by Bryce Taylor
She knows the effect this has. That it's enough to stop my intentions to touch her back.
There is no sense from her that her attentions are begrudging, that she isn't enjoying this too. I feel I can have all that she is offering, that I don't need to hurry up, that I can just relax and feel the pleasure sweep every corner of my body, the satisfaction of my hand resting on her head, indulging in the feel of each long sweep of her tongue.
Over and again, her head moving slowly, her arms holding me tightly in place and I'm gazing at her bent between my legs with half-closed eyes, just savouring this.
Until I'm trembling from the confident strokes of her tongue and my hand is clenched in her hair and her mouth is against my clit, sucking back, flicking it with her tongue, her index finger slipping inside me, curling against me, rubbing until I'm crying out, yielding to the gratification that my body can't quite contain.
"Fuck," I say at last, breathlessly, pulling her up my body, wanting her underneath me, trying to resist the urge to take her.
She kisses me, her lips just a little swollen, tasting of me and I kiss her back fiercely before I am letting her go, before I can't stop.
Leigh shakes her head and bites her bottom lip, eyeing me up and down.
"You should warn me if you are going to just hang around the house like that," she says meaningfully.
I smile up at her and shrug.
"It's washing day, I had nothing else to wear," I explain.
She frowns, actually believing this is a serious problem.
"You can always borrow my clothes," she tells me earnestly.
I try to stop myself from laughing because Leigh might know my body better than I do, but she is still completely clueless sometimes when I say one thing and mean another.
"What?" she asks, confused.
"Nothing," I say, having long given up on my promise of not lying to her.
"I wouldn't go into your bedroom," I tell her, changing the subject before she asks more questions.
Leigh stands up, assessing me with narrowed eyes.
"Of course, you can go in my room," she says, conceding defeat on solving this current mystery of my behaviour, "you can go anywhere you damn well please."
As much as I'd like to believe this offer extends to climbing into bed with her, I know it doesn't.
Later that day I do go and check out her wardrobe and her room and occasionally I go in there when I know she won't be home for hours and lay on her bed to read or procrastinate over my school work.
The next week stretches out Leigh and I have had sex in almost every room and almost every surface in the house, anywhere but in a bedroom.
I try to tell myself that I am satisfied with this, that Leigh has been completely honest with me, whilst I have largely been hiding the truth from her but the truth is that all I want now is to hold her, to sleep tangled up with her body, to touch her.
One morning I am lying awake in the pre-dawn darkness because Leigh hasn't been home in forty-odd hours, a long time even for her, through two full nights presumably because of some sort of emergency or because of the unavailability of other surgeons.
I try not to worry but I can't help myself, imagining her in a car accident on the way home. It is times like these where I can't do any of the things that I could if we were in a relationship, I can't text her or ring the hospital, I can't arrange to pick her up. I can't even wait on the couch for her to get home, it is far too obvious.
Instead I'm on my bed reading with the door open, waiting, my ears straining to catch a sound of her car pulling in, the garage door opening.
I've taken to wearing a shirt of hers, a flannelette shirt I found after rifling through her wardrobe. So completely different to everything else she has, a relic of time long past, buried on the last hanger behind her winter jackets.
I couldn't help but touch it, soft and worn in, frayed at the cuffs and collar, pale blue and black lines. It smells of her and it feels of the kind of person who could be buried underneath the drive and ambition, under the overwhelming desire to succeed, under the fear that it is all going to end soon. Someone who could occasionally enjoy being less than perfect.
For the fourth time in as many hours I think I hear her and get up exasperated with myself, to prove that she isn't here, only I'm halfway down the stairs and I see she has come home.
She is leaning against the wall at the edge of the stairs, her eyes shut and I see how tenuously she is keeping it all together, that it is pure willpower that keeps it all from falling apart.
She is tiredly dragging off one boot and then the other, her socks, turning to the stairs, her foot on the first step and I sit down quickly as if I was just hanging out there, as if this is a normal place to be at this time of the morning.
Leigh is staring at me, confused, her eyes so pale they are glacial. I start to unbutton my shirt and she is taking me in from head to toe, her gaze returning to my hands that are halfway through the job, that are exposing skin beneath.
She drops her bag and boots with a thump on the stairs uncaring, intent on me, two steps at a time, until she is kneeling between my legs, her hands at my hips pulling my body towards her. There is a hunger in her eyes that is binding me to her and then her lips are softly at my neck, prickles tracing down my arms, points of pleasure making me groan, her fingers swiftly undoing the rest of the buttons.
