Never Loved

by Charlotte Stein

  “I wish I could say that was true. But fuck, just look at you. Look at those lips—you know how soft and wet they look from here? You know what your bare body looks like to me when you stand there without a stitch on like it means nothing in the world? It looks as if I could die of seeing that soft, sweet skin and the curve of your spine and those breasts…Man, I bet you got no idea how fucking amazing they are, huh? Bet you got no clue that the only thing on my mind is burying my face in them.”

  He shakes his head after that. As though I am the unbelievable one, when really, it has to be him. Did he really just say all that? He needs to stop saying things like all of that. It makes it almost impossible for me to answer. I just have to wait until he realizes no one has spoken for a thousand years and puts the conversational wheels back in action.

  “So what do you want to do here?”

  “I want to do this. But if maybe you could just—”

  “What, baby? What do you need? You want to get more comfortable?” he asks, and I understand why. I am currently kind of crouched over the tub stark naked—a thing that should terrify me. Maybe it even would, if my focus was not so intently on other matters.

  “No, no, I was thinking more like…like you could show me.”

  “You want me to show you. How do you want me to show you?”

  “Put your hands on my face and just…guide me,” I say, thinking it sounds simple enough. And maybe it does, too. Just not to him.

  I think it makes him squirm. He puts one hand behind his head, and I know what it does once there. I can tell just by looking at that big biceps as it flexes and squeezes—he is pulling at that stripe of hair and he is doing it hard.

  “I can’t do that. I can barely take you saying those words.”

  “Which ones?”

  “I think it started with a G and then I blacked out,” he says—a line that would read as funny if it wasn’t for his body language. His breathing is coming too fast now, and his head keeps going back. As if he is searching the heavens for relief from this, I think, and then do a very bad thing. Even with all my inexperience, I know it’s a very bad thing.

  “I could use others,” I say. “I could ask you to stroke your cock over my lips.”

  An extremely bad thing, judging by his reaction.

  “You could. If you want to kill me.”

  “Well, then, maybe just put your hand on the side of my face.”

  “Just my hand on the side of your face? Just like this?” he asks, then cups my jaw with his big hand. Feels even bigger in a place like that. Feels even better. I have to close my eyes for a second to revel in it a little—a thing that he obviously notices.

  And then makes so much worse.

  “Oh, Christ, does it turn you on? No, wait, don’t answer. Don’t answer just…part your lips,” he says, and a sigh comes out of me in response. Somehow I thought he might not really do it, and when he does, it buzzes through my body. It makes me turn my head when I feel him stroke his thumb over my mouth—as though encouraging me, as though persuading me to open for him—and then I just take it in.

  Partly because I want to suck on something.

  Partly because I want to know if I have the right idea.

  And apparently, I do.

  “How was that?” I ask, but I don’t need to.

  His breathing is coming out really weird, and those shudders are now enough to shake the tub. He looks as though he wants to put his free hand on something to steady himself, but of course there is nowhere for it go. He can’t put it on me.

  He might combust if he does.

  “Like I have a cock where my thumb used to be,” he finally gets out—a line that should be funny.

  Though neither of us laughs. I’m too busy licking at his fingers, and he’s too busy moaning over it. God knows what’s going to happen when I actually do it to his cock. I almost feel afraid to find out—almost, but not quite. Not when I know now what he likes. Not when I know what to do. I just have to lean forward and lick a little at the tip, with a slight pursing of my lips to finish. Like when you have a cut, I think, and want to make it better.

  And I definitely do make it better.

  “Did you just kiss my cock?”

  “Depends if that was okay.”

  “It was okay. Ohhhh, man, it was more than okay. Don’t know that anyone has done that to me before.”

  “Want me to do it again?”

  “Uh-huh,” he says, but only because other words seem to be failing him. All he can get out when I do it a second time is a long, low moan that vibrates through my bones. It practically makes me put a hand between my legs, and it definitely makes me do more. This time I keep my mouth on him instead of pulling away. I ease my parted lips around that swollen head, sucking and licking as I go, eager to hear more of his moaning.

  Eager for more of the taste of him—Christ, just the taste of him is enough to make me frantic. I always thought it would be terrible, doing this. That everything would be unpleasant and acrid and kind of tiring. But nothing could be further from the truth. His cock is as slippery as anything, just about coated in precome and yet still so salt-sweet. And the texture of it…the way it feels sliding in and out of my mouth all firm and silky smooth at the same time…

  I can hardly stand it. Suddenly I’m the one moaning, even though no one and nothing is touching me between my legs. My hand only made it to my stomach. His clenched hands are somewhere behind his head. I should be a lot calmer than he is, yet somehow I don’t feel it. My sucking and licking is now sloppy and feverish, and the hand I put on him seems more about rubbing and fondling him than keeping things steady.

  How else to explain the way I squeeze him? I feel pretty sure squeezing with your hand is not on the list of blow-job things you’re supposed to do. And there is no prompt from him. It just happens all on its own—much to his surprise.

  And apparently, his deep pleasure.

  “Oh, fuck, yeah, just like that. Oh, man, you’re so fucking greedy.”

