by Anne Leigh
“I don’t understand. I thought you like to be number one so you can beat other swimmers?”
He took a long, deep pull of breath. “I am the fastest swimmer out there.” There was not a hint of arrogance in his voice. It sounded as if he was stating a fact, which was, indeed, a fact. “I have to beat myself to win. When I hear that horn, that beep, as soon as I jump off the block, I don’t look at the other swimmers, Brynn. I just feel. Under the water. I feel how fast I am going and I just want to go faster and faster, every time. I am the water. The water is me. I’m not sure if you understand?”
I scooted up to kiss the underside of his chin. “I think I do Kieran.” He was born to do this. To be an Olympian. To be a swimmer. He has a natural ‘feel’ for the water. It was his calling.
His eyelids were closed; his hand was still rubbing gently against my cheek, and slowly moving lower to my neck. “What if you don’t get the gold?” I inquired softly. It wasn’t that I doubted him.
His eyes opened, and his gaze was on the ceiling. “There’s no other way for me to go, except to the top, you know?”
“But, what if?”
“I will,” he said determinedly. “I will get the gold. Just like I got you, honey.” How he got me? We were talking about gold and now he’s talking about me? His voice faded inside the room and he tilted my chin up. “You have the most beautiful eyes. They remind me of the ocean. The deep, blue colors... the way your eyes change from light to deep blue. The ocean’s my favorite place Brynn. And now, with all the training that I’m doing, I barely have any time to visit or just hang out close to it. You bring me to my favorite place, Brynn. You are my favorite place.”
He captured my mouth in a kiss. I opened my mouth to welcome his tongue as he slowly bit on my own tongue with his teeth. I let my hands drift down his body. He was hard again. I stroked him slowly and cupped the underside of his erection, letting two fingers graze the tip.
He let out a harsh breath. “Brynn...”
“I like touching you like this.” I gathered my hand into a fist and moved it along his length. He slowly lifted me up and sat me on top of him. The sheet fell away from the lower half of my body and I was now completely naked in front of him.
He removed my hand from his erection as he implored, “I just want you to feel me right now, okay?” I placed both of my hands at my sides, touching the bed, my legs folded underneath me, flush with his legs and my center barely touching his aroused length. His hands drifted down my body and my eyes followed his lingering touches. He took his time feeling my skin and when he reached the raised scars a few inches below my ribcage, he stopped. He took an exaggerated breath, and while I could not fully see his eyes because of the darkness that surrounded the room, I was certain that they had darkened with need.
“Kieran,” I moaned, “Please…” I ground my hips against his, my lips touching his shoulders. It took all of my restraint to keep my hands at the sides and not guide him inside of me.
He lightly massaged the scarred protrusions by my rib cage, and his other hand idled by my stomach. “Your scars, honey, they are really so beautiful.” His voice was low and deep, his emotions raw. “They are proof of your strength, what you’ve overcome.”
I felt the tears trickle down from my eyes. Here we were, with no clothes between us, the sheets crumpled to the side, and the darkness engulfing us, as we have been many times before; yet, it felt different. I felt the most bared to him. No secrets. Just Kieran and Brynn. Man and woman. Lover to lover.
The wetness from my eyes fell down my body as he slowly lifted a hand to caress my face. “Without your scars, I might not have gotten the chance to know you. You might not be here with me. You ask me why I need to be on top Brynn? Why I need to have the gold?”
I tipped my head slightly.
“While you were struggling for your life in the hospital, I was finding my own reason to live. When I had swim meets, it was the only time my family was together.” His quiet voice magnified the emotions he was revealing to me. “My dad came home for my meets and with each win, we’d spend time dining out, just doing normal stuff, as a family. And I saw the joy in my mom’s eyes when that happened.”
I could not stop the tears from escaping.
