Chapter 16 – Rule #8 Don’t get attached to a caller. #2
“It gives me great pleasure to deprive you since you always get exactly what you want from me. Please understand I won’t be telling you my middle names at any point in the foreseeable future.”
“Famous last words, Henry.” Now it’s game on. “I’m going to edge you until you beg to tell me, then once you do, I’ll edge you for hours. Days.”
“Oh, really?” he asks. “Is that a threat or a promise, sweet Kait?”
“Fine. Fine,” I say, bratty, even though I’m secretly thrilled he keeps holding the line.
“Moving on. I want you to tell me what you’ve been holding out on me.
I know there’s something that gets you hot and bothered.
You’ve resisted my efforts to figure out what it is.
I want to know your secret kink, then I want to use it to tease you, edge you, hold you at your limit, and then maybe let you come after tormenting you for a good long while. ” At least I’m honest.
“I’m a pretty simple guy, Kait,” he says, and I have to give him credit for sounding completely forthright, but I don’t believe him. Gut instinct. “I don’t have any secret fetishes or anything like that.”
“Think harder, because everyone has a thing. It’s okay to say you don’t want to talk about it or that you need to think about it, but we’re in the cone of candor.”
“I’ll think about it. Nothing springs to mind. I mean, obviously, there are things I prefer, but nothing that rises to the level of a true fetish or anything. If I come up with a thing, do I get to hear your thing?”
“I don’t have a thing,” I reply, too fast. “No secrets here.”
“Kait.” And with that single word, he manages to say that he knows I’m lying and caution me about it.
“Sorry, cone of candor,” I backpedal. “Quid pro quo and all that.”
“Are you using legalese on me?” he asks. “That’s kinda hot.”
“Don’t get too excited about it,” I reply. “I learned it from Silence of the Lambs.”
“That movie is older than you are. I think. I mean, I obviously wouldn’t know for sure since someone won’t tell me how old they are.”
“It’s older than you too, Henry, but you know the reference,” I say, ignoring his low-key complaint.
“My dad is addicted to movies. We never had money for cable, but if you could get it from the library, we watched it. If you could buy it at a garage sale for a dollar on VHS, I’ve seen it. Stop changing the subject.”
“Fine,” he says. “You were saying?”
“Of all the things we’ve talked about, sexual things, what got your attention the most?” This conversation is both something I’m feeling incredibly curious about and guaranteed to keep him hard while he drives home.
“Of the times we’ve talked sex?”
He’s gotten so much more comfortable talking about anything, everything. We’ve learned to trust each other. No judgment, just good listening and getting off. He has his orgasm with me, and like a virtuous phone ho, I have mine after we’ve said goodbye.
“You certainly know how to make it hard to focus on driving. I don’t really masturbate without you. I’m not getting off thinking about something I haven’t shared with you if that’s what you’re worried about. It feels empty without you, like something is missing.”
His blinker starts, and I wait for his attention to return to our conversation.
I’m losing the will to get him hard and tease him and not let him come until he begs to tell me his middle names.
Not that I won’t tease him, but I’m experiencing something warmer right now, something more tender than torment.
“I do like praise. That was fun. I wouldn’t like hearing ‘good boy,’ which you thankfully didn’t say, because that sounds too much like a puppy earning a treat.”
I let out a small huff of laughter. That’s exactly why I never say it.
“What really does it for me is turning you on,” he says, matter-of-fact, when it feels like I’m going to come out of my skin. “Like it’s not selfish on my part because it gives you pleasure too. That makes me want to splinter into a million tiny pieces.”
Henry disintegrating with pleasure is the hottest thing I’ve ever heard. I crave it. Like water and oxygen.
“I like being appreciated, and I read the love languages book when I was trying to figure out why all of my relationships crash,” he says, his voice low and quiet, taking his time.
“Words of affirmation are my love language, but one night, you told me I was enough, and mixed with physical pleasure, that was almost too much. I’ve never come that hard, not even having sex.
