Chapter 5
"Good morning, beautiful." I felt Tom's arms wrap around me as I gained consciousness, a huge grin cracking across my face as sunlight streamed through his open window.
"Good morning." I rolled onto my back to smile up at him, his piercing eyes meeting mine with that relaxed, raw vibe he had going on.
"Sorry to wake you, but it's time for me to feed the horses, and I hoped you might want to go riding with me." I felt my heart melt and explode all at once.
Even though I knew he meant the horses, the feeling of his hard cock pressed against my thigh had me considering other types of riding.
"I would love to," I gushed in more ways than one, pulling him down into a searing kiss.
I forgot to be self-conscious about my morning breath, but he tasted like morning too, and I loved it.
He immediately wrapped himself around me, his arms sliding underneath to lift me and press me into his chest. His tongue worked its way into my mouth, and I moved my hand from his shoulder down to the hardness between us.
A low grumble rose from him as I wrapped my hand around him.
"God, Aria," he moaned as I worked him slowly. He grabbed a condom and rolled it on before shifting on top of me, positioning himself between my legs as his eyes questioned mine.
"Please," I moaned in response.
He slowly sank into me, my pussy still wet from last night and no doubt from waking up feeling him against me moments ago. The stretch of him inside me was delicious, making me squirm to get pressure against my clit from his hips.
"You're beautiful," he murmured as he buried his head in my neck and started to thrust. He moved his hips so rawly, never losing contact with my clit, pushing against it with each mind-blowing thrust. Just like last night. What a God.
I couldn't believe we had only known each other for twelve hours. And given how he was working my body like it was his own, I truly couldn't believe we'd only had sex twice. Well, okay, four of my orgasms' worth. Regardless, he was working me far better than my former boyfriend of many years.
Every bit of it felt like something out of the best kind of dream. I was the perfect amount of sleepy, desperately ready to come yet entirely relaxed into the gentle pace of our fucking. And the connection with Tom sparked something in me I liked. Very easy, the kind of comfort I had always wanted.
He increased the pace of his thrusts until he could feel me ready to break apart.
I felt him everywhere. The way he was fucking me, it felt like he was somehow lighting every nerve ending between my knees and belly button.
Everything felt so hot: his skin on mine, the barest peek of sun through the window.
It all felt hot on my skin, pricking sweat with my hair sticking to my face.
Despite the sweat, I loved fucking in the LA heat. There was something poetic about it all feeling so blistering, like the sun was the third participant in Tom's bedroom.
Pulling back to meet my eyes, Tom pierced into my body and soul as I flew apart in my orgasm. He worked me through it perfectly, not changing his rhythm until I was nearly unconscious again from the haze of early morning and the bliss of that orgasm.
As if I were a rag doll, Tom then pulled out of me and flipped me up onto my hands and knees.
I was completely out of breath, my back undoubtedly sheened with sweat.
He thrust back in to the hilt, hitting a deeper spot and building up the heat in my core further and further.
I didn't know if it was possible to have an orgasm from pure temporal heat, but I was about to find out.
He started really thrusting, showing me how he had been holding back thus far.
I loved his gentle reverence, and I absolutely loved the tiny hints of the beast inside he was starting to show me.
He grabbed my hair and pulled me onto my knees, sweat dripping down my chest as he twisted my head enough to kiss me breathless.
His other hand moved to my clit, working in sync with his tongue in my mouth, our flesh slapping together.
I started sagging in his arms as I came, moaning into his mouth.
I felt the early pulses of him starting to come as well, but I was too far gone.
It must have been ninety degrees in his bedroom, and I was seeing heaven.
With the light of the sun beating down on us, I swayed into the pillow as he held my hips for his final thrusts, unloading into the condom.
I felt both like a religious sacrifice and a Goddess in the same moment.
Tom pulled out of my slumped body and kissed my ass cheek, still high in the air as I remained on my knees, upper half collapsed into the pillows and comforter. My barely open eyes tracked his movements to toss the condom and fiddle with the thermostat on the wall.
Cool air quickly started blasting our way, cooling me down enough to snap into more conscious thought as Tom pulled me into him, kissing me breathless again.
