by Piper Lennox
“Tradition. Swedish Fish are my favorite candy, so my mom gives me boxes of them every year on my birthday. The same amount as my age.”
“I see.” As soon as a barstool opens up, I steer her to it by her waist and help her up, then stand in front of her. I like this crowd. It’s constantly moving. Constantly shoving me close to her. “So now you associate Swedish Fish with all birthdays?”
“Yep.”
“At least tell me I don’t have to drink twenty-three of those things. That’d be torture.”
“One more round,” she promises, flagging the bartender over her shoulder. The poor guy’s soul actually leaves his body for a second, but comes back when she calls to him, “After that, two Miller Lites, please.”
The crowd shifts again, bumping me forward so her knees hit my stomach. When I cough, she laughs and apologizes.
“Not your fault.” My back arches so I can avoid touching the guy behind me, who looks less than hygienic and smells like an ashtray. “Just a lot of people.”
“Here.” She opens her legs a little and pulls me in by my shirt, so that I’m pressed against the barstool instead of her knees. When the crowd shoves me again, I brace my hands on the edge of the bar behind her.
We’re so close. Eye-level.
“You look uncomfortable,” she calls, mouth buzzing against my ear. It’s such a simple thing but gets me so hard, I’m grateful for the barstool to hide it.
“Actually, I’m extremely comfortable.” I let my stare drip down her body. This angle and close proximity allows for some excellent up-close admiration.
Her cleavage reels me in, but it’s that freckle in the dip between her collarbones, right under her throat, that hooks me. I put my thumb on it and can hardly catch my breath when she swallows.
Something’s going to happen tonight. I’ve got no idea what, but I know even this place won’t be the end of my birthday celebration.
“I meant with the crowd,” she manages.
“Oh. Yeah, crowds aren’t my favorite.”
“Drains your social batteries, huh?”
“Almost instantly,” I nod, just when someone elbows me directly in the spine. It’s not the movements or shoves that I hate, though: mostly the noise. A million conversations at once, combined with laughter and warped music from overhead, might as well be stickpins in my nerves. It’s overwhelming, trying to keep up with it all.
“We can leave.”
The bartender passes us our shots. I hold mine to hers.
“Not yet. We’ve got a tradition to uphold. Though I have to admit, I’d much rather be feeding you real Swedish Fish.”
Ruby smiles, mischief flashing in her eyes. It’s only been a few days, but I already know that look well.
It happens whenever her real self comes out—when the walls comes down, and she lets herself simply be. I kind of live for those moments.
“Take it,” she says, pressing her glass to my lips. “This is basically like feeding each other the real deal, yeah?”
“Not even close,” I laugh. Eventually, I tip my head back and let her pour.
When I’m done hacking up a sugary lung, she opens her mouth and looks straight up at the ceiling.
“No way,” I laugh. “I’ll drown you, at that angle.”
“Come on. I’ve done ice luges and shit, I’ll be fine.”
“Do it this way.” Gently, I grab her chin and pull her face down a little, then rest the edge of the glass on her bottom lip. “Slow.”
It’s like feeding someone medicine from a little cup, except instead of wincing through it, she keeps her eyes right on me. It’s absurdly hot, and there’s no way in hell she doesn’t know that.
“Fuck, get a room.” The girl on the barstool beside us laughs, then does it again when Ruby, without looking, grins and gives her the finger.
“You should have let me pay for the drinks. And the rideshare.”
“You paid for the pie.” I wrap my arms around her while we wait for the car. We’re not that drunk (at least, I think we’re not), but definitely not good to drive. And even if I was, I love the idea of having my hands free. “Call it even.”
All we could find nearby this time of night was a larger ride, but I’m thrilled. The SUV that pulls up has a third row—far from the driver, totally dark, and all ours.
The second we’re moving, I undo my seatbelt and cover her body with mine.
“This was a great birthday.” I put my thumb where I think her freckle is, pressing lightly under her throat, and almost lose it when she moans in response.
