6. Chloe
six
His room has the same layout as mine, but flipped. It’s a nondescript, middle-of-the-line chain hotel room, and it should feel sterile and temporary, but it doesn’t.
Maybe it’s because he’s been here a few days. There’s a pair of jeans on a chair, running shoes in a corner, and a travel bag shoved under the writing desk. And the shape of his head on one of the pillows. And his subtle, manly scent floating.
Or maybe it’s because we have a few hours to ourselves, a few hours to be us, here. Like one lifetime encapsulated in another, in this space.
I’m tempted to push him on the topic of not seeing each other after tonight.
But he’s right. I’m myself only because I won’t see him again. I can let go. He’s giving me this amazing gift, and I’m going to enjoy it. I kick my shoes off and put my phone on silent as he hands me a bottle of water. I take a long gulp. Then another. I was parched.
“Better?” he asks, his face gentle and caring, making my heart skip a beat.
I give him a smile and slip into the bathroom first. When I come out, he has the lights dimmed, his stray clothes stored away, the pillow fluffed, and music seeping out of somewhere.
He slips into the bathroom and comes out of it barefoot and hair half-tamed like he might have tried to run wet fingers through it.
“Where were we, earlier? Before we got all deep into our shit,” he growls as he pulls me into him.
My core warms. You had me pinned between the wall and your hard body, my wrist in your strong hand, and I had my other hand around your neck. “You were going to change my mind about elevators.”
His gaze turns molten. “Totally messed that one up,” he mumbles.
Totally did not mess up. But before I can argue with him, he seals his mouth to mine and wraps his hands around my waist, up my back, in my hair. His tongue takes my mouth without asking, and I let him, my body pressed against him, begging for more. He finds the top button of my blouse and opens it without breaking the kiss, sliding his hand inside, letting out a low growl when his fingers find my nipple.
A moan escapes me, desire zinging down to my center. I reach between us to undo the rest of my buttons and wiggle out of my blouse, letting it plummet to the desk. He pulls away from me a bit, his eyes widening as he looks at my chest like it’s the most beautiful thing ever. He’s so in awe of my body it’s intimidating, and I fleetingly wonder if he’s so enthralled with every woman. If he’s into women as a collector would be.
I open his shirt, button after button, down to his navel, and push it off his arms, letting it gently fall to the floor. I trail the designs on his skin with the tip of my fingers—leaves and tree bark and animals—and shiver as the uneven surface under the ink tells the story of the wound on his soul. The red, tortured scars of his skin, turned into a work of art.
His pain a secret hiding behind ink.
I trace the shapes covering his tormented skin with my tongue, committing them to memory. Then I press my lips to the center spot, untouched, unscarred, and naked of ink, feeling his heartbeat right under my kiss.
He gently presses my face deeper into him, and I feel his heartbeat pick up and his chest rumble when he says, “I want to make love to you, Clover.”
Isn’t that what we’re doing?
“I’ll fuck you later, but right now, I need to make love to you. Do you get me?”
I lift my face to his and twine my hands around his neck, then nod silently.
“Good, ’cause I’m not sure I get it myself.”
He wraps my legs around his hips and sets us softly on the bed, then carefully takes off every piece of my remaining clothing, one after the other, kissing every square inch of skin he bares. My eyes are glued to his washboard abs, to the intricate tattoo that starts on his left side and covers half his torso and his left arm, all the way to his wrist.
I might just come from the sight of him, so I close my eyes.
My body hums under his kisses, my back arching into his touch, his lips, the feather licks he deposits everywhere.
At some point he got rid of his clothes, and he’s down to his briefs.
And that won’t do. I trail my fingers along his erect shape, stopping him from kissing my neck. His eyes lock with mine. He hisses. I snake my hand inside his briefs. More hissing. I stroke his long, wide cock and lick my lips.
He kicks off his briefs. “Fuck, Clover.” He grabs a condom from somewhere and sheathes himself. Then he slips into me, slow and gentle, adjusting himself to the sound of my breathing, to the tiny signs my body gives him of how good he feels inside me. His eyes barely leave mine, only to trail sideways to my temple before kissing me there, or down to my mouth to take it in his.
I wrap my legs around his waist, tight, and pull him in. Run my hands up and down his back, my back arching into him.
He drops his head to my neck. “Clover,” he breathes, and increases his rhythm inside me, deepens his possession of me. Then suddenly he slips out and slides down to bury his face between my legs, laves my center, runs circles around my clit, then sucks it gently until I wail, and he pulls up and he’s inside me again. My legs are around him again, and I come again, a deep orgasm brought on by his powerful, fast strokes.
