But, he shows me, it’s not necessary for me to worry about falling off; one leg wraps around my own and secures me to him, his lean thigh aligns with mine, his calf braids against my ankle and foot. He pushes his other hand up between us, shoving his shirt out of the way. Pulling us together as if it hurt not to feel skin on skin.
He shifts our kiss, holds my locks back, presses his lips to me. To my face, my throat, my collarbone. Ripping, popping seams, he gathers what’s left of his shirt in his fist.
“Emma, I need…to feel…to feel you.”
I make a move, stretch up, yank at his clothes. His shirt peels most of the way off, but he holds me tighter yet. Relinquishes his grasp only when I can’t suppress a giggle at the catch-22 of it all. He begins to laugh, too, but the sound catches in his throat when I have my camisole halfway over my head. Once it’s completely off, I feel my hair spill down over my bare back and exposed chest. Reflexively, my hands cross over my breasts. His eyes narrow slightly, and he shakes his head once, slowly. He sits up and gently lowers first one of my arms, kissing its wrist as he displaces it, and then the other.
Never breaking the gaze we share, he reaches down and removes his shirt, making it as thin as possible before it slips over his head and lands in a distant corner. I grip his arm, trace the indentation where his shoulder and bicep meet.
Both his hands up my sides, thumbs pad under the swell of my breasts. Cups one. Rubs across. Tensing. Teasing. Taut.
Then his other arm slides around, draws me close to him. Close. Presses me into his chest, infuses.
His touch is no longer tentative; he blazes a trail.
Soft kisses along my neck are now nibbles, nearly bites along my collarbone.
Licks salt and skin between kisses. My fingers through his hair. He explores me. Again. More. Even when I think he knows all of me, he finds more. A spot. A pulse. A place that makes me quake, quiver.
Stealing moments, helter-skelter, whenever I can find my mind, I curve and kiss his forehead, the corners of his mouth, and the slight saltiness of sweat. Dew on breaking Christmas morn.
Of their own accord, my hands tug and pull his waistband. He notes my intent, breaks away from our embrace. Rests his head on my chest, panting and watching me work them down. Rise and fall, his chest heaves. He nods, head lowered. Some silent pact with himself, some secret I still yearn to know, wish to learn.
A monumental shift in our positions. He finishes removing his pants, leaves me for a moment. Bereft. I never knew its real meaning before. Then he’s down beside me. I can feel my hair splayed out around me. Slowly, he combs the already tangled ends out with his fingers. Reverent. Continues to kiss me, forever kissing me. He is braced on a single forearm, moves his touch from my hair, to my face, and down. Draws a line along my body, pausing. Pauses briefly over my heart. He presses his palm flat there. Bends. Places open lips there, on the space that drums below him, that might now have fulfilled its dual purpose in life.
Yeah, well, open my envelope and call me a Hallmark card. He already said I gave the very best…
The rough of his hand slips lower, then lower. I cannot stop, don’t want to stop my reactions. Hips rise. Plunging my hands into his hair. He slides a finger under lace, past the band of my panties.
I know if I shift ever so slightly I will be able to feel his erection, pretty much ride it. But he is trying to be gentlemanly about it. How very sweet.
But we will have none of that. None of that, I say.
It is touching…but I want to touch him.
His fingers skim the near flat of my stomach as he approaches…me. His focus on our kisses falters for the first time; while he continues to press his lips to mine, a greater portion of his attention is clearly elsewhere. As is mine. For, while he had been successful in keeping the physical evidence of his arousal somewhat discreet, there just is no disguising my excitement.
At this point, I’m pretty much a Slip ’N Slide. Like, a Slip ’N Slide with Wesson oil and the hot on full blast. Wheeeeee.
He grips the edges of the fabric, drags it down my thighs and legs. My flesh contracts where the fabric leaves a wet trail along my inner thighs. I feel my breathing still as I await his reaction to the effect he’s had on me. My panties find their way onto the floor, and Alaric wraps one arm around me at the waist and the other around my shoulders.
His face buried in my neck, he continues to cradle me within one arm, the other drifts. Glides.
