Chapter 4 #2
We don’t speak as I apply toner, serums, and lotion.
Her hands start out resting on my hips for balance, her spine and neck barely holding her upright.
With each new product, her fingers wander lower.
First, her thumbs brush the skin under the towel at my waist, where my hip bones press against her legs.
When I lean past her to switch bottles, her touch finds another new, unexplored valley of my body.
My navel, and then my ribs, then the side of my breast. Her eyes might be closed, but she knows what she’s doing.
And even though I know, too, I struggle to focus on the serums falling from the dropper, on my hand rolling each into her skin.
And when Zarina’s fingers trace the knobs of my spine down to the dimples above my ass to then slip under the towel to cup my cheeks with both hands, I may or may not almost drop the roller to the tile floor.
“Princess.” My voice is fond annoyance.
“Hm?” Hers is faux innocence.
“I’m supposed to be treating you.”
Zarina opens her eyes and frowns in faux na?veté. “Is this not me treating myself?”
I release a long-suffering sigh, feigning disappointment. “You’re such a brat.”
She grips my ass harder and grins with all her teeth. “I am.”
I shake my head, replace the cap on the moisturizer, set down the roller, and all the while, Zarina’s touch keeps wandering to more brazen places. When my hands are finally empty, I snatch her waist and throw her over my shoulder in one swift motion.
She yelps, laughing and smacking my ass as I carry her out of the bathroom. “And you’re a brute!”
“I bet you think it’s hot that I can carry you.”
“I do not!”
I tsk, swatting her ass in retaliation. “Don’t lie, princess.”
“Let me down!” She laughs as she wriggles in my arms.
“As you wish.” And I drop her on the bed with a wide smile.
She bounces, her belt coming loose and her robe falling open deliciously.
If I had any talent at art, I’d ask her to lie still so I could draw her.
Might turn it into a little game, riling her up until she can’t stay still anymore.
But I’m not an artist. I’m just a woman, weak in the knees for the woman before me.
I rest my knee on the bed beside her. “Shall I finish what you started?”
“What did I start?” Zarina stretches her arms over her head, arching her back slightly. A minx.
“Seducing me.”
“You’re gonna seduce yourself?” she quips with a giggle.
I smack her inner thigh, feeling the sound of her giggles burrow under my skin and warm my chest all over again. Only an hour ago, she was shaking in my arms in the car. And now she’s lying spread out before me, giggling. Safe and content.
You feel safe with me?
I don’t think it’s a question anymore.
I lean over her, one hand braced on the mattress beside Zarina’s head while the other traces her skin.
Along her now-plunging collar line, from her navel up to her neck, to her jaw, doing my best to ignore the flowering bruises there.
I lower over her, my lips inches from her mouth, eyes tracing the shape of her smile.
“Brat,” I whisper teasingly.
“Brute,” Zarina whispers back.
And I capture her lips in a searing kiss.
There’s no pulling back this time, not anymore.
Zarina said what she needed, loud and clear.
And her body is singing her comfort to the room.
I’m no longer questioning what role she needs me to play.
I will help Zarina shoulder a burden that is too heavy for her to bear alone and, at the same time, allow her the space to let go without losing her power.
I brush my hand down her braid to find the tie and pull it out, throwing it elsewhere.
My fingers re-trace along the edge of the robe’s collar, down to her belt, and fully untangle the poor excuse for a knot.
The robe falls open and reveals her body to the air as my hand wraps around Zarina’s waist.
The smallest moan shudders from her throat into my mouth. I slip my tongue past her lips to taste her pleasure as she shrugs out of the arms of the robe, revealing herself fully. And then her fingers find the hairs at my neck, her apparent favorite, and scratch over my scalp, down my spine.
I pull back, both of us breathing into the other’s mouth. “Say stop and we’ll stop.”
She nudges my nose with her own. “Go.”
I grin and sink back down to taste her, nipping along the column of her neck to her collarbones.
I take my time, licking and sucking my way from the dip of her sternum to each swell of her breast, over the softness of her tummy to the divots of her hips where they meet her thighs.
I avoid her pussy altogether, instead relishing the fact that Zarina is here, in my arms, in my bed, huffing with pleasure that I’m providing.
And because she trusts me to take care of her—no one else.
Not Pat. Not her parents. Not even herself.
I make you feel safe.
And I take that very seriously.
I press kisses to the arches of her feet and try not to think about the warmth pouring from my chest and down my body like it can’t be contained anymore.
I try not to let my brain process the realization that I would let this woman walk all over me, physically and figuratively.
I don’t have time to think about it, to scrutinize it.
Not with Zarina’s supple skin smooth beneath my calloused palms. Not with her body lying open before me, entrusted to me to cherish for the night.
My hands glide up her calves, her thighs, over her hips to the round of her ass as I settle between her legs.
“Tamayo.” She breathes my name in a way that makes me feel like a god kneeling before her. “Please.”
Jesus fucking Christ.
I can’t hold back anymore. I lift her hips to my mouth, as if her pussy is a goblet of the sweetest wine I get to drink directly from the source.
Her back arches as her hands search for something to hold on to.
I don’t have it in me to go slow, not when Zarina asked so nicely.
I lick up the seam of her lips to her clit, taking the bud into my mouth and sucking.
She groans in her throat, and I make a silent promise to force the sound out of her before I’m done.
I don’t relent the pressure. My tongue flicks around her clit as my hands squeeze the globes of her ass.
She hooks her legs over my shoulders, and I might be the one giving her pleasure, might be the one half-dressed in a towel hanging on by a thread around my waist, but in this moment, I feel more powerful than when I pull the trigger of a gun.
Zarina’s seeking my touch, allowing me to take her apart piece by piece, and trusting that I will tape her back together again.
It’s exactly what I need after tonight.
Zarina’s thighs tighten around my head. I hum, welcoming their grip and redoubling my efforts between her legs.
At this angle, I can see her perfectly. Her shoulders lie on the bed, and her hair curls around her head.
Her mouth hangs open with unspoken moans as her chest rises and falls with heavy breaths.
One hand grabs the edge of the mattress as the other finds her breast and tugs her nipple tight.
I almost drop her at the sight.
But instead, I band one arm across her hips and thread the other between us to sink two fingers inside her wet pussy.
And finally, finally, she releases a long moan.
I grin around her clit, sucking harder as I stroke until I find her spot.
Her walls clench around my fingers, her thighs around my ears.
I don’t stop.
Her hands grapple at her hair, at the sheets, at the mattress. But the only thing anchoring her to this moment is my hand tight around her hips, my fingers in her cunt, my mouth on her clit. The only way she escapes this is through blinding pleasure provided by me.
Her chest flushes redder and her moans pitch higher, and I know she’s close.
I keep steady, watching as she fists the sheets so hard she yanks them off the corners of the mattress.
Watching as her face scrunches before a wail-like moan falls from her lips.
Watching as her body twitches over and over with the force of her orgasm as she finally releases every pent-up moment of terror and helplessness from this evening.
And when the tears rush out of the corners of her eyes, I don’t question it.
I simply lower her to the mattress and gather her into my chest as I pull the comforter over us.
She tucks her face into my neck, and I pet her damp hair until her breathing evens out into sleep.
And the words still echo in my ears as I follow after her.
I make you feel safe.