“Honey, my mom’s happiness relied on my wins. I think at one point, my parents were going to get divorced. My dad was always working and my mom was left alone with us. But, he made it a point to watch my meets. I don’t know why. Maybe it was because he was invested in me? He was also a swimmer in college so maybe he’s living his dream through me? I know that it’s changed now. My parents are in a much better place than before. But she, my mom, was my reason to stay on top and be on top. Now I have to achieve what I’ve been working towards for so long. And I’m just happy that you’re with me to celebrate it when I do.”
My tears evaporated, and he was back to his self-assured state. “Oh, you’re that sure you’ll win, huh?”
“It’s just a matter of when and how many more medals I’ll get.” His hips swiveled and his breath got choppier. I straightened and felt his hard length nudge against my entrance. I removed my hands from the bed and let them travel down his body. He was muscled all over. The strength of Kieran’s body might not be obvious to some because he was not a hulking beast, but he was pure muscle. His body was made for wielding powerful strokes, in and out of the water.
“Milo might beat you to them.” I chuckled lightly.
“That’s just wrong. Don’t speak of him in our sacred place.” He cupped my cheek, his other hand was holding his erection, and he rubbed circles around me with it.
A whimper escaped me, “Aahh.” It felt so, so good. I struggled to ask, “Sacred place?”
He moved so quickly that I barely had any time to react. The next thing I knew, I was flipped over, he was on top of me, his body slid down, and his mouth was working on my wetness. His lips probed and his tongue inched its way inside of me.
“God, Kieran...”
“This,” The vibrations in his voice electrified the lust he was evoking from me, he nibbled on the slit that housed the center of my pleasure. “Our bed is a sacred place.” His tongue continued to torture me with purposeful licks. “It’s where I can adore you, worship you, and you call me ‘God’. I’m secure enough to know that you’re thinking of me when you say ‘God’, and Kieran’s a hard name to say when I’m making you tremble in pleasure.”
I giggled. In the heat of the moment, Kieran was still funny.
He adjusted his weight to lean over me, lifted my legs up and pushed inside of me.
“Honey if you’re giggling, then I’m doing a lousy job.”
The giggles were forgotten when he thrust inside me. In, out, in, in, and out. He lowered his body onto mine and I felt his hot breath against my left ear. He slowed down just as I was about to reach my peak, he whispered in ragged breaths, “Not yet...”
I held on to his hair as he ravaged my mouth, the slide of his tongue timed perfectly with his thrusts inside of me. He drove deep and then he came out and lingered. He drove deep again.
The last time he went in all the way, I had decided I had had enough.
“I will murder you if you stop,” I pleaded with a warning.
His fingers curled around my nipples, and in between rugged breathes, he moaned, “Ohh… You feel so good.”
He thrust all the way in and my legs wrapped around his body. My hands twisted around his hair as he set a rhythm that turned me into a yielding creature, dependent on his command of my body. I tightened my legs around him and he tightened his hold on my waist. He brought his head close to my ears and coarsely whispered, “Brynn” He was climbing, reaching for that elusive peak. I bit on the side of his neck that was exposed to me.
He jerked forward and my body bowed to his ministrations.
“Oh... Oh... Oh!” I screamed as heat poured out of me. I kept nibbling on his neck. I have found that Kieran liked this, and as I put more pressure, almost an in
ch away from the vein that ran along his side, he let out measured gasps. “Going to come, ahh.”
I felt his climax shudder through me. He stayed in place and whispered, “Every time, honey. You feel so good. Every. Single. Time.” He kissed my hair and ran his fingers through it, my body was sweaty against his. I thought he was going to pull out but he remained inside of me and whispered, “You’re my golden girl, you know?”
Huh? How did a girl respond to that? Knowing how much Kieran wanted a gold and for him to call me that, I inhaled his masculine scent and kissed his hair. “I’m just glad to be yours,” I replied, letting the meaning of my words sink into my own thoughts, accepting it unquestionably. That was just it; I was Kieran’s. He had me. All of me.
“I dream of going to an NBA All-Star game.”
