by Jana Aston
“What?” I laugh. “Why?”
“I was going in for a hug, but he moved and my arm was already in motion so bam! Right in the junk. I was fucking mortified, so I cried.”
“Did you get kicked out for assaulting Tigger?”
“No, but I felt like I ruined our day. I was too embarrassed to explain to my mom why I did it so she thought I was acting like an over-tired little punk. Looking back, it’s all so stupid. Why didn’t I just explain what happened? To my eight-year-old self it was too mortifying to talk about so I just clammed up. It still makes me cringe.”
He takes another sip of wine, raising his eyebrows over the rim of the glass as if to say, Your turn.
“Okay.” I sigh. “Fine.” I fidget in my seat a bit to get comfortable before I begin. “The first overnight camp was coming up. It was only one night but it was a huge deal, you know?” He nods. “We were going to earn a camping badge and stay in tents and it was just this huge deal.” I wave my hands around to indicate the importance and scope of the event. “But it was fifty dollars. Fifty freaking dollars, I still remember that.”
“Your parents couldn’t afford it?”
“No.” I shake my head. “They could. But they were divorced and turned it into a fight about money. My mom insisted my dad should pay for the overnight camp because it fell on his weekend. My dad insisted he paid child support to cover expenses like overnight camp and my mom should pay for it.”
“How old were you?” Vince asks, a line furrowing his forehead.
“Seven.”
“That’s harsh, putting you in the middle.”
“Yeah. I just wanted to sleep in a tent and eat a hot dog that I cooked myself. God, that stupid hot dog. I had a stick picked out.” I glance at Vince because this part is especially humiliating to me for some reason, and I’ve never told it to anyone. “I found this stick in my backyard and in my seven-year-old mind it was the perfect stick to roast a hot dog at camp. I thought I was going to bring my own stick to camp, along with my sleeping bag, which is dumb, isn’t it? I painted the end I was going to use as a handle with pink sparkly nail polish and kept it under my bed for a month.”
“But you never got to use it.”
“Nope.” I shake my head. “My entire troop came back with camping badges and stories I wasn’t included in. So I got this idea that if I could just get the camping badge it’d be almost the same as if I was there.”
“Okay.” Vince nods as if that logic made any sense.
“I had this keychain, it was a tiny stuffed gorilla, and Mandy Marshall was dying to have it. So I traded her, my keychain for her camping badge.”
“Industrious.” Vince smiles. I like the little lines that appear by his eyes when he smiles.
“It was all going well, until the next troop meeting when Mandy missed having her badge.”
“Ahh.”
“She cried and somehow it all ended with me getting kicked out for conduct unbecoming of a Girl Trooper. They said I wasn’t Girl Trooper material. I was seven! The worst part was she kept my keychain. She attached it to her backpack and wore it to school for the rest of the year.”
“Ouch.”
“Right? I should have known better. She’d been a serious bitch since kindergarten but I was blinded by that stupid badge.” I stand, stacking our plates on top of each other and bringing them over to the dishwasher.
“Did you just refer to a five-year-old as a bitch?” Vince is laughing now.
“Well she was seven at this point in the story, but yeah, I guess I did just tell you she was already a bitch at five. In any case, that’s my humiliating story of being kicked out of the Girl Troopers. They referred to it as a badge pyramid scheme, by the way, which has irritated me to this day because it was a badge-for-sale scheme, there was no pyramid.” I finish loading the plates into the dishwasher, then add the cutting board and knife Vince used while he was cooking and set the pan in the sink filled with an inch of hot soapy water to soak. I wipe down the counter, stalling as long as possible before reaching for the envelope.
I slide it off the countertop and it’s not as heavy as I expected. I know we’ve only been married forty-eight hours but I somehow thought that would warrant a weightier amount of paperwork.
“Hey.” Vince speaks up and I lift my eyes to his. “Let’s play a game.”
