Messy

by Katie Porter

  We burn. We spark. There are a million miles between each kiss, a hundred hours passed between each breath. The lead is passed back and forth. He frees the hand that holds my panties, then lashes it tight around my shoulders, yanking me down to him. We couldn’t be any closer—not without fucking. Our breathing melds, because my lungs are his lungs.

  I think I’m manic. I think I’m crazed. There’s a haze over my eyes, a blur over my senses. I can’t hear anything but the rushing rasp of our kisses. If beasts stormed the manor, I’d be a saber-toothed tiger snack. I don’t know anything but Alec.

  I want to be his snack. I grind my hips on the combined bulk of his hand and his dick. My swollen flesh rubs over his knuckles. I’m leaving streaks of wetness on him. If he needed proof of my desire, I’m providing copious amounts. I shift a couple inches to adjust the pressure against my clit. I moan into his mouth.

  He pulls back to look at my eyes. “God, you’re already close, aren’t you?”

  I nod. I keep grinding on him. Fucking his hand. My knees are tucked alongside his hips, a mix of skin and the wool of his trousers. He’s only half undone and I love the nastiness of that. I love the wrongness of this.

  He pushes his cock and knuckles up against my folds. His head bumps softly over my clit, immediately followed by the rough tap of his knuckles. The contrast is going to drive me nuts. I’m clenching, the soles of my feet curling. A keening whine hits the back of my throat.

  I drive my fingers deep into his hair. It’s so fucking silky, like strands of embroidery floss. Strands twine around my fingers. I stare into his shadowy eyes.

  “Tell me,” I say. It’s my refrain to him, isn’t it? The thing I find myself saying over and over again. “Tell me who I am.”

  I want to know he’s not hiding from the truth of us.

  He smooths his free hand up my back until it rests at my nape—a perfect mirror of how I’m holding him. He’s looking back at me. Unafraid. Unashamed.

  “You’re Harlow Tate. You’re the complicated daughter of a complicated man. You’re an artist in your own right. And you may be my muse.”

  He steals my breath. I come. I might be dying.

  Or maybe this is what it feels like to have a panic attack and an orgasm at the same time.

  Chapter Eleven

  Harlow

  I FEEL MY HEARTBEAT in my palms. Tingles center at the inside of my elbows. My chest is more than tight. It’s a vise. If I could breathe more deeply than shallow huffs, I’d cough myself into oblivion. This must be something like a heart attack, and it’s the weirdest fucking thing because my pussy is pulsing, and for fuck’s sake that part feels good.

  I’m going to die of feeling good. That’s pretty much on brand for me. Good things come with penalties. I’ve always known that.

  “Are you okay?” Alec asks. He strokes my hair down my back. I think he’s trying to get me to look at him, but I can’t. I won’t. If I’m dying, I’ll die alone.

  “Fine.” My gasp sounds like it came from the half of me that just came, not the part that’s been crushed by his words. “I’m great. Awesome.”

  Maybe he’ll believe me. Maybe the way he’s holding me is about what we’ve just done, not about the way my body is shaking.

  Five things I can see: A midcentury modern chair of black leather and chrome. Cloudy sky above the conservatory’s glass ceiling. The wall, which is stark white in daytime and solemn grey at this hour. Tufted leather along the back of the couch. And the whorls of Alec’s ear, half-hidden by the silken fall of his hair.

  Four things I can feel: Strands of that sleek hair against my cheek. The corded muscles of his neck, where my fingers dig into his skin. The rasp of my tight nipples inside the bodice of my dress. Sweat that slicks between my thighs and Alec’s—filthy and human and real.

  Three things I can hear: Alec’s breathing, fast and harsh as it shoves through his open mouth. A bird. I can’t believe I can hear a bird singing at this hour and this time of year. Don’t they go away through the winter? Isn’t that how nature works? I need one more sound. A rattle as the forced-air heating whooshes on.

  Two things I can smell: The scent of my come that spills along our skin. It’s musky and female. I rest my forehead on Alec’s shoulder. Him. The scent of him. I take a deep breath and pull him in. How is he already so familiar?

