Chapter 10 Emily
Emily
Alice lied.
Not a lie like all the others before. Not to keep herself safe, not to obscure her past. It's a lie I don’t understand the motive of.
I’ve seen her kiss Ilya dozens of times, in recordings and through live feeds.
Chaste, lustless kisses, sure, but I imagined that was Alisa’s preference.
I assumed that their engagement would have come with the modern physical expectations, regardless of how protective her father clearly was.
I can’t tell if she’s simply lying about all her sexual experience, for some unimaginable reason, or just the kissing bit.
And right now, I really don’t care.
If she doesn’t want me to kiss her, I won’t.
But there are a thousand other things I can do to make her eyes drift closed like that.
Virginity is a useless social concept, one I shed shortly after returning from Vladivostok that winter, but if Alice is being truthful about her lack of experience, I need to tread lightly.
She’s been through a lifetime of trauma in her twenty-seven years, and I’m still being more intimate with her than apparently anyone ever has before.
Coupled with the unavoidable truth that I should not be doing this, that I’m compromising my mission and my ability to see Alice as a target, that I might actually be risking my place in The Syndicate…this is complicated. So beyond complicated.
And again, I really don’t care.
“What if I kiss you here?” I whisper, gently drifting my lips along the line of her jaw, tilting her head up for better access. Her skin tastes like the salt of sweat and the sea, with something sweeter underneath that I can’t discern. I want to eat her alive so I can identify it.
“Mmmm,” she hums, and my head swims with lust and hubris. I’m so confident that I can make that pretty sound come out of her again that I open my mouth against her skin, letting my tongue sweep the expanse that I kissed.
This new sound is even better. Shocked pleasure, something between a sigh and a cry that I chase it with more open-mouthed kisses across her throat.
For some reason, the Act of Contrition plays on loop in my head as I nip at the place where her shirt lays against her collar.
My family was understandably never religious, but I heard the prayers everywhere when I was in Argentina.
I suppose if there was ever a sin I needed forgiveness for, touching Alice like this when I’ve lied to her about my entire life would make the top of the list.
Again…
“What about here?” I ask into her skin, dragging both my hands up her sides until my thumbs are right under her breasts. She grips my elbows, leaning against the console for support but digging her fingernails into my arms all the same.
“Please…” she whines, so fucking pretty I can feel my entire body lighting on fire. The sound of her begging stirs up a universe of things I could make her plead for. Things that will never happen, but I’ll carry in my imagination long after our summer here is over.
“Please what, Pecas?” I taunt, shifting my thumbs in slow circles on the underside of her small breasts, barely avoiding what I know she wants.
“More,” she breathes, her grip tightening before pulling me closer, surprising me. I’m reminded once again that the docile, sweet image of her I created in my head was nothing but a fabrication.
The way I need her reminds me I like this version so much better.
“You want more places I can kiss you?” I ask, barely giving her a moment before I push her higher against the console and slide my knee between her legs so she’s straddling my thigh.
Her eyes aren’t fluttering closed anymore, but are wide open with blown pupils.
I slide my hands down to her hips and ever so subtly rock her against me.
She let go of my arms in her surprise, and now she puts them behind her, supporting her weight against the helm as she follows my gentle guidance, rocking herself against my thigh.
Even though her shorts and my cargo pants, I can feel how warm and wet she is, so fucking perfect and turned on only from these little touches.
“What about here, Alice?” I ask, rocking her harder against me to make my point. I’m convinced her breathy cries of ecstasy could make me come standing here. She adjusts herself on my thigh, finding the angle that brings her the most pleasure and chasing it. “Can I kiss you here?”
I would do just about anything to. I want to taste her summer sweetness on my tongue, to know what she looks like when she falls apart because of my mouth.
I can’t kiss her, can’t make her taste herself from my lips, but I already know it’ll be short work before I make her come on my fingers first and slip them in her mouth while I follow through with my own.
I’m teetering on a dangerous edge. I may have been rebellious in my teen years, but I’ve never put the mission of The Syndicate at risk before.
Not for any partner, and certainly not for one I know I have no future with.
