To the Fall

by Prescott Lane

  She starts to float on her back, giving me a full-frontal view. I strip down and jump right in, splashing her with water. She giggles, and I capture her in my arms. Her blue eyes look soft, worried. It was too soon for me to tell her.

  “Remember when you had your little timeout in my bed and then said we couldn’t discuss it?” I ask.

  She nods and wraps her arms around my neck. “I seem to recall talking about it a little bit.”

  I’m unable to deny her, giving her a little smirk.

  “Just one question,” she says. “Do you not want to discuss it because it’s not true and it just came out, or because it scares you that it is true?”

  I swallow hard. “The second.”

  “Okay,” she says. “We won’t talk about it until you want to.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  Surprisingly, I slept fine, and Sutton is out like a light. I lean up on my elbow, watching her sleep. Sharing your bed with a woman tells you a lot about her. I can tell Sutton is a thief. She steals all the covers and swipes my pillow every night, claiming she needs three. Two under her head, and one beside her. Why does she need one beside her? To brace her boobs? Cuddle with? God only knows.

  But she’s stolen more than my covers and pillows. Little bits of me now seem to belong to her. I can feel it happening, like I’m being robbed, but unable to fight back. Only I don’t really want to fight, not her, not this, not what’s happening between us. Brushing her hair off her face, I whisper, “Love thief.”

  I love you, I say inside my head, trying to get used to it. The fact is, I can count on four fingers how many women I’ve said those words to—my mom, Annie, Tawny, and now Sutton.

  I’ve never given all of myself to a woman, never wanted all of her, but I do want all of Sutton, and not just her tits and ass. I want all her smiles, all her laughs, every single tear or fear. Scary thing is, it doesn’t feel like I want those things—it feels like I need them. I’ve never needed anyone. I lived my life that way, but she’s blasted that to hell. Now she’s the only thing I need.

  Guess that’s how I know this is different. That I’m falling in love. But it feels more like free falling. Like I’ve lost all control. Guess there’s a relationship between love and fear. If there was a war between love and fear, which would win?

  Love is the absence of control. Fear the ultimate controller.

  Love is based in strength. Fear feeds on your weakness.

  All these years, I thought I was in control, but I guess I was just really weak, being controlled by my fear—until now, until her.

  I slip the covers off her sleeping body. She’s beautiful draped in the morning sun. How can someone so beautiful, so sweet, be my undoing? Without even trying, she’s brought me to my knees, and the view is damn perfect.

  I lean over and circle her nipple with my tongue, waking her up with a slight nibble. Her back arches in presentation, and I move down her body, between her legs, and suck down on her hard.

  Her eyes shoot open, and she shoves my head. “What are you doing?”

  I circle her clit with my tongue. If she doesn’t know what I’m doing, then I’m doing something wrong. “I’ve decided it’s time for you to come like this.”

  “Oh,” she moans. “I’ve always wanted someone to do this to me.”

  Holy shit, no one has ever gone down on her before. That’s it—I’m bringing my A game. She’s going to come so hard, she’ll beg me to suck her every day. And I’d happily comply. She’s the best thing I’ve ever tasted, like fruit freshly fallen off the vine.

  Gently, I kiss her inner thighs, feeling her quiver. Her knees drop open as I let my tongue outline her folds.

  “Oh, God,” she says, looking down at me, her body stiffening.

  I slide up her body and lock eyes with her. “Relax.”

  “I should shower,” she says quietly.

  I reach between her legs and slip my finger inside. “You taste delicious.”

  “Oh, God.”

  “Are you going to deny me this sweet pussy?”

  “No,” she breathes out. “But . . .”

  I press harder with my finger. “We’ll get to your ass later.” Her eyes widen, and I flash a devilish grin at her. “Now let me make you come.”

