by Kaia Bennett
Last night hadn't been enough and ended too hastily for her to be sated. Perhaps that was the reason for the intensity of her response? No, this was the desire of the here and now summoning her, telling her that as soon as her sister left the apartment there would be no buffer between them.
“I’m going to try and make it back tonight before 6,” Jackie said as she grabbed a muffin off the counter. She used the other hand to smooth her dark, glossy hair and made sure it was still in its simple updo. “Barring any impromptu meetings I should be back in time for us to go out later. Maybe try that new Italian place I told you about?”
Nicole nodded and gave Jackie a little smile as she watched her gather up her briefcase. “Sounds good.”
Jackie gave her a kiss on the forehead, her form of an apology since she usually avoided saccharine forms of affection. She’d been feeling guilty she had to work so many hours while Nicole was in town to visit, though.
If it had been any other day, yesterday even, Nicole might have been excited to hear that her sister was going to make more time for her before she headed back home. But in the last twenty-four hours everything had been turned upside down because of Gabriel and their secret tryst.
Jackie left the apartment and despite every cell in her body reaching out for him, Nicole didn’t move. She heard her sister’s footsteps fade down the hall, the distant ding of the elevator, the shuffle of closing doors. Then they were well and truly alone.
He was less than a foot away watching her silently. Her hand trembled slightly as she put away her last cup. The TV buzzed with the weather forecast, and the air conditioner hummed loudly on high. She wondered if she'd even make it out of the apartment today, if she'd get to feel the heat of the sun, or the humidity sticking to her skin and pinning her clothes to her body with sweat. The thought of sweat made her lick her lips, and she thought she could almost taste his. Finally, she felt the heat of his body behind her, and she took hold of the edge of the counter to steady herself.
An altogether different kind of heat wave swept over her senses, and the weatherman’s voice disappeared into the background. She felt like she was in a trance and everything revolved around him now. His hands came to rest on the counter top on either side of hers, enclosing her between his arms. His nose was against her hair, breathing in her scent. Her hair smelled of her lilac scented shampoo and she wondered if he liked the smell. He answered her silent question when he inhaled deeply and moaned in pleasure. Slowly, he swept her thick, bistre locks away from her shoulder, his fingers like the brush of a feather as they lingered over her skin.
"Shouldn't you be going to work, too?"
Nicole tried to block out the feel of his breath against her skin as he leaned down and pressed his lips to the sweet spot below her ear. He hooked his tongue through one of the many silver hoops lining her right ear and tugged lightly.
"I took off today," he answered. His deep, gruff timbre sent an involuntary shiver through her body. When he added “Just for you,” while his soft lips barely caressed her skin she completely melted inside.
His fingers traveled down the indent of her back, caressing her spine through the flimsy fabric of her shirt, and she leaned into his touch. The movement caused her ass to press against the hard length hiding within his jeans and she squirmed shamelessly against him. She struggled to steady her breath, which was now picking up speed to match her pounding heart.
“Why?" she asked. She already knew the answer, but needed to hear him say it. She needed to hear Gabriel finally say the words she’d imagined him saying for years.
"Last night wasn't nearly enough."
Reaching around to her front, he grabbed her breasts, pulled her against his hard torso and kneaded the soft, full globes in rhythmic circles. It made her so wet she had to clench her thighs against the powerful rush of her own arousal.
"That means we've got all day," he said softly, "hours and hours and hours, to see how much of a dirty girl you really are, Nicole."
He squeezed her breasts even harder, making her gasp, and she could’ve sworn he was smiling against her hair. He pinched her nipples, twirling them between his thumb and forefinger, pulling at them until a throaty moan tumbled out of her mouth.
"You're gonna be a dirty girl for me, aren't you?"
"Yes," she said without hesitation, unsure if it was his hands on her aching breasts, or his usually quiet and sweet demeanor melting away, that undid her. Gabriel was never like this before. Or was he? Maybe she just wasn't paying attention before. Maybe she was too caught up in seeing him the way she wanted to, in imagining him the way she wanted him to be for all those years she had carried a torch.
