“How about your day?” she asked, simply for something to say. Though afterward it struck her that they’d just had the kind of moment married couples had, on coming home from work.
Far from making her uncomfortable, however, the thought made her feel sort of easy and loose. When he stretched his arm out over the back of the couch, she had absolutely no problem resting her cheek against it—like a sort of hug.
Only one that people did casually, after years together.
“I caught a rat the size of a small dog in a saucepan. After that, I spent about four hours sketching random things in my sketch book while my art theory Professor droned on about Warhol. And then I went out and got another tattoo, before coming here.”
Of course she knew the rat comment should have been the one that caught her attention. He’d battled a beast from the bowels of hell with nothing but a cooking utensil at his side—it deserved some acknowledgement.
But she found herself blurting something else out, anyway.
“You got another tattoo? Do you even have space left on your body?”
It could have gone terribly. He could have been pissed, and taken it the wrong way. But when he laughed she realized one very important thing—they were past that now.
No misunderstandings. No defensiveness. Just this, this, this.
“Yeah, so I’m addicted. What do you want me to do about it?”
“Addicted? Doesn’t it hurt? How can you be addicted to something that hurts so bad?”
His face straightened out a little.
“Easily,” he said, and it didn’t surprise her that all the hairs stood up on the back of her neck. Of course she couldn’t quite tell what they were really talking about now, but it lingered all the same. That idea of being complicit in your own pain. “Here, you want to see?”
He didn’t even need to ask, really. She just waited, patiently, while he tugged up his t-shirt to reveal the thick swirl of black on his side. Lettering, she thought—like the one on his wrist. This one was bigger, however, and easier to identify than the thick bar of script just below his hand.
“It’s Latin, right? Anima means soul or spirit or heart.”
He paused so long she had to glance up at him, and see what expression was on his face now. But he didn’t seem amused, or like she’d gotten the word wrong. He looked surprised instead. Surprised and faintly unsettled.
“Can you read the rest of it?”
“Mea is my. My soul…something something. I think cum is with,” she tried, but then found herself flushing red. Cum meant something else too, and she knew it.
Plus, now that the translation portion of the evening was over she’d started noticing something else. Something pretty obvious and right in front of her—she could see the hair that clearly extended down from his chest to make a rough, dark tangle over his belly. And because he was sitting sort of half-sprawled, his jeans were riding really low on his hips.
So low that she could make out darker, thicker hair just above the waistband.
“Close enough,” he said, but he didn’t pull his t-shirt back down. He just sat there like that, half-exposed, while she searched for something else to say.
Of course her mind urged her to make it a subject change. But then, her mind was just as much of a spoilsport as he was when he started talking about going slow and having conversations. Her mind had ruled the roost for too long, and something else was in charge, now.
Something mischievous.
“Do you have any others I can’t usually see?”
A sound came out of him—half-amused, half-not—and he turned his face away. Put a hand up to his mouth, and rubbed over the scratch of stubble there.
“Yeah, but you’re not seeing them.”
“Are they in rude places?”
“We’re not talking about rude places.”
“Are you forbidding me again?”
He let out a frustrated breath.
“No.” He hesitated, then shifted on the couch. “Here. I’ve got one on my back.”
He lifted his shirt again—farther this time. If he’d been facing her she would have been able to see his chest hair, but as it was she had to make do with acres and acres of honey-colored skin. All of it so soft seeming she could hardly control herself.
Would he mind, if she just leaned down and kissed the almost apparent ridges of his spine? She suspected he would, but after a moment of staring and staring at the little black knot he’d had inked in the middle of his back, she stopped trying to control herself altogether.
She kissed him there, open-mouthed and wet. Tasted his warm skin, then licked when he tried to sort of shift away.
It was gratifying that doing so halted him in his tracks. He even made a little sound, sharp and breathless enough to send a spike of pleasure between her legs, and after a second of her doing this naughty thing his hand jerked behind himself, to find the side of her face.
Like maybe he wanted to stop her, but wasn’t quite sure how.
“Evie,” he said. Almost like a warning, really, even though he’d now found his way into her hair. She could feel his fingers threading through the strands, stroking as she licked a wet path up over his spine. Tightening there, when she found the hand he still had on his lifted shirt and kissed that too.
“Okay, enough,” he said, but he didn’t sound sure. And by the time she’d actually dared to suck one of his fingers into her mouth, he’d run said hand from her hair all the way down her back.
She wasn’t even sure how he managed to reach. But he did it, and when she got to his nape, he found the hem of her t-shirt. Pulled on it, just a little bit—almost as though he wasn’t doing anything like it at all.
He wasn’t the kind of guy who tried to undress innocent girls on their parents’ couch.
But he was the kind of guy who told her, Jesus, your mouth when she licked wetly over that tattoo on the side of his neck. The one that looked like the weathered bones of something, bound together to make a shaky crossroads sign.
