32. Dottie
32
DOTTIE
Sometime around eleven thirty, the night finally started to wind down.
Christmas lights and the electric fireplace cast a warm glow on the otherwise dark living room. Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer plays silently on the television, and the air smells of sugar cookie candles whose flames have been blown out. Sadie is tuckered out on the couch with her head in Mr. Hudson's lap. He, too, was asleep on the couch with his head on his own shoulder, slightly snoring. Daisy May is at his feet, snoring right along with him.
Delilah went to sleep about an hour ago–she set an alarm for 3 a.m. so she can wake up and tuck Sadie's presents from Santa under the tree–and Ivy went up with her. Mrs. Hudson followed shortly after, having refused my offers to clean up the kitchen and instead relegating the job to Stephen. He's tucking a pod into the dishwasher now, the rest of the kitchen spotless. I cross the room and hoist myself up on to the island and watch him finish up.
He turns, wiping his hands with a dish towel before tossing it on the counter beside me and making room for himself to stand between my legs. I hook my arms around his neck, and he presses his forehead to mine.
"Tonight was nice," I say, keeping my voice low so as to not wake the sleeping trio behind me.
"It was, but I'm beat. I think Mom must've slipped some melatonin into my hot chocolate, because I'm all kinds of groggy."
"Mmm, I think it might have been the whiskey that's got you groggy, baby.” The term of endearment feels slimy in my mouth now, like a lie I’m telling him, but he doesn’t notice. I smile against his lips as he leans in for a kiss. When he pulls away, I cup his cheek.
"What were you and Ivy doing earlier? When we first got here. She pulled you away real quick." He smirks at me, and I playfully pat his cheek. I'm not suspicious or jealous. He knows that I have no reason to be. Even if Ivy weren't a lesbian, I have no claim to Stephen right now. If he wanted to run away and hookup with someone else while I hung out with his family, he'd have every right.
"We were discussing tattoos. She's going to do some work for me, I think." He shrugs. My eyes widen, and a little flutter of arousal starts to build inside of me. Ivy is a tattoo artist, one of the best in Tennessee. She's tattooed half the country stars that have come out of Nashville in the last ten years. If she's doing some work for him, that means –
"You're getting tattooed?" I ask, raising a brow at him. It's not that it's out of character for him or anything, but I don't know many people who get their first tattoo after the age of twenty-five.
"I'm thinking about it. There's something I've been thinking about a lot lately, and I might be ready to have it permanently etched in my otherwise perfect skin," he winks and runs the back of his hand down his cheek. To be fair, he's been letting me goop him up at night before bed, and even though I thought his skin was pretty damn good a few weeks ago, he certainly has a glow to him now.
"Please tell me you're not thinking about a face tattoo," I say. He shakes his head and pats the middle of his chest.
"I was thinking about something more in this general area. More skin to work with, and I don't have to worry about the poor people of Fox Hole mistaking me with Post Malone on the street."
"Are you going to tell me what you're getting?"
"I think I'd rather just wait until it's done and let you discover it yourself."
I doubt you'll still want to share it with me after I'm gone.
I give him my fakest smile, trying to shove down the sadness that's been creeping up on me. If Stephen notices, he doesn't say anything. A beat passes, and then he's yawning and stretching his arms above his head. I'm grateful for the reprieve from the intensity of his gaze.
"I know I made a big deal about wanting to be able to go back to my place tonight-"
"Please, please tell me you've changed your mind, and we can sleep here? I'm exhausted." I interrupt.
Physically and emotionally , I don't say.
He laughs as he lifts me off the counter. He tucks his hands under my ass and starts towards the stairs.
"We are absolutely staying here tonight, sweetheart. Let's go to bed. Santa won't come if you don't go to sleep."
I look over his shoulder to the living room. Daisy May, Sadie, and Mr. Hudson are all still sleeping soundly in the glow of the electric fireplace.
"Should we maybe get Sadie up to bed?" I ask.
"Delilah can deal with her when she wakes up. Sadie is perfectly fine where she is with Pops and the pup."
He passes the staircase and crosses the hall seamlessly, all while holding me up and kissing me everywhere. My lips, my cheeks, my collarbones. At his bedroom door, he pauses to kiss me deeply in the doorway, and I can't stop a moan from working its way up my throat and out of my mouth.
"Stephen, I just promised your mother that we never had sex in her house," I whisper as my dress rides up my thighs and Stephen takes the advantage, pressing his hardening cock against my center.
"I know," he mumbles against my lips, then crosses the doorway and quietly kicks the door shut behind him. He drops me onto his bed, then crawls on top of me, caging me in. "I heard you. And to be clear, you told her we never had sex under her roof when we were teenagers. You made no such promises about the things we might do now that we're all grown up." He grazes his thumb down my chest, over the peak of my nipple, and my hips hike up of their own will. I grind against him, even as I protest.
"If you're a naughty boy on Christmas Eve, Santa might not bring you any presents tomorrow."
