Chapter 11 #2
But the tension was there too: a slow-building, magnetic pull tightening with every breath. Gravity. Every time he leaned a little closer and his gaze dropped almost unconsciously to my mouth, or I caught him tracing the line of my sweater, wondering what was underneath.
After a while, he suggested we go out to the small balcony overlooking the street below. The night was soft, humid, awaiting rain, still buzzing with late summer energy.
We stood side-by-side at the rail, pretending to look at the distant city lights, pretending we weren’t acutely aware of every inch between us. I felt him glance at me, once.
Twice. Then his hand brushed mine. I turned, slowly, and he was already looking at me, his eyes darker now, pupils blown wide.
“Alicia,” he said, voice rawer now, rougher around the edges.
I lifted my head slightly, inviting him in, daring him without even knowing. He reached out, his hand threading through my hair, tugging me closer, until there was only heat between us.
And then he kissed me again. His hands slid under the hem of my sweater, fingertips grazing the bare skin of my waist. He smiled against my mouth when he felt the edge of satin again, like he had been waiting all night to get there.
“Alicia,” he muttered against my jaw. “I need to know what you’re hiding there.”
I smiled, breathless.
“That’s the idea,” I whispered.
He pulled me closer, pressing me against him, his hands roaming now with more certainty, more hunger.
The air between us practically crackled.
It was a slow, inevitable burn. Because tonight wasn’t just about the clothes or the lingerie, but about choosing each other and going to that meadow to forget everything without fear and without hiding.
Paul kissed a line along my throat, pausing at the point where the scar began.
His mouth was careful there, reverent. And for the first time in a very, very long time, I didn’t hesitate.
I kissed him back harder, tasting wine and hope, and something wilder.
Suddenly, his hands slipped under my thighs, lifting me effortlessly, toward the bed, without letting go, and I followed.
Because what else could I do? My brain had completely left the building.
When we reached it, he sat down on the edge, legs spread slightly, hands still holding my hips.
His eyes swept up to mine, questioning, patient.
I climbed onto his lap, straddling him carefully, feeling the solid line of him under me even through our jeans.
His hands slid up, under my sweater now, slow and steady, waiting for permission. I nodded, a tiny movement.
He peeled the sweater up and over my head with a carefulness that wrecked me more than any roughness would have.
His eyes darkened, full storm now, as the golden bra was revealed, the one that made me feel enhanced and a warrior, and everything in between.
Paul sat back slightly, taking me in, and then he let out a low, filthy sound that tightened every muscle low in my belly.
“Fuck me,” he said, voice hoarse. His hand grazed up my side, over the soft curve of my breast, without touching too much, like he was trying to memorize it instead of groping it. “You’re insane, Alicia.”
I laughed, breathless, feeling ten feet tall and wild, and invincible for a second. He lifted his hand and traced one strap with a fingertip, barely-there, reverent.
“You wore this for me,” he said, almost like a question, more like a prayer.
“Maybe,” I said, shifting my head.
“Best maybe I heard in a while,” he muttered, kissing the top of my breast softly, the strap, the hollow of my collarbone.
My skin broke into shivers. I shifted slightly on his lap and felt, felt just how much he wanted me: hard and undeniable against my inner thigh, while he groaned low in his chest.
“Keep moving like that,” he warned, voice a ragged whisper against my throat, “and I’m going to lose the last ounce of patience I have.”
I giggled, drunk on the power of it, on the way his hands gripped my thighs now, fingertips digging in like he was barely holding back.
Then, as I leaned back a little to catch my breath, my eyes caught something, just under the right collarbone of his T-shirt: a dark ink swirl peeking out.
Curious, I tugged lightly at the collar of his shirt.
“What’s this?” I asked, tracing it lightly with my finger. He hissed softly at the contact but didn’t stop me.
“A compass,” he said simply, letting me tug the fabric down a little more to see it: a small, finely drawn compass rose. Stark black against his skin, a little weathered, like it had been there a long time.
“Why?” I asked, voice softer now.
He smiled, but it was a smile that didn’t reach all the way to his eyes.
