Chapter 7 #2
The door opens and Ember is there, her hair free of the braid, loose around her shoulders and kinked from being braided while wet—her hair is fantastically long, hanging to mid-back, if not closer to her tailbone. Her lips are swollen from our kiss.
"Felix," she whispers, inching closer to me, warily, as if I were a skittish stray dog. "What are you sorry for? Why did you apologize? Why'd you leave?"
I grip the edge of the sink, not looking at her. "You just said you needed time. After what you just went through, the last fucking thing you needed was my dumb, horny ass making a move on you. You're mourning. I recognize that, at least. I shouldn't have kissed you. Shouldn't have let it go as far as it did, at the very least."
"Oh, Fee," she whispers. "You're taking an awful lot of credit for what happened just now, buddy."
I shake my head. "Ember, I—"
She's right there beside me, now, leaning back against the sink with her hip touching mine. She looks up at me, touches my lips to silence me. "I kissed you back, Felix. Did you miss that?"
"No," I admit.
"What about the fact that I encouraged you at every step of the way? Did you miss that? How about when I sat up because I fucking loved the way you grabbed my ass? You miss that part, too?"
I have to look at her. "No."
She looks a little pissed. "Then stop acting like it's all on you. It’s not . I'm a grown-ass woman, Felix. I got carried away just as much as you did.” She leans closer, puts a hand on my chest and gazes at me, her voice softening, now. "And I loved every second of it. I was just…shocked. It took me by surprise, how intense it was, how fast it accelerated.”
"It was crazy. I just…I couldn't not kiss you. And then…" I shrug, shake my head. "It was like someone lit a match in a roomful of dynamite."
Ember huffs a laugh. "Exactly." She searches my face. "So, why'd you come in here?"
"I needed a minute," I mutter. "Needed to get control."
Her searching gaze flicks down to my crotch, which has stubbornly decided to stay monstrously, painfully erect. Her eyes widen. "Oh. Ohhhh. I—I see."
"And clearly, I have not been successful."
She's unsuccessfully trying to hide a grin, or perhaps smirk is a better word. "You, uh, you need a minute to take care of that?"
The look I give her isn't a glare, exactly, but it's pretty damn close. "No, Ember, I'm not gonna jack off."
"No?"
I shake my head. "I mean, sure as fuck not while you're here."
"But if I wasn't here…" she says, trailing off.
"Still probably not."
This gets me a puzzled frown. "No?"
I sigh, because for some reason I can't lie to her, even by omission. "I mean, I do…obviously. Or, I have, in the past."
"But?" She picked up on what I didn't say, clearly.
"But…" I trail off, embarrassed to the point of nausea. "Never mind."
“No, not never mind," she says, inching closer yet, wedging herself between me and the sink, looking up at me with wide, curious eyes. "Tell me."
"I can't," I say, my voice a rough, low rasp.
"You can't?"
"All I see is you," I whisper. "And it feels wrong to…fuck, I dunno…use you like that."
"Oh, Felix," she sighs, resting her forehead against my chest. "That's so sweet. And so fucking stupid."
I frown, caught off guard by her statement. "Stupid?"
"How would I know? Unless you told me, I mean. And I can't imagine why you would tell me. That's none of my business." She reaches up and caresses my jaw, smiling at me sweetly.
"I know, I know," I say, shrugging. "I know it's irrational. I just…can't."
"So you just…suffer?" she says, with another glance down at my raging erection.
I shrug. "It goes away. Usually. Eventually."
"I wouldn't mind,” she whispers. "In fact, I might even be flattered."
"Ember, I…" I gaze down at her. "I don't know. I'm all over the place, right now. I want you so fucking bad. I wanna kiss you and never stop. Kiss you until you fucking—" I cut off with a harsh sigh. "I want you naked. I want you coming all over me. I want your hands on my cock. I want to fuck your pretty little mouth. I want to make love to you in every position there is and maybe make up a few new ones."
Her mouth falls open and pink stains her cheeks and her eyes go wide and wild. "Fee," she breathes. "Jesus. Careful what you say to a girl."
I'm not done, though. "I want to know everything about you. I want to know what happened to you. Why you're so fucking sad. I want to erase that sorrow. I want to be the one to put a smile on your face every goddamn morning. I want to make you forget the sadness.”
Her eyes water, and she blinks hard, twin tear tracks slipping down her cheek. "Felix. Fuck. FUCK!"
She turns away, shaking her head violently, hair slapping her shoulders, and then scrubs at her face with both hands.
"Ember, I—"
She shakes her head again, and I go silent. "Fee, I…"
"And I don't think I can have one without the other," I whisper. "I need both. And I don't know if you're ready for the second part."
"I'm not," she breathes, her voice so soft I can barely make out her words. "I'm not sure I'm ready for either part, Fee. I want to be." She looks up at me, quicksilver gaze fraught with a whirling hurricane of emotions. "I fucking want to be ready for all of that. But I'm not and I don't even know where the fuck to start."
