Lush

by Beth Yarnall

  “I want to be inside you when I come.”

  “But you were just bragging about doing it ten times tonight.”

  “I lied.”

  He somehow made a move with his legs that flipped her onto the bed next to him. In a second he was on her, pressing the full length of his body to hers, his mouth covering hers in a kiss that let her know how much he wanted her. She wrapped her legs around him, bringing him right where she wanted him most. He changed the angle of the kiss, and suddenly she was hot and desperate for the feel of him inside of her. She pressed her hips up then down, rubbing her clit against him. Close, so close.

  He pulled his mouth from hers and looked down at her. “This is the stupidest option on the list. I want to touch you so bad. Here…” he rocked his hips, sliding himself against her slickness, “…and here.” He bent his head and drew one of her nipples deep into his mouth.

  She fisted the sheets as he kept up the pace and then she came, her arms going around him and holding him to her.

  “You lost,” he said, a self-satisfied smile lighting up his face. He rocked back and thrust all the way into her.

  She froze, then pushed at him. “Get out! Get out of me!”

  It took Cal a second to comprehend what she was saying. He was finally inside her, finally home. When her words hit, he pulled out of her and backed away, up and off her entirely until he was standing beside the bed looking down at her panicked face.

  “What?” he asked. He’d been right there. What had he done wrong?

  “You can’t be inside of me like that.”

  Putting his hands on his hips and closing his eyes, he took a deep breath. In, then out, until he felt like he had some kind of control over himself and wouldn’t jump back on top of her.

  “Okay,” he said after a while. “We don’t have to do this.” But Jesus God he wanted to. More deep breathing.

  She moved…to the other side of the bed. The cold hand of despair reached down inside of him and fisted in his chest. He’d screwed this up. She’d trusted him and he blew it. Completely. He’d never get her trust back. He realized she’d pulled something out of the nightstand drawer and was handing it to him.

  “—this on,” she said.

  He looked at what was in her hand. A condom. She wanted him to wear a condom. Relief flooded him first. He hadn’t totally fucked this up. And then confusion set in. What in the hell?

  “Why do I have to wear a condom? There hasn’t been anyone else since you.”

  She withdrew her hand with the condom, and he could’ve hit himself upside the head for his stupidity. He should’ve just put the damn thing on and asked her about it later.

  She got very nervous then, crossing her arms over her body. “I’m not going to be totally in the clear for another two months. Anyone I’m with has to wear one.”

  He couldn’t wrap his head around what she was getting at. “Clear of what? Aren’t you on the Pill or something?”

  “Yes, but the Pill doesn’t protect against HIV.”

  She said it like he was stupid or something, which at the moment he sort of was. And then it hit him, and he took a step back.

  “Your son-of-a-bitch ex gave you HIV?”

  “No. I don’t know. I won’t know for a while. I’m not in the clear yet. Neither is Poppy.”

  “Poppy…?” He reached a hand out to the bedpost.

  “He was with his other wives. And while I was pregnant…”

  She let that hang in the air between them. All of a sudden his legs wouldn’t hold him anymore, and he collapsed onto the bed. Dropping his head into his hands, he cursed her ex and this whole fucking situation.

  “I’m sorry,” she said.

  He could hear the anguish in her voice. None of this was her fault, and yet here she was paying the price. His idiocy in his office had led to this. All of it could be laid at his door. Once again she’d left him speechless and with the overwhelming feeling that nothing between them would ever be fixed. It certainly would never be the same as it had been before.

  Before he’d thought himself cock of the block and thrown her away like she was nothing. Before she’d found out she was pregnant with his child. Before she’d married that bastard who had done unspeakable things to her.

  “I wish you would’ve told me before you answered the door like that.” It was all he could think to say because it would’ve changed everything.

  “I’m sorry.”

  More deep breaths. He had to know everything now. Right now. He couldn’t walk the minefield of her past without some idea of where not to step. “What else?”

