Chapter 13 Cecily
I didn’t plan this.
It’s just—between the blizzard and the power being out and Nate’s reading and the way he looks at me and the scent of his skin and the fire and the fucking hotspot, I just can’t.
I can’t not kiss him.
I melt into the softness of his lips, the faintest hint of chocolate from dessert still on his breath mixing with the strawberry of his ChapStick to create a taste that will forever be linked to this moment. The weeks of trying to ignore the chemistry between us finally surface, exploding like the first whistle of a boiling teakettle. Exhilarated passion courses through my veins, trailblazing like a pioneer through the wild frontier. I’ve felt excitement before, but nothing like this. The firsts of my time with Bryce were fraught with the anxiety of potential embarrassment; the firsts of my subsequent Tinder years were marred by disappointment and skepticism, followed up with resignation that maybe love wasn’t in the cards for me.
Until Nate.
This—our first kiss fueled by desire and adoration in equal measure—is too much for my fragile ecosystem to handle.
Our first real kiss.
Third time’s the charm, I guess. The very first kiss was an alcohol-induced mistake. The second kiss (when we were pronounced man and wife) was measured by the metronome of one Mississippi, two Mississippi. This unfiltered kiss is feral, tongues lapping at one another greedily, Nate’s fingers threading into my hair before tracing down my back and landing on the hem of my shirt, tearing it up and over my head, and then depositing it on the floor.
His hands cover swaths of me with a warmth I’ve not felt, perhaps ever. It is a combination of certainty and impulse, satisfaction and unhinged yearning. He mumbles my name and audibly gasps when my hands return the favor, stripping him of his sweater and his undershirt, dying to feel the ripples of his muscular torso beneath my palms, and when I peel back the layers and land on his skin, I am overcome with a fresh wave of Holy shit, how is this man so insanely beautiful? But just as I feel my senses of touch, taste, smell, and sight overload, he pulls my mouth off his just long enough to mutter, “I’ve been dreaming about your body since our wedding day,” and a flood of longing ignites between my thighs.
Which is when it hits me: this is a man who might actually be able to do something about it.
The realization sends me into a tailspin. Drunk on pheromones, I pull his hands from my waist up to my breasts, and the moan that escapes his lips in response is my undoing. He unclasps my bra, pulling it off me and sending it falling to the floor. His hands work dutifully, cupping me from underneath and rubbing my nipples in slow, gentle circles with his thumbs.
“Good Lord,” I purr, leaning my head back and arching my spine into his touch.
“God, CJ,” he replies, but then his mouth is gone, having worked its way down my upper chest and landing on my right nipple, where he kisses me as if I am a deity to worship.
This continues for several minutes, as Nate is careful not to favor one side over the other. I’m hungry for more though. As my hands roam impatiently, they land on his belt and begin to tug at the leather and unfasten the buckle. I open the button, pull down the zipper, and his full length springs forward like a clock on daylight savings time. His shaft pushes against the thin fabric of his boxer shorts but doesn’t emerge for me to see.
Before I can push his underwear down as well and feast my eyes on what it looks like when Nate Ellis unravels, he lays me down on the bed, removing my pants in much the same way that I just disrobed him. Because I’m on my back now though, he hovers over me, planting kisses on my lips, sucking my swollen nipples, and then sitting up to take in the sight of me in my panties, awash with the burning glow of the hearth.
“Fuck,” he says. “Look at you.” He runs his thumbs under the black lace that rests on my hip bones. Nate’s eyes settle on mine, but all I can feel is those curious thumbs, dipping under the elastic. “Can I take these off?”
I nod, consumed by his earnestness. He slides my panties down and pulls them off my ankles. Then he sits back up and parts my legs with his knee. Looking me over, he says, “You’re incredible, Cecily.”
“So are you,” I whisper in reply.
“One more thing,” he says, leaning all the way forward so his face is next to my ear. He pushes his erection, still covered by his boxers, into me, and my senses heighten. I am ready for you, Nate Ellis, my body screams. I’m not sure if it’s the darkness, the anticipation, or the intimacy of trusting him, but if I have to wait much longer to feel him inside me, I might literally and figuratively explode. “May I take off your glasses?” he asks.