Her hands are behind me, arching my body off the stairs, caressing my sides and her mouth is assailing my body, down my neck, nibbling at my collarbone, between my breasts, vigorously kissing between each rib. I am sighing and feeling her body pressing lower, her fingers hooking into my underwear, sliding them off my legs before she is leaning between my legs again.
Her shoulders are pushing my legs further apart and her mouth is around the tendon at the top of my leg, her tongue flicking gently across it and I am pushing my body towards her.
Only I don't want this.
I want more of her than just her tongue, I want her body pressed against mine, I want her inside me. My hands are in her hair, pulling her back up over my body and she is acquiescing, accepting my direction.
My legs are sliding firmly around her hips and my arms around her neck, dragging her onto me, the stairs digging painfully into my back.
"Harder," I instruct her and brace myself, waiting for the impact that I know will follow, because I have never had a sexual partner who has had me beneath them like this, asking for this and has not been willing to take it just a little further, just that last mile when I really want them too.
When I don't just want pleasure, when I don't feel that I deserve it without just a little hurt, wanting the bruises that the stairs are going to leave, the soreness from her hand thrusting inside me.
Only Leigh has frozen still and I can feel my heart weakly beating triple time, fluttering in my chest.
She is pulling back from me and shame and fear are battling inside me, competing for my affections and I reluctantly look to her eyes, expecting to find condemnation there but she is bewildered and full of regret, her brow furrowed deeply. Her hands, those long fingers are pulling my shirt closed, dextrous hands doing up the buttons and I can feel I am on the verge of tears.
She smiles softly, reassuringly and leans over me.
"Hold on," she whispers in my ear and I do, my arms gripping her tightly around her shoulders, needing the comfort of her presence even as she is causing my suffering.
Leigh sits up, pulling me with her, turning, manoeuvring us, so that I am kneeling on the stairs, straddling her body. My hands are resting on my thighs, I don't want to touch her in case I am not allowed, in case she doesn't want my hands on her.
She is gazing up at me, her cheekbones illuminated from the shard of light from my room, from the downstairs light, her legs pressing in behind me, steadying me. The dismay on her face is breaking my heart.
"Aednat," she starts, a whisper, her voice cracking. Her eyes are ice, piercing painfully through me.
She is shaking her head disbelievingly, at how she sees me, that I don't see myself the same way.
"You are perfect," she says eventually in a low voice, her hands loosely encompassing my waist over the shirt, warming me, her words melting me.
I am looking away from her too knowing eyes, so that I don't let her see into my secret places, so that she can't see weakness creeping there.
Her thumbs are stroking the edge of my ribs through the worn material and I sigh, unable to stop myself, from the delight of her touch, from the sensation spreading out from the pressure of her hands.
She is taking one of my hands in hers, raising it to her face, kissing the centre of my palm, imprinting her smile there when I shiver.
"I love that you do that every time I kiss you there," she says softly, her breath tickling against my skin.
"That you like me to kiss you here," she says, turning my hand, her lips grazing across my knuckles, a bolt of perfect pain through my hand chasing after.
"The taste of your fingers," she says, drawing my index finger into her mouth, sucking back, swirling her tongue around the fingertip.
I'm drawing in an involuntary breath, looking to her, wanting to see her face and her gaze is already on mine, intense and waiting for me. Burning for me, wanting to show me what she feels for me, her head tilting to my wrist, the sharp edges of teeth scraping over veins and bones.
She is turning my wrist out, drawing up the loose sleeve of the shirt up my arm, trailing kisses up the soft skin of my forearm, her tongue pressing into the inside of my elbow.
She looks up to me as I groan and press myself against her, rocking my hips into her.
"I love that there are so many places that you like the feel of my tongue," she says fervently, bending back to the same spot and repeating the same action. My other hand is curling to the back of her neck, cradling her there.
"That you look so good in my shirt," she says in a lower voice and I see the possessive look in her eye and it ignites something inside of me.
Her hand is deftly undoing the first few buttons of the shirt again, sliding it down off over my shoulder, demonstrating that I really do like her tongue and her mouth in a lot of places, burning ravenous kisses up my arm, her tongue flicking against the edge of my armpit.
"Oh, fuck," I groan, my hand in her hair, directing her to my shoulder, pressing her firmly when her lips are brushing too softly, when I want her teeth instead.
Her mouth is opening over the base of my neck, sucking the skin gently there, her arm encircling my waist, bringing me against her.
Her lips are against my ear. "I like that you show me what you want," she breathes hoarsely, her tongue chasing around the rim of my ear in flickers, my body arching into her.
"I know that you are going to like this," she says and I feel her smile against my jaw and then her tongue is exploring my ear, filling each valley and ridge and I can feel the response of my body, a heavy beat between my legs and I'm groaning as both my hands are holding her head against my neck.