  One thing I can taste: I kiss Alec. His mouth tastes like late nights and regret and joy. I kiss him lazily and energetically all at once. His tongue plays with mine. We are nothing apart and everything together.

  He sighs despite the tension I feel through his whole body. “Are you really alright?”

  “Of course.” I create a smile from the part of me that enjoyed my orgasm, and I ignore the rest. “What could I possibly complain about?”

  He folds his hands around my face, frames me. His fingers are so long. His thumbs rest in the soft spots beneath my jaw. I’m so tender there that he could bruise me. The way he studies me is unfair.

  Leave me my walls. Leave me my defenses. No one has bothered to scale them until now. Why does it have to be when I have only ruin and confusion within?

  “You can tell me,” he says softly.

  I can’t. Not when his words are the strings that lead to my dynamite. I’m going to self-destruct. His muse? No way can I handle the weight of his expectations. I can hardly handle myself. How in the name of fuck did I become responsible for my father? Why had I agreed to this trip? I wanted to find pieces of his past, not to create new problems. And now I’m going to be responsible for Alec’s creativity as well?

  I. Can. Not.

  I kiss him lightly, brushing my mouth over his. I sip at his bottom lip and rub the bodice of my dress over his bared chest. “There’s nothing to tell,” I say in a throaty voice.

  “Hmm.”

  Now? Now is the moment he chooses to see through me? I loop my arms around his shoulders, light and loose. My hair slips over my shoulder as I tip my head. “What, honey?”

  He puts his index finger across my lips. His skin is rougher than I expected. He knows how to play guitar, at least to conjure a few notes for song writing. It’s enough to give him callouses. I feel an admonishment coming, but it hovers just out of reach.

  I’m tempted to taunt it out of him, call it to the foreground. I make myself smile instead. Smiles are always safer. They buy time.

  I also ignore the fact that he’s not hard anymore. I’ve gotten mine and he got to set off an emotional bomb, so basically he made his choice, right?

  I’m no one’s goddamn muse.

  I watched that dynamic go bad and I’m not going anywhere near it. As if I didn’t hear the words Dad hurled in Mom’s wake when she left. As if I didn’t know why she left. She wanted to be loved, not worshipped. She didn’t want to be blamed once the music in Dad’s head went away.

  “I’m fine,” I say for what I’m determined will be the last time.

  “Okay.”

  He shifts me to the side. The empty leather cushion is cold under my thighs. With efficient movements, Alec buttons his pants but leaves his shirt loose. He twitches my skirt back into place but doesn’t return my panties. Then he sweeps me up in his arms in a smooth, dizzying move.

  I make an uncool squeaky noise and toss my arms around his shoulders. “What the hell?”

  He has an arm under my knees and the other around my back. I’m held like a baby—or like a bride. He strides toward the front of the house. At least my room is on this level, so he won’t need to climb stairs.

  I hide my face against his shoulder. I get a face full of expensive shirt and bare skin, and I enjoy the contrast against my blush-hot cheek.

  This isn’t good. I shouldn’t indulge in this behavior. It’s the sort of gesture that will let him think that yes, “muse” is a perfectly appropriate word when he thinks of me.

  But oh god, I covet the feeling of being taken care of.

  I don’t even make a token protest as he carries me to my room.
I don’t have to give him directions; it’s his house. But I’m not fighting the “damn, I am not your muse” battle very stridently.

  I burrow into his chest. I’ll fight better tomorrow.

  Once in my room, he shifts my weight against one arm and uses the other to pull back the coverlet and sheets. He eases me down by sitting on the edge of the mattress.

  I find I don’t want to let go of him. I keep my arms at his neck, my face against him. Hiding. “Don’t leave me.”

  “I’m not.”

  He didn’t turn the lights on as we came into the room, and we didn’t have lights in the conservatory. We’re creatures who live in the dark. Maybe we’re only meant to slip from nightmare to dream and back again.

  I dance my fingers over the line of his cheekbones, then down to the sharp angle of his jaw. Over his bottom lip. Up to his brow and the natural curve that leads to his blade-sharp nose with its pinched end.

