Frayed

by Kim Karr

  “I thought it looked familiar. Was it your choice of contraband sweatshirts back then?”

  She pushes me to the couch cushion and tries to hold my arms down, but fast as lightning I flip her on her back and pin her wrists above her head. “Are we moving from student/teacher to submissive/dominant? Because I’m up for that too,” I growl. A rush of arousal floods me at the thought of tying her down.

  Her eyes burn into mine, lust looming in their depths. “Are you staying tonight?” Pressing my raging hard-on into her belly, I return her stare. “I didn’t realize there was a question as to whether I would.”

  “Kiss me,” she purrs, and ignores my statement.

  “You understand I’m the dominant, right? That means I take control, not you.”

  “Kiss me, please,” she repeats.

  And I do that and so much more.

  • • •

  I stare at her for the longest time, trying not to breathe so as not to wake her. She stirs and flips around. Fuck me, my cock lies pressed against her ass and I don’t know if she’s awake and doing it on purpose or if she’s sleeping.

  I kiss her head and slide my leg off the bed. Obviously not on purpose since she doesn’t stir.

  “Where are you going?” she asks. So—maybe on purpose.

  Before leaving the room, I bend down and kiss her head. “I’m going to go get us some coffee.”

  “Oh God, I love you,” she says sleepily.

  I freeze on the spot, but she doesn’t say another word as she settles her head into the pillow and falls back asleep.

  I pass her comment off as what it was, gratitude for much-needed coffee, but I can’t keep her words from echoing in my head the whole drive to Starbucks and back. Love is the last thing I’m looking for right now. I just got myself together and I’m not looking for overly serious.

  When I walk back into her apartment, I check my thoughts at the door the minute I see the green bikini still lying on the back of the sofa. I pick it up and with my tray of coffees I head into the bedroom, but she’s not in the bed. I hear the shower and walk into the bathroom.

  Setting everything down, I lean against the wall to look at her through the steamed glass. The shape of her perky breasts, the curves of her perfect-sized ass, and the contour of her legs couldn’t be more defined. I find myself biting my lip as she lifts her arms and scrubs her hair, then squeezes body wash into her palms and rubs it along her body, but when her hands rub circles across her tits, I can’t suppress a groan.

  She opens the door and peeks out from the shower. “Are you watching me?”

  I pick up my coffee cup and sip from it. “I was going to join you, but you looked so good from here I got caught up in the show.”

  She shrugs. “Finish your coffee.”

  Fuck, I almost choke. How could anyone not love her? I go back to watching and sipping my coffee. But the minute she lets her fingers wander to her pussy, I have to jump in. “I’ll do that.”

  The shower water is hot, but nothing feels hotter than the feel of her skin against mine. I can’t get enough of her. We’ve spent two days together, had sex more times than I’ve had with any one person in a forty-eight-hour window of time, and I still want more.

  “The water’s getting cold,” she whispers to me.

  I reach to pull the lever and turn it off. “We’re clean enough.”

  She shivers and I reach for some towels, wrapping one around her shoulders and then dropping to my knees to pat her body dry. Once her legs are dry, I make my way up her body to the areas I want to concentrate on the most—the silky skin between her legs and her breasts. When I stand back up, I wring the water from her hair and take a moment to stare at her. “Leave your hair curly today.”

  She nods. Her palms are flush to the tile wall and her chest is visibly rising and falling.

  So I drop back down to my knees and flick my tongue against her clit. Clutching her ass, I pull her closer to me. I work my mouth eagerly, loving the feel of her beneath my tongue, the taste of her, how wet she is. Her hands clasp my head and I can feel the muscles in her legs tighten. I clutch her ass tighter as I consume every inch of her sweet pussy. Tension coils in my own body. But the sounds she makes practically make me come on the spot—her stuttered sighs followed by her soft moans that become louder as she calls out my name.

  She looks down into my eyes as she comes, and the picture is one of perfect bliss.

