She caught his head, pulled him up by the hair.
“Stop, stop....stop teasing. Please.” Those big eyes, darker with heat, the way the small wrinkles of her forehead came together as she begged. That alone was enough to send him over, never mind the push of her hips against him, the feel of his cock sinking again and again into her depths.
He teased her with his fingers as they fucked, soft and hard on the pressure until she was growling and panting in turn, and then he let his thumb glide across the wet peak, waiting for that moment when she let go, when her body tightened and released and wet his cock with her orgasm.
He didn’t have to wait long. He didn’t know if he could have. She stuttered his name, once, and then he was rewarded with the intake of her breath that was often the only sound she made when she came. It was all held in her body, the pulled-tight muscles, her eyes shuttered closed and then opened on his face, the nails that found their place in his skin.
And he followed, whispered her name, Madeline, Madeline, into her ear. Into her neck. Into the clover and the dirt and the corn next door and the wind that wasn’t. And most of all, to all the parts of Maddy that met him and matched him, that took him in fully.
They stayed, tied together with spent desire and the recovering sound of their breaths. He tried to let his forehead rest to hers but ended up thunking her hard enough that they both said Ow and then started to laugh.
When he finally rolled away, it seemed like the sun hadn’t moved at all, as though they’d stopped time in the middle of the field, in the middle of the day.
A pinprick at the side of his hip; he swore out loud before he realized what it was. A bee or a pricker. From the sting of it, maybe both.
“Aw, baby,” she said. She was trying not to laugh as he rolled on his side, both of them eyeing the rising pink welt on his bare hip.
“It was worth it,” he said, as he moved back toward her, letting her head rest in the crook of his arm. The fences could wait. The clover would grow on its own. The bees would do what they did. And the prickers too.
Whatever happened, it was worth it to be here, now, surrounded by the sting and the sweet.
HONEY CHANGES EVERYTHING
Emerald
Kim wrestled her armload of groceries through the back door and kicked it shut behind her. Setting the bags on the kitchen counter, she glanced at the blinking light on the answering machine and pressed Play.
“Kim, it’s Maria. I’ve been meaning to call you. Drake told me about Terry, and I’m so sorry—we both are. Keep in touch, and if there’s anything I can do, please let me know.” She paused. Kim could picture Maria’s blue eyes shining with sincerity, delicate features emanating concern. “As you may know, Drake’s not altogether certain about his job either at this point. Anyway, feel free to give me a call, Kim. Take care.”
Kim sighed. She remembered the first time she’d met Maria, the wife of her husband’s colleague—former colleague now—Drake, several years ago at the company’s annual gala. “Oh my god—your husband looks exactly like Denzel Washington!” had been one of the first things Maria had ever said to her, after their husbands were whisked away for an informal conference immediately following their introduction. She’d giggled, hiccupping a bit as she turned wide eyes back to Kim. “I hope you don’t mind my saying that.”
Kim had laughed. She’d liked Maria immediately, charmed by the bubbling spunk that seemed somewhat spurred by the glasses of white wine that occupied the petite woman’s hand most of the evening. She knew what Maria meant, of course, was that she hoped Kim didn’t mind that she had just spent the last several seconds ogling her husband. Kim didn’t mind, and she’d given Maria a wink as she answered, “I know.”
Writing herself a note to call Maria, Kim stuck the Post-it near the phone and turned to unload the bags on the counter. It was Tuesday. The news had come a week ago the previous Friday, when Terry had gone to work as usual with no wisp of an idea that he would return home a few hours later without a job. The layoff was a surprise to individual employees, but it was not surprising in the face of the current economy.
Kim hadn’t panicked—it wasn’t her style—but the effect it had on Terry was dramatic. She suspected it was more than concern about their financial well-being. Losing the job he had worked so hard at to make his way to second-tier management hurt something inside him. Something he had taken for granted, that external circumstances had allowed to be latent. If Kim was right, though, it wasn’t about anything external.