She is kissing, tiny soft burning kisses there as her thumbs are grazing the base of my breasts and I'm biting my bottom lip and breathing her name quietly.
"I love how good you feel just there," she says, running her thumbs again across the soft flesh.
Her thumbs trace a higher circle, dragging across hard, overly sensitive nipples. "And there," she whispers.
My breath is coming in short sharp gasps and I'm surrendering to her, to the skill of her hands, to the sense that I can safely let go with her.
She is drawing back from me, just an inch, to look up at me, to watch for my expression as she blindly undoes the remain buttons of the shirt, as she is dragging it off my shoulders one-handed. Her eyes attentively on me as she twists the material in her fist behind me, binding my wrists loosely, a request not a restraint, staring up into my eyes, a naked intimacy belied by her still fully clothed body under mine.
She leans forward and kisses me between the breasts, fills her lungs deeply with my scent, savouring me.
"I love how good you smell," she says her cheek resting against my breast, and inhaling another lungful, my entire body prickling from head to toe, covered in suddenly in too tight skin.
She looks back up to me, letting the moment stretch out, the sound of our breathing, the feel of her breath against my skin heating me, burning me. Her hand is letting go of the shirt, falling from my wrists.
"That you trust me," she says bittersweet agony etched on her face.
Then my hands are on her face, my lips pressing to her, to take the pain away, tasting her lips, drawing her to me. We kiss gently for long minutes, her head tilted up to mine, her lips parted, letting me in, till she can't, till she is bowing her head unable to take my attention on her anymore.
I gently press the tip of my index finger under her chin, bring her back to me.
"Please," I ask her, needing her.
She smiles, a sad smile, her hands caressing down my sides.
"What else do you like?" I ask her quietly to break her thoughts, to stop her from judging herself.
Her smile, the promise of dawn breaking through.
"Here," she says, her thumbs against the blade of my hips, a quiver running through me.
"And here," she says, her short nails scraping a light half circle in the small of my back and I am arching into her, wanting her lips on my breasts.
My hands are in her hair, pushing her there and she is grinning up at me. Taking my hands and drawing them apart, placing one palm flat on the wall, the other winding around the bannister, waiting to see if I will comply, regarding me seriously when I do.
Her fingertips tenderly tracing up my arms, across my shoulders and down my chest, lightly cupping breasts, capturing my nipples between the v of her fingers, our eyes bound together as she leans in and touches her tongue delicately there and I groan deep within my throat, rocking my hips into her body.
"How you taste there," she says staring at me, addiction in her eyes, before her mouth is hard against my breast, sucking my nipple deeply into her mouth and I am crying out, my hand involuntarily moving from the wall to her head, holding her there.
Her arms are holding me tightly against her body, drawing me up against her, her body solid against my small rocking movements into her.
A finger slides between my legs, brushes throbbing swollen flesh and withdraws.
She looks up to me and touches her tongue lightly to that finger.
"I like how you taste there too," she says in a voice that is hoarse, her hand sliding back down my spine, between my legs, stroking lightly.
My skin is burning against my insides that are shaking with cold as if I'm stepping into a warm bath on a winters day, immersed in the heat, cast adrift, just Leigh as my anchor.
I'm letting go of her, stretching out, my head rolling back, running my hands through my hair, feeling a trembling spread through my limbs, returning my hands to their outstretched positions. The heat in my body burning me up, as she is stroking my clit, wetness coating her hand, each movement mastering my body.
I'm crying out her name as I come, shuddering against her, pressing into the flat her hand. Till I can't anymore and I sit down heavily, her hand sliding from me, feeling her groin hard against mine and I wrap my arms around her shoulders and back tightly, feeling every edge and point, the burning warmth of her body.
I should be getting up now, pretending that I don't want more than this.
But I do want more than this.
Just a little more.
"Stay still," I tell her in a hard voice.
She smiles against my shoulder. "Or what?" she asks amusedly, able to so easily shut off the experience from moments ago and go back to being housemates or whatever it is that we are when we aren't having sex.
"Shut up, Leigh," I tell her heavil
y, "and don't fecking move."
Blessedly she does and I stay right there until I know I can't anymore and I'm getting up, wincing as I pull back from her, my body missing hers already, picking up her shirt and putting it back on but she is still sitting there, her face pale, dark rings under her eyes, hollow cheeks from likely not eating at all in the last two days.
Reminding me that she should be sleeping, not fucking me on the stairs. I retrieve her bag and offer her a hand.
"Sorry," I mutter apologetically, guilty of being selfish.
Leigh is looking up at me in surprise and then she is standing, her hands cradling my face, long fingers resting on my cheekbones.