Twenty-Two #3
He doesn’t make me. Easily, audibly, he slips two fingers inside of me. Just enough to stretch, to madden, to push the air out of my body and replace it with white-hot tension. ‘This okay, honey?’
The second I shake my head, he freezes. With a groan, I buck my hips to try to urge him back into action. ‘Not enough.’
His exhale is pure relief and tantalizing promise.
He shifts, bring his hand around to cup me from the front, and then he’s sliding inside of me again, two fingers right down to the knuckles while his thumb finds my clit and stokes that swollen ache.
‘Was too quick last time. You didn’t get to enjoy it.
I didn’t get to enjoy you. Slow, honey. Like that. Use me. Good girl.’
I shudder. It feels so good, I forget where we are, that we’re only barely in private. Heath reminds me when I moan a little too loudly, he shushes me with a gentle rumble, he guides my face to the crook of his neck, where I muffle my obscene noises, where I bite.
Cursing and groaning and fucking whining, he tells me he could come from that alone. I almost demand he prove it. I start to encourage it, pulling away enough to sneak a hand between our bodies and palm him through his jeans.
And then I make the mistake of looking up.
My body clenches, tightening around Heath’s fingers. I’m not entirely sure it’s another hot wave of pleasure that skyrockets my internal temperature, or an equally scalding rush of panic.
‘Heath.’
He grunts, satisfied. He twists his hand just the right way, and I bite my lip hard enough to taste blood.
‘Heath.’
Teeth sink into my neck, and oh my God.
‘Ben.’
Those maddening, perfect movements come to an abrupt stop, and I almost burst into tears. Slowly, Heath reels back. ‘What did you just say?’
Another man’s name, I realize with a wince. ‘No. Not like that, I—’ Jesus, I can barely breathe. ‘Ben is here.’
‘Where?’
My gaze flicks forward. Finds my ex again where he’s joined his friends – where he’s already looking at me.
‘He see you?’
I nod.
‘He know?’
Swallowing, I assess my ex. The slack jaw and crumpled brow, the narrowed eyes that take me in, that must register the way I’m moving, that must recognize it. Even from a distance, the tight, furious twist of his features is easily seen. When I nod again, it’s as shaky as the rest of me.
‘What does he know, Dani? That I’m knuckle-deep inside you right now? That you’re soaking my hand? That you’re actually enjoying it? That if I asked nicely, you’d let me fuck you, right here, right now?’
A whimper burns my throat. Of their own accord, my hips start to rock again, and, fuck, does that set him off.
‘Don’t need anything else, do you? Just me. Someone who knows what the fuck they’re doing. Someone who knows you. Mind, soul, and then fuckin’ body.’
I come with a strangled noise, fingernails digging into the back of my not-boyfriend’s head, eyes fixed on my ex-boyfriend, but not even seeing him.
I see black. Stars. God, briefly, I think. I say God, I say it a lot, God and Heath and so many curse words in all the languages I know, and maybe even some languages I don’t. I’m speaking in fucking tongues, I’m sure of it, I’ve lost my mind in pleasure, I am pleasure personified.
For what feels like forever, I writhe and I buck and I cry, and Heath gently coaxes me through it all.
He speaks tongues of his own except his are literal, his tongue lashes against my pulse, down my neck, everywhere he can possibly reach.
He mutters his own words too, words that sounds like my name and my name and some more of my fucking name, and I think I could come again and again and again, from that alone, even if his fingers weren’t still moving inside of me.
He only stops when I beg him to. When I crumble, and the wet, salty tears burning a path down my cheeks scald his neck as I bury my face there.
He slips out of me, making me whine – with relief or annoyance, I’m not entirely sure, though I lean toward the latter, despite it being my insistence that made him do it in the first place – and while his slick hand grips my thigh hard, the other lightly traces the length of my spine soothingly.
When my body finally settles, when I finally settle back inside of my body, I huff a sated, smiling noise.
I’m smiling. I can’t stop smiling. God, that felt so real. I didn’t have to force it, I wasn’t consumed by self-consciousness, I was just here. Enjoying myself for myself, not for the sake of anyone else.
I laugh this time. I laugh breathlessly as I pull back, as I grace Heath with the brunt of my smile, as I open my mouth to thank him or kiss him or, fuck, suggest we do that—
‘Theory confirmed?’
And just like that, I drop back down to Earth a little – Heath’s face drags me down. His tight expression, wiped clean of any of the pleasure or the need or the desperation that was contorting it a mere moment ago.
Abruptly, I sit back – abruptly, I remember where I’m sitting. I remember how I’m sitting when Heath’s gaze drops to my lap and becomes pure black, turquoise irises giving way to pupils, and I scramble to stand and yank my skirt into a marginally more modest position.
Heath takes his time getting up. He adjusts himself with a wince, and my cheeks burn.
‘Should I . . .’
With a faint shake of his head, Heath takes my hand with the one of his that wasn’t just inside me.
That one . . . well. Well. We walk back inside, and as we pass Ben and his horde, Heath slips that fucking hand, those glistening fingers, between his lips and licks them fucking clean.
He doesn’t so much as glance at my ex, but everyone and their fucking mother would know that smirk is all for him.
My pussy fucking throbs.
He leads me into the nearest bathroom, locking the door behind us, and all kinds of different parts of my anatomy get excited. I assume more is on the cards. I’ll take care of that incredibly obvious, incredibly distracting bulge tenting his jeans, and, maybe, he’ll take care of me some more.
I would like that. I would really, really like that.
I’m opening my mouth to suggest that, to request it, quickly and bluntly and oh-so-pragmatically, and not at all with anything remotely related to the dreamy glimmer dancing in my eyes – in fact, I blame that on the cloudy bathroom mirror and shitty overhead lighting.
Heath opens his mouth first. ‘We shouldn’t have done that.’
My stomach drops.
My expression does too, but he doesn’t see that. He’s hunched over the bathroom sink, washing his hands, splashing water on his face, scrubbing away any evidence of me. ‘That wasn’t right.’
My knees wobble. My reflection sways, and I can’t tell if it’s my blurring vision or a sudden bout of unsteadiness or both. ‘It wasn’t right?’
He grunts. He won’t look at me. Fingers curled around the edge of the sink, he glares into the basin.
For a few fleeting seconds, I allow my hurt to fester.
I let it spread through my body, slump my shoulders and my spine, and gather at the back of my throat, the corners of my eyes, the pit of my stomach that was, what can’t be more than five fucking minutes ago, cramping with pure, unfamiliar pleasure.
I let myself . . . fuck, I let myself grieve.
I mourn the first taste of sex that’s ever felt like anything more than just body parts clumsily colliding.
But by the time he looks up, I’m glaring too.
He says my name, and I don’t say a word. I don’t make a single noise, don’t offer any acknowledgment of what he can’t possibly know was the absolute worst thing to say, because then he wouldn’t have said it. He turns around, but I’m already unlocking the door and slipping into the hallway.
If he says anything else, it’s lost to the music. I wouldn’t stop to hear it anyway. I make a beeline for the kitchen. I grab the first alcoholic beverage I find, and I swig straight vodka, right out of the bottle.
And as it screams a burning path to my stomach, I cover my mouth with my free hand, and I scream just a little bit too.