Chapter Nineteen
“Want to?” He’s moved from the table to my living area where he’s examining a set of board games stacked on a shelf under my television. It’s a motley assortment of boxes that Lydia has collected from trips to the Goodwill. We haven’t actually played any of them, but it pleases her to collect them. They’re usually missing pieces, the boxes torn and taped. Sometimes she’ll buy the same game a few times to get enough pieces to reassemble one complete game.
“What?” He wants to stay… and play a board game?
“How about Scrabble?”
“You’re not too busy? You have time?” I set the envelope back onto the counter and eye him from where I’m standing in the kitchen.
He digs the box out from the stack and holds it up, the wooden pieces clattering about the box with the movement.
“I’m not sure if all the correct letters are in there. There may be twenty M’s and no P’s for all I know, my roommate bought that used.”
“I’m willing to risk it.” He opens the box and sets the board on the coffee table, then begins flipping all the pieces face down inside the lid. I abandon the envelope and walk slowly over to the sofa to join him, not quite believing that this is happening right now.
I draw the highest letter and start us off with the word SHARK. He smiles and uses the A in my word to play the word CRAZY.
It’s nice, sitting here with Vince. He asks me what it was like growing up in Tennessee and what brought me to Las Vegas. I ask him what it was like to grow up in a desert. We don’t keep score, just play and talk, and it’s… nice. It’s great.
I use the M from MIST to spell KISMET. It’s not a particularly high-scoring word, which doesn’t matter because we’re not counting, but I’m very pleased with myself all the same.
“Kismet,” he says softly as I lay down the tiles.
“It’s a fancy word for fate!” I explain, thinking he’s challenging the word like he did when I tried to play MATHING.
He kisses me.
I’m not expecting it. He’s quietly looking at me one moment, his lips are pressed against mine the next. When his lips leave mine I sense he’s just as surprised by the impromptu kiss as I am. The pad of his thumb trails my bottom lip, a soft firm exploration. Then he kisses me again, firmer now. Tongues mingling, hands exploring. I tug his head closer, my hands dragging through his hair. He pulls me closer, his hand cupping the nape of my neck.
Then I’m sitting astride him, one knee on each side of his hips. I kiss him everywhere. Brows and jaw. I run my tongue along the side of his neck and nip his earlobe with my teeth. His hands are roaming my back, cupping my bottom and slipping beneath my tank top.
It’s the most satisfying make-out session I’ve been involved in since high school, except it’s better because in high school I wasn’t making out with grown men who knew what they were doing and I didn’t have my own apartment. One of his hands works its way to my chest, and it’s stupid really, that this one point of contact, his thumb brushing across my nipple as his lips press against my neck, should make me feel so many things. Turned on and safe and eager and wanted and excited.
I trail my fingertips down the sides of his neck before moving them to the second button on his shirt. The first one was undone when he took off his tie, but I need more of him exposed. I slip two additional buttons free of the fabric, freeing enough space to trace his clavicle, the sinewy spots where his neck muscles connect to his shoulders.
His hand leaves my breast long enough to slide my tank up. It’s odd how something so simple can feel so erotic when Vince is doing it. It feels like my tank is coming off in slo
w motion, the material sliding up my stomach, his hands guiding the fabric on its journey. My skin tingles in the wake of his fingers as the material clears my chest, my arms lifting to allow the tank to clear my head. My hair falls in a wave against my back, tickling my skin.
But it’s his eyes when he looks at me that affect me the most. Like the breath is being sucked out of my lungs and the memory is being permanently imprinted on my brain. The bar is set for how a man should look at me when he’s touching me.
“Are you cold?” he asks when I shiver. He’s smoothing my hair over my shoulders. It’s wavy again today. Because it’s Monday—and because he said he liked it that way.
“No.” I shake my head back and forth. “I’m good.”
Then he dips his head to my breast and I’m anything but good. Frenzied would be a better word.
“Frenzied?” Vince questions. He asks it with a smirk, his lips a centimeter from my nipple. He’s cupping one breast in his hand while playing with the other with his teeth. Did I say ‘frenzied’ out loud? Jesus, what is even happening right now?
