We Were Once

by Scott, S. L.

  “The luckiest.” I don’t say that’s me because I plan to show her tonight. I lean down to kiss her, missing those frenzied kisses.

  Pulling back quickly, she presses her finger to my lips. I pretend to bite it, being careful. She says, “It’s never been about the quantity but the quality, and you give excellent quality.”

  “I’ll take the compliment. But I want you to remember, this between us may be fast for some, but we set our own pace. So if it feels good and you’re happy, I’m happy. Just say the word if you ever feel otherwise.”

  “You make me happy. Also . . .” She kisses my chin. “I’ve never had thirteen dates with anyone.”

  “Their loss. My win.”

  “Kiss me, Joshua?”

  I release her hand to caress her cheek. “It’s all I’ve wanted to do all night.”

  “It is?”

  “I haven’t stopped thinking about you since I stood outside that door with a delivery.”

  Her lids slowly dip down, and the smallest smile, one that seems to exist for me, appears. When she looks up, long lashes tipping near her brow, she breathes a sigh of relief. “Me too.”

  Holding her closer, I lean down, closing my eyes, and pressing my mouth to hers. It takes all my willpower to pull back instead of taking this further, though. This time I groan and rest my head against hers.

  She whispers, “What’s wrong?”

  “I need a sheet.”

  “Huh?” Her eyebrows crease just a little and I just want to kiss it away.

  “The window. I don’t want anyone watching us.”

  “No one’s out there,” she says with a laugh, walking toward it, sliding the jacket down her arms. It falls to the floor, and she reaches for the hem of the top.

  “Oh, no, no.” I rush over there, blocking the window with my body.

  The shirt is left on as her shoulders shake with her head tilted back in laughter. I say, “Anyway, we can’t do anything with Frankie watching.”

  She spies the plant behind my leg, still laughing. “She doesn’t mind, but if it will make you more comfortable, we can move into the bedroom.”

  “It will.” I follow her into the dark room.

  With the lights off, I walk to the window and look down one side of the street and then the other. It’s a quiet street, considering how close we are to some of the popular hangouts.

  She comes to rest against my back, the feel of her chest and her cheek pressed to my skin. I reach an arm around to hold her to me, realizing she’s bare. Turning around, I whisper, “You started without me.” I bend down and lift her up. Our lips meet in fiery passion while her legs wrap around my middle.

  Her thighs grip, lifting her higher. The scrape of her nails along my scalp feels so good, but I know it’s not just her nails. It’s her. She feels so good. I can’t do this to her against a wall.

  Sliding my hand up her spine, I move to the bed in two big steps and send us toppling over. In a fit of laughter, she says, “That was the twist I didn’t see coming, and so sexy.”

  “I’ll show you sexy.” I jump up and then pop the top button of her jeans before pulling them off in one swift motion. “Oh fuck, you showed me.” I rip my jeans down because the sexiest woman I’ve ever seen is lying in front of me, summoning me to bed. Vixen. Goddess. Mine.

  By the back collar, I tug my shirt off over my head and drop it as I work my jeans off as fast as I can. She scrambles up toward the headboard, then tucks her legs under the covers.

  Once the sheet covers her chest, she rubs the mattress on either side of her, looking proud as a peacock. “Come here, baby,” she purrs with a mischievous grin.

  Fuck the jeans. With my ankles still trapped, I dive right the fuck onto that bed and maneuver over her, pinning her to the headboard with a kiss. Kicking at my jeans, I finally free one ankle and shuffle out of the other. Thank fuck.

  Not that I minded the way she grips my shoulders, urging me for more. We’ve done practically everything we can with clothes, even when minimally dressed, to this point. Seeing her shoulders exposed, though, reminds me that we won’t be making out. We’ll be making love. I kiss her neck, a battle raging between instinct to rush forward and taking it slow and romantic.

  I pull back to stare into her eyes. “Is this what you want?” I need that yes, that she’s where I am with us—ready to not only share our bodies, but a bed that I can go to sleep and wake up with her next to me. I probably shouldn’t want that as much as I do, but I want it with her.

  “We are. I want you.”

