26. Chapter 26
Dom
We kiss up the elevator. At her door. On the way to her room.
I don't notice anything about the building, or her apartment, or her bedroom. All I can see is her.
Mariana's hooded eyes. Mariana's parted, swollen lips. Mariana's wild hair, which I push back so I can gaze at her face.
"This is temporary," I say.
"We're busy." She takes off my sweater. "Us— This— It's efficient."
I strip her off her cardigan, her top. "It's so good between us. Still. Despite everything."
So much so, I'm going against everything I've promised since before we met again.
She takes off my undershirt. "I thought you'd hate it that I called it efficient."
"Oh, I'm going to hate it." I unbutton her pants, then mine. "Tomorrow."
"But this is an arrangement." She gets rid of my jeans. "We know that, right? We both have needs, we're both focused on our jobs at the moment, and we know how good sex is between us."
We climb into the bed wearing only underwear. Me between her legs, and her hands on my chest.
"I know." I grab at the soft flesh of her waist and up her ribcage. "We can meet each other's needs for a short while. Just some fun while we focus on our goals for the season."
"The season?"
"Or less. It's fine. I know this will end. You can use me."
Maybe this will be the thing to finally help me let go.
Just like years ago, she's telling me this will end.
I know better this time— I believe her. I know it.
The memories ring in my marrow. So if this time I can be at peace with it and have it end without regrets, without a fight, I'll get what I've wanted this whole time.
This is my chance to write a different ending to us.
"You'll be using me too," she says.
"That's what makes this fair…"
I pull down at the cup of her bra, and I lose my words at what I find. Surprise travels right down to my cock, and I lick my lips in anticipation. To make sure what I'm working with, I pull down the other cup too.
Yeah. Nipple rings. Golden circles wrapping around them and keeping them erect, each with a single tiny heart hanging from them.
I die. My finger doesn't quite tremble as I pass a fingertip gently over the tip, but it could. I'm shaking inside at the sight. This. Missing this is bringing me back to her. For now.
She sighs, and it mirrors the tremor I feel.
I make a soft circle with my pad. "When did you get these?"
"Play with them before you decide if you like them."
I probe with my tongue. "They're sexy as fuck."
I hold her breast and lap at her nipple, feeling the texture of her skin and the sharp contrast of the smooth metal circling the tip. She moans.
"Look at the way it puckers." I lick again. "Mhh. Does it make it more sensitive?"
"Yes," she breathes.
I work on the other breast the same way. It seems the rings clip around the bit of sensitive flesh. It doesn't pierce it. My head fills with possibilities.
"Can I pull?" I ask.
"Try."
I put my mouth on her breast, taking in as much as I can, and suckle. She whimpers, and I repeat the process with a focus on her nipple now. The ring loosens and comes into my mouth. I spit it onto the mattress.
"I see." I do the same on the other breast and spit the ring out too. "Next time, they stay put. When you're riding me. So I can see them. Or when I'm fucking you hard, and the hard tips rub on my chest as I move in you."
"What else are we doing?"
"Anything that we feel like, for the next little while."
Anything that helps us forget the nostalgia, the longing, because sex can be the best distraction.
I keep playing with her breasts.
"Same rules we used to have in college?" she breathes. "When we touch?"
They were all about pushing each other. Taking turns. Going right for each other's limits, knowing we could stop whenever, and we both held power in the balance.
From the start, we discovered things with each other I never found again.
Fuck. I've missed you, Mari.
But I can't go there. I pull at my awareness, trapping it with the honey of her skin on my tongue, and all the sexy things we can do for a while.
"Hell yeah." I groan. "Same rules."
"You remember them?"
"I never tried to forget those."
"But you tried to forget other things?"
I did. I've tried— and failed— to put those memories to rest. If the way past and present keep mixing is any sign. Considering the way my heart beats more haphazardly than sex accounts for. The fact I'm breathless already is evidence of my weakness.
It can be handled. I'll find a way.
I give her a look. "Ask me that another time. Right now my focus is on something else."
"What's that?"
"I need to taste you again."
I travel down her body. Her underwear is light blue tonight, and I get up to take her panties off. I grab her legs and pull, bringing her ass to the edge of the bed. She gasps. I get on my knees.
"I want your thighs squeezing me tight." I lick. "Your fingers digging into my scalp until it hurts."
Her breath hitches. Her hands land on my head.
I lock eyes with her. "I want you to demand everything you want from my mouth."