“‘Frenzied’ is a word that means ‘wildly excited,’” I gasp around a wet swipe of his tongue.
“I’m aware.”
His lips wrap around my nipple and my back arches as a groan leaves my mouth. His lips, oh, his lips. The scruff of his chin is abrading my sensitive skin, but then his lips are so soft and wet and perfect. The contrast is driving me mad but I never want it to stop. His tongue flicks against my nipple again and I’m wet and hot and needy, as if that tongue is working directly on my clit. I want to rub myself against him, I need to rub myself against him, but I can’t. Not in this position, with my legs spread over his, knees on the couch. I try though—I flex my hips, but with his lips wrapped around my tit I can’t sink low enough to grind myself against him.
It feels like every part of my body is thrumming and demanding attention. It feels like anywhere he touches me results in one long pang in my core. My earlobe, my elbow, it doesn’t matter. It all results in the same throb between my thighs. The desire to be filled and fucked by this man.
Then he moves, shifting me until I’m no longer astride him as he stands. Lifting me from the couch and carrying me to my bedroom. Laying me on my bed before sliding my pajama pants over my hips, past my knees and off my legs. I flex my toes while I watch him undress. He watches me watching him. His shoes come off first. They land on my bedroom floor with a satisfying thump, followed by his socks. I like seeing him like this, tieless, shirt askew, barefoot. This state of semi-undress is strangely erotic to me, but maybe it’s just Vince. Because I find him to be quite rousing in every state of dress that I’ve seen him.
Buckle, zipper, pants.
Buttons, shirt, boxers.
Finally.
The trail of condoms from yesterday are still lying on my dresser. He tosses one onto the bed then climbs over me. His cock weighs heavy on my stomach as he brackets my head with his hands. Then his lips are pressing against mine again. Soft perfect kisses, on my lips and the corners of my mouth. I snake a hand between us and wrap my fingers around him in a caress, an easy slide up and down the length of him, my thumb rubbing over the crown when I reach it, smoothing the pre-cum in a circular motion across the wide tip.
“I want to tell you something.” I say it softly, like a whisper because he’s so close, because it’s what the moment calls for.
“What’s that?” His eyes meet mine, flickering across my face as if he can read my thoughts simply by looking at me.
“I know we just met but”—I pause and take a breath—“I like you.”
He huffs the tiniest breath of air, like a whispered laugh. The lines around his eyes crinkle and his lips turn into the barest hint of a smile.
“I know.”
He kisses me again.
“You’ve been fairly obvious about it,” he adds with another press of his lips.
“It’s one of my best qualities,” I say. “I’m outgoing. I’m also spontaneous, but I’m not sure if that’s a strength or a weakness because it conflicts with both my decision-making and long-term planning skills, which are definitely weaknesses.”
He smiles wider this time. Another kiss. “It just so happens that I’m an excellent decision-maker and my long-term planning skills are top-notch.”
“You’d be surprised by how much you might have in common with someone completely opposite from you,” I offer.
“You’ve been a non-stop surprise, I’d agree.”
“Opposites attract,” I whisper.
“Payton.” He murmurs the word against my ear, his nose skimming the line of my jaw, his knee pushing between my own.
“Yes?”
“I like you too.” Then he kisses the side of my neck and rolls us over so I’m on top. “Straddle me,” he directs, tapping my thigh with his hand.
I grin, sitting up and sliding my knees up to bracket his hips. “I’m very flexible. It’s one of my strengths. Literally and physically.”
“Noted.” Vince rips open the condom and sheaths himself as I raise myself over him just enough for him to line us up and then I sink down.
Slowly, one inch at a time as I adjust to the stretch and the feeling of fullness. The depth and angle of the penetration. Vince’s eyes are glued to the spot where I’m stretched wide and he’s inside of me.
The staring makes me wetter.
