My Book

by Alam, Donna

  ‘I think I just want to kiss because I want to kiss you.’

  ‘That’s better.’ Her smile is still a little crooked, but her hand remains.

  My lips ghost hers before her answer sinks in.

  ‘Better?’

  ‘Better than I expected, anyway.’

  Now it’s my time to be unsure as I feel my brow pinch.

  ‘Do you have such a poor opinion of me?’

  A genuine smile now. ‘I was expecting you to say you wanted to kiss me as a way to get into my knickers again.’

  ‘Then it’ll surprise you to hear that I was actually thinking of poetry. You don’t believe me?’ I smooth my thumb across her scrunched brow. ‘It’s true. Lips that taste of tears are the best for kissing,’ I say, paraphrasing a Dorothy Parker poem. ‘I wondered if this was true.’ Before she can comment, I add, ‘But I decided it doesn’t matter because there isn’t a time when I wouldn’t enjoy kissing you.’

  It’s only then her hand slackens, her eyes softening as I bring my mouth to hers in nothing more than a caress.

  ‘Still okay?’ Her dark painted lashes flutter over eyes the colour of treacle, her tongue darting out as though to taste the kiss.

  ‘I’m not sure what we’re doing.’

  ‘Do we have to be certain?’

  ‘We might have one more person to consider . . .’

  I steal her words with another kiss, one that’s soft and lingering. A lightning rod to distract her attentions or a need caused by those words, I can’t be sure. All I know is I want to kiss her. Hold her. Have her.

  ‘Come home with me tonight.’ Her eyes are no longer like treacle but dark molasses as I pull back, ghosting my lips over hers.

  ‘I’m not sure that’s a good idea.’

  ‘We could talk about . . . things.’ Or we could fuck.

  ‘But shouldn’t we wait until I’ve been to see the doctor? I mean, it might be a false positive, or whatever they call it.’

  ‘Do you think so?’ Dipping my knees, I bring my gaze level with hers. ‘What do you feel?’

  ‘Like, woman’s intuition?’ She quirks a brow. Rebuffed, I straighten. ‘I’ll tell you what I feel,’ she says suddenly. ‘I feel awful. Tired and weepy, and I’ve been putting it down to other things. But the fact of the matter is, it seems like I’ve done nothing but vomit for days. And it’s the pits. And I’m sort of scared.’ She swallows thickly, her gaze sliding away. ‘I don’t know what I’m doing, and I’m tired of pretending everything is okay.’

  ‘Come home with me,’ I repeat, sliding a lock of hair behind her ear. ‘We can talk.’ Really talk. Not fuck, it seems.

  She nods once, leaning into my touch, and something tightens in my chest.

  ‘I’ll come home with you, but sex is off the table.’

  ‘When it was so good?’ Her eyes narrow, her hand drawing back. ‘On the table. In the bed. Ah-ah,’ I singsong, catching her hand before it strikes again. But she’s smiling, and so am I. And, Christ, I want to kiss her again. Kiss to compliance—kiss her until she melts into me and forgets about each of her worries.

  I’ll keep them for her if she’d let me.

  ‘Just come home with me.’

  ‘Just come home with you?’

  ‘Yes, just. No expectations. No demands. Come just because you want to.’

  And surprisingly, I find I mean that.

  * * *

  I came here by cab, and as Miranda had her car, she drives. As I rule, I like to drive. I live and work in the same enclave of London, so I often walk to work. I have a driver for the days I don’t, or for when I need to get to the airport or go somewhere farther afield. Being driven frees up my time for work—calls, emails, and the like. So when I get the chance to drive, I usually do. Or else I ride my bike, which is an easier way to traverse London, though I prefer taking it out on longer rides through country lanes. It’s a big boy’s toy, basically. So being driven home by Miranda this evening is a novel experience. She drives an older model Mini Cooper, so it isn’t the most comfortable of experiences, but I find myself twisted in my seat anyway, unable to take my eyes off the girl in the driver’s seat.

  Something tells me that this could be the perfect analogy for our relationship going forward.

  ‘I wish you’d stop staring at me,’ she murmurs.

  ‘You know, I never realised how erotic that tiny slice of pale wrist is.’

