Chapter 45
Chapter forty-five
Ed
Bess' mouth is soft against mine and I gasp at the shock of her being pressed against me. It's happened so fast and it's so far out of any Bess-Ed reality I could ever have imagined eventuating, my brain is struggling to keep up with the sensory overload.
Her warm hands framing my face, her soft curves heating my skin, the honeyed scent of her hair, and her mouth...
Her lips taste of tonic. I fall into them.
Bess is kissing me. Bess is kissing me!
My body hums with a sudden accumulation of energy, and electricity crackles beneath my skin.
A new warmth steals between us, between our pressed mouths. It is wet and salty.
I pull my head away and wipe her tears with my thumbs.
She smiles up at me. "It's the most romantic thing anyone has ever done for me, by several thousand light years. It's the most romantic thing I could imagine someone ever doing for another person."
"Except I wasn't actually going to give them to you, so I'm not sure it counts."
"But you did. It just wasn't a straight romantic narrative. We had to clear the bumps and curves first."
I look in wonder at this woman with her extraordinary eyes with their dilated pupils and her kiss-plumped lips, and feel we are an Ed and Bess in another dimension living out the life I hoped for but knew wouldn't happen, and the Ed and Bess who've stumbled into something big and messy in this small, over-lit kitchen all at the same time.
It's unreal and so very much 'right now'.
"So I didn't imagine it."
"Imagine what?"
"You looking at me at the auction and liking what you saw."
Bess draws one side of her mouth up. "I liked what I saw a little too much. You looked exceptionally hot and I really didn't know what to do with thinking you looked exceptionally hot."
I hold that knowledge for a moment before chasing the next assurance. "And...my declaration...isn't freaking you out? It's a lot."
"Do I look freaked out?"
"You look like you liked what you heard."
"I liked it a lot." She places a hand on the back of my neck and pulls me down for another kiss. The world spins around us and disappears. Nothing else exists except for the places where we are pressed together, her breath against my cheek, her hand on my back burning a hole through my shirt.
And then her lips part and her tongue touches mine and my belly explodes in thousands of tiny wingtips taking flight all at once.
I place my hands in her hair and restrain myself from deepening the kiss. This moment, our first kiss, is too precious to ruin by getting hot and heavy. I want it to be beautiful. Each touch of our lips, our tongues is careful, like the first sharing of this desire for each other is made of glass.
It's the hardest thing I've ever done. This holding back. After wanting her for so long and finally, finally being able to have her, I want to take my time because we have so much of it. And yet the need for everything to happen NOW is pushing forward.
With her reaching up to kiss me, the creamy skin of her neck is exposed and I can't help myself. I lower my head and kiss the honey-scented skin beneath her ear.
Bess gasps, which ratchets everything up to a whole new level.
My groin tightens and my pulse quickens and before I can draw the next breath, she has her mouth back on mine and all tentativeness, all care and delicacy has gone out the window.
Our tongues push and pull against each others', our breaths come shallow and fast, our bodies are flush, wanting to be as close as possible.
My cock, long since sprung into vibrancy, pushes painfully against the zip of my trousers.
Her hands run up my back and down my sides and up to my shoulders.
I mirror her, mapping her contours, the dip of her waist, the spread of her hips, the curve of her lower back.
When she bites my lip, my hips have a mind of their own and grind into her.
She groans into my mouth and I almost lose my mind. I have wanted women before. I have experienced all-consuming lust, but not with a year of build up. The urge to pick Bess up and have her right now on the table is so strong, I have to take a step away from her to force the impulse to recede.
It doesn't do a very good job. She stands looking up at me with her hair tangled from my hands, and her eyes lidded with lust, and her lips wet and swollen and parted to emit her rapid breaths, and my knees nearly buckle.
Bess seems to understand. She offers me a lopsided smile and reaches forward to take my hand. Then she leads me to the stairs. Then up the stairs. Then into my bedroom.
When I'm standing at the foot of my bed, a void opens in the pit of my stomach and my mouth goes dry, because being next to my bed means there's only one thing that's going to happen now, and having walked up the stairs, my mind has sufficiently receded from my penis to give space to other thoughts.
Like Holy shit. I'm about to have sex with Bess.
I swallow and it sounds loud in the quiet of the room.
