by Susan Stoker
His hands slipped up under my skirt reaching, I imagined, for the top of my nylons, but he didn’t find that. Instead it was the stretchy lace of a garter, the clips holding up the silk of my hose. And beneath that, the ruffled edge of my panties.
Had I worn this thinking of him? Maybe.
Probably.
The one step ahead thing. And maybe I’d just needed the armor of all my beautiful things. My sexy things. My hair and the garter, the bra I was wearing.
They made me feel powerful.
But suddenly, I realized, watching him bow his head in front of me like a reverent at the ancient sites, that his reaction to all of this elevated it. My desire. My strength. My sense of power.
I feel good on my own.
He made me feel like a queen.
“Lift your skirt,” he said, pushing the fabric up even as he said it. “Show me, Brenna.”
He pushed, I pulled and suddenly I was bared to him in the secret lace and satin I wore. For myself, yes.
And maybe for him.
Maybe because despite everything, I knew this moment would come.
And then, like I remembered he used to do, he leaned forward and kissed me, through my underwear. A long would-be innocent kiss if it weren’t my pussy he was kissing. His hands stroked my thighs, strong and pale above the edge of lace.
“You’re so beautiful,” he said against me. The heat of his breath making me wet.
All of this was familiar and yet, not. Not really. Not totally. There was always the core of him that I didn’t know. Couldn’t trust. That made this feel unpredictable and dangerous.
I pushed my fingers through his thick dark hair, touching him as much as I could for as long as it lasted.
Four hours.
He licked me through the satin and I moaned, arching up into him and he pushed his hands under my ass, holding me in place. His open mouth breathed hot air against me and I squirmed, between his hands and his mouth.
“Yes,” I moaned. My fingers in his hair, pushing him just a little, just slightly, harder against me. I could feel him laugh, I could even feel him smile. And I remembered that too. How much he liked my force. How exciting it had been that I knew what I wanted from him.
The same way I liked it when he threw me around the bed, lifting my legs, and shifted my body until he had me where he wanted me.
“Like that,” I said as he licked deeper into me, through the satin. I knew he could taste me in the fabric and I knew—like an animal—he loved that. He loved all of that.
We had been—three years ago—really good animals together.
I shifted my hips, giving him room between my thighs, and within minutes he was pushing the underwear out of the way. His tongue hot and wet against me. He burrowed through me until he found the hard knot of my clit and he worried it with his tongue, stroked it and licked it until I was writhing against him. Panting and moaning his name. Asking for more. Asking for harder.
Suddenly he sat up, his face shiny, his eyes dark and focused. I swallowed audibly in the silence.
“I missed you,” he said. And his words were arrows, sharp and sure right through my body. Lodging in the heart I’d tried to keep hidden.
“More,” I said, and pushed his head back down between my legs and he laughed against me, but he found my clit again with his lips and his fingers left my ass to slide deep inside my pussy, filling me in a way I hadn’t been filled in three long years.
I’d had sex since Gunnar. One time, just to prove to myself he hadn’t broken me. And then I’d buried myself in work.
But I could have fucked a million men, and it wouldn’t have mattered. There was no one like Gunnar.
He was—in this way, anyway—my very favorite animal.
The orgasm began twisting through me, building with every breath, every flick of his tongue, every sure and hard thrust of his fingers inside my body.
“Yes,” I moaned, my voice breaking. I was clutching him to me at this point, grinding myself up into his face. “So good,” I said, over and over again. “So good.”
He sucked my clit into his mouth and I was done, bowing off the banquet seat as I came and came and came and came.
And I was barely back in my body before he was standing me up, reaching under my skirt and tearing everything off me. The silk of the underwear, the stockings, the lace of the garter belt. All of it he tore off like they were ribbons under his hands. Strings.
He held me against him, one hand on my ass, the other sliding up between my legs again. I flinched, sore and twitchy.
