Man Of Few Words

by Whistler, Ursula

  “Is that your answer for everything?”

  “Yes, in fact, it is. It’s good when you’re happy, when you’re sad, or when you’re avoiding something.” She put her hands on her hips as she studied his face in the moonlight. It told her nothing.

  “Or when you’re saying goodbye?” From his look, she could tell he wasn’t convinced that this was a good idea.

  She thought of the bottle of rum she’d put into the bag of groceries and of the last time she’d had some in strawberry daiquiris. Hadn’t he always told her that she wouldn’t stop screaming out the sunroof of his car until he took her swimming? She could lure him like that again, give him one last reason to connect with her. In one motion, she pulled off her top, showing him her breasts. The chill in the air puckered her nipples.

  He rushed to her and wrapped his arms around her. “It’s too cold.”

  “I won’t care. I’ll be with you.” She pulled his sweater over his head. His eyes closed as she pressed her hardened nipples against his chest. With her hands on his face, she pulled him into a kiss.

  He responded, pressing his lips harder onto her and plunging his tongue into her mouth. With each exploration of his tongue, her need increased to have him inside her, filling her with his cock.

  She trailed her hands along his chest and let them rest at his hips. As his kisses grew more fevered, she reached for his crotch. Caressing the bulge growing under her hand, she began unbuttoning his pants. When she’d released his full throbbing shaft, she broke the kiss to drop to her knees. She’d give this gift to him since she doubted she could give him lasting happiness.

  “You have a weird way of expressing yourself,” he whispered.

  “I know.” She knew she did, too, but it was her, all her, so it couldn’t be so terrible.

  “Have you ever thought of changing…” His other words blew away with the gulf breeze as she kissed the tip. He brushed her hair from her face and held it with a light grip.

  She smiled at his thoughtfulness. With one hand at the base of his shaft, she tasted the head of his cock. Sweet saltiness greeted her tongue as she circled him. Her pulse throbbed in her ears along with the breaking surf behind her. She pulled away with a pop. Duff gasped.

  Wanting to hear that sound again, she slowly slid her mouth along his full length, feeling his tip touch the back of her throat. She let the gag reflex pass as she used suction to tug backward. When she pushed his cock all the way into her mouth again, Duff held her there for a long moment before guiding her head backward. She circled the full head of his shaft with her tongue. With short bobbing motions, she increased the suction and pressure on his rod. Sucking him and hearing his gasping moans released her own juices. She held his sac in her fingers and kneaded as she savored his hardened cock.

  With a slight pressure on the sides of her head, Duff pulled her away. “Let me taste you now.” He dropped to his knees in front of her. “I’ve thought about hearing you come every night that I’ve been without you.”

  She lowered herself onto the blanket and unfastened the tight jeans she’d worn to tease him. Together, they rid her legs of the rough fabric.

  He kissed her belly before asking, “Are you cold?”

  She shook her head and spread her legs, knowing that her pussy was wet for him. Sucking his cock had aroused her. As he took his first lick, tears came to her eyes as she realized this would be last time that his velvet tongue would bring her to such heights. Intense shocks shot through her pussy and sent heat down her legs and upward into her belly.

  Duff took small licks, first at her clit, and then thrusting his tongue into her wet center. She wanted his hands pulsating with his tongue. “Not just your tongue. Give me some fingers. Deep.”

  He lifted enough to tell her, “Sand. Bad for that.” He chuckled against the inside of her thigh.

  She was both aroused and annoyed. “What’s so funny?” He shouldn’t find goodbye sex amusing.

  “You asked for that the last time we did this. I said no then.” He kissed up her abdomen, nipped at a nipple, and took small bites at her neck. He nuzzled her ear as he spoke. “I’d really like to spread you with my fingers, feel you tighten around them, but I don’t want to get sand inside you. You’ll have to wait for my cock.”

  “Then give it to me now. I’m ready. I want you.”

  “Not if this is our last time.” He slid lower down her torso, placing licks and kisses along the way. “I want to remember the taste of you.” After a nip to her thigh that made her squeal, he delved his tongue inside her wet center that pulsed with renewed need.

