All Played Out

by Cora Carmack

  When I’m done talking, my massaging of her neck has her eyes half closed, but she lifts her lids enough to pin me with her gaze.

  “Thanks for the football metaphor, now tell me plainly what you’re saying.”

  I swallow a laugh. The way her confidence around me has grown is nothing short of stunning. If I were a more poetic guy, I’d compare it to seeing a flower bloom before my eyes. But that’s not me, so all I can say is it’s hot. Unbelievably hot. Every time she goes toe-to-toe with me, I just want more.

  “I’m saying that I’d love to be the person to help satisfy your curiosity, the one to help you figure out what you like. But I won’t ask for more than you’re willing to give.” I’d like to tell her that she has control in this aspect of things, but I can’t promise that. The need to feel her surrender to me is too strong for that. But it requires trust. I need her to be able to turn off the thoughts that are always running through her head, and she won’t do that until she believes she can.

  I use the hand at her neck to draw her a little closer, dipping my own head down at the same time. “So the question is,” I begin, “how much are you willing to give me, Nell?”

  Her gaze flicks back and forth between my eyes, as if she might see something different in the left than the right. I draw a thumb over her bottom lip, pulling at it enough that I can feel the warm exhale of her breath on my skin. “This?” I ask her. “Can I have this?”

  I lean down to take her mouth. The look in her eyes is response enough for me, but before I get there, she closes her lips over my thumb. The tentative slide of her tongue nearly brings me to my knees. Then she sucks at my finger, and just like that, she’s stolen the control right from under me.

  I like experimental Nell. I like her so damn much.

  Chapter 17

  Nell’s To-Do List

  • Normal College Thing #4: Do something wild.

  • Don’t get caught.

  It was an impulsive move. I had a hazy memory of him doing this to me when I was drunk the other night, and I remember that it felt like all my bones had gone liquid. My response had surprised me. Never in a million years would I have thought that such a thing could have that strong an effect on me. And I’d just wanted to, I don’t know . . . return the favor.

  But now my brain isn’t blurred by alcohol, and I’m intensely aware that I’m standing in a library where anyone could walk by . . . sucking on his thumb. And I’d just admitted to a hugely embarrassing fascination for watching another couple’s intimacy, and seriously what is wrong with me? I’m such a freak.

  God, I’m doing this all wrong. I don’t know how to be sexy, how to be . . . this.

  Just when I’m about to pull away, Mateo’s body collapses against mine, and his teeth nip the lobe of my ear. My mouth falls open on a gasp, and his wet thumb rubs across the circle of my lips before dipping back inside.

  Does that mean this is good? That I’m not making a fool of myself?

  “You’re killing me, Nell.” In response, I swirl my tongue around his thumb again, and he groans. His hot breath sends a shiver down my spine. “Do you know how bad I want you? Do you have any idea?”

  He drags his thumb from my mouth and moves to press his forehead against mine. Seconds later, the lower half of his body leans into mine, too.

  I can feel him, hot and hard against my stomach. He’s wearing gym shorts, and I’m shocked by how much I can feel through the layers of our clothes. And while I’m still marveling at the feel of him, he kisses me, his lips demanding my attention.

  Our last kiss had been long and exploratory. We’d barely known each other then. And though I still don’t know the facts of him—I don’t know about his family or his childhood or how he sees his future—I do feel like I know him. And God knows he knows plenty about me. And this kiss? There’s nothing slow or introductory about it. His tongue drives into my mouth, punishing and seeking and coaxing all at the same. His hands grip the shelves on either side of me, caging me in so he can press his body flush against mine. I bring my own hands up around his waist to clutch at his back. He changes the angle of our kiss, somehow pushing even harder, and I dig my fingers into his back to hold on.

  He makes a noise into the kiss that’s almost a growl and trails his mouth down to my neck. He reaches around to take my hands from his back, and then pushes them against the shelves behind me. Pinning my hands out to my sides, he continues his assault up my neck and back to my mouth.

