70. This is Duress #2
I kiss him before sliding my lips and tongue to his ear. “Need you, Eli.” I reach between us for his belt and open it before he slaps my hands aside, undoing his belt and trousers, shifting us both so he can drop his clothes to his ankles.
He yanks me to him and begins to play between my legs. I don’t want foreplay. I don’t need it. I lift on my knees and slowly sink onto his hot length, velvet over steel, and take him to the root. He stretches me and fills me so completely, I feel branded inside by his heat.
My mouth hovers over his, with only the promise of a kiss. Our eyes stay locked.
I lift only to have his hands find my hips and tug me down.
He lifts me ever so slowly and yanks me down hard again. He hits me at a place deep inside, one that sends sparks over my skin, a place that builds in me in a new way, before doing it again and again and again.
I’m awash in sensation, loving the feel of him inside me. He moves a hand to my upper back and arches me into his mouth—first one breast, then the second. A nip sends a zing of pleasure to my core, building the wave that will soon break.
I roll my hips, lost in us when his fingers hit my core. They come close, but don’t go where I need them. I undulate and stretch for his fingers, but unable to find him, I reach to do it myself.
“No.”
My eyes snap to meet his that are steely with resolve. “Not this time, darlin.’ Your pleasure is mine to give, not yours to take.”
“But—”
“But nothing. You don’t use me to get off without discussing it with me first. That’s one thing. But this isn’t that. This is us, Brighton. When I’m inside you, this is about us, not just you.”
I hold his eyes until what I see there threatens to overtake me.
I nod and lever myself only to slam back down again.
“Could the you part of us please touch my clit then? Because I need to come.” My eyes communicate my frustration.
He smiles. And that smile—shit, it would melt my clothes right off… if I were wearing any.
“Thought you’d never ask.”
He finds my center and rubs me until I can’t handle the sensation and break when the tidal wave sucks me under. He pulls back and pistons into me with short, jerky movements that prolong my orgasm.
“Fuck. Eli.”
“You have a filthy mouth, baby. And fuck if it doesn’t turn me on. Brighton, I’m going to come.” And he does.
Inside me.
Without a condom.
Marking me with his heat.
I roll my hips, pulling every last drop from him, knowing one thing.
If I ever lose Elias Finchley, I’ll need to join a vibrator of the month club.
There could never be another man for me.
Elias
“I’d pull one of those romantic gestures where I carry you to the shower to clean you up, but with my pants as they are, we’d make it about two steps before one of us had a concussion and the other was in traction.”
She smiles and lifts off me. I see what’s left of us on her and go caveman for a minute.
“It’s almost creepy, Elias… You staring at my pussy.” Bright throws her hands on her hips and lets her sass shine.
“Baby, there’s lots I find sexy about you, but this—” I swipe a finger through the evidence of us—my cum leaking out of her—and trail it up her mound. “This is the sexiest thing I can think of… aside from you.”
I continue to trace and play, moving my fingers through her wetness—our joining—and spread it over her, until I feel my dick start to swell. “Yeah, I better get you cleaned up, darlin’. Otherwise, we’ll be in for round two or twenty-two. And I owe you dinner.”
“Well, don’t leave me hanging.” She sashays away from me, calling over her shoulder. “Round twenty-two sounds divine.”
I hear the water flip on, and she’s under the spray before I can get into the bathroom. I clean up and make certain not to look in the direction of the shower and fight not to peek in the mirror to see her.
“You coming in?”
“Not today. I do that, and you’ll be sated but starving. Take your time. I’ll be over here master— ordering dinner for the two of us. Anything you want?”
“Just not pizza.”
I slip out of the bathroom, order for delivery, and head to her kitchen to figure out drinks.
In a moment of who-knows-what, I slip her panties from the living room floor into my pocket and spend a moment with Luna. She spent our fuckfest in Bright’s room, peeking her head out once, only to think better of it and leave again.
Bright enters the kitchen in shorts and a tank, her nipples visible through the thin fabric. Her hair is wet, and she has on no makeup. I’ve never seen her more beautiful.
“Once I got in there, I couldn’t not wash my hair. It smelled like the bar last night and bad decisions.”
“We need to talk about last night.”
“Nothing to talk about. Anyway…” She trails off as if that’s that.
“I was wondering about Johnny Cash. What got you down?”
She stiffens, averting her eyes, and makes herself busy.
“Brighton?”
Nothing.
“These are the easy questions, darlin’. Would you rather I start with why you think you need to resist me?
Or why you had tears in your eyes when I sang Luke Combs?
