20. Callum
20
CALLUM
As I stood staring down at Nadia with her back against the wall, I could see my own desire mirrored in her aquamarine, sultry stare. Everything inside of me was telling me to go, to leave, to walk away. There was no doubt in my mind that I was about to cross a line I should not cross. There was too much history. Too many feelings. Too many consequences. This was an emotional can of worms I had no business popping open because, like Pringles, once I popped, there was no way I could stop. My head knew that. Logically, I was on board with that conclusion. My heart and hormones were not as convinced. If my feet’s current refusal to move were any indication, it seemed I was going with majority rules in this situation.
I’d always considered myself a disciplined person. I took the route of delayed gratification as opposed to instant. That quality was the foundation for my success in my MMA career. If I set a goal, I achieved it no matter what I had to suffer or endure to make that happen. Whether it was nutrition, training, financial, or social sacrifice, it didn’t matter. I didn’t make decisions based on what I wanted right now; I made decisions based on what my future self would thank me for. But, in this moment, I wasn’t thinking about the consequences my future self might face. All I cared about was instant gratification.
My phone buzzed again. I would have ignored it, but I saw the look change in Nadia’s eyes. It would bother her if I didn’t answer it.
I pulled it out of my pocket and saw it was a text from my mom letting me know that she’d dropped Chloe off at Kendall’s house for a sleepover, and she and Michael were taking Matty to the drive-in to see E.T. She said to meet them there if I wanted to join them.
That was the perfect out. I could go see a movie with my son, my mom, and her ‘friend.’
“I should go,” I said as I returned the phone to my back pocket.
Nadia’s lips tensed, and her cute button nose scrunched in the most adorable way, but she quickly recovered, and her expression softened. “Okay.”
It was only for a fraction of a second, but I saw that the text made Nadia a little jealous. That shouldn’t make me happy, but it did. Knowing that Nadia still had feelings for me made me; I-won-the-lottery, I-threw-the-winning-touchdown-in-the-Super-Bowl, I-pitched-a-no-hitter-on-the-seventh-game-of-the-World-Series-to-clench-the-championship, happy. It was taking every single molecule of self-control not to show her just how happy I was.
It was wrong that I felt this way. I knew better. This was what we always did. Nadia would get upset and ignore me or pick a fight with me; it would turn me on, and then we’d end up having makeup sex. That wasn’t a totally fair assessment. It didn’t turn me on to get in fights. I was being honest when I said we didn’t fight. The problem was Nadia was cute when she got mad. To be fair, she was cute all the time, but her getting worked up about anything was the cherry on top of a cute sundae. Also, she was really funny when she got mad. She always had great one-liners, and even though they were at my expense, her sense of humor was extremely hot to me. And we didn’t only have makeup sex, but the fastest way to stop Nadia from being mad at me was to kiss her, and kissing her always led to sex, so it did end up becoming a habit.
The longer we stared at each other in the entryway, the harder it was to turn and leave. Literally. My cock was swelling by the second. I needed to throw some cold water on this situation.
“It was my mom.”
“What?” her brow knitted together.
I pulled my phone back out, unlocked it, and turned it toward her. “The text was from my mom. And the two earlier were from Dawson, Harlan, and Miles, adding me to a group chat and giving me shit about losing at pool and darts.” I scrolled down the page. “See no texts from Leanne, school mom, or Clingy Kendra.” I used the nickname Nadia gave her, which I thought was cruel and I had never used before, even after she started showing up in the boys’ locker room and hanging around outside my house before school and then asking for a ride.
“Nadia pushed the phone away as a smile that was equal parts embarrassed and endearing spread across her face. “You don’t have to show me that. It’s none of my business.”
“Are you sure? You can check my DMs too.” I teased, offering her the phone one more time before putting it back in my pocket. “I didn’t change my passwords.”
“Oh my god, stop,” she demanded playfully, swatting at me as her eyes and smile widened. She covered her face and shook her head back and forth as she curled into herself, basically doing the stop, drop, and roll without the drop or roll. Then nuzzled against my chest. “I know I’m crazy. I don’t know why I’m like this or why you put up with me for so long.”
She was still shaking her head back and forth as I wrapped my arms around her and kissed the top of her head. The entire scene unfolded in a blink of an eye. One second, she was standing a few inches in front of me; the next, I was holding her in my arms and kissing her on the top of her head. It wasn’t planned or premeditated. It was just muscle memory, a knee-jerk reaction.
Whenever Nadia got embarrassed, overwhelmed, scared, or pretty much any time her feelings were ‘too big,’ she would roly-poly hug me. She’d curl inward—head lowered, arms tucked in—which I named the roly-poly, and hide from the world, nuzzled against my chest. I’d wrap my arms around her and kiss her on the top of her head. She called it her safe place.
