“Too many to count.”
I stopped him. “Whatever your parents did to each other is no reflection on you, Alex. Same goes for my father. And for my mother’s complete lack of intervention. What they did to me is on them, not me. Did my father’s ranting, drunken idiocy affect me? Of course it did. Still does. Feel free to share whatever you want with me, but you don’t have to share what you don’t want to. I trust you enough to know that I can talk to you without being judged. I hope you’ll come to feel the same with me.”
“I already do,” he said. “That’s one of the reasons we’re here.”
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
For dinner, it was lobster rolls and fries. We drove into town and I bought us two rolls each at a local restaurant before Alex had time to pull out his wallet. Then, we brought them back in large Styrofoam containers to the house.
When Alex opened the refrigerator, I noticed that someone had stocked it to the nines. He did a little searching and then removed a bottle of champagne. I recognized it on sight from my time at db Bistro. The bright orange label gave it away. Veuve Clicquot. Stephen gave me a taste of it once. I told him I was only used to the cheapest of champagnes.
“Cheap is what I can afford,” I said.
“You’ll work harder after sipping this,” Stephen had replied.
As usual, Stephen was right. The champagne was bright and intoxicating.
“We’re really roughing it now,” I said to Alex.
“Indeed, we are.”
He popped open the bottle, found two antique champagne glasses in one of the cupboards, and poured. From the bottom of the glass’ hollow stem, bubbles swirled to the top and popped.
“To Maine,” he said, holding up his glass.
“To Maine,” I agreed. “And to lobster. Look how fat these rolls are. I’m salivating. If she knew what I was eating, Blackwell would have my ass.”
“She’d like to have your ass.”
“Just her?”
“I think you know better.”
We touched glasses, sipped, and dug in.
“It’s so sweet,” I said.
“And not too much mayo.”
“That’s how it should be done. Just a touch of mayo. People often ruin it by smothering it in mayonnaise.”
“Only a few places in New York get it right.”
“Do they really get it right?”
“A couple of places do. And they serve Maine lobster. The real deal.”
“We are so going there.”
He smiled at me and handed me a napkin.
“I’m a mess, aren’t I?”
“You’ve got a bit of mayo on your chin, but I wouldn’t call it ruined.”
I wiped it off. “I’d say forgive me, but I’d be lying. I’m enjoying this too much. What a treat.”
“Do you remember the first time you had lobster?”
“Not at all. I was lucky—we always had lobster when I was growing up. My Uncle Vaughn was a lobsterman, so we had it whenever we wanted it. My earlier years were a blur of lobster. It was ironic. We were dirt poor, but because of Uncle Vaughn, we ate like kings. Sometimes, when my uncle knew I needed to get away from his monster of a brother, he’d take me out on his boat with him. You should have seen the sheer amount of sea gulls that boat attracted. It was crazy.”
“And probably unsanitary.”
“You are correct. But it wasn’t too bad. They mostly hung back. But there were hundreds of them. I miss those days. You would have liked my uncle. I wish he had been my father.”
* * *
Later, after we’d cleaned up, we took the rest of the champagne into the living room. Alex placed it in a bucket filled with ice, and we watched the sun set over Cadillac Mountain.
“I love the Manhattan skyline, but nothing beats this,” Alex said.
“It’s peaceful. Look at the cars traveling up the mountain. Can you see their headlights?”
“I can.”
He topped off our champagne glasses, put the bottle back in its bucket, and then lifted his arm so I could move closer to him and rest my head against his chest.
We stayed like that for several hours, and long before the sun finally dipped from sight, I knew what was coming soon for each of us. And I dreaded it. What was coming was sleep—in separate bedrooms. Something I didn’t want at all.
Today had been a mix of fun and truth telling, but nothing especially romantic, though lying next to him now was nice. Still, nothing had happened between us that suggested we might end up in bed together. I wasn’t seeking sex—though I wouldn’t say no to it now because I was more than ready to be with him. I was seeking intimacy. We didn’t come here to sleep apart. At least, I didn’t. I came here to be with him in every way possible, which included sleep. I knew that when we returned to New York, the sort of paradise we were enjoying now would come to an abrupt end. While I could, I wanted to capitalize on all of our time together.
“What do you have planned for tomorrow?” I asked.
“More of this. Maybe the next day we’ll go into town, shop, and have dinner somewhere. Maybe at a nice restaurant. Maybe not. A diner would do me just fine.”
“Me, too. Sounds perfect.”
“We should get some sleep,” he said.
Reluctantly, I lifted myself off him, stood and stretched. I could feel his eyes on me, and I could sense that he also didn’t want to separate. I thought about what I was going to say to him, and it was ridiculous. See you in the morning, Alex? Please. I decided to go there. “Would you like to sleep with me tonight?”
“As in share a bed with you?”
“Yes.”
“Are you sure about that?”
“I wouldn’t have asked otherwise. I don’t want to be apart from you tonight. Or at all while we’re here, actually. I’d be lonely in that massive bed, and I’d just be thinking of you in the other room anyway.”
“So would I.”
“So let’s get rid of that frustration. Ready for bed?”
