Everything I Left Unsaid

by M. O'Keefe

  “Best one yet,” I said with a wide, ecstatic smile, hoping he wouldn’t look past it at the strange panic I was feeling.

  It’s just the sex, I told myself. You’re all twisted up because it feels so good and he helped you get it. That’s all it was.

  I really, really wanted to believe that. But somehow, nearly naked in front of him, the air between us smelling like sex, I couldn’t…couldn’t commit to it.

  He was staring at me, as if he could see what I was thinking, read my thoughts like a book. I put my feet back on the floor, shifting so my underwear wasn’t cutting up into me.

  “Maybe,” I whispered, my voice still shaking. Sweat still dripping down from my hairline. “I should—”

  He fell down onto his knees between my legs and reached an arm around my hips and pulled me hard against him.

  I squeaked, startled. That soft wet place between my legs, still pulsing with blood, twitching still with pleasure, was tight up against the hard length of his erection in his jeans. He dropped his hand down to my ass and pushed me harder against him.

  “Feel that?” he asked.

  My mouth dry, my brain dumb, I nodded.

  “Every time I talk to you, that’s how I get,” he said.

  He ground us together and I flinched and gasped at the same time.

  “Sore?” he asked me, and pushed back slightly like he was ready to give me a second. But his eyes said only a second.

  He brushed his thumb over the damp crotch of my underwear and I flinched again, but not as hard.

  “Just…sensitive,” I said.

  “I thought listening to you come was hot,” he told me, his thumb tracing circles and circles around that damp spot, making it grow.

  “That’s the only time anyone’s ever touched me…while I did that.” The second the words were out of my mouth I realized how much I’d revealed. It’s as if I couldn’t help it with him; even as I tried to keep all my own secrets, I managed to let too many spill.

  He cocked his head. “You’ve never come with anyone else?”

  “No,” I breathed.

  He pushed against me again, so hard I was amazed his jeans didn’t tear. “Then this is going to get much better. Put your arms around my neck.”

  Carefully, as if he were a live bomb, I wrapped my arms around his shoulders. Shocks zipped between us as the storm outside electrified the air.

  “I’m gonna kiss you,” he said. I felt my skin flush. I liked when he talked that way, the announcement before the act. I guess I had a thing for dirty talk, maybe from the phone calls. Or maybe that’s just what I liked and never knew it. Like black coffee.

  “Yes,” I sighed and, slowly, carefully, he put his mouth—those beautiful lips—against mine.

  He exhaled and I inhaled, breathing him in. I exhaled, he inhaled. He moaned against my mouth and I breathed that in, too.

  As beautiful as those lips looked, they felt better. Infinitely better. The scar tissue at the edge of his mouth was harder skin than the rest of it. Just one of Dylan’s textures.

  I had no experience with which to measure this kiss. It wasn’t as if Hoyt had never kissed me. He had. Perfunctory pecks that meant nothing, that felt like…nothing. That were as special as shoving my feet into shoes.

  But this, this long, slow pressure. This sweet tasting. The careful breathing—it felt special. Like one kiss in a thousand. A million, maybe.

  I reached up and touched his hair. It was silky between my fingers and he sighed against my lips, which I took to mean he liked it, so I ran my fingers through that hair. Up the back, past his scars toward his ears. Rough, then soft. And he pushed against me like a pet looking for more affection.

  I smiled against his lips and gave him a good rub.

  He grabbed the back of my neck, holding me still, and opened his mouth. His tongue touched my lips. I couldn’t quite swallow my gasp. Surprise and pleasure. His tongue slipped into my mouth. Intimate and invading. And for a moment I could just sit there, passive, and experience it. The slick slide against my own tongue. My teeth.

  But then, very suddenly, it wasn’t enough. And I was struck with the very real fear that nothing was going to be enough with him. Not ever.

  I could do every single sexual thing I’ve ever thought of and it wouldn’t be enough.

  Starving for him, for what he could give me, I wrapped my arms hard around his neck and tilted my head, opening my mouth to accept him. To let him in. As far as he wanted to go.

