Beautiful Fall
Page 17
Once she’s lying limp on my bed, hand over her eyes, panting in recovery, I gently slide my fingers out of her and into my mouth, my cock twitching at her magnificent taste.
“Holy shit,” she breathes.
I’m ready to climb on right now, but I pause for a moment, taking her in. The soft curve of her waist. The gentle swell of her breasts. The fan of her dark hair on my bed. Drawn by this vision, I put my hands on her chest, lightly running over her peaks and to her soft stomach. She removes her hand from her eyes—which leap to mine—and drops it limply next to her.
“I’m not done with you,” I say hotly.
“I hope not,” she says softly.
She maybe means more than just in this moment. I mean more than that too. Because no matter how much I take her tonight, I won’t be done then either. Not by a mile.
Eyes still on hers, I step to the nightstand and pull open the drawer.
“I haven’t even tormented you yet.”
Her eyes flash in the darkness and her chest lowers as she exhales deeply. I turn my attention to the package of condoms and pull one out. My eyes return to hers as I roll it on. She’s pulled her feet onto the edge of the bed, knees softly bent, hands on her stomach.
I position myself in front of her, still standing by the bed, my cock throbbing at her nearness. She softens her knees, opening to me, hips angling slightly up in anticipation.
I grab her thighs and scoot her down a bit more so she’s just at the edge of the mattress. The length of my shaft is nestled against her folds, still hot and wet.
“My turn,” I say thickly. I grab the base of my tight cock and aim for her moist entrance. “You don’t come until I say you can.”
Her lips part and her eyes darken with pleasure at this command.
The crown of my cock finds her opening and I push in, exhaling with relief to be surrounded by her tight folds at last. Her eyes flutter closed and her head tips back. “Not until I say,” I repeat firmly, then lean forward and grip her shoulder, pulling down as I thrust into her.
She exhales hard and I do too. I start to rock her, caressing the soft skin above her pubic bone, then her wet clit until it grows hard against me, then her breasts. She’s taking in sharp breaths and I’m panting as well. My cock is so worked up I could end this quickly if I wanted to. But I don’t want to. I meant what I said: I do intend to torment her.
I continue to rock her, reveling in the feel of her around me, caressing her breasts and stomach. Teasing her clit. As we go on and she gets closer, her legs spread even wider, and she tightens on me. Whimpering with pleasure, her entire body slowly starts to curl inward.
“Oh no,” I say wickedly. “Don’t you come.”
She opens her eyes, breathing hard and watching me. Her eyes glitter in the dark.
“Not till I say.”
The corner of her mouth tips up with tortured pleasure, and her head falls back as her channel softens, then flutters.
I rock her more and tease her bud again, pushing my luck. “Not yet.” I continue to stroke myself inside her for as long as I dare.
I pull out when I sense she’s about to lose control. She whimpers in protest. I smile with satisfaction.
“Turn over,” I command.
She does what she’s told without a word. I stay where I am. I scoot her back toward me, and urge her to open her knees wide so she’s low enough for me to enter her from behind. When I do, we both groan.
Fuck.
She feels so good, I’m tempted to just pound her and let loose right now. My cock is throbbing in delicious frustration.
It’s more than that, too. So much more.
I put both hands on her shoulder blades and slide slowly down her back, admiring her. Fingers wide, I press firmly, wanting to feel every last inch of her skin. My hands come to the curve of her hips and I hang on. I increase our speed, going at her harder, the rising intensity of my movements matching the increased intensity I feel inside myself. This woman is doing something to me. Something that hasn’t happened in a long time.
Her arms are stretched above her and she’s pressing her forehead into the mattress, panting and whimpering. She’s so tight and wet and feels so good, I’m tempted to let us both go over together right now.
But I’m still not done with her.
My hands continue to play over her body: her breasts, her clit, her ass, her thighs. She tightens hard around me. Knowing it’s now or never, I pull out and she moans and grips the sheets in great handfuls. With her legs still spread, I slap her ass hard. She whimpers and my cock twitches.