Over the course of our relationship, I couldn’t count how many roly-poly hugs we’d shared—hundreds, possibly thousands—but none of them felt like this. We both instantly froze. Neither of us said a word or moved a muscle. Having Nadia in my arms again felt so right, so natural, that it scared me because I knew I had to let her go, and this feeling would be gone once again.
After what felt like a few seconds but could have easily been a few minutes, Nadia stepped back out of my arms. Her eyes fell to the ground, and she brushed a strand of hair behind her ear, revealing the gentle slope of her neck as she licked her lip nervously. Her wide blue eyes met mine again. “Sorry, I don’t...I’m not sure why I…I’m sorry.”
I swallowed a male groan of appreciation as my mouth watered. After all these years, she was still totally oblivious to just how sexy she was. It amazed me how she managed to be both innocent and seductive in the same breath.
My body was strung so tight. High-octane arousal coursed through my veins. I knew the right thing to do was to leave, but how was I supposed to walk out that door? I was just a man.
“How are your New Year’s resolutions going?” I managed to ask, even though my throat was clogged with arousal.
New Year’s resolutions weren’t the best scapegoats, but I was grasping at straws here. Anything to stop me from acting on what I was feeling. She’d sworn off drinking, dating, and dick, and the activity I had in mind definitely required one of those elements.
“Fine,” she breathed.
Her chest was rising and falling in labored pants as she stared up into my eyes. I was playing with fire, and there was a very good chance I would get burned. There were conversations that needed to be had. Issues to be discussed. Cards that needed to be placed on the table. Baggage that needed to be unpacked.
But none of that mattered right now. In this moment, the only thing that mattered was Nadia. I had never felt this level of desperation and urgency. I had an uncontrollable, insatiable hunger as if I’d been starved for the past ten years, and she was a five-course meal at a Michelin-star restaurant.
“Have you broken any of them?”
Slowly, her head turned from side to side as a private grin lifted at the corner of her lips. “Nope.”
“Do you want to?” My voice was getting deeper and grittier by the second. The more turned on I got, the raspier I sounded.
“Okay,” she agreed.
The green light she gave me overrode any shred of common sense I had. I took a step closer to her, stopping directly in front of her. I lifted my hand and did what I never thought I’d get the privilege of doing again; I brushed a strand of Nadia’s silky hair behind her ear. She closed her eyes and took in a shaky breath as she leaned her cheek into my palm.
My chest ached as my eyes drank in her beauty, literally in the palm of my hand. A little voice in my head was saying this had to be a dream. This couldn’t be reality. I must have fallen asleep. If that was the case, I didn’t want to wake up. I didn’t even realize that I had moved closer to her when I felt the heat of her breath on my face seconds before my lips touched hers.
The kiss started slow and measured. It was more than a kiss; it was a reintroduction. We explored one another as our lips met in a sensual collision. Within seconds, it changed. My brain shut off, and instinct took over. I cupped the back of her neck and tilted her head, giving me better access. When I did, her lips parted, and my tongue slid into her mouth. The second her velvety tongue touched mine, our souls fused together.
I swallowed her moan into my mouth as our kiss deepened. I flexed my fingers against the base of Nadia's neck as her hands gripped my upper arms. Her nails dug into me, and my entire body surged with passion and reverence. I didn’t want this moment to end. This precious reunion held more meaning to me even than our first kiss.
This was what I’d been missing in my life. This wasn’t just a kiss; it was a mind, body, and soul restoration. Nadia was a part of me. She was infused in my DNA. Losing her meant I had to shut down a part of myself or risk losing all of myself. It was like when someone has to cut off an arm that is infected or else it can kill you. I had to cut off the part of me that felt, or it would have eaten away at me and destroyed me. But being with her again—touching her, kissing her—brought those parts of me back to life. Everything in my world righted itself.
When I felt my shirt being tugged at, I knew that the PG portion of our foreplay had come to an end. Nadia had always been bold. She knew exactly what she wanted, how she wanted it, and when she wanted it. Since she was the only girl I was with until I was twenty-two, I took for granted that all women were like her. It wasn’t until we broke up, the final time, that I had experiences with females who were not as comfortable expressing themselves the way she was, and I knew she was rare.
Nadia had an innate confidence to be unapologetically greedy in her sexual experiences, and it turned me on like nothing else ever had. It was something she’d had from our first time together. Maybe it was because we’d already been together for years, and there’d been so much build-up, so much foreplay, so much exploring and learning each other’s bodies together that by the time we actually had sex, we knew each other so well.