But there’s something about the way she pushes off the console and rises to her toes so she can rock herself harder on my leg that makes me want to follow her to the ends of the Earth.
“Answer me, Alice,” I demand, rocking her hips with my hands faster than she can on her own. She’s muttering incoherently, nothing but choked cries and pleas with my name buried between them.
“Yes, please,” she cries, and I increase the pressure but not the pace of her movements against my thigh.
Only a few rolls of her hips later, she tosses her head back, her hair falling in waves against the controls as she shakes and cries.
I don’t stop my movements, needing to prolong the sound of her pleasure in my head, already desperate to hear it over and over again.
Her orgasm lasts a lifetime, a gift from the universe that I won’t soon forget. She lets me rock her body against mine until the final waves of it ebb from her. I lean over her to kiss up the column of her throat, the salt of her skin even sweeter now.
“Oh my god,” Alice mutters, her head still hanging back, her chest rising and falling with heavy breaths. I like the way I can feel the vibrations of her words when my lips are on her neck.
“How are you feeling?” I ask, keeping her firmly supported on my leg, my hands unmoving from her hips. I remember all my firsts, and the most painful ones were those where I felt my partner withdraw quickly after the adrenaline died down. That’s the one betrayal I can guarantee not to give Alice.
“That’s so much better than when I do it myself,” she murmurs, and at my soft laugh she slaps her hand over her mouth. “I was supposed to say that in my head.”
There’s not much that could inflate my ego further at this moment, but I’m already impatient to touch her again. Her body is loose and languid, so pliant in my hands as I slip them under her shirt again.
“Emily…” she protests weakly, arching as my fingers find the soft skin under her chest again.
“Do you want me to stop?” I would, reluctantly, if she wanted me to. I get the impression that Alice feels a lot more uninhibited out here on the water than she does on shore, and I have no idea if I’ll get another opportunity like this again.
When I pull my mouth from her neck, where I’ve been careful not to leave any marks, she finds my eyes. Still lust-steeped, still wanting, but a little more hesitant this time.
“You can stop anything at any time,” I promise, taking my hands away from her body so we can both focus. “You say the word, and I swear to you, we stop immediately. There’s no shame, no hard feelings. This is all new, and my priority is your comfort.”
Something complex flashes in her eyes. Relief and interest, but threaded with something harsher. It’s gone in an instant.
“What if I don’t want you to stop?” she asks. It’s the first time I’ve felt like she’s actually flirted with me, her voice breathy and soft. It makes me want to give her anything she’s ever wanted.
“Pick a word. Anything but stop. You say it, we break. That way you can beg me not to stop all you want.”
She hesitates for a moment, her eyes scanning the boat and the horizon like she’s trying to pick a safe word from her environment, which I find painfully adorable. Her gaze finally lands on my research equipment, a small grin tugging at the corner of her mouth.
“Jellyfish,” she says, almost with a giggle. I can’t help my own smile in return.
“Okay, Pecas. Jellyfish it is,” I agree.
There’s a small ledge next to the steering wheel that I settle her on, lifting her weight off my leg so I can have better access to all the parts of her I want.
“You say jellyfish, and I’ll stop. Until then, I’m going to find all the places on your body I’m allowed to kiss. Understand?”
She braces herself again, her knees falling slightly open as she nods at me.
I don’t waste another moment. Lifting the hem of her tee shirt and holding it near her collarbone, I kiss a line straight from her belly button to her sternum.
Her breasts are still covered, and I take my time teasing the soft, pale skin of her stomach, the waistline of her shorts, the slight arch at her hipbone with two faded, parallel scars that I want to ask about.
The ocean rocks the boat, creating a tempo that Alice follows as she arches into me. Her soft sighs quickly melt into pleas, until I feel her fingers in my hair.
I’ve never been one to enjoy having my hair pulled. Generally I’m in the opposite role—controlling and giving, rather than submitting and receiving. But I’m coming to the very dangerous realization that I’d likely let Alice do whatever she wanted, if it made her come like that again.
I expect to find her expression supplicating, but instead she’s demanding. Insistent. Impatient. She tugs my hair a little, sending skitters down my spine.
“Don’t stop.”
What Alice wants…