She wanted to ask him what it was about. The lettering literally spelled itself out, and the knot seemed sort of obvious, but the crossroads could have meant anything. And he’d burned it into such a soft, tender place, too, just below his ear and right where her tongue seemed to feel best.
And she knew it did, because he actually told her. He even pinned her up against his back as he did so, both of his big hands now spanning her back. Most of her sense disappearing down between her legs, to feel him against her and hear him being so filthy suddenly.
“Ohhh that’s good. Fuck you’re greedy. What do you want, huh? Tell me what you want.”
Of course she realized then what she’d done. Put everything into high gear. Jumped everything right over mild petting and tentative making out, to grinding against each other as though the end of the world was coming.
Though the surprising thing was how little she actually cared. Some part of her—some distant part of her, who still enjoyed eating neat sandwiches and talking to Janie—went tense with fear every time he did something that suggested he was a man, with a man’s needs.
But the larger part—the one that had taken over the minute the opportunity presented itself—just wanted to let her know how good this felt. She could feel him all heavy and solid, pressing into the front of her body. And every time she licked he sort of undulated against her, rubbing and rubbing his firm back over her stiff nipples.
She couldn’t even describe the feeling it sent through her. It seemed like pleasure, but there was a sharp intensity to it that made her sort of want to pull away before it got any worse.
What if she just couldn’t handle something like that? She could already tell how wet she’d gotten—and for something so small. They weren’t even face-to-face, for God’s sake, and though he had his hands on her and she had her mouth on him, it still seemed tame.
Or it did until he started really pressing back against her. At which point she realized he wasn’t just lean
ing into her greedy mouth. He was rolling his hips in a kind of slow, obvious rhythm. As if he could feel someone above him, sliding down on his probably stiff, swollen cock.
And she simply didn’t know what to make of that, on any level. It was undoubtedly the naughtiest thing she’d ever seen or been a part of—like sex, only fully clothed and back to front—but it didn’t make her want to back away.
Instead she thought of what it would be like to simply crawl around his body and straddle him. Maybe shove her panties aside and just slide down on that thick thing. Of course there was always the chance he’d try to stop her if she did, but more and more it seemed as though he didn’t want to do anything of the sort.
The longer she went at this, the looser and more relaxed about it he appeared to become. He even turned his head after a little while and found her mouth with his, kissing in a way that forced a fresh flood of slickness to soak through her already embarrassingly wet panties.
He did it with a lot of tongue. And he kind of moaned at the same time, though the moans didn’t stop at her mouth. They vibrated down, down through her body to her oh-so-sensitive nipples and her swollen sex, searching out that little bud that she never on pain of death touched.
Okay, maybe she’d touched it a little bit, sometimes. But nothing she’d ever done made it pulse like this, like a second heartbeat between her legs. And oh it got worse when she saw him do something he clearly didn’t intend her to. He likely thought she had her eyes closed, because by now she absolutely knew that doing so was what you were supposed to do when you made out with someone.
But somehow she couldn’t stop herself looking every now and then, at the way his dark eyelashes fanned across his cheeks. At the long curve of his throat as he bent back to kiss her harder, wetter, fiercer.
Then finally the utterly rude thing. The thing she shouldn’t be seeing—one of his big hands sliding down over his own body, to squeeze that thick, jutting shape inside his jeans.
She almost gasped when he did it. It just didn’t seem like the sort of thing he usually indulged in—Van was restrained, and careful, and cautious. Up until that point she hadn’t really imagined him doing some of the perverted things she did, like the mattress humping and the hand between her legs and the rubbing she was currently doing all over his back.
But clearly he wanted to do those things, at least. And suddenly her head flooded with a million images, of Van on some seedy bed somewhere, covers kicked around his thighs, that big, stiff thing in his hand. Working it and working it and maybe saying her name.
Though the thought wasn’t quite as arousing as another one that occurred, as he pushed the heel of his palm right down over his obviously aching erection. He’d left in the same state last time, as desperate as he felt right now, so what if maybe…what if he couldn’t wait until he got to his apartment?
What if he’d just done it right there in the alley behind the houses. One hand shoved into his jeans. Head back. All of those sharp darts of pleasure going through him until finally, finally…
“Lay down and spread your legs. Lay down, baby.”
She froze against him, still in the middle of doing something embarrassing—like dry-humping his back. Had he really just said that? Did he seriously want her to…to…what?
Spread your legs her mind informed her, as clear as a bell, while the words themselves trickled down, down her body to meet that thrumming bud. The one that just wouldn’t shut up, no matter what she did.
God, he was going to do it. He’d had enough of waiting, and now he wanted her to do those three deliriously filthy words so he could get his cock out and slide into that hot, sweet ache between her legs.
Was it bad, if she couldn’t get there fast enough? After an initial moment of hesitation she found herself scrambling, skirt getting caught underneath her, every body part shaking and shaking and shaking.
He was going to do it. She could tell when he shifted around on the couch, because that thing now looked pretty much torturous. It jutted out so sharply between his legs that she could make out almost everything about it through the heavy material—how broad it looked at the tip, and oh Lord how impossibly long.