~K.P., age 13, spinal muscular atrophy
“Do you think I look okay in this?” Brynn has changed three times since I got here. Initially, she had on a yellow dress, then a red one. Now, she was wearing a blue sleeveless blouse with black slacks. She was nervous, I could tell. A week ago, I had asked her if she wanted to meet my family, so here we were getting ready for dinner with my parents. She was bending over the bed to fix the pile of clothes that she had tossed earlier. I sat on the chair by her computer desk. There was no space for me on her bed. Her ass looked really good in those slacks. I walked behind her and gently pulled her body to stand flush against me. I gathered her tumble of golden locks and pushed them to the side, exposing her shoulder blades, and leaned in a few inches from her ears, and murmured, “Honey you look great. Everything’s going to be great. I bite, but they don’t.”
She giggled at my words. She was familiar with my bites. If we had time, I would have liked to do some biting right now.
“I just want to make a good impression on them, you know?” She said in a hopeful voice as I lightly massaged her shoulders.
“You’ll be fine.” I kissed the nape of her neck and she let out a sigh.
Her head flexed to glance at the digital wall clock on the side of her bed. “Oh my, Kieran, we have to go, traffic might be bad, and Luxe is almost half an hour away.”
I lowered my hands down to her arms, turned her around to face me, looked into her worried deep blue eyes, and replied, “They’ll like you.” I could not stop myself from wanting a taste of her lips, but she flung a hand between our mouths just as I was about to take a dip in hers.
“We have to go. You’re going to end up eating my lip gloss.”
She was hot when she was all business-like, slightly bossy, with me. I could not resist a grin when she added, “When we get home later...” A promise. I liked that. Brynn held up to her promises. One time she promised to bake me my favorite oatmeal cookies and serve them up to me, naked. I didn’t even get to three bites before I decided to let go of the cookie and eat her instead. Another instance, I had bought her five of Martha Stewart’s recipe books and some cookie cutters that she had been eyeing every time we stepped into Crate and Barrel, so then she promised me a blowjob because I was so sweet. I huffed because I didn’t think I was being sweet but I didn’t comment about the blowjob. Who was I to resist? Well, she made good on her promise. She gave me three that week. I was not counting, really, but next time, I would order an entire shipment of those cookie cutters, cookie pans, or whatever she wanted. Maybe she’d promise me one for each day of the year.
She went inside the bathroom to fix her hair that I might have slightly messed up with the hand and finger massage and when she came out, I was floored. Brynn was pretty, but now she had that extra glow. Her eyes were lit up, and the small amount of make-up that she was wearing enhanced their deep blue color. Her cheeks were pink-tinged and rosy, and her lips, God, her lips were even more dewy-looking and luscious. Her golden blonde hair was in some sort of clip that held a mass of it on top of her crown, and artfully arranged light curls flowed smoothly around her face. Wow. I saw her almost every day and I appreciated her quiet beauty, but when she dressed up and wore the smallest amount of make-up, it caught me off-guard and left me slightly breathless.
She smiled, and there it went, another catch in my throat. “You look so handsome, hon.” She started calling me ‘hon’ as a joke because I called her ‘honey’. Well, she tasted like honey so it fit her well. She also smelled like vanilla but she quickly admonished my suggestion of calling her ‘vhoney’ or ‘vanhon’ or ‘honeyvan’. When she asked why I couldn’t just call her Brynn, I admitted, “I like to give the special people in my life nicknames.” She grinned at that and conceded, “Honey it is.”
“Thanks,” I grinned, appreciating her compliment, as I wrapped an arm around her shoulder and we walked to my car.
“No really. You look delicious.” In my black suit, my dress pants got tighter around the middle when she acted as if she was licking her lips, avoiding contact with the skin because she didn’t want to mess her lip-gloss.
Now driving to the restaurant, I teased, “If you continue licking your lips like that, I’ll take it that you’re being naughty. I’m calling my parents right now and telling them that we’ll be delayed for another hour. Or maybe a day.”
Her musical laughter filled my car.
