Elements of Chemistry: Heat

by Penny Reid

  His hand pressed into my hip to still my movements.

  “Kaitlyn, don’t do that. If you…fuck, I’m going to…I can’t…”

  I spread my legs wider and flexed my inner muscles, enjoying the fiery—resentment? Warning? Desire?—in his eyes. I responded by narrowing my gaze and undulating my hips quicker, forcing him to match my rhythm.

  “Stop, Parker, you have to… Oh God…”

  Then his thrusts became inelegant and demanding. He became rigid. He grit his teeth and groaned.

  And I watched all this, how he completely and totally lost control, with a roaring feminine satisfaction that was an excellent runner-up to an actual orgasm.

  His body fell into mine like more than just gravity pulled him downward. He fit his hand between my back and the bed and embraced me, his breathing labored. I didn’t mind the temporary, crushing weight of him or the slickness of his heated body. Being surrounded on every side by Martin was perhaps the best feeling of all time.

  He lifted his head, his gaze searching and serious. He slipped one of his hands from beneath me, pushed his fingers through my hair and cupped my cheek.

  “Are you okay?”

  I nodded, giving myself a moment to be thoughtful about the matter, then said, “Yes. I’m just fine.”

  His gaze turned dark. “You’re just fine?”

  I nodded and patted him on the back. “You did good, Martin. It was painful. I’m not going to lie. But I’m not at all traumatized.”

  He stared at me for a beat, looking equal parts offended and amused. When he spoke, however, his tone was laced with demanding determination.

  “We’re not leaving this boat until you have multiple orgasms on my dick.”

  I felt my forehead wrinkle as my eyebrows pushed upward. “Multiple? Is that even possible? I’m pretty sure I read that was a myth.”

  “Parker…” He dipped his head to my neck, nibbled my earlobe, making me shrug my shoulder reflexively and shiver with delight.

  He continued on a whisper, “If multiple orgasms are a myth, then you can call me Hercules.”

  CHAPTER 10

  Multiple Bonds

  The sky was overcast when Martin woke me up with kisses and bites on my shoulders. He insisted we go for a swim right then just in case it started to thunder or rain.

  I later found this was also a slick kind of strategy because he jumped into the ocean naked.

  I did not.

  I dressed in the string bikini, daintily dipped my toes in, and then climbed down the ladder at the back of the boat. Martin eyed me over the gentle waves for about ten seconds while he treaded water. Then he lunged at me, chased me, caught me, easily discarded my bikini, and proceeded to feel me up.

  We didn’t make it as far as the bed. Instead, both of us feeling an irrational sense of urgency, we attacked each other in the water, then on the ladder leading to the deck, then on the deck. He pulled me down to his lap, straddling him, as he sat on the cushioned bench at the end of the stern. My breathing and movements were frantic, erratic, and when I came down on him we both cursed.

  I’m not going to lie, it still hurt at first. But something about being naked under the sky, sticky and wet with sea water, learning each other, seeing the love and lust in his eyes, lubricated all the right spots. He guided my hips until I found a natural rhythm.

  But I was distracted by the soreness between my legs and how my breasts bounced and swayed as I moved, until Martin leaned back on one elbow, his thumb moving to my apex, his eyes devouring me, and growled his appreciation. “This, you, here, now—hell, Kaitlyn. This is it, this is everything.”

  I did my best, but I wasn’t proficient in the art of man-riding. I knew I was driving him crazy because he’d closed his eyes, obviously trying to hold off for as long as possible, his brow wrinkled into a severe frown of concentration which I would forever think of as the don’t come don’t come oh God, don’t come face.

  I’d been close for a while, but I was frustrated with my body’s lack of accelerative progress. It was starting to feel nice, but I wasn’t going to climax. Therefore I leaned forward and whispered, “Don’t worry about me.”

  His eyes flew open and he stared at me with a ferocious kind of challenge. “What the hell does that mean?”

  I lifted myself up then came back down, enjoying the sexiness of the act but somehow resigned that this time was going to be another miss.

