16. Ephemeral
Chapter sixteen
Ephemeral
I spread my legs wide over Thorn’s thickly muscled thighs. I’m wearing one of my usual crazy cat dresses with no tights. The bulge of his erection presses right into my core, and I lean forward, rocking against it in a grind that sends dancing fantasy rainbow cats with laser beam eyes dancing behind my vision.
“I’m so glad you’re here.” I’ve already told him this, but I need to say more. I can’t convey with mere words how sorry I am for that morning. I should have at least stayed to talk it out. I was afraid that if I did, I wouldn’t have the strength to leave, and it was what we both needed at the time.
Just that.
Time.
And I hoped that fate or destiny or life would somehow intervene.
I can’t imagine anything worse than finding the person you think might be perfect for you but knowing full well they can’t be perfect at that time, and neither can you. It’s even worse to think that the time might never be right. And that you might never be right either.
Here I was, trying with all my might to work up the courage to see if things had changed. I so badly wanted them to have changed, but I didn’t think two months was long enough. Would years be long enough? I didn’t stop to consider that maybe two imperfect people can be together. That maybe, even if things aren’t one hundred percent correct, they can still be right. Maybe it’s the imperfections that make things the most beautiful. I must have subconsciously figured out something like that because I was doing my best to mind-summon Thorn. And sending up freaking signals to the sky, hoping he’d see them. Figuratively, obviously.
“You better punish me for being bad and leaving you like that, Thorn.” I swivel my hips over his bulge. I bet he can feel how hot and wet I am through my panties, his pants, and his boxers.
His hand glides up my thigh, his huge, rough palm sparking electrical currents that run deep under my skin. I love watching the way his shoulder and arm muscles ripple, just with that simple little movement. He’s so massive, and I love that it makes my legs burn just to straddle his beefy lap like this.
My skin doesn’t feel like my regular skin. It’s like all my senses are heightened. Erogenous zones? It’s my entire body, and Thorn, with his delicious scent, his muscles, his lovely hard face, his prickly personality, and his beautiful heart beneath, is my aphrodisiac.
He toys with me, dragging his hand so slowly up my thigh, but then soon, it’s at my center. His finger sweeps my panties aside, letting the cool air mingle with my overheated flesh. I shiver at the delicious dichotomy.
“I’m going to rip these panties right off of you,” he grunts. I think he’s joking, so I laugh, but he proves me wrong.
They’re not all that flimsy, but he grasps the fabric, balls them up in his hand, and tears. They come clean off my body with a single jerk. I yelp at the sting and then again as his massive hand cups my pussy. I shamelessly surge forward, grinding my clit right into the heel of his hand. I’m soaking, making a mess of him already.
“You sure about being punished?”
I know he will never take anything too far. Despite his brutal size, he’s not a brutal man. I don’t need safe words or anything. We aren’t playing that kind of game.
Also? His whole side is freaking stitched up. He’s probably in a good amount of pain, even if he’s as tough as the toughest of all nuts.
He traces a finger down my folds, glancing over my clit in a mean way without really touching it. I know now what kind of punishment I’m going to get. I’m going to be edged to the extreme.
I tamp down a mewl as he plays with me, tracing every inch. I might have closed the curtains so we don’t scandalize Peach Lips, but I don’t want to scare her with animal-sounding noises. The last thing she needs to think is that a coyote somehow got onto the bus.
“I know I’m supposed to be keeping the sexy, serious, and stoic face, but it’s hard,” Thorn admits as he teases my entrance. “You’re soaked. You’re goddamn gorgeous. I thought I might never see you again.”
“I’m sorry. I should have given the note a PS. that said if we were ever in a situation that meant we could be a set of matched tools, you should contact me. I was hoping you would. Hoping against hope since my luck seems to be…well, I didn’t think it was very good, but I might change my mind now. Life is just hard. But it doesn’t mean that it’s bad. I can’t think of it that way. Not when, all in all, mine really has been beautiful.”
Thorn smashes his mouth to mine. He kisses me so hard and passionately, getting his tongue involved with mine and stroking it furiously, that I know he agrees with my assessment.
“What does a bad girl get, Effy?” he demands to know, a wicked grin slicing across his face and turning my ovaries inside out when he breaks the kiss. His hand is so torturously close to my entrance and my clit, all his fingers in near-perfect alignment but also so maddeningly far away.
“What does a bad girl get, Thorn?”
He shocks me by pushing his finger inside me so abruptly that I bow forward, scraping my hard-as-diamond nipples against his chest. “Oh. Oh!”