He runs his palms up and down the tops of my thighs as I rise up and down on top of him. I don’t rock back and forth, so I’m not getting any friction on my clit, but I don’t care because the sensation of being filled by him is the sum total of everything I want in life at this moment. I squeeze my muscles around him as I rise up on my knees, feeling every inch of the drag of his cock inside of me. Then I relax and sink down.
Repeat.
Repeat.
Repeat.
He watches himself disappearing inside of me while I watch him watching us. I clench and he groans. Then he wraps his hands around my wrists and pulls them behind my back. The movement forces my chest forward and I tighten reflexively on his cock as he shifts one hand to contain both my wrists. I could shrug out of this hold if I wanted to, but I don’t. I like it. I like that I’m on top but he’s in charge. I like the pressure of his fingers against my skin and the angle of his cock in my pussy as I’m forced to lean just slightly back.
Then he moves his free hand to my clit and I like it a lot. Oh, so very much. I think he likes it too because he groans, “God, you’re beautiful,” as I bounce on top of him while his thumb works me to perfection and I feel beautiful. I feel like I’ve never been more beautiful to any man, ever. I feel like whatever series of events led my path to cross with Vince’s was meant to be, unavoidable, universally predetermined. My head falls back, my neck arched, and I come hard and fast and without warning. The stimulation is too much, too overwhelming, too perfect.
Vince releases my hands and draws me down to his chest, his hands running soothingly across my back. He has nice hands, I think absently. Big, strong. Good at both restraining and caressing. Cooking and game boards. Fingering and pinching and twisting.
“I like you more than I should,” he murmurs into my ear when I’m spread out on top of him. He’s still hard inside of me while I’m a puddle of warmth and bliss. I pick my head up off his chest and kiss him, the movement rubbing my nipples against his skin, the contact making me want more. I rock on top of him, my lips pressed against his as I flex my hips and move with him. Then he rolls us so he’s on top, but keeps his legs bracketing mine instead of sliding between. He’s still inside of me, and it feels different like this, the penetration tighter. I’m again slightly restrained by the position and when he weaves his hands with mine and thrusts all I can do is moan in pleasure and enjoy the feel of him pressed on top of me, inside of me. Vince dips his forehead to mine, his breath heavy and his eyes intense. Our arms are aligned from elbow to fingertips, pressed into the mattress beside my head as his hips f
lex with purpose and strength.
“I wanted to fuck you like this from behind, but I like looking at you too much.”
“It’s okay, we can save it for when you think I’m annoying.”
He smiles, a quick flash of teeth and slight curve of his lips as his eyes flit across my face. Then he kisses me and thrusts. Hard and deep and perfect. Over and over till I’m nearly incoherent from wanting to come again. So close, so close, so close. When I arch my neck and tighten around him he dips his head into my neck and thrusts hard twice more before stilling over me with a grunt and whispered words about how good I feel, how great I make him feel. I slide my hands out from under his and wrap my arms around his neck because I want as much of his skin touching as much of mine as is possible. Because I want him closer. Because I like him a lot.
Vince kisses my collarbone up the side of my neck and ends with sucking my earlobe between his teeth, which tickles and turns me on at the same time. Then he holds my head between his hands and kisses me before balancing on one elbow and reaching between us to wrap his hand around the base of the condom as he pulls out.
I don’t think I’ve ever given any thought to this moment before. I don’t think this act has ever felt so intimate before though, more intimate than entering me in the first place. This post-coital withdrawal from my body, the condom filled with his release and coated in mine. The kissing and the way he watches me as he withdraws.
After he’s disposed of the condom he comes back, sliding the covers from beneath me until I lift my bottom and slip my feet under the sheet. I think he’s going to tuck me in and leave but instead he slides in beside me.
“A or B,” he murmurs as he plays with my hair. I’m tucked into his side, my head and hand on his chest. “A, cats, B, dogs.”
“C, both,” I answer.
He exhales and I know he’s smiling. I can feel it just in the way he breathed. It makes me smile too and I laugh.