  Afterward I slide up her body and bend to kiss her. My hands move slow and easy over her flesh. My lips press softly against hers. “Did I say good morning?”

  Her eyes catch mine, and a fierce glimmer of light shines in them. “Good morning,” she says, a little breathless.

  In a move that takes me by surprise, she pushes me back against the shower wall and drops to her knees. I close my eyes at the feel of her warm breath against my already bulging cock. The one thing we haven’t done, she hasn’t done this weekend, is suck me off. I haven’t asked. I haven’t pushed. I wanted her to be the one to decide. Before S’belle I had always been a taker, but with her I want to give.

  Her lips wrap around my tip and I tremble at the first contact. She draws me in an inch at a time steadying herself by holding on to my thighs. A grunt I didn’t mean to make leaves my throat. I open my eyes to watch her—watch as her hand moves from my thigh to fist my base and her tongue flicks down my hard cock. I suck in air at how good it feels. Fuck me! My legs are shaking by now.

  I hiss out the air I forgot to exhale. “Fuckkkk.”

  I can feel her lips form a smile, but she doesn’t stop.

  There’s another harsh intake of breath when my cock hits the back of her throat. I’m not even sure it’s me standing here right now. I feel as if I’m watching this sweet girl blow me in a way no one ever has.

  I put my hands in her hair.

  Her eyes flick up.

  “You’re so fucking beautiful,” I mutter.

  With her palms now flat on my hips, she takes me all the way in until her lips brush my stomach and then she slowly drags them back. She does this again, sucking a little harder. And again—stopping to suck the head of my penis.

  “S’belle.” I moan her name as I push my hips forward.

  Her response is to fist my base again, but this time her hand follows her mouth’s trail and overwhelming sensations after sensation start to race through my body.

  Never feeling this sexually possessed by a woman in my life, I struggle to maintain my control as the pleasure flares through my body, but when her other hand cups my balls and her tongue trails along the underside of my cock, I give in to it and let it devour me whole.

  “S’belle,” I scream. “I’m going to come.”

  I give her a warning through gritted teeth, letting her decide what comes next. When she doesn’t pull, I thrust into her, trying not to push too far or too hard so I don’t choke her, but fuck, control left me a while ago. Warmth floods my body as my orgasm hits unlike anything I can remember. An animalistic cry I don’t recognize as my own leaves my mouth as my cock throbs against her tongue. Her warm mouth stays wrapped around me even after I’ve come. I slip my hands under her arms and when she slides her lips down my cock she stops to suck on my tip one last time, causing a shudder to chase down my spine.

  When I pull her to her feet, blinking uncontrollably at her while clasping her arms to steady myself, I stare at her, unable to speak for the longest time. She licks her lips with her tongue and I take my thumb and wipe them for her.

  My thoughts finally clear and I steady myself in front of her. “Wow.” It’s the only lame word that comes to mind, but there are so many more phrases catching in my throat—words like best blow job I’ve ever had, you’re fucking amazing, I want to feel that over and over, but they all seem to belittle what just took place.

  My hands glide down her naked body and I hold her as tight as I can for a long time. When she shivers I know she’s cold and I pull away to gather the towels we discarded earlie
r.

  “Lift your arms.”

  As soon as she does I wrap the towel around her and draw her to me again so I can kiss her on the lips, soft and gentle. The kiss quickly deepens as I suck on her tongue, her lip until neither of us can breathe and I pull away with a quick kiss above her bandage before I do.

  “We need to change that.”

  “I can do it.”

  “I want to.”

  She points to the supplies the hospital gave her behind me on the counter.

  When I turn to retrieve them, I spot her green bikini. I turn back to get her attention. “Come to Laguna with me today. We have to get your car anyway and I really need to shave.”

  She rubs her fingers over my face. “I like the way your face feels against my skin.”

  My pulse races. This girl is going to kill me. “Oh yeah, where particularly do you like the way it feels?”

