TIME

by Penny Reid

  Well, that escalated quickly.

  I gasped, my eyes closing, my head hitting the wall at my back, my hands fisting in the comforter on either side of me while my body dichotomously froze and melted. I couldn’t breathe.

  I can’t breathe.

  “I can feel you,” he said, his voice still a growl as the pad of his thumb circled me through the two layers of fabric, pressing, searching. “You’re so wet. Is that for me?”

  “As the, uh.” As the prophesy foretold. “And thus, I die,” I choked out instead and tried to shrug, making a joke of it, because—OMFG—I was ten seconds from orgasming. Honestly and truly. My lungs were on fire, my body clenching around emptiness, my skin stretched too thin.

  And I was mortified.

  He’d barely touched me. There’d been no buildup. One small stroke followed by two barely there circles, and my body had gone zero to the speed of light.

  I can’t breathe.

  Some abrupt instinct had me clawing at his wrist, my hand fisting around his thumb to stop the efficient circles. I was wound too tight, it—everything—felt overwhelming.

  “I—I’m—”

  “Shh. Let me.” His lips were on my neck, making me shiver, and he pried my fumbling hands away, threading our fingers together.

  And then he was guiding me to my back.

  And then I was lying down.

  And then he was there, over me.

  I experienced a split second of pure terror, of fear, my mind telling me that someone was above me, covering me, holding me down, and I couldn’t move. Then Abram came into focus, settling himself between my open legs. Abram’s scent filled my lungs. Abram’s hips spread me wider. Abram’s mouth sucked at my neck, eliciting more shivers, and my terror was nearly eclipsed by the surfacing wonder of seduction.

  Abram rolled his pelvis, and the hard length his erection pressed right where I needed. Fear diminished, waned, but didn’t completely extinguish. It became a quiet whisper instead of a clamorous shriek, inexplicably amplifying my senses without overwhelming them.

  I can’t breathe.

  But I did breathe. I inhaled him, the Abram fragrance that both calmed and excited me. It spread like a velvety cloud, invading and liquifying each clandestine corner and hidden space and secret desire. It communicated a history without words: security and safety, longing and need.

  I gasped again, my back arching sharply, my hips wanting to move. “What—what—oh God.”

  He made a noise, it sounded frustrated, his breathing now labored, his body heavy—so heavy—above me. Holding my hands on either side of my head, he rocked, sliding up and down, stroking me through our layers of clothes. I couldn’t move. I was wholly trapped, inexorably tangled up and in and by Abram.

  I should’ve been feeling panic. I wasn’t. I was no longer the Mona who didn’t like to be touched or crowded. I was a cluster of nerves and dark wants, wanting this man to cover me, hold me down, take over. I enjoyed the loss of control, how my fear mingled with pleasure, heightening every sense and sensation.

  This, what we were doing, definitely hadn’t been on any of my lists. We were fully clothed. Our bodies were touching through layers, but my hands were confined. His mouth was still on my neck, his breath falling on my skin, causing goose bumps, tingles, shivers, and heat. So much heat.

  The only time I’d done anything close to what Abram and I were doing now had been last week, in the pool, when we’d mindlessly attacked each other. Nothing about this should have been sexy. But it was. I shouldn’t have wanted to be possessed and overpowered in this way. But I did.

  It was the most spectacularly sensual event of my life. Yet, even as it happened, I knew this conclusion made no sense. It felt incomprehensible, indecent, scandalous, and the indecency quenched some hidden, unacknowledged thirst.

  “I think I’m going to—”

  Abram kissed me, stopping my words, his tongue coaxing, a complete contradiction to the hard press of his body. Releasing my hand closest to the wall, he leaned to the opposite side, still caging me in, stroking his fingers from my breast to my stomach and replacing his erection with his palm.

  I groaned at the loss of him, of the heaviness and friction, until his hand slid inside my underwear and he parted me with his fingers.