She felt her stomach tighten as she put away the groceries. The financial implications, of course, would soon make themselves known. They would be okay for this month, and probably the next. After that was uncertain. Her own catering business, which she ran from home, had been affected by the economy as well. Though it had been fairly successful in its three-year life, it wasn’t enough to support them both.
Kim pulled open the refrigerator door, her ebony ringlets swaying like silent wind chimes in the reflection of its gleaming surface. Catching sight of a smudge as she closed it, she reached for the glass cleaner just as she heard Terry coming down the stairs.
Turning, she saw him enter the living room. She knew he had been upstairs on the computer, most likely searching through jobs or working on his résumé. He shuffled forward onto the linoleum.
“Want some lunch?” she asked.
Terry shook his head, not looking at her as he sorted through the stack of papers beside the phone. Kim watched him, unsure what to say. She couldn’t say everything would be okay, because she didn’t know that it would. She couldn’t tell him not to be scared, because she was too.
She lowered her head with a frown, suspecting again that the demon Terry was wrestling went deeper than those things. Something in him questioned more than the situational concerns, more than what would happen. It wasn’t questioning circumstances or emotions or outcomes.
It was questioning him.
Kim set the head of lettuce she had pulled from the refrigerator down and walked over to her husband. He looked up as she fixed her dark eyes on his. Kim almost flinched at the hollow look she saw there, but she straightened herself tall, ready to tell the part of him she knew was saying those things to him to fuck off. She took a deep breath and opened her mouth.
“I love you.”
It wasn’t at all what she had expected to say, but neither her posture nor her gaze wavered.
Terry’s eyes looked dull, though they stayed on hers. “I love you too.” His gaze slid away then, back to the papers on the counter in front of him.
Kim let her breath out silently as Terry turned and wandered back to the living room. Reaching to straighten the pile of papers he had been examining, she returned to the counter and picked up the head of lettuce. It felt heavy in her hands.
Thanks to her internal alarm clock, Kim woke up around the time she wanted to on Saturday morning. She glanced at Terry to make sure he was still asleep and eased out of bed, tying her short red satin robe around herself as she padded down the stairs.
Terry had been without a job for three weeks, and his general state seemed even more lackluster than the professional prospects he’d found. Kim was well aware that her husband’s résumé was exemplary—highly educated, experienced, and commended, he had demonstrated unquestionable competence and even superiority in his field. The present job market was responsible for the dearth of opportunities, which was the reason he was unemployed in the first place.
She opened the refrigerator and grabbed two eggs, setting them on the spotless counter. All that seemed to have been forgotten by Terry. Whenever she reminded him of either his own competence or the influence of the larger economic environment, it was as though the words dissolved in the air before they ever reached his consciousness.
Smothering a yawn, Kim began to pull mixing bowls and measuring cups from cupboards and drawers as quietly as she could. The counter collected with ingredients as she slid canisters forward from linear row
s, the immaculate surface offering itself as her canvas, a steady, solid space upon which to create. She felt the familiar warmth of appreciation for the art of food preparation spread through her body.
Picking up the griddle, she sprayed it with organic safflower oil before setting it on the burner and turning the heat to low. Terry’s despondence, which at this point was of more concern to her than financial matters, had been manifesting sometimes as a tightly controlled anger and bitterness and other times as a smothering despair. The night before, when he had left the kitchen after dinner with a whispered, “I’m sorry I’ve failed us,” she had almost thrown a dish against the wall in frustration.
Kim reached for the canister of organic whole wheat flour and wiped away a spot on the side before unscrewing the lid. She reached into the canister, closing her eyes and taking a deep breath as her fingers skimmed over the softness within. She loved the feel of flour. It was one of the ingredients she most loved to touch.
It had been her conscious aim for as long as she could remember to appreciate food preparation with all of her senses. To her, cooking was nowhere near simply a means to an end. It was a transformation, a miraculous process in which elements came together, often in subtly different ways, and yielded a culmination that could be substantially different from what the components had been separately. Every ingredient she used, from olive oil to molasses to a dash of salt, Kim respected as indispensable to the whole she was creating. She took none of them for granted.