  Some part of me had thought that I was exaggerating the rawness of our kisses in the pool. I’d expected that if Mateo ever kissed me again, it would be more like his personality is every day. Teasing and light and just a little overwhelming.

  But there’s something primal and dominant in him that doesn’t come out except in moments like this. I feel like it should make me nervous, especially with my arms trapped against the shelves, but I like that he’s in control, that he knows what he’s doing whenever I don’t.

  Against my mouth, he says, “I need to touch you. Let me touch. That’s all.”

  We’re in public. We could be caught at any moment. For all I know, someone could be watching us right now. I should say no. Be smart, Nell. Say no. “Okay.”

  Oh, to hell with being smart.

  While his mouth conquers mine, building and stoking a fire that feels barely contained inside me, he slides both of my hands above my head so he can hold them there with one hand. I suck in a breath, feeling my spine tense with anticipation. His fingers slide along the waistband of my yoga pants. He strokes gently from one hip, over my slightly rounded belly, to my other hip. Then his hand slips beneath the fabric, beneath my underwear, and his fingers touch me where only I have ever touched. Instinctively, I shy away, trying to pull my hips back, but the shelves behind me stop my retreat.

  He breaks the kiss to return to my ear, his hand stilling against me. He kisses the shell and whispers to me, “Just breathe. I only want to make you feel good. Can I do that? I’ll be gentle.”

  I swallow, glad that I don’t have to look him in the eye, and nod.

  “Not good enough. I need a yes. I need you to say it. Before I make you fall apart, right here, I need to know you want my hand there as much as I do.”

  I can’t bring myself to do more than whisper when I say, “I want it.”

  Then he’s looking me in the eye, and smirking, and his fingers drag over damp flesh. “We’ll work on your volume later when we’re not in public.”

  Everything clenches in response to his whispered words. How will I ever be able to enter this library again without blushing?

  He circles a finger around my most sensitive spot, immediately homing in on what it took me several fumbling tries to find on my own the first time I touched myself there.

  I clench my teeth and force myself to breathe out of my nose to stay silent. His hand above my head shifts, and he turns one of my hands around. “Hold on to this shelf.”

  He doesn’t stop his ministrations down below, so it takes me a few seconds to comply. When I do, he squeezes my hand beneath his, making me grip the shelf harder. “Keep your hands there. Don’t let go.”

  I bite my lip to keep from replying, though at this point I have no idea what I would say. No? Yes, please? Make unintelligible noises?

  I hang on tight to the shelf above me and fix my gaze on a point on the ceiling. His fingers circle again, and then slide back to dip inside me for the first time. The muscles in my thighs tense, and I breathe in through my nose.

  “Hey,” Mateo says at the same time that he slips his other hand beneath my shirt to cup my breast. “Why are you holding back?” He leans in to kiss my clenched jaw. “Relax for me.”

  He thumbs at my nipple through the material of my bra, and I squeeze my eyes shut. He does it again, pumping his finger inside me at the same time, and instinctively I pull my thighs closer together, whether to trap his hand or resist it, I’m not even sure.

  He kisses me hard, but his hands are moving a
nd there’s so much going on that I can barely react. I let him kiss me, but I’m too concentrated on the aching pull between my thighs.

  Closer. Closer.

  After a few moments he pulls back, abandoning my breast to bury a hand in my hair and force my eyes on him. “Relax,” he tells me again, his voice so commanding it sends a shiver down my spine.

  “I am relaxed.”

  “No, sweetheart. You’re not. You’re clenching your teeth and your thighs and your hands. You’re locked up tight. Is it where we are? Does that bother you?”

  I shake my head and answer, “I’m concentrating.”

  The corner of his mouth twitches.

  “On? You know it’s guys who try to distract themselves so they won’t come, not girls . . . right?”

  “That’s not what I’m doing.” And now I’m blushing. Furiously. Though I’m not sure my last blush ever went away, so more likely I’m just purpling a little more.