  I was sweating. My heart was racing. My mind was swimming. I still couldn’t breathe, but his scent was everywhere. He was everywhere. He was inside me, his hand in my pants, moving rhythmically in a way that—in the moment—felt wholly illicit, forbidden. He captured my cries and moans with his mouth, keeping me quiet like my pleasure was a secret, just for him.

  I came, a shock of fire searing my nerves, to my fingers and toes, bursting behind my eyes. His composure, power, and precision made me crazed, made me feel as though I was his toy, or his instrument, and he was in total control. Bafflingly, I loved it.

  His fingers thrust more forcefully, deeper, rubbing and stroking, prolonging my climax until I was boneless, exhausted, spent, sore low in my belly, and left with a cavernous ache in my chest. His amazing body, big and powerful, hard and mercenary next to mine, petting me, telling me wonderful and wicked things.

  You are so fucking sexy.

  I love watching you come. I love the way you feel. I love watching you lose control.

  Do you want me here? Do you want me inside you?

  Next time, I want the taste of you on my tongue.

  Or, were those my thoughts? Did he say them? Or did I wish for them?

  As the last of the spasms shook me and before I could disentangle myself, I turned toward him. He was gone. He’d left the bed. Rolling off and immediately pacing away.

  Discombobulated and disheveled, I watched him, his hands braced on the far wall, his shoulders rising and falling. I felt the lack of him, a cold shock. I surfaced by degrees—Mona, me, the thinking, reasoned part of myself—and a sharp spike of alarm abruptly snuffed out any lingering residual exhilaration.

  Why would you let him do that to you?

  Wait. Do what? Touch me?

  He held you down. You couldn’t move, and you liked it.

  I blinked at the internal accusation, remembering the last several minutes as though watching them happen to someone else.

  I’d liked that? I’d like him over me? Holding me down? I’d liked not being able to move? Being touched, possessed, controlled like that? He didn’t ask. However, I didn’t say no. I didn’t ask him to stop. Asking him to stop had never even entered my mind.

  A flood of disbelief was followed by a rising tide of reason, during which I attempted to explain and describe my own desires to myself as something healthy and normal.

  But is it? Is it healthy and normal?

  Yes.

  No.

  Maybe?

  No. You were afraid.

  Was I?

  Yes. And you wanted to be overpowered, you liked it. He could’ve done anything to you, and you would’ve been helpless to stop him. Even now—thinking about the possibility of handing over control again—You. Want. It.

  I did. Just the thought of Abram over me again, his weight covering me—but this time naked, entering me, taking his pleasure from my body—I was completely and wholly arrested by the mere notion. It made me breathless, achy with a new dazzling, blinding thirst.

  Yes. I want it.

  And yet, I shouldn’t want to feel helpless, right? I shouldn’t want to feel overpowered physically. I’d felt that way once, against my will, and it revolted me, it kept me up at night, it gave me nightmares.

  On the other hand.

  With Abram it felt different—the loss of control, the lack of explicit consent, the being conquered sexually, emotionally—and what did that say about me? Was I turning a difficult moment in my life into a fantasy? Just the thought made me sick.

  My internal arguments were becoming circular. Disbelief and reason were pushed aside by a creeping sense of shame and guilt.

  Is there something wrong with me? I shouldn’t
want this, should I? I shouldn’t—

  “Mona.”

  My name in Abram’s voice pulled me out of my shadowy reflections, and I looked at him, comprehending my own position at the same time. I’d rolled to my side, my knees bent and pulled to my chest, my arms locked around my legs. He was kneeling at the side of the bed, his hand hovering over my temple.

  “Are you okay?” he asked, his gaze searching. “Did I—I didn’t hurt you, did I?”

  The trepidation in his voice was a sobering bucket of ice water and I immediately shook my head, pushing myself up. “No. No, not at all.”

  He didn’t look convinced. “What did I do wrong?”

  “Nothing.” I shook my head more resolutely. “You did everything right, you are great.”

  I’m the one who is wrong. I didn’t tell you to stop.

  Abram seemed to be watching me closely, but he still wasn’t touching me. “I had to leave the bed, I was too—uh—worked up, and I only have this one pair of pants.” His mouth curved in a self-deprecating smile, one that didn’t quite reach his eyes and quickly waned. “Do you want me to hold you?”