"Unless it's you, wrapped up in silk and lace like a delicious gift for me to open, I'm not interested in anything the Big Guy would leave under that tree anyway," he grumbles as his lips graze the shell of my ear, then down. He nips at the lobe, sucking it into his mouth, gold diamond Bvlgari hoop and all. A shockwave of pleasure jolts through me, from my core to my fingertips. Every inch of me is alive and fraying. His hands wander, palm splayed against my thigh and traveling north, right to the crease where my panties end. His fingers are a breath away from where I want him, where I'm throbbing for him, but he pulls away. I groan and stomp my fists on the bed, and he laughs at me, wickedly.
"Fuck, teenage Stephen would be absolutely losing his mind if he knew what was about to go down in this bed," he mumbles as he pushes the hem of my dress up. I lift my hips, and the skirt bunches at my waist.
"Did teenage Stephen have a lot of dirty dreams about having a woman underneath him in this bed?" I tease as I toy with the waistband of my underwear. I want to torture him like he's torturing me, but he seems perfectly content to watch me writhe and wiggle in the darkness of his bedroom.
"Sweetheart, teenage Stephen had a lot of dirty dreams, but they were all about you. Fuck, twenty-eight-year-old Stephen has dirty dreams exclusively starring you. You in your skintight skirts. You in your pretty little panties. You naked, your hips in my hands, on top of me, underneath me, sitting on my face. It's all you, Dorothea. Only ever you."
My breath catches as he stares down at me. The weight of his gaze sits on my chest like an anvil, somehow killing me and breathing life into my lungs at the same time. It's too much, he's too much, and I'll never get enough of him. I push up to my elbows.
"Unzip my dress, Stephen. Take off my bra, take off my panties, and fuck me. Fuck me the way you fantasized about while I was gone."
His lips part and he lets out a stuttered breath, and like the perfect, obedient lover he is, he listens. He hauls me up and pulls me into a hot kiss as his hands grab at my back and yank at the zipper. He pulls away just long enough to pull the dress over my head, and then his mouth is back on mine, hungry and domineering while he does exactly what I told him too.
He grabs a fistful of the front of my threadbare bralette and pulls, the sound of the lace tearing to shreds in his hands echoing off the walls. I shrug the straps off my shoulders and let the ruined garment fall to the wayside, and then Stephen pushes me onto my back, heaving my legs up into the air. He pulls my panties over my ass and slowly drags them down my legs. When he gets them off my ankles, I spread. I could go wider, could go all the way into the splits and probably watch his head explode if this full-size bed wasn't pushed up against the wall, but there's still plenty of room for him to fall between them.
And fall, he does. Face first, right into my aching pussy. His breath is hot against my wetness, and when he inhales–groaning and thrusting his hips against the mattress as he goes–I lose whatever shred of dignity I've been holding onto and rake my fingers into his hair, gripping at the bun tied atop of his head and clawing my nails into his scalp. I thrust, and his tongue is there, right there where I want him, lapping at my clit like he's a dying man and my pussy is the only source of water for miles. He teases at my entrance with two fingers, and I'm so primed and ready for him that when I buck, he slides in with ease.
"So hot, baby," he mumbles, almost incoherently as I grind myself into his face. I turn my head and bite down on his pillow to keep myself quiet as the overwhelming pleasure continues to build inside of me. My toes curl into the mattress as my orgasm teases its arrival at the base of my spine. Stephen wraps his lips around my clit, sucking it while flicking his tongue, fucking me with his fingers, and I shatter.
I nearly bite straight through the pillow as release tears through me. Colors burst behind my eyes as my mind and body soar on the bliss of this high. Stephen stops the ministrations of his tongue when I whine, too sensitive to take any more of the agonizing pleasure he brings me with his mouth. Instead, I pull at the roots of his hair, and he follows, settling on top of me and kissing me, swallowing my moans while he allows me to grind out the receding waves of my orgasm on his still-covered erection.
You're so beautiful.
So fucking beautiful.
My Dorothea.
Mine mine mine.
Love this so much.
I'll never get enough of you.
I can't take his sweet nothings. Not when I know they're not nothings. They're everythings. They're his promises. They're his prayers. They're his devotions. He'd give me all of him again if I asked for it. Wouldn't even give it a second thought. He's already given me his heart to hold, and I can't return his sentiments when I know I'm going to have to hand it back to him, sooner rather than later.
The buzz of reality kills the buzz of my orgasm, but if I can't give Stephen my love, the least I can do is give him my body. I grip his cheeks and pull his lips away from my mouth.
"I thought I told you to fuck me," I purr, and in an instant, he's up and shucking his shirt over his head. His pants follow, and then his briefs, and his cock bobs up, painfully hard-looking and leaking from the tip .
"On your hands and knees, Dorothea," he commands, running a hand down his belly and then gripping his cock. He pumps it slowly, and in the light of the moon shining through the window, I can see his forearm flexing, his veins protruding with the motion. I position myself so that I'm facing the end of the bed, close enough to where he's standing that I'm able to stick my tongue out and lick that bit of precum that's tantalizing me.
