Chapter Fifteen Milo #2
“Ah, boring,” I say, trying to push back even more of those pesky feelings I can’t seem to shake in her presence.
“There’s a story behind that one, isn’t there?” she says, turning in my arms to look up at me.
I think about telling her, I do. Truly, it’s not even that deep of a story. I just can’t help but get emotional when I think of Nadia, so much younger and so angry with me, handing it to me as I walked out of my parents’ home for the last time.
So, I do the next best thing that comes to mind. I mime taking a pin out from behind her ear and sticking it into that imaginary corkboard we’ve invented for us to share.
“Got it,” she replies.
I nod, walking her to the driver’s-side door of her truck. “Another time.”
“Are you driving?” she asks, one brow arched higher than the other.
“Killer, I’m being gentlemanly,” I say, opening her door and holding out a hand, inviting her to climb in. She blushes, as if that is the flirtiest exchange we’ve shared in the past few hours, and I close the door for her once she’s settled in her seat.
The two-minute drive back to her house is quiet, as Joni Mitchell softly serenades us from the cassette player.
Once we’re back at Welch’s parking lot, I follow her lead, unsure of where she’s imagined this conversation of ours taking place. Walking around the property, she reaches for my hand in the dark, and I hold on to her tightly as we make our way toward the dim light above the A-frame’s door.
She reaches into her purse for keys as I admire the collection of bugs circling the porch light. Then, we’re in.
I immediately find myself looking at Mrs. Welch’s latest work in progress across the studio.
“You can go take a look, if you like,” she tells me, sliding off her shoes. “I’m just going to use the washroom.”
She disappears from view as I make my way over to the canvas, which is layered in shades of blue and seafoam and white and begging to be touched. I admire the painting for minutes before I notice the acrylic paints on the nearby shelf are missing their caps and get to fixing them.
“These are going to dry up,” I tell Prue as she comes back in, her hair now clipped up in a bun. “If you let her leave them out like this…”
“Well, that’s what you’re here for, right?” she says, circling her hands around my waist. It’s strange, how comfortable we are touching after such little time. But it’s an undeniable reality.
“Nope,” I say, twisting in her hold to stand face-to-face. “I’m off the clock right now.” I place one hand on her shoulder, and the other against the nape of her neck. “I’m here for totally different reasons.”
“Ah,” she says, grinning up at me. “And what might those reasons be?”
The next words out of my mouth are a desperate plea as I lift my finger up off her neck and brush the back of it against her curls. “You tell me.”
She nods, stepping back as my arm extends, attempting to keep her in my grasp. “I made a list,” she says, walking me with an invisible leash toward the loft stairs.
“What kind of list?” I finally respond, after being momentarily stunned into silence by the glimpses under her skirt I received while walking behind her on the stairs.
It’s cozy up here, in her little nest above the studio below. The walls are lined with pages from old books, memories, and twinkling fairy lights that cast her four-poster bed in a warm, inviting glow.
As if Prudence Welch’s bedroom had to be more inviting than it already was in my mind.
“I’ll show you.” She gets into bed above her covers, shimmying up to lean her back against the headboard as she reaches to her bedside table for a notebook underneath a stack of many, many others.
“You seem to make a lot of lists,” I say, pointing to the stack as I fall next to her, lying down on my side.
“Poems, I told you.”
“Oh, that was…You were serious?”
“Yes.” She eyes me skeptically. “Do I not…Do I not seem like…You know what, never mind.”
“I want to read them,” I tell her.
With a mischievous expression, she plucks a pin out of the notebook in her lap and pins it to our imaginary corkboard once again.
“ Fine, ” I say, rolling onto my back and dropping my arms to my sides.
“Here,” she says, holding the notebook out to me in offering. “That’s the list,” she says as I take it and lift it above my head to read it. “It’s not…in any particular order.”
Prue’s No-Longer-a-Prude To-Do List:
1) Give a blow job.
2) Have sex in missionary.
3) Have sex when I’m on top.
4) Orgasm without using my own fingers.
5) Have sex in a car.
6) Be tied up or blindfolded…maybe?
7) Receive oral sex. (If the other participant is willing, of course.)
“This is good.” I nod, then turn my head to see her. She’s got her fingernail between her teeth, studying my reaction. “Does having a list make you feel”—I take a deep breath, trying to find the right words when I so often don’t—“more confident?”