Her hands fisted in my shirt, and she yanked it up. I broke our kiss and pulled it up and off my head and then did the same with hers. Once both our shirts were off, I began to kiss her again. My hands roamed down her back as I kissed down her neck.
“I missed you,” she panted between kisses. “I missed you so much. I missed your lips, your tongue, your hands, your fingers, your cock.”
Hearing her say those words caused a surge of arousal to spike in me. I picked her up and pushed her against the wall. Her legs wrapped around my waist, and her arms circled my neck. My dick swelled painfully against my denim as it settled between her legs.
Need overtook me as I devoured her neck. I kissed, licked, and nibbled on the sensitive area just below her ear. She whimpered as her nails dug into my shoulders. I unhooked her bra. As soon as it came loose, I slid the straps down her arms, and it fell to the ground, joining our t-shirts.
Once we were both topless, she leaned back against the wall, and my eyes greedily took in her upper body. I’d always been her breasts’ number one fan. Maybe it was because they were the first I’d ever touched or seen in real life, or maybe it was because they were fucking perfect, or maybe it was the person they were attached to; whatever the reason, I stared at them now with the same reverence and awe that others might reserve for the Sistine Chapel.
She did the same to me. Her hands began to roam across my upper body, her fingers tracing the outline of my tattoos. I was so busy admiring the masterpiece in front of me I didn’t even notice her hand had stopped in the center of my chest.
“Is this…did you…was this about…us?”
Not having any idea what could have caused that reaction, I glanced down and saw the ink she was referring to. It was four very special words to us, written in script on my chest.
“For now. For always,” she whispered. “When did you get this done?”
“About six years ago.”
Her brows lifted in surprise. “Six ye?—”
I leaned forward, cutting off any follow-up questions with a kiss. Her soft lips parted, and my tongue slipped between them. Her head tilted to the side, and I moved to her neck, placing soft kisses all the way to her collarbone and then lower until I reached the swell of her breast. Lifting my head up, I placed my forefinger in Nadia’s mouth. She sucked on it, coating it with saliva. I pulled my digit from her mouth, watching as it slid from her lips, and then I used the moisture to wet her nipples. I traced the bumps surrounding the edges of her areola before teasing the hardened nub sitting in the center by rolling it between my thumb and forefinger and pinching it.
Her head fell back against the wall, and her hands moved down to my shoulders. I hissed at the sting of her nails digging into my flesh. Her back arched, causing my straining erection to nestle even further between the apex of her thighs.
Wanting to take her to the edge, my hands cupped the bottom of her breasts. They fit perfectly in my palms. I massaged her mounds as I bent down and sucked one, then the other nipple, into my mouth. I began by licking them with my tongue flattened, then I switched up and began to flick her puckered peaks with the very tip of my tongue before sinking my teeth into them. The second I bit into the beaded knots of her flesh, she let out a gasp, and her fingers fisted in my hair.
Her hips began to grind against me, and I could feel the heat of her sex radiating through the denim barrier. I knew I could make her come like this. She’d always had overly sensitive nipples, but I wanted to taste her. I wanted her naked and spread out before me when she came apart, which meant I needed to lay her down.
I snaked my arm around her waist and moved off the wall, then headed up the stairs. Nadia’s arms flew around my shoulders as she buried her face in the crook of my neck. I could hear her inhaling deeply. She’d always said she loved how I smelled. She constantly “borrowed” my t-shirts and sweatshirts so she could sleep with them and smell them, but they rarely ever got returned. She would randomly sniff my neck when we were watching TV or doing homework or when I was driving, just out of the blue. She called it her pheromone fix. Feeling her nose nuzzled into my neck as she breathed me in meant more to me than I could ever put into words.
More emotions than I cared to admit or acknowledge were flooding my system as I walked into the main bedroom and laid Nadia down on the bed. Not wasting any time, I unbuttoned her jeans and tugged them down her legs and off her body in one swift motion.
I stood above her, staring down at the angel laid out before me in nothing but a pair of white and black polka-dot underwear. The last time we were together, we were a decade younger. In that time, she’d managed to get even sexier. I wanted to articulate that to her, but when I opened my mouth, no words came out. I was unable to speak. That was the effect she had on me as I gazed down at her blonde hair fanned out across the navy-blue pillowcase. My eyes drank up her pinup curves from the flare of her hip to the V in her cinched waist. I continued down to the shapely lines of her thighs and toned calves.
I could have stared at her all night, but I needed to touch her. To be close to her. Not wanting to waste a second of our time together, I put my knee on the edge of the bed, but she lifted her hand and stopped me.
“You are not allowed on this bed.”
I stilled, and my left brow lifted in question.
“You have on too many clothes.”