The fantasy had nothing on the reality. She found that out yesterday, that torturous and crazy day that started it all. The old Gabriel was sweet and quiet, but there was another side she had only glimpsed. She was ready to see more now. She was ready to see if there was another side to her, too.
Reaching behind her, between their bodies, she cupped the hard cock that was rubbing insistently against her round ass only moments before. She squeezed hard, knowing now that was how he liked it, and the sound of his groan confirmed it.
"Good," he said simply.
All too soon he released her. He didn’t step away from the counter, though. He stayed behind her, consuming her with the heat and the smell of him, possessing her with his words. "You can start by turning around."
She did, slowly. She’d only just begun to understand how sexy it was to follow his orders. They were almost as sexy as the man delivering them. She turned to face him. His chocolate brown eyes stared down at her over the upward tilt of his nose. Her gaze devoured the full, sensuous curve of his lips, the small indent in his strong chin, and his soft, dark brown hair. His skin was the tanned color of coffee with lots of cream and she wanted to drink him in. It always reminded her of coffee flavored ice cream, her favorite kind, and she couldn’t help but swirl her tongue against the roof of her mouth as she imagined tasting him again.
He was obviously thinking about her putting her mouth to good use, too. It was in his eyes, clear as day and in his voice when he gave her the next command.
"Get on your knees.”
There was hunger and a slight dare to protest underneath the quiet order that was new, that excited her beyond reason. All her doubts and fears quietly shuffled backwards into the dark recesses of her mind, leaving only the compulsion to submit. Licking her lips, her eyes locked with his as she slowly slid down the counter until her bare knees touched the cool tiles of the floor.
She gripped his thighs while he unzipped his jeans, pulled out his cock and stroked it a few times. He built up the anticipation, made her mouth water with her impending task, then extended it and waited for her to invite him in. She took him into her mouth eagerly, each stroke building up the intensity, the urgency, until she was nothing but the vessel that quenched his need.
Gabriel rammed his member into the back of her throat and felt the vibrations as she moaned over him. She looked up into his eyes as he pulled all the way out and rubbed the tip over her full, swollen lips. Her shaky inhales wafted over the sensitive head and a trail of spit connected her mouth to his full, near-to-bursting cock. She jerked his shaft with a tight clenching fist and her mouth engulfed him again. Her soft fingertips tickled the hairs on his inner thighs and the muscles tensed and relaxed under her hands. She was so open to him, so ready and tuned in to his responses. The second his body grew rigid with its impending release she grew frantic, slurping on the silky veined flesh and stroking him towards ecstasy.
"Here it comes, sweetheart," he groaned through shallow breaths while he gripped the back of her head. Her moan vibrated through him and she gazed up hungrily, wide eyes watering with the strain of taking him into her throat. And yet she was so eager to please. Two images warred with one another. The one he’d dubbed Innocent Nicole peered out of those pretty, glassy eyes, the girl he knew and hated himself for taking advantage of. She
wasn’t alone; Innocent Nicole was who he was used to, who he’d convinced himself she was, but there was a vixen in there, too. She wasn’t afraid of him, of what he was doing to her. She wanted more. He knew when she held him behind his thighs and pulled him closer that she was ready to take every last drop he had to give.
"Fuck...oh f-fuck that's good...swallow it all..."
All other words died in his throat. She drained him, swallowing down as much of him as she could as he filled her mouth to overflowing. He hunched over as the shivers took hold, one hand gripping the edge of the counter while the other tangled in her dark hair. He couldn’t help himself, the rough treatment he was giving her. When he came back down to earth he pulled back her head to watch her face as he slid out of her mouth. What he saw was watery eyes and a self-satisfied smile as she pulled her mouth off of him, stroking her spit over his dwindling length. His body was racked with an aftershock when she wiped almost daintily at the remnants of his release and sucked it off her fingers.
"Dirty enough for you?" she asked when she was through.