Without a word, I nudge a hip here, tug on an arm there, and get her to roll over and scoot up on the bed, where I finally join her. She’s breathing hard, her eyes locked on me as I climb over her. I settle in, slipping into her folds, my bare stomach and chest pressing against hers, and my mouth making its own claim as we come together in every way possible.
Her arms wrap around my back. Her legs tighten around my waist. I stroke her with a steady rhythm, feeling her body rise beneath me. Still kissing me deeply, she moans desperately. I rock her a little harder, a little faster. We break our kiss and tuck into each other’s necks. I slide my hand into her hair, gripping slightly.
Her breaths grow shorter and closer together.
I wedge my other hand between the mattress and her ass and angle her up more. She throws her head back, whimpering and gasping. I feel her tightening on my dick. Hell, I feel her entire body beneath me hardening.
“Not yet,” I whisper. “Not until I say go.”
“Yes...” She gasps. “Please...”
I tighten my grip on her hair and suck on her neck, increasing our speed a little more.
“Not until I say.”
“Please. I’m so close”
I take my hand from her ass and cup it under her shoulder. I pull down on her as I push into her a little harder. Then harder.
Then I know I won’t be able to hold off much longer myself. It’s time.
“Five...” I whisper. I increase the pressure and rhythm just slightly, feeling her entire body quivering with need beneath me. “Four...”
She whimpers, twice, pressing her forehead against my shoulder and tightening her grip on my chest.
“Three...”
“Oh my god,” she whispers.
I increase our rhythm more, thrusting into her harder, feeling my own impending climax tightening in my body, needing release but making myself hold out, too.
“Two...”
Faster. Harder. Climbing to the peak. Able to go over any second. Clutching her to me. Her short, hot pants in my ear.
I tuck my mouth next to her ear. I whisper hotly, “One...”
Her nails dig into my shoulders in desperation and I feel the last hot climb in my cock as I start to pound her furiously. Four rapid thrusts. Five. Six. A searing, high peak. My entire body burning with it. Then I bite out, “Go.”
Half a heartbeat, then her entire body reacts as she curls in and clamps hard on my dick with her orgasm. I let out a guttural groan and spill hard into her. I keep thrusting and she’s gasping and thrashing beneath me, squeezing my cock. I’m helpless too, out of my mind with pleasure and losing all sense of time and place.
It’s only Lizzy and me, here, consumed by fire. I’m blind and deaf to anything else, clutching her to me and groaning again and again. Taking her deep over and over.
Losing myself to this moment. To any semblance of control. To her.
My climax burns hot with Lizzy in my arms, then slowly recedes in massive waves. The downward slope of my orgasm is drawn out as I continue to feed hers, which shows no sign of slowing. It goes on—her gasps and contractions and whimpers—heightening the effect of the hot aftershocks rippling through my body.
I only start to slow when she does, following her lead, thrusting when she wants more, caressing more leisurely when she softens beneath me, moving with her when her hips rock again, and bringing her down gently.
When it’s over, and her arms have softened around me, and she’s starting to breathe again, I delay getting up to take care of things. Still semi-hard inside of her, I wait. I prop up slightly on my forearms, and look down at her.
Her eyes are already on me.
I sink down, and kiss her deeply, and that little seam that separates our bodies disappears.
Chapter 23
Brett
Twenty minutes later I finally offer Lizzy a drink. We sort of get dressed (me in my pants and her in my shirt) so we can safely go into the kitchen. On our way there, however, Lizzy gets sidetracked by the photos in the hall. Her face lights up, and she leans toward a photo of Max and me at my parent’s house.
“Oh,” she says, “is this little Max?”
I nod. “Yeah.” Even I can hear the warm fondness in my voice.
“He’s so freaking cute. How old is he here?”