  “Then what are you concentrating so hard on?”

  God, how can I possibly answer that?

  “I’m concentrating on . . . on the opposite of what you said.”

  His brows furrow, and he studies me for several long moments. He sighs and shifts away from me. This time the kiss he places on my lips is short, quick. All that raw, overwhelming feeling? Gone. He pulls his hand out from my clothes, and the loss makes my knees nearly collapse. It’s not easy for me to orgasm. I don’t even do it to myself that often because it takes too long. It’s too difficult. But he had me close in a record amount of time. His voice gruff, he says, “Come on.”

  Something in my gut unravels.

  “But . . . we . . . what?”

  He wraps an arm around my waist, tucking me close to his side. “This isn’t going to work.”

  He pulls me out of the stacks, into the aisle. “Where are we going?”

  “We’re leaving. The cop has to be gone by now.”

  I frown, but let him pull me along, and the entire time we’re in the elevator and during the walk back to his pickup, I can feel something turning and turning in my stomach. Like when you watch people make cotton candy, and the spun sugar just gets bigger and bigger. Each step is another spin, each step builds up the cobwebs of dread inside me.

  I knew this was a mistake. I knew it. I just . . . he and I are from different worlds. How could I possibly think that we would be compatible, that me, a naive virgin, would be able to keep up with someone like him?

  I should have stuck to my original sense of him. He’s dangerous. In ways bigger than I ever realized. I’m smart when it comes to everything else, but not with this, not with him. I feel so incredibly stupid, and it’s not something I know how to deal with.

  I hate it.

  He keeps his arm around me as we walk, but I wish he would just let me go. I’m weird and inexperienced, and I guess we’re not as compatible as I thought we were. The only good thing about all of this is that it happened before we actually tried to have sex. I can only imagine how awful that would have been. And now I just want to acknowledge the mistake and move on. I want him to stop touching me because . . .

  Because even though I feel humiliated and stupid, I still want him. And with his arm around me, I’m struggling to cut him and all of this off like I should.

  We parked in an open lot behind the student union building. It’s as empty now as it was when we arrived. He parked his truck in a corner space, away from the streetlights. It’s dark, so I stick close to his side, but he doesn’t walk me around to the passenger door. He opens the driver’s side, leans over the seat to fold up the middle console, and then helps me climb up and sit in the middle.

  Confused, I try to scoot over the rest of the way, but he slides in beside me and stops me with a hand on my thigh. He points to my bag in the floorboard and says, “Get your list.”

  I hesitate, and the hand on my thigh squeezes. “Get the list, Nell.” I reach down for my bag while he turns on the overhead light. I pull out the spiral like he said, but don’t open it.

  He reaches across me to the glove compartment and pulls out a pen. He hands it to me, and I realize he wants me to mark the tasks off my list. Uneasy, I open the spiral, trying to keep it angled away from him so he can’t see, and I search for the items I’ve completed.

  4. Do something Wild.

  Yeah. I’d say that one is gone after tonight.

  15. Flash someone

  Oh God, I’d flashed him. Who am I and how do I get normal Nell back?

  I skip to the end of the list, to the new items I’d added after talking to Torres.

  20. Take a picture with the Thomas Jefferson Rusk “Big Daddy Rusk” statue.

  I cross the items one by one, wishing it were that easy to just strike through this night and my mortification. I go to close the spiral, but he stops me, settling his hand over the page. I look up, stiffening automatically, but he’s looking at me, not the list.

  “I need you to add something else to your list.”

  I raise my eyebrows and ask, “What?”

  What was this about? Surely this isn’t about the Sweet Six thing again, not after how poorly things went in the stacks.

  “I want you to add ‘Have the best orgasm of my life.’ ”

  I drop his pen. I very nearly drop my spiral.

  “You want . . . what?”

  “You heard me, Nell. Now add it.”

  He’s back to the dominant Mateo that comes out when he’s kissing me, and the ache he’d started back in the library flares to life between one breath and the next. I reach for the pen, but I’m too distracted by what this could mean.

