by Chloe Liese
“You don’t get to choose. It’s one of the four fucking things you didn’t redline. Available at my demand. Whenever, wherever. So, open the goddamn door, Nairne.”
She groaned and the door creaked as it pulled away from the frame. I walked in and shut out the frigid air. She used a rolling walker that I hadn’t seen before and dropped down onto the sofa. Tucked her legs up with her, stuffed a pillow between them, and stared at the TV.
I glanced at it and froze.
A professional soccer field. Bright green and expansive. With a bunch of female athletes suspended in recorded time. I lowered to the edge of the sofa and ran a hand up her leg. She wiped her nose and hit the button to resume the video.
It took me a minute to find her because her hair was lighter and pulled taut in a short ponytail that bounced while she ran the field. I found her soon enough though, at the top. The lone striker. She was the Nairne I knew, just with twenty pounds more muscle and the classic soccer physique. Powerful quads, defined arms, and a long-distance leanness to her frame.
Her body moved on the field like she and physics had had a talk and decided she could have a pass. Gravity was Nairne’s bitch. Inertia didn’t touch her, but it landed anyone defending her on their asses. Small leads of her foot tricked her opposition to commit, then she’d cut the other direction and blast by. Friction and torque obeyed her every command, each touch sure and effortless, and her shots bent with terrifying accuracy. She was better than most professionals I’d ever seen play, unquestionably better than anyone I’d shared the field with. Pride filled my chest.
Nairne sniffed and wiped her nose with her sleeve and burrowed deeper into her pillow. I held my hand on her hip, gentling it with circular touches. I couldn’t say anything. Nothing I could do to fix it or make what she lost less so. So, I sat there in her reality and admired the hell out of her, absorbed in every move that striker pulled up top. I couldn’t get over how scrappy she was, fighting for possession at each moment.
I recognized the sheer determination that infused her every day. Nairne lived like that no matter where she was. It was who she was at her core—tenacious, unrelenting, and wildly talented at whatever she set her mind to.
One of Nairne’s defenders—probably the next best player, who looked a lot like Elodie—stripped the other team’s offense and cleared a beautiful long ball down the field to Nairne. Nairne flicked it with her head, spun off, and left her opponent rolling on her ass. She streaked up the field, drawing out the keeper, who looked nervous about who was barreling toward her.
Nairne feigned right around the thirty-yard line and the goalie took the bait. Then she cut and fucking nutmegged the keep, zipped the ball through the exact space between the diving keeper and cut around. One-touched it with her left foot, chipping it in the air, and dropped it gracefully in the middle of the goal. She spun at a velocity that should have caused a centripetal tip and turned away from the ball before it was completely in the net.
Nairne sniffed again and hit the fast forward button. “I was cocky.”
“You had every reason to be. You were insanely good, fragolina.” I scooched her way and lifted her legs on top of my lap, started kneading them how she liked. “I’m glad I never met you in youth academies. You would have handed me my ass. Crushed my dreams.”
Her eyes slid toward me and she smiled faintly. Then she tilted her head back toward the TV and hit play. Nairne’s team was positioned for a corner kick. A well-placed ball from her friend sailed into the box. Nairne leapt with an impressive vertical jump, her athleticism and agility on full display. She was the tallest woman on the field, and her head made contact above the swarm of players, then flicked the ball toward the goal.
The keeper punched the air and missed as the ball careened into the net. But the moment for celebrating was preempted instantly when Nairne’s body began its descent. Behind her, a player crashed backward, catapulting into Nairne’s legs. At the same moment, another defender barreled over top, slamming her torso violently back over the player beneath her. Her legs were pinned down, and Nairne’s upper body hyperextended, her back bending in a horribly unnatural contortion.
My body shook in revulsion at the pain she had experienced, and I grimaced, dropping my head down as a wave of nausea came.
“Hyperflexion. Usually happens to rugby players.” She reached for a tissue and blew, then chucked it on the floor. “Coaches always said I played too physical.”