  “Everything that comes with dating you, I want that. I want you, Chloe.” I kiss her deeper than we did at the door before we move down the mattress together, only a blanket and underwear between us.

  The delicate pulse in her neck has me pressing my lips to it, wanting to feel every part of her. Her fingers slide through my hair, and she whispers, “You’re going to be so bad for my plans.” Caressing my cheek, she gets my attention. She kisses me, letting her lips linger against mine. “But so good for me.”

  Slipping my fingers into her silky locks, I kiss her, and roll her to the mattress beneath me. “I’ll make sure I’m good for both.”

  “Don’t stop kissing me.”

  I don’t.

  I couldn’t.

  Until she asks, “Joshua?”

  I move to the side of her and turn my head. With the moonlight streaming in, I see the sweetest little freckles sprinkled across the apples of her cheeks. My gaze dips to the bow at the tip of her lips and how they’re parted just slightly. Caressing her face, I rub my thumb lightly over her skin. She’s stunning in every light, but the need to have her in my arms takes hold.

  Her long hair, darker in the soft light, fans across the pillow. She rests her melodic sighs, and soft smile, the weight of her trust bearing down on me.

  “Yeah?”

  She rests her hand on my chest, and whispers, “What are we doing?”

  “Falling for each other.” Maybe I should have hesitated, but it wouldn’t feel right to deny my own feelings.

  “This is what it feels like?”

  “Yes,” I confess, kissing her until a spark reignites the heat between us. But it’s not my mouth I’m worried about. It’s the fire she lit in the belly of my soul.

  13

  Chloe

  The weight of his body, the flexing of his muscles when I run my fingers over them, his lips on mine like they’ve become one—Heaven is found in Joshua Evans’s kiss.

  Despite the alcohol trying to dull the edges, there’s no way I couldn’t feel alive in his arms as every nerve in my body sparked to life. This is the magic I’ve heard about—this sense of abandoning my life for something that feels so right.

  He feels so right.

  I sigh, releasing my mind from overthinking and instead focus on feeling.

  Freedom is found in the falling.

  Wild abandon for this man courses through me.

  As if a checkered flag was waved, he moves in to kiss me with an unquenched passion. Our tongues mingle as we explore new territory—our hearts bonding together with each sweet embrace of our tongues.

  New territory, new world . . . ours. The one we created together when we thought it was just fun.

  Together.

  It was always such a foreign concept, lost in days and years. Joshua inspires me to feel every second, to languish his arms and in his touch. I want to talk in bed all night and sleep in with him. I never saw love coming, but I feel it sweeping in like a summer thunderstorm—the dewy scent, the change in air. I want to dance in his rain, to become one with this man. Laugh. Love.

  Everything. Everything. I want everything with him, even the one thing that’s felt forbidden. I don’t want to hold back.

  I don’t want to hold onto something that feels like it was meant for him all along. This is the man I want to remember for my first time. “You feel so good.”

  With a knee, he spreads my legs apart and kisses me as he settles b
etween them. His breath hits the wet trail that he left from my mouth to my ear, sending shivers through my chest and down my arms. I buck against him, wanting the friction. Needing so much more of him.

  “It hurts,” is whispered in my ear.

  “Real pain?” I ask, my eyes opening.

  He chuckles. “No. I was going to say I want you so much. So, no need to call 911, Doctor. There are natural methods to cure me.” My cheeks flame from embarrassment. He doesn’t miss a beat, and adds, “You’re the cure for my ailments.” A wry grin situates itself on his handsome face.

  Putting my dirty doctor cap on, I continue to role-play. “What else ails you?”

  “My heart, Doc. It races when I see you. It’s heavy in my chest when we’re close.” I hear his gulp, but he doesn’t hold back. “It feels like it’s going to beat out of my chest.”

  “I suffer from the same condition, the side effects of being with you.”

  “Can we be saved?”

  I don’t hide my wicked grin. “No, I’m sorry. It’s too late for us.”

  “I was afraid of that.” Jokes are set aside as he caresses my face, looking at me like I hung the moon. Truth dots his irises like stars blanketing a Newport night, convincing me that I did hang the moon for him. Just as he placed the sun in the blue skies for me.

