by D. L. King
I cock my head. “Come on,” I said. “You promised.”
“How are you going to fuck me?” she says, a teasing smile growing on her face. The word sounds all the more enticing when pronounced with that proper accent. “You can barely move your arm.”
“I have two arms.”
“I would rather have your mouth.”
The words rush through me like the swell of another orgasm. I close my eyes. “You can have it,” I whisper.
I hear the rustling of her clothes as she undresses, probably folding them neatly beside the bed. Then the bed sinks again, as she makes her way up it. I open my eyes and she’s on her knees beside me, gloriously naked. If we had time, we could compare our scars, brag about the people who have tried to kill us and failed. She’s got a big one on her thigh. It looks like some kind of shrapnel. I want to reach out and touch it, but that is a level of intimacy beyond what we are doing here. Maybe the fourth time we meet.
“You okay?” she says. I nod. “Let me know if something doesn’t work with your injury.”
“I like the pain,” I say, as if she didn’t already know. “Let’s not get blood on the mattress.”
She carefully positions her knees on either side of my head, and then the sweet, heady smell of her hits my nose and the taste of her hits my lips and I’m gone. I carefully trace my tongue through her folds, starting with big, slow licks. I savor her. She moves her hips slowly, bracing herself with one hand against the wall.
“Fuck my mouth,” I mumble and let my tongue be a little sharper, a little more precise. She reaches down to thread her fingers through my hair and holds tight as she thrusts against me. The sting in my scalp makes my eyes water and I’m licking, sucking, making a mess. My face is wet and droplets are running down my neck.
When she comes, she shudders and goes tense, her fist tightening in my hair. I gasp and my mouth fills with her flavor.
Florence is shaking when she climbs off me, leaning against the wall, chest heaving. I smile up at her.
“How long do we have?” I ask. She leans over to look at her watch.
“Enough.”
“You should get on your back.”
“Should I really?” she drawls. “I have you on your back already, and the view is wonderful.”
“Yeah, but I can never come twice. I wanna fuck you though.”
“I always did fancy brutish Americans,” she smirks, but she pushes me out of the way and lies down on her side. I pull her close and kiss her deeply, tasting me on her lips and letting her taste herself. I push my thigh between her legs and she grinds against me, digging her nails into my back.
“Brutish but efficient,” I say, reaching down to push my fingers between her slippery folds and my thigh, already wet from her pushing against it. Two fingers fit easily, but my shoulder is starting to hurt in an unpleasant way, so I nudge her to get on her back as I arrange myself between her thighs.
I get better access like this, pushing two fingers inside her, curling them until I hit the right spot. Her eyes flutter shut and she moans, louder the harder I fuck her. Her hair is rumpled, her cheeks are flushed and she’s gripping the sheets.
Another finger, and I can feel her stretching around my hand, accommodating me. She reaches down to touch herself, swiping at the wetness where I’m pumping in and out of her. She is gentle with herself, a stark contrast to what we have done to each other, exploring her hard clit and soft skin. I slow my pace to match hers but she shakes her head.
“Don’t stop,” she breathes. “Fuck me like you mean it.”
I fuck her, and I do mean it. When she comes, she clenches around my hand, her tight, wet pussy contracting and contracting. She grabs my wrist, pushing me deeper inside her, all the while convulsing with closed eyes. Watching her come for me again goes straight to my head like cheap booze. She shudders one last time and then her whole body relaxes. She’s still gripping my wrist when she opens her eyes and smiles a sleepy smile at me.
“I wish we could have met under more civilized circumstances this time,” she muses.
“The things I could have done to you then,” I say. My words make her shudder again, and I pull my fingers out, licking them clean while she watches with parted lips. I settle myself beside her on the bed, both of us on our backs. Not cuddling, but close.
We lie like that for a few minutes, in silence, just breathing. It’s a rare moment in my life.
Then it’s back to business.
She looks at her watch and clicks her tongue. “Ten minutes,” she says. When we are dressed, she sits me down at the kitchen table and checks my bandages, deeming them good enough for now.
“Tell me the plan,” I ask, tying my boots. She’s eyeing them in a way that I file under things to remember.
“You’re flying out of Northolt.”
“Who is flying me?”
“Her Majesty’s government, on paper. Your people, more likely.”
I don’t ask if I’ll see her again. I don’t ask for a number, or even her real name. When the call comes, I take my jacket and my gun and step into the unmarked car pulling to a stop outside the house. The man in the driver’s seat doesn’t speak during the ride north, and neither do I. I touch the bruise that’s already forming on my wrist, my scalp still tingling, my pussy still wet, and the last thing she said before I left rings through my head: “Maybe next time we can spend the night.”
A SENSE OF COMING HOME
P. A. Nox
You are here on a whim.
Scratch that, it’s a lie. You are here, because you want to be. Because you have craved this moment for the past three years. You took numerous lovers just to forget her, to be rid of her scent on your skin and her taste on your tongue. You are here, because even though you were the one to suggest the amicable split—for everyone’s sake, you said—your heart and your body never agreed with your logic.
Put simply, you are here because you have missed her like you’d miss a limb, like you’d miss one of your five senses. Either way, the fact is: you are here.