“Sure,” I say. The tenderness with which he removes the frames, folds them carefully, and then regards my face is too much to handle.
I need him. Right now.
“Jesus,” he breathes. His lips kiss each of my eyelids and then shift down to my lips, where his tongue dances with mine for just a brief moment as he slides a finger inside me. The heel of his hand morphs into a shelf of pressure against me as he hooks his middle digit deeply, then rocks his hand back and forth, creating a sensation that begins to mount. As he does this, all while still in his shorts, he kisses down my belly, lightly biting here and there, until he gets to my navel, and then he works my legs open all the way.
Nate feasts on me like I’m a fucking Thanksgiving turkey.
I grip his hair, unsure of what else to do with my hands, and my hips involuntarily buck up and down against the pushing of his tongue. He continues to work the finger forward, driving me crazy, and I know this won’t take very long. As my breath catches, he hums into me, and the vibration tips me over the edge. My body tenses as I careen into a void of pleasure in blissful waves.
I can’t believe he did it—and so easily.
Nate made me come.
After my torso relaxes into the covers, he kisses his way back up to my face. “Are you okay?” he whispers in my ear.
I can barely speak. “Uh-huh,” I manage to say.
“You taste unbelievable,” he replies.
I smile into the darkness and roll over onto my side. “Do you have a condom?”
“I don’t,” he admits. “I wasn’t planning on this.”
“It’s okay,” I say. “I brought some.”
“What?” he asks incredulously. “No, you didn’t.”
I giggle. “I definitely did.”
“You knew this was going to happen?”
“Absolutely not,” I insist. “But I like to be prepared for the unexpected.” I kiss his cheek. “I’ll go grab one. Wait right here.”
I climb off the bed and then pad, naked, over to my suitcase. It’s not easy to dig through luggage by the light of a fire when you have astigmatism, but the heart wants what it wants, and in this case, my heart desperately wants to ride Nate Ellis until he bursts inside my body. Based on his foreplay performance, I can only imagine that sex with him must be truly next level, and nothing will keep me from finding out.
As expected, I am correct.
I bring the condom to the bed, and Nate lifts his hips so that I can pull off his boxers. I slide the latex onto his length before settling down on top of him. I realize once I’ve already taken him that I wanted to return the favor and feel him in my mouth, but it’s too late now. I’ve never been so selfish in bed before; I can barely even recognize myself. Anyway, it’s better than I could have imagined. For someone who I wasn’t sure could dance (based on his performance at karaoke), this is a man who knows exactly what to do with his hips. Not only that, he has remarkable upper-body strength, so he effortlessly maneuvers the two of us from one position to the next. I’m on top, then I’m underneath him, then he is behind me, and finally I am straddling him in a seated position, only he’s doing the work of lifting me up and down with one large hand on each of my ass cheeks. As his orgasm builds, he buries his face into my neck, kissing and licking my skin, raising my hips faster and faster until finally, he bites down, and I feel him thrust into me hard. He pushes again, again, and once more, until he fades into a series of twitches and trembles, finally able to exhale.
I collapse on top of him, more satiated than I’ve ever been. I inhale his deliciousness and cannot believe that this extraordinary man, so gorgeous, smart, kind, and driven, has given me the gift of my very first non-self-imposed orgasm.
“You’re in trouble, Nate Ellis,” I whisper.
“Why’s that?” he replies.
“I think you’ve imprinted on me.”
I feel his lips curve into a smile against the side of my face. “Like a wild animal?”
“Exactly.”
“Well, I’ve got bad news for you then.”
“Go on. I can take it.”
He takes a long cleansing breath. “I want you to be my girlfriend.”
I can’t help but laugh. “But I’m your wife.”
“You’re also my muse.”
“Maybe I can be all three.”
He wraps his arms and legs around me, and I grin under the weight of them. “Yes,” he sighs. “Yes to all of it.”