Fingers play along my hip. Thigh. There.
A gasp. Harsh and low. Resounding below my ear. Moment of stillness, and he stills momentarily, then his deep moan into the hollow of my neck makes my thighs clench together over his hand.
“My God, Emma,” he rasps. Single finger slips inside. “You are killing me, lady.”
Bite back a moan. Fight back all sounds, all words, not trusting what telltales may escape. Or shocking compositions of curse words. Like Beethoven found a late-life penchant for salacious symphonies. Alaric’s been so composed, worshipful, while I was on the verge of shouting some incredibly vulgar things. He must notice what I’m doing, because he gently pulls my bottom lip from between my teeth with his own. Half suck, half bite. Watches my reaction through hooded lids.
“No, Emma, don’t hold back.” Throaty rasp. “Let me know how I make you feel.” Then he slides a second finger. Stretch. I moan.
He curls them in me, searching.
My hands cling, dig. Fix to the contours of his back, then downward, and around to trace the V that has called out to me for so long.
He finds the spot. Brushes. Strokes. Then assaults. Crushes my lips.
Unable to aim. Almost on his lips. Kiss anything, all that I can find. Shout against him. Sounds, not words. The open ache of vowel sounds. No language known to man or beast.
Fall back together. Tangled arms. Foggy, I hear murmurs. Soft reassurances in my ear. Missing most of it in the thunderous blood rushing around my system.
“Always you. Only you.”
My treacherous, trembling hand fumbles its way. Close him in my palm. Brush the tip. He hisses. Thick. He’s wet, too. Coats my fingers. His hips move forward into my hand, and he’s panting.
I wrap my leg around his hip, tucking my ankle against the point where his thigh meets his perfect ass, and encourage him to move over top of me. Which he does, then halts. His weight rests on his forearms, hands on either side of my face. His eyes dance…and since it is Christmas, I will allow the comparison to Fred Astaire, because I’m my usual Ginger Rogers, doing my dance in high heels.
Heat radiates from him. Near me, not entering me. He shakes above me, apparently awaiting some unknown cue.
I’m too busy with my turn kissing his throat, his shoulders, any part of him I can reach. A shadow of dark hair below his chin calls out to me; I swirl my tongue, roughness runs under my tongue, and draw his Adam’s apple into my mouth in a long suck.
“Christ.”
He speaks, and my suction breaks with the movement. He bends and curves over the top of me, bringing my nipple between his lips, pulling at it, drawing it deeply into his mouth. He moves, repeats.
Lick, and touch, and draw long breaths. Pull back, survey his landscape. Look for something more. More connection, as if I need another sense to take him in. So I want to give him the single one left: hearing.
The problem is, I don’t know what exactly to say.
The high ceiling is invisible in the current light, only acoustics of reverberated gasps bounce back down upon us. In a room already filled with our soft moans, he needs words.
In this moment, I recognize my power. Because, for once, I can say how I feel without reservation. He needs to know, and I need to tell him. Where earlier words had seemed trite, in this space and time I accept that they can, they will, they must—must—make everything right. I conjure strength and force myself to break away and speak.
“You are who I’m meant for.”
Lowest groan. Eyes close. Breath holds.
Touch lips. Tremor. Enter. Lightning strike.
The unspoken words “Take me” rattle around in my brain. The sentiment seems insufficient somehow, perhaps embedded in patriarchal notions. The idea that there is a penetration, a plundering, an invasion, so there must be a taking. It’s somehow off to me…for I am taking him. I am claiming. I receive. There will be just as much of me when we are done. If anything, he might be the one leaving himself behind. I will be the same…but more. I envelope, encase, claim. I accept.
I take him.
There is a responsibility in that notion that I never saw before. Take care of as well as care for.
He trusts me to be as strong as the both of us need me to be. We are but two short steps from loneliness, longing.
Trust gives way to thrusts, and I find I can no longer contemplate the intricacies of the universe.
He’s being so careful and slow. It’s touching, torture. Both.