  With each stroke, she grew closer to an orgasm, but she wanted him to see her face when she came. This last time couldn’t be all about the pleasure even if she did turn to sex for everything. She wouldn’t give in to the tyranny of the orgasm. Sex this time would have emotion. Perhaps he’d see the love for him that she’d discovered she still possessed. She wiggled away from him. “I want to see you come.”

  A sad look crossed his face. “I didn’t bring a condom.”

  She grinned and reached for her purse. “I did.” She dumped the contents to the blanket beside her. The box of condoms and lube tumbled out with her wallet and phone. She’d wanted to be adventurous this evening, letting him fuck her in the ass. One of her daydreams had been the sex on the floor when he’d pressed his fingers into her puckered hole. She left that unsaid.

  He pushed his pants and underwear lower down his thighs as he knelt before her hands that held an unwrapped condom. His full cock begged to be sucked, and she took him in her mouth for one more taste. The salty bead of pre-cum spread along her tongue as she savored the fullness of his shaft. She pushed him on his back. “I want you this way.” She swung a leg over him, rolled on the thin latex, and let him guide his cock into her pussy.

  “You’re dripping.”

  “That’s how bad I want you.”

  With a growl, he ordered her, “Come here.”

  She bent forward, which pushed him further inside her. His cock rubbed along her inner walls, and she gasped. Shocks went through her as he took a nipple into his mouth. She held his head there as she pulsed atop him, trying to remember how his cock spread the walls of her pussy and how the friction sent thrills along her spine and into her very soul.

  With their bodies pressed together, she felt no cold between them. Yet, the chill wind across her back spurred her to thrust faster, deeper. Duff didn’t attempt to slow her. Instead his hands urged her on, pressing her closer as his mouth feasted on her other breast. She placed her hands beside his head, using them to push herself backward with more force. She drove him deeper inside her pussy until she could take no more. Lust, love, thrills, sadness, and ecstasy twirled throughout her veins, filling her, stretching her insides to the point of bursting. Her clit pulsed with the promise of letting loose all the pent up emotion, and as Duff tugged at a nipple, the dam broke. She loosed a cry as the waves of her orgasm exploded through her.

  Another orgasm loomed and built right behind the first waves. She thrust her hips against him, driving him deeper. His fingers dug into her hips, and he let her nipple slip from his lips. She lifted her torso and rode him upright, angling the head of his cock across her G-spot.

  Her second release washed over her, and she opened her eyes to look at the face beneath her. Pale moonlight lit the chiseled features as his mouth opened into a silent O. A quiet “yes” slipped out as he came. The pressure from his fingers abated, and his cock pulsed inside her. His shoulders shook as his hips circled against hers. She rested atop him and spread her hands across his chest.

  This would be what she would miss. The quiet moment after the release, where all she knew was happiness, satiation, and joy, and she didn’t need to worry about all those other horrible things she had to deal with. His arms tightened around her back, and she breathed in time with him. They panted and sighed. A tear slipped from the corner of her eye. She had no way of stopping it without breaking contact with h
im. She let it fall onto his shoulder wishing she possessed the strength and confidence to welcome a child into her life.

  After he let out a deep breath, Duff spoke. “You’re right, Kirsten. Sex is a great way to say goodbye.”

  Chapter Eleven

  Another beautiful sunrise had streamed through Kristen’s bedroom window. A beam highlighted the rug on the floor where Duff had taken his time bringing her to orgasm. He’d made love to her, and last night she’d dreamed of those moments, coming to a realization that woke her as the orange and pink rays seeped into her room. She’d only been interested in sex to distract her from the jumble of feelings she’d experienced since seeing him the night of her job celebration. Their last sex on the beach had highlighted this, brought it forward. She couldn’t make it recede.

