Chapter 18 Dominique #2
“She never told me. That’s how wishes work, Kobe Haven. If you share them, they don’t come true. Or have you forgotten?”
His eyes smiled, and he squeezed my hand, moving it onto his lap. “You’re right. How silly of me.” Kobe’s attention moved from the ink across my chest to our joined hands. “Can I ask you something?”
“Yes.”
“I’ve been dying to revisit that kiss from last night. I don’t want to cross lines, but… would it be okay if…” He trailed off, teeth digging into his bottom lip.
“I’ve been wondering when we might get around to that.”
I gently tugged his hand, urging him into my space. Kobe didn’t need much encouragement. Our foreheads came together with a light clunk, and we both laughed.
Then, his soft lips connected with mine. My brain and all its tumultuous thoughts shut off, which I needed. Thinking was my downfall. Thinking sent me spiraling into a dark pit I wanted to avoid.
I liked Kobe. More importantly, I liked how Kobe made me feel.
Rejuvenated.
Alive.
His tongue grazed the seam of my lips, and I granted him entrance, revisiting all we’d shared the previous night in a warmer environment with no time limit. No cold noses. No scent of death lingering in the air.
Releasing his hand, I threaded my fingers through his untamed hair, bringing him closer still. His reluctance to push boundaries remained, and I knew every step forward would have to be initiated by me, or it wouldn’t happen.
Every cell in my body awoke. My skin tingled. My pulse spiked. The shattered pieces of my heart fused, and a new, desperate rhythm sent my blood racing through my body.
Kobe’s heat, his touch, the sweet essence of his flavor on my tongue enveloped me, and I wanted more. Everything.
“You taste good,” I said against his mouth. “I could do this for hours.”
“Days. Can I touch you?”
I nodded, shifting on the couch so he could more easily position himself between my thighs.
With deft fingers, he undid the rest of the buttons on my shirt.
The searing press of his palm against my ribs burned pleasantly, igniting a fire in my core and sending tendrils of pleasure south.
I ached with a need that had been long suppressed.
The hot glide of his hand over my skin made me shiver.
Fumbling with nerves and excitement, I managed to free him from his shirt, discarding it on the floor.
Half reclined on the couch with Kobe hovering over me, I pulled back an inch to examine the breadth of his shoulders and his heaving chest, lightly dusted with hair.
“Are you okay?” he asked.
“I’m fine, Kobe. Stop worrying.”
“I just—”
“I know.” I pulled him back into a kiss.
Somehow, we ended up lengthwise, him on top, me at his mercy.
I explored what I could of his half-naked body, skating my fingers over every ridge and valley of his chest before slipping my hands around his waist and tracing the contours of his spine and back. He arched into my touch, his muscles rolling and tensing, flexing and releasing.
Our teeth clacked as the kiss grew more frenzied, and Kobe made a hungry noise in his throat. “We should stop,” he muttered against my mouth.
“Why?”
“Because if we don’t now, I might not be able to.”
“Such a travesty.” I undid the button on his pants and lowered the zipper.
Kobe cursed and growled as I dragged the back of my fingers over his steely erection nestled in cotton underwear.
Quaking, he pulled from the kiss again. “Fuck, Doc. You’re killing me.”
I peered between our bodies, licking my lips and admiring the hard length of his cock. The fabric at his tip was already damp with precum. I traced a thumb over the stain, and Kobe hissed.
Needing better access, I tugged his pants over his ass and shoved them down his legs.
Kobe hastily kicked them off. I left his underwear in place—for now—and freely palmed his erection, encouraging more uncontrollable shudders and more guttural noises.
Still Kobe hovered, looking down, not kissing but staring deep into my eyes. Assessing, always assessing. The man was convinced I was broken. His caution and concern were nice, but I didn’t want nice. I wanted him. This.
More.
I fondled his straining length through his underwear, stroking the pronounced ridge along the underside of his cock and adding pressure near the tip, squeezing out another drop of precum. It soaked into his underwear.
Kobe groaned and closed his eyes, pressing into the touch and encouraging more.
“Kiss me, Kobe.”
He did without reservation. A delicious fog settled around me, clouding reason and guilt and any intrusive thoughts that might have wanted to creep in. I savored his mouth and tongue, lapping up his flavor as I absorbed the sensations of a first connection.
Kobe was respectful and didn’t try to strip me bare, so when I couldn’t take it anymore, I fumbled to remove my own pants. Only when he realized what I was doing did he shift to give me room.
