38. Amanda
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
AMANDA
By the time Eric’s done hauling all the boxes up to her apartment, I’m already out of the shower, hair damp, and in a long T-shirt that reaches mid-thigh. When he puts the last box down, Eric’s curls are damp with sweat, and his forearms have pink lines.
He takes off his drenched shirt, revealing the planes and ridges of his chest, dusting of hair circling his nipples and trailing down, around his belly button till it becomes thicker and curlier just at the top of his waistband.
I lick my lips. Following the endless loops of ink on his skin, I want to slide my tongue over them and savor his sweat.
I pat the empty spot on the couch next to me, and Eric drops, cushion hissing under his weight.
“I really need a shower.” He tips his chin to the water basin, washcloth, and razor on the coffee table in front of us. “What’s that for?”
I shift on the couch, sitting on my shins to dampen the cloth in the tepid water, then bring it to the base of his neck. Droplets gather on the slope of his clavicle and trail down his skin over the lines of ink.
He stretches his arms over the backrest, and his fingertips trace my shoulder over the thin cotton. “More homework?”
Val told us it would help. Talking openly, touching without expectations. But I shake my head. “Touching you is never a task.”
I dip a washcloth in the soapy water once more and press it to the back of his neck. He closes his eyes at the contact. I wipe along his collarbone, down the slope of his chest, watching how his body responds to my care, leaning into me, as I wipe the sweat off his chest and arms.
“They looked like hell,” I murmur.
Eric nods, the water cools, and his skin ripples in goose bumps.
“Cassie is unraveling. If he doesn’t sign, and she’ll have to be around our—”
He shifts, holding my hips until I’m sitting more comfortably.
“She won’t be around Beckett, no matter what.” He takes one of my legs and extends it over his lap. “Even if he doesn’t relinquish his rights, they won’t last.” He trails down my shin with his fingertip, right up the slope of my instep.
“Can you, please?” I flick my eyes to the razor behind him. “I can’t reach anymore.”
He nods, smiling, then lathers up my skin, thumbs digging into the soft part of my calves until suds form. He places the blade where my ankle meets my leg, and slides up with practiced firmness.
“He seemed… different with the baby.”
Eric slides the razor down the side of my shin, then up the calf again.
“Yes.” He strokes up and down my thigh with his hand.
I have to bite the inside of my cheek so I don’t moan.
It’s not easier when he switches to my other leg, blade against my instep before he shaves up.
“I hear parenthood does that to you.” He repeats the motion, up and down, with care with his eyes trained on my skin, looking for any missed spots.
“It won’t do that to you.”
He sets the razor down and wipes my legs with the towel. “What do you mean?” He doesn’t take his hand off me.
“It won’t change how you show affection. Because you don’t care if or who is looking.”
“I don’t.” He leans forward and presses a kiss just above my knee.
I press the washcloth against the center of his tattoo, where all the knots intertwine. He shivers, and the water drips down on him.
“What’s a fantasy of yours?” I ask, holding his eye contact.
“A fantasy?” he repeats.
He strokes the outside of my thighs and watches my skin break out in goose bumps. When his eyes find mine again, there’s no way to hide from the heat in them.
“Honestly? Anything with you.” His voice softens, slows.
“I obsess about anything I could have said, at any point these past few years. What would that have been so you’d straddle me, your legs caging my thighs?
And tell me exactly what to do to make you fall apart with need for me?
” His fingers brush over my knee, then graze the inside of my thigh.
I grab at his forearm, and hike my thigh over his, straddling him, the way he just described.
“And also…” He leans in, breath warm in my ear. “Everything beyond sex. That’s also my fantasy.”
I don’t mean to kiss him with this much impatience, but I do anyway. We grab at each other, chasing something that feels both overdue and rushed.
When I stand, Eric falls to his knees and presses a kiss to my stomach. His amber eyes are darker than usual, expectant as if I’m the one holding all the power here. But my want isn’t more important than his.
He follows me to the bedroom without letting go of my hand, then watches as I lie down.
When he lies next to me without prompting, I curl into his chest and take deep breaths in sync with him.
Slowing us down in case this isn’t the right moment.
His breath is unsteady, his skin warm and damp from sweat and soap.
I explore his chest, sometimes tentative with tips of my fingers, sometimes palming with more pressure.
“I like this,” I whisper.
“This?” he murmurs, eyes still closed.
“You. Letting me touch you.”
I run my fingers down the sides of his rib cage, and he swallows, goose bumps rising across his chest. I savor every ridge and valley, angle and curve. Then, my gaze lands on the bulge in the center of his pants, and I can’t look away.
“You’re hard.”
“Of course.” He exhales. “You’ve been touching me.”
“I don’t want to stop,” I ask.
“Please.” The word rips out of his throat thickly. “Don’t.”
I want to touch and kiss both at once. It takes a few rolls and shifts until we’re both on our sides and our lips touch.
He fists his hand under the hem of my shirt. “I want your skin,” he murmurs.
After peeling the shirt off me, he moves on top of me, his hips bucking, and I feel him. When I follow the line of his spine, his shoulder blades arch in and away from my touch. He kisses down my jaw, my neck, and between my breasts. When I reach for the belt, he freezes.
“Is it okay?” I whisper, cupping his face. “Talk to me.”