  Swallowing against a lump in my throat, not trusting myself to speak, I nodded. His hand covered mine in the bed, and—damn it!—I flinched, not meaning to and immediately rebuking myself for the involuntary response.

  Abram’s eyes widened and he moved as though he was going to withdraw, so I caught him, grabbing his arm and using it to pull him forward. Wrapping my arms around his neck, I slid to the floor, to my knees, and held on.

  He hesitated only a fraction of a second, and then closed me in an embrace. But it felt careful, hesitant, as though to communicate I was free to come or go, and that frustrated me.

  There’s something wrong with me, I shouldn’t want—I shook my head. I would have to think about this later. We had no time, and I’d just come apart under his skillful hands. Which meant our relationship was operating under a climax disparity. My confused turmoil would have to wait until the scorecard was even, and he was on a plane back to the West Coast.

  “Hold me tighter,” I demanded. “I need you to hold me tighter.”

  “Are you sure?” His strong arms flexed, but he didn’t draw me any closer.

  “Yes.” I crushed him to me. “Please.”

  It must’ve been the please that did it, thank goodness, and I liquefied in his powerful embrace, loving the constricting feel of the hug, snuggling closer, smelling him, and admitting unthinkingly, “I already miss you.”

  I felt him smile against my shoulder, placing a kiss there. “I already miss you too.”

  “How much time do we have?”

  Abram sighed. “Not enough.”

  Moving my hands down his shoulders, I worked my arms inside his embrace, placing a kiss on the underside of his scruffy jaw, and slid my fingers to the front of his pants.

  “Whoa—” He released my body to capture my hand before I could reach for his fly. “Wait—Mona—what are you doing?”

  I stroked him over his pants with my free hand and a wild thrill raced down my spine at the feel of him, so hard, so ready. I’d never been a big fan of male sex organs, but—in this moment—I wanted to take out an ad in all the newspapers announcing my everlasting devotion to his.

  “I’m going to give you a blow job.”

  “Whoa, okay, stop.” He caught my roaming fingers, his breath a gasp. “First of all, we don’t have time.”

  “I can be fast.”

  “Hold on. I don’t want you to be fast. Like I said before, that would only frustrate me.”

  I kissed his jaw again. “But—”

  “No.”

  I grunted, my hands going slack in his grip, and I leaned away to capture his eyes. “It’s not fair to you.”

  “I’m not worried about fairness,” Abram said on a laugh, his gaze wary, like I was tricky, or had magical powers and couldn’t be trusted.

  “But I—you know—and you didn’t. You didn’t get anything out of it.”

  “Believe me.” His stare softened, warmed, and he released me, sliding his fingers into my hair. “I definitely got something out of it. I will be writing poetry about that moment for the rest of my life.”

  I grunted again. “You should let me reciprocate.”

  “I don’t want you to reciprocate.”

  “I feel like . . .” Like I haven’t earned it.

  Once more, he seemed to be watching me very carefully, and when I didn’t continue, he prompted, “Like?”

  “It feels like an injustice, that only I should have this experience. Alone. And the next time we’ll see each other isn’t for three weeks.”

  Abram’s eyes narrowed. “Is that what it’s really about? Because you don’t owe me anything.”

  “I know that,” I said automatically.

  “Do you? Do you know, do you understand, that I’m always going to want to pamper and please you? That making you come, seeing you blissed out and hearing you panting is like a drug for me?”

  My stomach twisted delightfully at the picture he painted even as my spine straightened at the use of the word drug. “I don’t want to be your drug.”

  “Too late.” He grinned, his glorious left dimple completely adorable, almost distracting me from my concern.

  “Can’t I just be your person?” I asked, my eyes flickering between his and the thought-derailing dimple on his left cheek.

  “Can’t you be both?” Abram slid his nose against mine, giving my lips a tender kiss. “Can’t I be both for you?”

