38. Zara
ZARA
Garrett leans in, his warm breath brushing the shell of my ear. “I want to touch you.” His voice is a low growl. “Make your panties wet. Make you come with my name on your lips. I want to finger fuck you, Golden Girl.”
Oh. My.
“Wh-when?”
“Now.” His voice is lace with smoldering, dirty thoughts, and I’m close to fanning my flaming face with my hand.
My panties are ready to incinerate, and he hasn’t even touched me yet. “Okay.” It comes out this time more of a squeak than an actual spoken word. I clear my throat. “Okay.”
His fingers glide over my hip and sloooowly travel along the outside of my thigh. The teasing touch is enough to ignite every nerve ending in my body, like the opening colorful blooms in a grand fireworks display.
Guess we’re really doing this.
I shift position, lying on my back, and widen the space between my legs.
Garrett’s fingers caress languid circles on my inner thigh, inching their way up, up, up. I’m surprised I don’t wiggle down to get them that much sooner to the part of me that aches for his touch. Although if he goes any slower, I might do just that.
Garrett lowers his head to mine, pauses for a beat, and captures my mouth with a heart-shattering kiss.
My lips instantly part, and my tongue rejoices at dancing with his again.
We explore each other’s mouths, the kiss deepening more with each passing second.
I’ve always suspected he would be a good kisser, but this…
the way he consumes me, worships me…it’s everything and so much more.
I’m close to orgasming from his kiss alone.
He brushes his fingers along my seam. “Fuck, you’re already hot for me.” The hungry growl in his voice has me whimpering. “Are you wet for me too?” His lips brush mine once more, and his fingers press against my clit, the touch teasing, full of promise.
A starving need has me widening my legs. I want him, this, more than I want oxygen.
He draws tight circles around my clit, bringing me closer to the edge. I don’t remember the last time it felt this way, and he’s not even touching me skin on skin.
A needy groan escapes me. Garrett swallows it, his mouth on mine. The glide of his tongue…the stroke of his fingers…perfectly synchronized. He’s playing me like an instrument. I’m the violin to his bow. Each move of his hand, each flick of his tongue, elicits a whisper, a whimper, a moan.
His hand moves away from my core, sliding up to the waistband of my yoga pants. Yoga pants, which until last week, I never used as they were intended. And now they’re experiencing an entirely new type of lesson in flexibility.
Garrett’s fingers slip under the waistband and continue south, reclaiming that which he had teased only moments ago. “Fuck, you’re so wet,” he murmurs as his fingers slide along my lips, slick from the way he’s got my body panting for him.
He continues to work me up, my body tightening with each pass of his thumb over my super-swollen clit.
I brush my fingers along his hard length, visible through the cotton of his running shorts. A strangled groan falls from him, and I have to bite back a satisfied grin .
Garrett shakes his head. “Not this time. This is about you, and only you.”
I cling to the Not this time as his finger presses inside of me, curving to find that magical spot. Another thick finger joins it, taking me closer to the edge. Not much further.
My body bucks and writhes, searching for sweet relief. So close. Ever so close.
“Come for me, Golden Girl.” The growled words vibrate against my neck, the final push I need to collapse over the ledge.
White-hot liquid heat pours through every inch of me, and I cry out from the intensity. Then I’m floating skyward in a body that feels unrestrained, the tether holding me to my body disintegrating.
My ragged breaths fan my lips as I come back to myself. I should probably care I cried out and possibly alerted Garrett’s neighbors to what we are doing.
I probably should care, but right now, I can’t find it in myself to give a damn.
A smile lazily curves my lips as I take in the gorgeously deep shades of orange, red, and mauve stretching across the sky. “Wow. It’s been a while, but I don’t remember it ever being that good.” I turn my head to Garrett.
He’s sitting upright next to me, watching me expectantly. His smile is pure smug satisfaction, and I barely keep from rolling my eyes. “Glad you enjoyed it.”
I snort a laugh and push up to sit, my body still feeling like it’s floating somewhere in the heavens. “Don’t let that go to your head.”
But he’s a man—of course his ability to give me an orgasm will go to his head.
“So? Did it work?”
Work? It takes a beat to figure out what he means, and I catalog how my body feels.
Maybe it’s just a placebo effect, but the earth-shattering orgasm seems to have helped with the pain.
“There’s…there’s definitely something to that video.
I mean, my body still aches, but…but it’s like the volume has been turned down a bit.
Like…like background noise that isn’t quite as loud as before. If that makes any sense. ”
Now, if only I didn’t need to have orgasms once a day to keep up this benefit. It’s not as simple as popping a pill, given that Garrett and I don’t live together.
And we’re not a couple.
The other downside of this holistic approach to pain management is I’ve stumbled, as feared, across a new addiction. A Garrett-induced orgasm addiction. Since when were orgasms this mind-blowing? This wow ?
If only my vibrator were as capable as Garrett’s hand.
If only my hand were as capable as Garrett’s fingers.
A rustle of leaves has me turning to the sound. The noise wasn’t caused by the wind. More like an animal. A large animal.
“Um, you haven’t had any bears or cougars wandering through your backyard lately, have you?” I whisper, straining in the dimming light to make out what could have caused the leaves to rustle like that.
“No, why?”
“I thought I heard something. Over there.” I point to the hedge that separates this part of the garden from the garden closer to the house.
Movement catches my eye near where I’m pointing. Then whatever caused it races in a flash of floral toward the house.
I groan, covering my heated face with my hands. “I think Athena witnessed our experiment.” I drop my hands from my face and lean back on them, my cheeks still burning. “She was standing by the hedge, but I don’t know how much she saw.”
Garrett shrugs, not at all flustered. Of course. “What difference does it make?”
I huff a near laugh. “Such a guy response.”
“It wasn’t like we were naked.” His mouth tilts into a smirk and amusement dances in his eyes.
“Having someone watch me while I come isn’t on my bucket list.” Not even close.
Garrett chokes out a laugh. “I was watching you. Does that make me a peeper?”
“Well, no.”
“Am I supposed to not watch you next time?” He closes the distance between us, until his breath brushes the shell of my ear. “Because that would be a shame,” he murmurs. “You’re sexy as fuck when I give you an orgasm.”
Oh, damn . Garrett’s dirty talk has my pussy clenching and the air in my lungs coming out in raspy little pants.
I don’t remember him ever referring to me as sexy. “Er, thank you. I think,” I say, hastily pulling myself together in my mind. “But that’s beside the point.”
The adorable divots he gets between his eyes when he’s confused spring to life. “What point?”
“I think Athena has a thing for you.”
His expression shifts, his eyebrows lifting, and he stares at me as if I’m losing my mind. “What are you talking about? She’s Peony’s nanny. My employee.”
“Doesn’t mean she can’t have a thing for you.” Lord knows I’ve had one long enough. And I’m positive I’m not the only one who has felt the same way, crazy stalker women notwithstanding. “It’s just this feeling I get around her. It’s hard to explain.”
Hard to explain to a man who’s been clueless all these years that I’m in love with him.
And now that I have a chronic illness, the closest I’ll come to being in a relationship is what Garrett and I now have between us. A secret arrangement. Kisses for hits of dopamine. Orgasms for medicinal reasons.
At the end of the day, I don’t want to be a burden to him or anyone else—which I will be if the disease progresses and flare-ups become a constant battle.
“I’ll talk to her.” He pushes to a stand.
I scramble to my feet. “You can’t. What if I’m wrong? It’ll be all kinds of awkward.” For Athena. For Garrett. For me.
And if she does have feelings for him like I suspect, that will be all kinds of awkward too. For all of us.