We both knew it was a fluke. A terrible, life-altering fluke that epitomized how extensive and arbitrary suffering could be. I’d watched the moment in which her human susceptibility to life-changing chance transmuted from abstract to concrete. Where bad luck became broken bones and lost dreams, and never going back. I wanted to crush that moment to dust in my palms and send it back into the nebula. To reach into the construct of time and give her everything that might have protected her.
But I couldn’t. And if I had, we probably never would have met, and who knows what kind of life she’d be leading. I could un-wish her circumstances for her sake, but I’d never wish her different. “I’m sorry, Nairne.”
She nodded as tears tracked down her face. I’d never seen her cry and its physical impact on my body was white hot pain stabbing my chest. I scooped her up and pulled her in my arms while she soaked my shirt with silent tears.
“Today’s the anniversary,” I whispered. It wasn’t a question. I was telling her that I knew. That she didn’t have to explain to be understood. That was part of how we worked.
She nodded against my shoulder. “Some days, Zed, I just can’t…I can’t…” She was silent as more tears formed tributaries down her cheeks and slipped along her chin.
I hugged her tightly and kissed her hair.
“You’re going to have bad days. It’s okay.”
Her tears didn’t stop, and I rocked her, letting her slowly drift off.
“You know, sometimes,” she muttered, half-asleep, “I get angry at you, for wasting your talent. I’d give anything to play the game again. And you’re here throwing away your best years, your perfect legs on US footie.”
America wasn’t known for its soccer, but we weren’t that bad. Nairne just held the extra-European prejudice against it. She wasn’t wrong in the sense that the best players did play in Europe, but it still almost made me chuckle, how disapproving she sounded. “I understand what you’re saying, but it’s not a waste, Nairne. It’s just…prioritizing.”
It sat on the edge of my tongue, to explain myself. I didn’t talk about it, because I didn’t want my rationale challenged. I’d made my decision, and I was committed to my family, to this world. Yet, with Nairne, I had a rare impulse to dissect it, to break down the structure of my choices and actually reconsider how I might build my future.
“Sleep, innamorata. We’ll talk more when you’re rested.”
Emerald eyes shut, and she was peaceful in my arms.
Twenty-Five
Zed
I woke up when she did, with a crick in my neck from letting my head fall back onto the sofa while I held her. She squirmed in my lap as she stretched and looked me over. Sharp green eyes. Milky skin. A pretty bird’s nest of auburn hair. Absolutely fuckable.
She shifted again and sat up slowly. “I need the lavvy.”
I nodded, helped her swing her legs off me, and watched her use the walker to move gingerly toward the bathroom. It looked like her back hurt like a bitch. Because it probably did. She hadn’t napped in a good position and I was an asshole for letting that happen.
While she was gone, I looked around her place, which hit that sweet spot of historic charm and modern upgrades. Tall windows and ceilings, everything painted a fresh, luminous white. Walls covered with a miscellany of framed art prints and sci-fi posters. It was bright as hell, late-morning sun bouncing off the walls and burning your retinas. Not really the environment I’d imagined for our first time. I’d had visions of candlelight and nighttime in my bed. Taking her slow and
just edging her until she threatened to kill me.
But the art of this lifestyle was adaptability, creativity, and trusting the intuition of the moment. The timing felt right—raw, confessional, open. The exact moment to bring it home.
She came back, sank slowly down to the sofa, and shoved the walker away like it had personally offended her. “Piece of geriatric trash.” She was grumbly and sore in her soul and her bones. Time to fix that.
“Lower your pants to your ankles and spread your legs for me so I can see that beautiful cunt.”
Nairne’s head snapped to me and her eyes widened. “Now?”
“Whenever, wherever, innamorata. I shouldn’t have to tell you that. Pants. Down.” God, I loved that I could say that. That she wanted me to say that because it got her soaked.
She seemed to deliberate a minute—head tilted, eyes narrowed—until the faintest smile broke over her face. First one I’d seen in days. She swallowed and squirmed as she tugged down her leggings, until the stretchy fabric landed with a snap, tight at her ankles.