He wraps his hands around my head as he stills inside of me and growls, “Clover.” Then he rolls to his back, bringing me with him so I’m nudged on his chest, knees bent, my legs encapsulating him.
His heartbeat is fast and loud, and his hands caress my back and massage my head and trail down to my butt and back up. Then he pulls a sheet over us, and everything goes dark.
I startle awake to low whimpers and a hard, shaking body.
Not mine.
A body that smells like spice and sex, and a touch of soap. One with uneven skin on half the torso.
It’s still dark out. I must have just dozed off. But he’s asleep, in the throes of a nightmare, his arm around me clenching, his whimpers becoming more desperate. I tilt my head to kiss his jaw and stroke his chest and say little soothing silly things like, “It’s okay, it’s okay,” in a whisper voice. His legs jerk around until I tie them down with mine, still whispering, still kissing his jaw, wondering if I should wake him, then remembering you shouldn’t wake someone having a nightmare, then thinking that might actually be for sleepwalking.
Or is it?
He grabs me tighter to him and quiets down, and I fall back asleep.
Then I again startle awake, this time to his cock beating against the inside of my thigh, and I lift myself off him. He’s spread-eagle, one arm lazily holding me near, the other thrown over his head, hooded eyes trained on my face. “Hey,” he whispers.
Oh god.
God.
No one has ever looked so good, and no one ever will.
I lick my lips and with one finger trace the design of his tattoo from his arm above him, down to his chest. I kiss his chest above his heart, now beating slow and hard, and lick my way down to his cock. He holds my hair in his fist so he can watch me.
I lick his tip, a pearlescent bead my reward, then take his base in one hand and stroke him slowly. He grows thicker, making me wet and needy.
I take him in my mouth, as deep as I can, licking and sucking and moaning, a horny mess so into her own power over a man like that.
A man I should never have.
A man too good to be true.
I bob my head and moan around him, and he hisses “Clover” like it’s a curse, and then he picks me off him and jackknifes up, and my face is on the bed, my ass propped in the air, there’s the sound of a condom wrapper being torn open, then his hands around my hips putting me right where he wants me, and he fucks me so hard and so good I blubber when I come.
Then he flops me around and kisses me. A deep, long kiss. A soft kiss.
It’s a goodbye kiss, I know it.
Then he tucks me under his arm, and I curve my leg over his.
“Can I ask you a question?” I say.
“What do you want to know?”
“You have experience with women, right.”
“What do you want to know, sweet Clover?”
I take a deep breath. Not the kind I need to take before I get in an elevator, but close. “On a scale of one to ten… where do you put me?”
His hand sifts through my hair. “I don’t grade women, Clover. That’s disrespectful.”
I roll my eyes. He would say that. But come on. “I mean, not saying you give them grades, but… some people are better in bed than others.”
“Right. What do you want to know?”
He said we should be truly ourselves tonight, and that’s why we’re doing the no names, no numbers things. So I put myself out there. I hope he doesn’t make fun of me. “Where—where do I need to improve? Like, could you show me some tricks? Or whatever.”
His arm around me tightens, and I lift my face to his.
Something dangerous passes through his gaze.
“You know, for—”
“Yeah, I think I know what you mean.” He dips his head to kiss my temple and doesn’t say a thing.
Then he lifts me in his arms and takes me to the bathroom. He runs a warm shower, and we both step in. He washes me and lets me lather his whole, beautiful body. He’s careful not to get my hair wet because I said I don’t want to deal with the whole drying part of it.
Also I could keep his smell on me a little longer, but I don’t tell him that.
And then he fists my still-dry hair so he can kiss me long and hard this time, and he presses me against the tile, and he lifts one of my hands above my head, like he did in the elevator. I hike one leg around his hips, and his hand shoots out of the shower to grab a condom. Before I have time to fully revel on how prepared he is, he’s pumping in and out of me. My raw insides clamor for more, my legs shake, my toes curl, my scalp tingles. As I scream and fall apart in his arms, and while he’s still fucking me against the tile, I wonder how it is that each orgasm is stronger than the previous.
You’d think I’d be out of orgasms for a while.
After he comes and dries us and gets us back to bed, I say, “I get why you only do one nights. It’s better and better each time. I’d end up just wanting to have sex with you all day. Wouldn’t get any work done.”
He chuckles and pulls me into his side and sets his alarm. The pale gray light of dawn is seeping through the curtains.
He closes his eyes and plays with my hair for a while. Then he says, “You’re off the charts, Clover. Totally off the charts. I’m not saying that to make you feel good.”
I kiss his cheek and settle into him and wait for his breathing to steady. Then when I’m confident he’s deeply asleep, I slowly worm my way away from him so we don’t have to say goodbye. Then I get dressed, and I leave him forever.