  “What?”

  “What else do I need to know? What else haven’t you told me?”

  “That’s it.”

  He nodded. Okay. He could handle this. He could handle anything for her.

  “I take medication that reduces the chance that the virus will set in,” she said. “But it doesn’t protect you one hundred percent during sex or oral sex. So I have to ask you to wear a condom during sex and you can’t go down on me and I can’t give you a blowjob without protection. I can’t do everything with you that I want to because he might’ve given me an incurable disease. I’m dirty.” Her voice broke on the last word.

  He glanced at her over his shoulder. It was the only movement he trusted himself to make.

  She tried to cover herself with the edge of the sheet. “He made me feel dirty, and now I can’t stop feeling that way. And I don’t know why you want me. I’m not normal. I don’t know if I can ever be normal. I’m just so tired of feeling dirty. I’m tired of being broken and dirty and ugly.”

  She sucked in a hiccupped breath. “And I hate the way you’re looking at me right now because it makes me feel like you’ll never look at me the way you used to. Always what happened to me will be all you see, and I can’t take it. I can’t stand that I have to make you wear a condom because being with me could kill you. And I hate that it could kill our daughter. And it’s my fault.”

  Her words ate at him, digging at his insides until all that was left was a sharp ache for what she’d been through. So that was why she never let him go down on her. He’d figured it was a new aversion having to do with what her ex had done to her. The bastard had ruined so many things for her and here she was trying to take the blame for something that simply wasn’t hers to take. “It’s my fault.”

  “How in the hell is it your fault?” she asked, her misery punctuated with anger. “Does everything always have to revolve around you?”

  “If I hadn’t been so stupid and fucked around with my secretary, all of this would never have been. All of it. So yeah, I’m taking the blame because it’s mine to take.”

  He stood across the wide, yawning gap of the bed from her, knowing nothing would ever be as it once was between them. “I swore the day you walked out of my office that I’d be better and do better. But I can’t stand what happened to you. I can’t stand it. It’s all because of me. And I try to find a way to fix things, but then I turn around and they’re so much more fucked up than I thought, and I wonder if they can ever be fixed at all.

  “And then you hand me a condom and tell me that what I set in motion not only hurt you deeply, but it could kill you and our daughter. And I can’t fucking fix that!”

  “Who asked you to fix it?”

  “What am I supposed to do with it?”

  “Live with it just like the rest of us.”

  He held out a hand. “Give me the condom.”

  She put a knee on the bed and tentatively reached across the space to lay it in his palm. He took it between two fingers and looked at it. It wasn’t like he’d never worn one. Except for those couple of times with Lucy—one of which he guessed had led to Poppy—he’d always been diligent about protection. This condom represented more than their past, it represented a potential future of medication and medical tests and suffering.

  All of Cal’s imaginings of more babies with Lucy dried up along with the saliva in his mou
th, and he couldn’t form the words that would tell her it was okay. It would be okay. Because it wasn’t fucking okay, and maybe it never would be.

  He set the condom on the nightstand. “Do you still want to do this?”

  “Do you?”

  Yes. And no. He wanted to show her that he didn’t see her the way she saw herself. But he didn’t think he could get it up with everything she’d said still laid out between them. She could die. Poppy could die. He’d just gotten them back, and now he could lose them.

  He realized she was waiting for his answer. She was still naked, standing on the other side of the bed, watching him with that look. He hated that fucking look almost as much as he hated her ex.

  “Lay down,” he ordered gently.

  She hesitated.

  “I won. I get to choose the next five options. Lay down on the bed, darlin’.”

  She did as she was told, watching him with wide blue eyes. He moved to the other side of the room, grabbed the desk chair, and set it at the foot of the bed. The perfect viewing spot.

  “Stay there. I’ll be right back.” He went into his bedroom and grabbed the things he’d need. As he came back into her room, her gaze latched on to what he held in his hand. Her intrigued look surprised him. “You like this?”