  She points to her lips. “Here.” And then she points between her legs. “And here.”

  “Fuck, you’re hot as hell.”

  She shrugs. “Just being honest.”

  “What happened to the shy girl under the sheets yesterday morning who wasn’t sure she could tell me what she wanted during the day?”

  Her eyes meet mine. “You helped with that phobia pretty quickly.”

  I laugh and pat her bandage. “There, all done.”

  She laughs. “Thanks for the help.”

  I bow and say, “My pleasure.”

  A look I can’t quite decipher crosses her face, but she doesn’t say anything. And I don’t ask but instead hand her the green bikini. “I’m going to see you in this one way or another, and since I’m taking you to Laguna today, I want you to wear this under your clothes,” I growl in her ear.

  She playfully pushes me backward. “I didn’t say I’d go home with you.”

  I feel a corner of my mouth turn up. “I have food, lots of food, at my place.”

  “I can be ready in ten minutes.”

  • • •

  What you can learn about a person in a short period of time when you pay attention astounds me. I’ve learned so much about S’belle Wilde over the past couple of months and even more in this block of time we’ve spent together. I’ve learned she loves to eat but never keeps food in her apartment—I’m pretty sure she doesn’t like to eat alone. I’ve learned she’s really smart and thinks long and hard about things—but likes to come across as being more aloof or maybe even scatterbrained. Which she’s neither. I’ve learned she likes sex dirty and she likes it clean. And I’ve learned she knows how to turn me on and she does it on purpose.

  I glance over at her fingers as they tap the screen of her phone. “Did you check in with your mother?”

  “She’s texted me every four hours around the clock. I told her I’m spending the day at the beach and Xander and River too. I don’t want them to hunt me down.”

  I laugh. “Or me.”

  She laughs back. “That too.”

  I reach out to caress her bare leg. She’s wearing a pair of denim shorts with an eighties type of sweatshirt that hangs off her shoulder, exposing the golden threads of her bikini top. My heart beats a little faster at the thought of finally seeing her stand in front of me in it—just the bikini top, that is, nothing else. I quickly chase the thought away.

  “I need to give Josie a heads-up too,” she says, tapping her fingers on her phone again. “She’ll be worried when I don’t show up for work tomorrow.”

  “She’s Wyatt’s assistant, right?”

  She looks up at me from over her sunglasses. “Yes. So you do pay attention.”

  “You think I don’t?”

  She looks back down. “No. I just wonder how much people hear when I talk because sometimes I feel like I never shut up.”

  I smirk at her—she’s definitely quirky and it’s a breath of fresh air from all of the other women I’ve known. “Speaking of work, I wanted to ask you something.”

  “Okay,” she says, dropping her phone in the cup holder and twisting in my direction.

  “The night Wyatt saw me at Beck’s he was with that arrogant SOB.”

  “Romeo?”

  I nod and go for broke. “He told me he’d seen your phone, that he saw a message from me. Why would you show him that?”

  She frowns and reaches up to brush some fallen hair out of my eyes. “It wasn’t like that.”

  I glance over and lift her sunglasses so I can see into her eyes; the green is even deeper than usual with the sunlight streaming through the window. “What was it like, then?”

  “Why do you hate him?” Her voice is soft and full of curiosity.

  My fingers tighten back around the wheel. “For a shit ton of reasons. Because he was captain of the football team and I was a surfer, because he lived on the bluff and I lived on the beach, because he was a jock and I was . . . well, I was more of a rebel, I guess, but most of all because from what I saw that night he’s still a prick.”

  A laugh bursts from her. “I think that has to be one of the most honest responses anyone has ever given me.”

  I shake my head at her and grab her hand.

  “It’s true.”

  I raise an eyebrow. “You haven’t answered my question.”

  “I’m not interested in him.”

  “I didn’t say you were.”