  He holds still under my inspections. More than that. He welcomes them. Patience and penance. When my hand comes to his cheek, he holds me against him. The bristle of his unshaven skin rubs over my palm. He nuzzles against me, but he’s not leaning any closer.

  “Don’t... Don’t leave me.” I can’t say it any clearer than that. I know the crude words, the harsh ways. The ones that are punishing. But I don’t know how to entreat a man. To convince him to give me a night of love, even though I’m not ready for the expectations he wants to lay at my feet.

  “I’m here,” he says.

  I hold his collar and lean back so he has no choice but to lie down with me. The modern decor leaves us no pile of pillows to conceal us. We’re stark across the straight-tucked coverlet. The deep purple is nearly black in the dim room. I could be held on a plume of ash and I still wouldn’t feel as hot as this.

  He covers me. My body is made for his weight. I stretch underneath him but he holds me down.

  We’re finally here. Body to body. This dance has been so long and so short at the same time. I want to stretch it out, just as I want him to claim me before I crawl out of my skin.

  So I kiss him. It’s the easiest way to mask the conflicted expressions I must be making. He feeds me kiss for kiss, a beast that knows its kind. He doesn’t slip my dress off. Nothing so polite right now. He shoves down the bodice so that my breasts are presented for him.

  I throw my head back when he takes one, then the other tip in his mouth. I’m so shocked at first that it’s hard to parse out the sensations. Searing heat. Wet. His tongue. Oh god, then his teeth. My bare toes curl across the backs of his calves.

  I come up off the bed, but he doesn’t let me get away. I don’t want to get away.

  He drives up under my miniskirt. His hand is bold—his first two fingers even bolder as he pushes between my swollen lips. I’m juicy and wet. I’m throbbing with the rapid beat of my pulse. My hips stroke in time with him but it’s not enough.

  “I need you.” This truth is one I don’t have to keep to myself. This is the level of truth I can handle. “I want you inside me.”

  He can summon a filthy, naughty grin when he feels like it. “I am inside you.” To prove his point, he curls his fingers and rubs the front of my channel.

  I give a guttural grunt. Not pretty. Past pretty to needy. “More.”

  “Like this?” He does it again.

  “No, you. More you.”

  “More fingers?” Fuck, he’s teasing me, but he’s practically a saint when he shoves another finger inside.

  But he knows what I want.

  “Fuck me, please, Alec. I want to feel you like you’re part of me.”

  His eyes flash with something so bright that it’s painful. The price of having him tonight will be starving my soul tomorrow. It’s bitter and cold of me, but I’ve never been good at self-denial. Life has taught me to catch joy before it’s gone. It always goes, usually sooner than later.

  He finds the nearly invisible zipper to the dress along my ribs and teases out the tab. Pulling it down, down, he frees me from what’s become an expensive trap. Together we push it down my body, until I’m bare beneath him. The three-thousand-dollar dress is a punctuation mark on the bare floor. His open shirt hangs around us, and I like that he still wears his trousers. We’re something bawdy, something made of indulgence.

  I bend a knee along his thigh. The strength in his muscles hums. He’s holding himself back, despite the way I’ve begged. Maybe because I’ve begged. I wind my other foot around his ankle. His feet are bare like mine and it’s intimate. So intimate that my brain skims away and I drag my toes up his calf to find fine wool.

  I can’t turn my head off. Muse, muse, muse.

  The word sings in my skull like monks chanting.

  I’m terrified. He’s triumphant.

  I kiss him.

  None of this goes away forever, but at least it can go away for tonight. I close my eyes and pretend morning won’t come. I can feel the turn of his breath and the change in his skin and the difference in him. He may want me as his muse, but in this moment I am human and so is he.

  I slip a hand over the back of his neck, twining my fingers through his hair and holding my palm over his tendons. “Say sweet things.”

  “You,” he says, with a smile that looks half amazed. “You’re surprisingly sweet. You carry shields and spears because beneath them you’re delicate.”

  I laugh. “No. You make me sound... I’m not that special.”

  He trails open-mouthed kisses down my neck. I hiss in a breath. “I’m entitled to my opinions. Other sweet things: Your skin. The taste of you. How bad I want to be inside you.”