  “I can’t help it. You taste so good. You feel so good.”

  “Keep talking like that. Keep doing it like that.”

  “I just want you to fuck my face. I want you to come all over me.”

  “Fuck, all right, I’m gonna go. I’m gonna come, honey, stop,” he says, but he must know that that is never going to happen. He must have some clue. I feel so far gone I just told him to do the dirtiest things ever, so backing away now is not really a possibility. If anything, it drives me on further—and especially when he speaks again.

  He just sounds so hoarse and desperate, and his words…

  Oh, Lord in heaven, his words.

  “Seriously, Bea. I’m gonna fucking do it in your mouth,” he says, a thing that should not be sexy but is all the same. Just the idea of him doing something, of being unable to help himself, is enough to excite me. I get a great wave of pleasure when he chokes it out, so intense I wonder if it counts as an orgasm. It certainly counts as any of the things I felt before this. It swells the same way and leaves me gasping around his quite obviously swelling cock, and when he tells me again to back off, I only go harder. “Stop, baby…please, you don’t want this,” he says.

  But he’s wrong. I do want it. This is what I want—him groaning and juddering like a broken-down car engine, hands back in my hair because he simply cannot help himself. He passes a certain point, and things like permission and propriety fall by the wayside.

  There is no more of that now.

  “Fuck, fuck, fuck,” he tells me.

  And then I feel his cock swell against my tongue. I feel him tense and hear him groan like some great animal dying, about a second before he floods my mouth. Oh, he floods it, he fills it—it’s all I can do to swallow each thick stream of liquid as it comes. I almost choke a couple of times.

  Yet somehow even the choking is a thrill. Even the feel of him fucking into me just a little, ravenous in that one moment of release.

  In fact, I think I might
like that part best of all.

  And I know when I pull away that he can tell.

  How else to explain the look on his face, all full of wonderment and pleasure and desire? Or the way he pulls me close? If he was unsure or guilty about it, he would never do any of that—and he would certainly never do anything else. He wouldn’t understand that I needed anything else. He would think I was nervous or anxious or hurt.

  Instead, I’m so ready it takes only a single touch between my legs—just one touch from his big hand—and I disappear down into the kind of bliss I never thought I would know.

  Chapter 10

  This time when I wake up, he is right by my side. More than by my side, in truth. He has sprawled out across the bed in a big boneless mass, every inch of him looking so comfortable and so content that I can hardly stand to alert him to the time. He said he had to be up by six-thirty, but somehow I seem to be letting the numbers on my watch slide by.

  Just so he can be this peaceful for longer.

  Just so he can rest.

  And yeah, okay, maybe I also want to have a look at him unimpeded and uninterrupted. But really, can you blame me? Every time I see him he somehow looks better than he did before. Plus, in sleep, this effect seems to be magnified. I never noticed before how lovely his mouth is, how sweetly the upper lip curls in the middle toward his nose. And so soft, too—like the insides of a petal.

  Makes me want to kiss him, but I manage to refrain.

  I have to¸ if I want to keep exploring. Any sudden moves might wake him, before I get to the really interesting stuff. The racing stripes that actually curve all the way down to the nape of his neck and almost meet up with his thick band of hair in the middle. The tattoos all down his arms, rolling in places and slicing in others. And of course the tattoo on his back.

  God, how I love that tattoo on his back. There are just so many layers to it—like the fact that this is probably why they call him Redwood. They mean the tree. They mean him, so tall and broad. They probably don’t even know about all the words that make the branches.

  But I do. I read them one by one, straining my eyes in the dim light, yet hardly caring. The only thing that matters is deciphering them, or maybe memorizing some of each so I can look them up later. If I opened my heart there’d be no space for air, one of them says, and I tell it to myself over and over again until it sticks. Same for the lines about hopes and dreams lying on the ground and loving like you’ve never been hurt before.

  They seem so beautiful and sad I simply have to—and especially when I think of how much they must mean to him. It could be his heart that has no space for air, because all kinds of emotions have filled it to the brim. It may be that his hopes and dreams are on the ground.

  Maybe he is the one who would kill it with his bare hands if he was free.

  Though I have no clue what it could possibly be. Something that haunts him, I think, like that bottle on the shelf above the sink. Like this old house in the middle of the woods, half fairy tale and half nightmare. Once there was a man who surrounded himself with old ghosts and could never quite escape, I think.

  And then I lay my cheek on his great back, among all of those branches.

  Of course he stirs when I do. He asks what time it is and turns his head, expression so calm and carefree it seems a shame to ask. I know I probably wouldn’t want him to ask me. What is your worst memory? I imagine him saying, and go cold at the thought of the answer. The bulb winking out just as the door slammed shut.

  Then wondering if this time I would be down there forever.

  “Want some breakfast?” he asks.

  And my yes is very grateful.

  I focus on that instead. I focus on the breakfast in bed he makes for me—toast as thick as my wrist slathered in butter so rich I have to ask him how he never gets fat. Then he shows me how, with his morning routine. He does coiling, twisting curls, and crunches, and hauls himself one-handed all the way up to the top of the door frame, and by the time he has, I’m thinking of other things altogether.

