Stripped Bare: A Novella

by Stewart, Lynsey M.

  His hands gripped my thighs, our eyes locked as he pulled me towards him, a position we found ourselves in many times because the angle was just right.

  ‘Wrap around me, beautiful.’

  ‘I bet you say that to all the girls,’ I replied, gasping as he lifted me up.

  He shook his head in the crook of my neck. ‘Only you.’

  I gasped with the first grind, a long drawn out roll of his hips, teasing me, tantalising me before the roll sped up and we were moving together. I needed the pressure. I could feel that he was hard, the girth and length of his supreme cock hitting my clit with exact precision. ‘How many women do you bring to the brink of euphoria every time you grind on them?’

  ‘I don’t get this close.’

  ‘That better not be a line.’

  ‘It’s an illusion. A dance,’ he replied as he put me down, my feet not quite believing there was a steady floor there.

  Ethan dropped to his knees, an act of fucking worship as he reached up, his hand gripping my waist, curling round my hip bone, firm and steady, holding me in place until he popped his body up, chest to chest and finished off with a roll of those delicious hips against my pussy. A kiss to my nipple shocked me.

  ‘Do you…is that…part of the act?’

  ‘Usually no touching,’ he whispered. ‘Not like this. But with you I can’t help myself.’

  His hand met my shoulder, turning me quickly so that he was behind me. I arched into him, pressing my behind into his cock, my own kind of grind, and marvelled as he moaned against me. I felt him reach for my top, pulling it up, his fingers dancing there, teasing me, stroking, dragging the fabric, exposing me all at the same time as meeting my rolling hips and grinding his hard perfection in the best kind of dance.

  ‘It really is nothing more than a dance, Amy. I want you to understand that. I need you to.’

  ‘Just a dance,’ I replied. ‘Do you enjoy it?’ I asked. My voice still a mixture of arousal and high emotion. His eyes flicked to mine as I looked back at him, a gaze so firm and strong I could feel it through my bloodstream.

  ‘With some.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘The ones I trust. The ones I build a connection with.’

  ‘You build a connection that quickly?’

  I wanted to drop to my knees and connect my mouth to his glorious cock.

  ‘Connections take time,’ he replied. ‘A lifetime, sometimes.’

  ‘Like us?’

  ‘Exactly.’ He smiled and a gasping breath escaped my lips as his eyes danced. A full on happy-dance celebration knowing that we were heading for a place we hadn’t been for so long. The ache he had for me when we were apart was nothing compared to the ache he was experiencing now.

  ‘Do you get aroused?’ I asked, needing to know.

  ‘Never.’ I watched him swallow.

  ‘Never? Even though your body is beautiful and your cock must drive them crazy?’

  ‘Jesus, Amy.’

  ‘Are you aroused now?’

  ‘Yes. Fuck, yes,’ he gasped.

  ‘Because of me?’

  He let out a breathy laugh. ‘Always.’

  ‘Do you know how many times I’ve made myself come thinking about you? I was never able to let you go. I craved you. All those women that get to see you? Watch your cock? They fantasise too. They can’t get you out of their heads because everything about you is immense.’

  ‘You think I care about those women? I don’t, Amy. I don’t give a fuck about any of them. Not one. It’s always been you. After all these years it’s you I think about when I’m with another woman. You that makes me come hard when I’m on my own. How long am I supposed to wait until I tell you how much I want to fuck you again?’

  ‘Don’t wait.’

  A knock on the door stopped time. Ethan’s hand stayed steady against my hip.

  ‘Ethan, you’re on in five.’ A voice behind the door boomed through. I squeezed my eyes shut, taking in the moment. It was time. The plan to watch him in action had never made me feel so sick. Everything had changed. How could I do this now?

  ‘You make me crazy,’ he said, letting me go, backing away.

  ‘You make me want to be reckless. You always did,’ I said, stroking my neck softly, imagining his lips still there. I stayed still, with my back to him, unsure if I wanted to see the final preparations. I heard a zip, then rustling as he searched through his bag. I jumped as a strong hand reached around my waist, firm and steady against my stomach and then a deep sigh in my ear. A gasp.