Lifting her fingers from the flour, Kim picked up a measuring cup. Her movements were reverent as she measured the ingredient precisely and transferred it to the larger mixing bowl. Then she reached for the organic brown sugar, adding the measured amount to the flour as she licked a few stray grains from her thumb. Baking soda. Two teaspoonfuls landed in white puffs on top of the dry mixture. Finally she grabbed the cinnamon, which went into almost everything she baked, and tapped three brown splotches onto the powdered pile.
Her thoughts returned to her husband as she picked up the eggs. The dispiritedness Terry had displayed since losing his job had included a lack of interest in many things he usually appreciated—including sex. While she didn’t take it personally, she suspected the degree to which Terry’s subconscious linked his perceived professional success with his sense of personal value was what had made losing his job seem such a staggering blow—and seemed to be threatening his entire self-image. It wouldn’t surprise her if a part of him was questioning whether he was still worthy of her affection.
Kim opened the bottle of vanilla and inhaled deeply before tipping it over the bowl. She watched the thick brown ribbon swirl into the pale mixture and screwed the lid back on the small bottle. Frankly, she wasn’t interested in rebuilding that self-image back up in Terry. The fact was, he was far more than his professional success, and while she saw nothing wrong with taking pride in them, to her Terry’s reaction in the face of losing that perceived source of achievement indicated that it comprised dangerously too much of his appreciation and understanding of himself.
The griddle began to hiss, and Kim lifted the heavy bowl of pancake batter and tipped it until a circle swelled on the sizzling surface. Upturning the bowl, she shifted it a few inches to start the next circle. After repeating the process twice more, she set the bowl back on the counter.
The pale circles glowed like four full moons on the black iron background as Kim began to put the ingredients away, keeping one eye on the griddle. Right after her love of cooking was her love of a clean kitchen. She aimed for her kitchen to be less than immaculate only when she was using it. Ideally, by the time whatever she was cooking was ready, the kitchen was clean again too.
Sparse bubbles began to yawn on the circles of batter like something just waking up. Kim slid the spatula under them and flipped them one by one, the bubbles receding back to the darkness of sleep. She opened a cupboard and reached toward the back. Not feeling what she wanted, she opened it further and peered inside. It took her a moment to remember they were out of syrup.
“Shit,” she muttered as she shut the cupboard and tapped her fingers on the counter. She couldn’t leave to run out and get some; pancakes were still cooking on the stove. Waking Terry up to do so would defeat the purpose of surprising him with breakfast in bed. She frowned.
Turning back around, she opened the cupboard again. Her eyes went to the thick, solid glass of the honey jar, honeycomb still intact in the center of the golden liquid fresh from the local apiary. Kim considered, then pulled it off the shelf and shut the cupboard door.
Unscrewing the cap, she reached across the counter for the small wooden honey drizzler and lowered it into the jar. Twirling it as she brought it back out, she watched as the barely transparent, lava-like liquid streamed back into its container. When the flow paused, Kim brought the wooden implement to her lips, opening her mouth just as the honey started to fall again. It landed on her tongue, and she moaned quietly. All the more because of its unique, extraordinary, direct-from-nature creation process, honey was one of her favorite foods.
She turned back to the stove and pulled the pancakes from the griddle. Four more full moons were born, and Kim set down the bowl and pulled a plate from the cupboard. She dropped one of the pancakes on it and dipped the honey stick into the jar again. The amber substance spilled back into its own rippled pool as she twirled. During a pause, she moved the stick over the pancake and turned it downward, waiting as gravity slowly pulled the liquid onto the whole wheat disk below it.
Dropping the honey dipper back in the jar, Kim picked up a fork and pulled a bite toward her mouth, feeling the heat from the pancake as it got closer. She stopped short as Terry strode abruptly into view, clad in a pair of gray sweatpants.
