Chapter 21 #2
skin, ‘just know I’m going to ask you questions until you give me your answers.’
Before my brain can clear enough to come up with another one, he says, ‘Four. Do what feels good. Use me however you need.’
I move my lips down his throat now, still bending over him, and it already feels good, letting myself do this. ‘You didn’t agree,’ he murmurs, the sound melting into me. He takes my chin between his
thumb and forefinger and forces me to look at him. ‘Can you promise that for me?’
‘I can,’ I whisper. ‘I will.’
And then I momentarily forget what number comes after four, because his hand has found the slit in my towel and is making
its way up my thigh, and I realise I’m past the point of no return. I’m the first domino, and this won’t end until every single
tile has been knocked down.
‘Final rule. The most important one,’ I say, suddenly sure I need to say this, my breath coming out in quiet pants, and he
pulls back to give me his full attention. ‘Whatever this is, it ends when the trip does.’
This rule means I’m allowed to be someone else for a while. It means I get to be self-centred, in the confines of these four walls, with someone who’s good at centring himself, too.
‘And here I was, ready to ask for your hand in marriage,’ he says easily.
‘I mean it, Max.’
His teeth flash in a grin, and I know I’ve made the right decision. He’s perfect for this. ‘It ends when the trip does. That works for me.’ He pulls my face to his. ‘All of it works for me.’
Our lips meet in a damp press of heat, and this isn’t like that frantic kiss in the ocean. It’s like he’s painting my mouth
with his; slow, dirty, purposeful strokes of his tongue alternating with soft touches of his lips, his hums of contentment
vibrating along my skin.
He doesn’t break the kiss as he stands from the arm of the sofa and tugs us down to the cushions. And then I’m straddling
his lap, and I feel him everywhere, but he’s too covered up, so I grab at his hoodie, and he pulls it off with his T-shirt
in one go.
My hands trail across his torso, the light dusting of hair on his chest, the ink adorning his skin, the freckles on his shoulders
that fade down his arms. He’s all angles and edges, granite and steel, and lightning leaps between us at every point we touch.
‘Can I take this off?’ he asks roughly, his hand resting at the top of my towel.
An all-too-familiar feeling floods in. Awareness that my stomach is soft, softer than it used to be, that my breasts don’t
fill out every shirt the way I wish they did, that I’m out of practice being with someone new and there’s a chance he won’t
like what he sees.
I try to hold it in, to channel the version of me I’ve been pretending to be for the past few weeks, but what comes out is
an airy, ‘Prepare to be disappointed.’
His hand falters for a second, but then he presses his lips to my flushed skin above the towel and says, ‘You know I’ve been
out of my mind imagining this, right?’
‘Maybe your imagination will be better than reality.’ It’s meant to come off light, but there’s a break, right in the spot
where confidence is missing.
‘Fuck them,’ he says simply.
‘Excuse me?’
‘Fuck whoever made you feel unworthy of this kind of attention.’
I don’t know what I expect to see in his eyes, but it’s not this. Dark and stormy water made of whirlpools and waves and dangerous
currents that’ll drag me under if I let them.
‘I was thinking of you, you know. When you walked in on me just now.’ He sets his hands on my hips and slowly drags me over
every hard inch of him, as if to say look what you’ve done.
‘I was remembering how you felt in my hands this morning. Imagining what might’ve happened if we hadn’t been interrupted.
’ He looks up at me from beneath dark eyelashes; blown-out pupils, a muscle pulsing in his jaw. ‘I was wondering how you sound
when you come.’
His eyes blaze, and when he speaks, every word is lined with gravel. ‘So fuck them, Dylan. And fuck me while you do.’
There’s a single second of heavy quiet, until I meet his lips again in a desperate gasp and untuck my towel, letting it join
that urgent want pooling just below my waist.
‘Just so we’re clear,’ he says against my mouth, ‘reality’s already better.’
His palms roam my torso from my neck to my breasts to my stomach, his fingers squeezing and tugging and pressing, and maybe
I should be grateful for my softness after all, if it lets me yield to his touch like this. But then I arch into him and it’s
not just his hands on me, but his mouth gliding along my shoulders and dipping between my breasts, his lips and teeth and
tongue sweeping hungrily over sensitive skin, and I think I might actually be floating.
He tugs my wet towel from between us and sets it on the sofa without looking, and I’m about to say something about it leaving
a mark, but right as I open my mouth, he interrupts me with a gentle laugh.