  “No. I don’t think so,” I said honestly, tilting my head such that I had his eyes again. “Drugs are altering. Addictive.”

  “That seems just about right.” Another grin, a chuckle, and his arms came around me.

  “But, Abram, I don’t want to alter you. I want you—who you fundamentally are—to stay intact. And being someone’s addiction automatically implies an unhealthy dependence. And—”

  He stopped me with another coaxing, seductive kiss, his hands sliding into the back of my underwear and massaging my bottom, muddling my brain. God, that feels good.

  Wait. What were we talking about?

  I had no idea.

  Must not be important.

  Relative to his mouth moving against mine, his hands in my pants, the press of his erection against my belly, and the building “bliss” (as he called it), whatever I’d wanted to say didn’t seem terribly important.

  I kissed him back. I floated on the high that was Abram’s mouth and hands, taste and smell. And when we were interrupted, it was the alarms we’d set on our phones.

  He had to go.

  Our time was up.

  5

  Kepler's Laws Derived

  *Mona*

  I spent the entire drive back from the airport and the climb up Lisa’s four flights of stairs calculating and recalculating the number of hours, minutes, and seconds until I would see Abram again. Was I doing this to avoid dwelling on my earlier shame-confusion? Perhaps.

  Pushing aside cloudy uncertainty had been easy while Abram was here. Our time was short. Therefore, reason told me I shouldn’t waste a single second on self-assessments and second-guessing a fantastic orgasm.

  I mean, fantastic orgasms don’t grow on trees. And if they did, they’d be avocado trees, where the flowers bloom only once a season as female, and then forever after as male. They’re a fruit miracle.

  But now, now that he was gone, now that I’d walked him as far as I could, wrapped him in my arms and kissed him one more time, and waited until he waved at me from the other side of security, now I had no excuse. Except, I really needed to double-check my numbers with a calculator, just to be sure. Or maybe I’d make a countdown on my phone.

  Yes. That was the right answer.

  I was going to hard core make a countdown until Abram-time on my phone, or maybe using one of those countdown apps. Perhaps I’d even order a scrolling style marquee for my temporary housing in Geneva.

&nb
sp; Nope. You need to save your pennies for plane tickets.

  On that note, I decided sorting through my simmering shame-confusion would have to wait for a while longer as I had discount travel alerts to set up. Perhaps I would poke around a bit, see if I could fly out now for a visit. Where was he this week? Portland? San Francisco? Las Vegas? So close to LA.

  After checking on tickets, I should probably check my emails, take a peek at the backend data processing requests I’d put in before leaving for Aspen, finish my lit search of two of my upcoming papers, and then—whoa, look at the time!—I should go to bed early. A good night’s sleep was the key to being well-rested, and being well-rested was the key to Satan’s liquor cabinet—

  Wait. No. That’s not right.

  I frowned at the exterior to Lisa’s apartment door, twisting the key in the lock, pushing it open while I considered what being well-rested might be the key to, and came face-to-face with Gabby.

  AH! “Ah!”

  “There you are!”

  I flinched, retreating one step into the hallway, but she was fast. Before I knew what was happening, she’d pulled me through the door, shut it, and tugged me into the living room.

  “You startled me. How did you—”

  “I could hear you coming up the stairs. You have the gait of an elephant.” Gabby waved one hand in the air while steering me with the other. “Come. Sit. Tell us everything that happened.” Before I’d thought to extract myself from her grabby hands, she’d deposited me onto the couch, picked up a glass of wine, and pushed it at me. “Take it and spill.”

  “Don’t spill the wine, spill the story,” Lisa clarified, juggling three bowls as she walked out of the kitchen, a big, anxious-looking smile pasted on her face and aimed at me.

  The last time I’d seen Lisa was this morning, when I’d asked Abram to give us a minute to talk. She’d been visibly flustered and rushed to offer the use of her car before leaving the apartment in a hurry to give us some space.

  I was a little surprised to see her now.

  “I put out the sundae stuff already.” Lisa placed the first of the three bowls next to me on the couch. “Therefore, you have your choice of a banana split or whatever you want.”