A smile tugged at the edges of my mouth. I kept eye contact with her as I removed my shoes before unbuttoning my jeans and pushing them and my boxer briefs down my legs and off. As I did, she hooked her thumbs in the strings on her hips and shimmied her panties down her legs.
Once I kicked my jeans to the side, I straightened back up. My erection was jutting straight out. I could chop wood with this sucker. My eyes roamed Nadia’s naked form, and she did the same. I wanted to relearn every inch of her body.
When my eyes met hers, I grinned. “Permission to come aboard?”
A mischievous twinkle lit in her ocean-blue eyes. “To come aboard.”
I hadn’t meant it as a double entendre, but if anyone would take it that way, it would be Nadia. Just one more thing I loved about her.
She saluted me. “Permission granted, sailor.”
The mattress dipped below my knees as I moved between her legs. I began to kiss her belly, but Nadia wasn’t having it. She grabbed my arms and pulled me up, so I was hovering above her. I rested on my forearms, which were on either side of her face, as I stared down at her.
Her thighs opened even further as she reached between our bodies, wrapped her hand around my cock, and squeezed. “I want to feel you inside me, now.”
Pleasure coiled in my balls, causing them to tighten against my body as I groaned under my breath, “Fuck me.”
“Yes, sir,” she teased seductively as her lips curled in a sinful smile as she began to stroke me between her legs.
My forehead rested against hers, and I stared down at where our bodies were going to be intimately joined. Her delicate fingers slid up and down my thick member in long strokes at first, but then she changed it up. She began pleasuring herself, rubbing the hood of her sex with my mushroom head as she used mini ministrations just below the cusp of my tip.
Our breaths grew choppier and choppier as we increased the delicious friction of the erotic massaging of our most intimate spots. A deep carnal ache began to radiate from my core, signaling a release beginning to build. My cock swelled and throbbed heavily as a jolt of arousal shot through it as a warning sign that I was on the verge of climax.
As much as I enjoyed Nadia taking control, I was not going to come on her stomach. I shifted my weight onto my right forearm, hooked Nadia’s leg in the crease of my elbow, and took matters into my own hands, literally. I slid the crown of my cock along her slit, making sure her body was ready for me. Within two passes, my engorged head was completely coated with her juices, and I knew she was primed and ready.
I pushed past her folds, and I was barely able to get the tip in when I was met with resistance. My entire body seized with an explosion of tingles as I hissed through clenched teeth. Her canal was too tight. It had been when we were younger; I don’t know why it hadn’t occurred to me she still would be that way. I leaned down and began whispering all the dirty things I wanted to do to her, which caused her body to relax and open up for me. Inch by inch, I slowly sank into her body. When I finally filled her completely, her velvety walls pulsed around me.
After giving her some time to adjust, I began to move. Her hands began to roam up and down my back. She kissed my shoulders, my biceps, my neck. I was trying to prolong the experience, but she had other ideas. Her hips began to move faster and faster, seeking her release. When I didn’t allow her to set the pace, she grabbed my ass with both hands. Her fingers dug into my cheeks as she tried to force me to fuck her faster.
As hot as it was for her to take the pleasure she wanted, I was not about to let this end so quickly. My left hand gripped her thigh, forcing her to be still. She let out a groan in frustration, but I swallowed it up in a kiss. She gasped, and I gave her another kiss. Then another. And another. And another. I kissed her top lip, then her bottom, all the while forcing her to remain still. Her inner walls were fluttering around my steel shaft as the kiss deepened. It was soft yet firm, gentle and soothing, but the moment our tongues intertwined, a spark was lit, igniting a slow burn of smoldering intensity.
Soon a hot, pulsing rush of unrestrained release flooded me. I kept my hand firmly gripping Nadia’s hip as I began to pull out and press into her warm, velvety flesh. The pressure and friction of our joining were both familiar and foreign to me. The entire experience felt the same yet completely different.
Over the years we’d been apart, I’d been with a handful of women. Not a lot, only a half dozen or so. Since I got together with Felicity seven years ago, I’d been faithful to her. But no one had ever come close to what I’d felt with Nadia. I assumed that it was just because she’d been my first, and I built up the memory of what we’d shared into something that it wasn’t. Now I knew that wasn’t the case. Our chemistry, our connection, was real.
As I continued to surge in and out of her, I felt her inner thighs begin to tremble as her breaths grew shorter and shorter.
“No one else has ever made me feel like you make me feel,” she whimpered.
“Good,” I growled, not liking the idea of anyone else touching Nadia.
She was mine. She’d always been mine, and she would always be mine.
Trying to push the thought of anyone else touching her out of my head, I pulled out and drove into her, over and over again, claiming her with each stroke. I wanted her to forget that she’d ever been with any other man but me. Only me.