He’s magic with that finger. A wizard. The finger wizard. I grind against his hand, still craving more but starved for the feel of him that my walls already clench like mad around that digit.
He takes his time, torturing me, giving me hardly enough of anything at all, and grinning when I squirm, but at the same time, his pupils are completely blown out, and he’s watching me with a look of rapt awe.
“What does a good girl get?” I pant, wondering what I can possibly say to speed this torture up. I don’t want to be hanging on the precipice forever.
“She gets another finger,” Thorn replies.
He spears me with two fingers, pushing them so far into me that his knuckles bump up against me. I shamelessly rock into those ridges, grinding my swollen clit against him.
“Bad or good, it’s the same?”
“Yes.” He strokes them in and out of me really maddeningly slow. “You’re going to get another finger to get you ready to take my cock, but not quite yet.”
Just thinking about that massive member filling me up, stretching me, burning deliciously, and making me sore for days has me whimpering, edging closer, and grinding hard on his hand.
“More fingers, Thorn. Please. Now. I want your cock. I need you inside me. But you need to promise me that you’ll let me do most of the work because you’re hurt.”
“It’s just a scratch.” At least he has the decency to wink at the end of that statement.
“If you say that again, I’ll give you scratches.”
“Back or shoulders?”
“Yes,” is all I answer.
When he adds a third finger, all I can do is grasp his shoulders. There’s no way I’m putting a single mark on this man. He’s wounded enough for one day. Internally and for a lifetime. I want to take care of him. I want to help him. He has all the money in the world, and I don’t have much at all, but somehow, we’re so similar on the inside. In there, it’s bleak and lonely. Our lives, really, are a mirror of that emptiness.
They were.
But not any longer.
I’m making friends here. I’ll help Thorn make them too. True friends that I hope can last a lifetime. I know he’ll get there with his family, and I can’t wait to meet them. I can’t wait for him to get to know them all over again and for them to see that he’s still the same beautiful person on the inside as he always was.
I know he’s the natural protector, but I want to do that for him too. Keep him safe, treasure him, laugh with him, and hold him. I want to be open to those things too. To sharing, whispering little secrets to each other, laughing, and cuddling. Night after night.
I’m so wet and slippery that Thorn’s fingers are making noises now.
“Open my belt and take me out, Effy.”
Fuck, it’s so sexy when he utters commands like that in his deep, thrilling, rough voice.
My hands are more than eager. I’m good with the belt and the button. As I undo his zipper, he removes his fingers from me and sucks them clean one by one.
Holy hairy ballsssssss. I clench up hard on nothing at all, needing him so badly that I could scream.
“I want to explore real punishment with you. Like some light spanking.” My face heats, but I’m beyond caring. “And other kinky things. Maybe. Yes, in the future. If you’d like that.”
“I’d like anything you’d like to do,” he says softly.
“I don’t know about that. There’s a good chance you can’t handle the filthy path my mind will probably go down when it comes to you.”
“I think I can handle it. Especially where you and coming are concerned.”
I swat his shoulder. “Dirty puns are the height of hilarious.” When I take his cock out, though, it’s so thick and rock-hard that I lose my smile. “Oh my god. I forgot how big it was.”
“It’s been inside you. You can take it.”
“I have no doubt.” I run my tongue slowly along my lips. I’ve had him in my mouth and my lady cave. It’s just crazy how memories can’t be accurately reproduced, no matter what your mind conjures up. Maybe because it was dark, and I never did get to see just how perfect he was. Like, literally, his cock is a work of art. It’s lovely. I’m pretty sure if there was a contest…never mind. He’s already won every contest in my mind.
He might not be the perfect man, but he’s the perfect man for me .
“I want to ride your cock, Thorn. Can I?’
“Honestly, I should say no and punish you more, but can I do that another night?”
“Yes. My goodness, yes,” I rasp.
“I’d really like you to ride my dick, Effy. Nice and slow, so you don’t hurt yourself, and then as fast and hard as you want to. Don’t be afraid to be rough with me. I can take it as long as you and the bus can take it.”
“Oh, the bus can take it. I built her right.”
“Good to hear.” His hands bracket my hips and steady me as I take his cock to my entrance.
I sink down slowly, stretching myself, the same burning, sharp, painful pleasure exploding all around me like it did the first time. Muscle memory is a thing, and my brain is jogged now.
I should take it slow and easy, but I’m so desperate that I go for broke and basically impale myself. I throw my face forward, burying my scream in Thorn’s shoulder.
“Holy sweet—oh my…are you okay?”