Here, for the night, means her apartment; it’s a new one. She must’ve moved once she got the job she’d been dreaming of. You haven’t seen many of the objects that decorate the place before, but they are undeniably her: the practicality, the warmth, the sense that each little thing holds some story, some memory.
There are books on her coffee table that make you smile— history books, of course. If you were to ask her anything, she’d still go into full-on nerd mode and give you stories upon stories of this emperor, or that queen, and so on, until you’d laugh and pull her in for a kiss to shut her up. Your darling know-it-all.
If being the big word here. Because she has been sweet enough to invite you in when you dropped by unannounced, with a bottle of wine to supposedly congratulate her on the promotion. Still, you had to hear about it from a mutual friend. Still, it doesn’t mean she will be sweet enough to invite you back into her bed, no matter how quickly you want that to happen. And you do—the instant you step inside, you do.
God, you’ve missed her. You’ve missed her laughter and her insanely sharp brain, you’ve missed her sense of humor and her temper, missed the smell of her skin in the morning, the taste of her at night.
Well, fuck—here you are, already turned on and really pathetic.
You regret ever having let her go. Nobody has measured up to her, and you haven’t really allowed anyone to try, because a selfish part of you has always thought this could happen. You’d figure yourselves out, and then you’d meet in the middle again, pick up where you left off. Is this that moment? Or are you just hopeful?
“You look a whole universe away,” she says, snapping you out of a contradictory inner rant. She holds out a glass of wine for you to take, and you can’t help yourself; you allow your fingers to brush over hers when you grab the stem of the glass, and delectate in the frisson it sends up your spine. (She used to say you like to flirt with danger, so here you are, flirting with th
e dangerous possibility of rejection.)
You thank her softly, and take a sip, suddenly too wound up to come up with a convincing lie. So you settle for a truth that’s easier to say, like: “I’m really proud of you.”
The weight of it all settles between you, you think. She looks at you quietly from behind her glass, and you know this is it; she’ll bring up her current girlfriend, or she’ll be blunter and tell you right away that you shouldn’t even think about it. The two of you are done, and you’re the one who came up with the great idea.
“Thanks,” she says instead, and you exhale. “The truth is, I don’t think I would’ve found the drive to push myself to get here, if you hadn’t—if we had stayed together.”
It doesn’t hurt, you tell yourself. That’s relief, not an ache. “Well, you can tell your people to send me the bill,” you try to joke, and it sounds fake but you can’t take it back.
“I heard about your successes, too. Youngest R & D director your company’s ever had?”
“Eh.” You shrug, “You know how it is—it’s still pretty much a sausage fest.” The two of you share a laugh, and it takes you back a few years, back when you’d keep her up at night with rants about the gap between men and women in STEM. But you’re not here to talk shop. It’s fake, this whole patting each other on the back ever so politely, thinking it’s possible to avoid the elephant in the room.
“I’m glad you came,” she says, and it floors you.
“You’re—I thought you’d be mad.”
She shrugs lightly. “I was, for the first year. But it pushed me to get myself together, and I’d be lying to myself if I pretended like I’m not grateful to you. You were the little voice in my ear.”
You’d give a lot to be the little voice in her ear again. Fuck. “I missed you.”
The silence settles between you again. You went and screwed up, you think. You had no right, no right to come back and—
“I missed you, too,” she admits on an exhale. The knot in your throat disappears. You grin; she smiles back at you.
“Is there anyone—”
“No. Single. You?”
“No.” You set the wineglass down, and shift closer. “Could
I—can I—”
She lets out a breathless laugh and reaches out to grab the front of your button-up shirt, and says “God, come here.”
She still laughs when she kisses. She still tastes better than wine, better than honey, better than anything you’ve ever put your mouth on. Her fingers curl and press over the back of your neck, and draw you closer, so you kiss her on shaky grounds until your heart settles. Then, you show her how much you’ve missed her.
Her lips part easily when you lick at the seam of them, her tongue coming out to meet yours before you can even hope for it. She isn’t smiling anymore, but neither are you. “Missed—” you try to say. “Yeah,” she tells you right back. Her fingers are at the buttons of your shirt now, two already open by the time you reach down and stall her with a gentle grip.
“I wanna do this in a bed,” you confess. You’ve dreamed of it, after all; her body naked and sprawled on the bed, your head between her legs, her arching back and her quivering thighs. Holy hell, have you ever dreamed of it.
She takes one look at you, probably reading you down to your soul, and pulls you up from the couch. Three years is a very long time, and you don’t doubt that she found some way to move on from you just like you attempted to do the same. Right now, however, as you follow her down the hallway feeling happier and fuller than in the past three years, you realize you were an idiot to think that you weren’t even worthy of attempting the whole long-distance thing first. Maybe you could’ve survived it; you two could’ve survived anything, just look at you now.
But then again, maybe not. Maybe you would have given in to frustration after a couple of months and a whole continent apart, and tossed aside literally everything for the sake of a grand, reckless gesture. You did the right thing, you did, you did. You tell yourself this over and over, unaware that you’ve slowed down and she’s looking at you with concern.