  ‘What?’ Her answer is tremulous with laughter. ‘My wrist?’ Her gaze flicks down, perplexed.

  ‘Hm. Erotic and elegant. I realised that just as you flicked your blinker.’

  ‘Yes.’ Her narrowed gaze drifts to mine as we stop at a set of lights. ‘Because that sounded so innocent.’

  ‘A flash of the wrist is very innocent. It’s almost on par with a Victorian kind of thrill.’

  ‘While I . . . flick my blinker? Really?’

  God, this woman’s laughter. I could bottle it. Drink it. Not that I allow her to know the effect it has on me.

  ‘Why, Miranda,’ I drawl, ‘I’m shocked that you would imagine such a thing, let alone mention it.’

  ‘Yeah, I see you clutching your pearls,’ she retorts mockingly as we start to move again.

  ‘Is that another euphemism?’ I want to reach out and touch her, brush my fingers through her hair or place my hand on her knee, but despite joining in verbally, something tells me she wouldn’t welcome my touch. It’s almost as though her body vibrates, strung taut like a bow. ‘Because clearly, I’m not.’ My gaze drifts southwards to my crotch. From the corner of hers, she follows. ‘But I can if that’s something you’d still like to see.’

  She bites her lip to stave off an answer, but I think we’re both remembering the same thing.

  I thought of you when I came by my own hand.

  My cock twitches and, if I’m not mistaken, her breath pattern changes, speeding up. But the moment passes, and she eventually musters a bland reply.

  ‘No comment. And I think we should change the subject. Speaking of wrists, would you like to hear a little Australian trivia?’

  ‘If we can’t talk about what you to do me, or what I’d like you to do to me, absolutely.’

  ‘I’m glad you’re respecting my boundaries.’ She chuckles softly.

  ‘For now, at least.’

  ‘Moving on! So, wrists. My older sister lives in Sydney, and she told me that Aussies use the word wristy for something very particular. I bet you can’t guess what it is.’

  I bet I can. In fact, I know I can, after spending some time in Australia following university. It seems posh boys are a hit with Aussie chicks, or sheilas, depending on the age bracket they fall into. You might say I’ve experienced both of these. Wristies and age brackets.

  ‘I’m not sure what that can mean,’ I answer pensively. ‘Something to do with an adornment? Perhaps a bracelet?’

  I’d like to adorn her. With strings and strings of pearls, with a strength of desire I’ve never known. Leaving her draped across the desk this afternoon when all I wanted to do was taste her was torturous. I wanted to bury myself in her. Hear her cry my name. But since I’ve learned of her news—our news—the desire to have her is almost overwhelming. Yet here I sit playing games.

  ‘Nope. Have another guess.’

  ‘How about you demonstrate instead.’

  With a sharp intake of breath, she turns her head. ‘You know, don’t you?’

  ‘If I say yes, would you like me to clutch my pearls with one hand and show you with the other instead? I quite like the idea of a Miranda-centric audience.’

  ‘Oh, you are the worst!’ It sounds more like a compliment than an admonishment as the sound of her tinkling laughter fills the car.

  ‘Left here,’ I murmur, then she smiles a tiny smile as she flicks the blinker again. ‘We’re almost home.’

  Miranda parks at the front of the house once I’ve assured her, her car won’t get a parking ticket in the resident’s only parking zone, and I take h
er hand and lead her up the old stone steps.

  ‘It’s a beautiful house,’ she says as I push the door wide, gesturing she step inside first.

  ‘It’s a bit of a mausoleum and far too big for one man.’ I rush on, hearing my own words as a tiny idea plants itself in my head. An idea for a time other than now. ‘But I bought it at a good time. And it’s close to the gallery, of course.’

  ‘Ah, yes.’ In the entrance hall, she trails her fingers over the table that sits in the middle of the black and white tiled floor, almost as though she’s remembering. Fuck knows I can barely pass the thing without getting hard. ‘I need to come and look at your etchings sometime.’ She says this so mildly, with such inconsequence, yet it sounds like a taunt as she places her bag next to the copper bowl, her fingertips touching that, too.

  ‘This is pretty.’