“To remind myself where home is,” he said.
“And where’s that?” I asked, heart stumbling a little.
His hands slid up my sides again, anchoring me.
“I don’t know,” he said simply. “Still looking, maybe.”
I touched the tattoo again, only for a second, feeling the heat of him under it.
“I used to look at compasses all the time, up there. And now one made it here”. Paul looked up at the invisible sky, stared at me then, like he was seeing something he hadn’t planned for.
“Magnetic north,” he murmured, voice rough. “You… you’re destroying me.”
Then, his hands curved around my thighs, palms sliding over my jeans, and he tipped his head up to capture my mouth again, fierce now, almost desperate.
I was a goddess a minute ago, now I was all breathless need and desperate ache.
Fingers in his hair, his hands everywhere, his mouth running through every inch of my throat, my jaw, the top of my breasts.
Every breath between us a stutter and a promise.
Still almost fully clothed, and yet it felt like we were already completely naked, laid bare right in that moment. I rocked against him slowly, shameless now, feeling him grow even harder beneath me, and it made my whole body thrum. He broke the kiss, forehead resting against mine.
“You’re driving me insane,” he rasped, breathless. “Do you even know what this is, what we are doing?”
I smiled wickedly against his mouth.
“Maybe,” I whispered.
“Seriously?” he laughed, low and rough, his hands tightening on my thighs. “Now you’re getting cocky?”
“Maybe,” I said again, shifting just a little more in his lap.
Paul growled low in his throat and flipped me onto the bed, gently but swiftly, pinning me beneath him. Moving there, his breath ragged, his body trembling slightly with restraint. He brushed a strand of hair from my forehead.
Then he moved the sky by asking, “Do you want me to stop?”
For a few seconds after he asked, neither of us moved.
His body shifted above mine, arms braced on either side, every line of him tense, holding back.
I could feel the heat rolling off his skin, the strain in the way his jaw flexed.
Waiting. Always waiting for me to decide.
I reached up, fingers tracing the line of his throat, the stubble along his jaw, the dark edge of his hunger barely caged behind his eyes.
“I don’t want to stop,” I whispered again.
Something shifted in his face: was it relief, want, something darker and sweeter combined?
And then he kissed me again, deeper, greedier, like the dam had finally cracked.
His hands moved under me, sliding up my back, so slowly.
When he lifted my top higher, I arched instinctively to help him, breath catching in my throat as the cool air brushed over my skin.
He sat back slightly to look at me: golden bra still on, jeans still clinging to my hips, hair messy around my face.
“Alicia King,” he muttered, almost to himself. His hands skimmed the sides of my ribs, tracing the scars without hesitation, without flinching. “You’re so real. And it’s beautiful.”
I flushed, heart pounding. Somewhere inside, a tiny voice whispered: believe him.
Slowly, his hands found the button of my jeans, pausing just long enough to make sure.
I nodded, wordlessly. He unfastened them, dragged the denim down my legs inch by inch, with a patience that was somehow more devastating than if he’d just ripped them off.
Like every second was deliberate, every touch meant to be remembered.
I reached for his T-shirt, tugging it upward.
He let me pull it over his head, laughing softly when I fumbled a little at the sleeves.
“Bossy,” he teased, voice rough with amusement.
“Shut up and kiss me,” I murmured, shoving the shirt away and tracing the ink of the compass tattoo again. His skin was warm, trembling slightly under my hands. The muscles of his stomach tensed under my fingers, his heart hammering against my palm like mine was.
We kissed again, harder now, mouths sliding and tasting. My body moved up instinctively against him, and the friction of his jeans against my almost-bare thighs made my breath stutter.
His hand slid under the edge of my panties, cupping me lightly, and then he stilled. His eyes locked onto mine, a wicked grin curving his mouth.
“Pure gold,” he murmured, voice thick with disbelief and awe. “Alicia King, you came prepared to break my brain.”
I smirked, emboldened by the heat in his voice, by the way he looked at me like I was the only thing on his mind.
“Am I breaking it now?” I said sweetly while kissing him slowly behind his ear and whispering into it. He huffed a half-laugh, half-groan against my throat. “Congratulations. Full success. I’ll be suing for further mental damage.”
