Ricochet (Addicted #1.5)

by Krista Ritchie

  The screen fills with Lo. He stares right back at me. He looks the same as I last remember. Almost three months have passed, and he still has the same light brown hair, shorter on the sides, full on top. The same sharp cheekbones that make him look menacing and lose-your-breath sexy. He sits cross-legged on his single bed, the comforter navy blue. He wears a charcoal gray T-shirt, and a pair of black track pants. His amber eyes actually stare into mine. I’m looking at him. Not just imagining his body, his eyes, his face. I can’t help it—I instantly burst into uncontrollable, happy tears.

  “No,” Lo prolongs the word and adds a small smile. “Don’t cry. You’re going to make me start crying.”

  “I’m sorry.” I wipe my eyes with the back of my hand. I let out a long breath and situate the laptop on my bed a little better. Now he’s not staring at half of my face.

  I meet his gaze again, this time more relaxed, but my chest swells. A part of me feared that he’d return home too changed and too different somehow. All my terror evaporates and shushes to bed. He’s still Lo. He’s still mine.

  “Hi,” he says in one breath.

  “Hi.” The hardest part about the whole ordeal has been being away from him. It has nothing to do with sex, I realize. He’s my best friend, my whole world, and losing that hurts more than losing a body to grind on at night. Seeing him reminds me that he’s not gone forever. Even if it may feel like it sometimes.

  “You look good.” His eyes flit around my body. “Are you gaining weight?” he asks hopefully. Maybe he imagined I’d be a withered twig, so gaunt and gnarly that he’d have to pick me up before I wasted away. Wow, that would be scary.

  Maybe I wasn’t the only one with huge, immeasurable fears.

  “I am,” I say with a smile. I lean back a little and snatch my pack of Twizzlers. I wave them at the screen. “I’m on a new diet. It’s called Eat Sweets Avoid Sex.”

  “That sounds like an awful diet,” he tells me, “and an awful way to deal with your addiction.”

  I shrug and raise the bottom of my cashmere sweater. “I can do this now.” I pinch my half-inch of fat by my belly-button and show it off to him.

  “That’s nice, but you still have to get healthy the right way. Binge on your Twizzlers and Ho Hos now because when I get home, I’m abolishing that diet.”

  “How do you know I have Ho Hos?”

  He tilts his head, and I see his playful smile envelop his face. Witnessing it lights up mine. “Please, if you purposefully stocked the pantry with sugar, you’d have all the best names. Ding Dongs, Sugar Daddys, Blow Pops.”

  “I didn’t buy Blow Pops, thank you very much,” I reply like I won, even though he’s kind of right. I have three packages of Ding Dongs waiting for me in the pantry. I have a penchant for names. Why else did I hire Connor Cobalt as my tutor when I was at Penn?

  “Anything else new?” Lo asks gently, but now that I look at him, I spot the fear pulsing behind his eyes. He worries that I’ll be the changed one. I feel the same, but I know, in time, that I’m going to be different. Everyone eventually grows up. But if there’s anything I know for certain in this world—I never want to change without Loren Hale. We have to try to evolve together.

  “I found a new freckle on my shoulder.” I try to show him, but I bump into the screen. “Oops…sorry.” I feel like I smacked him in the face or something. I tilt the computer back up and catch Lo grinning at me.

  “Cute,” he says.

  I flush, and he rolls his eyes at my reddening cheeks, but he’s still smiling. So that’s good.

  “I have something new too.”

  My eyebrows rise. Really? He grips the hem of his T-shirt, and then his eyes teasingly flit up to me, prolonging the moment. Please don’t let it be a tattoo. Lo hates them, and the last thing I need is for him to declare his undying love with something he dislikes. And I don’t necessarily want to stare at my name inked on his chest while we have sex. That’s a mood killer for me.

  I realize I’m progressively moving closer and closer to the screen. I lean back so I don’t come across as a complete weirdo. “Come on,” I say with a groan as he just waits there with a silly smile. He’s killing me!