"That's why I stopped, Ember. And that's why I can't seem to let myself find any relief, no matter how blue my balls are." I wrap my arms around her, turning into her, pressing my lips to her crown and inhaling her scent.
"I don't want you to be in pain because of me," she murmurs.
"I'll be fine. I don't think anyone's ever suffered any long-term effects from blue balls." I kiss her head softly. "I won't push, Ember. Not for you to share anything, and certainly not for you to be ready when you're not. If you're looking for a guy who's gonna push you out of your shell or whatever, I'm not him."
She barks a laugh. "No, trying to force me to do anything will always backfire on you in the most spectacular fashion you could imagine. I have a very serious case of oppositional defiant disorder. Undiagnosed, but I'm pretty damn sure I have it."
I laugh. "Noted. I'll never tell you what to do."
"Safe choice." She leaves my arms and paces a step away, raking her hands through her hair. "I don't know what to do, Felix."
"About what?
A bitter laugh. “Everything? My feelings for you. Whatever the girl version of blue balls is called. My fucked up, shattered heart. My bus. Where to live." She looks at me, her eyes touching on mine, and then raking down to my open fly, my still furiously erect cock. "Everything I want is so mixed up."
"You don't have to do anything about me, or for me. I'm not asking. I'm not waiting. I'm fine, Ember. I promise."
She takes a stalking step toward me. "I'm not."
I go utterly still. "Ember…"
She holds my eyes. Stops in front of me, breath coming in slow, deep, breast-swelling heaves. "I fucking want you, Felix. It's been…a long time—" she blinks, shakes her head. "A long fucking time since I…since I've felt anything but sad and angry and confused and lost."
I slide a thumb across her cheek, beneath her eye, smearing a teardrop away. "Ember."
"I want to beg you to make me feel literally anything else." She licks her lips, dropping her gaze to my crotch again, to the bulge straining against the cotton of my underwear. "Even for five fucking minutes, I want to feel anything—fucking any thing, Felix. All I’ve felt is broken for months."
This is dangerous. For me, but more for her.
"I know the feeling," I whisper. "My shit is different. I know that. I haven't lost anyone like you have."
"But fucked up is fucked up,” she murmurs. "It's not a competition, and there aren't any prizes for first place."
"How long has it been for you?" she asks.
“Since what, exactly?"
A shrug. "Anything. Last sexual partner? Last time you got off, regardless of how?"
"Last sexual partner was…" I have to think. "Several months."
"Tell me about it."
"Um…
"I mean, was it a girlfriend? A hookup? Was it good?"
"No, not a girlfriend. A one-time thing. And…" I shake my head and shrug. "It wasn’t great. It wasn’t bad—and it wasn't her fault. It was just…unfulfilling. Flat. The physical enjoyment was so quick, and once that was over, it was just awkward. I didn't know her. Didn't have any real connection to her or even a meaningful attraction. She was pretty, sure, but…" I shrug. "I dunno."
She searches me, and I can't fathom what she's looking for, much less what she sees. "You want meaning."
"Guess so."
She rests her hands on my chest. "Ask me."
"Your last time." It comes out as a statement, rather than a question.
"With Dutchie, obviously. My…" she swallows hard. "My husband." A long pause, her eyes closing, tears leaking down her cheeks. "Seven and a half months ago. At a campground in Illinois, near Lake Michigan, not far from the Michigan border. Early morning. We found out—he, um." Her eyes squeeze shut even tighter. "We found out he was sick three days later. And he, um. He—he—he died less than a month later."
"Ember," I breathe. "I'm so sorry."
She curls her hands into fists in my shirt. "That's the last truly good, pure, and happy memory I have of him."
"I can't imagine."
"Good. I hope you never can." Her fists shake, squeezing so hard her knuckles turn white. "I don't want to forget. Not him, not us, not that memory."
"Of course not," I whisper. "How could you?"
"But holding on to every memory, good or bad, it just hurts. I feel trapped in my grief." She opens her eyes and meets mine. "I…I want to forget. Just for a minute. I want to be free of the grief, Felix, just—just for…for a minute."
"Ember," I breathe.
She holds my eyes, her silver gaze unwavering, wet with tears and turbulent with desperation. "Please, Felix. I…I can't give you everything you're asking for. Not yet. But I…I need to forget. Please, Felix. Help me forget."
How am I supposed to say no?
I fucking can't.
I don't try.
I step into her space, towering over her; she cranes her neck to look up at me, hope in her eyes and desire written in every feature, every shift of her expression. I frame her face in my hands, hesitate—her lips part, and she tilts her face to mine, granting the permission I silently seek in that hesitation.
Kiss her.
