by C. C. Piper
It was sometime after midnight before my brain let me nod off; then as if I was the butt of some cosmic joke, it sent me a sex dream. Rachel was there with me as naked as we’d been in that bathtub, tugging my pajama pants down to suck me into her mouth. It felt good, so damn good, that I thrust upward to gain a deeper angle, then heard her cough as she pulled away.
What kind of sex dream was this? Coughing during a blow job? Really?
Then the truth hit me over the head. This was no dream. I jolted upwards into a seated position.
“Rachel? What are you doing?”
She scrambled backwards, sitting on her knees. “Well, I was trying to give you a nice surprise, but my throat is still a little scratchy and you hitting the back of it with your…. You threw off my mojo.”
“But why are you…” Was I going to question this? Interrupt this? Yes, yes, I was. “Look, you don’t have to.”
“I know that. I want to.”
“You’re recovering from a serious illness. The last thing you should do is…” Me.
“I couldn’t sleep without you.”
Her admission shouldn’t have stroked my ego. It shouldn’t have. But it did. She found comfort in me. And full disclosure, I found comfort in her. I found more than comfort in her, in fact. I loved her.
I loved her.
Fuck!
I couldn’t be in love with her, but I was. I so was. I had no idea what the correct course of action was in these particular circumstances. I was too shocked at my epiphany to be rational about this. All I knew was that I wanted her on some soul-deep level. I wanted her with everything in me. And when Rachel slithered her hand around my erection and stroked it instead of my ego, I nearly came right there in her hand.
That was too similar to what had happened last time, and I didn’t want a repeat, as wonderful as it had been. This time I wanted to show her—needed to show her—what she meant to me, even if I shouldn’t. So, for the first time in three weeks, I caressed her lips with mine.
She deepened the kiss, then nibbled on my chin, and I was glad that I’d shaved in the shower earlier. Her teeth latched on with just the right amount of pressure, and I suppressed a groan, yearning for this to be more about her than me. To that end, I pulled her close, feeling her soft skin against mine, the tips of her nipples dragging against my chest.
Kicking off my pajama bottoms, I laid down flat then situated the vee of her legs over my shoulders, wrapping my hands around her ass as I lifted the promised land up to my mouth. She was perfectly bare and hairless as she straddled me, and I used my tongue to tease along her folds, feeling my way around since making out anything in the darkness was nigh on impossible.
But seeing her was less important than memorizing every peak and valley along her core, and I shifted her just a little, settling in. As sweet as her kisses were, she tasted even sweeter at her center, and I outlined her over and over with my tongue, working her up before hearing her voice.
“Chris…” She sounded unsure, so I paused, lifting her high enough to speak.
“You okay, baby?”
“I…”
I could tell that she’d never had sex this way before, so I took a moment to back closer to the headboard, giving her a place to hold onto securely. Once both her hands had seized the mahogany railing behind my head, I resumed my actions, happy to finish what I’d started.
Jesus, I loved this, being surrounded by her very essence. Even before I got going with what I’d planned, her moans ratcheted up and she clenched down on my face, crying out and throbbing against my mouth.
I smiled. There was a lot more where that came from.
Even though I had to be careful to hold Rachel just right so I could breathe, listening to the hums of pleasure I’d elicited from her were addictive. Changing my trajectory, I suckled her, lapping her up, then thrust my tongue inside her. She began to vibrate around me, her pleasure building once more until she flew over the summit again, calling my name.
I still hadn’t had enough, and this time, I brought one arm around her hips, propping her up until she sat on my right bicep. Now that my left hand was unencumbered, I could touch and lick her at the same time, and I took full advantage of that freedom as I inserted two fingers deeply inside her.
She’d just come down from her last orgasm, but I knew she was primed for another, so I sucked that tight little cluster of nerves into my mouth, grazing its edge with my teeth. She screamed something that sounded like a cross between “God” and “Chris” and I gently brought her back down, feeling like it was a compliment either way.
Shuddering and trembling, I raised her up off me then spooned her from behind, yanking our blankets over us. Holding her with one arm while pushing her hair from her face with the other, I held her close as she calmed back down. As much as I delighted in bringing her to the heights of ecstasy time and time again, she wasn’t one hundred percent yet. I didn’t want what I did to make her feel anything but good ever again.
It took a moment for me to realize she’d fallen asleep. Out like a light. I was still rock hard, but I couldn’t be disappointed. She’d needed this to feel better after feeling so awful for so long. Having her here with me and back on her feet was a massive blessing, and if all I had to suffer was some postponed gratification, so be it.
This was more proof positive that what I felt for her couldn’t be considered some flash in the pan. It wasn’t temporary or trite. It was as real as her body against mine.
“I love you, Rachel.”
15
Rachel
When I turned over to find Chris’s black hair against my chin, I quirked my lips into a humongous smile. Last night had been better than anything I could’ve ever imagined, and I felt not only healthier, but relaxed and repleted. I found it remarkable that Chris could strum my body into fits of elation as easily as I could strum my cello to the strains of any melody. We knew how to make beautiful music together. And I craved to feel him do that to me again.