And he gentled his touch, his mouth on mine. His breath in my lungs. His smell in my head. I reached between us and put my hand over his cock, stroking him through the fabric of his pants. He was long and hard and I was instantly turned on again. Instantly poised on the edge of another orgasm.
I pulled my mouth from his, breathing hard, just like he was. Like we were running a race in this private jet.
And I couldn’t speak for him, but it felt like I was. A race against time. A race to gather up as many of these memories as I could for the years that were to come.
I was gathering a bouquet of orgasms to preserve—and I was just getting started.
“What do you want?” I asked him and for a moment his eyes went wide, his mouth fell open, like he couldn’t believe I would ask that.
And I felt myself retreat for just a second, pull away in the face of his surprise, but he grabbed my ass in his big wide palm and pressed my other hand against his cock through his pants.
“On your knees, Brenna.”
Oh, that dark deep voice telling me to do dark deep things… I’d missed it. I’d missed it like a song I’d heard once and kept trying to remember.
I sat back down on the edge of the seat, my hand still stroking him through his pants, the other one holding onto his knee like I could keep him still for me.
I pushed harder against him until he hissed and I did it again. And then again. Until he finally pushed my hands away and unbuckled his belt.
“Do the rest,” he said and the words weren’t even out of his mouth before I had him unzipped. His pants pulled down, the dark cotton of his briefs yanked halfway down his legs.
His cock. God, his cock. He held it out to me.
“Lick me, Brenna.”
I knew what he really wanted. Sure he wanted in my mouth, but what he really liked was watching me. He liked the sight of his cock disappearing into my face. And he really liked when I slipped one hand between my legs and stroked myself while I stroked him.
“Fuck,” he gasped and groaned. “Yes. God. Yes. Just like that. So perfect. You were always so fucking perfect, Brenna. So fucking beautiful.”
In this I felt pretty fucking perfect. Pretty fucking beautiful.
Powerful.
He cupped my head in his hands, careful of my braids, which made me smile. Or would have, if my lips weren’t busy.
“Stop,” he breathed. “Stop. Brenna. I’m going to—”
In the past, he pulled out. Came in his hand. Against my stomach. The bed sheets. I’d never swallowed and he’d never come inside my body.
I don’t know how that had started. Him or me? No idea. But I was past such things now and I kept him there, in my mouth, my hand stroking him, my tongue licking him until he jerked against me. Roaring as he came in hot spurts into my mouth.
“Oh my god,” he gasped, pulling away from me to fall, sweaty and panting into the seat next to me. “Brenna…”
He left it at that and I wiped my mouth, smiling against my fingers. It was nice to surprise this man. Exciting even. I opened my mouth to say something. To say anything, but he stood back up again and before I could stop him or say anything he’d lifted the red shell I wore up over my head. Revealing my breasts and tummy. I flinched at the cool air, the always uncomfortable moment I had when I was naked. The awareness I had of my own body. The shrieking misgivings.
It was just so much easier to be a wild sex goddess with
my shirt on. My tummy hidden. My misgivings whispering instead of yelling.
But I glanced up at Gunnar’s face and the look there did its part to silence the misgivings. To quiet the devils in my head.
“My god,” he whispered. “You are so much more beautiful than I remembered.”
His hand touched the curve of my breast, lifted in the wire and lace of my bra, cupped it in his palm. His other hand doing the same. I squeezed my thighs together, the orgasm building between my legs.
He pushed me back on the settee, his big body coming down over me, and it was all that I remembered. Comforting in a way, to be so covered by him, but thrilling too. He kissed my breasts. The trembling curves, the nipples beneath scratchy lace.
Kissing was too tame a word. And I couldn’t think of the right word. My brain being fried by his touch. My body rising to his attention like the sun over the side of the earth.
Inevitable.
“You’ve been with other people,” he said. Not a question, but a comment. A thought said out loud.
“Yes.”
“How many?”
“Why does it matter?”