  We’ve been each other’s days, but we don’t end in sunsets or only exist come sunrise. We’ve become the hours in between—twilight and dawn, the brightest noon, the darkest midnight, the golden hours. Together, we’re all hours with hearts on fire.

  Joshua is a silver lining that just appeared out of nowhere in time to throw me a lifeline. I didn’t even realize I was drowning. “Me too.”

  Holding my face between two hands with no wiggle room, he kisses me and then leans his forehead against mine. “I . . . I care about you, Chloe.”

  Eyes open, the pain in his voice is evident, but it’s heard as if he’s given in to something he never saw coming. I understand, swept into a soul mate fate I never expected to find, much less at this age.

  Soul mate.

  Maybe he did see us coming.

  Lifting up, he searches my eyes, needing my words as much as I need his. “I care about you, too,” I say. As my heart tethers to his, I love you is tacked on silently for only me to hear, but my weakness is revealed as a tear slips down my cheek.

  The pad of his thumb collects it and brings it to his lips, his tongue dipping out to taste my vulnerability. “I promise I’ll never hurt you. No more tears.”

  I nod, never feeling safer than I do in his arms. To him, I’m Chloe—not of the Newport Fox dynasty, not future surgeon, not Yale legacy. I’m the one he relaxes with after a long day, prefers kissing to studying, and I don’t need a pedigree for him to love me. He laughs at my bad puns and happily plays along with my sexual innuendos. Whether I’m a student or his girlfriend, he sees me and who I am on the inside.

  That’s empowering.

  I dip below the covers, taking him in my hands first and then my mouth. Deep and slow, just how the videos taught me. He fills my mouth, and I focus on breathing as well as his reaction to guide me.

  When his hands cover the back of my head, there’s no pressure to them but a need to be touching me. It spurs me on, making me want to please him, to give him all he needs. This is not submission. He’s giving me his strength and bowing at my feet.

  The power is intoxicating.

  I move quicker, suck harder until his fingers fold into my hair, and the moans are loud. “So good.” Everything he gives of himself—his trust, care, and honesty—I take and swallow it down.

  We lie next to each other, still and quiet, recovering. Kissing me once and then again on the chest, he keeps moving lower, making my breath catch from the thought of him down here and the feel of his lips.

  Taking a deep breath, I run my fingers through his hair. I won’t hide from him despite some unexplained shame I keep buried inside. Embracing life means embracing Joshua, and that look in his eyes that tells me how beautiful I am without words gives me insight to who he thinks I am. Why would I hide from that? I butterfly my right thigh, opening up for him, to him.

  He pushes down the covers, the air-conditioning whipping over me as his eyes trace my breasts, my belly, and my body. “Do you know how beautiful you are, Chloe?”

  I’m not drunk, but he makes me feel that way. My breasts are exposed, the cool room hardening my nipples. Leaning down, he kisses each of them and then lower to my belly.

  My inner thigh.

  My knee.

  Shin.

  The top of my foot.

  I’m covered in kisses until I’m utterly jelly in his hands. We’ve been fast in every other way but slowing down makes sense. I want to feel each part of my body awakened by his lips.

  He backtracks up the other leg. I had thoughts of this happening, deep down wishing it would when I wore that outfit for him, and now that I’m bare before him, I have absolutely no regrets. “So sexy,” he murmurs as he kisses the mounds of my breasts.

  Maple syrup eyes hold a sweet appreciation when they peer up at me, watching my reaction. My middle winds tighter, my lips part, my lids heavy with desire. His hands cup me without reserve, squeezing, kneading, lightly flicking my nipples before covering them with his mouth.

  My back arches, and I gasp when his teeth tease the buds. “God, how I want you,” I say without hesitation as I lock my hands together at the back of his neck. He feels too good to set free. With him repositioned between my legs and his hardness pressing against me, I rock my hips, pushing against the fear that I have with this being my first time. I welcome him. “I want to feel you inside me.” My throat is raw like the words, an unsatisfied need making me thirsty for more. Lower, the sound of begging riddles my mind, the words on repeat as need floods my veins.

