12. KAI #2
Her grip is firm, her rhythm steady. She twists her wrist at the top, circles the head with her thumb.
A grunt rips out of me, guttural and low, and I feel her smile against my hair.
"Look at me," she commands.
I look at her.
Her hand feels incredible and her eyes on me while she does it are even better.
Her pupils are blown wide, her lower lip caught between her teeth. There's a flush still burning across her chest from what I did to her.
She speeds up. Her grip tightens and her rhythm becomes relentless.
I groan, low and rough, and her lips curl at the sound. Every stroke pull sounds out of me I didn't know I could make.
My hips move against her hand. I can't stop them. The pleasure builds in heavy, crashing waves, pulling my muscles taut, winding every nerve to breaking point.
"You're enjoying this," she says.
"That's obvious."
"Say it."
"I'm enjoying your hand on my cock, Ava. Is that specific enough?"
Her rhythm falters for half a second, my bluntness catching her off guard. She recovers, squeezes harder, strokes faster.
She finds the spot just below the head and works it with her thumb in fast, slick circles that make my vision blur. My hand fists in her hair because my legs are forgetting how to work and the only anchor in the room is her.
"Let go," she whispers against my ear.
My whole frame locks, muscles seizing. I come hard across her hand and my own stomach, a groan wrenching out of me that fills the room.
She holds me through every pulse, her hand slowing but not stopping, drawing it out until my legs threaten to give.
I stay against her shoulder for several breaths. My pulse hammers in my ears. My body is wrecked in a way that has nothing to do with the physical release and everything to do with the woman who just watched me come undone without flinching.
When I lift my head, she pulls her hand away and wipes it on my discarded shirt without breaking eye contact then grins.
The move is so casually ruthless it almost makes me laugh.
I wash my hands and stomach in the bathroom, wipe them clean then walk into the room.
Her eyes are still bright. Triumphant.
She thinks she's won something.
"Point made?" I ask.
"Point made."
"Good. My turn."
Her expression flickers. "We're even."
"We're not even close."
I don't tell her to lie down. I don't give her an exit route to argue about.
I hook my fingers into the waistband of her jeans and pull her toward me, moving us both until the backs of her knees hit the mattress. She sits. I kneel.
I'm between her legs, pulling her jeans down her thighs and tossing them behind me.
Her underwear is damp, the cotton dark where the wetness has soaked through. The sight sends a fresh wave of heat through my groin even though I just came.
I slide my hand up her inner thigh, feeling the muscles tremble under my palm. My fingers trace the edge of her underwear, following the crease where her thigh meets her hip.
I pull the cotton aside with my thumb. She's swollen, slick, glistening. The sight makes me clench my jaw so hard the muscles ache.
I can feel the heat radiating from her, can smell her arousal. My cock twitches against my thigh.
One finger traces her folds. Light. Barely a touch. She sucks in a breath through her teeth and her hips lift, chasing contact I'm not giving her.
"Be patient," I say.
"I don't have patience."
"I know. That's why this is going to take a while."
My finger circles her clit, featherlight. Her thighs fall wider.
I want to bury my face between her legs. I want to taste her until she screams loud enough to alarm the entire house.
The desire is so fierce, but I don't give in to it. Not until she asks me with words and means them.
I slide one finger inside her. She's hot and tight and so wet that my finger meets no resistance. Her internal muscles clench around me immediately, pulling. A sound falls from her mouth.
I curl my finger against the front wall and her entire body bows off the mattress.
I start slow. One finger, deliberate strokes, curling on every withdrawal. My thumb rests against her clit but doesn't move, just sits there, a promise of pressure she has to earn.
Her hips try to set a faster pace. I match my rhythm to hers then slow it down, forcing her body to follow mine instead.
"Kai." Her tone is frustrated, desperate.
A second finger joins the first. She clenches around them, slick and hot.
My fingers find a tempo that builds without spiking. Steady, rhythmic strokes while my thumb begins circling her clit, slow and precise.
Each sound she makes teaches me something.
The high, sharp inhale when I curl my fingers means I've hit the right angle. The low moan means sustained pressure on her clit. The way her thigh shakes against my forearm means she's close but not there.
I build her the way I'd construct a play from the neutral zone, each pass calculated, each movement designed to open the space wider.
When her breathing fragments, I increase the pressure. When her hands grip the sheets, I speed up. When her back arches and her stomach muscles tremble, I give her everything I have.
"You'll beg me," I say. "When I take you the way I want to, you'll ask for it first with your own words. And you're going to mean every one of them.”
"Never." The word comes out shattered across two breaths.
I stop playing.
The two fingers buried inside her stroke faster, deep and curling. My thumb press firm, steady circles against her clit.
She comes with her thighs clamping around my arms. A cry tears from her that's half rage and half surrender.
I stay inside her while the aftershocks roll through. My forehead rests against her temple. Her breathing is wrecked.
Her hand finds my hair. Not pulling this time. Just resting there, her fingers tangled in it, trembling.
When the aftershocks fade, I withdraw slowly, press a kiss to her inner thigh and stand up.
She curls onto her side, pulling the duvet over herself. Her face is hidden.
"That didn't count," she says into the pillow.
"Okay."
"I mean it. This was physical and mutual. It doesn't change anything."
"Okay, Ava."
She's quiet for a long time.
I grab the blanket from the closet and a pillow from the bed then lay them on the hardwood floor.
The floor is cold and unforgiving. Above me, the mattress creaks once as she shifts, settling into sleep.
I lie in the dark, staring at the ceiling, listening to her breathing slow from ragged to even.
My body is still humming. The taste of her skin lingers on my tongue. The scent of her still clinging to my fingers, the front of my shirt. I should wash up.
I don't.
Instead, the sound of my name in her mouth plays on a loop I can't shut off.
She said it doesn't change anything.
She's wrong.
A woman who feels nothing doesn't come apart like that. Doesn't kiss you first and then act like you're the one who crossed the line.
I close my eyes.
Something surfaces. Not quite a thought. More like a sensation rising from somewhere deep, flickering behind my eyelids like a projection on a damaged screen.
Ava’s fingers interlocked with mine, pressing into a mattress. Her hand, smaller, gripping hard. My body above hers and her eyes wide open, locked on mine.
Keep your eyes open, I hear myself say. My own voice, but from somewhere I can't reach.
Then it's gone.
The sensation dissolves. I open my eyes. The ceiling is just a ceiling and my hand is empty.
My brain is manufacturing things from all that’s happened tonight.
When you put your hands on a woman who makes your whole body vibrate, your mind starts manufacturing stories. That's all this is, nothing more.
I pull the blanket up and turn onto my side.
From the bed above me, Ava's breathing has gone deep and slow. She’s asleep.
I flex my fingers in the dark. These fingers that were inside her felt for one flickering second like they'd been laced through hers before.
It's nothing. Just my imagination.
But I don't sleep for a long time.