Soft, wet lips smear over mine, and her quick, clever tongue sweeps through my mouth, dancing with mine. She whimpers as I kiss her, and fuck, the whimper is my undoing. Dipping at the knees, I scoop her up by her ass, and her sweet silky thighs wrap around my waist, and her hands clutch at my nape to keep me pinned into the kiss, as if I was about to stop.
I walk with her out of the bathroom, set her on the edge of my bed. Stand between her legs and keep kissing her. Run my fingers through the cool, endless locks of her hair.
I break the kiss, pull her hair aside, and kiss the side of her neck. With a shocked gasp, she tilts her head to expose more of her throat, clutching at my face and neck as I kiss her neck, her throat, the hollow at the base. Breastbone. The tender little nook where her cleavage begins.
Drop to my knees, rest my hands on her thighs. Meet her gaze. "More?"
She puts her hands and mine and guides them up her thighs. "More."
"If you need to stop—"
She interrupts. "I won't." She shows my hands the way under the hem of her shirt to the impossibly soft skin of her belly. "Don't stop. No matter what, okay? I might—I dunno. But unless I say the word 'stop,' you keep going." Her hands dive under my shirt and find my abs. "I need to feel something, Fee. I have to."
I run my hands up her sides, taking the shirt up with it—she lifts her arms overhead, and I ease her tee up and off. She's wearing a white bra, the cups fully covering her breasts. Moving as slowly as I can, I set her shirt aside on the bed, smoothing my hands across her back, exploring her shoulders, her back, her sides in slow sliding circuits, coming back each time to the bra strap. Hungry for her now that I'm kissing her, now that she's letting me strip her naked piece by piece, I find it harder with every passing second to go slow, to take my time, to give her every chance to make me stop.
She doesn't.
When I touch my lips to the swell of her breast just above the edge of her bra cup, she flexes her spine to press her chest forward while cupping my head and holding me to her.
I tease one strap off her shoulder. The other. I tug the cup lower on one side, desperate to get her tits bared, to see them in all their glory, to feel them, kiss them, hold them—yet in equal measure I want to draw the moment out, enjoy the anticipation a bit longer.
"Felix," she breathes. "Take it off."
Fuck the anticipation. When she demands like that, who am I to say no?
I take her face in my hands and find her mouth, kiss her until we're both breathless, until my cock hardens all over again and she whimpers and I growl. One hook and eyelet at a time, I unlatch the bra. When it's unhooked, I ease the straps down her arms with my fingertips, and then at the last second, she whips it away and tosses it aside.
I sink back to sit on my heels and just take her in. "Jesus fucking Christ, Ember," I breathe. “Fucking perfect. So goddamn gorgeous I don't even…" I trail off, at a loss for words.
Her tits are everything I'd hoped and fantasized and wet-dreamed they would be, and more. Huge, full teardrops swaying subtly, they're as sun-bronzed as the rest of her. Sitting high and proud despite their improbable size, they swell even bigger at the tips, plump, round and natural, with wide pale pink areolae and thick, rigid nipples, they make her trim waist seem tiny—how an otherwise rather petite frame can support the weight of them, I don't know.
"Gonna just stare at them, Felix?" she teases, her words and tone light. "You are allowed to touch them, you know."
I can't rip my eyes away. "I just….I need a minute to fully appreciate them."
She laughs. "Okay, then." Her hands go to mine again, once more guiding them upward. "Maybe appreciate them this way."
I groan as I fill my hands with their soft weight; she lets out a soft sigh, her eyes shuttering as I caress her breasts. I lift them to test their weight—heavy. Brush my thumbs over her nipples, and she gasps, head tipping back in ecstasy at my touch. As my thumbs trip over them, her nipples visibly harden further. Clearly, I have no choice but to kiss them, now.
I cup a heavy breast in my hand, offering it up to my mouth, suckling her nipple until she groans low and ragged, arching into my kiss while leaning backward.
I help her lay down and brace her tits with my hands, squishing them together so I can lap and lick and suckle both nipples together, and then one and then the other, back and forth, back and forth, and then both again until she's panting.
"Pinch," she gasps. "Pinch my nipples, Fee. Please."
Fuck.
At her words, my cock, impossibly, hardens more, until it feels like it could explode like an overblown balloon.
Greedily, I oblige. Caress them in both hands, lifting from beneath and letting them bounce to sway and jiggle, and then roll her nipples between my thumb and forefinger. Even though I'm barely squeezing, Ember gasps, flinching.
My god, she's so responsive, so sensitive.
I lean over her, half-kneeling on the edge of the bed, and claim her mouth while kneading her tits—squeezing, caressing, squeezing. She moans into my mouth and drives her eager tongue against mine, tasting me, probing, teasing—when I twist my tongue against hers, she retreats; when I deepen the kiss, she pulls back, only to surge up to deepen it when I accept her pulling back, swiping her tongue into my mouth when mine retreats.