  Finally, he tugs the shirt over his head, and he fixes his hair with his fingers, watching my expression which goes slack-jawed. I squint, hoping this isn’t some sort of Skype Photoshop enhancement. “Are those real?” I end up asking, my fingers subconsciously running over his muscles on the screen. As though I can really touch them. Damn, I want to. I have to back away from the screen again. I think Lo received a pleasant view of my nose hairs.

  He gives me a strange look and then laughs. “No, I painted these on just for you.” Now shirtless, Lo cannot stop grinning. I cannot stop staring. His abs are ripped. Six-pack definition. He was muscular before, but they were not sharp like that. His lean muscles curve and even have that sexy dip by his waist, as though leading my way to his cock.

  This is so much better than a tattoo.

  “I’ve been working out,” he explains. “We have a lot of recreational time. I spend most at the gym.” He licks his bottom lip, his eyes grazing my body. “Your turn.”

  “I knew this was a trick to get me naked,” I say with a smile. “Just don’t get your hopes up. My boobs have not grown.”

  “I love your boobs how they are.”

  His husky voice makes me breathless. I blink a couple times and concentrate on “disrobing.”

  I stole Rose’s cashmere sweater because I’m all out of clean clothes, and laundry is very low on my list of things I like to do. I situate on my knees and tilt the screen up so he has a better view of my top-half. My heart thrums as I watch the rise and fall of his chest in anticipation. I’ve been naked so many times with Lo, but never over a computer screen. It’s a little different—the distance, the inability to physically touch. But maybe it’s a good different, almost more exciting.

  I gradually pull the sweater over my head, my breasts pushed up in a black bra. My breathing deepens as I watch the way he stares, his eyes lowering and then trailing back up, as if his lips make their usual descent along my breasts and belly.

  I want him to take me in his arms and push his whole weight on me. I want to feel his hardness against me—his muscles pin me to the mattress. To be buried beneath his love and his warmth.

  “Where are you?” I whisper, plans to find him, to curl up in his arms, invade my mind.

  “Right here. With you,” he whispers back, not offering me anymore, but those words are enough to steal my breath and cause my mouth to open. I keep my eyes on him and imagine his hand doing what mine does. Unclipping the clasp of my bra. Letting the straps slide down my shoulders and to the keyboard.

  He looks at me like he wants to tug me into his hard chest and hold me tightly, like he’s seconds from sucking on my bottom lip, from biting and then plunging his tongue inside. He’ll rock against me and whisper my name until my back arches. Until I cry into his shoulder.

  My nipples stand at attention, his gaze intensifying parts of my body that haven’t been lit up in months. His eyes return to mine, and they’re swimming with eagerness. Phone sex could never work with us. I would miss the looks and glances and the way he devours my body with his amber eyes. He makes me feel utterly and unequivocally gorgeous.

  He alone can claim that feat.

  Slowly, he begins to slide off his track pants, and I start unbuttoning my jeans. We glimpse each other often, trying to catch the other’s sensual, measured, unhurried movements. Everything below my waist is blocked from his sight, and likewise, the screen cuts him off at his lower abs. The allure of what lies beneath heightens my pulse, heat gathering across my brow.

  Clumsily, I wiggle out of my jeans and kick them off the bed. Now on my knees, Lo has a nice view of my green cotton panties. I plop back on my butt so he can only see me waist-up. While Lo undresses, I catch a view of the bulge in his black boxer-briefs. The spot between my legs starts to throb again, aching for somethin
g hard to fill it and to thrust for a long, long while.

  The silence drags out the tension, nothing but our heavy and shallow breathing. I wait motionless while he removes his last piece of clothing. My eyes fix on the screen in case I can glimpse his cock. But it doesn’t make an appearance. Lo successfully strips off his boxer-briefs without flashing me. Boo.

  He raises his boxer-briefs to the camera, dangling them from a finger victoriously before tossing them aside. His eyes meet mine in challenge. My turn.

  With one hand, I brace myself on the mattress, and with the other, I roll my panties down my ankles. I bend forward to pull them over my feet, and I think I end up giving Lo a full-screen shot of my boobs in the process. He’s getting way more out of this deal than me. That’s for sure.

  My panties rest in my hand, but they are way too soaked for me to lift them up in triumph. I’m about to fling them on the floor when Lo says, “You’re not going to show me?”

