30. Smoke
30
SMOKE
S he’s right.
This place is a goddamn mausoleum, minus the dead bodies.
But the ghosts of the people it’s a tribute to haunt every goddamn corner.
And I’m gonna help Quinn reclaim this space.
Because as she heads to the smallest bedroom, my heart breaks for her.
I get it—I was the oldest child, so I got the biggest room.
By the time they got to my two youngest brothers, they were stuffed in a tiny room in bunk beds.
I think the only reason they went into the army as young as they did was that a military dorm would still feel like more space.
We rarely see each other because of the bases they’re serving at, but we text each other frequently.
Excitement rushes through me at the thought of introducing Quinn to them.
Thankfully, despite her space being the smallest, it’s obviously the one space she felt she could make her own.
It’s light and bright, painted in a soft cream with pretty curtains and a soft pale pink throw on the twin bed.
Everything is meticulously tidy.
It’s the one place she can control.
Bones is excited, and we both squat to play with him for a moment.
“Did I lock the door? I don’t remember if I put the?—”
I stop her as she’s about to pass me to head down and check.
“I put the dead bolt on the door downstairs. You threw the dead bolt and chain on the door up here. And I”—I open my cut slightly so she can see the fact I’m armed—“have everything else covered.”
“Okay,” she sighs.
But she eyes the door anyway.
I reach for her wrist and take her hand.
“Come on, we’ll check together.”
We go back down the stairs, and she puts her fingers over the dead bolt to touch it, even though she can see it’s locked.
Then, she does the same to the doorway that leads into the kitchen of the bakery.
“Okay,” she says again.
When we get back to the apartment, she locks it and puts her fingertips over the dead bolt.
This time, I put my fingertips over hers.
“They’re locked, sweetheart.”
She leans back against my body, and I can feel the relief in her system as her shoulders drop and a sigh leaves her body.
I slide my hands in front of her and begin to unbutton the dress.
“I think what you need now is something to make you forget about locks.”
Eventually, I won’t have to explain why I’m doing what I’m doing with her.
She’ll trust me enough to know, whatever it is, it’s in her best interest.
“I’d like that.”
“On a scale of one to ten, how far out of your comfort zone do you want to go tonight?”
She turns in my arms to face me.
“What do you mean?”
“Sex doesn’t have to be kinky all the time. Sometimes you just want safe and comforting sex. Slow, but more predictable. That would be a one. Five would be something more...”
“Life affirming?” Her eyes twinkle with mischief.
I kiss her tenderly, then bite her lip.
Her pupils flare in surprise.
“That’s one word for it.”
“What’s ten?”
“Ten? Anything is game within any hard limits you have. But we haven’t had that conversation yet.”
“Could we do it now?”
I grin and shake my head.
“No. Because it will take an age to do it right. I feel like that’s something best saved for when we’re naked on a Sunday afternoon because, believe me, I’m really interested to know your opinion on anal plugs, cock worship, bondage, and choking. But how about we start with what you want to try?”
Her cheeks go the loveliest shade of pink.
Like she’s been in the sun a touch too long.
“What if I wanted to know your opinion on cock worship and choking?”
I love the curiosity and uncertainty in her voice.
I undo the rest of the buttons on her dress and push it open.
She stands, unashamed, in her underwear and cowboy boots.
“Cock worship is exactly what it sounds like. You worship my cock. Everything about it. I like when everything slows down. I like it edged. You can verbally or physically admire everything about it. It’s an extension of me. It’s how I show you what I feel for you. Would make me feel like a fucking king if you degraded yourself to love it. Spit on it. Take it to the back of your throat and beyond. Gag on it. Get on your knees and crawl to it. Choke on it. End up a hot fucking mess because I stopped your air, but you did it for me anyway.”
She strokes a hand over my already hard cock.
“I think worshipping you would be easy.”
I hover between a pleasure Dom and a primal Dom.
I’ll happily dish the nastiest of punishments to wrangle a willing sub into line.
But something tells me with Quinn, I won’t have to.
Something also tells me that I’ll find it hard to dish anything that would actually hurt her.
There’s an ache in my chest that comes with the idea that someone who has already gone through so much in their life deserves more hurt.
“So, ask me,” I say.