* * *
In the bedroom, the atmosphere shifted with anticipation.
“What side do you like to sleep on?” he asked.
“The right.”
He smiled. “And there you have it. I prefer the left.”
We each pulled down our corner of the bed, and then Alex cleared his throat. “I don’t really know how to say this,” he said.
“Say what?”
“This is awkward.”
“Nothing should be awkward between us as this point.”
“I generally sleep in the nude.”
I felt a rush at the thought of that, but bit down hard on it. The idea of seeing him naked thrilled me. “Who’s stopping you?”
“Are you sure about this?”
“I want you to be comfortable and sleep well.” Even I heard my voice break when I spoke. Holy shit, I’m going to see him naked.
“You sound a little unsure about that.”
Who knows what came over me—probably years of holding back fueled by the urgency to go forward—but for whatever reason, I pulled my tank top over my head. I tossed it onto a chair across from me, unfastened my bra, tossed it on to the chair, and then I took off the rest of my clothes, leaving on only my panties. There was only so far I could go the first time out, but to get to this point felt liberating. I stood in front of him and saw him eyeing my full breasts with clear lust and desire stamped on his face. His gaze traveled down the length of my body, which he’d never seen so exposed, and then came back to my breasts before meeting my eyes.
“You’re beautiful,” he said in a low voice.
I smiled with a sense of trepidation and anticipation as I waited for him to do the same. It didn’t take him long to get the hint, but I wondered how far he’d take it. Just to his boxers? Or would he go all the way?
He tugged his shirt over his head and left it on the floor. Off came his jeans, also left on the floor. He hesitated for a moment, a silence stretched between us, but then he
went for it and stepped out of his boxers. He flung them aside and stood before me, naked.
Just as he had appraised my breasts, I took in every inch of him, and finally saw what I knew was going to be a challenge. He was indeed large. And thick. It seemed perfectly proportioned, just like the rest of him.
And then, as I looked at it, it started to stiffen.
Before I could get a better look, I got into bed, and he followed in after me. The sheets were cool and soft. The mattress was firm and comfortable. I asked him to turn onto his side, and I pressed my nearly naked body against his back so he wasn’t pressed against mine. If he was, I knew I wouldn’t be able to take it. I slung my arm low over his waist and gently stroked his stomach while I kissed his shoulder. It wasn’t long before the head of his penis nudged against my hand and then stretched beyond it. At that moment, I could almost feel the energy surging between us because he obviously knew what was brushing against the back of my hand. When I couldn’t stand it any longer, I reached for it on impulse and, when I did so, felt my whole body turn into a silo of heat. It felt huge in my hand, as thick as a wrist, and I could feel it throbbing. The fact that I was doing this was a massive turn-on—a territory unexplored. I stroked it gently and could feel myself growing wet almost immediately.
“Jennifer,” he said.
“Yes, Alex?”
“If you keep doing that....”
“I’m not about to stop now.”
“Fine, then.”
With a swiftness that surprised me, he swung around on the bed, flung the bedding off each of us, and straddled me with his hands pinning mine firmly against the mattress.
His cock lay heavily on my stomach. I gasped at the sudden change of position, but then, in the moonlight, I saw the look of longing on his face, and felt the urgency in his touch when he removed my panties in one quick motion.
“I hope you’re not tired,” he said, “because you’re going to be up for hours.”
“Alex—”
“I told you your first time would be special. I meant that. But you’re going to need stamina for that. You’re first time is going to be something you’ll remember favorably for the rest of your life. I’m going to make certain of that. You’ll see.”
He kissed me gently on the mouth, and then harder until I could barely breathe. I felt the stubble on his chin again. It was rough against my cheek and then against my neck as he probed lower. His tongue tasted me, and his lips covered me. Low murmuring sounds came from his throat until he found one of my nipples and attended to it with his mouth.
And then he stopped.
“I’ve said it twice, and now I’m going to prove it to you. Without barely touching you, I’m going to make you come. And then you’re going to come in other ways tonight. Throughout the night. Are you ready for that?”
I felt as if my body couldn’t take much more, and we had just started, which was pathetic. I writhed beneath his touch. I struggled against it as he lowered his mouth to my ear, pressed his chest ever so lightly against my nipples, and began to rub them with his own nipples while he whispered everything he was about to do to me.
It was too much. It was sensation overload. I fought against him, but he told me it was in vain. Again and again, his nipples brushed against my own nipples. Again and again, he said unthinkable things to me. Again and again, he pushed me further to an edge I didn’t know existed, but had only heard about. But this edge was cutting. It was raw and unexpected. His chin dipped down and his stubble brushed against my naked flesh, which left me writhing on the bed to the point that I felt I was going to explode.
“Alex,” I said.
He didn’t respond. He just kept doing what he was doing. The same motions, over and over. Barely touching me, which seemed to me the cruelest part. I wanted his hands on me, but he was determined to deny me that. This was so close to torture that I wanted to slap him for it.