Braced on his elbows, hover and touch and rasp, shallow breaths. Move, slip. Flat of palms beneath my shoulder blades. Wet along collarbone, neck. Water drips, rivulets beyond my ear. Kissed away. Pound. Harder. Harsh. I want him at the spot inside me all his own. Again. Beyond count. Fuck, I don’t even know anymore. More. More. Fuck, please just more. Thunder, shudder. Body wracks. Hair clings, slick locks.
With each movement, each in then out, he moves fractionally further. Slow and paced and acutely aware of each new stretch. He continues, quakes so much and me, maybe more. I think, perhaps, he’s resisting the urge to plunge ahead and finish the trek. I would be inclined to appreciate the need represented by such urgency—because I’m only human, heck, I want to feel that desired, that wanted—but it occurs to me that this inch-by-inch method has been going on for quite some time…and he’s not done yet.
Move. Kiss. Slide. Farther. Further. Stretch. Again. Move…
And he’s not there yet…
That is to say, Elvis has barely entered the building.
Holy. Shit. Am I that nervous? Or were those pernicious pineapples I’ve been sneaking into his meals really GMOs laced with super-conductor growth hormones?
I mean, I have been doing Kegels like a mofo, but seriously? This fit before? Just yesterday?
“Ungh…uh…uh…a…ric. I…oh, God—” I cry out as his hips tilt and thickness presses inside me against the spot his fingers had stroked earlier. My limbs leave my control, and I wrap around him, clinging. I clutch and grasp, fingertips pressing at the contours and sinews of his back.
Legs flail, and suddenly, I find I’m around him, past waist and hip, ankles entwined above. It causes a shift, a surge. Farther in, into me, much farther.
A shift that may catch him unawares; long, moaning curses fall beside and all around me. Progress and movement still. Only tremulous movements along his limbs. Strain and hold back.
I wriggle, then writhe, then learn to make his body beg.
Hands down the small of his back, smoothing one over his hip, press thumbs into bone. Will him, plead with him to continue. My hands slide between us, to where we meet. Near scorches, humidity, heat.
Partially sheathed, consume, complete. Hands run circuits along my sides, along my waist. Palm draws my thigh up, anchors him down. Transfixed, I don’t have any idea why I note the soft webbing between his thumb and index finger as it presses against the back of my right knee. He holds fast, sounds so soft, kisses forming a line over my breastbone. They’re unsteady. Tender whisper-laced kisses. Barely audible over the pulse thrumming in my ears.
These are the secrets.
Finally.
And I hear some of what he has to say for the first time.
Furtive, so much so it almost feels like I eavesdrop. “Only you…” His mouth press to the pulse point on my throat.
“Whatever it takes…” His lips smooth along my neck, open and moist. “Mine…goddamn it all….now…” The words are hoarse and dry. I feel him swallow against my breast.
My hands fly to his face and pull him to me and kiss him and never let go. I have never felt more. My palms rub against the scruff along his cheeks. Kiss and delve and swallow any more of these clandestine curses. Then I spread my legs, strain near pain, drag the hand he held me with along the way. Hips hitch forward. Manage a great deal more poise than I would have ventured I possess. Draw his length in. To the hilt. All of him, all that remains of him, of me.
He cries out into my mouth when his hips fully meet mine. I think he might have tried to hold fast and allow me to adjust, but I am having none of it; I raise myself and grind against him. Alaric breaks from our kiss and watches the space where our bodies join. Each joining, his breathing picks up more, and then yet more. Strong fingers wrapped at my waist. The fingertips of one hand feel as though they may almost touch the other, completely encircling me in his grasp.
Full, long, deep…complete.
Steady movements. Try to force my eyes to remain open. More than can be managed. Peek through foggy slits. Shadows, silhouettes move above me, within me.
He alternates in some rhythm I can’t measure. Lips to mine. Then, watching himself in me. Slide. Disappear. Focus, gauge my reaction.
Vaguely, I register one of his hands moving from my waist, feel the drag along smooth sheets, past my body, my face, my hair, sliding until it extends over my head and, probably, latches onto the back of the mattress. Leverage. Heaving push.