She reached for my hand and we settled into light conversation about her work. She always had some very interesting stories. I could tell she loved her job. It was in the way she spoke about it, like there was nothing else she could see herself doing.
We reached Luxe in twenty minutes. Traffic was light for a Saturday night. Before I handed the keys to the valet, I looked at her peeking over at me while re-applying powder on her face, and told her, “You’re the first girl I’ve brought to meet them. Well, aside from Ace. But technically, Ace is not a girl. She’s just Ace.” She leaned in to elbow me lightly. “Please be gentle with them. They’re newbies at this sort of thing. Don’t make them fall in love with you.”
As soon as the words came out of my mouth, I heard her small, quick gasp before she slowly went back to retouching her make-up.
I was about to say more but a burly, middle-aged guy was standing outside the driver’s side, asking, “Your keys, sir?”
Brynn removed her seatbelt, and I held her hand as I helped her out of the car and we walked inside. My statement hung in the air, abandoned for now because of the intrusion, but not forgotten.
“Mom, Dad, this is Brynn Tanner.” My parents were punctual people so I knew they would be already waiting for us, and began introductions as soon as we approached the table.
My parents both stood up from their seats as they each greeted Brynn. Mom looked relaxed. She was wearing one of her signature outfits—gray blazer and slacks. Her dark hair cut shorter than I remembered, the length just sitting right on top of her shoulder. Her light green eyes smiled when she saw Brynn and me. She hugged me as soon as I reached her. I had missed her. Her and Dad were always going on short trips for getaways. I talked to them over the phone constantly but I still missed her. Seeing the happiness in my mom’s eyes, I felt relief. Relief that my father was finally giving her the attention and love that she needed. She deserved all of it. When we were growing up, my dad was busy working and the job of caring for us, four boys, was solely on my mother. She had to quit her beloved job as a pediatrician so she could spend time with us. There were many times when I felt that she was unhappy with my father, many times I had heard their screaming matches when he came home, but not once did she cry in front of us. To me, those unshed tears were much more painful, much harder for her to bear. So, every time I got into the pool, I made sure I won. I realized that the more I won, the more my father was there to attend my meets, and that brought the smile back on my mom’s face. My brothers might have had the same feeling too because we all tried to become stars in our chosen sports.
My mom hugged Brynn and gave her a small kiss on the cheek. “Nice to meet you Brynn. You can call me Jen.” Jen was short for Jennifer and my mom reserved that nickname for people that she liked.
/> “What a lovely young lady you are. Steve, at your service,” my dad said, as he shook Brynn’s hand. He was the same height as me, and in his black suit and white dress shirt, he looked the same as always - formidable and authoritative. I’d heard that in order to conduct the types of transactions and handle the clients at the level that my dad did, you had to have an ego that made you feel like God. My dad certainly had no shortage of that ego, he had it in spades. You could say that it was hard to grow up in his shadow, and I would tell you that I didn’t want to be in that shadow. I made my own path, carved the road for my own future.
We all sat on our seats as the server stopped by to take our orders. Mom and Brynn ordered champagne, I asked for water, and my dad requested scotch on the rocks.
“How’s training going son?” My dad asked, his green eyes assessing.
I leaned in to Brynn, watching as she smiled at my parents, and replied, “Going good. We’ve made a couple of changes in my workout and I think it’s paying off.”
“Your shoulder?” My mom inquired, worriedly.
“Still the same, but not much pain. Physio’s helping a lot, and I just have to maintain my form in the water, minimize strokes, and not overexert myself.”
“The last time I talked to John, he said that they had to change the weights you use during your streamline exercises, and the amount of time you do weightlifting,” my dad stated, sipping on the scotch that the server had brought. Of course, he would have called John Freehand to ask about my progress. It didn’t matter how much I told him to let my team do their job, he always had to put his two cents in. John was the team physician and my dad knew him from Phi Kappa Chi, their fraternity in college. My parents met at one of the college parties that the fraternity sponsored. John was the one who introduced my parents to each other since he had known my mom in high school.