I left my underwear in place. With only a thin layer of fabric between us, Kobe lowered his body until our covered erections bumped. He rolled his hips, rutting his cock against mine. The blissful contact buzzed through my core and tingled in my low belly.
“God you feel good,” he said against my mouth, rocking again, applying more pressure.
I fondled his ass, urging him closer, encouraging him along. The friction was delicious, lighting me up inside. It had been ages since I’d been with anyone. I was never going to last.
The tingling pleasure grew in increments. Kobe’s kisses turned bruising, halting, and heavy. Soon, we failed to coordinate them at all. Our rhythm faltered. The finish line approached. Where there had once been an orderly technique to our conquest, it went out the window.
Kobe panted against my mouth as he moved jerkily, pressing against me, touching me where he could. My hair, my ribs, my upper thigh. I dragged him closer and kissed him harder until an explosion of pleasure made me cry out.
As a mind-numbing, glorious orgasm tore through me, Kobe never stopped. He rode my cock until he too found pleasure. The rocky residual waves seemed to go on forever. Eventually, Kobe collapsed on top of me, his panting breath tickling my ear.
My heart jackhammered in the afterglow. I wrapped my arms around him in case he tried to run away. I wanted to hang on for as long as I could. To the moment. To the pleasure. For once, I’d found peace inside my head, the past no longer roaring venomously in my ear.
Was this happiness?
For once, nothing hurt.
“We’re a mess,” Kobe said after a time, a smile in his voice.
“Like twelve-year-old boys, coming in our underwear.”
“We should have taken them off.”
He shifted, and I shuffled to give him room to lay beside me. Kobe propped his head on a hand, peering down with a boyish, sated grin. He rested his palm on my chest, gently caressing, tracing the tattoo. “Regrets?” he asked.
“No.”
“Good.”
“You need to stop worrying about me.”
He shrugged. “I don’t want my impulsiveness to ruin a good thing.”
“It won’t. Are you spending the night?”
Kobe arched a brow. “Am I invited? You can say no. It won’t hurt my feelings.”
I clutched his hand and brought it to my mouth, kissing his knuckles. “I’d like it if you stayed. I don’t work tomorrow. It’s Saturday.”
Kobe wrinkled his nose. “Don’t rub it in. I have to be at work by eight. Ottawa decided to get itself a serial killer, and it landed on my desk. No rest for the wicked. You probably don’t want me here waking you up so early.”
“I have a toddler and a nasty habit of getting up at four in the morning.”
“I forgot about that.”
“Stay.”
“Okay. I’ll stay.”
I lent Kobe a pair of gym shorts, and we took turns cleaning up in the bathroom.
We lounged on the couch, sipping one last drink and chatting about safer topics.
My love for cycling and the races I’d been part of in the past. My transfer to Ottawa and the differences in working in a teaching facility.
My recent fascination with the evolution of the plague and the nonfiction books I’d been reading on the topic.
Kobe was not a reader.
He shared more about his little brother, émeric, and the time they spent together. I understood better why he volunteered. If Kobe’s life growing up was as terrible as he proclaimed, giving a child opportunities he never had would mean a lot to him.
Eventually, we made it to bed.
Kissing turned into an exchange of hand jobs. Again, Kobe didn’t press for more.
Nighttime tended to bring with it all the ghosts from the past, so I was more distracted that time, and I thought he recognized it.
Kobe slept like the dead. Two orgasms and he was out like a light in no time. I lived the life of an insomniac and spent the following hours contemplating new intimacy and the path laid out before us.
To say I wasn’t terrified would be a lie. Kobe had openly shared many parts of himself—about his past, about his present, about his likes and dislikes. Certain aspects of his life had been clearly difficult to express, but he’d let me in. He’d shown me his vulnerable side.
I felt comfortable around Kobe. He wasn’t like other men. Every facet of his personality intrigued me, even the unfiltered side he was so sure would drive me away.
My grief and reluctance to talk about the past hadn’t scared him off. He accepted me without question. I felt no pressure or expectation.
Kobe, somehow, made everything easier.
I didn’t know what the future might bring, but Kobe gave me the confidence I’d been lacking to continue on this path.
He struck passion into my heart. I wasn’t foolish enough to believe that things would work out perfectly and smoothly.
I anticipated bumps in the road, but the point was, Kobe was a man who understood me. A man with passion. Heart.
Kobe gave me hope, and I desperately needed hope in my life after so much destruction.