The dark flop of his hair fell into his eyes as he looked up at me over my breasts. “Everything you do matters to me.”
“Gunnar,” I sighed and he lifted himself up, bracing himself on his elbows beside me.
“Tell me.”
“One. I was with one man, about a year after you left.”
“Did you date? Were you together a while?”
“No,” I laughed. “I had my one and only one-night stand. Just to prove I could. Just to prove I wasn’t broken.”
“And?”
“What do you want me to say? It was amazing. I didn’t think of you once. I didn’t close my eyes try not to cry because all I wanted was you.”
“I’m sorry,” he whispered.
“What about you, Gunnar? Are you going to regale me with tales of the women you’ve had in your bed?”
“Would you believe me if I said I hadn’t been with anyone since I left you?”
“No,” I laughed. “I saw you there, Gunnar. You’re surrounded by women.”
“None of them were you.”
“Is this… Why are you doing this?”
“Because I don’t know how to stop.” His eyes swept over my body, and his hand followed. My collarbone, to my breasts, over my thighs, under my skirt until his hand found me again. The wet hot heart of me. I gasped as his finger slipped in. His eyes on mine, he breathed in and out, and my eyes on his I did the same, like I couldn’t do anything else, but breathe and let him penetrate me.
“Spread your legs,” he whispered and I shifted my skirt, lifting it up to my hips. He slid another finger inside of me, his eyes on mine, watching my face react to his penetration. To his having of me. “Wider,” he said. And I did. Because I didn’t know how to stop either.
He had three fingers inside of me and I had to breathe through my mouth. I had to close my eyes because looking at him hurt. I had to concentrate on the feelings of sex, because the feelings of him were too much. Much too much.
“I haven’t had sex with a woman since that morning in your bed. And I wanted to,” he said. “I wanted to fuck you out of my system. Out of my head and out of my heart, but every time I started… Every time I touched a woman, all I could think of was you. Look at me, Brenna,” he said and again, so powerless I opened my eyes.
“Am I lying?” he asked.
“I don’t know,” I breathed.
“Yes you do,” he said, slowly easing his fingers out of me only to push them back inside. I was slick and wet and I wanted him more than I wanted to talk. More than I wanted answers to these questions. But he seemed focused. He seemed to need me to believe him.
“No,” I finally said. “You’re not lying.”
“I want you to come again,” he said and I nodded, gulping back air. His thumb found my clit and his hand worked me over like an instrument and within minutes I was shaking and crying.
And then I was coming. I was coming all over his hand and all over myself and I could feel how wet I was down over my ass and onto the seat. Before I could be embarrassed or nervous or actually form one coherent thought about it, he pulled me up by my hand until I was standing on shaking legs, held up by his hand on my elbow.
“What?” I gasped, still trying to catch my breath. He pulled me to him for a long beautiful kiss. Sweet and rough all at once. Wild and restrained. It was everything, this kiss, and I fell against him with greed. Wanting more of this kind of kiss. Wanting nothing but this kind of kiss for the rest of my life.
“Are there still condoms in the back bedroom?” he asked against my lips, which made me laugh.
“When were there condoms in the back bedroom?” I asked.
“When I was still prince.”
He tugged me along after him into the dark back room, the king size bed a practical sea of duvets and furs. An ocean of pleasure and comfort. My mouth went dry at the sight of it. I wore a bra, my skirt and my heels. My lips were sore. My clit throbbed.
I was so far from who I thought I was at this point; I didn’t even recognize myself.
But why can’t I be this person and a lawyer and a leader of state and… this man’s lover. Maybe... maybe we could do that. Be lovers on the sly. Why not? We could be careful. Secretive.
Even as I thought it, I knew it was impossible. He would marry who the council picked out. And the council would not pick a girl from the South Island, no matter how qualified she was.
“Ah ha!” he said and pulled from the small drawers in the built-in dresser a toiletries bag and from that a row of condoms.