  He must’ve seen something in my eyes he didn’t like, because before I could explain my meaning, he surprised me by standing, picking me up with him, and carrying me to the table.

  “Lay down,” he commanded.

  I did.

  He pulled out, spread my legs wide, knelt on the ground, and proceeded to have me for breakfast. It didn’t take long before I was near spiraling, my lower belly tight with the promise of sweet, torturous relief. My hands gripping the edge of the table.

  And I started chanting, “Oh God, oh God, oh God!”

  And I came.

  But then before I’d quite crested the wave, Martin stood and filled me, his thumb still circling my clitoris mercilessly in rhythm with his thrusts. And I came again—harder, better, faster, stronger—the rhythm of my blood thundering between my ears. The soreness between my legs adding a layer of exquisite pain to our combined pleasure…intensifying it. My mind was lost to everything except the sweet, overwhelming searing sensation.

  I think I actually screamed, or yelled, or yodeled. I don’t know what I did, but my throat hurt from the effort afterward. I hoped it wasn’t an unsophisticated squeal.

  He came a very short time later, looking overwrought, confused, and spent. Again he fell forward like a force other than gravity brought our bodies together. But this time he held himself up with bent arms and kissed my neck, chest, and shoulders.

  My nerve endings felt fried so I let him play with my body, lick my skin, nip my nipples, and tongue my belly button as he slipped from me. His breathing returned to baseline after three or more minutes.

  Then he said against my right ribs, “I love you. You’re the most beautiful thing…so perfect.”

  I huffed a laugh, my hands reaching for, finding, then playing with the damp hair on his head. “I’m not perfect, but I’m glad you think so.”

  He brought himself back over me, so we were face to face, his gaze both curious and irritated. “Why do you do that? Why do you shrug off compliments? You are fucking goddamn gorgeous, Parker. You. Are. And you are a fucking goddamn musical prodigy. The fact you’re not making music every day is criminal.”

  I gave him a sideways look and a small smile, wanting to choose my words carefully because he looked like he was considering some method of torture in order to push me into admitting my amazingness.

  “I love that you think so, Martin.”

  “Kaitlyn—” His tone held more than an edge of warning.

  “No, listen.” I framed his face with my hands and lifted my head to rub my nose against his. I left a soft kiss on his lips and said, “I am glad you think I am all those things, and I believe you. But I’m not going to magically think I’m beautiful or perfect or talented just because you do. I have to get there for myself. I have to believe those things for myself—not because I have a boyfriend who values me and thinks I invented airplane neck pillows. If I base my self-worth on someone else’s opinion or view of me, then I will also base my lack of worth on that person’s opinion as well. And that has the potential of tearing me to pieces.”

  His eyes narrowed a fraction, but I saw reluctant understanding ignite behind his expression.

  “Are you always like this?”

  “Like what? Brilliant?” I teased.

  “Yeah…brilliant.”

  ***

  I caught Martin staring at me no less than twenty times during the next few hours. And each time he looked a little dazed, like he was caught in the web of his own imagination. Sometimes I’d stare back, narrowing my eyes and administering a mock suspicious look.
He’d smile—slow and lazy and sexy—then kiss me.

  One thing was for certain: Martin Sandeke was using his big brain to work through an issue of enormous proportions.

  Meanwhile, I worked on my last term paper in between conversations with Martin. He told me about his vision for the future of telecommunications and how satellites were going to play an essential role.

  Science may not have been my passion, like I was wondering if music truly was, but I had a great deal of interest in science related topics. He told me all about the seventeen—SEVENTEEN!!—patents he held. Although, when I’d asked him if he was going to use the money from his inventions as the source for the sixty million he needed for the venture capitalist project, he’d laughed.

  Inventing stuff, he explained, was fun. It was his hobby, but none of his inventions would ever bring in enough money.

  When I asked him what he defined as enough money, he responded grimly, “Enough will be three times whatever my father is worth at any given time.”

  Seeing as how his father was a billionaire, this answer struck me as supercilious and off key. Making enough money sounded like an unhealthy obsession and dissonant with happiness.

  I didn’t voice this opinion.

