Chapter 29
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Ash
We ride home near midnight. She rides behind me with her arms around my middle and her cheek between my shoulder blades, the boots on the pegs, the sky-blue jacket bright in the dark, and the county road is mine the way it's always mine, by feel, in the dark, without having to think about it.
The diner sign blinks its red pulse a quarter mile off the highway and I take the turn toward it, toward home.
Upstairs the apartment is dark and warm.
She steps out of the boots by the door, E.S.
and R.S. on the heels, side by side where she always leaves them, and she hangs the jacket on the hook next to my cut.
The two of them on the wall together still do something to me I don't have a clean word for and have stopped needing one.
She turns around in the dark and looks at me the full way, the way she looks at things she means to see. I cross the room and put my hands on her.
A year of this and the wanting has not gone ordinary.
It has gone deeper instead. I undress her slow in the dark, the way I like, the way she has learned to like.
My fingers work the buttons of her shirt open one by one.
I push it off her shoulders and let it fall.
Her bra comes next. I unhook it and slide the straps down her arms until her breasts spill free into my palms. They are heavy and warm, her nipples already tight.
I thumb them until she makes that low sound in her throat that always pulls me under.
She gets my shirt off me. Her hands spread flat across my chest, then slide down my stomach to my belt.
She works it open and shoves my jeans and boxers down my hips.
My cock springs out, hard and aching, the head already slick.
Her fingers wrap around the shaft and stroke once, slow and firm, root to tip. I groan against her mouth.
I back her toward the bed and lay her down on the mattress that used to be only hers and is ours now.
I kneel between her spread thighs and take my time.
My mouth finds her breast first. I suck one nipple deep, tongue flicking over the stiff peak while my hand kneads the other.
She arches into me. I kiss down her stomach, licking the soft skin just below her navel, then lower.
I hook my fingers in her panties and drag them down her legs and off.
She is wet, glistening in the faint light from the window.
I push her thighs wider apart and settle in.
My tongue drags up the length of her slit, tasting her.
I circle her clit with the flat of my tongue, then suck it gently between my lips.
Two fingers slide into her pussy, curling against that spot inside that makes her hips jerk.
She fists a hand in my hair and holds me there, grinding against my mouth.
"Cole," she gasps. My real name. The sound of it makes my cock throb against the sheets.
I lick and suck harder, fucking her with my fingers in a steady rhythm while I work her clit with my tongue.
Her thighs start to tremble. Her pussy clenches tight around my fingers and she comes hard, flooding my mouth with her taste, her whole body shaking as she rides it out.
I keep licking her through every pulse until she is whimpering and oversensitive.
I rise up over her. My cock is heavy and leaking as I notch the head against her soaked entrance.
I push in slow, inch by inch, watching her face the whole time.
Her mouth falls open. Her eyes flutter half-shut.
She is tight and scorching hot around me.
When I bottom out, balls deep, her heels dig into the back of my thighs and pull me even closer.
We find our rhythm. Deep and unhurried at first. I roll my hips, grinding against her clit with every stroke.
Her hands roam my back, nails digging in when I hit the right spot inside her.
I lean down and kiss her, swallowing her moans.
My hand slips between us. I rub tight circles over her swollen clit while I fuck her.
Her breath catches. "Harder," she tells me.
I give it to her. I brace my weight on one arm and drive into her deeper, faster.
The wet slap of skin on skin fills the room.
Her pussy flutters around my cock, squeezing me like a fist. She winds tighter and tighter until she breaks again, crying out my name as her walls pulse and milk me.
I follow her over the edge. I bury myself to the hilt and come hard, cock throbbing as I spill deep inside her in thick pulses. Her arms lock around me. Her legs stay wrapped tight around my waist. We stay locked together while the aftershocks roll through both of us.
After, I stay inside her as long as I can.
When I finally pull out I roll to the side and pull her against my chest. Her hand finds the center of my chest and rests there.
My hand finds the small of her back and stays.
Neither of us moves toward anything else, because there is nowhere else either of us is trying to get to.
"Bigger table next year," she says into my chest, already half asleep, still planning.
"Three times," I say. "I heard you."
The corner of her mouth curves against my skin. Then her breathing goes long and even, the way it does when she is finally somewhere her body has decided is safe. She sleeps.
I stay awake a while, the way I do. I listen to the building the way she taught me to hear it. The boots by the door. The jacket on the hook beside my cut. The woman asleep with her hand on my chest.
Outside the diner sign blinks its red pulse. I close my eyes. I sleep. I do not wake until morning, and in the morning she is still there.
THE END