I pinch one nipple, exploring her sensitivity. The first pinch is gentle, a slight squeeze; she gasps into the kiss, mouth quivering. I pinch again, harder; she gasps.
"Harder, Fee," she breathes. "Pinch my nipples hard."
I growl, letting them go and then scrubbing my hands up her belly to gather her tits into my hands once more, now pinching both nipples at the same time, and now I pinch as hard as I dare, which feels too hard, in my own mind.
She bucks up with a shrill cry, hips leaving the bed. "FUCK!" she rasps, her voice hoarse from crying. "Yes, god yes. Again, Fee. Please. Harder."
My god—is she even real? Is this happening? This has to be a wet dream, a fantasy from which I'm about to wake up.
Caressing gently, I let my hands soar the expanse of her breasts, circling them at their base against her chest, down their length to the plump, fat, round ends, rubbing my thumbs over the pale circles of her areolae, and then raking my thumbnails over her nipples. She whimpers, shuddering, her hands diving into her hair to grasp and pull as she arches into my touch, seeking more.
Growling eagerly, I suckle a nipple into my mouth, flattening it between tongue and the roof of my mouth, sucking hard. At the same time, I roll the other one between thumb and forefinger, squeezing harder by increments.
Ember snarls, a low ravenous growl in the back of her throat, a sound of raw female arousal, predatory need. Her hips flex, driving and sinking as I suckle and pinch her nipples, alternating now, sucking on one and pinching the other and then switching.
The harder I pinch and suckle, the more frantic the questing drive of her hips.
Could she come just from this?
God, that would be amazing. I’ve heard it's possible, but I've never witnessed it.
"Fee, please," she breathes, her voice shrill and breathy. "Don’t stop. Feels too fucking good."
So I keep going—pinching, twisting, and sucking, licking, kissing, and compressing with my lips. And with each touch, she pants and whimpers more loudly, more eagerly. Her hands go to my head as I lick and then suck on a nipple, and when I seize its plump pink thickness in my teeth, she sucks in a breath and holds it.
When I apply a bit of pressure while pinching the other so hard it seems like it should hurt her, she wails loudly, arching off the bed and then sinking down, hips quivering, belly spasming.
"Oh fuck, Fee. Fuck, fuck!” Her voice is rough with arousal, low and hoarse and wild. “Yes, fuck, yes."
"Gonna come for me, Ember?" I whisper.
"Uh-huh," she whimpers. "Just—just don't stop."
"Fuck no."
She rakes her hands down my back, hunting for the hem of my shirt—she finds it and rips it off of me with mad aggression, and then her fingernails dig into my shoulders as I bite her nipple with gentle but increasing force, until she shrieks in a mix of pain and pleasure and pushes at me in a subtle gesture. I let her nipple pop free and soothe it with licks and kisses that make her moan, caressing her tit with my hands, strumming her nipple with my fingers, faster and faster.
Her hips buck and dip, and she whimpers; fingernails raking down my spine, she leaves trails of fire on my back. Down, down, and then her hands dive under my underwear to clutch at my ass, pulling at me, clawing, digging nails in as I move my mouth to the nipple I was just strumming, tweaking and twiddling the one I was just biting.
She's panting now, quick short gasps in time with the flexing of her hips.
"Fee!" she whimpers. "Oh fuck, oh god. You're—oh, oh, ohhh, Fee!"
She yanks me down against her, grinding her denim-covered sex against the hard ridge of my cock that is still sheathed behind my boxer briefs.
"Ember!" I breathe, "Come for me, sweetheart. I know you're close."
“Hard!" she pants, breathless. "Pinch them both as hard as you can, Fee. Now—right now. Fuck, please, please, please."
I slash my mouth onto hers and demand her tongue, balancing above her as I caress her breasts gently, exploring the weight and length and softness of them yet again, finally squeezing her hardened nipples. Harder, and harder, while kissing her. She thrusts her tongue into my mouth in mimicry of fucking, to the same rhythm of her hips' thrusting against me. She shoves my jeans down further, pressing the hard ridge of my aching cock against the rough line of denim that is the crotch seam of her shorts, and I pinch harder yet, until I'm squeezing almost as hard as I can.
With a hoarse scream, her hips buck up against mine and stay there, shaking and shuddering as she arches off the bed, mouth open wide as the voiced scream dissolves with the emptying of her lungs, giving way to a silent scream. I pinch her nipples in a pulsing pattern, and she catches her breath, sucking in a whimper.
"Ohfuckohfuckohfuck," she sobs. "Fee, fuck—Felix, yes, fuck, fuck, fuck!"
She comes for an eternity, sobbing and shaking.
For a moment, she goes still, limp on the bed, panting.
And then her eyes snap open, and they're full of quicksilver fire and erotic hunger.
I have a feeling I've just roused a beast within her.