  “No, but I can tell what you’re thinking. You’re not going to like this, but I was late for work and when I got there Josie pulled me into the break room. I set all my stuff down, including my phone, and to make a long story short, Tate and Romeo came looking for me and since we use the break room as a meeting room sometimes, I left Romeo in there while I grabbed something from my office. You texted me and he saw the text.”

  “See, he’s a prick,” I mutter under my breath.

  She leans over and kisses my lips. “I’m not interested in him.”

  “So you’ve said.”

  Her hand runs up the leg of my jeans. “I am interested in you, though.”

  I flick her a glance and the honesty I see in her expression puts a smile on my face—and her touch, well, it’s doing exactly what she intended. Trying to push sex out of my mind for a bit, I say, “Tell me something about you that I don’t know.”

  She picks up her phone, looks at the screen, then drops it in her bag before pulling her sunglasses down from atop her head and back onto her face. When I hop on the freeway she presses the button for the window and it slides down. She inhales as the wind blows her mass of red curls all around her face. Then she turns back to me. “I love the feel of the wind in my face. I love riding on the back of your bike. And I love the Santa Anas.”

  The sun is shining today and the winds have died down, but they’re still stronger than on a typical day. She points out the window to the smoldering smoke in the distance. “But I hate the destruction they cause.”

  “You know surfers think of them as heaven and hell mixed in one?”

  She cocks her head in my direction. “Do explain.”

  “When they hit the surf head-on they hold up falling lips and hollow out pitching waves, making for an unbelievable ride. They turn reef breaks into emerald green tube-riding playgrounds. It’s fucking awesome. But at the same time they can knock a foot or so off any incoming swell and can actually flatten an otherwise small but rideable wave. That fucking sucks.”

  She smiles at me. “You really love surfing, don’t you?”

  “Yeah, I do. I hated living in LA and not on the beach. It really made me miserable.”

  She seems to ponder this for a long time.

  “But I was asking about you. Tell me something else I don’t know about you.”

  My fingers caress circles on her leg and she glances down. “I used to think I had superpowers.”

  A huge grin crosses my face. “Oh yeah?”

  “It’s stupid.”

  “You tell me and then I’ll tell you how I used think I was Aquaman.”

  “Aquaman?” she squeaks
.

  I shake my head and shift my eyes her way. “You first.”

  She inhales a deep breath. “Don’t laugh.”

  “I can’t promise that. But, S’belle . . .”

  Her eyes cut to mine.

  “You . . .” I stop, not sure of what I want to say or how to say it. “You know what, never mind. I promise to try my damnedest not to laugh.”

  She narrows her eyes at me.

  I pinch her leg. “I said I promise.”

  She jumps in her seat at my touch.

  “Ah . . . I think you might be ticklish.”

  She grabs my hand. “I’ll never tell.”

  “You don’t have to.” I grin and pull her hand to my lips to kiss it.

  “Okay, so when I was little I noticed that I could mix words up or say things I knew didn’t make sense and people would give me what I wanted.”

  I nod, thinking about what’s she’s saying.

  “As I got older it worked even better. One time just after I got my license, I got pulled over for speeding. I honestly didn’t know I was speeding. The police officer asked if I knew how fast I was going. I answered that I was going sixty. He stared at me. I said, ‘Sir, my car won’t go any faster than that unless I really jam the gas down, so I’m sorry if I was going too slow.’ He looked at me flabbergasted but only gave me a warning and explained I had crossed into a residential area and three miles ahead the speed limit would increase again.”

  Clutching her hand on top of her leg, I roll my eyes at her. “He just thought you were cute.”

  “No, really it was my silver tongue.”

  “Your silver tongue?” I burst out laughing and drop her hand to cover my mouth.

  She sits up straighter. “Yes, I used to believe my superpower was that I had a silver tongue.”

  My mind wanders back to sex at that comment, but she doesn’t seem to notice and continues with her anecdotes about her silver tongue. When it’s my turn I tell her my story about how I really believed I could grow gills and breathe underwater if I stayed in the ocean long enough. She laughs just as hard at me as I did at her.