  Sex, for such a long time, had been her way of getting rid of the negative emotions surrounding her. Stress got replaced by the electric zings from a man pulling a nipple into his mouth. Sadness stood no chance in the afterglow of an orgasm. She’d gone with Duff to his place that night in Seville to douse the anger. In fact, she thought, the fucking kept going that night because she was annoyed at the actions of her father. She never realized how badly she dealt with her own feelings.

  And now, this morning, after goodbye sex, she didn’t feel any better. Her orgasm hadn’t made it all go away. Her decision to back away from Duff and his child still rankled her. Why the hell didn’t it work this time? Hadn’t it helped her all those other times?

  She remembered a moment after her father shared the results of a CT scan with all of his retired friends sharing beer with him. Boomer sat beside her when her father had said he hadn’t a chance of chemo working. She’d choked back tears for what seemed the thousandth time. Boomer’s hand on her shoulder had kept the waterworks at bay. She felt ashamed to remember why. Especially since he now stood across from her, and she was having some of the same thoughts.

  “You’re awfully quiet this morning. Care to share those thoughts?” Boomer dipped his brush into the wood sealant and applied it onto the staircase they’d built the weekend before.

  She blushed, and she knew it by the heat shooting from her cheeks. It didn’t matter how close she was with Boomer, she wasn’t telling him her fucked up way of dealing with emotion. She loved sex solely for its ability to help her forget the bad parts of life. She turned to it, no matter how inappropriate. If she’d not had this revelation as the sun shined into her room, Boomer would have been her next conquest. He probably would’ve come to her willingly, not knowing that she would be using his cock as therapy. She muttered to herself, “Fucking avoidance therapy.”

  “I didn’t hear the whole thing, but I did catch the ‘fucking’ part.”

  The heat from her cheeks spread down her chest. “I didn’t mean it that way. It was an angry fucking not a fuck fucking.” She lowered her head onto an unpainted surface in front of her. “Why the hell does that word have so many meanings?”

  “Because Americans give every word they can lots of definitions. Let’s not let that get in the way of you telling me why you are angry.” He kept painting, even as he looked at her.

  She avoided his eyes. “I’m mad at my coping mechanisms and a particular knee-jerk reaction.”

  “Who’d you bring home last night?”

  The paintbrush saved her from falling forward in shock. Without it, she’d be covered in stinky sealant. “No one. Why would you ask that?”

  “Suzy is worried about you. She called me last night.”

  Kirsten pressed her lips together. She’d said very little to her roommate when she came home last night. There didn’t seem to be a need to discuss the situation with Duff. Screwing up wasn’t a comfortable subject for her.

  “Do you want to know why she’s worried?”

  She avoided his gaze again. The white sands of the dunes with the waving sea oats became her focus. “I’m sure it has to do with Duff.”

  “That would be the guy. Want to tell me? Might help to get a male perspective.”

  She turned from the idyllic scene before her to frown at Boomer. “You want to hear this? About another man?”

  He nodded. “Your dad might have wanted me to marry you, but I’m too old. I’ve got a divorce behind me. I can’t even have kids, now. Got that taken care of years ago. I told him that I didn’t think it was fair to you, who probably wanted to have kids.”

  She gasped. Her father had been such a back scenes conniver. “When did he tell you this?”

  “After your mother’s funeral.”

  “Is that why you kept emailing me?”

  “Yes, when Tanner gave an order, I followed it even without the uniform.” Boomer flashed her a shy smile. “And, you’re a good looking woman.”

  “But not interesting enough to make a real go at me? You never asked me out on a date or anything like that.” She took that as a sign that she really was messed up and unfit for a relationship. Good-natured Boomer didn’t want her.

  “Good lord, no, Kirsten. Not like that at all.” He shook his head. “I fell in love with you over emails, but I get protective of you. I want to do everything for you, not let you fail at anything. You don’t need that kind of presence in your life. That would make you miserable, and I’ve seen proof of it.”

  She loved him as a friend even more after that admission. Boomer would have been a great brother. “You have that right. My father tried too much to make everything perfect for me. He pushed one man away and another toward me.” No wonder failing felt so terrible. Her father had made her afraid of failure, when she should have been learning from it, changing her life’s course to adjust to it.