And then, slower this time, he hooked his fingers into the waistband of my panties and started sliding them down.
For a second, pure panic flickered through me: old reflexes, old fears.
He caught it instantly. Paused. Lifted his head, brushing his nose along my jaw, murmuring low and dirty against my ear:
“Not like I haven’t been between your thighs before, girl,” he whispered, lips brushing my pulse point, his hand soothing up my trembling side. “Not like I didn’t make you come so hard you forgot your own name.”
I choked on a laugh, half shocked, half destroyed by the way his words punched straight to my core.
“Still…,” I said, breathless.
He kissed the corner of my mouth. “Still yours to choose,” he murmured. “Every inch. Every time.”
My chest squeezed painfully, beautifully, and I nodded again. Panties gone now, discarded somewhere on the floor. He sat back a little, taking in the sight of me, laid bare before him, golden bra still on, skin flushed, breathing unsteady.
“You’re perfect,” he said roughly. “Every scar and every inch.”
Then he stood up, towering above me, stripped off his own jeans, revealing black boxer briefs that left very, very little to the imagination.
Holy.
Shit.
I might have let out a noise—and an embarrassing one while his smile turned lethal.
“Eyes up, Alicia,” he said teasingly.
I grinned and dragged my gaze, slow and deliberate, all the way up his body until I met his eyes again: it wasn’t a stormy ocean anymore, it was a dark hurricane.
He crawled back over me, covering my body with his, his weight delicious and warm, but still careful and measured.
When he kissed me this time, there was no teasing left, only need.
I whimpered into his mouth as his hand slid between us, finding me easily, expertly, sliding his fingers into me in slow, devastating circles.
“So wet already,” he muttered, voice nearly wrecked. “Delicious.”
I nodded, unable to form words, rocking my hips instinctively against his hand, chasing the pressure he gave and withdrew with cruel precision. He chuckled low in his chest; he was loving it.
“This is more than just an ordinary affair, Alicia King,” he said, almost reverently. “And what I’m about to do to you will be more than just sex.”
To prove this to me, he kissed his way down my body, trailing his mouth over my ribs, across my belly, pausing at the small scar near my hip.
He kissed it too, soft and sure, as if sealing it with something sacred.
I arched, gasping when his mouth finally found me, hot and devastatingly good.
It was different this time: deeper, like he wasn’t just trying to make me come but to map every sound, every shudder, every begging twist of my hips. It built too fast. Too much, too soon.
“Paul,” I gasped, hands tangling in his messy hair. “Paul, please…”
He pulled back slightly, grinning, wicked.
“You are delicious,” he rasped. “How am I supposed to stop?”
And then he did it again—deeper, harder—and the orgasm tore through me like a tidal wave, leaving me shaking and breathless, half crying into the pillow.
He kissed his way back up my body, whispering dirty, sweet things against my skin the entire way up. I barely had the presence of mind to drag his boxers down, releasing him, hearing his harsh intake of breath when my hand brushed over him.
“You sure?” he asked again, voice ragged.
“Yes,” I said fiercely. “God, yes.”
And when he finally put on a condom and eased himself inside me, slowly, achingly slow, it felt like hitting a home run.
We moved together in a slow, burning rhythm, no frantic scrambling, no awkwardness.
Just this deep, consuming heat that built higher and higher until I was shattering again, crying out against his mouth.
He came moments after me, gasping my name like a broken record. We lay tangled together afterward, bodies slick with sweat, hearts hammering in sync. Paul brushed my hair off my forehead, kissed it gently.
“I warned you,” I said drowsily.
“Warned me?”
“That I’d break your brain.”
He laughed with that happy postcoital grin, pulling me tighter against him.
“Mission accomplished, Alicia King,” he murmured into my hair.
“And if you think I’m letting you leave anytime soon,” he added, voice dark with promise, “you’re even crazier than I thought.”
I smiled against his chest. For once, for tonight, crazy sounded exactly right.
Then the rain started pouring outside like there was no tomorrow.