"Jesus," he hisses as my tongue dances over the head of his dick. "Put that tongue away before I come all over your pretty face."
That image should not be so hot. If we had more time, I might ask him to do it.
Instead, I go down to my elbows and arch my back, giving him a view of the top of my ass. It's not until he moves, stepping around me while his fingers glide down my back that I notice the mirrored closet door staring back at me. I watch as he climbs onto the bed and rolls a condom down his length, his thick thighs bracing on either side of my legs.
"This," he whispers as he rubs the head of cock up and down, coating himself in my wetness. "This is what I fantasized about the most."
He leans forward and smacks a hand over my mouth right as he thrusts deep inside, burying himself to hit. I bite his palm to suppress my scream from the delectable stretch of my body taking him in and squeeze my eyes shut as he pulls back and repeats the motion, fast but just controlled enough to prevent the unmistakable sound of our skin slapping together. His chest hits my back as he brings his mouth down to my ear.
"Eyes open, Dorothea. I want you to watch, please. Please watch me fuck you," he hums, so fucking sweetly. The dichotomy of Stephen is painfully erotic; he's so big and masculine, muscled and rough around the edges, but so amenable, so eager to please me while begging me to give him what he wants in return.
I open my eyes, and if it weren't for his hand still covering my mouth, I'd go slack jaw at the sight of us. His other hand digs into my hips as he swivels his hips, and his bottom lip is pulled between teeth. He leans back, lifting his chest off my back and I can see his abs, cast in shadows, contracting in the reflection of the mirror.
I drop my head to the mattress, overwhelmed by the pornographic debauchery of it all, but he scoops me up, up, up, until I'm up on my knees and my back is colliding with his sweat slicked chest. I throw my arms up and behind me, wrapping them around his neck, and his hand drops from my hips to find the rise of my clit.
I meet his eyes in the mirror as he starts to rub, bringing me to the brink with his fingers as his cock rubs against my G-spot.
"Look at how beautiful you are, sweetheart. So gorgeous, so sexy. Watch. Watch us come," he whispers as he lightly pinches my clit between his fingers, and I fall. I swallow my moans, gritting my teeth as my orgasm rips through me, shattering me into a thousand pieces as everything turns to starlight. Three fast strokes and Stephen is following me over the edge, burying himself deep inside of me as he comes. All the while he whimpers and whispers in my ear.
So perfect. My perfect girl. My perfect Dorothea.
He stills completely, just as I begin to shake. I try to stuff it down, to put my emotions back on the shelf where they belong, but my body betrays me. Tears sting in my eyes because I know. I know what comes next. I know everything, and I wish I didn't have to. Wish I could live a little longer in the blissful ignorance where I'm not so fucked in the head. The bubble where I'm less of the bad stuff and more of the good. The bubble where this is all real. Not a vacation from real life, not a teenage dream come true until the clock strikes twelve and I turn back into a pumpkin.
"You're crying," Stephen whispers as he pulls out of me. I turn my face and give him my fakest smile.
"It's a good cry."
A lie laced with shame.
"That was incredible. Life changing."
The truth, covered in a thick coat of self-loathing that only I can see.
He kisses the tears off my cheeks, and I go limp in his arms. He mistakes my insurmountable grief with a pliant, sated contentment, and I let him. He dresses himself and crosses the hall to the bathroom, returning with a warm washcloth. I lie back and allow him to clean me, his touch gentle and caring and peppered with kisses to the tops of my thighs.
When he's done, I mindlessly lift my arms as he pulls his hoodie – my favorite one, the one with the worn out 'Hudson Family Construction' logo on the front – over my head. We lie down, his back against the wall and my back against his chest as he spoons me. I've gotten used to falling asleep with my head on his little nook, the spot where his chest and arm meet, but I can't face him. Not when the tears have worked their way back out of my eyes and into my ear, all while he nuzzles into the top of my head, inhaling my hair.
He has no idea, and I let him stay in the ignorant, blissful bubble a little longer. He says my name, and I don't answer. I let him think I'm asleep.
Just when I think it all can't get any more impossible, his voice cuts through the night, low and raspy.
"I love you, Dorothea. I have always loved you."
The last pieces of my fractured heart shatter like glass, and all I can do is lie there and pretend to be asleep.
I listen as his breathing turns shallow and his wandering hand stills on my hip.
I count backward from one hundred.
I slink out of bed, careful not to disturb Stephen as he sleeps peacefully under the covers.
On the dresser, I find a pair of sweatpants. I slip them up over my hips, rolling and knotting them as tight as I can so they'll stay put.
On his desk, there's an old notebook and a mechanical pencil. I quietly flip to a free page and scribble down the only thoughts in my head.
I pick up my heels, and I look at Stephen.
The boy I loved. The man I'm breaking.
I stare and I cry. I take pictures of him in my mind so I can remember him just as he is.
Happy. Sated. In love with me.
And then, I do what I do best.
I just bolt.