Chapter Twenty-six #2
My body responded immediately with electric need.
My hands slid down her arms, slick with water.
I lathered up the soap and began to wash her back and shoulders, then I touched her chest and circled her breasts with reverence.
She gasped when I pinched one nipple as my other hand moved down her torso, and my finger slid into her, slick beyond the water.
I pushed her against the wall and began to stroke her.
Her head rolled to the side as she moaned.
Her fingers twisted in my hair, and she rocked into me. “There. Don’t stop. Right there.”
My cock twitched, and I did as she commanded, heightening my own arousal, like I was empathetically connected to her, like her joy was mine.
Her hand grazed down me and found my erection, all pulsing desire.
She met my rhythm, slick up-down, harder and faster, and I was kissing her, licking her, stroking, stroking, stroking.
My knees buckled under me, and I didn’t know if I could stay upright as her fingers cradled my balls.
Mine slid inside her while my thumb continued to rub her right in the spot that had driven her mad the last time we were together.
I watched her fall apart, and it was the most beautiful thing I’d witnessed in a long time.
“Oh, my God,” she said, her knees closing, letting me know she’d climaxed. All at once she loosed her grip on me and cried out. “Oh, fuck.”
Her desultory eyes opened, and she half-laughed, half-moaned.
And then she resumed her neglected hand work, panting still from the exertion of her own orgasm.
I planted my hands on either side of her watching her slowly jack me off, and when I came, it shot all the way up to her left boob.
Before I could put the filter on my mouth, I said, “Water spout.”
My head hung slack as I recovered my breath, and she said, “I’m laughing on the inside, but right now, my mind is fucking butter. Damn.”
We took the time to clean each other off, running soap along each other’s legs and backs.
She washed my hair—which was a strangely intimate experience and a bit awkward considering my height.
I washed hers, kissing her as I sluiced water through to rinse it.
We got out and wrapped ourselves in the fluffy towels.
I tousled her hair until it stopped dripping, and then I followed her back to the bedroom.
She backed me onto the mattress, then followed, knees straddling my lap, settling her groin against mine, and rocking into me, using me for her own pleasure. I wasn’t complaining.
I knocked her onto her back so I could touch her, see her, taste her.
As my hand skimmed across her belly, down between her legs, her breath came shallow.
I savored the way her legs fell open for me, the little gasps as my fingers slid along the slick opening into her, finding her still ready for me.
She threw her leg across my thighs, unwrapped a condom she’d pulled from somewhere, rolled it on me, and then positioned herself above me. “Is this what you want?” she asked, a little too late.
“Right this moment, this is everything I want,” I confessed. She was everything I wanted. It was too soon to say that, maybe too soon to even know that for sure, but once I’d let go of my doubts, this felt so right. We just fit together.
When I entered her, slowly, so slowly, we both exhaled. She stared down at me, then bent to suck on my lips, and I’d never felt so close to anyone in my life.
I grabbed her hips, and then as she began to move, I lost myself in the rhythm of our bodies working in unison.
I needed more. I pushed up on my elbows and wrapped my arms around her so I could flip her onto her back.
But once I was inside her again, I only wanted to gaze at her, memorize the way her hair fanned out against her sheets, the beauty of her skin in the pale light.
I loved looking at her. I loved the way she looked at me, like she saw me, like she saw me and liked me anyway.
In that moment, I loved her.
“I can’t believe I’m here with you again. I didn’t expect this.” I moved a strand of hair away from her face, tentative again, as if I wasn’t already buried in her up to the hilt.
“Same. I thought I’d screwed things up too much.”
“But we figured it out, didn’t we?” I brushed her lips with mine, so soft. “Is it crazy to think we were meant to find each other?”
Maybe I was searching for meaning where there was none.
A ghost of a smile curved her lips. “I don’t know. I’m glad we did.”
I bent to kiss her, and then unable to stand the torment any longer, I dragged out excruciatingly slowly, both of us groaning.
Elizabeth clawed my shoulders, bucking her hips into me, and I want her more and more. I matched her rhythm, like waves pounding the surf, until at last her face twisted and she cried out my name. A tsunami of pleasure consumed me, my voice guttural and wild.
I collapsed onto her, and her arms cocooned me, held me tight, all breath and sweat and beating heart.
And I felt safe. I felt cared for.
I felt loved.
As my body re-solidified, I sighed. “Maybe it wasn’t fate, but I’m glad you approached me at that bar.”
She nestled into me. “You could say, I blew into your life like an ill wind.”
The joke hit me by surprise, and my laughter rumbled like faraway thunder. “Definitely not ill. More like gale-force.”
“And you penetrated me like a ray of sunshine through the clouds.”
I started to giggle embarrassingly. “Your puns are a crime against humanity.”
“I’m only partly punny.” She toyed with my chest hair. “You are unseasonably hot.”
I gave her a stern look. “You should come with an advisory.”
She curled into me and closed her eyes, saying. “I heard every weatherman comes with a silver lining.”
I squeezed her close, poking her shoulder. “How do I turn this thing off?”
She wiggled. “You never could.”
“Thank God.”
“Can I ask you something?”
“Anything.”
She lifted onto her elbow, a stripe of light illuminating curious eyes. “Does this mean you trust me now? You said you don’t do casual hookups, so am I in?”
I laughed. “For the record, I have done casual hookups. But they were never like this, never so…”
“So intense?”
“So much more than sex,” I finished.
“You wondered if we were meant to meet. Do you believe in soul mates?”
That was a very good question. “I never did before. I’ve always hoped there’d be a partner for me, maybe not one fated mate, but someone who could accept me for who I am, how I think. I’ve never envisioned a truly romantic relationship because I honestly thought people have been making that up.”
“You thought people over the centuries have been lying about falling in love?”
“Maybe that’s why I started reading romance, so I could live vicariously, understand what an emotional bond might feel like, but that’s fiction.”
“So you’ve never been in love before?”
“Have you?”
She shook her head. “Like you, I’ve experienced it through books.
And my parents are disgustingly in love.
I’ve always believed in the possibility of true love, but I think it’s rare.
It’s funny because Chelsea doesn’t believe in it at all, but she’s always pushing me to meet people.
Like romance is for thee, not for me in her world. ”
“Poor Bas,” I said, knowing he’d break himself on that challenge.
“Poor Bas,” Elizabeth echoed. “Maybe he’ll have better luck than the men who tried before.”
“I have to admit I sometimes envy the bond you have with her.”
“But you’ve got Bas.”
I sniffed a laugh. We were friends, yeah, but even there, I didn’t have the kind of connection Elizabeth did with Chelsea. “Yeah, but I don’t want to kiss Bas.”
She snorted. “I promise you I don’t want to kiss Chelsea. I’d consider marrying her for the sweet, sweet tax benefits, but there’d be no hanky panky.”
“Sometimes I think a friendship like that would be enough. I’ve had empty sex, but I’d love to have a real, honest relationship with someone.”
“We all have our own unique identities, right? Chelsea wants the sex, but she believes anything more is a lie. You want an emotional connection, and without it, sex is just a means to an end.”
“And you?”
“I want it all.” She lifted up a little more, so her chin rested on my chest, grinning a little coy, a lot sexy. “I want to fall in love with someone who will be there to catch me. I want sex that makes my toes curl.”
Yeah. “I want it all, too.”
She bit her lower lip, grinning. “Well, thith ith only the tip of the ithburg.”