  ‘Not as pretty as you.’ I find myself behind her, my mouth pressed to her neck as she tilts it to give me better access. ‘Miranda.’ Her name is a whispered plea because I want to take her hand and lead her to my bed. I want to spread her pale, silky thighs wide and torture her with my tongue, just to hear her cry my name again and again.

  What is it about my name on her lips that makes me want to balance my cock there? Balanced on her plump bottom lip, her eyes wide but not quite guileless.

  ‘God, I want you,’ I murmur as she presses herself back against me, her soft flesh yielding to my hard. She turns her head then, giving me her profile, those bee-stung lips curled in a secret half smile. A temptation too much to ignore. So I don’t, pressing a kiss at the corner of her mouth. ‘Tell me to stop.’

  A soft sigh. A whisper of temptation. My hand pressed unconsciously to her flat stomach.

  ‘I thought we came here to talk.’ Her response is a quiet murmur but not quite innocent, and as I turn her in my arms, her eyes are dark with want.

  ‘We can, and we will. But right now, I have a much better plan for my mouth.’

  * * *

  You don’t even know her, my mind whispers. It’s just those hovering endorphins making you feel these things.

  Miranda lies naked beneath me, her tresses fanned out on the pillow, her eyes dark and trusting in the dim light. Her hands lie palm up on the pillow above her head, the pulse in her wrists fluttering against my fingertips as I hold them there.

  ‘Not yet, darling. Don’t fall yet.’ My fingers dance across one taut nipple, a whispering touch met by a stuttering sigh as I soak in the sight of her beauty, bathed in moonlight.

  ‘But I’m so close,’ she almost weeps.

  ‘I know.’ Despite the note of compassion in my tone, there’s no real sympathy, not as she balances on the knife’s edge I’ve held her for this past while.

  With my tongue. With my fingers. With my cock.

  ‘Shall I kiss you again while you ride my fingers?’

  ‘Don’t tease,’ she pleads, undulating under me as I skim my hand between her legs.

  It could’ve gone one of several ways once we’d made it to the bedroom between kisses and touches, and the peeling bodies out of clothes. It might’ve been a fast and furious coupling, one where we barely made it to the bed. Or I could’ve lain her against the mattress and made sweet love to her in deference to her tender feelings and condition. Instead, a third option had presented itself. Perhaps the only option. The option that seems to sing out to both of us as her tongue darts out to wet her parched lips, tempting me to follow the path with my own tongue.

  ‘I never knew,’ she whispers, her words like velvet with such complicity. ‘I never knew it could be like this.’

  The fact of the matter is, for all her pluck, Miranda is a touch submissive. And what a beautiful fact that is. I’d gotten my first inkling while she’d sat on the kitchen worktop that first night, her eyes dark and wide as I’d splashed whisky across her scraped knee. She’d taken it like a good girl, and I’ve wanted her ever since.

  ‘Open your legs for me, darling.’ Like the pages of a book, she reveals herself. ‘You’re so beautiful. You’re addictive. So sweet on my tongue. I want to kiss your cunt again and again.’ I graze my way down her body, sliding my tongue between her legs as her body surges under me, her cry a lovely broken thing.

  Last time she was in my arms, she asked to make her forget. To make her feel like someone else. Tonight, I’ll leave her with no doubt of who she is. Of who she belongs to. Of who her orgasm belongs to.

  She is Miranda.

  The soon-to-be mother of my child.

  And mine in every sense she’ll allow me.

  ‘Breathe, darling.’ A few deft flicks and I’m over her again. Her wrists are on the pillow still, one on top of the other, their position unchanged. The realisation is like a knot of pleasure in my gut, and as I wrap my fingers around my cock, her eyes avidly watch the movement. I slide my fist along my swollen length, bringing it over the crown with a well-practised twist.

  ‘I want to taste you.’ Her whisper is dark and throaty, a siren’s call not to be ignored. She makes as though to move at the same time I do, her body stilling under the weight of my hand. She gets it immediately. She wants to taste, and I want to feed.

  With one hand on the wall behind her head and the other around the base of my aching cock, I lower myself to her lips. When her tongue darts out, my body bows at the unexpected contact.

  ‘I don’t know whether that was brave or foolish.’ My voice sounds gravelly, the knot of need in my stomach larger now, taut and tense.