But first, him.
I’d fallen into a deep slumber afterwards, before I could return the favor. I hadn’t meant to. It just demonstrated to me that while I felt tons better, I had a ways to go yet. That didn’t mean that I couldn’t take care of this man who’d taken such good care of me. He’d done everything for me while I’d had this insidious flu-bug, then what he’d done for me last night…
It defied explanation.
God, he’d been so devoted and selfless a few tears leaked down either side of my nose before I could shut them off. Once I pulled myself back together, I stared into his face. He’d brought himself to such an extreme level of fatigue that he still bore gray circles under those eyes of his. And now, here he was in my arms, sound asleep.
While stunningly gorgeous with those delicious lips, square jaw, and straight nose, what made him special was his fierce dedication. I cared about him so deeply, though I didn’t want to attach any specific emotion to it. I wasn’t ready to go there.
But I was ready to take care of him like he’d taken care of me.
I let him sleep as long as he needed, watching him the whole time. He didn’t look like a thug, like someone a criminal organization would hire to guard a woman they’d kidnapped. He looked like one of the good guys, a wildly handsome one with slightly geeky tendencies, but one of the good guys, without question. How did he even get involved with these people?
I needed to ask him.
Later.
He rotated from his back to his side, facing me. Knowing he was about to wake, I crawled beneath the covers to fulfill my plan, prepared this time for his reaction. And like always, he was hard. He stayed hard around me. Maybe it shouldn’t make me feel sexy and alive, but it did.
He did.
I’d suspected a few times during our earliest days here together that there was some sort of attraction between us. But this past week, when he’d been naked with me so often, his desire had been more than apparent. I’d never witnessed a man having such
a visceral response to me. Nor had I ever expected to have such an innate response to him.
I slipped my hands around his arousal, pumping him up and down, slowly to begin with, then faster. He groaned, and as soon as his body tensed into wakefulness, I latched my lips around him, twirling the bulbous head with my tongue as I sucked him into my mouth.
“Jesus, baby,” he huffed out, sitting up, but I pushed him back down. At least as far as he’d allow me to, noticing his use of my favorite endearment. He didn’t say it all the time, more when he was running on emotion, but I treasured hearing it. Each and every time.
“Let me do this for you.”
“No.” He blinked, putting both hands on my shoulders as if to hold me back, still groggy but becoming more alert. “You shouldn’t. You need to rest.”
“I have rested, and I’ve also been flooded with endorphins multiple times, thanks to you. I’d like to share the wealth.”
I observed the thoughts cascading over his face as he debated with himself. I’d learned to read him, to decipher how he felt during our time together. And the intensity of the past few days had honed that skill further. But even if it hadn’t, I couldn’t imagine anyone missing the look of raw need and longing behind his crystalline eyes, despite the fact that he kept shoving it away.
“Chris,” I said, knowing that any time I used his name I had his full attention. “You’ve spent all this time nurturing me and making me feel better. You basically saved my life.” I didn’t know if it was all these recent memories we now had together, the way he’d never left my side, or the knowledge that I’d been so bad off I could’ve died, but my voice hitched. “I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to repay that debt, but I can at least give you this.”
His features contorted as if…tormented. Why would he possibly feel tormented?
Chris shifted, situating me against him. “I’ll agree on one condition.”
“What’s that?”
“That we do it like this instead.”
And then, he touched my face, his fingers feathering over my cheeks, before his lips brushed mine. His caress was so tender, so full of meaning, the emotion I’d worked to hold off broke through me. He caught my sob in his mouth, and his thumbs made my tears vanish. He then lowered his lips to my breasts, licking and suckling each of the pink buds until they reddened, his attention feeling so delightful that I whimpered.
The first time we’d been together had been about exploration and testing the waters. We’d touched ourselves as much as we’d touched one another, and the incredible feeling of our locked gazes had turned a simple physical encounter into something far more soulful. It had been about sight and touch combining in a unique and memorable way.
Last night, it’d been as if Chris sought to heal me through his manipulations of my body, bringing me wave upon wave of pleasure that made me forget I’d ever been sick in the first place. It’d been all about sensations in the darkness. I hadn’t been able to see him, and due to our positions, he hadn’t been able to see me. He’d had his mouth and fingers do the seeing for him as I received all the benefits.
Now, as I straddled him in the far more traditional manner of sitting in his lap, I watched as he stopped kissing me long enough to reach for something in the drawer of his nightstand. I heard the crinkle of a foil package, and realizing he meant to protect us both, I took over and rolled the latex down his length.
I leaned over him then, knowing I was wet and ready. He held me steady as I did, guiding me, and then I felt the discomfort and euphoria of his body stretching mine. He trembled as I sank down onto him, a rare show of vulnerability from a man who’d offered me his strength and support more times than I could count. Through some strange offshoot of fate, I’d been brought here to be with him, someone I’d once considered an enemy, only for him to prove to me that he was anything but.