“I guess?” she says, her eyes looking up to the ceiling as she scrunches up her features.
“I, um, I don’t have the best relationship with trying new things.
I like to be good at everything the first time and I can get frustrated if…
Well, if I’m not. I thought having a list of things I can check off would make me feel like I’m accomplishing something even if I’m terrible at it. ”
I sit up, leaning onto my elbows as I drop the notebook onto the mattress between us. I take a moment, choosing my next words carefully as Prue seems to squirm following her admission—looking everywhere but my face.
“Hey.” I get her eyes on me. “You cannot be terrible at sex, that’s a myth.
Humans are intrinsically designed to enjoy physical intimacy.
If the sex is bad, it is almost always the fault of all the participants, equally.
Most likely, if someone wasn’t having fun, it’s because there’s a communication issue.
We,” I pause, gesturing between us, “will not have that issue,” I say, nodding, so she does the same. “I promise.”
“No?” she asks softly, tilting her head.
“No. You and I are going to communicate. We are going to tell each other what feels good, and what doesn’t, and how hard or how soft or to the left or to the right until we’re both writhing, pleading, and fucking lost in it.
Your only job in this, the only thing you have to do, is to tell me what feels good. ”
Her bottom lip flicks out, now free from her teeth. “I-I just… I haven’t done anything but kissing before and, yeah, the other night with you…was the… most I’ve done. And it’d been awhile too…”
“I’d never have guessed you were out of practice.” I wink at her, smiling. “And this list is a good starting place. If you feel like you need to check off boxes—we will.”
“I think…” She sighs, then swallows. Her eyes shut as she appears to chastise herself.
“Tell me.”
“I think, also, it will help me not get…not feel …” She looks at me with a hopeful expression, as if I’ll finish her sentences for her. I won’t; she needs to do this herself.
“Use your words, Killer.”
She blushes before shaking herself. She runs both hands over her head and holds the back of her neck. “I think having a list makes me worry less about us developing feelings for each other. It feels more structured, practical, in a way.”
“Understood,” I say, feeling my nostrils flare with the effort it takes to form a smile.
“You don’t do anything but casual,” she reminds me, her face curious as her eyes dance across my features. “I want to respect that boundary and, also, protect myself.”
I chuckle dryly. “You don’t have to worry about falling in love with me, Prudence. No one ever has.”
“Doubtful,” she says, too quickly for my heart not to take notice.
I shake my head, pouting. “Nah, I think I’m immune to it.”
A thousand words pass between Prue and me as neither of us speaks.
We stare again, for what could be minutes if time existed in such a moment.
Emotions run between us, settling into our expressions as if conversation accompanies them.
Eyes turn accusing, then understanding. Mouths contort into frowns, then turn to half-lifted smiles.
Our breathing syncs, chests lifting and lowering in tandem.
It’s too much and yet somehow not enough either.
“We’ll be fine,” I tell her, breaking the heavy silence.
It’s terrifying and exhilarating all at once, to be seen by her.
“We’ll be fine,” she agrees, her lips falling open on a jagged breath.
I go to my knees on the center of the bed at the exact same moment Prue does too. In one quick movement, before our lips have even touched, she lifts her arms above her head and I tug off her sweater.
“You tell me at any point if you need me to stop, okay? And I will. I will stop,” I promise, diving at her tits with my mouth. Her nipples pucker through the thin, soft lace of her white bra and I immediately clasp my lips around one and flick my tongue over it.
“Oh,” she moans, arching so I can take more of her into my mouth. “Fuck,” she whispers, gripping my hair.
I wrap both of my arms around her back and lift her until I can lay her flat down onto the mattress. Once on top of her I make quick work of slotting my hips between her thighs, not taking my mouth or tongue off her for a single second.
Prue gasps when I slip the strap of her bra off her left shoulder and tug the fabric down so my mouth can find uncovered flesh and skin.
Prue’s tits are perfect and begging to be worshipped—covered in goosebumps that I lick as if reading braille with my tongue.
If I had to translate, it would read an awful lot like the illicit moans flowing through Prue’s lips.
Running my hand up her rib cage, I tighten my grip around her breast, squeezing it to a narrow peak that I can fit inside of my mouth.
I’ve always liked breasts, don’t get me wrong, but I’ve never had damn-near cannibalistic desires before—wishing I could dislocate my jaw like a fucking snake to take it whole.