  So we’re not over? He still wants me? How could he still want me? My heartbeat speeds up as I mentally dissect our evening up until this point, and when it takes me too long to find the pen, he growls, “Oh, fuck it. Add it to the damn list later.”

  He grabs the spiral and tosses it into the passenger seat. I sit up, and he pulls at the stretchy fabric on the thigh of my yoga pants, letting it snap back against my skin.

  “Take those off.”

  I blanch. “What?”

  “This will be easier without them. You can leave your underwear on if you want. Though I might point out you’ve already been naked in my arms.”

  “We were underwater. And it was dark.”

  He turns off the overhead light, dousing the entire cab in black.

  “Better?”

  I blink a few times, and my eyes slowly adjust. I can see the shape of him in the dark, but no details. I sigh, considering.

  He reaches out, finding my shoulder first and sliding his hand up until he can cup my face. “You’ve got to trust me,” he says. “Trust me to take care of you, to make this good for you.”

  His thumb catches at my bottom lip, and I close my eyes, almost trembling in the dark.

  “Okay.”

  He leans over to kiss me, catching just the corner of my mouth. “That’s my girl.”

  My heart throbs, and I remember my drunken dream. Or what I thought had been a dream. He said the same thing then a few minutes before he said that he wanted my firsts. I’m tempted to ask if him if the memory is real, if he actually said that, but there’s a chance he’ll say no, and I’m not sure I can take any more self-doubt tonight.

  With a steadying breath, I hook my fingers into the waistband of my pants and begin wiggling them off. Beside me, Torres hunches over and adjusts his seat, sliding it back as far as it will go.

  When I’ve deposited my yoga pants on top of my spiral in the passenger seat, I ask, “Now what?”

  “Now you straddle me.”

  I let out a heavy exhale.

  “You said you trusted me.”

  “I do. I just . . .”

  Straddle him? That’s a lot of trust.

  “Think too much. I’m well aware. Now come here.”

  Tentatively, I rise up on my knees, bending my head to keep from hitting the ceiling. I steady myself with a hand on his shoulder, and impat
iently he takes hold of my thigh, tugging until I’ve got one leg on either side of him.

  His shorts are cool and silky against my bare thighs, and goose bumps dance up my spine. His hands start at my knees, gliding up until his long fingers curl around the curve of my ass. This close, I can see the glint of his eyes and the shape of his mouth. Even sober, I still think it’s a really good mouth.

  “Now listen to me. We’re alone. It’s dark. No one is going to stumble upon us, so you don’t need to think about any of that. No one can hear us, so you don’t need to keep your mouth closed or censor your reactions.” He tugs me forward until I feel his erection press insistently against my center. “And I want you so bad, it’s a miracle I was able to walk all the way here without taking you against the side of some building. Nothing you do or say is going to change this.” He pushes down on my hips, lifting himself up at the same time, and I catch my breath at the contact. “So you don’t have to be nervous about me either. You have absolutely nothing to think about. Nothing to worry over. And you don’t need to think about whether or not you’re going to come. I’m going to get you there. Trust me. Your job is just to feel. React in whatever way feels right to you. That’s it.”

  I nod, but I’m not sure that’s a promise I can keep.

  He kisses me, languid and hot, chasing away the gnawing panic that had overtaken me when he stopped in the library. His hands guide my hips, rocking me against his erection in time with our kiss. Under his guidance my hips roll, slow and steady, as if we have all the time in the world, and at the top of each roll, my clit grinds against him, and my limbs practically go numb. It feels like a dance, I realize. This isn’t something that follows a set pattern, there’s not list of correct things to do. It’s more like art, and with his hands teaching me, I realize I have to listen to my body, not my head.

  “Put your arms around my neck,” he says. “I want to feel like you’re all the way around me.” I do, and it makes my chest drag over his with every pump of our hips. Even through all the layers, the grazing touch draws the tips of my breasts to a hard point.