  Take it, I thought. Take me.

  There was nothing careful anymore, nothing tentative. It was as if we’d both realized we were starving for the other. Like we wanted to devour each other. My lips ate at his, my tongue was in his mouth, and he pulled me even closer, until my arms and my legs were wrapped hard around him. He jerked me against him, even tighter. Even closer.

  It was going to take an act of God to get me out of his arms.

  His hands slipped down my back to my ass and he started to pull off that thin, little-girl underwear.

  “Grab me,” I breathed against his mouth.

  “What?”

  “Grab me. Grab my ass.”

  It was the thing with the stripper and I didn’t know if he’d remember. Or care.

  But then he palmed my ass in his hands, gripping me hard. I pushed against him and he squeezed, lifting me, the tight elastic of my underwear cutting across his hands and my skin.

  “Why do I like that?” I groaned. “Why—”

  The tips of his fingers teased the crease between my cheeks and I shook in his arms. The pressure to come again was nearly painful and I put my teeth against his neck, hurting him, just so I hurt less.

  He jerked against me, tipping his head, giving me more room to play.

  “Harder,” he said. “Bite me harder.”

  So I did.

  “Fuck,” he groaned.

  “I want—” I stopped, laughing, because I really didn’t know how to put all of this into words. How to make sense of it. There was a storm raging inside my skin.

  “Tell me.”

  “More. I want more. Your hands—”

  “Where?”

  I pushed my hips at him, hoping he’d get the message.

  “Don’t tell me you’re shy?”

  “Please…just…touch me.”

  He kept one hand on my ass and shoved the other through the curls between my legs until he finally got his fingers inside my slit. His middle finger slid past my clit and I jumped in his arms, arching toward him, hoping to lure him back to my clit, but he wasn’t interested.

  “I’m going to fuck you, baby,” he breathed against my neck. “With my hands. My tongue and then my cock.”

  God, I was so wet. So wet. I bathed his fingers right there at the entrance of my body. But very suddenly this felt far too lopsided. It was the phone calls all over again. Him with all the cards, me panting for more. And he could do all those things to me, with his mouth and his tongue and his fingers and body. And I would let him. I wanted him so bad I could barely understand it. But there were things I wanted to do to him.

  There was an equality in this that I needed. So much of this was wrong. So much.

  But a little equality would make so much right.

  I remembered what Tiffany said the other day outside her trailer—sometimes it felt good to be the one giving something.

  “Stop,” I breathed.

  “What?”

  I pulled away, shoved myself back so I could get my hands between us. The flesh of his stomach was hot against my fingers as I shoved his shirt up and started to open the fly of his jeans.

  “I want…” I shook my head, the short blond hair falling over my eyes.

  “What?”

  “I want to suck you. I want to put you in my mouth.”

  From the book. The fucking stripper.

  “So bad, Dylan. I want that so bad.” I nudged at him when he didn’t seem eager to move. He was watching me with those unreadable eyes, but I
was burning too hot to wonder what he was thinking. “Get up,” I said. And he braced himself against the arms of the chair and pushed himself up. He grimaced as if it hurt.

  “Are you okay?” I asked, reaching for his neck, which he held so stiffly.

  “I’m good,” he said, standing up straight. Because of his height and how I was sitting, that rod in his pants was at eye level.

  My fingers, thick and clumsy, fumbled, but I got the zipper open and then my hand was around his cock, pulling him free of his pants and the cotton of his boxers. He was huge in my hand. Wide and long, the head purple, nearly, and damp. I blew out a long breath, which feathered across his skin. He hissed and put a hand to my neck, cupping it in his palm, his thumb pressed against my pulse, as if he were feeling my heartbeat.

  Anticipation stretched so thin between us, it could shatter like glass with the wrong move. And I was suddenly paralyzed with indecision. I didn’t know the right move from the wrong move and all that was pushing me along was instinct.

  But maybe my instincts were as fucked up as I was.

