Howie #2
"Yes."
I lay her back and settle next to her, leaning over her but not giving her my full weight because she’s right. I’m big as fuck. I kiss her, slow at first, the way I know she likes, then deeper when she pulls at me. I kiss her jaw, her neck, the hollow of her throat where her pulse hammers.
I kiss her collarbone, and she sighs. I kiss lower. She holds her breath. I close my mouth over her nipple, and she arches off the mattress with a sound that rewires my brain entirely.
I take my time. There is nothing in the world more important than this — the way she responds, the sounds I'm learning, the map of her body I'm drawing with my mouth.
She's responsive in a way that tells me everything about the kind of lover she'll be: present, unguarded, honest in her body even when she's guarded everywhere else.
Her boobs are my fantasy of what perfect boobs should look and feel like. Everything about them lights me up inside. But I’m supposed to be showing her what feels good.
My hand slides down her stomach, over the soft curve of her belly, to the waistband of her shorts. I pause with my hand on a set of silvery stretch marks that match the ones on my own hips where I bulked up long ago. "Okay?"
"Please."
“So, basically, this is like the bare minimum you should expect from a guy you’re with.” The thought of another man doing this with her tenses all the muscles in my neck. But I’m teaching here. “You need to be hearing how perfect you look. How incredible your body feels.”
“It does?” Her eyes are so big and confused, like she somehow doesn’t know what she looks like.
I swallow. “It really does.” I slip my hand beneath the fabric. When I touch her mound, she makes a sound I will remember for the rest of my life — half gasp, half moan, a crack in everything she holds together — and her hand flies to my wrist. Not to stop me. To hold me there.
"Tell me what feels good," I murmur against her neck.
"That. That feels...” she pauses, swallowing a breath, “Bernard, oh my god."
I keep my finger where she wants it, circling slowly. I find the right pressure, the right place, guided by the grip of her hand on my wrist and the pitch of her breathing and the way her hips move in these small, desperate circles that are absolutely wrecking me.
She has no idea how hot it is that she’s guiding me instinctively, asking so clearly for what she wants and needs. I'm hard against her thigh, and I ignore it completely because this is about her, only her, and I want this to be so good she never forgets it.
"I'm…something's…" Her voice is tight, climbing, eyes wide and glistening, so bright.
"Let it happen, Ella. I've got you."
She comes with her face pressed against my shoulder and her hand clenched around my wrist. I don’t even have a finger inside her, just pressed against her clit, but I feel her body pulsing, contracting. I hold her through it, solid, steady, whispering her name.
She's quiet for a long time after. Breathing. Eyes closed. Her hand loosens on my wrist, but doesn't let go. I don't move. I barely breathe. I let her slide back to herself in her own time.
"That was—" She opens her eyes. They're glassy. "Was that—"
"That was a super-hot orgasm," I say, because she deserves to name it.
"From someone else."
I blink, needing not to imagine her getting herself off alone, in my bed, without me.
"Bernard. That was …" She shakes her head. "Different."
"Good different?"
"I don't have a vocab word for what that was."
I press my forehead against her temple and breathe her in and try very, very hard not to think about what I want, which is to be inside her, which is never to let anyone else touch her, which is to burn the "right guy" framework to the ground and tell her there is no other guy, there's only me, there's only this.
I can’t resist bringing my hand to my mouth and licking the taste of her from my fingers. My new favorite flavor.
"What about you?" she asks, shifting against me, obviously feeling the situation at my hip.
"I'm good."
"Bernard, you're clearly—"
"Ella." I pull back and look at her. "That was a complete experience. You don't owe me anything."
She studies me with those sharp nurse eyes. "You're sure?"
"I'm sure.”
“Okay,” she has a hand on my arm. “But I do need to learn how to…” Ella gestures lewdly, and a strangled sound flies out of my throat.
I scoot back on the bed. “Don't you have circus school?"
She laughs, still dazed, still flushed, and I help her sit up, handing her T-shirt back, watching her pull it on and smooth her hair, all composure and deflection settling back over her like armor. She stands, wobbles slightly, and steadies herself on the arm of the couch.
"Aerial silks," she corrects.
“Sure.”
She looks at me for a beat. Something moves behind her eyes, not quite gratitude, not quite affection, something deeper and more dangerous. "Thank you, Bernard."
She disappears into the en suite. The shower starts. I hear her through the wall, moving around in the bathroom, and I sit on my bed with a throw blanket on my lap and her taste on my lips and the phantom grip of her hand around my wrist, and I try to breathe.
She emerges fifteen minutes later in leggings and a tank top, hair wet. She smiles and rummages in her suitcase, still packed with stacks of folded clothes. She stands with a tote bag and grabs her water bottle from my dresser. "I'm meeting Aarthi and McKenzie outside. I'll be back by…"
"I'll pick you up. Text me the address."
She hesitates, then nods. "Okay."
The door closes behind her.
I sit in the silence.
The apartment echoes with sex smells and the ghost of the sound she made when she came. I am so hard I could pound nails, and so emotionally compromised I might need to call the team doctor.
I go to the bathroom. Turn on the shower she just vacated.
Step in under the water that's too hot and brace one hand against the tile, a position that’s becoming routine for me, the longer I live with Rookie’s sister.
The position of a man who is losing control.
I start to move my fist along my length.
I close my eyes and see her face. Relaxed. Open. Beautiful. The way she looked in the moment after, when every wall she had built was down, and she was just Ella, undone, in my arms.
I come fast and hard and stand there with the water hitting my back, breathing.
She’s training for the right guy. Not me. I keep saying it. Preparing her for the right guy. Some future man who'll get to touch her, hold her, and make her make that sound.
The thought makes me want to put my fist through the tile.
I can't be the right guy. She's my best friend's sister. She's living in my apartment because she has nowhere else to go.
But the idea of another man's hands where mine just were — another man learning the sounds she makes, the way she arches, the grip of her fingers — fills me with a rage so white-hot it scares me.
I turn off the water. Dry off. Get dressed.
I sit on the couch where she lay twenty minutes ago, and I text Mayhem.
You free?
Mayhem
What's up?
Me
Nothing. Can we get meatballs?
Mayhem
I'll be there in 20.
I put my phone down and press my palms against my eyes.
This was supposed to be a favor.
I am so far past favors I can't even see them in the rearview.