“I think he just turned two. This was when his mom and I were still together. Just barely.”
She straightens and glances at me before scanning the other pictures on the wall. “How long were you guys married?”
“About three years.”
She points at the group photo with my parents and siblings and me. “I recognize a couple people in this one,” she says grinning, meaning my mom and I. “This must be your dad, big Max?”
I nod and point out the others, my sister and her husband who live in Vancouver, and my other sister who’s here in Swan Point.
“This looks like an older picture too. No little Max.”
“Nope. This was before he was born.”
“Do you have one of all of you with Max and...” She pauses. “What’s Max’s mother’s name?”
“Jessica. Yes, but I’m not going to hang that one and we haven’t really taken a big family photo since the divorce. I’m not sure why, because Mom usually tries to make things like that happen.”
We go through the other half-dozen photos on the wall, and I identify the remaining faces she doesn’t know, although most of them are repeats of the ones she does. We wander into the kitchen and she settles at the breakfast table as I go to the refrigerator.
“Beer? Wine? Water? Juice box?”
She laughs. “Water, thanks. I’d go for the wine but I still have to drive home.”
“Which is such a shame.” I grin. She smiles at me too, looking so damned sexy over there in my shirt I’m tempted to forget about drinks and haul her back to my bed again. Instead I fill two glasses with water and bring them both over.
She’s turned her chair sideways, one elbow resting on the table, and has crossed her long bare legs. The hem of my shirt is just covering the tops of her thighs. I settle in, my chair turned sideways too, and stretch my legs alongside her, crossing them at the ankles.
She takes a sip of her water and rests the glass on her lap. “It was nice to see a picture of Max. He looks a lot like you.”
I nod. “Except he has his mother’s eyes.” I take a sip of my water and set it on the table with a soft thud.
She cocks her head at me. “So what happened there?”
“With his mom and me?”
She nods.
For a brief moment, I consider giving her the standard answer I’d give any of my dates. The abbreviated, sterilized version that tells them what they need to know and not a thing more. It’s not that I have anything to hide, but I don’t like talking about it. Part of my reasons for being so guarded is to protect Max. It’s for his sake, not mine.
I’ve wondered if Lizzy could sense that, because as much as we’ve talked over the last few days, I’ve skirted around this topic and she’s let me.
Tonight feels different, though. While we’ve only been seeing each other a very short time, and it’s not at all unreasonable for me to keep this close to the vest for a while, I want to bring her in. Not for Max’s sake. For mine.
“We met in Sacramento, where I was living at the time. About a year later I wanted to come back to Swan Pointe and start my company, and she supported it. She moved down here with me. That’s when we started living together.”
“Is she from Sacramento?”
“Her family’s not far from there. Gold River.”
She nods and takes another sip of her water.
“We lived together for about a year and a half before she got pregnant with Max. So we went ahead and got married, though...” I shrug. “We would have done that eventually anyway.”
She sets her glass on the table and leans on one hand, settling in further, listening.
“He was born four months after we got married, and things were good, mostly.” I drop my eyes to my glass, rubbing my thumb along the rim. “Then when he was five months old, she got into a car accident.” I take a breath and look back to Lizzy. “The accident wasn’t too bad, all things considered. It could have been much worse. But it screwed up her back enough that she had to go to physical therapy and her doctor prescribed Percocet to help with the pain.”
Lizzy gets a dawning look on her face.
I nod in confirmation. It’s all too common a story. I didn’t realize just how much so until it happened to us. “She ended up getting addicted. I didn’t see it for a long time, though. There were things that didn’t seem right, and I remember sometimes wondering what was going on with her, but I couldn’t put my finger on what was wrong. I chalked it up to the stress of being a new mom, you know? Even though... she was a really good mom at the beginning.”