  “Go ahead, baby,” he said, tucking a piece of hair behind my ear. “Do whatever you want.”

  Whatever I want? That was some big territory.

  —

  I leaned forward and licked him. He was salty and warm and soft. I licked him again, tracing the edges of the head. Finding the veins along the shaft. Again and again until I felt like I’d mapped him. Dylan kept twitching against me and sighing and it was all so intimate. So personal.

  I’d never experienced anything like this before. The vulnerability and power that each of us had in this exact moment. All his strength, restrained. All my courage, unleashed. It was a moment that spun and spun and spun between us.

  He was silent, letting me find my way, letting me look at him, and kiss him. Taste and touch. Soft and slow. Until finally I ducked my head and licked him from root to tip. I stopped and looked up, only to find him watching me with hot, deep eyes.

  Approval and affection and respect poured off of him. It rained down on me and I knew…without a shadow of a doubt that I was in real trouble.

  Real. Trouble.

  I would leave this house in a few hours and go back to the trailer to sort out my life, to get back on my feet. I was going to go back to being Annie McKay. But I would be leaving a part of myself here—a part of myself I liked, and I didn’t know if I would ever get that back. Or find it again.

  My pleasure was now tinged with a kind of grief that made it sharper. Sweeter. It twisted harder inside of me.

  Good pain. It was all a kind of good pain. It was happiness pushed as far as it would go.

  Feeling his eyes on me, I ducked my head and slipped him past my lips. The head of his cock slid across the top of my mouth and then touched the softer muscles at the back of my throat.

  “Oh God, Annie…”

  I slipped him out of my mouth. “Is that…is this okay?”

  “So good, baby. You’re killing me.”

  I smiled up at him, at the bright color in his cheeks, the heat in those dark eyes, and then took him again, into my mouth.

  He took my hand and wrapped it around the base of his cock. He squeezed my fingers until I was holding him hard in my hand. Sucking him hard in my mouth. My lips stretched tight around him.

  His hand left mine and then touched my ear and then the back of my head and he pushed me, just a little, into him. Pushing me just a little past what was comfortable.

  I hummed in my throat, hoping he got that I liked that. That I wanted that.

  I looked up at him, just to be sure he understood, and he put both hands in my hair, the strands tangling on calluses, caught between fingers. The small licks of pain adding to the fire building inside of me.

  He stopped me, pushed me back, which I resisted, because I wasn’t done. Because there was a whole world of experience I was aching to have. Right now. With him.

  “I want to fuck you,” he said and the words, God, his words, made me crazy and he slipped out of my mouth with a pop. A string of saliva between my mouth and him.

  “Yes,” I breathed. “Yes.” Yes to all of it. Yes to everything.

  He tore out of his clothes. The white shirt thrown over his head, revealing a tattoo on his chest. The other half was pink with scar tissue.

  His chest, stomach, and arms were thick with muscles.

  If he wanted, he could hold me in one hand. That was the sense I got, anyway. He could hold me or tear me apart—with one hand.

  “Take off your clothes,” he said, and then jumped over the couch, heading for the other hallway.

  I was astounded to see that I still had my top on. I ripped it over my head and lay down on the couch, which felt like butter, soft against my skin.

  How odd to be lying down in this strange room in front of a wall full of windows when I couldn’t do it in my own trailer, the curtains shut.

  Suddenly shy, I sat up, looking for my underwear.

  He came back into the room and stepped around the couch to stand beside me. He had a silver strip of condoms in his teeth. Watching me, he pushed down his pants and stepped out of them. His boots had been kicked off in his bedroom. He tore one condom off the strip and tossed the others down on the ottoman.

  I reached for him, touching the bottom of the soft sac behind his penis, and he twitched and then reached for me, skipping my thigh, skipping everything but the heart of me.

  His fingers spread my folds and then slid right inside of me.

  I gasped. Arched. My breasts shimmied with the motion.

  He added another finger and I groaned.

  “It’s good?” he asked.

  “Yes.”