  Great. I turn them around so he has a view of the butt and hold them to the camera for a split second.

  “Let me see the crotch,” he urges in a soft voice. So demanding.

  My eyes widen, and I shake my head quickly. No, no that will not be happening.

  The corner of his lip rises. “Come on, Lil,” he breathes. “I can’t touch you. How else am I going to know how wet you are?”

  I exhale a long, deep breath. I swallow hard and have the sudden longing to run my fingers right over my sweet spot. To feed the monster inside of me.

  I take a trained breath and focus on Lo. “Let me see your cock first.” My voice comes across more pleading and desperate than I intended. I don’t even know why I want to see it. It’s not like he can enter me through the computer screen. Really, it’ll only torture me more.

  “Not yet, love,” he tells me sweetly.

  “Then I’m not showing you my panties again,” I refute stubbornly. I cross my arms over my breasts. For as long as I can remember, I always get what I want during sex. Or at least, I try to. And since I’ve been with Lo, he’s been more than welcoming to give in to my desires. I didn’t realize how difficult succumbing to his orders would be until now. I have to relinquish my control to him—to trust him, to put all my sexual needs into his care.

  It’s not so easy for me.

  “That’s not how this works,” Lo says. “I’m in charge. If I tell you to come, you’ll come. If I tell you to stop, you’ll stop.”

  I need boundaries to harness my compulsions. We’ve talked about this, I remind myself. I drop my arms, exposing my breasts again for him. That’s a start. Lo will provide the guidelines for my limits so I don’t overdo it. I just need to learn how to accept them.

  Lo has given himself completely to me. It’s my turn to let him have me.

  I obey his first command and turn my panties inside out and raise them to the screen, silently hoping the computer isn’t high-definition. Though, clearly, they’re soaked.

  “Satisfied?” I ask after a few seconds.

  “Immeasurably.” His grin softens my heart, and my stomach flutters, weakening my resolve. This taunting can’t go on for much longer.

  I toss the panties on the floor, and he shifts a little on his bed. But I still can’t see below his waist.

  “Hold up your hands,” Lo orders.

  I frown and raise my palms to the computer. He gazes at me for a long moment, and I suddenly realize what he’s about to do. I open my mouth to complain, but he cuts me off. “I want us to come together,” he says seriously. “Keep your hands up and when I tell you to touch yourself, you can.”

  I surrender at the words come together. I can’t stop nodding, and another smile quirks his lips. Slowly, his hand lowers, and his eyes flicker down a little. His camera is still angled so I can’t see anything below his waist. Maybe that’s the point. Some things are hotter left unseen.

  His eyes rise back to mine, penetrating me, not tearing away even as his breathing deepens, the rise and fall of his ribs quickening. His body rocks forward a bit, and small grunts escape his parted lips. My eyes dance around his arm that moves in fast succession, his chest glistening with a layer of sweat, sultry and hot.

  “Hands up,” he says in a hoarse tone. I raise them again, not realizing I even dropped them.

  I squirm on the bed as I feel the wetness slide down my inner thigh. I grab a pillow and press it between my legs, the spot throbbing for more pressure, more weight, more friction—begging for touch.

  “Hands,” he orders.

  I raise them for the third time, practically tearing out my hair. I tremble and let out a small whimper.

  I can’t wait anymore.

  “Lo,” I cry out.

  “Hold on, love,” he encourages kindly, but his eyes say something different. Hold the fuck on. He’s testing me. I know it. And I want to pass and succeed and show him that I can fight my compulsions.

  I keep my eyes on his and try not to look anywhere else. It barely helps since he stares at me like he wants to be deep inside of me. God, what I’d give for that…

  After another long moment he says, “Drop your hands.”

  That’s all it takes.

  My hands fall and slide down, feeling the wetness for the first time. I gasp and moan all at once and nearly collapse backwards onto my pillow. I need you, I want to scream. Please.

  “Eyes on me, Lil.”