His voice came out in a choked, throaty laugh. "Getting there," he replied. It was the truth. His mind was swimming with nasty fantasies he’d never before entertained. Now he had all day, the rest of the week if he wanted, to test her willingness and his own depravity. He motioned for her to come to her feet as he tucked himself back into his jeans with a shaky hand.
His gaze was on her bottom lip, watching as her tongue slid across it to savor his taste. He cupped her face and let his thumb follow the trail her tongue had made. He teased the entrance to her mouth before he slid it in. Gabriel released a soft involuntary groan at the sight of her sucking, her chest heaving and her eyes relaying her eagerness for everything he had planned.
“I couldn't sleep at all last night,” Gabriel said absently, continuing to toy with her. “I just kept thinking about you on my bed...touching yourself and calling out my name."
Her breath hitched in her throat, embarrassment warring with lust when she averted her gaze. But she didn't stop sucking on his thumb, and when he used his fingers to lift her chin she didn’t look away again. He removed his thumb from her mouth and quickly replaced it with his tongue as he tugged her to him. He let her melt into his kiss for a moment before pulling away.
"I didn't get the chance to fully appreciate it yesterday," he said with a laugh. “You know what that means, right?”
Her voice had only the slightest tremor of nervousness when she said, "Let me guess. You want a repeat performance, right?"
And it wasn’t just that she understood what he meant. It was that she wanted it, too. She made it plain. She was going to play along. She was going to continue to surprise him and challenge him. She was going to be his partner in crime, and his bedroom was going to be their crime scene. For a long moment he couldn’t even speak. All he could do was take her in, memorizing this moment, the calm before the storm. Something serious passed between them, something weightier than he could truly comprehend. So, he retreated to the levity that had always been so easily shared between them.
"Smart and dirty,” he said with a crooked grin. “How did I let you sneak past me all this time, little girl?"
She shrugged, and her hands ran over the hard planes of his abdomen under his shirt.
His eyes flitted over hers for a moment and they softened under his steady gaze. He wondered if it was regret he saw in their inky depths. He wondered just how long he hadn’t been paying attention. But thinking too much about that meant he was skirting too close to the edge of his own regrets, his own guilt, which he knew were waiting for him on the other side of this impromptu affair. It wasn’t as if what they were doing was particularly smart. Keeping Jackie in the dark would be a daring circus act without a safety net. And hurting Nicole was, if he believed Jackie, not only possible, but inevitable. There was a moment where he wondered if he should stop. If he even could have at this point he might have. But then she leaned and kissed him slowly, deeply.
"I guess you just weren't paying attention," she said when she pulled away.
He smiled almost sheepishly. "No. I guess I wasn't."
"And now?"
He relished the tremor in her limbs and the innocence in her eyes as he walked backwards, pulling her with him. His smile was far from sheepish now.
"Now I want my show. And I want you in nothing but that little skirt when you give it to me."
Nicole always thought she had a slight fetish for unrequited love, for lust that never reached its peak.
When she was five she had a crush on Seth, an adorable blond-haired boy who she couldn’t remember speaking a solitary word from the time she met him until the time Kindergarten ended. He was a silent golden-haired symbol of happiness and she was convinced she would marry him in a lavish ceremony presided over by her friends, her Kindergarten teacher – Miss Jean gave the best hugs – her stuffed animals and, of course, Jackie. She would probably insist on playing the role of priest.
But alas, Seth wasn’t interested in happily-ever-afters or kisses of undying love on the cheek. He wasn’t even aware enough to think she had cooties. He was merely indifferent. And that quest to rouse a boy out of indifference, to have an adventure of the heart, would follow her through middle school boyfriends, into high school and right into her decision to have sex on Nathan Oliver’s rec room couch the summer before her senior year.
Indifferent. Unrequited. Unsatisfying. These feelings were the soft soil where the seeds of crushes could be planted by her imagination. Meanwhile, the boys planted the seeds of conquest instead.