She puts pressure on my nape, pushing me into her pussy. "What the fuck are you waiting for?"
I chuckle against her, and kiss her, entering her slit with my tongue. Playing with her clit.
"Holy shit," she says, and her thighs press against me.
I run fingertips on the back of her legs, knowing how sensitive that skin is. I suck on her. I let my hands go around and touch her belly, the hills of her body, up to her breasts. Teasing her nipples as I lick her over and over again.
I could live the rest of my days right here. Smelling her sex, and tasting her and getting her all over my face.
"Dom. God. Yes."
My head is trapped between her thighs. The noises she makes reach me with the echoes of underwater sounds.
She undulates on the bed, chasing my tongue.
I give her more. I redouble my efforts. The feeling of having to work to get my mouth properly on her drives me wild, when her legs want to keep me in place, and her rolling hips make me lose my spot.
I need more. To drink from her, to feed my being off her.
It gets better— worse— when she comes.
She trembles around me, hard enough I can feel the contractions under my hands, against my face. I work her through it, trapped by the force of her thighs. Until she becomes completely loose and her legs open.
"Just like that," she whispers. "Just that."
I smirk and climb up the bed, finding my way on top of her. Arms straight, I hover above her and gaze at her sleepy eyes, and the hair fanning on her bed. Black against a duvet many, many tones lighter.
"Hey," I say.
Gorgeous. The view triggers a million memories of our time together, when I could admire her beauty openly, letting it blend with the emotions that painted everything in gold. The kind of love that made the world shine, because she existed in it, and she felt the same way for me too.
The sound goes off in my head. Click. I'm snapping a new memory because, despite not having permission to seek that kind of love with her again, I'll dare file this picture in the same corners of my mind.
She opens her eyes. "Hello."
I smile and rest my weight on my elbows. "Has anything changed for you? Are we still good with no condoms?"
"Nothing's changed."
"Will we be exclusive for however long this stint between us lasts this time?"
A small smile slants her lips. She uses her hands to pull down my underwear, and gets them off with the help of her legs and feet. I bite my lips and I help her, lifting one leg and then the other. This way, I don't have to get off and away from her again.
"It's necessary, if we want to feel free with each other," she says. "Do our favorite things again."
"Fuck." I touch the soft, plush skin of her side, raking my fingers up her indulgent body, until my hand grabs her full breast and squeezes. "Is that what we're doing?"
"As long as no one knows."
I shake my head and hinge my body in such a way, I can use my knees to make room for myself between her legs. Get in the right angle next to her.
"I guess I'll be your dirty little secret after all," I say.
It will help keep my head above water and in the right place.
And I thrust inside her with no warning. She whines. I hold, because she loves this part of it, and I want to feel every bit of me in her again.
"Sexy," she moans. "You're my sexy little secret."
"But you're keeping the little part?" I pull back slowly, and push in hard again. "Please."
She responds to my movements with some of her own. Her hips roll, like she's adjusting to me.
Her eyebrows pull up in pleasure. "Perfectly sized, sexy secret, then."
I move a little faster. "Don't be shy, Mariana. You used to call it beautiful."
Her lungs hiccup. My breath rasps in and out of my throat. It's hard to keep focus, but if I ground myself in the deep brown of her eyes, I'll stretch this moment all night. Maybe even forever.
"What a beautiful… cock…" I lick my lips. I don't close my eyes. "Fits me so well, you used to say."
Her grin is lazy. "How often do you think about that?"
I don't respond. I pull up one of her legs up and hook it around my elbow. I groan as I go as deep as I can into her. Memories keep on flipping through my head, triggered by how good fucking her like this feels.
An afternoon when we skipped class and made love for hours, until the setting sun painted her skin in the most beautiful bronze.
That one time when we were in the library and she laughed so hard we got in trouble, because she couldn't stop.
The time she came to watch me play and ran into the field after I scored, even though she wasn't meant to.
I just need to tell you how amazing you are, she said.
But now we're all about sex. We have to be.
"Tell me." I roll my hips like this. "Am I stretching you just right?"
"Faster."
I do as told. "Tell me."
Her eyes open. She studies my face. I'm not sure what I'm feeling, beyond some sort of gratitude, expansive inside me. No idea what she sees.
"Yes. God. Yes." She whines.
I roll us on the bed. "We'll be smart."
I guide her to straddle me. With hard fingers on her soft hips, I get her to rock on me.
"Now ride me until we forget everything else," I say, and she does.