It was at that point that I became wild. I felt as if I couldn’t contain myself any longer. I wanted to beat him for what he was doing to me now. I wanted to float above my body and look down at us from the ceiling so I could witness what he was doing to me. I wanted to flee. I wanted to stay. But most of all, I wanted to come.
And then, with one harsh, unexpected word, he said, “Now!”
Something I’d never felt before overtook my body and I cried out in such pleasure, it left me shaking, even when it was over. I lay there, trembling. I looked up at him, then at the darkness that was the ceiling, where I had wanted to be a moment ago, and I couldn’t believe what I’d just experienced. It was beyond what I had expected. But obviously, he had more in mind.
“I told you,” he said. “I can bring you to orgasm without barely touching you.”
“That was incredible,” I said.
“That’s just the beginning.”
He snaked his way down from my breasts to my belly, and then he parted my legs slightly, hesitated, and then spread my thighs wide. His head lowered from sight, but I could feel his tongue slip inside of me. I couldn’t believe his mouth was down there, or what he was doing there. I couldn’t believe I could ever be so open to a man. His licked my wet folds, pressed around them, and flicked them with his tongue. He tasted them for long moments before he went to my clitoris and covered his mouth over it while he sucked until I screamed out again.
“What are you doing to me?”
“Everything that you’ve deprived yourself of.”
“It’s too much.”
“So you’ve said. And it hasn’t even begun.”
I heard him spit in his hand, and I knew what that meant. He was lubricating himself. I could feel his arm move backward and forward. He lifted up my hips a bit, and then he asked me if I was ready.
“If I’m not ready now, I never will be.” I couldn’t help a little laugh, but it was a nervous, almost manic laugh. It was a laugh filled with the uncertainty of the unexpected. It was a laugh laced with a trace of fear.
Is this going to hurt?
I felt the tip of his cock press against me, and I was surprised that it didn’t feel as if it was going to hurt. He pressed further into me, and it felt tight, but good. He had prepared me for this. He’d spent an hour making sure I was wet and ready for him. He knew exactly what he was doing, probably because he knew that given the size of his penis, he could cause great pain.
Slowly, inch by careful inch, he moved within me until I did feel pain. I gasped when I felt an odd sensation, a kind of giving way of flesh, and then I felt a warm moistness spread between my legs. We both knew what that meant, and for a moment he paused and his eyes searched mine, his soul a mirror of my own.
“Are you—?”
“Don’t stop,” I said.
He plunged deeper into me, which made me curl up and grasp him around his shoulders while he pumped into me. His rhythm was steady and strong. He never looked away from me. I absorbed every bed-shaking thrust with a mixture of pain and pleasure, mostly the latter. Thank God for the latter. I melted into him and eventually started to meet his thrusts with my own. When I became wildly aroused, my head arched back and he barked that word again: “Now!”
The command startled me so much that I came. And then I came again. And again. Somehow, each orgasm made the moonlit room grow even darker. I threw my hands over my face while he continued to pulse inside of me, and I felt as if I was aloft, not part of my body at all. I was hovering just outside of myself, which made no sense to me because I was holding on to him fiercely for support. My grip was so strong around his shoulders that I had bound myself physically to him, but my head and my heart and my body were in the ether. I was in another place. He kept pounding and pounding, his head lowering to suck on my nipples or to bury his mouth against my lips or my ears as his sweat dripped down onto me. He was like a machine, precise and efficient. Without exhaustion, he drilled into me, always checking my expression to make sure that I was with him. How long could he last? Certainly, not that much longer.
But it was longer than I’d expected. Thirty minutes later, when his body finally shuddered as he came in a roar and we both were spent, I realized that I had no idea what I was up against.
He still was on top of me. “Now are you my girlfriend?” he said.
I didn’t answer. Even though in my heart I was his girlfriend, I wasn’t ready to commit to that yet. It was a loaded term for me. My father once told me that I’d never find anyone. He said that, if on the off chance that I somehow did, they’d leave me once they learned that I was nothing more than a common, filthy whore, just like my mother. It made no sense to me then, but when he was drunk, he made no sense. But his words still stuck like glue, and I was damned that even at this point in my life, I’d yet to shake them off.
My head was spinning now, but Alex wasn’t about to give up.
“All right then. Too soon. But are you mine?”
“Only if you’re mine.”
“That equals thing again, huh?”
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t apologize,” he said quietly. “I’m yours. But I have been for a while now. I’m completely yours.”
“Take me again.”
Somehow, he did. He became erect in what seemed like seconds. Then, he slid inside of me and rode me, and I didn’t know where I was or who I was when he maneuvered me around the bed into more positions than I thought were possible. But I knew that this was right. I knew that I was his and that he was mine. And I knew in some part of my being as he thrust into me and whispered things to me that were fueled by passion, that there was no turning away from this now.
As fierce as he was in bed, never once didn’t I trust him. He seemed to intuitively know exactly how to position his body so I would enjoy the maximum pleasure.
We went so late into the night that I saw morning break beyond the windows in front of me. And when I came again, my body spent from the convulsions of yet another orgasm, he gently pulled out of me, turned me onto my side, and wrapped his arm around my waist as I quickly fell into a deep sleep.
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