‘I’m a little busy right now,’ he says, kissing below my ear and sending his words buzzing down my neck, ‘but I’ll hang it
up for you later, okay?’
For reasons I can’t explain, this makes me claw at the waistband of his sweatpants and say, ‘I want to feel you.’
There’s amusement in his eyes, even when I roll my hips. ‘What’s the magic word?’
I want to come up with something witty, but instead, what comes out is a desperate, ‘Please.’
The amusement disappears instantly, and I get off him to give him space to tug his remaining clothes off. And then he sits,
entirely naked and confident and ready before me, and before I can overthink it, muscle memory takes over and I drop to my knees.
‘What are you doing?’ he asks.
Heart pounding in anticipation, I run my hands up his thighs, over his favourite tattoo, past bruises and hair and along soft
skin, until I reach my target. The hitch of his breath when I wrap a hand around him and tug gently makes me tighten my hold
and pull a little harder. And when he bucks into my hand after my thumb swipes through the bead of moisture at the tip, it
only makes me want to learn more of this language, to decipher his movements and listen to his breathing and undo him from
this worn-out spot on the rug.
‘I asked you a question,’ he says, eyes glued to my hands, thigh muscles clenching. ‘What are you doing, Dylan?’
‘You said this was all in my hands.’
He exhales slowly. ‘I meant figuratively.’
‘Got it,’ I murmur. ‘No hands.’
Then I run my tongue up his length instead, and his answering groan makes my belly flip. It’s a special kind of gratification,
getting a man to crumble. It makes me feel like I’ve achieved something.
‘You shouldn’t do this,’ he says, but he winds his fingers into my hair and pushes my head down an inch like he can’t help
himself.
‘Don’t you like it?’
He holds me steady when I lower all the way to taste him, fingers tightening on my scalp as I ease him further into my mouth.
‘Of course I—fuck.’
I take him in fully this time, and when I look up, cheeks hollowed, eyes beginning to water, his throat is flexed, and the hand that’s not in my hair is white-knuckling a cushion.
I want to laugh, but my mouth’s filled with the weight of him.
I might not be sure of myself in other ways, but I know how to do this.
I know how to make him feel good. How to be what he wants me to be, how to get him to the end.
Which is why I’m surprised when he leans towards me and lightly tugs at my hair to pull me away. ‘Wait. I don’t want to come
like this. I want you to—just get back here.’
He pulls me back over him until I’m sitting on his thighs once more, and when his confident hands find the wetness between
my legs, my gasp blends with his muttered curse.
‘Do you have a condom?’ I ask, squirming against him. ‘Sorry if that . . . kills the mood.’
His gaze tumbles down my front cascades down my front, tumbling across every slope and dip and crease, and eventually he looks
up with smoky eyes, red lips, rumpled hair, some combination of lust and confusion and maybe even anger in his expression.
‘You look like that. The mood cannot be killed.’ One hand keeps hold of my waist while he leans down to dig around his open backpack on the rug.
He finds what he needs and tears the foil packet open with his teeth. ‘And stop fucking saying sorry.’
It’s not that I don’t trust him, but I can’t even entertain the alternative outcome, so I take the condom and roll it on to
him. He leans back on his hands, the way he does when we’re sitting at the beach, or talking in the morning in bed, and it’s
such a familiar sight that my breath catches. It shocks me that he can even be familiar, when prior to this trip, familiar was reserved for the routines and people and places I’d spent almost twenty-five years getting to know.
‘Where do you want me?’ he asks, expression eager.
‘I’m happy with anything.’ I’m a bundle of nervous energy and crackling desire, and all I want is for this impossible man
to lose a little bit of control, all because of me. The how is less important.
‘Try again.’ Then, like he’s just remembered where he is, he makes an impatient noise, before cupping my breasts in his hands
and setting his mouth on them again, all lips and tongue and soft pressure.
I consider the best view for watching him fall over the edge, and I reply, ‘This position is good. You there, and me—’ his heavy-lidded gaze finds mine, and the man grins around the nipple between his teeth. It’s ridiculous, and it’s obscene. ‘On top,’ I finish, the words tumbling out on a breath.
He releases me from his mouth with an outrageous pop, kisses between my breasts, and says firmly, ‘Then we’ll stay like this.’
Arms slung over his shoulders, I set myself just shy of where I need to be. ‘I don’t usually do this. Sleep with people I’ve
only just met.’
I know the roll of his eyes by now, but the hand he brings between my legs to position himself is brand, sparkling new. ‘We’ve