"God, Tom," I moaned into him, one of us finally speaking in the morning haze. Our makeout session quickly turned into something more. He pulled my leg up across his hips as we remained lying side by side.
He started fingering me again, working me toward a perfect third peak as we stared at each other in wonder, like we'd discovered some secret the rest of the world had missed.
I drifted in and out of sleep in Tom's arms as the morning light grew stronger, until an ear-piercing whinny shattered the peaceful silence. The man beside me erupted into that perfect rumbling laugh I was already addicted to.
"That would be Blossom," he explained, reminding me of our original morning plans before we'd gotten deliciously sidetracked.
"I have to go feed them." His voice carried genuine reluctance, as if abandoning this bed was the last thing he wanted to do.
"No pressure to join me. We can ride later, and you look very comfortable." He took in my rumpled, thoroughly satisfied state with obvious appreciation.
"No, no, give me two seconds! I want to meet them," I insisted, attempting to sit up and immediately getting dizzy enough to collapse back into the pillows. Tom's laughter deepened.
"I think I fucked you into a proper stupor," he said with that teasing confidence that made heat pool low in my belly again.
"Do you have plans today?"
"None," I smiled.
"Perfect. Neither do I." The grin he returned could have powered half of Los Angeles. Two artists with completely empty Friday schedules, it didn't get better than this.
"Well then, here's the agenda," he announced with mock seriousness.
"You relax while I bring coffee, feed the horses, eat your pussy, make breakfast. Then we nap, and later we take the horses for an afternoon ride.
" He delivered this itinerary with the casual confidence of someone discussing the weather, as if we'd been together for years instead of hours.
"How could I possibly argue with that schedule?" I shot back.
"You're adorable," he said, the affectionate observation hitting deeper than it should have, considering my current disheveled, sex-drunk state. Heat flushed up my chest at the tenderness in his voice.
I was finally awake enough to really appreciate how devastatingly beautiful Thomas was in daylight.
Sharp, angular features softened by warm brown eyes and that calm smile, his skin golden and lightly freckled in areas, built with the lean strength that came from years behind a drum kit.
Those eyes were dangerous, deep enough to lose myself in completely.
Somehow, I spent every night that week at Tom's place.
Evenings filled with early 2000s romantic comedies and wine-soaked makeout sessions that inevitably led to mind-bending orgasms and the kind of sleep that reset your entire nervous system.
"Tell me about your family," I asked one night, curled against his chest while the air conditioning provided blessed relief from LA's building heat wave.
A smile spread across his sun-kissed features. "Well, they're Australian."
I giggled into his chest. "You don't say."
"My mother's a university professor, a sociologist. Dad's a carpenter. Odd combination, but they make it work beautifully. I have one older sister finishing her PhD in art history."
"Wow." I paused, feeling momentarily intimidated by all that academic achievement.
"I'm definitely the family disappointment," he joked, winking down at me with mock self-deprecation.
Our conversations meandered through everything—college stories and favorite books, he told me about his childhood horses while I rambled about my inexplicable childhood obsession with Polly Pocket. The hours dissolved into each other like sugar in warm coffee.
It felt like existing in a protective bubble, separate from the rest of the world.
The impending tour became background noise, irrelevant static I could ignore indefinitely.
I spent my days writing a new album in my cramped apartment, then escaped to Tom's every evening, remembering why I'd fallen in love with music in the first place.
Friday night, I finally worked up the courage to play him something new, borrowing the guitar I'd been eyeing since that first night.
My fingers needed something to fidget with while I sang, a way to channel my nerves.
I couldn't bear to meet his eyes during the performance, but I caught his warm, wide smile in my peripheral vision.
"You're incredible," he said when I finished, his voice carrying genuine awe.
"You really like it?" The grin that took over my face probably made my eyes disappear into happy crescents.
"I loved it," he replied, kissing me with sudden fierce intensity that effectively ended our music-sharing session.
The week felt stolen from time itself, a perfect intermission before reality inevitably reasserted itself. But for now, wrapped in Tom's arms with his heartbeat steady beneath my ear, the future could wait.