You answer her questioning gaze with a blunt, “I shouldn’t have let you go.” It aches to let the words out, but it aches more to want everything back to the way it was, when both of you have changed. All you can wish for is the chance to rediscover.
She steps closer to you and pulls you in for a hug in the middle of her hallway, making you feel both very small and vulnerable in her arms, and at the same time insanely safe. “So don’t let me go now,” she murmurs against your shoulder, and you realize that the elephant in the room isn’t that you still want her. It’s that you still love her.
“Never again,” you promise, “if you’ll let me.” She gives you the answer in the shape of a kiss, taking the lead on this one and stealing your breath with the ferocity of it. You respond in turn, revived and stoked after that whole exchange, more at ease.
Now you have this feeling like you are allowed to tease, so you bite her lower lip and run your nails down her back over her clothes, ready to swallow her gasp with another kiss. There it is, and there you go, kissing her again until your lips hurt, swaying on your feet and pulling her along with you in this feverish dance.
A few more steps, and because you have no idea which door leads to her bedroom, you press her against the wall, and set your mouth on the side of her neck. She gasps and you let out a soft chuckle, because your sweet girl still has her weak spots. You know this body like it’s a map you drew yourself. You know how to gradually make your way to her breasts, how to make her gasp by the time you get there.
Sweet little kisses down the side of her neck, your fingers pulling the collar of her shirt aside to suck on the skin above her collarbone. Her hands are getting more and more frantic on your back, and it gives you life. You blow cold air over the skin you just kissed, and watch as goose bumps bloom down from her neck to the top of her breasts. You’re getting there.
You pull back to look up at her, her lips swollen from kissing, her face flushed and her eyes dark with want, and it’s a face you’re so familiar with it hurts in the best of ways. You tug her shirt out of her skirt and push your hand up under it, feeling the softness of her skin, the heat that emanates from it; she’s still a furnace when she’s horny, and you want to make that joke again about how you got her all hot and bothered, but she’s digging her nails into your shoulders. So that’s a cue to pull her shirt up to reveal her breasts, and kiss them hello, on top of her bra.
“Missed you,” you murmur against the fabric of her bra, finding a pebbled nipple and licking at it until it she shivers.
“Me or the boobs?” she manages to ask, and you laugh, bite her gently, and watch her jump.
“You? The breasts? Maybe both?” Before she can protest, you sink to your knees. “But hello, you in a skirt?” She is grinning down at you, looking unintentionally coy, as if she doesn’t know where you’re going. You run your hands up the back of her calves, the back of her thighs, her ass. You’ve missed every inch of her, and you’re going to kiss every inch of her, too, but not right now. Right now, it’s a rush to remember all the really good spots, which is why you pull her underwear down to her ankles, and put your head up under her skirt. She steps out of her underwear and stands with her legs slightly apart, and in the dim light beneath her skirt you can trace the outline of her cunt. Not that sight matters, since it’s taste that you’re going for.
A quick taste at first, tongue slipping over her folds very lightly; she’s wet, deliciously slick on your tongue, so you probe deeper. Spread her pussy lips with the next lick, suckle at her clit, all nice and wet. Holy shit, you’ve missed this, you’ve missed her, and sex with her, and eating her out.
There’s suddenly light, and you glance up from where you’re at, your mouth fastened to her clit, your tongue drawing gentle circles, and find her watching you. She’s pulled her skirt up, and lost her shirt when you weren’t looking, as well as her bra. She looks gorgeo
us, one hand holding the skirt out of the way so she can watch you eating her out, and the other teasing at her breasts. You both share a silent grin, just before she pinches one of her nipples and you close your eyes and go back to it.
You move by whim and sound. Lick into her, lap at her clit, suck at her labia, and listen. Soak up every gasp, every breathless rendition of your name. You hum when she slips and calls you baby again, oh so pleading. She wants fingers, you know that’s what it means, but she’s not getting them yet. This moment right here is because you were so grateful and so impatient, but she’ll still have to wait for the bedroom for the real fuck. You’re going to take her for hours. When she squirms in protest, you don’t think twice before reaching around and swatting her ass very lightly, one, two. That makes her gush against your tongue, and grind against your mouth when you push your tongue inside her.
You’re out of breath, so you kiss the tops of her thighs to prevent yourself passing out from overexcitement, but you never think to wipe your mouth clean of her arousal. Two seconds is all you need, before going back between her legs. Come on, babe, I have all day, you want to tell her. Your knees hurt, but you’re going to stay here until she shakes with a well-deserved orgasm.
You duck again to kiss her opening, to pierce her with your tongue, and let out a thrilled moan when she brings her hand down from her breast to rub her clit without a second thought. She twitches against your tongue, fluttery and hot, and you know she’s close by the way she’s squeezed her eyes shut and keeps forgetting to breathe.
This is it; you remember every trick in the book, everything that worked for her before. Squeeze her ass and hold her still while you fuck her, hum when she tries to ride your mouth and almost stumbles, and when her breath hitches, oh so telling, you pull your hand away and suck at the spot above her clit until she comes. It’s the most beautiful thing you’ve seen in a while, and you look at pictures of space on a daily basis.