“Yeah,” I answer, wriggling tentatively to make sure I didn’t break myself. Nope, I’m okay. Just stretched and stuffed full. Way too full, and way before I should be, but it’s good. The delicious sensation of wild, hot, and disarming pleasure steals over me. “I’m okay.”
He blows out a sigh of relief. I clench around him on purpose, and that breath stops mid-gust, getting cut right the heck off.
There’s all sorts of pain, but this is the best kind. When I start to move, I’m sore, and I’ll be even more sore tomorrow, but it’s okay. Tomorrow is tomorrow, and right now, I love every single overwhelming sensation.
I work him hard, jerking my hips, but it’s nearly impossible to do what I want to do in a small space. The bed would have been a better option. I made sure I got the full queen deal in here without the scary overhead feeling where you’re basically crammed into the ceiling. My claustrophobia never would have been able to handle that.
We aren’t going over to the bed. I’m not letting Thorn leave this bench. He is not carrying me, not with his side like that, and I know he’d try to be a gentleman. Plus, I don’t want him to move past thrusting deeper and deeper into me. We’ll make it work.
And we do.
Because he helps.
He’s so strong that it’s easy for him to guide me up and down his cock. He basically picks me up by my ass cheeks, all while being ridiculously gentle , guides me over his length, and then slams me back down. I do most of the slamming, and he’s the one trying to catch me. I love the feeling of him bottoming out inside me. I love being able to take all of him, even though he’s basically rocking a freaking vegetable garden with a blue ribbon zucchini.
Oh my god. I am so not going to laugh right now because that would ruin the mood completely. It’s a good thing I can barely breathe.
I arch my spine, getting a little bit out of control. I’m not an acrobat, yet here I am, trying to be a sex goddess.
Thorn is there for everything I try and do. He anticipates every single movement. It’s still all stretch and burn, and having him so deep blasts shivers of red-hot sensation through my muscles and straight into my cells and bloodstream until all I am is basically half a feral beast, desperate and needy for him.
“Are you close?” he bites out and then literally sinks his teeth into my neck just hard enough to shock me. In the literal and figurative sense.
“So close.”
“Good. Thank goodness. Yes. Because I’m about at the point where I’m going to have scrotum damage if I don’t come inside you immediately.”
Nope. I’m still not going to laugh and ruin the mood. I don’t think that’s a thing, but I do feel like he thinks it’s a thing.
“We can’t have that. Just one more. One more time, Thorn. Yes, oh my god. Right there. Right…”
He hits all those crazy spots when he rams inside me again, and the world goes dark except for a series of bright lights that burst all over the place. I don’t even know if I have my eyes open or closed because it’s all painted in white and black, hot stars and dark night, and white-hot heat and blankets of pleasure that cloak every inch of me.
Thorn’s cock swells inside me, and I swear I can feel it despite my walls clenching like mad around him. He grasps me harder so he doesn’t fling me off of him as he thrusts deep inside and comes hard and hot, filling me as my inner muscles spasm around him.
The first time I saw Thorn, sunk deep into the shadows of that trade show at the arena, and days before Peach Lips was catnapped, I never could have known that we’d be here now. I thought he was quite broody and beastly, thank you very much. Scowly and owly. Not someone anyone would ever want to get to know.
I’m so glad I’ve never been more wrong about anything in my life.
I kiss the side of Thorn’s neck before peppering kisses over his lips. “So good,” I whisper. “You are. Always. Such a good man.”
“Darling,” he coos, drawing out the word so I don’t completely hate it. It’s definitely an improvement over baby. “I didn’t realize I had a praise kink until right now.”
I grin so hard that it hurts my face. He smiles too. I swear I’ll never get tired of watching him break wide open like this, especially when his eyes get all sparkly and dazzling, and he looks truly… happy .
“I’m so excited to explore any and all kinks with you. To have crazy awesome bus sex with you. And those tin-can trailer home sex. All the sex. But also to do all the other things. It would be an honor to be your friend and your girlfriend. To do life together. To just take every day as it comes and wring every ounce of happiness, joy, and goodness we have out of it. I’m so glad you’re here.”
He presses his forehead to mine in that move that I’ve always found so intimate. “You wanted to make the world a better place with Peach Lips, but you do that just by existing, Ephemeral. It would be my absolute honor to milk that happiness with you. No matter what comes, the world won’t know what hit it. We’ll be a force. Together. You, me, and Peach Lips.”
My heart pretty much bursts with joy. I’m not sure how many days are in a lifetime, but however many we have coming, I know they’ll be the best of the best of the best .