I swallowed as I stood, feeling my cock strain against my joggers, throbbing with a pulse as I watched her. I threw off my ball cap and raked a hand through my hair. Grabbed my hoodie and shirt by the back and yanked them off.
Her cheeks flushed. She pulled her thighs apart until they were a generous, obtuse angle, and I had an easy view of her glistening cunt.
“Good.”
I walked toward her, and her eyes went straight to my cock, which jutted at her from my sweats. She licked her lips.
“Touch yourself.”
Her hands went straight down to her wet seam. She circled her clit, glancing down at herself, then back up to me. I palmed myself, rubbed up and down, and a sound caught in her throat. Her fingers dipped inside.
“You want my cock, fragolina?”
“Fuck, yes.”
I tsked, reached inside my sweats, and fisted myself. “Is that how you were taught to speak?”
“Yes, please.” She said it instantly, softly. Nairne was there. Done fighting me, done telling me to piss off or go fuck myself. She wanted me, us, just how we were. My balls ached with the satisfaction of it.
“Lie down.”
She did. I stuffed pillows under her back and scooted her higher, until her head rested on the arm of the couch. Her breath came in shallow, shaky bursts and her eyes searched mine. I climbed over her and ran my hand along her slit. “Drenched. Your body will never lie, Nairne. You love this.”
She groaned and writhed. Nairne loved and hated how much my assholery got to her. “Yes.”
I ripped off her leggings and splayed her legs wide. Teased her clit, shoved her t-shirt up her ribcage, then sucked hard on each nipple before releasing them with a pop.
She bucked underneath me. “Please,” she whispered.
“You’ll wait.” Delay was crucial. Anticipation got her seventy percent there. Orgasm was harder for her body. She needed the mindfuck, the build-up, so that by the time I speared her with my cock, she was rounding third base.
“Feel how ready you are?”
She nodded silently, eyes scrunched as I fucked her with my fingers and roughed her clit with my thumb. “This is surrender. You’re mine, to torture and please, innamorata.”
“Zed.” She groaned my name as I curled my fingers against her g-spot. I was going to pound into that in just a minute, and the anticipation of it had my balls tight. She bit her lip as I teased her, slow and steady. She was panting and her face scrunched in the agony-tinged pleasure of edging.
“Open your eyes and watch me fuck you.”
Her gaze snapped open. She stared down as I shoved my pants to my knees and fisted my dick. I was painfully hard. A few more tugs and I’d be done. I let go, slid a hand down her entrance, and covered myself in her arousal.
Her eyes widened. “Oh, god.”
I slid along her wet seam “Who?”
She stared down at us and swallowed. “Zed.”
“That’s right.” I lined myself up and impaled her in one thrust. A vowel of pleasure stuck in her throat. She moaned it out, then grabbed my shoulders. She was swollen and slick. I drew back and saw stars. “What color are your eyes?”
“Green,” she gasped as I drove in again. I bit her breast and sucked on the smarting skin.
“Beautiful,” I said. “So beautiful.”
She was. Splayed open for me, auburn hair against the sofa’s midnight blue. Emerald eyes clouded with the haze of need. I thrust, slow and hard into her, savoring every clench of her walls, the way air rushed out of her every time I drove in.
The room had great acoustics (no carpets to trip her up), so our sounds echoed in the space. The involuntary grunt that left me every time I drilled into her, the bursts of air from her lungs, and her quiet cries as she got closer. I found some place of control that held back my orgasm, as heat surged up my legs and tingled in the base of my spine.
I sank into her, held myself to the root, and ground against her clit.
She keened. “Oh, g—”
I lifted her leg enough to smack her ass. Crack. “I give you pleasure, not him.”
“Zed!” she cried. Her body shook, and her cunt started clenching around me.
I spanked her again. “You’ll come for me.”
Crack.
“And it’s mine.”
Crack.
“Understood?”
Her head flew back, and I clasped her jaw, dragged it down until her eyes met mine. “You watch while I make you come.”
“Yes!”