  “Yes.”

  “Do you want it?”

  “Yes.”

  She sounded a little hesitant and a lot curious. Good. She was going to like what he had in mind for her. After all, it was the option she wanted to try the most.

  “Fix the pillows so you’re propped up higher,” he told her. “That’s good. Are you comfortable?”

  She nodded. There was so much trust in her expression he nearly lost his nerve. He had to get this right for both of them and somehow live up to the faith she placed in him.

  He set the one item on the bed next to her. Her gaze followed his movements. He leaned over her and gently placed the weighted nipple clamps on each of her nipples, adjusting the tension until she closed her eyes on a little moan.

  He took his seat at the foot of the bed. Their gazes locked.

  “Widen your legs,” he commanded. “Wider. Now bend your knees. Drop them back so you’re wide open. That’s it. How’re you feeling?”

  “Good.” Her voice was wispy now, full of expectation.

  “This, darlin’…is option number thirty.”

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  Option thirty.

  Cal had asked her which options were her favorite on their wedding day, and Lucy had listed option thirty last even though it was the one she most wanted to try. After what she’d been forced to tell him, he’d chosen her favorite option instead of one of his own.

  She lay on the bed naked, her legs wide for him. He’d placed a chair at the end of the bed, which added an extra dimension she hadn’t anticipated.

  “Do you trust me, darlin’?”

  She nodded, her eyes wider than they’d been before.

  “I’m going to sit here. I’m not allowed to move or touch you. I can’t touch myself. And you’re going to do everything I tell you to do, got that?”

  “Yes.”

  “Good girl. Now we’re going to start with you licking your fingers. Rub them over your nipples in small circles. ”

  She did as he asked, her nipples pebbling.

  “Pinch them.”

  She took her nipples between her fingers as he’d commanded, feeling the pull deep inside. Arching her back, she pinched harder, letting out a moan.

  “I love it when your cheeks flush like that. Do you like it? Do you like touching yourself?”

  “Yes,” she panted.

  “I can tell. Are you pretending it’s me, or is it just you?”

  “It’s me.”

  “You’re so damn sexy, darlin’. You’re making me so hard. Feel your body, how soft and voluptuous you are. Your body drives me insane. Are you wet?”

  “Yes.”

  “How wet?”

  “Not enough.”

  “Stroke yourself. Slide your fingers up then down. That’s it.”

  Her breathing grew more rapid. She could see he was enjoying this, the watching. She dipped her fingers down and up, slipping into her slickness, teasing herself. Fully flush with arousal now, all she wanted to do was come.

  “Arch your back a little more so the weights pull,” he ordered.

  She did as he asked, lifting her torso so that the weights tugged her nipples, and it was so close to how it felt when he had his hands on her that she groaned, moving her fingers faster.

  “Now pick up the vibrator and switch it on.”

  The phallus was larger than she would’ve chosen for herself and had a rabbit-shaped thing at the base. She switched it on, and the ears vibrated.

  “The other switch. Turn that on too.”

  She did, and the beads in the shaft spun while the shaft itself thrust up and down. She gasped in anticipation.

  “Slide it inside you. Slowly.”

  She used the fingers of one hand to widen herself and inserted the vibrator as deep as it would go. She was overwhelmed with sensation. The thrusting action stroked her while the vibrating ears hit just the right spot.

  “Look at me, darlin’.” He was fully hard, sitting at the edge of the chair, watching her. “Do you know what I see when I look at you?” She shook her head. “I see a woman so unbelievably beautiful and sexual I want to bury myself deep inside you and pound into you until you scream my name. Do it. Move it inside you as I’d move.”

  She did as she was told, finding a rhythm that rocketed her toward orgasm. Opening her legs wider as the sensations built, she put her other arm above her head, pushing her breasts higher. The clamps bit down, plunging her closer to the edge.