  ‘You want to be reckless with me? I’ve been taking it slow. I needed to be sure. But, Jesus, Amy, you’re falling into me like I’ve fallen into you. Tell me what you want.’

  The door swung open. He took my hand and pulled me with him, holding my hand, the firefighter’s helmet under his arm, catching the lights as we walked through the corridor. I couldn’t shift my gaze. I felt sick, but still I followed him.

  ‘Tell me, Amy.’

  I tore my eyes away from the object that was taunting me and focused on him. His face. His open eyes, begging me to come back to him. He pulled me into a corner. ‘Stay with me, remember where we were a few minutes ago. Locked together. Close.’ I melted into him again. Reconnected. I found my place and it was with him. It was always with him.

  He dropped the helmet to the floor. A slow-motion bump and roll.

  I scanned the corridors, tried to blank out the noise of cheers and whoops, cursing the people that I could only view as blocking me from climbing onto a table, spreading my legs and welcoming Ethan to push himself inside me. Inch by breathtaking inch. The thought made my clit pulse tightly, the wetness between my legs soak through to the lace that was covering the place I wanted him the most.

  ‘I need to know what you’re thinking. I want in on those thoughts that are making your nipples hard.’ I clutched my hand to my breasts, feeling the points of arousal with my fingertips. He reached to me, his hands caressing either side of my face, foreheads touching. Reconnecting. I held his hand, squeezing it to steady myself.

  He bit his lip and smiled. ‘Tell me.’

  ‘All I can think about is how you taste.’

  ‘Fuck, Amy. I need you.’

  ‘We can’t,’ I replied, closing my eyes to try and clear a path to my thoughts, the noise of the crowd rushing through me until I was unsteady on my feet.

  ‘Are you ready for the ride of your life?’

  A voice came over a speaker and I wanted to rip it off the wall.

  ‘Ladies, I need you to be louder!’ More whooping and screaming.

  Ethan’s lustful gaze changed in half a second. A flash of recognition. An understanding of what I was battling with. My love for him merged with heavy doubts that I was able to watch him do this, that he would get the same rush with someone else.

  And the ache of hurt that hadn’t fully healed.

  ‘I’m not sure I can do this,’ I said, backing away from him.

  ‘Amy,’ he pleaded. ‘Don’t go. Stay in the room if you need to. Keep away from the club so you can’t see anything. We’ll talk after. Just you and me.’

  I let go of his hand and turned, bumping into a hulk of a body. It was the bouncer from earlier, the one who was built like a brick wall. Apologising, I started to run, disorientated and focusing on two simple things. Getting out and getting so far away that there wasn’t a chance I could witness Ethan grinding his monster cock of pleasure against another woman’s ass.

  Chapter 11

  I kept running until I found a bar where I could hide for the night. Gin and peanuts were my listening ear. To be honest, they weren’t very helpful.

  After the second gin I started to melt into the barstool, and I was happy to stay there until they called last orders and I was made to leave, being carried under the arm of a bouncer. That was until I was chatted up by a guy wearing a suit, which he paired with a t-shirt that read ‘I love to fart.’

  If I needed a sign to confirm I needed to go
home, that was it.

  I kicked off my heels and jumped down from the high stool onto the floor, putting them back on when I was steady and the room was spinning less. I turned to pick up my bag but knocked it to the floor, the contents scattering across the wooden floor. I really must stop doing that. I crawled underneath the feet of two guys sat on the stools next to mine, apologising by looking up and giving them a small wave as I picked up my phone and keys.

  There were three messages from Ethan, I deleted them all, and a message from Mum.

  Mum: Your dad and I started clearing out the loft today so that it’s not such a big job for you when we’re gone…

  Mum: Or if we forget to turn the gas off and you have to put us in a care home for our own safety

  I rolled my eyes.

  Mum: We found some old photos from Esther’s wedding. Check your email. Love you lots

  I opened my inbox immediately, remembering the day like it was yesterday. The first time I had seen Ethan since we separated. The memories of a lacklustre relationship I was clinging onto because I didn’t want to go to the wedding on my own because watching Ethan with another woman would have been too painful and more enhanced if I didn’t have a distraction.