I take a deep breath and pull my feet back, bouncing one heel on the floor. “Anyway, she hid it really well at first. It was something like ten months before I found out she’d been lying to me about still being in physical therapy so I wouldn’t question why she was still taking the Percocet. I didn’t realize how much she was taking, either. She’d found a source, so she was taking way more than she’d been prescribed. Anyway, by the time I figured out what was going on, things were pretty much out of control. It explained a lot. The changes in her behavior. Not just toward me but with Max, too. With everything. She went from being this responsible, caring person to...”
I press my lips together, all too aware of the creeping sensation filling my body.
All right. Maybe, it isn’t just to protect Max that I don’t talk about this. Maybe it’s to protect me, too. What happened with Jessica was so sudden and so fucking tragic, it still kind of hurts to go back and remember those days.
Lizzy doesn’t say a word, but she puts her hand on my forearm and squeezes.
“She became a person I couldn’t even recognize,” I continue. “It was like she got lost inside somewhere. Or just vanished. I don’t know. I kept trying to get her to get help. Begged her, really. But she wouldn’t.”
I run my hand up and down my thigh. “It was a long, downward slide from there. She had these girlfriends from before that she used to go out with every now and then. They were kind of wild, so she didn’t hang with them much. Before. Just when she felt like partying. Well, she started going out with them more. Around the time I found out about the addiction, it had become every weekend. Eventually it got to the point where she’d be going out during the week, too. God, it was such a mess.”
I rub my fingers on my forehead. It was too. A fucking mess.
“Anyway, I started to suspect she was having an affair. I actually...” I scratch the base of my neck, then let my hand fall back to my leg. “I almost followed her one night, but I didn’t want to be that guy, you know?”
She nods, and I’m reassured by the lack of judgment on her face. I’m amazed, actually, just how much I’m telling her.
“I decided to just come out and ask her. She denied it at first but then admitted to it. I honestly don’t know what I would’ve done about that. If I would’ve tried to salvage things at that point or not. I don’t know. It was hard to know how to handle her, because sometimes I’d think it wasn’t really her. It was the drugs. But I couldn’t get her to get help for it either, so...”
/> Lizzy shakes her head and squeezes my arm again.
“Anyway, Jess made the decision for me. In the same conversation when she admitted to things, she asked for a divorce and the next day moved out with the guy she’d been having an affair with. That was two boyfriends ago. The one she has now is even more fucked up than she is.”
I shrug. “Anyway, I’m pretty sure she’s advanced to heroin. I can’t be certain, but there’ve been signs. She had a roommate at one point who talked to me about it and was concerned as well. She ended up kicking Jessica out. Since then, she’s been kind of leeching onto whatever guy she can find, because she can’t seem to hang onto a job anymore. In fact, it wasn’t until right after we split that I learned she had lost her job several weeks before, and had been piling on more credit card debt than I knew was possible. Our savings were gone. She didn’t have access to my 401k, fortunately, but that was a drop in the bucket compared to everything else. We ended up losing the house and filing bankruptcy. I’ve had to just start from scratch.”
I really didn’t mean to lay all that out there, but it just keeps pouring out of me, and Lizzy’s listening so well, with no pity on her face. Just understanding and sympathy.
“The divorce has been final for almost two years now and I’ve spent most of that time trying to get our custody agreement amended. It got to the point where I don’t feel it’s safe for Max to be with her, but I can’t legally withhold him either. It’s been an uphill battle. I’ve had to document times when she’s showed up at the house with him not in a car seat, forgotten to feed him, forgotten to pick him up at daycare. Been passed out when I went to pick him up. The hardest thing has been getting the judge to agree to order a drug test, which she finally did a few weeks ago. We actually have a hearing tomorrow so I’ll find out the results then. But there will still be more hoops to jump through, because even if it comes back positive, it’s likely her lawyer will appeal and she’ll have a chance to retake it.”
I take a slow, deep breath and give her a resigned smile.
“So that’s what happened with us.”
“Wow,” she says softly. “That’s really terrible.”