“Ronan, would you let me…worship your cock tonight?”
“Fuck, those words sound pretty coming from your mouth.” The praise makes her smile, and I make a note of that.
“Yeah, sugar. I’d like that.” I lead her back to her bedroom.
“Would it be okay if I started with washing it? Like, I think there was a Bible story, right? Didn’t one of the women wash Jesus’s feet with water as part of the ritual?”
I’m no fan of the old book, but maybe there is something kinky hiding in plain sight there.
“You have my permission to wash it.”
She glances up at me, that mischief there again.
“As long as I spit on it after, right?”
I put my hand to her throat and push her back against the wall gently.
“Pray for it, first, and you can do whatever you like after.”
She bites down on her lip.
“I’m sorry, I was only teasing.”
I kiss her soundly, using my tongue to dip inside those lips of hers.
I want her taste tattooed on my tongue.
I want to capture her every breath and puff of air.
“Good. Now, go get water and come back naked.”
I step into her room and shuck my clothes.
While it might be nice for her to learn how to undress me later, I feel like lasting through her tentative explorations might be enough of a sensory challenge as it is.
When she returns, she’s done as I said.
The clothes are gone, and in her hand is a glass bowl filled with water.
Bubbles dance on the surface, and the scent of citrus fills the room.
She places it on the table next to the bed, and I reach my hand out to touch the side of the bowl.
It’s warm, but not too hot.
There’s a chair in the corner of her room.
It’s small, but it will work.
I sit on it, shuffling my ass forward so it’s near the edge, and lean back with my legs open.
I want her to have as much room as she wants to work.
And I’m really fucking eager to see what she does.
She kneels in front of me and surprises the fuck out of me by bowing her forehead until it touches the floor.
My ego utterly gets the better of me.
It might be Quinn’s bedroom in the most old-fashioned apartment I’ve ever been in, but the sight of her, head bent, worshipping me, worshipping my fucking cock, is utterly empowering.
She remains there, taking one breath after another.
I see it in the rise of her narrow shoulders, the way her ribs expand and contract.
She’s in no rush.
She’s making me wait.
My cock twitches in anticipation.
When she finally lifts her forehead, she looks up at me.
“Thank you for letting me worship your cock. Because it’s the nicest one I’ve ever seen. I’d be honored if you let me wash it for you.”
I grab it and stroke it.
“I think you should kiss it, first.”
Quinn crawls closer to the chair, places her palms on my thighs, and runs a row of the tiniest, lightest kisses along the thick vein that lies on the underside.
There is nothing sexual about them.
It’s more like I’ve seen in historical movies, when people had to kiss the ring of the pope or king.
A reverent move.
“Like this?” she asks.
When I said it, I imagined it sinking between those lush lips of hers.
A baptism in her saliva.
But this is better.
“You’re such a good girl, Quinn. It’s perfect.”
Pace and intimacy and praise are the difference between cock worship and a hand job or blow job.
Intention heightens everything.
She crawls the few paces to the bowl and dips the cloth she brought into the water.
In the silence, she pulls it out, wrings it, then dips it back in.
As she moves, I get to take in the way the muscles in her core flex, how she has little dimples at the base of her spine, and how I think I could wrap my hands around her waist if I wanted to.
When she finally returns to me, my jaw softens.
She presses the damp cloth to the left of my cock, where the hair I keep trimmed smooths beneath her strokes.
My cock twitches as she works, desperate for her hands on it.
She moves, but only to place the cloth to the right side.
I take a deep breath, and the stress I hadn’t realized I was still carrying creeps from my neck.
There’s no point in lying to myself.
I’ve had my fair share of attractive women attend to me in lots of different ways.
But this…
It’s fucking special.
And even I’m not so hardened to life that I can’t tell the difference.
It’s not just that what’s happening between us in this room is special.
It’s that she is.
I wanted to do something for her, to take her mind off whether the doors are locked.
Whether men are going to return to her bakery tonight.
And it turns out that, when given free rein to choose whatever she wanted, she chose this.
She chose being of service to me as the thing that would calm her mind and ground her.
I can feel it in the silence.
In the same way the tension leaves my body, I can feel it leave hers too.
The room becomes a place of calm for both of us.
