”
I blinked. My lips parted but nothing came out and JP winced, looking down.
“Nope, you’re right,” he said. “That sounds, uh… I shouldn’t have—”
And he was right. He shouldn’t have.
But I should have.
I should have said no.
Should’ve pushed him off of me.
Should’ve stopped things.
I shouldn’t have lifted my hand, cupped his chin, and forced him to look up at me.
I shouldn’t have stared into his eyes.
I shouldn’t have let him feel my lips move. Another warning bell vibrated through me along with a million echoes that this was a bad idea. That I’d been right when I thought something seemed off about him.
But, another part of me reasoned, I wasn’t doing what he asked.
“JP,” I whispered. “ You are mine .”
A second that skipped and staggered and hung on a breath too long ticked by, JP’s eyes wide and round and staring into mine.
And the second after that, his eyes slammed shut.
“Ah- fuck ,” he grunted, and shoved his cock in as deep as he could.
He came as hard as he came unexpectedly. JP’s body tensed, his back hunching as staggered gasps and shuddering groans escaped his mouth. He pushed forward, pressing his body to mine like he was desperate to be even deeper despite his hips already locking against me.
Then he kissed me, both of our eyes closing as he rested his forehead on mine until we caught our breaths.
And the moment he pulled out, everything hit me at once.
I swallowed hard as JP sat back before settling beside me. For a moment, there was only silence, tense and terrifying and awkward.
“So,” I finally said, curling my hand into a fist and trying not to pick at my nail. “That whole, um… ‘mine’ thing…”
“Oh my God,” he groaned, but started laughing at the same time. “I know. It came out of nowhere.”
“So did you.”
He laughed harder and I couldn’t stop a reluctant smile from spreading on my face.
“I think I just learned something about myself that I didn’t want to know," he said.
“Right,” I said. “But you know that was, like…”
He looked over at me, raising his eyebrows, and I’d never been so grateful to be on the receiving end of that mocking, skeptical look of his.
Because it made him look like the JP I knew: the snarky, arrogant asshole version of himself, crooked tooth flashing on the left side of his smile and the corners of his eyes crinkled.
“Babe,” he said. “You've always been a good liar. Why do you think I asked you to lie?”
“Right,” I said. “I’m amazing. And you… you’re a liar, too.”
“Of course,” he said. “You didn’t think—?”
“Of course not.”
“Well, I mean, if I was good enough that I convinced you…”
“You’re a soulless sleazebag lawyer,” I said. “You couldn’t convince me the sky itself is blue.”
He laughed again. “Right. Of course. I just, uh… you know.” He shrugged. “Like, you were kind of right, I guess. I was going through some shit today. And I guess I needed something… like that. But that’s all it was.”
“Alright,” I said, nodding. “Cool.”
And part of me wanted to leave it there. There didn’t need to be more to it. Whatever JP was going through was his business and I didn’t care, obviously. We weren’t even buddies unless the word “fuck” was in front of it and we weren’t currently fucking. So it wasn’t my problem.
“So what was that all about, then?” I blurted.
Shit.
It was fine, I told myself. I just didn’t want to be a shitty person who ignored something that was obviously bothering him. JP would say he didn’t want to talk about it because it was personal and I’d say okay and that would be that.
And that was almost the case. JP’s jaw twitched awkwardly and I prepared my response of “It’s all good, I’m not offended you don’t want to tell me.”
But after taking a breath, he paused and looked down at his hands.
“Do you still want to know why I didn’t go today?” he asked. “To the funeral?”
No, I told myself.
“Yeah,” I said.
“It’s kinda personal.”
He said it like a warning.
“I’m okay with that.”
I said it like it was true.
His throat flexed as he swallowed. “I’m, uh… not good. At funerals.”
“I don’t think anyone’s really good at them,” I said. “Other than maybe the person who it’s for since all they have to do is… you know. Lie there.”
He half-laughed. “Fair. But I, uh… I mean, my dad was pissed. I dunno if Anne-Marie mentioned that.”
“Anne-Marie didn’t mention anything,” I said. “It was annoying, actually, because I—”
And that was when it hit me.
Anne-Marie would tell anyone who would listen anything she knew.
Or so I’d thought. Because even having known her for a few years shy of two decades, I underestimated her sometimes.
The woman knew everything.
And what she didn’t know, she was determined to find out.
But her constant chatter was a cover. She was strategic about how she shared the information she knew. Sure, it might seem like you’d have better luck hauling sand with a bucket made of wet single-ply toilet paper than getting Anne-Marie to keep a secret. That was by design.
Because what better way to pretend like you didn’t know a key piece of information than by making it seem like you couldn’t keep a secret to save your life?
She’d been hiding the reason on purpose.
“I don’t go to funerals,” JP said.
“Why?”
He wasn’t looking at me when he responded. He wasn’t looking at anything, I don’t think.
“Because the last time I went to one, it was for someone who died because of me.”