  “Faster. Harder. That’s it. Fuck yourself. Come for me, darlin’. Come.”

  The vibration slammed into her from the front as the thrusting head hit her deep, and she went off, throwing her head back and coming so hard she cried out. Never had she felt anything so intense in her life. The orgasm rolled through her, wave after wave of ecstasy. Nothing existed outside of her and the pulsing between her legs. She switched off the vibrator and threw it on the bed. Chest heaving and limbs tingling, she went completely limp.

  “Goddammit if that wasn’t the hottest thing I’ve ever seen.”

  She’d forgotten he was there. She turned her head to the side so she could look at him. “Thirty is the best number.”

  “I’m going to have it tattooed on my ass.”

  She laughed. “Oh, man. I needed that.”

  He got up from the chair, his penis hard and jutting, and lay on his stomach next to her on the bed. He kissed her shoulder right next to her scar. “You’re so damn beautiful, darlin’, that sometimes I can hardly breathe when I’m with you. Like right now. Your cheeks are pink and you look happy. Are you happy?”

  “I think so. If happy is a loose-limbed kind of numb feeling in my arms and legs.”

  “That’s orgasmic happiness.”

  She looked into his blue eyes and smiled. “Yeah. I think I am happy. More now than I used to be.”

  “I still have four more options, you know.”

  “Four.” Laughing, she rolled toward him, the nipple clamps making a tinkling sound as she moved. “Are you planning on using them all tonight?”

  “No. Just one more.”

  “Which is that?”

  “This is one that I put on the list, but if you’re not comfortable with it, then I’ll choose another one.”

  “It’s not one where I have to bend ways that normal people don’t bend, is it?”

  “Nope. It’s one we’ve done before, so I know you can do it.”

  She thought of all the ways they’d had sex in the past. There were a couple she wasn’t so sure if she could revisit.

  “What is it?”

  “Thirty-three.”

  “Which is that?”

  “It’s a really good one. In fact you can leave these on
.” He lifted the chain of one of the nipple clamps. “I know how much you enjoyed them.”

  “How does it work?”

  “I lay on my back and you straddle me…backward.”

  The reverse cowgirl. She wasn’t sure how she felt about it.

  “Or you can face forward if you’d rather,” he offered.

  He’d chosen number thirty as the first option he’d won. He’d done it for her. The least she could do was try number thirty-three. It would give her that deep penetration she liked without having him directly behind and on top of her. She could set the pace.

  “Okay,” she said. “I’ll try it.”

  Cal leaned over and kissed her. It took everything he had not to pounce on her and drive into her without any finesse whatsoever. The way she’d come completely unwound, her legs spread, head back, crying out, he’d had to squeeze his dick to keep from coming right then and there. He’d chosen number thirty-three, hoping she could get off the way he knew she liked it best and yet put her in control. His motives weren’t entirely altruistic. He’d have a fine view of her ass as she bounced up and down on top of him.

  He wound the chain of one of the clamps around his finger, tugging on her nipple, and then sucked on it. She arched back, leaning into him. He ran his hand over her hip and then between her legs. She was still so wet from pleasuring herself that his fingers slipped easily into her. Widening her legs for him, she tilted her pelvis, giving him deeper access. He knew she was getting close to coming again, and damn it, so was he. He’d been on the verge since he’d told her to spread her legs and touch herself.

  Fumbling on the nightstand, he located the condom and rolled it on. With no finesse at all, he shifted so that he was between her thighs. He broke off the kiss and looked down at her.

  “I don’t care what number this is. I want to see your face.” He eased himself into her little by little, watching her the whole time, until he was fully seated. “Oh, God. I can’t…”

  He began to move within her, thrusting without any skill. It had been so long since he’d been inside her. She wrapped around him, hugging him to her. He lost track of everything except the feel of her and his impending orgasm. He chased it, driving hard into her until it hit. He threw his head back and grunted, then collapsed in an unceremonious heap on top of her.