  Her legs spread wide as I slide back down. I need to take this slow. Build her up, let her lose some inhibition, but it’s hard. Knowing I’m her first urges me to get her there quickly, to show her how great she’s going to feel after. Pushing her thighs up with my hands and outlining her softly, she vibrates underneath my mouth. I suck down on her gently, running my tongue across her, alternating between sucking, licking, and tickling her with my breath. She tightens her muscles, desperate to clench something.

  God, I want to stick my dick inside her and know what that would feel like, to have her tightening around me, to feel her nails down my back, to hold her ass as she rides me. Instead, I let my tongue linger at her entrance. She’s constricting over and over again, but I won’t let her have it. She needs to learn to take what she wants, to trust me with her body. I swear I hear her whimper a little. I can’t make her suffer. That would be cruel.

  Slipping my tongue inside her, she clenches hard. “Oh, fuck!”

  Fuck? She never talks like that. Shit, I’m in trouble here. She’s losing it. She begins to thrust on my tongue, tightening and releasing each time. I’m afraid it won’t be enough. I’m afraid she needs my dick in her to finish. Most women hit clitoral orgasms easiest, but Sutton seems to be a vaginal girl. She likes the penetration; she needs it. That will be good for me in the long run, but not right now. She needs more. I flip over on my back, pulling her with me, so she’s straddling my face. I feel her tense and growl, “Fuck my mouth.” I push her thighs open wider, so she can really push me deep.

  Her hips start to move. “Oh!”

  Her voice is so high. Don’t think any girl ever experiences oral like this her first time around. I can tell she’s afraid to let go, can feel it in the tension in her body. And I’ll be damned if she loses her orgasm. I tell her when to come and how to come. “Come, Sutton,” I demand but she doesn’t, not yet. She just keeps moving against my mouth, the stubble on my chin rubbing against her. I spank her ass, and finally feel her let go.

  “Yes,” she moans, releasing all over my face.

  Holy shit, that’s what the problem was. She knew she was going to do that and was holding back. The female ejaculation is about as rare as the Hope Diamond, so I’m a little surprised, but in a good way. Like I just found the diamond.

  She collapses on her elbows, and I continue to lightly lick her, until she’s dry. She really does taste amazing. She rolls next to me, burying her head under a pillow.

  I try to lift the pillow, but she holds it firmly. “Hey.”

  “I’m sorry,” she says. “You don’t have to do that ever again.”

  I pull her to me. “Why not? I loved it.”

  She peeks out. “You did?”

  I throw the pillow to the side. “Yeah, didn’t you?”

  She wipes my face gently. “Too much.”

  I chuckle. I can’t help it. Sex is fun, but it isn’t always clean. “Sutton, that made my dick so damn hard. Don’t you know making you come, giving you pleasure, is the biggest turn on there is? Please don’t ever take that away from me.”

  Her eyes water. “I love that you just said that. Even if you don’t mean it.”

  I tuck a strand of hair behind her ear. “I do mean it.” I pull her close, letting my breath mingle with hers. Some girls are really weird about a post oral kiss. I gently bite her bottom lip, forcing her lips to part. My tongue slips inside, and hers meets mine with hesitation, but then she gives a slow stroke across mine, and then another and another.

  This is when I’m at my weakest—when I’m kissing her, our mouths moving the way I know our bodies one day will.

  Her hand slides to my arm, and she pushes my hand down to my dick. She’s going to be strong and stic
k to the rules of my diet. I’m sure I’ll be thankful later when I’m sitting on Dr. Lorraine’s couch, but I’m not feeling thankful right now.

  “You said you’d let me watch you,” she whispers.

  I guess I did, but this is hardly what I want. I move my hand to her hip and pull her back to me. “Sutton.”

  “I love how you say my name,” she says, her voice breathy.

  “Do you love me?” I ask quietly. I’m playing hardball here, and I don’t intend to lose.

  “I do love you,” she says, cupping my cheek.

  Lots of women have claimed to love me. I’m sure some of them did, but the way she says it, with such vulnerability, makes her love feel like a precious gift. Something I have to take care of, not something to use to get what I want. I move my hand back to my dick. She bites her bottom lip, watching me stroke the length of my cock, unable to hide the desire in her eyes.