It was the first time my brain was all in with my body. It was fantastic.”
“It was for me too,” I murmur, rubbing the goose bumps on my arms that rise thinking about that night and the way he sounded. “I wanted it to be good for you, extraordinary.”
“It always is, babes. I’m thankful you made me acknowledge what I wanted.
” He pauses, his blinker in the background again.
“Do you remember the night you said you were going to grab my hair with one hand and my face with the other to make sure I was looking at you when I came? I’ve never had that.
I’d never wanted it, but I need that connection now. ”
“I’ve never had it either.” I want it. With him.
“Knowing I’m not good at it doesn’t stop me from wanting to be loved and to love deeply.”
“You are absolutely capable of deep, heart-pounding love.” I thought we were going to have a fun-and-games playdate, but here we are with the deep conversation.
“Henry, seriously, we’ve gotten to know each other incredibly well.
When I say you’re absolutely capable of a relationship, I mean it.
I take the cone of candor seriously, despite the asinine name.
You are absolutely capable of Princess Bride–level Buttercup and Westley love. You’re extraordinarily lovable.”
I wait for him to speak, but he says nothing, driving in silence, his wipers a steady beat. I take a deep breath and plunge forward. “Henry, do you think we’re friends?”
“Yes.” He says it without reservation. “Of course.”
“You’re one of my best friends, actually,” I say, and it should be weird, but it isn’t. It’s true, and I’m past torturing myself about it. “But there are days where I don’t feel like we’re friends at all.”
He starts to protest, but I keep talking.
“Not because we are less than, but because we’re more than.
I don’t want to get my friends off, I don’t want to hear them come.
I certainly don’t think about riding their hard cocks until they beg to come inside me.
” Whew. Hot flash. I fan myself and collect my thoughts.
“I sure as hell don’t get myself off thinking about my buddies.
I wonder if the thought of you buried inside me, filling me, and coming in me sends a shiver down your spine the way it does for me? ”
“My god, Kait,” he groans. This time, it’s sensual, his voice thick with arousal. “How could I not be affected hearing that?”
“I’m glad it isn’t just me. Our time together is proof that you’re able to be part of a relationship. I’d argue that we’re in one, of a sort.”
“I’m listening.” He’s a damn good listener. I’m pretty sure he’s home and sitting in his SUV, giving me his full attention instead of escaping the rain.
“Henry, we can talk about anything, and we do. We’re sexually compatible, from my side, at least. I adore you.
Didn’t someone say a relationship is friendship set on fire?
That’s definitely how I see you, how I see us.
What I’m saying is that you and me? We’re proof that you are more than capable of being in a partnership. ”
“It’s love, babes.” He says it so matter-of-factly, but my heart is going to slam out of my chest. I’ve been resisting the thought of Henry and love at the same time, but when he says it, it rings through my body like a gong, and it feels right.
It’s love, babes.
Thank Baby Yoda, I say, “I’m sorry, what?”
My heart beats so hard it’s like wood being split in my chest, faster by the second. Does he think this is more? I’ve refused to permit thoughts of the L-word. It’s self-preservation. Yet here he is saying it?
“Love. It’s love.” His keys jangle, and his car door thuds closed while my heart takes off like an entire box of bottle rockets.
Finish the thought, Henry, before I die from the sheer effort it takes to remain quiet.
“The quote is ‘Love is friendship set on fire,’ not a relationship is friendship set on fire.”
“Right.” Of course. He’s smart and knows famous quotes. Of course. The breath I didn’t know I was holding burns, and I let it out on a quiet sigh.
“Not that I would know anything about love, of course. I’ve been very clear about how worthless I am with all of that. No one wants me for the long haul, but I have been told I’m the ugliest Sterling, so there’s that.”
Henry tells me he’s shit at love, and I am falling so hard I can’t deny it anymore. When he’s in pain, I hurt. When he calls, I’m happy. When he’s too busy to talk, I pine. It’s pathetic, to be honest.
Because it’s love.
I love him.