I squeezed her hip in my grasp and rutted into her. She exploded around me, and her eyes didn’t leave mine. They widened as she screamed, as a cry of ecstasy morphed into raw emotion.
I’d expected it. She’d been bottling it up, and this kind of release was a valve for depressurizing. She sobbed as I carefully pulled her toward me on her side, and held her to me while I was still seated inside of her. My palm rounded her ass and gentled her while I kissed her lips and her tears. “Shh, fragolina.”
Her arms wrapped around me hard and she buried her head in my neck. Cried a few more sobs until she took a deep breath and blew out slowly.
I kissed her hair and pulled her tighter to me. “Talk to me.”
She exhaled shakily again. “I don’t have words. I’m just…that day, remembering it. Seeing where I am. It’s a lot of emotions.”
I nodded, smoothed her hair back from her face. “You’re an incredible human being, Nairne. You’re resilient and insanely strong. Look at the life you’ve made from your pain. You’re allowed to grieve, but I want you to be proud, too.”
She shook her head slowly. “You can be very sweet sometimes. I’m not sure what to do with it.”
I ignored that and kissed her hard. “You’re also a fantastically raunchy fuck.”
She laughed. “Yes, I am, aren’t I?”
I pulled out slowly, kissed her, enjoyed her mouth. Ran my hands along her long body and told her a lot of filthy things she made me think as she laughed some more and wiped her eyes.
“Zed. I want to tell you something.” She tried to pull away, but I held her to me. “It’s obvious by now that how I am with you sexually isn’t a new preference of mine.” She swallowed and searched my eyes. “I never knew it was so ingrained in people. When I discovered it about myself, I was young. I just knew what made me come.”
I waited and watched her.
“And I didn’t want it to be that fundamental to my sexuality. Because…” She cleared her throat. “I had a bad experience with a man. It put me off it.”
I held her tightly. “Did someone hurt you?”
She smiled sadly. “Tried to. Elodie rescued me. But…it was complicated for a while after that. I don’t want to get into the Dark Days, but I wanted you to know, I’ve been battling over what it means to embrace this again. I know telling you sooner would have clarified some misunderstandings…it’s just something I preferred to leave in the
past.”
I had to shelve the anger that welled up inside me when I thought about a man trying to hurt Nairne. I tucked a stray hair behind her ear. “I’m sorry that what I asked of you was triggering. And you’re right, I want to know more when you’re ready to talk.”
She shrugged. “It wasn’t triggering so much as confusing. You wanted that with me, but so much more, too. The emotional and relational component of it. It feels different, and I like it, surprisingly.”
“Different people need different things to get their mind somewhere unencumbered, Nairne—open to pleasure. It’s just hardwiring.”
Her head tilted. “I actually read something about that, recently.”
I frowned jokingly. “No. You read?”
She rolled her eyes and otherwise ignored me. “A neuroscience publication. I wanted to try to make sense of why I have this response.” She shook her head, pulled away enough to look me in the eye and run her fingers through my hair. “I used to run myself to the ground—”
“I’d argue you still do,” I interjected. “Nobody goes to MIT in three years for biomedical engineering, Nairne.”
She nodded. “Right. Well, I think my brain’s happiest when I’m pushing myself. Like after training when I played, I’d go for another run. I needed to feel boneless, just like you say about…this thing we do. It’s the hippocampus. It kicks in, shoots nature’s narcotic through my system—adrenaline, dopamine—and overrides the pain signal, until it’s all—”
“Pleasure.”
“Yeah.” She smiled. Then she scraped her nails into my scalp and bit me with her kiss.
“God, we’re in trouble.” I kissed her back and let her bite me again. I was hard, and I pressed myself against her.
She smiled and tilted herself toward me.
“How is it like this?” she whispered. “Why is something so bad so good?”
I pinched her nipple and she hissed through a wide smile. Then I sat up and gently turned her, so she lay on her stomach. My hands slid along her back, careful of her scar, and kneaded the muscles that tensed. “False premise. In sex, there’s no bad or good, only consensual pain or pleasure. And we have that down to a science, Nairne.”