  “I want to touch you,” she whispers. “Feel you sliding in and out of my fingers.”

  Her fingers trace a path around my chest, down to my abs. She’s so close—a few inches lower. . . It seems like forever since a woman touched me, and my body’s aching, trembling as I pump harder and faster. I feel like a damn virgin.

  “And my mouth,” she says. “I want that more. To know how you taste. To run my tongue along the length of you. I want you to let go in my mouth.”

  “Fuck, baby,” I groan, grabbing the back of her neck. “You want to swallow?”

  “Yes.”

  “Christ, what I wouldn’t give for you to go down on me right now.” My dick is so hard, thumping in my hand. I look down at myself, pumping hard, needing to get there. My eyes lock on hers.

  “Mostly, I want to slip you inside me. To know how you feel deep between my legs.”

  She manages to talk dirty without using any of the usual words—pussy, cock, ass. But it’s still hot, maybe even hotter. The way her eyes are holding mine.

  “I have an ache that only you can fix,” she says. “Only burying yourself in me will get rid of it. I know I’m going to want you over and over again. I know only you can satisfy me.”

  I pull her to my mouth and kiss her hard as I shoot off onto my stomach. This woman is ruining me.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  Seven days to go—then I’m going to fuck her into next week.

  Dr. Lorraine is just sitting there, smiling at me like a fool. She’s never this quiet. Something’s up with her. Maybe she got laid last night. Don’t think you’re supposed to ask your therapist that, so I continue to blab about work and Sutton, hoping the hour passes quickly.

  “I gave Sutton a key to my house and . . .”

  She cuts me off. “Have you told her you love her?”

  “I never told you I love her.”

  She laughs at me. “Have you told her?”

  “Just once, accidentally.”

  “You accidentally told her?”

  “It just came out,” I say.

  “Then what happened?”

  “I told her I didn’t want to discuss it.”

  “I’m sure you did. Does she love you?”

  “She said she did once.”

  “You didn’t want to discuss that, either?”

  “Nope.” She leans forward and gets that look on her face, the look that scares the crap out of me. So naturally, I try to avoid it, leaning back on the sofa and relaxing my posture.

  “Who’s loved you?” she asks.

  “Lots of women.”

  “Name a few.”

  “Annie, Daphne, the woman before her and . . . well, pretty much all of them say they love me.”

  “What do all these women have in common?”

  I try to think. They all looked different, came from different backgrounds. I don’t have a particular type, besides sexy as hell. “I don’t think they have anything in common, besides me.”

  “So the common thread is that they all loved you.”

  “Yes.”

  “And you left them all?”

  I tug at my shirt collar before shifting. Is that true? I leave the people who love me? “I guess so.”

  “Why?” she asks, her brown eyes narrowing.

  “I don’t know.”

  “Why could you be the man who sticks for Annie, but not any of the other women you’ve been intimate with?”

  I tense at the mention of intimacy and Annie and clip, “I said I don’t know.”

  “You better figure it out,” she says, her voice firmer than usual.

  God, that sounds ominous. But I don’t think I’d leave Sutton. I’m doing things differently this time. “Isn’t that your job? To figure me out?”

  She flashes a smile. “Okay, if you’re going to let me in that thick skull of yours and thicker heart.”

  “I’ve been on my best behavior. Why don’t you look happy?” I ask. I look at my watch, hoping our time is up. Fifteen minutes left.

  “It’s only when we’re at our worst that we can trust someone’s love for us. Only when we’ve seen someone at their worst that they truly know how much we love them.”

  “Can I just enjoy the good part for a little while?”

  She lets slip a little chuckle. “Let’s talk about your parents. Let’s start with your mom.”

  My chest and gut both clench. It’s a contest for which feels worse. I need to control the narrative here, so briefly, I fill her in on my parents’ relationship and how it all went to hell after my father left us.