It was almost definitely going to hurt, going in. He wasn’t small even by her standards, which were basically based on some vague pictures she’d seen in biology textbooks and that one time Ricky Trebecki had run out of the boy’s locker rooms stark naked.
Van really, really had one up on Ricky Trebecki. Though in truth, was that such a surprise? The rest of him seemed built out of thick, heavy materials, and he definitely measured over six foot—more, in fact. He was a big guy, and it would have seemed strange if he’d been small in that one department.
Unfortunately, the thought didn’t stop her swallowing her own heart out of sheer terror. If he split her in two, she wasn’t sure modern science had a way of putting her back together again.
“Did you wear that on purpose?”
He asked it so abruptly, so roughly, that for a second she had to consider what he meant. What terrible thing had she done, without knowing it? But then of course her mind went to the t-shirt she’d chosen, and how disgusting it probably looked now—nipples sticking right through it, all rude and insistent.
He knew what she’d done. He knew it, and now he was going to punish her for it.
Though she had to admit, running his hand over her belly and her rib cage and finally her far too sensitive left breast seemed like a funny way to go about it. As did murmuring some heated words, shortly afterward.
“God, your breasts are beautiful. That feels good, huh?”
He said the latter as his fingertips just ever so slightly grazed one stiff nipple. Of course, once he’d done so she couldn’t answer him. She couldn’t have said anything even if she’d tried, because the flood of sensation from that one little touch…how hot it felt, how impatient…she couldn’t fully process it.
Her body just kind of bucked instead, until Van had to do something mortifying like put a hand on her hip to hold her steady.
“Easy, easy,” he said, while all the heat in her body rushed to her face. She could only imagine how sluttish she looked, how ridiculous—to go so crazy over one little stroke over that spiky point.
But in truth, he didn’t seem to care. In fact, she kind of suspected he liked it.
“I’m gonna get you off now,” he said, which were definitely not the words of someone who had a problem with a woman writhing and squirming beneath them. However, they didn’t exactly feel like a comfort either.
They just made her think of his enormous erection again, and how big it would probably feel sliding into her little, tight…
“Oh God, please. Please. Van. Please.”
She didn’t mean to say it. It just sort of fell out of her, the moment he started easing her skirt up over her thighs. She had her legs crooked on either side of his body, everything so ready to be exposed, so open to him before he’d even gotten halfway—which was both exciting and terrifying.
He was going to see, in a moment. More than that—he was going to feel, oh God he was going to feel what she’d done and shit, shit, could she get away with shoving his hand away now? She had to shove his hand away. Any second and he’d know about the wetness all over her thighs, about the state of her soaked panties and that little swollen thing that felt about as big as a truck—
“Ohhhhh Je-sus you’re wet. Oh fuck, you’re so wet, baby. Are you serious with this? It’s all over your legs.”
She blurted the words without thinking.
“I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”
Before trying to do something mitigating, like closing her legs. Doing so proved hard, however, with him almost between them and his big hands refusing to move from her thighs.
And he looked so…so incredulous too.
“Don’t be sorry. Don’t. You should know it’s hot as fuck that you’re like this. Seriously.” He paused. Seemed to consider, before continuing. “You always like this?�
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She thought of the class she’d had the day before last. The one about positive and appropriate gender roles, in which she’d spent most of her time thinking about how he might look between his legs.
“Quite possibly, yes.”
He didn’t hesitate then. He didn’t even restrain himself from sliding his palm over that jutting shape, once he’d gotten to some unbearably private place with his other hand—like that strip of skin between her thigh and her stretched-too-taut panties.
Of course it made her jerk to feel him there, thumb stroking just ever so softly, eyes on her all the time. But she had better control of herself now. She didn’t need to buck or bite her lip or even more terrible—get him to stop—and when he found his way to the edge of the material, she kept almost completely still. Held her breath, waiting and waiting.
He didn’t do what she expected, however. She thought of him ripping them away, suddenly. Shoving her skirt all the way up to expose her completely—or worse. But he just rubbed there, maddeningly, until all of the stillness she’d so carefully worked toward started to break apart.
If she moved just a little, his thumb would end up right where she needed it most. Or maybe he’d get the picture—yes do it, do it, I want your cock in me—and spread his body over hers.
Though more than likely he was just going to tease her until she went mad.
“Is this what you want?” he asked, and she wondered how polite it was to say no. It seemed as though he secretly wanted her to tell him something different, something like no, do it harder, do it faster, but how could she know for sure?
Even if there had been an etiquette handbook for this, she didn’t have it. She couldn’t even imagine what such a thing would say. Don’t try to rub yourself against his testing, rubbing fingers perhaps, though when she did just that he groaned her name again.
And blessedly, he actually tried for something more. Instead of circling with his thumb he found that slick groove beneath the material of her panties, before sliding two fingers down, down, in an incredibly filthy and absolutely delicious V.
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