“Not over yet,” she pants, as I drag my tongue from where my thumb rests, to the very bottom of her chin.
“Let’s start a new tradition.” I slip my hand into her shirt from the top, finding her nipples hard as hell for me. “I get to make you come once for every year of my age.”
Ruby laughs as I lay her down across the seat. “Twenty-three is a little much. One of us would pass out from dehydration at some point, I think.”
“We’ll just add the digits then. Two plus three.”
“Still pretty ambitious.”
“I like a challenge.”
I unzip my pants and shove them down, rubbing my cock through my boxers with one hand while the other shoves her jeans down her thighs.
As soon as I press my clothed erection against her panties, we both know five is not only totally attainable; it might not be enough.
“Hate to break it to you, but I can only have one per session. Trust me, I’ve tried. And besides,” she groans quietly, arching her back off the seat as I grind into her harder, “why are you making me come five times? Shouldn’t the birthday boy get more orgasms?”
“The birthday boy should get whatever he wants. And that’s you, finishing a minimum of five times.”
In the passing streetlights outside the SUV, her eyes flash again. “Why?”
“What do you mean, why?” I draw back, trail my hand down her body, and shove her wet panties aside. My fingertips tease her slick opening, a tempting in-and-out with no real penetration, until she’s bucking her hips for more.
“This is why,” I whisper, nodding up and down her body. “Because I fucking love how bad you want me, Ruby. Even when you’re fighting so hard to pretend you’re not at that point, yet.”
Slowly, I push two fingers inside.
“See?” My cock twitches when she clamps down and I see, in the flash of another streetlight, her eyes roll back in her head and flicker shut. “You’re so wet for me already.”
With some caution—but not one ounce of hesitation, because I know damn well she wants this—I push a third finger inside.
I lean down and press my lips against her ear. “Why are you pretending, Ruby? You say you want to take things slow, but here you are. Ten seconds from coming on my hand in the back of a rideshare.”
Her teeth dig into her bottom lip like she’s biting back a protest, but we both know I’m right.
“What about the driver?” she hisses, after a beat.
“What about him? He can’t see us.”
“There’s no way he doesn’t know what we’re doing. Nobody sits in the back row for polite conversation and good behavior.”
I chuckle, but less so at her joke, and more at the way she whimpers when I start fingering her harder.
“It’s too dark for him to see us,” I assure her, “and the music’s loud enough to drown us out. Just don’t scream.”
“I,” she says resolutely, albeit breathlessly, “am not a screamer.”
“I wouldn’t know that, would I? The only time I’ve seen you finish was underwater.”
In the darkness, I see her blush. “True.”
The pad of my thumb finds her clit, swollen and begging me for attention. If the backseat were big enough, I’d slide down and switch my mouth from Quip Duty to a much more interesting beat.
Still, the motion of my thumb seems like more than enough for Ruby: she pushes both hands into her hair a
nd whimpers again. This time, it’s my name.
“Are you begging me for more, or begging me to stop?”
“No idea,” she says, before her back lifts off the seat a second time, and her pussy starts pulsing on my fingers.
I don’t stop. I keep fingering her all the way to my driveway, making sure she comes down from the high of one orgasm, right into the build-up of the next.
“Let me help.” I button her jeans and straighten her clothes when her hands are too shaky to do it on her own. The driver wishes us goodnight with a neutral tone that doesn’t match his all-knowing look. I remind myself to give him a great rating and tip, as soon as I have the brain cells available to operate my phone.
On the porch, I grab the door handle and push, automatically slamming my shoulder against it. It doesn’t budge.
“I made you lock it, remember?” Ruby giggles. She digs my keys from my pocket, definitely grazing me on purpose, and dangles them in front of my face.
“You and all your safety. Look where that got us: shivering and losing valuable horniness out on my porch.” I fumble with the keyring until I find my house key, then have to concentrate on sticking it in the lock. Not an easy feat, considering it’s a much more boring version of what I’d really like to be doing right now.