  Dr. Lorraine tilts her head. “There’s no one more beautiful to a little boy than his mother.”

  “The days she wore her hair up felt so light,” I say. “But then one day, she asked me to pull her hair up for her. She taught me how because her back was so bruised, she couldn’t lift her arms.”

  “I’m sorry that happened.”

  “He got smart about where he hit her.”

  “They usually do.”

  “She’d yell for me to go outside, not wanting me to see or hear. She always wanted to protect me. I’d run over to Annie’s house.”

  “Annie is very important to you?”

  I nod. “Finally, I had enough.”

  “And what happened?”

  “I fought the guy. My mom never saw him again after that.”

  “You do like to take care of women, don’t you?” she asks. “I like that about you.”

  I offer a tight smile. “Are we finished?”

  “One more thing,” she says, her eyes soft. “How old were you when she died? When you went to live with your dad and stepmother?”

  “Fourteen. Almost fifteen.”

  She puts her hand over her chest. “I feel this pain in my chest for you. Hearing your story hurts. What are you feeling as we talk about it?”

  I feel the urge to flee. I can’t take this conversation any farther, hating this psychobabble. Time to deflect. “Next week will be twenty-nine days sex sober.”

  She chuckles. “Pierce, you can go off your diet now.”

  *

  I think I drove a hundred miles an hour to my house, excited to get to Sutton and needing to outrun the old ghosts nipping at my heels. I know Sutton will be there, since it’s after work hours. She still has her room at the hotel, but she stays with me most of the time. I barrel through the front door, throw my keys down, and call out for her.

  “Pierce,” she calls back. “In here.” I find her sitting on the sofa with a pile of design books around her. She tosses a book down on the table. “Is everything alright?”

  “I’m off my diet.”

  “So you’re done with the therapy?”

  “Not yet, but she took me off the diet.”

  “Oh,” she says and starts to chew on her bottom lip, and I wonder why we still have clothes on.

  Then it hits me. Sutton has me on her own diet. I just realized it. “Sutton?”

  Her forehead wrinkles. “I . . . I’m . . .”

  “Fuck, Sutton? I’ve been waiting forever.”
/>   Her eyes spark, and she pounces up, ready to fight. “Well, you can wait a little longer.”

  “Sutton, I’m going to bend you over that sofa and fuck you and you’re going to like it.”

  She puts her hand on her hip and asks, “Does it actually work when you talk to women like that?”

  “Yes, always.” She steps closer until her face is inches from mine. She smirks, and I smirk back. Then she giggles, and I chuckle. “I thought you’d be as excited as I am.”

  She reaches into her purse, pulling out a pouch and showing me the lettering on it.

  Oh, Bloody Hell.

  Then she unzips it, showing me the contents—every kind of female product imaginable. “It’s my time of the month. Just started.”

  Part of me is happy. At least she isn’t rejecting me. She has a valid reason. The other part of me can’t believe the terrible luck. Yet another part of me wants to die laughing at her period pouch humor.

  “I’m sorry. I feel terrible,” she says and steps back. “I thought you’d be off your diet next week. I had it all worked out in my mind.”

  I slide my arms around her waist. “I’m not opposed to . . .”

  “Of course you’re not,” she says, slapping me playfully. “Are you opposed to anything when it comes to sex?”

  “I won’t share you,” I say.

  “I didn’t realize that was even an option.”

  “And I don’t do anything with other dudes. So don’t get any fantasies about me and some other guy.” Her mouth drops open. Sometimes I forget how innocent she actually is.

  “Well, darn. That sounds fun,” she teases.

  “Oh yeah?” I take her by the waist and start to tickle her until I have her on the sofa. I look down at her bright face, smiling and laughing. The L word pops into my head.

  “Can you wait a few more days?” she asks, and I groan inside. “I’m not saying we’ll have to abstain every month, but right now, I’m not comfortable.”