Bess turns me so my calves are against the bed and pushes me to sitting. Then she steps between my knees and looks down at me.
God she's beautiful.
I reach for her hips and she clasps my face and tilts my head back to kiss me. It is passionate, but is over before I can do anything more than slip my hands to her backside as she's stepping out of my reach.
My hands fall uselessly onto my thighs.
And Bess...
Bess looks me in the eye and unbuttons her blouse. One, slow, button release after another, so that a couple of inches of skin is revealed in small increments.
It's the sexiest thing I've ever seen.
My pelvic floor contracts and my cock pulses in response.
She's wearing a turquoise bra. It's plain, but the padding pushes her breasts into soft swells above the fabric.
The skin on her belly is smooth and curves outwards.
She leaves her blouse on, open and inviting.
Then she pops the top button on her shorts, revealing a sliver of flesh below her navel.
I clench my hands to stop them reaching for her.
The sound of the zipper slowly descending is so erotic, I have to close my eyes and take a deep breath to steady myself.
When I open them, her shorts are wide open at the waist, the 'V' of fabric revealing matching turquoise underwear that sit low and suggestively.
Finally, I drag my eyes back to hers. The hazel of her irises is almost lost to the black of her pupils and I know she is struggling just as much as I am.
"Do you want me to take my clothes off?"
My voice is little more than a croak when it emerges. "Yes. I want that very much."
She smiles and shoulders her blouse off, the movement causing her breasts to quiver. When she pushes her shorts down, she bends over to help them all the way to her ankles and to afford me a view of the rounds of her cleavage.
It's all for show. Bess could have let her shorts slip from her waist with one tug.
When she straightens and I see all her curves, I can't get my breath.
"I need to touch you," I say raggedly.
Bess obliges, stepping towards me and straddling my lap. She bends to kiss me and her tongue brushes against mine before sweeping in.
I run my hand up the underside of her smooth thighs to her buttocks, then up the warmth of her back.
"You have a lot of clothes on Mr Chakrabarti," Bess murmurs against my mouth.
I do. Far too many. I am burning up with the heat of them. Of her. I fumble at the top button of my work shirt.
"Let me help you with that." Bess' voice is a purr and she expertly releases all seven buttons without breaking eye contact with me.
This was never going to go any other way. Bess, being who she is, was always going to be the confident, competent one, taking control. It's perfect. And extraordinarily, wildly sexy.
Bess' eyes drop to my torso when the final button is undone and runs her hands over my feverish skin, her fingers through the hair on my chest. "So this is what you've been hiding under your shirts all this time."
I don't reply. Even if there was anything to say, I couldn't say it. My body is overwhelmed by the sensation of her palms on my bare skin. I close my eyes.
"I like it." Her thumbs run over my nipples and I give a small involuntary jolt. "Very much," she whispers and places her mouth on mine.
I pull her so she is flush against me. Her soft skin against mine is electrifying. Tiny flares ripple into ignition across my body.
Her kiss is slow. It starts out as a delicate thing. A taste, a gentle pressure. A succession of suggestions and I want to chase her lips, but she pulls herself out of my reach before delivering another set of soft kisses.
If she wants to drive me wild, it's working. "Stop teasing me." I put a hand over the swell of her right breast and give a gentle squeeze and it's like I've hit the 'on' switch.
Bess' mouth presses into mine and our tongues slide against each other. Our breaths shorten and quicken, and when she rolls her hips and her pelvis pushes against my groin, sparks ignite down there.
It is the most delicious and dangerous friction.
Both of us groan at the pleasure of it.
The intensity of the kissing and the pace of the grinding increases until I place my hands on her hips and force her into stillness. I do not want to make a mess in my pants before we've hardly started.
Bess sighs at the loss of it and I distract her by trailing kisses along her jawbone up towards her left ear. I lick the delicate skin underneath, then take her lobe between my teeth before pulling it into my mouth and running my tongue over it.
She sucks in a sharp breath and arches her back, pressing her breasts against me.
The string of tiny gasps I get in response to my caresses shoots a zip line of heat from my mouth straight to my balls.
I can't wait any longer.
I reach around behind her and feel for the clasp of her bra. There isn't one and I can't for the life of me think of how to get her out of the thing as quickly as possible, and then Bess leans back and fiddles with the front of the bra at the base of her cleavage.