“What are you doing?” she said, dismayed that her surprise was spoiled.
Terry rubbed his eyes sleepily. “I woke up and you weren’t there. I came down to look for you.” He looked behind her to the counter. “What are you doing?”
Kim glanced behind her with disappointment. “I was making you breakfast in bed.”
Terry’s expression registered surprise. “Oh.” A smile formed across his face like the sunrise. “Thank you.”
Kim smiled then too, sensing his appreciation of the unfulfilled gesture. She had planned to tell him when she woke him that she wanted to show him that they were still okay, that he was okay, that feeling like a failure didn’t mean he wasn’t worthy, that he couldn’t feel happy, that he didn’t deserve to be appreciated—including by himself. Most of all, to show him that she loved him no matter what.
As she watched him, Kim saw that while her carefully executed plan had failed, the intention had been fulfilled. Though she wasn’t waking her husband and telling him those things, she could see them transferring to him through the sight of the pancakes bubbling to life on the stove, the warmth of the griddle-heated air, the fragrance of cinnamon and vanilla and whole wheat. She hadn’t needed to say a word.
“I forgot we were out of syrup.” Kim moved back to the counter and flipped the pancakes on the griddle before lifting the honey jar. “I was just checking to see how they tasted with honey.” A drop had fallen onto the counter, a single slip of disorder among meticulousness.
Terry’s mouth curved in a smile as he followed her. “A spot on the counter!” he teased, pointing at it. Kim smirked and grabbed a kitchen wipe to clean it up. Terry laughed, and Kim spun around and looked into his eyes. It was a magical sound—one she hadn’t heard in weeks.
Her husband pulled the honey jar from her. Kim watched as he lifted the drizzler out slowly, his eyes on the golden liquid as it spiraled back into the pool in the jar. He motioned with his head for her to come closer. Kim started to question, but before she could speak he closed the distance between them himself and untied her robe so swiftly it fell to the ground before she could grab it. He flicked the burner off behind her as he nudged her back against the counter and lifted the honey drizzler to her neck.
&
nbsp; Kim started to protest as the amber liquid began to drip, but she froze as it touched her skin. She squirmed as a drop fell to the floor, but Terry pushed on her shoulder, holding her against the counter. She started to speak again, and the words dissipated as he pressed his mouth to the honey flowing over her clavicle. His warm tongue swept over her skin as he claimed the sweet liquid from it.
“Terry,” Kim managed to admonish when he pulled away. She gasped as honey landed on her breast—she hadn’t noticed his hand moving back to the jar. As she watched, openmouthed, Terry glided the dipper several inches above her chest, drizzling honey in a horizontal line across her breasts.
The sticky liquid began to descend, creeping toward her nipples. Kim opened her mouth to object as Terry dipped his head and caught a nipple between his teeth just as it was engulfed. Her breath caught in her throat, and she remained silent as he grasped her breast from underneath, his tongue swirling over the golden sweetness.
Terry groped her other breast with his other hand, smearing honey across her skin as she let out a muffled moan. He followed it with his mouth, fervently licking the mess he had just made and grabbing the breast his mouth had just left. His mouth and hands became a flurry of action, emphasized all the more by the slowness of the honey as it inched along her skin. Kim lost track of where Terry’s hands were and where honey would next land on her body as he lifted her to sit on the counter, his tongue roving her breasts, her nipples, her neck, her throat, her stomach.
She gasped when she felt the distinct sensation of the liquid dropping onto her lower belly and beginning to slide downward. Terry grasped her thighs and pushed them further apart as he hovered, waiting as the honey traveled down her skin. Kim’s breath was suspended, barely moving as her cunt pulsed, nothing but the anticipation of Terry’s mouth landing there holding any more of her attention. She glanced down to where the liquid shone like glass on her dark skin, moving like a melting glacier toward the heat that awaited it.
Best Erotic Romance Page 14