  “Yes.” These are the kinds of things I know how to handle. “Tell me that.”

  “Here,” he tells me, putting his hand over my pussy. His possessive hand holds me firmly. His middle finger dips between my wet lips. “This is where I want to be. Will you take me?”

  “Yes. Please. I want you.”

  He reaches over to find a condom in the bedside drawer. He slips it on before I have a moment to admire his big, thick dick again. The sheen of latex only makes him more attractive to me.

  He slides his body over mine. One arm hooks under my ribs and the other holds my neck. Close. Intimate. His hips fall naturally into the cradle of my legs. I spread my knees for him, and his cock notches right at the opening of my pussy. God, we were made to be here. Like we were supposed to be like this. Neither of us needs to make those fumbling little adjustments that new lovers have to make.

  He looks into my eyes. I tell myself that I’m looking back because it would be cowardice to look away, but I’m looking because I want to. I want to feel what it would be like to be worshipped. Even for a moment. Even for one night.

  Especially because I know it can’t last.

  He drives his hips forward, his dick slipping into my body, his pelvis rubbing my clit, and I cry out.

  Chapter Twelve

  Harlow

  SEX IS ONLY SEX. THE mechanics of bodies with lubrication. It’s what we do to ensure the continuation of the species. We inure the process with a deeper sense of meaning because it’s how people accept the lesser, broken creatures that we all are. It’s nothing magical.

  It’s not.

  It isn’t.

  I can’t look away from Alec. And he doesn’t look away from me.

  His chest is bare against mine, our stomachs together. Pelvis to pelvis. I’m grateful he’s not as naked as I am. I don’t know that I could handle his body fully against me. I’m overwhelmed enough.

  I stretch up to kiss him. He lets me, and I know it’s a matter of him letting me. He’s in charge of us both. I can’t like this. I shouldn’t.

  I’m melting from the inside out.

  I’ve never been a girl that gets off solely on penetration, and I don’t think I am now. I think this is somehow more. The way he swivels his hips. The way he slides the base of his cock over my clit. The way his slim, taut abs and strong thighs press me flat against the mattre
ss—another way he’s pinning me down and making me take. I’m taking what he’ll give me for now.

  I reach my hands up his back, under his loose shirt. It’s no protection from me. My nails find purchase on his skin but I don’t dig in. I could. He would let me. I could mark him and then tomorrow he’d write lines about it. He’ll turn us into poetry.

  Poetry is meant for pretty things, for important people, for moments that are supposed to be etched into eternity. Not for me.

  Planting a hand on his shoulder, I shove. He goes over, his hands still clutched on my hips. We twist together. I rise up on my knees and take his shaft in my hand. The condom is wet with my juices plus the artificial slipperiness of silicone. I wish I could have him bare, but he would be a fool to trust me.

  He smooths down my upper arms, my ribs, my stomach. He’s absorbing every inch of me. Committing me to memory. I preen under his strokes. He pinches my nipples, tweaks them into tight points. “You’re astonishing.”

  My breasts are decent. Small, and the left one is slightly larger, but by less than half a cup size. He’s lust-drunk and seeing beauty that isn’t there. Maybe I don’t mind. I smile, feeling astonishing on the inside. Even more so when I lift and fit his thick head to my body.

  I tease us both. Tiny, shallow strokes are barely enough to be kisses. This kind of eternity isn’t enough for me, but it’s the kind that I get. I lay both my hands on his chest, right hand over his heart. There are vows I would make if I could.

  I take him inside my body instead.

  He curses, low and rude in a way that lights me up. My nerve endings tingle. The slide of his thickness is tantalizing. This is what I’ve fought for, what I’ve begged for. I win.

  He wins.

  I fuck him hard and mean, rotating my hips and using every trick in my book and some I’ve never heard of. I lean back to keep pressure off my clit. This isn’t my turn to come. Earlier was enough for me, and I don’t want to miss a moment of watching his pleasure. He hasn’t let me see him like this. I mean for him to fall apart right in front of me. I need for that to happen. Then I’ll know.