“Can you…” Prue says, grasping the fabric of my T-shirt at my shoulders. “Can I take this off?” She tightens her grip of my shirt, pulling to no avail.
I was taught not to speak with my mouth full, so I grunt instead, moving to bite the underside of her breast before bringing my attention back to her nipple. I tug it between my teeth as I stare up at her, watching her eyes roll back as she shudders out a long, quaking breath.
I’m oh so pleased to learn that my Killer likes her tits being played with.
“Milo,” she whines. I tilt my hips against her in response, rewarding us both. “I want…”
“What do you want?” I ask, removing the other strap and pulling both of her tits free from their evil, lacy cage. “I’ll give it to you.”
“Your shirt off, my clothes off, all of it.”
I lift off of her and remove my shirt with one hand between my shoulder blades. The fastest way I know, so I can return to my mouth on her skin. Her hands are not shy as they skate against my chest, shoulders, and every inch of bare skin she can reach.
I kiss down her ribs as my hands make quick work of finding the skirt’s zipper on her hip. I fight with it, circling my tongue around a red strawberry birthmark on her belly.
“The zipper’s not…” I say, then grunt. “It’s stuck.”
“Just rip it,” Prue says, sitting up to grab hold of my hair, using it as a leash to pull my mouth back to her tits.
“Fuck, Killer, are you sure?” I ask before pulling the soft skin next to her nipple into my mouth, intending to leave a mark to match the one she was born with. “I like this one,” I say, gripping the fabric at her hip in my fist.
“Okay, no, just—” She sits up, then, rudely, stands up next to the bed.
The sight of her is destabilizing. All five-foot-nothing of her half naked and disheveled with her bra around her rib cage and my teeth marks all over her skin.
Pink and flushed in all the right places and fighting with the skirt’s zipper as her hair cascades over her shoulder and flirts with the skin of the back I’ve yet to meet with my lips.
Fuck. I want to eat her alive.
“Please hurry,” I say, making no effort to hide my desperation.
She glances at me sideways, smiling as she shimmies out of the skirt then kicks it across her bedroom floor. “And these?” she asks, running her thumbs along the hem of her brown tights. “On or off?”
I nearly trip while making my way off the bed and over to her. Dropping to my knees at her feet, I look up at her as she tucks unruly curls behind her ears. “May I?” I ask, running my hands up the sides of her thighs.
“Yes,” she whispers, her thumbnail lodged between her teeth.
Looking up at her for permission, I bring my mouth to her stomach, pressing kisses from one hip to the other as my fingers hook over the tights and begin pulling them down, down, down all the way to the floor.
Helping her step out of them, I support one ankle and then the other before balling the tights up and tossing them toward her skirt.
Her underwear is black cotton, nothing fancy but completely, entirely, maddeningly hers.
“God, you’re gorgeous,” I tell her, running my hands up the backs of her legs toward the curve of her ass. “You’re so goddamn beautiful, Prue. Every single inch of you.”
She clears her throat, makes a vague sound of acknowledgment, and then attempts to walk away back toward the bed.
“No, no,” I say, holding tightly onto the flesh of her thighs. “Stay here with me.”
She reaches behind her back and unclasps her bra before letting it drop onto the top of my head. “Whoops,” she says, her smile audible.
I take it in my fist, then tease the backs of her thighs with the lace as I press my nose to her hip and breathe her in. “Can I?” I ask. “Can I take these off?”
I look up to see her, pressing my chin into the cotton fabric stretching across her belly. She nods shyly, before placing a hand in my hair and gripping tightly.
“If you want to,” she whispers.
“Do you want me to?” I ask.
She nods again.
“Let me hear you, Prue.”
“Can we lie down?” she asks. “I’m feeling a little dizzy.”
“Yeah, of course,” I say, moving to stand.
I wrap her in my arms, pressing my bare chest to hers for the first time.
I lift her in our hug, then lay her down on the mattress.
I stand over her, watching her chest rise and fall with labored breath.
“Do you need a minute?” I sit on the edge of the bed, next to her.
“I don’t want to…” She rubs her lips together. “I don’t want to be more naked than you.”
I nod, immediately moving to stand as I reach for my shorts, then pause, putting my hands on a time-out by crossing my arms in front of my chest. “Do you want me to be more naked?”
“Yes,” she says, hungry eyes finding mine as her tongue darts out past her lips. “Yes, I do.”