by L. B. Dunbar
Reaching for the hem of her shirt, my hands sought the warmth of her skin. Pressing upward, I slipped around her back and unclasped her bra with one pinch, a move perfected over time. With no constraints, my greedy hands found her breast, weighty and ripe for teasing. Her nipple puckered and she moaned at the attention my thumb and forefinger paid to her. Her hands roamed down my arm, holding me in place.
“That feels so good,” she whispered, breaking our kiss to arch into the pressure. I pushed up the material of her sweater and dove for her breast, sucking it deep within my warm mouth, hungry for her flesh, teasing that perky nipple, sucking at her skin. Her hips bucked and heat spread as she rubbed over my thigh. Deft fingers slipped to her jeans and unbuttoned them. Her body curled, and her knee pulled upward, opening her thighs to my attention. My hand slipped inside her jeans, straight to wet warmth. She cried out a little at the intrusion of a finger eager to experience the heart of her desire. Her hands cupped around my head as I moved to the second breast and added a second finger to the discovery of skin, sensitive and slick with need.
Releasing her breast, I returned to her mouth, allowing my tongue to follow the lead of my fingers, swirling and dipping, increasing the pressure, the attention, the desire. I wanted to taste her moan, feel it deep in my throat as she clenched my fingers, holding me inside her. Her hips rolled, my throat groaned, and her knees came together. She broke free of my lips, letting out a soft cry as her thighs clamped, hugging my hand between them. My fingers loved the sensation of her coming apart around them, and another part of me stood at attention, wanting a turn.
I pulled her upward, slipping her sweater over her head, hastily tugging her bra off. She dragged my shirt out of my pants, and then pulled the button-down upward. Delicate fingers traced over my abs, and I flinched at the tenderness of her touch.
“Are you ticklish?” she asked, reaching up for my mouth with hers.
I didn’t answer, responding with my lips on hers again. Reaching behind my head, I yanked my shirt and undershirt over me. Those saucer-sized eyes drank me in, sculpting over the plains of my chest and dipping down to the slight hills and valley of my abs.
“You’re too perfect,” she whispered, and I liked the raspy, appreciative sound to her voice. My mouth sought hers again, and I pressed her back so my chest could feel the heat of her breasts. The instant our skin hit, an uncontrollable sound rolled from my throat. The warmth of her against me made my skin tingle. I melted against her, drawing in the comfort of her contoured under me. I’d slipped both legs between hers, spreading her wider, positioning the length of me over her once satiated core, wanting to satisfy her again. We kissed as hands explored arms and waists and necks. We kissed and she pressed against me, sending a message of willingness, although I also read her innocence. She hadn’t reached for me, a place that burned for her touch. We continued to kiss, topless, and exposed, but not bare enough.
My mouth moved to her neck, trailing down to her breasts and traveling to her waist. My eyes glanced upward, finding hers closed, a pinched expression on her face. Lifting up on an elbow, I spoke.
“What’s wrong?”
“Nothing,” she sighed, still facing the ceiling.
“Why aren’t you watching me?”
Her face shifted and her expression showed her surprise.
“I…I was…” My finger tickled over her waist, and she sucked in a breath.
“You what?” I teased, enjoying the way her stomach moved as my fingers drew over her belly.
“I can’t be a one-night stand.” Looking up, I found her eyes closed instantly. My finger stopped circling. In the history of my sexual experience, no one had ever said that to me, and my first inclination was to laugh. My second was to tell her she would be more than one night in my bed, but then I knew it was a promise I couldn’t keep. My palm flattened on her stomach and skimmed upward, settling between her breasts briefly before circling her neck. My body shifted higher, still bracing on my elbow.
“Katie, look at me.” Her eyes opened slowly, conflicted and confused.
“If this is all we do tonight, it’s fine.”
She shook her head. “You hate that word, and I want to be better than fine for you.”
The willingness of her words wrapped in uncertainty undid me. How could I let her know she was more than fine for me? She was better than anything, than anyone, could ever be.
“You’re perfect,” I said. “And this is perfect.” And I meant it. I’d never felt this way before, but if she’d let me caress her body, feel the warmth of her skin, and treasure her lying on my bed, I’d atone for all my sins. The universe was giving me fifteen minutes of greatness and I was taking it. Finally, heaven was on my side.
Katie
“Well, well, well, missy, where have you been?” Penelope teased as I walked in the door early Saturday morning. Her attire told me she’d just gotten in from yesterday as well. Dress askew, high heels on the floor, hair rolled into a bun at the base of her head, and yet her walk of shame still made her look beautiful while I felt like a Cabbage Patch kid.
“I spent the night,” I said sheepishly, like she was my parent, albeit an experienced, wayward one. Patting the couch cushion, she then smoothed over the fabric signaling for me to sit next to her.
“Do tell,” she teased.
“It’s not like you think. It wasn’t a one-night stand. It was more of a…one-night sleepover.” I shrugged, embarrassed at the simplicity of my admission, and yet tingling with the excitement of spending the night in Levi’s arms. He’d meant what he said. We’d kissed a little longer, and then he’d rolled me to spoon against him. I’d never experienced the thrilling sensation of spending the night in someone’s arms, and at first, I’d been too wired to sleep. His skin still heated mine, my body cursing me to take what I needed. But my head overruled, knowing my heart would not survive a one-night stand with Levi Walker.