Nicole never saw herself as a victim. Not truly. She knew, with a twisted sort of indifference of her own, that the guys she’d chosen to walk her through her awakening were chosen because she couldn’t handle anything bigger than the Ferris Wheel highs and lows of “love”. Real love was a roller coaster. Real love was a 100-foot drop where rocks might be waiting below. Real love was a horror movie without end credits, without music to let you know something was coming around the corner. Real love was depending on someone to save her from herself.
So, being prone to dramatic flights of fantasy as she was, she clung to fake, gilded versions of that illusive counterpart to lust. She built it up, she forced herself to soar and feel as deeply as the shallow end would allow. When Christian came along she allowed herself to think for a moment, Maybe this is it. Maybe I faked it till I made it, and now this is what love feels like.
She gave him what she thought love was. She gave him time. She gave him energy. She gave him her body in the ways that excited him. She gave him her guilt, too. Because sometimes when he was excited she was as well, only the source of her excitement was Gabriel and fantasies of him touching her and being inside of her. In a way she’d been putting on a show long before Gabriel ever noticed. It was a show for herself, a one-woman interpretive dance performance where every guy was doomed to let her down. Ian and Jackie inadvertently pointed this out, the day they were walking through the mall looking for a present for Ian’s mother’s birthday.
“I have no idea what to get that woman, and he is no help at all,” Jackie said, jabbing a thumb in Ian’s direction as she leaned into his taller frame.
“Welcome to my world. You’ll get used to it,” Ian said matter-of-factly. He gave her a kiss on top of her head and stopped at the jewelry store they’d been headed to.
Beside her Jackie startled slightly, following him in a sort of daze as if his words had opened a door of truth she hadn’t previously noticed was there.
Jackie looked spooked, and Nicole realized immediately what made her older sister falter.
She loved Ian. A lot. This wasn’t Jackie’s first serious relationship by any stretch of the imagination. But this was the first one where a guy had insinuated without even blinking that she was going to be a staple in his life for years to come. Jackie was used to more drama, more uncertainty. And in some ways with Ian she’d been courting that drama, testing him and b
eing shocked when he passed without even trying.
Nicole realized she had been courting a similar kind of drama, just in her own way, in the opposite way of her sister. While Jackie prided herself on her independence, Nicole prided herself on being the consummate romantic. And that had allowed her to convince herself she wanted to be in a relationship, to settle for companionship with benefits, when really what she wanted to be was in love. With the right person. A person who made her feel things she couldn’t control or contain. A person who scared her a little.
Someone who could shock her from the waking dream she was living and into the deep end of the ocean of experience. Sometimes she doubted he was out there. Sometimes she pretended she’d found him in the guy she was dating. And sometimes she dreamed that he had Gabriel’s handsome face and warm heart, a heart that only she had the key to.
Gabriel lay naked on his side, his body seemingly relaxed as he propped himself up on one elbow and watched. But the last thing he felt was relaxed. His eyes were locked on Nicole, and he was having trouble deciding where to look. On the one hand there were her breasts, soft and weighty, with those hard, dark chocolate nipples pointing straight at him. They swayed towards and away from him, following the back and forth rhythm of her hips as they rocked against her fingers. There were those soft curvy hips and stomach. And then there were her thighs spread wide on his bed as she knelt in front of him, the sight of her stroking fingers cast in shadow under the fabric of that little pleated skirt.
He moistened his lips, his mouth suddenly dry as he found it harder and harder to breathe. There were so many things about Nicole that were driving him crazy now that he was allowing himself to really look at her. Her skin was warm, velvety, and felt even softer under his fingertips than it looked. There wasn't a part of her that couldn't be classified as curvy, even if her arms and legs were long and toned, and he loved the way the contours of her body fit in his greedy palms. But it was her face that really took his breath away. Her sable eyes were locked on his, watching and waiting for him to take her, forced to stoke her own heat while he reclined just inches away. Her cute nose and round cheeks, which he used to pinch for fun, her red and swollen lips and the gasps that escaped them. All of it made him crazy. But nothing made him crazier than the sound of her voice, husky and urgent with arousal.