His eyes flutter open, fear and heat battle it out together in his gaze. “I want this.” He drops his forehead to mine. “Just… Whatever goes wrong, it’s not you.”
I aim to kiss the corner of his mouth, but he moves so my lips land firmly on his. “Nothing could ever go wrong. It’s us.”
He opens his mouth eagerly when we kiss again.
Pushing his pants down his hips, I push him on his back and straddle him.
I hold some of my weight off him, and he thrusts his hips up, and holds mine down until I’m letting all my weight on him.
The heat of him is insistent, my desire and his meeting through the fabric of our underwear.
“It’s us,” Eric says. “No shame for you or me.”
He unhooks my bra and trails down my shoulders and sides until my nipples harden under his stare. Then, he leans in and puts one in his mouth. I moan loudly, my hands in his hair, pushing my whole breast into him.
I push him back down, licking and sucking every inch of skin I can put my mouth on.
I run my tongue through the ink on his ribs and chest, then the hairs that lead me to the thick head poking outside his boxers.
I pull his waistband down. He’s all naked and hard, glistening with precum, sweat and need.
When I touch the curls around his base, he bites on his bottom lip, muffling a whimper.
“No one’s ever touched me like this,” he mutters, finding the back of my head and pulling on my hair to meet his eyes. “I feel that everything about me matters to you.”
The simple truth makes my sternum hurt when my heart swells for him. “Can I do more than touch?”
“You can do anything you want with me.”
“I need to hear you.” I lick my lips. “Can I take you in my mouth?”
Eric nods and holds my hair behind my head in a makeshift ponytail. His eyes are on me, while my mouth hovers over his hard cock. “Yes, suck me.”
I flick my gaze down to observe the length of him.
I’ve felt him, but I’ve never seen him like this, rigid and wanting.
He’s long, with a ridge that strains until it disappears around his purplish head.
He’s also thicker in the middle, and the sight of him makes me warm with wetness between my legs.
I lean and lap at the pulsing vein of his shaft from base to head, swirling around his navel and crown to lick his precum.
Then, I swallow him until he hits the back of my throat.
He gasps, and his hips twitch, while I bob my mouth as he moans.
He tangles a hand in my hair, not pulling—just holding it.
“Fuck, Amanda…”
I learn him with my mouth. Each gasp and whisper of my name with every swirl, suck, or hum. He’s so responsive it’s hard to keep my fingers out of my panties so I can tend the ache between my legs. His breath hitches. His cock pulses larger against my tongue, and his grip loosens.
“Amanda, wait.” His voice is thick, grabbing at my shoulders. “Too much.”
I drop him from my mouth and kiss the inside of his thigh, then lie beside him. He opens his mouth, but I don’t want his apology. I silence him with my own, and we moan into a dance of tongues that tastes of him. I’m aching with want like never before: soaked, strung tight, unbearably sensitive.
“Did that feel good?”
“Amazing, I—”
“I wanted you to feel good.”
The shift in him is subtle. The fingers on my jaw wrap around my neck, and he digs his thumb with possession. “Can I… make you feel good too?”
“I’d like that.”
It is his turn to learn me now. He runs his tongue down my neck, licks down my chest between my breasts, and every kiss of his lands on my skin, but it reaches deep into my soul.
He hovers over me and blows at my breast. “Your nipples felt amazing against my tongue. I want to suck on them again.” His cool breath gives me goose bumps, hardening my nipples, and he groans at the sight. “And again.” He laps at it. “And again,” he gruffs around my breast.
He, then, treats my stomach like a temple, cradling its swell with his calloused hands until one anchors on my hip while the other travels the inside of my thigh, feather-light.
I part my legs for him, and he kisses the top of my mound, spreading my pussy lips with his fingers.
He holds himself just a hairsbreadth away from my center, fanning over my swollen clit.
When his tongue flicks against me, I gasp.
When he sucks me into his mouth, I moan, and each time he slides a finger inside me, I roll my hips into him.
“Eric…” I whisper, hand fisting the sheet beside me.
He moans loudly, and his name from my mouth is a reward. “You’re so fucking pretty everywhere,” he mutters around my clit.
He spreads me with his fingers, lapping at me sideways. Then, he hooks an arm under my leg, so he can cover more of me with the flat of his tongue.
“Don’t stop.” I clutch the back of his head.
He circles around my clit with the tip of his tongue.
I pull at his hair, press him against me. “Flick against it. I-I ne—”
Using the flat of his tongue now, he tries back and forth, then switches to sideways.
I whimper. “D-don’t change anything. Please—”
I cry out, first a wordless moan and then his name, and shatter against his mouth—every year desiring, denying, and delaying catches up to me at once.
And I fly very, very high, the low pressure in my core tightening until I’m arching my hips into his lips, my whole body shakes.
He doesn’t stop until I press my hand to his forehead, pushing him away.
When Eric crawls up beside me, his face is flushed, lips shining. I’m still gasping, legs loose and useless. He brushes a knuckle down my cheek.
“Did that feel good?” he echoes.
I want to laugh and cry at the same time. “You sure you don’t do that often?” I tease.
He smiles, crooked and proud. “Oh, that’s gonna change.”
I tug him down for a kiss, tasting myself, and his body hums against mine, hard and throbbing against my thigh.