Penelope brushed back my hair, like a loving mother. The weight of her eyes hung heavy on me.
“Katie Kat, don’t set your hopes on him. I know you want to, but not him.”
My head twisted and found genuine concern in her eyes.
“I’m a little vague on how you know him,” I stated, worried once again that my best friend had some sexual history with the man I’d longed for in my dreams.
“I remember him. His family. It was bad, Katie. His dad wasn’t a nice man, and his brother Trent was friends with Jordan. He was mean, like Jordan could be.” Ten years older than us, there was no other way to describe Penelope’s brother besides evil. As an oops-baby, Penelope and her brother were practically strangers as she grew up, raised independently of one another. Her parents didn’t pay much attention to her, thus giving her a wild spirit. Her explanation clarified why Levi recognized her so easily.
“Trent dated my aunt,” I interjected. “Tricia.” Penelope shook her head, knowing my relationship with my aunt was special. When my mother first left, my aunt came to play parent while my father attempted to finish his master’s degree in engineering. He could have had gone on to bigger things than returning to our small town and working with his brother. The story goes that my mother left. My grandfather decided Tricia could take a year and help her brother. She lived with us while my dad went to school. Then Grandpa had a heart attack and died. We all returned to Elk Rapids. Tricia and I shared a bond from that year while she was acting mother. She didn’t try to make me talk. She held me. She read to me without needing me to speak. When Emily came along, she’d practically done the same thing.
“I’m afraid to think of the things he might have done to her.” Penelope lowered her voice, still pushing my hair behind my ear. “He wasn’t a nice boy. I suspect, he grew into a not-so-nice man.”
I nodded once, concerned for my favorite aunt’s history. “But what would this have to do with Levi?”
“I’m just worried, honey. What if he’s the same? His father was a drunk, like my old man.” I remembered Levi ment
ioning that his father had been friends with Penelope’s. Levi’s father was the town drunk, but I didn’t know much about that as a child. An image of Levi sitting with a bottle next to him, day drinking, and swearing off his child, filled me with doubts I didn’t want to believe.
“What if he’s not?” I offered, trying to keep the bite from my tongue. The way he touched me. The way we kissed. The way he held me, I couldn’t believe he was anything other than tender.
“The military can change people,” she said. “Remember Jordan.” Dishonorably discharged from the Marines, he’d come home to lead a miserable life just as we left for college.
“I’m sure the military has changed Levi. He lost his leg. He’s had a child. He’s a single parent. His life has had more experience than twenty of mine.” For some reason, Penelope looked down at my boot-covered feet. “My point is, he’s worldly. I’ve done nothing. If anything, he shouldn’t be with me.”
“Oh, no, Katie, no. Don’t idolize him. Don’t make him into a convoluted hero because he’s battled wars and fought a foe. I can see you romanticizing the ideal, but he’s suffered real hardship. Don’t glorify him, or you’ll end up disappointed.” Penelope spoke from experience. Her brother was the Irish Jesus to her parents, constantly praising him, until his discharge dishonored the family.
“I’m not glorifying him,” I scoffed. “I’m just saying he’s been somewhere. He’s done things. What’s the biggest thing I’ve done? Moved from Elk Rapids to Chicago. Frightening at first, but not overly exciting in the grand scheme of things.”
Penelope narrowed her eyes at me. “Why did you come here, Katie?”
“I wanted to find my mother.” The words were weak, buried deep inside me, but Penelope knew the truth.
“Don’t sell yourself short, then. That was a huge risk for you. For us,” she emphasized, reminding me that she promised to follow my lead. With questions about why my mother abandoned me, we left the comfort and claustrophobia of a small town for something new, something big, something too large for either of us. And I never found the answers I felt I needed.
“But I didn’t find her,” I said, staring back at her. “I don’t have my answers.”
“Katie Kat, you know I believe some questions don’t have answers. Why didn’t my parents love me? Why were they only present, but not accounted for? What did I do to them that made them ignore me? I’ll never know, and I don’t care. I’m free, Katie. That’s all that mattered to me.”
She was right on many accounts. We were free. We were young, and we should live as such, as she often told me, but I couldn’t shake the heaviness of the unknown. I’d led a good life by most standards. I had a loving step-mother who eventually adopted me. She treated me as much her own as Daisy and John, my younger siblings, but unanswered questions still lingered. How could my mother have disowned me? My father constantly tried to assure me that it wasn’t me, but her. She had issues greater than being a mother, but I didn’t understand, especially when a huge part of me wanted to be a mother someday.
“Just promise me you’ll be careful, Katie Kat. I want him to be everything you’ve dreamed of and more.” She looked at me doubtful that my dreams would come true with Levi, but still hopeful for my sake. Her words reminded me of something.
“I received these letters. Remember you put one on my bed? Anyway, I thought they were from him, but he said they aren’t. It’s so strange though because they’re addressed to me as K. I just assumed the L signature was from him, Levi. I can’t think of another ‘L’ who would sign them, can you?”