Of needs met. And I’m not sure it gets any more perfect than that.
I want to tell her, but I think the break in silence will bring her back to the room from whatever state she’s in right now, and that would be cruel.
So, I sit, and watch, and enjoy, and savor the preciousness of this moment.
Quinn washes my balls, and then I gasp when she sucks one of them into her mouth, rolling it around with her tongue.
Then, repeats the process on the other.
“They fit in my mouth so perfectly,” she says quietly.
I touch her chin. “That’s because your mouth is perfect.”
She smiles shyly.
And I see the layers stripped away.
Quinn, the fiercely independent lonely baker, is replaced with the soft Quinn who trusts me in this moment.
Someone finding safety in your arms must be one of the greatest things to happen to a person.
Quinn takes her time, dipping the cloth and squeezing it out several times before she reaches for my cock.
This time, she wraps it around my length and starts to gently rub up and down.
There’s the friction of the cloth, and the tension of her grip, and the look of sheer concentration on her face.
I can almost hear her thoughts, so focused on doing it right.
I cup the side of her face.
“You’re doing this so well,” I say.
“Your touch is everything, Quinn. I love how you’re loving me right now.”
Her eyes go wide.
“Truly?”
Truly.
Such a powerful word.
“Truly.”
When she’s done, she places the cloth over the edge of the bowl and shuffles forward on her knees until she’s right between my thighs.
Gripping the base of my cock, she licks the underside like she’s licking a popsicle.
Her tongue is perfect and pink.
One day, if she’ll let me, I’ll take a picture of her tongue on my cock to keep me warm on those nights the club takes me away from home.
But when she rises on her knees and lowers her mouth over my cock head, I gasp and let my head flop back.
“Yes, Quinn. Suck it.”
She does as I request, sucking harder the next time she lowers her mouth over me.
When I slip from her mouth with a popping sound, she smiles.
“You taste so good,” she says.
“I love how hard you are, yet how soft your skin feels.”
All that pretty auburn hair of hers drapes over her shoulders, the edges of it brushing erect nipples.
And then, she hollows her cheeks and spits on my cock.
It dribbles down over my crown, and I watch it until it touches her hand.
“Fuck,” I say on a groan.
“That’s hot.”
“It’s such a big cock, though. And that can’t be enough.” So, she spits on it again.
I twitch in her hand as my hips raise off the chair.
I’m not sure if it’s possible for me to come without any physical manipulation.
But I swear, watching the spit fall from her lips following compliments about my cock makes me want to come so hard, I can’t stand it.
“Suck it, Quinn. All the way to the base. Fucking choke on it. Let me see how much you like how big it is.”
She licks her lower lip, like she’s hungry at the thought of it.
And then, she does as I ask.
It doesn’t go too far, at first. But once Quinn gets past how raw it feels, she swallows me to the back of her throat.
She splutters. Her eyes water.
Saliva trickles down her chin.
And it’s the hottest fucking thing I ever saw in my whole goddamn life.
She gags as she tries.
And it’s more than enough.
“Look at you, sucking on my dick, taking me like a good girl.”
Her hips move as she throws her whole body into it.
“You wet, Quinn? You turned on as…much as I am?” My words come out punctuated with gasps of air.
She nods over my cock.
“You want to come too?” I ask.
Quinn gasps, sucking in air when she lets my cock fall from her throat.
“Please.”
I reach for her hands, tugging her until she stands, feet on either side of my knees, and lowers herself down over my cock.
“Ronan,” she cries out in relief as she seats herself all the way to my balls.
Between the saliva on my cock and how wet she gets, it’s an easy slide and feels so fucking good, my head spins.
I’m not sure who starts to move first. Her hips lift, my thighs thrust. Her short nails dig into my shoulders.
I grab her waist, then slide my hands to grip her ass cheeks hard.
It’s rough.
Messy.
All-consuming.
I’m not sure how to breathe.
I’m sure my burns must ache.
But I’m completely and utterly wrapped up in Quinn.
“I love riding your cock. Ronan, can I come, please?” The words are almost a sob.
She thought to fucking ask.
In the midst of everything she’s feeling, she thought to fucking ask.
“Yeah. Show me how good it feels, sweetheart.”
And when she comes over my cock, I follow her into the abyss.