Ch. 28 – Layla
“ I don’t want to take it slow.”
The words floated between them. Who had said it?
Layla closed her eyes. Breathed in the scent of Prem’s skin. Sage and pine.
Then, she realized. She’d been the one to speak.
“Are you sure?” The question rumbled from his chest.
Was she? Layla had insisted on taking things slow with Cal when they began dating. He’d chafed at her boundaries, always trying to push her to do more than she was comfortable with. And, so often, she’d given in and then felt ashamed afterward.
But Prem was so different. He’d accepted her terms without complaint. Tonight, he’d listened to her stories with rapt attention. He’d made her laugh.
And he’d never looked at his phone. Not once.
“Yes,” Layla said.
That’s all Prem needed. His mouth found hers again, and his arms wrapped around her waist, pulling her into his body. Layla sunk into the pleasure building inside of her. He took her hand, led her up the stairs of the porch, then kissed her again hungrily, as if even that short deprivation had been too much.
“Door,” he mumbled against her mouth after trying the knob.
“Oh, mm-hmm.” She fumbled too long searching for her keys, and he had to kiss her again before she found them.
The door squealed open, the floorboards creaked under their feet, and she almost bumped into the banister as they groped through the house in the darkness. Layla tried to stifle her giggles as she led him upstairs.
The moment she opened the bedroom door, Prem picked her up, walked her to the bed, and dropped her onto the mattress. She let out a squeak of delight followed by a happy moan as he draped himself over her.
“I have another guess,” he said as his lips found her neck and sucked against the delicate skin. “You’re not afraid of clowns, like most people. You love clowns. You feel sorry for how misunderstood they are.” His lips moved lower to her collarbone. She groaned. “In fact, you’ve started a non-profit dedicated to rehabilitating the image of clowns everywhere.”
Layla licked his ear lobe. “You had an imaginary friend growing up. He was an albino squirrel named Mr. Macadamia. He was even grouchier than you. He’d sit outside your window, and you’d spend the night complaining about how no one was as smart as the two of you.”
“Good ole Mr. Macadamia,” Prem murmured as he pulled her dress up and over her head. “Only person who ever understood me.” He laid his forearms on either side of her head, so that his face was directly above hers.
“I have a confession.”
Layla wasn’t sure if he was being serious. “What is it?”
“I do want to take things slow.”
Worry crept into her chest. “You do?”
“So slow.” He bent closer. His lips were inches from hers. “So slow that you’re going to beg me for release. But I’m not going to give it to you, Layla. Not until I’m good and ready.”
She grabbed his shoulders as bubbles of desire filled her lower belly. “Do your worst, Doctor.”
Layla lived to regret those words. Because Prem proceeded to torture her with long, luxurious kisses. Each touch of his lips stoked the fire inside her body, increasing the heat hotter and hotter and hotter.
He peeled away her granny panties, and then his thumb found her clitoris. Layla gasped. Fisted the sheets in her hands. Prem stroked her, slow and soft, making her nerve endings hum like wind chimes in a breeze. His thumb began to move harder. Faster. Breaking every few strokes to give her a chance to breathe.
Layla felt it again, that invisible rubber band stretching tighter and tighter. The feeling was agony. She moaned. She did indeed beg.
And finally, Prem put his mouth on her. Layla shattered like a mirror hit with a sledgehammer. She gasped and screamed. She saw stars and a few fleeting truths of the universe. And then she tucked her knees to her chest to ride out the fading filaments of electricity.
Prem held her. Rocked her gently while she struggled to breathe.
“I have another guess about you,” he said softly, his lips on the curve of her shoulder.
Layla couldn’t yet speak, but she stroked the side of his face.
“You’re beautiful, inside and out. You are a light in a dark world. Everyone adores you. Me, most of all.”
Tears gathered in Layla’s eyes, but she blinked them away. This was no time for tears. Not when she had sweet vengeance to deliver. So, she put a hand on Prem’s chest, pushed him back, and sat up.
Layla moved behind Prem and sucked on his neck as she unbuttoned his shirt. She bit him lightly where his shoulder met his neck. He pulled in a hissing breath as she lifted the shirt off his body. Layla splayed her hands, feeling the hard muscles of his back, the smooth planes of his hot skin.
She couldn’t stop kissing him. Tasting him. He turned around, and she moved her fingers to his zipper.
“My turn,” she whispered. Layla pulled down his pants. Prem helped her, and then she put her hands on his shoulders and gently pushed him onto the bed. Tonight was for going slow. For gentleness. She swept her lips across his, brushing her thumb across each eyebrow and then down his face. Her thumb lingered for a moment pressed into the small cleft of his chin.
Then she straddled his hips and thrilled at the noise he made. Layla leaned over and gently kissed a line down Prem’s chest, between his pecs, across his flat stomach, all the way to the trail of dark hair leading into his boxer briefs. She kissed him again and again, gentle kisses that each said, I see you. I accept you. I am here for you.
He lifted up her head, cradling her face in his hands. “What are you doing to me?” he choked.
She pulled down his boxer briefs and slid onto his stiff member delighting in the feeling of him stretching and filling her. Layla rocked, and Prem’s hips fell into the rhythm their bodies knew without words or thoughts. Her braid swung like a pendulum. Prem groaned, and Layla loved the rasp of his voice, the growl. Her hands found his. Large and strong, with such elegant fingers.
They rocked harder. He pulled her down, kissed her hard, desperately. He cried out against her sore, tender lips as his body spasmed. And Layla absorbed and accepted it all.
When his body stilled, she lay atop him and gingerly kissed his sweat-slicked chest.
“I have a guess about you, too,” she whispered.
“Yeah?” His voice was hoarse.
Layla laid her face on his chest, felt his heart beating through her. “You’re handsome, and you know it, but it makes you uncomfortable. You wish you were older because you want people to take you seriously.”
His hand stroked down her back.
“You wish you didn’t care what your parents thought of you, but you do, and you care about your practice more than anything.”
“Not more than anything,” he breathed.
She lifted her head and met his eyes. They looked black and endless, like pools to another world.
“That’s why you’re so stern,” Layla whispered to him. “It’s not that you’re a cold person. Or a mean person. It’s that you care too much. You’re afraid of what’ll happen if you don’t control every little thing.”
His hand stilled on her back. The familiar crease appeared between his brows.
“How do you know all of this?” he asked in wonder.
“Because I see you,” Layla answered simply. “You’re a good person, Prem. But you hide it. You’re afraid of what the world would do if you put your heart on display.”
Emotions flickered in his gaze, emotions she could read as if he were speaking them out loud to her. He felt unsettled. Scared. And also aching for acceptance and love.
I can give you those gifts, Layla thought to him. If you let me.
Prem’s chest heaved. He folded her into his arms. Squeezed tight. Layla closed her eyes as his heartbeat thundered in her ears.