I’m no scientist, but if this is what fulcrum or leverage (or, hell, thermal dynamics and industrial water technology, for all I know) do for intimacy, sign me up for the courses.
For a doctorate.
Pressure, and the hand he still uses to secure my waist tilts my pelvis up to greet his. He draws himself up on his knees slightly, slides his length into me. Slow. Rubs along my front wall, edges. All. Watching, ever watching my reactions.
I give up. Give in. Unmasked and no disguise, he sees it all. All that is me on display.
Draws back out, maneuvers me again. Forward plunge. Different path. Different point. Oh, more right there, and again, again and please. Air in throat, breath catches, soundless moan.
Moonlight glints off his smile. Finds what he’s looking for. Takes a long breath, then draws back, then enters and pounds again, again. There. Just…there.
Scream. I want to. Need to. For all I know, I might.
Force. Extreme. Hold on. Ankles dig and ache. Feel my body, my back arc up and away from the point where we join. My head is weighted, too heavy, stays touching the bed. Back bows, mimics a flesh rainbow.
Might say his name. Might blaspheme. I begin to call out all manner of sounds. Some might even be actual words. Or the recipe for tuna noodle surprise.
Clutch at the sheets, pulling, arc further, and shake. He moves his hand from the mattress and drags a flat palm down the length of my torso to join his other one in holding my waist.
Breaths that are rough. He continues to pound into me. Thoroughly. Fully.
Completely.
All around, words spill. I hear myself saying things and can’t stop. I tell him how I would think of him every day. Thrash and cool sheets and night air. Whisper nonsensical rants about cherry wood doors and white dress shirts and conference room C. How I can’t concentrate except on him.
And still he pounds into me and still I keep pouring my heart out to him.
In shallow gasps I share with him how much he means to me and it scares me that he does.
Happy and terrified. I’m sobbing about how much he means to me when Alaric suddenly stops, his eyes wide. Stops, scoops me up. Flat against him, every crevice, every space. Fine hairs and cool sweat.
His hands run through my hair. Kisses my cheeks, my lips, corners of my eyes, every part of my face as if I’ve been missing and he has just found me. He lowers us both back to the bed. Lips tease flesh inside of one of my elbows. He places it on his shoulders, wrapping around him, holding him. Encased. He resumes. Long, full.
Maybe only moments and I splinter. Fall. Tense and clench. Lu
ngs tight with confessions and courage and cowardice. He seems near the brink. His muscles writhe and contract. His words like whispers, inaudible through my haze. Breathes more secrets into my skin, and I strain to hear the tale, and he throws his head back, shouts, pours. Heat. Spasm. Full.
He shudders and continues to spill. Runs open-mouth kisses wherever they land.
I stay silent, and he continues to whisper, to respond to the confessions I have been unable to hold back. I begin to hear and understand the hum decoded through dissipating fog. His voice a low thrum. “I do…so much already…” He kisses my eyes and smooths the dampened hair from my face. “Already and always.” He swallows thickly and runs his nose alongside my own. “Oh, God, Emma. You don’t know how much…I do.”
He wraps his arms around me and breathes his words into my hair. “I love you, too.”
Say who with the what now? Well, Merry Christmas and Ho Ho Holy Crap.
Just what the hell have I been yammering on about?
Christmas Morning
10:09 a.m.
WARM. EVERYTHING IS WARM, and I’m being jostled.
My eyes flutter open.
“Hey,” he says, kissing my bare shoulder. “I couldn’t wait any longer.”
His lips are wet, soft. I stretch and kiss his throat.
“There is something I have to tell you…that you should know,” he says against my skin. “I meant what I said earlier. It was not because of the heat of the moment or because I felt compelled to respond in kind. I want you to know that.”
“Hmm?” So sleepy. Content.
“I love you, Emma.” His lips brush the corner of my eye, my cheek, my own. “I love you and I know you. I know you in my soul. With everything I am, I love you for everything you are.”
In my waking haze, no act, no filter, I say the first thing that comes naturally to me.
“I probably love you, too.”
11:15 a.m.
* Stockings: Hung over the lampshade with care.
* Coital: Post.
The Plan Page 20