  I prop my body on a weak elbow and try to keep my focus on him without tilting my head back, without my eyelids fluttering closed. I am so…close to being completely and utterly gone. I alternate between rubbing and sliding my fingers inside. The pressure mounts, spiking my nerves on every surface of my skin. Even though he wants me to look at him, his eyes begin to drift from mine. They lower from my breasts to my abdomen to my wrist where the screen ends.

  At the same time my hips buck, he jerks forward a little. Our breathing synchronizes with our heady movements. And all of a sudden, it feels as though he’s really here. Inside of me.

  He reaches up and tilts the screen down. For a mere second, he lets me see what he’s doing—his hand grips the base of his cock and runs up and down along the shaft. The camera moves back up to his face, and I’m lit on fire. I need to come. I need to release now.

  His arm quickens, and my moans grow louder. I hear him groan in a deep husky breath. My body tightens, clenches and squeezes while my toes curl. The whole world rotates. I claw at the sheets with my free hand and ride the high out.

  A few moments later, I flop against the bed, my elbow giving way to exhaustion and my staggered, heavy breathing. My stomach, breasts, thighs and ass are slick with sweat. God…that was incredible.

  I want to feel it again.

  Impulsively, my hand trails down my body and touches my tender mound. A moan escapes my lips, and I rub harder.

  “Lily.” Lo’s voice fills my head. I close my eyes and slip my fingers inside.

  Yes.

  “Lily. Stop.”

  My eyes snap open, but I keep my hand between my thighs. Gently, I prop myself up to look at the screen. In the little box to the left, I see myself sprawled on my bed in this position, but Lo only has a view of my belly button up, my legs drifting past the computer. But I suppose it’s obvious what I was doing.

  I avoid his gaze. “Give me a second,” I tell him in a soft, guilty whisper. I lie down and disappear fully from his sight, the screen tilted towards my headboard, not the mattress. My fingers move once more. I need to feel it again.

  “Fuck,” Lo curses. “Lily! I said stop.” I hear him. I do, but listening is so fucking hard. And a selfish, horrible part of me wants to kick the computer closed to drown out his demands. The pressure intensifies as I stand on another precipice, preparing to jump. Oh God…

  “Lily, sit up so I can see you,” he orders.

  I can’t. I rub faster and harder and longer. I need more. I’ve always needed more. I cry, my bony shoulders digging into the mattress, my body writhing. I want his hands to pick me
up, to throw me into his chest, his muscles to meld into me. My eyes clench closed, and I imagine it all. That he’s hard against me—that he’s inside, waiting for me to come, whispering in my ear that everything is going to be okay if I just release while I’m filled with him.

  Yes! I scream, my spine arching, my body prickling with a fire so hot that I can barely breathe. I hit it. Again. And then…I begin to come down. My open mouth closes, and my heartbeat slows, moving past the irregular, erratic pace and towards something I hate.

  “Goddammit, Lily,” Lo snaps. “Sit the fuck up, now.”

  My eyes widen in horror at what I’ve done, burning with guilty tears. Everything feels different this time. I pull my hand away and mechanically hoist my sluggish body to a sitting position. I hunch forward and hold a nearby throw blanket to my chest. “I didn’t mean…” I bite my fingernail and wipe an escaped tear. Shame crashes into me like a hundred pound wave. I can’t even look at the screen to meet Lo’s disappointed gaze.

  I understand now. Why he wanted me to listen to him from the beginning. So we could avoid this. What’s even worse is beneath the festering shame and guilt, there’s a small part of me that wants to do it again. Maybe after we end the Skype conversation…no!

  “Did that feel good?” he asks in a tense voice.

  Which part? And why do I have to ruin everything? I stare pathetically at my hands. “Don’t look at me like that,” I whisper.

  “You haven’t even looked at me yet,” he murmurs.

  I inhale a strained breath and finally embrace the courage to meet his gaze. No judgment crosses his features. Instead, his amber eyes swim with empathy that I do not deserve. And I see the worry, as though I broke his heart, as though the extremity and horror of my compulsions just fully registered in his head.

  “I’m sorry,” I choke. I rub my tears before they fall. “You don’t have to…” be with me. I am a monster.

  “I love you,” he says. “We’re going to work on this together.” Translation: I’m not going anywhere.