  “He’s done this before?” Boomer stopped painting. “Who has he tried to set you up with besides me?”

  “Other way around.” No wonder her father had suggested Boomer as a trusted friend. He knew if he told her that he’d like to see her with Boomer, that she would defy him. She endured serious griping from her dad when she took leave of her job to nurse him. His annoyance kept her going even in the most difficult time.

  “Ah, he pushed this guy away that’s giving you fits.”

  “I’m the one giving the guy problems.” One last step remained to paint. She sat on the ground before it to slap on a coat.

  Boomer sat beside her. “How is that?”

  “He has a kid, and I let that spook me. I’ve never thought I’d be a good parent, and he ended up with this kid in strange way. She’s bound to have issues. It’s not my thing, helping people with issues.” She paused and sighed. It was more than that. “To be honest, I abandoned the idea of a family after Duff left me. I’d put so much thought into how many years we’d be married before we had kids that I never wanted to put that much energy into building another dream. I’m not sure I can change that about me now.”

  “Have you met the little one? They aren’t anything like adults with problems.”

  “No. He just told me about her.” She put her paintbrush on top of the can and leaned away from the step before telling Boomer the whole story. She omitted all the sex they’d had, but laid it all about when it came to the incident on the beach last night. A pang stabbed at her chest as she described him walking away from her.

  Boomer set his brush beside hers. He sighed. “I’ve not had much success at relationships. I prefer to be talking about an aircraft when I say she, but I’ll try.”

  “Don’t feel like you have to give me advice. It might be useless at this point. Duff’s done with me. I messed up so badly.” Bits of thoughts and emotions jumbled in her head, and she couldn’t make sense of it. She wished she could blame her father for everything, but maybe her fear of failure fueled her decisions.

  “Guess he felt that way when he followed your dad’s orders instead of staying with you. Took a lot of courage to admit it and try again.”

  “You aren’t helping, Boomer.” She nudged him with her elbow. It had taken courage from Duff to admit it all and to persist even when
she admitted she’d been after revenge sex.

  “I am. If you think he’s worth it, then you have to find courage to really apologize. You took on being a nurse to one of the most cantankerous, demanding men I know. You’ve got the stuff to admit your mistakes and move past them.”

  “It hurts right here,” she tapped her chest, “when you say I made mistakes.” She did fear failure. That was why she didn’t want kids. Everyone could see when your kids messed up, and that meant the parents did something wrong. Her father always had that philosophy, and he’d drummed it into her. “How the hell were you friends with my dad?”

  “He left us no choice. He collected people into his circle and kept you there. Plus, he proved to be a great mentor. You are more like him than you admit, and don’t shove me for saying it.”

  “I’m not going to shove you.” She’d thought about it, though. Being like her dad didn’t make her want to cheer. She wanted to run in the other direction. Be the one marching to the different drummer.

  “Good. I’ll clean up. You go give that man an apology and take a chance to really connect with someone. Try the little girl first.”

  Her heart raced. Meeting Duff’s daughter and trying to be fun and happy and welcoming? That terrified her more than the first day of lectures with a new crop of students. “What if he slams the door in my face?”

  He shrugged. “What would your dad have done?”

  “Shove it back open.” Meeting the little girl would be the beat of different drummer, but to get there she had to be like her father.

  “Then go in with all your guns a’ blazin’.”

  Chapter Twelve

  “I got to get out of here, Mom. I’m taking Lizzy somewhere.” Duff had tried for hours to distract his thoughts away from Kirsten’s attitude about children.

  During the first few days with Lizzy, he’d constructed elaborate fantasies about how well the women and one little girl in his life would bond. Lizzy would ask Kirsten to point out the elements on plastic placemats covered in the periodic table. His mom would teach her how to bake, and he’d do what he could to keep up with all of them. His mother was doing her best, although she groused at night that she wasn’t young enough for this. That he expected, but he never imagined that the woman he wanted wouldn’t want children. How had he missed this part of her?