Penelope stared at me, her mind thinking. “What did they say?”
“One was an apology, asking me to meet him. Another said he understood me, after we had been to the zoo. The last one said we shared history and he wanted me to speak to him.” Penelope looked at me, eyes wide.
“And you say it wasn’t Levi. He isn’t being sly. It sounds fucking romantic.” Her outburst startled me, and we both broke into laughter.
“He swears he knows nothing about them. It’s so strange.”
Penelope’s brow pinched. “Sounds like you have a secret admirer, but it also sounds a bit stalkerish.” Her brow furrowed deeper. “Be careful,” she warned me on a deeper level. I didn’t need to tell her, I worried enough, for my heart.
* * *
“I feel awful about our date and I’d like to make things up to you,” Levi whispered behind me while we waited for class to begin earlier in the week. “Are you free on Friday?”
I nodded too eagerly.
“Let me surprise you.”
My heart raced at the secrecy. I didn’t love surprises, but I loved that he wanted to do something special for me. He told me to dress casually again, so I dressed accordingly in jeans and a skin-tight, white sweater, hoping to subtly accentuate my simple curves and entice him to touch me. I don’t know why I denied him the other night, other than my fear, but Levi was everything I’d dreamed. His physique was perfection, as I’d told him. His voice alone did things to my body. I wouldn’t stop him again, but the afternoon timing of our date put a halt to my wanton desires.
“The Field Museum?” I questioned as we parked in the lot. The air temperature had dropped considerably, and I shivered in my sweater as we walked toward the entrance. Levi’s hand at my back slipped upward to my shoulder, dragging me into him, as we huddled together in the sharp fall breeze. Upon entrance to the museum, Levi handed over our general admission tickets and then the woman directed us to the timing of a special exhibit.
“Fantastical beasts?” My breath caught, squeaking with excitement. I leapt for him without thinking, and then awkwardly caught myself and wrapped my hands around his biceps, tugging him toward me. His chest crushed my breasts. “This is so exciting. Thank you, but why this?” My tone sobered a bit.
“I remembered you saying you slayed dragons with your friend, and you love fairy tales, so I thought…” He shrugged and scratched at his scruffy jaw.
“I love it.” Slipping my arm through the crook of his elbow, I encouraged him to lead me to the exhibit.
Levi
We wandered amongst the creatures of various shapes and sizes. Some fictionalized to extreme fantasy; others merely myths from prehistoric creatures. Neither mattered as Katie enjoyed them all.
“I think the dragons are my favorite,” she squealed like a child. “When I was a child, my cousin Gee and I would pretend to be a princess and a knight. The dragon was always coming after him, and I’d be the one to slay it. I’d dub him a knight and he’d lay down at my feet. Of course, he normally had on a tutu, as that’s all I had to dress him up in to distinguish him.” She giggled at the memory. I couldn’t help touching her as she spoke, letting my fingers drift over her neck, brushing back her hair. She turned into my touch but continued to speak.
“I always loved stories of knights and princesses. Men battling creatures to save their people. Women appearing to need saving.” She paused, but my knuckles continued to caress the coolness of her skin. “Of course, if you read into fairy tales, the princess doesn’t really need saving. She often saved the prince instead, he just didn’t know it.” Her eyes turned to me, and the blue pierced my soul like her imaginary swords. She saw into the depths of me, reading my pain, seeing my story, and it frightened me.
“Men fight battles for justice. Women fight for love,” she said.
My hand paused on her neck, cupping around to the nape. I stepped closer to her, wanting to ask her if she’d slay dragons for me, but not daring to imagine such a question. I didn’t really need Katie’s protection, and yet, in many ways I longed for it. Her confidence. Her strength. She had faith in me, and it was a heady drink. I wasn’t much for public displays of affection, but I pulled her to me, letting my mouth cover hers briefly, dragging out the sweetness of her, drawing her into me.
“You continue to surprise me,” I whispered to her lips, my gaze falling on them, wanting to take more from her but remembering where we stood
.
“How so?” Her mouth curled slowly. Her eyes lowering, submissive, yet seductive.
“I don’t know how to explain it.” My fingers toyed with her hair, fisting it in my fingers. “You like all these things that seem so foreign to me, and yet I see you believe in them on a deeper level. It’s like you really think there’s a happily ever after waiting to happen.”
“I do,” she said. “I have to believe those things exist. I don’t want to ever feel settled, compromised, tied down, like my mother must have felt. I want to fall in love and believe forever lives. Slaying dragons, fighting battles is all part of the intrigue, the journey. It’s faith and loyalty that perseveres. It’s hope.”
I stared at her; her words distinctly unknown to me, but so enticing. I knew of loyalty. I’d had it with my unit, my team, my men, but I’d lost them, and in that moment, I’d lost my hope in humanity. Time rebuilt my physical strength, but I lost much of my emotional stamina. I just couldn’t invest in relationships. None of them lasted for me. With that thought, I stepped back.
“I don’t believe in love, Katie.” Her eyes closed momentarily, sucking in a breath before she steeled her resolve. Standing taller, she waited for my explanation, but decided to assess me instead.