  Mum’s message was sitting unopened, the bold print pulling me to open it. And when I did it was everything I needed. The photo showed busy tables strewn with empty plates and bottles of wine. At one table was me sitting next to Gary, the butcher who always had blood under his fingernails. My plus one. It was laughable now. Ethan was sitting at the table behind. His plus one was filling her glass and Ethan was staring across the table, towards me, a look so desperate. A look of regret mixed with fear.

  I opened the second picture. A posed wedding line-up. The happy couple in the middle and friends either side of them. Ethan on the left and me next to the bride on the right. I had my arms around Esther and she was laughing, but my full attention was on Ethan. My head was turned towards him, my body open. He was copying the pose, his head tilted to get a better view and a look written across his face that said, ‘I still adore you,’ was as clear and bright as the white of Esther’s wedding dress.

  I looked up and somehow, I had found myself outside the club I had ran from earlier. My feet had brought me back as I opened the emails, head down and enthralled without me having any knowledge or perception of where I was going. On autopilot. Back to Ethan.

  I could hear the muted chant of the crowd from outside and rather than be anxious, or feel like I was going to see the gin and peanuts again from earlier, I found myself going in.

  The base of the music was pulsing and vibrating through my collarbone. The screams of women enjoying themselves flooded my ears, and when I finally reached the floor of the club and saw Ethan stripped to the waist I couldn’t do anything but…smile.

  ‘This is the most reserved bride-to-be I’ve ever seen.’ The bouncer from earlier, a friend of Ethan’s stood next to me. He gave me a small nod in reassurance and carried on talking. ‘He’s really good at reading people. He knows that she’s not entirely comfortable, but she’s going through the motions because her friends have probably booked him without her having any idea.’

  I looked over and watched him, really watched. Ethan was building up the crowd, taking the hand of one woman, but not before gaining eye contact and waiting for a sign that she was OK. She nodded and he placed her hand down the middle of his chest, pulling it down slowly and grinding his hips close to her but not against her. Nothing like our dance earlier. The crowd cheered and he kissed her hand as she went back to her friends, slightly delirious but very happy.

  The bride-to-be was waiting on the chair, clapping her hands and screaming, but at the same time looking relieved when Ethan turned his attention elsewhere. When he slid back towards her in a smooth glide, he bent down, still moving his hips and carrying on the dance as he whispered against her ear.

  He was checking. Respecting her. Communicating.

  She nodded, clutching her hands to her chest and mouthing, ‘Thank you,’ as he stood back and started to dance. The grinding was still a big feature, as was the removing-his-clothes part. I guessed there was no way around that…but as he moved his body in time to the ladies’ libidos I found myself clapping, getting swept away in the music, but most of all, I was extremely turned on knowing that this beautiful man, being worshipped and adored by women of all ages and all body shapes, who he was lavishing attention on without discrimination or lack of respect…belonged to me.

  Holy wet knickers indeed.

  I slipped out of the main club and made my way back to Ethan’s dressing room. I meandered down the corridor, thinking, reflecting, smiling.

  I had always been his.

  Always.

  I was foolish to think that anyone else would measure up or replicate the bond that we had. It had been written out for us. Outlined. Destiny took over when we were born. Our plans were drawn up and hung on a star. If Mum had told me that an angel had twirled on my tummy as I lay in her arms and whispered gently, ‘Your soul mate has been chosen. It happened for a reason. He will be your forever love,’ I wouldn’t have questioned it.

  But was that thought too sugary sweet now that I was waiting in a dressing room with a desperate need to fuck a naked firefighter?

  The door opened and there he was. My stripper. Firefighter Long Hose. Officer Love Truncheon. Whatever he was, it didn’t matter. Because he would always be my Ethan.

  ‘You came back,’ he said. ‘You watched.’

  His resplendent cock was trying to make a break from his cupped hands. He was naked and gleaming and all I wanted to do was to wash the sheen off his abs with my tongue.