  The familiar exhilaration I always feel with him takes over, and as if my body is not my own, I move my hips with his. His mouth is on my shoulder, but I feel the connection on every inch of my skin.

  “Do you have condoms?” he whispers.

  “In the drawer,” I reply as if I’ve said it before.

  I watch the muscles in his arms on display and reach over to touch. He sets two on the bed without a second thought and moves to hover over me again. I push the hair that’s fallen down over his forehead to the side, and then lightly push on his shoulders. As much as I love him looking from above me, I want to try something new.

  When I move on top of him, he runs his hands over my breasts and cups my shoulders, bringing me to him to kiss. Kiss until we’re out of breath. Kiss until my body craves more. “What do you want, baby?”

  “You,” I reply.

  Strong hands slide down my arms, covering me in goose bumps.

  “I’m right here.”

  Reading between the lines, he wants me, but he wants me to lead. I’ve never been a follower. Shy? Sure. But I know anatomy, and he is a perfect specimen.

  I move back just enough on his thighs to have his erection in front of me as he takes me in, studying me with the intensity of an artist. I have flaws, but you’d never know by the way he gazes upon me. He reaches for me. “C’mere.”

  As soon as I’m tucked neatly under the blanket and sheet with him, he presses against my side. “Do you feel what you do to me?”

  “Yes,” I reply breathily, reaching my hand down to touch him. I’ve made out with him, but this time is different. I should be nervous, but I’m not.

  His full lips press to my mouth once, and then as if he can’t decide where to kiss me next, he lands on the corner of my mouth. Moving my hand, I keep a firm grip. My heart beats fast and hard in my chest as he struggles to concentrate.

  Momentarily losing himself, he rushes his body, pushing against me.

  “Fuck,” he utters under his breath.

  My hip is abandoned. His hand doesn’t slip but purposely claims the apex of my legs. Cupping. Teasing, Slipping a finger inside me. “Ah,” I moan, for
getting everything I was doing.

  “Don’t stop, okay?” he says.

  I take the long way to the tip of his erection and back down leisurely again. “Okay.”

  But the tip of his finger has me on the edge of burning in ecstasy. “Joshua . . .” The back of my head digs into the pillow.

  Scooting higher on the mattress, he kisses my exposed neck and abandons me. My head shoots up to see where he’s going. “What are you doing?”

  “I want to take care of you.”

  “You were.” I don’t mean to snap, but I’m wound so tight it makes me anxious.

  A roguish grin slides in with amusement. “With my mouth.”

  “Oh!” I lie back with no argument, but my eyes are wide open and my body is stiff as a board.

  It must be obvious because he chuckles. “Do you want me down here?” I nod, and his palms slowly spread my legs. “Relax for me. Okay?”

  “Okay,” I manage to mutter, releasing the grip I have on the sheets and stretching my fingers. Wedging between my legs, he takes control of my body with a simple kiss between my legs, his mouth firm and determined.

  Medically speaking, I know how my body works, but I didn’t know it could purr until now. His tongue dips inside, and I moan in response, my back arching.

  Swirling my fingers through his hair elicits his own response. The sounds of his heavy breath and hot heat wafting across my skin send me over the edge. An orgasm hits fast, and I fall hard before sinking to the mattress.

  Reaching for a condom, he doesn’t bother with words, but the pressure of his hand on my stomach keeps me from drifting too far away. Every touch to my body, every kiss, lick, and bite is filled with confidence, building my anticipation.

  When he’s covered, his muscles are tense as he moves over me again. Dragging the tips of my fingers over the dips and peaks of his biceps has me breathing deep, ready, so ready to have him inside me. I close my eyes—

  “Look at me, Chloe.”

  I do only to be greeted with an intensity that he’s barely holding on.

  “Stay with me,” he murmurs.

  The light in the room drowns in his soulful eyes, and my heart squeezes under the weight. If I couldn’t feel every millimeter of where his body touches mine, I’d believe he was holding my heart in his hands. Taking ownership, possessing me.