“I’m not losing any,” she smiles, messing with her necklace. She brings it to her mouth, the chain resting across the corners while she toys with the charm, running it back and forth across her lips.
It’s both so innocent and dirty, even the cold air can’t stop my cock from getting harder.
“Me neither, actually. I’m just impatient.” Finally, I get the door unlocked. I push it open and motion for her to go ahead.
She starts shedding her clothes right away, before I’ve even closed the door behind us. I stand behind her in the foyer and simply watch, too mesmerized by the flickering of the chandelier across her bare back, and the shadows spilling down her spine and the backs of her legs, to realize I’m still dressed and should be rushing to change that.
“Where to?” she asks, pointing questioningly to the stairs, then the living room.
“Neither.” My hands take on the work my brain can’t; I start tearing my way out of my clothes. “Go down that hallway there. First room on the right.”
Ruby raises her eyebrows. “The room you wouldn’t let me anywhere near, a few days ago?”
“The very same.”
“Thought it was private.”
“No, just way too nasty to let you see it.” When I’m down to my boxers, both of us shivering in the draft from the door, I nod for her to go ahead. “Now it’s clean, so I’m not horrified for you to go inside.”
“You hired me to clean,” she laughs. It echoes through the entire first floor. “I wouldn’t have judged.”
“Trust me, it’s better that I did it myself. You never would’ve come back.”
When we step into the home theater, her jaw drops.
“Holy shit. I had no idea this was here! I thought this was, like, a guest room or something.”
“My friends sure treat it like one,” I grumble. While I lower the house lights and flick on the runners and poster glows, she walks the perimeter and reads the titles. “Lots of couches, ambient lighting: it’s their preferred ‘not a bedroom’ spot to hook up.”
“Yours, too?”
“Never hooked up with a girl in here, so I couldn’t tell you.” I hit the starlight button on the panel. Overhead, the pinpoint fiber optics blink to life.
Ruby gasps and grins when she sees them. She’s got no idea how cute she is.
“Okay,” she announces, palms out, “I don’t care how nasty it was, I definitely would’ve helped you clean this room.”
“Beg to differ. It took me about an hour to throw out all the condoms and empty lube bottles, and another two to disinfect the sofas. But I appreciate the optimism.”
Ruby shivers again, so I tell her to look in the closet. She returns with a huge blanket wrapped around her like a royal robe.
“Smells like bleach,” she chuckles, wrapping her arms, and the blanket, around me from behind. Her head rests on my back as I queue up some music videos on the laptop. “You really went all-out getting this place cleaned up, huh?”
“With friends like mine, you have to. It’s fun, having the house full of people every summer for a few weeks, but it’s also exhausting.”
“Because you have to clean so much afterwards?” she asks, voice muffled; she’s got her mouth on my back now, quietly kissing the nodes of my spine until she’s on her tiptoes. “Or because you start feeling all...Gatsby?”
“Gatsby?” I laugh and turn, expecting to find her absolutely wasted. She must be, to say something so random.
But, if anything, she looks more sober than when we first got to the bar.
“Yeah,” she says, “always throwing these big parties, but then vanishing. Going off by yourself somewhere. Watching all the action, but not being a part of it.”
She starts; I’ve just sent the music video playlist to the projector system, and the speakers boom to life around us. I scramble to turn it down to a low hum.
Ruby walks backward to the largest sofa. “That’s who you are,” she says. “Gatsby.”
The blanket pools under her feet. She nearly trips, but I grip the fabric in both fists and pull her back to me. Hard.
“Hey, wait,” I laugh. “Gatsby dies in the end.”
Brows knitting together, she thinks, then cringes with a smile. “Shit, you’re right. He does.”
“So...?”
“So,” she sighs, pushing my hair back, “sucks to be you.”
I put some slack in the blanket, leaning her away from me in the totally empty threat of letting her fall. She gasps, then bursts out laughing when she realizes she’s safe.