  ‘You were glorious. Breathtaking.’

  I didn’t realise he had been holding his breath until I heard it. A sated sigh. A deep release. A reaction to being unsure and anxious, wondering if this was going to be the end for us and becoming overwhelmed when he started to understand that it wasn’t. Of course it wasn’t. How could it be? Officer Love Truncheon was mine.

  ‘I was ready to give it all up. I was coming to find you to tell you that you were more important than stripping. I’d planned a cleansing ritual and everything. We were going to start by burning the Velcro trousers.’

  ‘We don’t need to do that,’ I replied, smiling. ‘I can accept the Velcro trousers.’

  He came to me in two long strides. A passion both knocking us over and keeping us upright. His kiss was deeper than anything we had experienced before. He had waited for this. Savored the chase. But now it was his turn and he was fucking taking it. He pulled back, breathless with the commotion shaking his body.

  His hand gripped my neck, his eyes closed. ‘I’m sweaty,’ he gasped, pulling back and studying me.

  ‘I like the sweat.’

  And then he growled.

  Fucking growled.

  He lifted me in a heartbeat, wrapping my legs around him by gripping my thighs, pulling me to exactly where we both needed. My clit against his cock, my back against the wall.

  ‘God, I’ve been waiting so long to fuck you,’ he said.

  ‘You better be nice to me.’

  ‘There’s nothing nice about this, Amy. What we’re about to do will be majestic,’ he replied, pulling me along the wall, knocking framed pictures to the ground with my shoulders before lifting me up on the dressing table with the Hollywood lights. He dragged my vest top down under the swell of my breast and pinched my nipple through the lace of my bra. I arched my back at the contact, leaning back on my arms and knocking the bottles of aftershave and tubes of wax onto the floor with a clatter.

  ‘Majestic sounds good,’ I said on a gasp, the cold mirror against my back making me sensitive, his mouth on my nipple energising my need for him.

  ‘Say you fucking want me.’

  A bite of my nipple made me lose myself. I clung on to his shoulder to support my weight, which felt graceless and clumsy with desire.

  ‘It’s more than want,’
I said on a moan set free as he pulled my body towards him and ripped my button apart at the top of my jeans. ‘This moment has been longed for.’

  His hand trailed down to my pussy, hidden from view by the denim. ‘Good girl,’ he said as he felt the wetness soaking my opening, carefully slipping a finger inside. The pressure was perfect. Little circles. Small flicks. Curved strokes. He found my sweet spots immediately, like he’d never forgotten how to get me there. Every time. No effort. Natural.

  After our first time together, we would spend hours getting to know each other’s bodies. What we liked and disliked. What worked for us and what didn’t. It became so natural that there were times I felt I knew his body as well as I did my own. But this rekindling…it was intense. Emotional. Needy. We couldn’t get enough. Our desire for each other was like a drip of an ice cream you couldn’t contain. Spilling of its own accord until you caught it in your mouth, on your tongue. Fuck, so much sensation.

  ‘Look me in the eyes when you come,’ he commanded, still in that precise spot with his fingers. My pussy tightened until I couldn’t take it anymore.

  I clasped my hand around his wrist. ‘Stop.’

  His head shot back and he searched my face. Bewildered and shocked. I kissed him deep and heavy, dragging my mouth down his plump lip, the one I used to trace with my fingertips as we lay together watching the television in my bedroom when we were teenagers. I bit it lightly. ‘I want you inside me when I come.’ He put his hands under my bum and lifted me up, my pussy connecting to the lines of his hard stomach. His body was a marvel to look at. Even more so to touch. Every ridge of muscle was defined and taut. His thighs thick and contoured. I pushed my jeans down, my black lace underwear only half going with them, exposing my hip bone and the intimate skin he had devoured in the yoga studio that morning. Was that this morning? It seemed like a lifetime ago, like time had fallen away and all that existed was us and this. His fingers mimicked what he did a few hours ago, pulling my underwear, balling the fabric into his fist as he kissed me, hooking his thumbs into the sides and sliding them off.