  Like maybe licking the sweat off his body.

  It gleams in the hollows above his collarbone and makes pretty trails in grooves no human being should ever have, and before I know it the basement is all forgotten. His tattoos are all forgotten. The only thing is him lopsidedly grinning at me, as he says that he really has to get ready to go to work now. He has no time to do whatever I might be thinking of.

  Because apparently he has become a humongous tease.

  I should really never have let him know how much he turns me on. The knowledge has made him way too giddy and much too full of himself, and though I absolutely love that it has, I also hate him to death right now. My legs are actually shaking again when I try to stand up and get dressed. I had three orgasms last night—three times as many as I’ve ever had in my whole life—and yet still all I can think about is more.

  Maybe this time he will put that big thing somewhere other than my mouth. He seems so relaxed now that I could probably persuade him. Maybe get him to that point he was at in the shower, so beside himself with lust that he will just ask me.

  Oh God, when he just asked me.

  Is it any wonder my mind is no longer on anything else? He makes it so easy to avoid reality—and not just because of the sweaty push-ups and his kindness and the sweaty push-ups and his consideration and the sweaty push-ups. There are also a million little things about him that are just waiting to snare my attention.

  Like what he is doing in the bathroom when I go to see if he’s ready yet.

  No sexiness this time, but certainly something I find myself staring at.

  Mainly because I somehow believed he is just naturally like this. I somehow thought his hair grew in those perfect stripes, when of course he has to shave it. He has to use an electric clipper of some sort, buzzing between the lines in neat little practiced strokes. Makes me kind of giddy to see him being so precise—though I have to say I think the way he checks his handiwork affects me more.

  He looks in the mirror and turns his head back and forth then smooths each line with his finger. Reminds me of ladies in hair salons—just like that first day I saw him—only this time there is no joke. Just his embarrassment, when he sees me.

  “You got to stop sneaking up on me in bathrooms, honey,” he says.

  To which I have no problems replying: “But then how would I catch you doing so many awesome things?”

  I think I might even be flirting with him a little—or at least I am until he answers me.

  “You think this is awesome, too? Shaving my head into this mess?” he says, and the worst part is he could well be serious. It doesn’t sound the least bit like a joke. He even glances at himself in the mirror as though the creature there is never what he expects.

  But I have to check.

  “I never thought of it as a mess. Do you think of it as a mess?”

  “I find it kind of a pain in the ass—not to mention a reminder of the violent shit I have to do. But it gets you more green when you stand out,” he says, followed by me kind of wanting to blow my own brains out.

  How did I not see this? What made me think this was all just his style?

  “Oh my God. I thought…I thought this was you. I thought it was really you.”

  “You sound kind of disappointed.”

  “Not disappointed exactly but…”

  “I don’t mind if you are. To be honest, I kind of looked like a jackass before, so.”

  “I think I might have to doubt your judgment on that.”

  I think I might have to doubt his judgment on everything, from now on.

  “Only because you don’t know what a disaster I was.”

  “No, because you think what you look like now is awful.”

  “You don’t feel the same way, then, huh?” he asks, and I can tell he genuinely needs to know. It’s the main reason I want to say, without holding anything back, “I think your hair is beautiful. I think you are beautiful. I thought you wer
e beautiful the first day I saw you”—fully knowing beautiful is most likely the wrong word, and that he is definitely now going to ding me for it. He will laugh, I think, and he does. He will raise that one wry eyebrow, I think, and he does that, too.

  But it’s the part I don’t expect that really puts the capper on things.

  “Yeah? Want me to do you?”

  A really awesome capper.

  “Holy shit, yes. Yes. Will you? Are you serious? Oh, no, you’re not serious, Serge. Come on, you said it, now you have to do it. If I want it, you have to do it. That is our new deal.”

  “I don’t remember making that one at all.”

  “We shook on it when you stuck your dick in my mouth,” I say, and then he has to take a second or two. Or maybe five or six or twenty or a million. I can practically see the cogs turning in his head—Did she just make a joke about my dick in her mouth and if so, is it okay for me to just go with that?

  Luckily, he realizes the answer is yes.

  “Hey, I never meant to do that—I was completely blindsided. It doesn’t count as shaking on a deal where I could wind up being forced into some really dubious things.”

  “I know, right? I could make you feed me that toast until the end of time.”

  “Except that that sounds awesome, and I mean actually dubious things.”

  “Such as shaving my head?”

  “Well, that…” he starts out, then seems to falter—and I know why. The side of him that wants to protect me and worries constantly about being a brute is losing against the side that understands none of that is needed or true. So much so that after a second his frown drifts away and his shoulders drop. Plus, he finishes that sentence with this:

  “I can do it if you want.”

  “Really? No trying to keep me safe?”

  “I always want to keep you safe. I just realize now that you rarely need me to. And if you do, it probably isn’t me that you need to be kept safe from,” he says—all of which is enough to make my eyes prick and my hand go to his arm all on its own. But those words coupled with the actual hitch in his voice…