Chapter 14 #2
“Fuck, Venus.” He trembles under me as his muscles flex. I feel him, ready to explode. My eyes find him in the beautiful chaos, and stay fixed as he cries out, filling my mouth until it spills out of the corners. I swallow and wipe my lips.
He falls back, sighing my name. “Venus. Ah, Venus.”
I kiss his thighs and hips, making my way up him as he recovers. “My name…” I straddle his lap and tackle him against the bed in a flurry of kisses. “…will be the only one you’ll say, too.”
He laughs, wrapping his arms around me and flipping me over. Pinning me to the bed, he kisses my forehead, my nose, and then my lips. “Venus,” he says again. “You’re right. Damn, that was… unexpected.”
“If it’s to be one night, I want everything,” I say between his peppering kisses.
“You’ll have it.” He caresses my nipple before lowering his head to kiss it. A moan escapes when I feel the light scrape of his teeth. But then he sits up, hovering over me, his eyes darting over every inch of me, like I’m a delicious buffet, and he can’t decide what he wants first.
“I like you looking at me,” I say, unable to remember the last time I felt this beautiful. This wanted.
“I like looking at you.” He stares, running his fingers gently over me. “I’ve dreamed this a million times, but I never captured you. You’re art, Venus. Fucking beautiful. Always have been, but now it’s… it’s…”
“Real,” I finish, breathless and teary again.
“Real.” He agrees, but our smiles dip simultaneously. Real, but temporary. Only temporary.
He takes my hand and brings it to his face, kissing my fingers one by one around my rings.
He thumbs over the mood ring he gave me, and I wonder if he remembers it.
He slips my bracelets off, setting them aside, and kisses the underside of my wrist. Softly, sweetly, teasingly, he moves along my arm.
Then, he exchanges it for the other and does the same.
With my bracelets and his glasses on the bedside table, he returns to me, kissing my lips and nibbling my chin as he moves down the length of me. He watches me as he explores, lips, tongue, teeth, and I’m swept into the past again, memories that always make me smile whenever I latch onto them.
The first time I tapped on his bedroom window and the relief when he let me in.
In high school, when he pulled me behind the stacks in the library and kissed me against the sad romance section until we accidentally knocked over an entire row.
“They’re just jealous of us,” he said, smiling, as we set them right again.
And I laughed because books don’t get jealous, but it was a cute retort.
That night on the Jeep’s tailgate, when we watched the most mesmerizing sunset between talk of engineering and environmental impacts.
His anxiety over asking me to the prom was endearing, until those nerves transferred to me.
Normal couple things. Normal seemed an impossible feat—for me, nothing had been.
Not my family. Not my education. Not even us.
Normal couldn’t exist for us, not the way he wanted or deserved. That night proved it.
Come back to me, Venus. Be with me. Here. Now.
His lips trail across my stomach. His beard tickles my skin, and a moan escapes as his hands grip my thighs, forcefully pulling me to his mouth. I cry out, “Henry,” when his tongue circles the same place he left his fingerprint.
“Be as loud as you want. It’s just us here,” he whispers, his breath hitting my clit enough to make me moan again.
My back arches as arrows of delight seem to shoot from his hot tongue through the rest of me, hitting me in the loveliest places—the small of my back, the hollow of my throat, the tips of my toes, and the length of my spine.
But then, he stops. “I want to see you better.”
He repositions us with me on top, my hands tight around the slats of the headboard, his face under me.
Watching me. As I arch and writhe, and he undoes me all over again.
The last orgasm was good—this is better.
Stronger. Closer. Heart-stopping. Brain-rewiring.
Muscle-memory reshaping around it. I won’t be the same again.
I’m still trembling and calling out his name when he eases out from under me and says, “I love watching you come. God, I wish we could’ve done this all along.”
Sadness swoops in again, but I shove it away. Not now. My hand goes to his rough cheek. “I need you inside me.”
“Fuck, please,” he says, leaning away to reach his bedside table, presumably for a condom.
I pull him back to me, draping my leg over his hip to hold him close. “Henry, wait. I want you bare… if you’re comfortable with it. I haven’t been with anyone since my last check, have an IUD, and I’ve never gone without a condom before.”
He smirks, pushing hair away from my eyes. “I haven’t been with anyone since I was last checked, either… If you’re sure.”
“Yes.” I take his bottom lip in mine, sucking it gently. “Only with you.”
“Only with you,” he repeats, kissing me. “Nothing between us.”
A moment later, we both cry out when he pushes into me.
The remnants of my dying orgasm flare again with his thrust, like when we billowed hot embers to reignite our campfires back then—steady, strong breaths making it hotter and hotter.
I lean up, kissing his chest from underneath him, and hear a gentle wheeze behind his quickening breaths.
Worry spikes in me, but I don’t want to draw attention to it.
“Henry, trade places with me,” I say, and he readily agrees.
He rests against the headboard while I climb on top of him.
I ride him deeply, but slowly, as he watches, his side-smile etched on his cheek.
He grabs my thighs, guiding me, but when he sees that I’m doing fine on my own, his hands roam softly over my back, through my hair, across my chest, and then slide down my arms. His fingers intertwine with mine, locking us together.
“You feel so good, Venus,” he says, breathless but no longer wheezing. “This is what I’ve always wanted. You and me, like this.”
“Exactly like this.” I battle the fresh tears cresting in my eyes. I want to tell him that I still love him, to cry over how good it is and how much I’ve missed him, to trap him inside me and never let go.
Instead, I hold his hands tightly, smile easily, and bring him in deeply until we both cry out. A hard pulse and a desperate moan from him, and I see it on his face, his exquisite pleasure. His eyes stay open, fixed on mine, as I come again, and he finishes with me.
I smile as he bites his bottom lip and relaxes inside me. “I love watching you come.”
He growls and laughs, leaning up to kiss my nipple and tug me close. “Ah, that was… so fucking good.”
With his head against my chest, I wrap my arms around his shoulders and rake a hand through his soft hair. I feel his heavy breaths on my skin as he tries to settle down.
“Let me get your inhaler.”
He groans but releases me. I lean over the bed to the floor and slide his inhaler from his jeans pocket. He takes a quick puff and shakes his head, staring at the plastic and metal device in his hand.
“I don’t usually need it this much,” he tells me, as if ashamed.
“The air quality today is 61, moderate range,” I report, lying on my side. “It’s normal to have—”
“Venus, it’s not the air quality. Not entirely. It’s emotional these days. You run away with your big feelings. I can’t breathe with mine.”
“Then, you understand me.” My words go unanswered, making me wonder if I said something wrong. I sit up, unsure what to do. “I’m sorry. Do you want me to go?”
He gives me a funny look. “You said one night—I want a whole night. I want to make you come as many times as you’ll let me.”
“Yes, please.”
And, we do. We lay on his bed for a while, talking about nothing in particular and staying away from the two very different worlds awaiting us outside this room.
We reminisce, good memories only, and we cuddle, listening to music and playing with each other’s hair.
We have sex again. And again. We raid his fridge and binge on juice boxes and apple slices.
Then, I come undone for him again, and again, and again.
When it’s very late, and we’re very tired, we get comfortable on his bed.
I roll on my side, staring out at the bridge lights through his window, and he curls up behind me, nesting perfectly against my body, just like we used to do.
His arms tighten around me, giving me the pressure he knows I like and often need.
And all I can do is cry. He’s done exactly as I asked—he ruined me.