  “It’s going to be better when it’s my cock. I’m going to fill you all the way up, Annie.”

  “Hurry,” I breathed. He ripped the condom open with his teeth and pushed it on and then sat down at my feet on the couch.

  “Come here,” he murmured. And I must have moved too slowly because he pulled me up into his lap. He pulled me so hard I practically flew against him. He kissed me, deep and hard. And I kissed him back just as hard. Just as frantic.

  And then he grabbed my ass. Grabbed all my ass he could. Grabbed my ass like he wanted to rob it.

  “Oh God, oh my God. Please, do something. I need you to do something,” I whispered into his neck. “Or I’m going to do it myself.” I reached my hand down my body like I was going to make myself come, but he grabbed my hand and held it behind my back.

  I leaned away from his neck, looked him in the eye.

  “Lift yourself up,” he said.

  And I did, wobbling a little against his chest.

  With his free hand he reached behind me and then slowly began pushing me down onto him and I felt him…there at my pussy. Too hard. Too big.

  I cried out. Moaned. Suddenly scared. Suddenly worried. I tried to climb off of him.

  “Does it hurt?”

  “Too…it’s too much.”

  “Go slow. Take me slow.”

  I shook my head.

  “Annie, baby, look at me,” he said. And when our eyes met the fear was gone. The worry evaporated. It was just us. And he cared.

  “Do you want to stop?”

  I shook my head, words beyond me.

  The hand on my shoulder did not hold me or force me. It was just…there. Letting me set the pace. Which was slow, my body accepting his inch by inch. And what had seemed foreign was just…right.

  “It’s never felt like this before,” I whispered.

  Sweat poured off of me. Pooled between us. We were slick and we were heaving. And his patience and my trust made this something totally new.

  Finally, I was seated hard against him. Our hips so tight it nearly hurt, and I was gasping with every breath.

  “Now what?”

  He smiled. “Hold on,” he whispered. My head was too heavy to hold up, my body too cumbersome to control, so I put my head down on his neck and let him do it. Let him
move me. He grabbed onto my hips, pushing and pulling me against him in a slow, hard grind.

  I could feel him inside of me, brushing up against nerve endings I didn’t know existed, creating a kind of burn I’d never dreamed of. But when he pulled me toward him, he pushed up against my clit, creating the pressure I loved, and the combination of the two things with the heat of him, the strength of him all around me…very soon, it wasn’t enough anymore.

  I shifted harder against him and I could feel his breath catch, felt it in my chest cavity. And suddenly it was game over.

  He tilted us sideways and laid me out on that couch, my legs spread wide around his hips, my hands on his shoulders.

  “You okay?” he breathed through clenched teeth.

  “Good. So good.”

  He pulled out, almost all the way, and then pushed back into me. Again. Harder.

  “Still good?” he asked.

  All I could do was nod and clutch at his back, his body, try to hold on as the seas rose around us.

  He growled, swearing under his breath, and then grabbed onto the arm of the couch, using it for leverage as he began to pound into me.

  “Touch yourself,” he told me.

  “No,” I said, because what was happening was new. What was happening was different. “I’m going to come. Just like this. Keep. Just…. ”

  I didn’t have to tell him twice. He pounded into me three more times, each time so deep, impossibly deep, and then I was coming, unraveling beneath him. My nails digging into his back.

  “Oh…fuck. Annie,” he cried, and then he buried himself inside of me and came.

  I held onto him, stroking his hair, his back, the scars on his neck, and wondered what happened after something like this?

  How was I supposed to still be Annie McKay after this?

  I woke up slowly, rolling slightly, only to find my back stuck to whatever I was lying against. My skin peeled as I sat up. Leather. I’d fallen asleep on the leather couch.

  There was a soft blue blanket over my very naked body.

  My very naked, very…sore body. I felt stretched wide between my legs. The muscles in my back, in my thighs—they felt like they were made out of water.

  I felt like I was made out of water.

  I pressed my fingers against my lips as if I could hold back the giggle. I wanted to giggle. A giggle was going to happen.