“How old are those?” I asked. Because I wasn’t a teenager putting her faith in some boy’s condoms.
“Not that old,” he said, looking at the box. “Not old at all. Who has been getting it on in the private jet?” he asked.
“Do you want me to tell you the rumors about my mom and your uncle?”
“God! No!”
I laughed at his horror.
“Quick,” he said. “Get naked so I’m not thinking about my uncle and your mom.” As he said it, he was stripping off his clothes.
Really he was so… beautiful. All lean and muscular. The tattoo across his chest made him seem so deadly. And the look on his face made him seem so royal.
“You’re not naked,” he said.
“I’m looking at you.”
“I remember what you did the first time I took off my clothes,” he said. “Do you?”
“Was it something embarrassing?”
“You closed your eyes. Wouldn’t open them.”
“Sounds about right.”
He pulled the condoms from the bag and tore one off the strip, and I watched breathless as he opened it and rolled the condom down over his dick.
“Do you remember what I did when I saw you naked?”
I nodded because it was one of my favorite memories.
“Say it, Brenna.”
“You got down on your knees,” I whispered. “And thanked all the old gods.”
“For what?”
“For the privilege of being my lover.”
“That’s right,” he said, his voice soft. “Take off your skirt and get on the bed, Brenna.”
I did what he asked, wondering why I felt like crying. My skirt hit the floor and I kicked off my shoes before sitting on the bed, the fur soft against my thighs. He was right there, pushing me back laying me down with his body.
And when the focus of his eyes got to be too much I kissed him. I kissed him and kissed him. Putting all of this confusion and all of this pain into it. I kissed with my tongue and my teeth and all of my heart and he groaned against me, settling his body against mine. His weight pressing me deeper into the furs until I felt like I was surrounded by all things Vasgar.
Home, I thought, delirious with sex and love and grief. This felt like home.
And then I felt him between my legs, the
brush of his knuckles against my clit and then him pushing inside of me. I felt my breath leave my body in one long ecstatic gasp.
I missed this. I missed this so much.
“Me too,” he said and I realized I’d said it out loud. I’d told him that I missed this and all at once it didn’t matter. He could know this and it didn’t hurt me. Nothing could hurt me when I was so ecstatically full. Of him. Of us. Of what sex should be. Of what love felt like.
I could do this and say goodbye and my heart… oh, my heart would be okay.
Maybe not right away. But in time.
I wrapped my arms around his neck and I held him as close as I could.
Lifting my hips, I took him deep. And slowly he pulled out and then pushed back in and within seconds it wasn’t enough. The long slow fucking didn’t keep pace with the frantic rhythm of my heart. And I could feel the tension in his body too. How carefully he was holding onto something he really wanted to let go of.
“Fuck me,” I breathed. “Like you used to.”
And that it seemed was all it took. He held onto me, his fingers in my hair, his elbows squeezing my shoulders, and he thrust as hard as he could, so hard we moved across the bed, my head soon hitting the headboard. It was impossible to breathe or think or do anything but hold on and feel, and then he slipped a hand between our bodies and his thumb rode down hard on my clit and I shattered into a thousand pieces. I was stars in a dark sky. Scattered and random. Blinking with my own light.
And he followed right after me, groaning into my ear, curling himself up against me as he twitched and shook and fell to pieces. And I stroked his back, remembering the sweetness we used to have. Remembering when I used to love him.
How easy it had been, I thought.
Maybe that was the nature of lies. Once they were believed, they were nothing but sweet and satisfying. They were false food I could have lived on for days.
Gunnar kissed my shoulder. The side of my neck. Wet sloppy kisses that made no sense. And then he rolled away, flopping back on the bed. And I felt the chill come back. The silence. The lies and the things I wanted to believe despite knowing better.
I sat up, swinging my feet to the ground, wincing as my body recalibrated. I would be sore between my legs for days, a dirty reminder of a dirty man.