Better yet, why were you crying the last time I was here?
Why did you ghost me for three months? We’re covering it all tonight.
So?” I lift a bottle of tequila and one of vodka as if to offer her a choice.
“Or there’s hard seltzer in the fridge…. What are you drinking?”
“Depends. What did you order for takeout?”
“Giovanni’s.”
The look on her face says more than she knows. It’s her favorite. I know it. Now she knows I know it.
“Then I’m drinking vodka.” She walks to the cabinet near her old refrigerator and pulls two tumblers down from the shelf. “Ice?”
“Sure.”
She returns with two glasses and plops both down in front of me, the ice clinking as they’re jarred. I add a splash to each.
“Better be more generous than that, Finchley. Especially if we’re ‘covering it all tonight’.” She throws up air quotes.
“Finchley? How’d you go from sweet and sated to ornery this fast?”
“And I quote, ‘we’re covering it all tonight.’ That’s how.”
“Just so you know, darlin’. I don’t mind your sass.
It does it for me, actually, so keep it up.
And we’re not getting drunk tonight. I have plans for later that involve watching you take my cock and I want you sober enough to enjoy it.
” I lift my glass and toast her, tossing back the sip I poured myself.
She toasts me and tosses hers back. “Why Luke Combs?”
I tip my head and grin, before adding a splash to her tumbler and one to mine. “Because Bill Withers didn’t move you the way it moved me. Because I am a fool for you. Because it was the only way to get you to listen after Lorrie Morgan. My turn… Why did you ghost me for three months?”
“Not enough vodka in the world for that question. Next.”
“Bright.”
“Next!”
“Why Cash’s “Sunshine”?”
She tosses back her vodka. “Because you said—” She steels her spine just as the doorbell rings.
“You said I wasn’t worth the trouble.” She turns on her bare heel and heads to the front door, with her ass cheeks peeking from the bottom of those tiny shorts as she walks away, leaving me in her kitchen, glass aloft, before draining its contents and pouring myself another round.
She returns with two brown paper bags and drops them on the kitchen table. She moves around me to grab plates, silverware, and napkins and then rips open the bags, pulling out the containers and setting them up like a buffet.
She doesn’t acknowledge that she leveled me with her last answer. She doesn’t even act as if it rattled her.
But we both know better.
She’s served her plate and sits, staring down at her food.
When I get to her, I slide a hand to the base of her neck and tilt her head until she meets my eyes. “I’m sorry, Brighton. I didn’t mean to hurt you.”
She swallows, and her throat visibly bobs. She breaks eye contact just as I see emotion rise in her.
I drop my lips to her forehead before letting her go with a squeeze at her neck. “Eat up, baby. Don’t let it get cold just because I was an ass.”
“You ordered my favorites.” Her voice is quiet, almost wondrous. She waves her hand not holding her vodka toward the spread. “Everything I love on the menu. How’d you know, Eli?” The boldness she so often has is gone. Her question is timid. Raw. Vulnerable.
Peeling back the layers of Brighton Ranger is a conundrum—each layer more complex and more delicate than the previous one.
“You want me to answer all your questions while you answer none of mine?”
“I answered Johnny Cash.”
“You did.” I pause. The attorney in me knows how to plead my case. The thing is, she isn’t the judge. She doesn’t need a litany of facts. She’s the jury. I need to paint the picture, create the scene, lead her to where I need her to go.
“Well?”
“How many times have we had Giovanni’s?”
“Including tonight? Let me count.” Here comes the sass. “Um. Once.”
I point my fork at her plate. “Eat.”
She stabs a bite and groans a little when the pasta hits her tongue.
“Fuck me,” I mutter under my breath.
“I already did that,” she mutters in reply.
“Me and you and Giovanni’s is once. But us—all of us—or us with Brax or on special occasions or your birthday?
Baby, there have been dozens of dinners at Giovanni’s.
You always ask about the fried ravioli, but usually you choose against it because the Italian bread with the olive tapenade and garlic is more your speed.
You order the parmigiana when you’re happy, the seafood cannelloni when you’re stressed or sad, and rarely, but it does happen, the spinach lasagna.
You do that when you’re hell bent on getting the tiramisu and you want to pretend you’re eating healthy. ”
Her eyes scan the table before her face contorts with emotion. It’s not anger or joy. It’s not lust or sadness. It’s… confusion.
“But—” She looks to me.
“But what? You might as well spit it out.”
On the faintest whisper, with her face cast down, I can feel the tremble of fear in her voice. There’s something utterly childlike in her tone. “But you don’t like me.”