Our bodies rocked together as he dropped his hands to my hips, lifting me so that I rode him without any exertion on my part. Even now, with me on top, he strove to give me pleasure before he took any for himself. But this time, with the sunlight pouring in through the window, illuminating his features, I saw how hard he had to work to deny himself what he really wanted.
Chris was such a generous and affectionate lover that he refused to take what he more than deserved many times over, and while I could feel myself rocketing upwards, I didn’t want to go there without him. Not now, and not ever again.
I held both his cheeks in my hands, enjoying the rasp of his scruff against my palms, evidence that he hadn’t shaved since yesterday morning. “Stop,” I told him.
“You want to stop?” He stilled even as he said the words, confusion and disappointment wreathing his face before he tried to hide them from me.
“No, I want you to stop holding back. I want you to stop worrying about me and do whatever you want, whatever you’ve been craving to do. I’m not made of china, you know. I won’t break.”
“But…”
“But nothing,” I told him, putting my index finger to his lips in a shushing motion. “I’m close, in case you couldn’t tell. So close. Whatever you do will get me there. Just make sure you get there, too.”
For the most fleeting of instants, he contemplated the situation, and then he rolled over and moved me beneath him, making his decision. With him on top and me on the bottom, he drove into me from above, not roughly, but no longer as if I was made of the thinnest crystal either.
“Are you okay if I go deeper?” he inquired, even now asking for my permission. And I smiled.
“Of course.”
Repositioning us, he pulled out and placed my legs over his shoulders, opening me up like a blooming flower. When he sank into me again, I felt him nudge against something he never had before. The thrill of feeling him so deeply within me, his thickness vibrating against every nerve ending I had inside my core, made me come so hard that I yelled out his name until my voice became hoarse.
At the tail end of this, I saw every one of his muscles bunch and tighten as he held himself over me, then with his head thrown back, I felt his pulses accompanying mine as he spilled his warmth into my depths. His face dewy with perspiration and his breath coming in harsh bursts, he rolled us over, his body still buried in mine, so that I laid on top of him again.
Twirling one of my wavy copper curls around his finger, he stared at it as if it were the most fascinating object in the universe. His expression had gone from weary to tense to almost dopily blissful, and I grinned at him, relieved to see such a positive change.
When his fingers then drifted to my left nipple, I thought I knew where he was going, but it turned out I was mistaken.
“Sorry about that,” he whispered.
“About what?”
“I left marks. I didn’t mean to.”
I glanced down. There around each areola were speckled scarlet spots, hickeys from earlier. But I didn’t want his remorse.
“I like them,” I said, and his brows rose up to his hairline. “They’re a reminder of all that sinfully delicious stuff we’ve been doing together.”
And just like that, the dark storm clouds over his head were gone.
We took a walk around the island, hand in hand, then when it was time for dinner, he told me he had a surprise. We’d always had nice meals, and he’d explained that these deliveries came by drone. But tonight, he covered my eyes with his hands as he stepped behind me, leading me to the table.
“Is this absolutely necessary?” I asked him, but I laughed to remove the sting. He was being so covert about everything.
“Yes. Now…” He halted us in our tracks and dropped his hand. “You can open your eyes.”
There before me was our dinner, with a collection of candles as a centerpiece. Long skinny tapers, wide pillars, and votives all sat there in a unique configuration, their flames flickering and casting the dining room in a romantic glow.
“It’s beautiful.”
“You’re the one who’s beautiful,” he sai
d easily, as if it were some profound truth. It made a series of warm fuzzies float through my belly. “You’re also talented and strong. And brave.”
“Why does it feel like you’re buttering me up or something?”
“Not buttering anything, though we can slather butter all over each other next time if you want. There’s some in the fridge,” he said, his expression full of mischief. I snorted at the image as he chivalrously pulled out my chair so I could sit down. We enjoyed our endive and cucumber salad with lemon dressing, trout la orange, and seasoned green beans. I cleaned my plate, starving. Guess I was still catching up after my recent lack of sustenance.
“By the way, this was surprise number one,” he said, when we were finished. He hopped up only to reappear seconds later, and when I realized what he was carrying, I gasped. “This is surprise number two.”
“Is that…”
“It’s Madison,” he confirmed with a huge smile, nodding. “When you mentioned that you’d had your cello with you when those men took you, I tracked it down. Turned out, they didn’t damage anything or throw it away.”
I extracted my precious cello from her case, my hands roaming over the wood of the spruce top and maple body before checking the pegs and the strings themselves. I plucked them lightly, loving it when she sounded just the same.
“I thought she was gone forever. Thank you, Chris.”
“Least I could do.” He tossed me a grin, but then his eyes became downcast. He swished the single malt whiskey in the bottom of his tumbler, the golden-brown liquid backlit and glowing from the candles. “Will you play for me?”
He’d seemed hesitant to ask, almost as if he thought he didn’t have the right to, but him wanting to hear me perform live for him meant the world to me. It was more attention than either of my parents had ever deigned to show me.