17
“One down, four to go.” Theo lowers me to the sofa with the blanket, calculated and confident, then follows my gaze to the stars embedded in the ceiling. “Shouldn’t be too hard, now that I’ve set the mood.”
“Careful. You’ll eat those words.”
“Words are the last damn thing I’ll be eating.”
Just like in the rideshare, his hands move fast. He pushes three fingers into me and buries his smile in my neck when I groan.
“And here you said you weren’t a screamer.”
“That’s not a scream,” I point out. But even I have to admit, it’s pretty damn close.
Theo gets my head spinning. He fingers me the way I’ve only been able to do myself, with this intuitive pressure and speed, but even better. His fingers are larger, and faster, and absolutely fucking relentless.
A familiar pressure builds between my hips: something I haven’t felt often...but know very well.
“Theo,” I stammer, “you—you have to stop for a second.”
He slows, but doesn’t stop. “Does it hurt?”
“No.” I shake my head and swallow; I’ve panted and moaned my way to a serious case of dry mouth. “But if you don’t stop, you’ll make me....”
I can’t say the word. It’s on par with “moist” in terms of hitting my ear completely wrong.
With a confused smile, he asks, “Make you come? Isn’t that the point?”
Again, I shake my head. “Not that.” I sink my teeth into my lip and hold up the edge of the blanket, which is still spread out underneath me. “I don’t want to get your blanket…wet.”
Theo looks down, still moving his fingers. He’s already beckoned a decent amount of liquid from my body as it is. I feel it soaking into the blanket under my butt.
“That’s what you’re worried about?” he laughs, when it all pieces together. “First of all, don’t be. And second, saying ‘I don’t want to get your blanket wet’ was the worst way to tell me.”
“Why?”
“Because now I just want to see this thing fucking soaked.”
He smiles again, but it’s not playful or joking, this time.
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It’s downright dangerous.
Without warning, he thrashes his fingers against my G-spot. I let out a noise that, I hate to admit, might actually be a scream.
The pressure builds. My hips lift from the blanket, my thighs stiff and shaking, as I feel the liquid pour out of me.
Theo moans deep in his throat. “Fuck, Ruby, that’s it.”
The sensation is overwhelming: not an orgasm, but just as powerful and earth-shattering. My ears ring. I forget to breathe.
He doesn’t stop. Over and over, he draws this response from my body, groaning every time it happens, until I feel that the blanket under me is, in fact, soaked through. The fabric is cold but comforting. I feel filthy, but worshipped.
“Theo,” I gasp, when he moves down the length of the couch and sucks my clitoris into his mouth. Combined, the feelings are too much. Too damn good.
I come twice in a row, mere seconds between one peak and the next, before winding my fingers into his hair and pulling him up. “I can’t,” I sob. “I can’t.... No more.”
He obeys, but I think it might be more his own situation than mine making that call: when he comes up to kiss me, I feel his erection against my stomach, even harder than it was in the rideshare.
“Fuck,” he groans, swallowing the sound down as I grope him through the fabric. “You’ve got me rock-hard, Ruby.”
“I noticed.” Hand jobs are, so I’ve been told, a bit of a specialty of mine, so I quickly slip my hand into the open fly and pump him. He groans again, then louder when I use his pre-ejaculate to swipe my thumb around the head.
This is what I like about giving them: the up-close seat to a man’s twitching muscles, shuddering chest, and the low symphony of moans they insist on guarding too closely.
“Be loud, Theo.” I wrap my hand around him again and squeeze. “I want to hear what I do to you.”
“You can’t feel it?” he laughs, but gets interrupted by his own panting. He lowers himself to his forearms overtop me, bracketing my shoulders with his shivering biceps.
His chest pushes hard against mine. I feel his wild heartbeat and almost moan myself, it’s such a weird turn-on.
“You’ll get cum all over your stomach if you don’t slow down,” he warns.