  ‘More like a lack of patience,’ she purrs, that wicked tongue wetting her bottom lip, causing my blood to hum in my veins.

  I feed myself between her lips, her lashes fluttering, her tongue caressing my frenulum. As I pull away, my thighs shake as her mouth puckers in a sucking kiss to my crown. I groan a long expletive, captive to her touch as I slide myself deeper into her mouth.

  Her mouth stretched wide and her eyes not so innocent, I gently work myself in and out of her lips as she drags her tongue up the underside of my length, those mind-blowing sucking kisses delivered to the fat head.

  ‘I wonder if I’d taste better covered in your sweetness?’ Every inch of my skin is alive and burning as she hollows out her cheeks. ‘That’s right, darling. Suck me.’ Suck me hard.

  Unable to resist, I lean down and fill her glistening pussy with my fingers. Again and again, we torture the other until Miranda isn’t the only one on the brink of giving in. I pull away, my breathing laboured as I slide my fist up my length again, her saliva easing the drag.

  ‘You didn’t answer,’ I rasp, closing my mouth against the notion of telling her how fucking unravelling it is to have my mouth on her right after she’s been stuffed full of my cock.

  ‘Didn’t anyone ever tell you it’s impolite to speak with your mouth full?’

  My dark laughter fills the room, her gaze glossy with another kind of pleasure. I note the hitch in her brows as I lean over her, grabbing a condom from the nightstand. She watches as I sheath myself, her gaze following as I take my position between her legs again. By some ancient and silent assent, I ease myself into her once again.

  Deliberately slow.

  Achingly slow.

  Pushing the breath from her body as her body arches beneath mine, seeking that final relief.

  ‘Please—I need. I need this. I need you.’ Her voice falters on the last syllable, her body riding this wave. I grip her wrists again, grounding her at both ends as her body rebels.

  ‘I know you do.’ She thinks she needs harder and faster, not teasing touches and movements torturously slow, but she’s wrong. Because there’s a time for everything and everyone, and my time is now.

  ‘I feel—I need.’ I bring my mouth to hers in a long, lingering kiss as the ache in my chest expands with her words. I’ll draw the night out until she forgets to breathe. Empty her mind of those cluttered thoughts, the cacophony of her fears and anxieties. I’ll rid her of the thoughts weighing her down. I know I can help. Right now. In th
e future. I’ll be her broad shoulder to lean on. Bring her relief in all forms.

  ‘Let me take, sweet darling.’ Let me take you to that point and bring you back again and again. ‘Let me take you to pieces until you’re not sure where you begin or where you’ll end. Just breathe . . .’

  An exhalation stutters from her, hitting the air in a jagged little burst as I lower myself inside her one more inch, muscle memory clenching around me as though to draw me in.

  I grit my teeth and groan, the feel of her my fucking undoing. I want to hew a vessel from her bones because this feels almost biblical. This feels as if she belongs to me as I lean down and kiss her again, our chests pressed together, our hearts beating as one.

  ‘I want to strip you down,’ I grunt, releasing her wrists to push myself inside her with a snap of my hips. ‘I want to feed you my breath in the place of your own.’

  I want to own your body and your heart.

  ‘Oh, God, yes!’ Her hands wrap around my neck, her heels hooking around my thighs, but not before I withdraw, feeling the loss of her heat as I pull the latex barrier from my cock.

  ‘I want you bare, pulsing around me.’ My heart is deafening as I wait for her response, unprepared for a rebuff. But there’s nothing unsure or incomplete about her answer as she brings my head down for a passionate kiss.

  It seems we’re both gripped by madness.

  By love and madness.

  I don’t have the brain power to ponder an answer, not as her gaze drifts from my cock to my face.

  ‘James.’ One word so heavy with meaning as I show her my truth in this form, our joint moans hitting the air as I slide myself home.

  22

  Miranda

  ‘Good morning, sleepyhead.’ I wake to the feel of a hand at my cheek and the sweet whisper of my name, rather that the clang of discord from downstairs somewhere or the wet press of a dog’s nose.

  ‘What time is it?’ I begin to crawl upwards using my elbows as leverage, but as a breath of cool air hits my nipples, it all comes back.