  By mid-afternoon the boat was ensconced in a torrential downpour, I’d grown used to his dazed stares, and—sadly—it was time to head back to the island.

  We weren’t going back to the big house, as we were going to the aforementioned cottage on the opposite side of the island, where Eric and Sam had been since Wednesday. I hoped she wasn’t too irritated at me for my lack of communication…

  I felt guilty about it, like a bad friend.

  At present, Martin was in the captain’s chair, steering us back, and I was trying to catch him unawares by lobbing rapid-fire questions at him, attempting to get him to admit something embarrassing.

  “Favorite movie?”

  “Wall Street.”

  “Favorite food?”

  “Black licorice.”

  I paused, his answer surprising, but then pressed forward. “Favorite color?”

  “Black.”

  “Black?”

  “Yes.”

  I thought about this, then asked because I felt compelled, “How can it be black?”

  “Most people’s favorite color is black, but they’re too fixated on what others think to admit the truth, even to themselves. Think about it, what color is represented in your closet more than any other? Is it blue? Green? Red? No. It’s black.”

  “But black is depressing, it’s the color of funerals and dark rooms and despair.”

  He gave me a half smile and almost rolled his eyes, but not quite. “In Japan, the color associated with funerals is white. Dark rooms can be fun. Also, black feels like something new to me, like the sky right before dawn.”

  “Martin Sandeke, that was almost poetic.”

  “You’re easy to talk to.” He didn’t sound precisely happy about this.

  “You say that like it’s a bad thing.”

  “It might be. I say things to you I’ve never said or told anyone.” He looked serious as he admitted this, gazing down at me with either resentment or longing, I couldn’t tell which.

  So I tried to disarm the sudden tension by saying, “That’s because you loooove me.”

  He rolled his eyes. But he also smiled.

  ***

  “Spill it.”

  “What?”

  “Everything.” Sam elongated the word, over-pronouncing each syllable. “Spill it all. Spill it all over the place. Dump it out—on the floor, on the ceiling, on the duvet—spew it all, every last bit of it, because I am so far past interested, I’ve entered the neighboring territory of obsessively curious.”

  I glanced at her from the corner of my eye. She was staring at me, wide-eyed, mouth in a tight line, jaw set. It was her game face. She meant business.

  It was nearly dinner time. We’d arrived about a half hour ago. Martin had anchored the boat and tied it to a small wooden dock adjacent to the cottage, then we’d raced through the rain to the cottage.

  The cottage was actually everything I thought of when I thought beach cottage. It was cozy and small, had two bedrooms and one bathroom, a postage stamp kitchen with a breakfast bar, and a combined family room/living room. The place was also decorated in nautical themes. Crafty mosaics of sea glass and shells lined the walls, and a big, rusty anchor hung above the front door.

  Sam and I were currently in my room—well, the room Martin and I would share for the night—and I was going through my things. Sam and Eric had brought most of my stuff from the big house, but several items were missing; so far one of my textbooks, a folder of class notes, and several shirts. The textbook and the shirts were no big deal, but I needed the folder.

  Also, it gave me an excellent excuse to postpone responding to Sam’s questioning.

  “Kaitlyn…you’re stalling.”

  “I’m trying to figure out if all my stuff is here.”

  “You’re stalling.”

  I huffed, turned to face her, and threw my hands in the air. “Yes. Yes I’m stalling.”

  “Why are you stalling?”

  “Because I don’t know how much I’m ready to share with you. I haven’t decided.”

  “How much? How much?” she sputtered for a moment, her eyes sweeping up then down my body. “Well, how much happened?”

  “A lot.”

  “Are…” Her eyes narrowed a bit as she considered her words. “Are you okay?”

  “Yes.”

  “Are you and Martin okay?”

  My serious face slipped as an involuntary and dreamy smile arrested my features. “Yes.”

  Her eyes went wide again. “Are you and Martin officially together? Like girlfriend, boyfriend, committed exclusive relationship, I’ll go bat-shit crazy and burn all your stuff if I find you with someone else together?”

  “Yes.” I sighed as I said this, and it was a girly, wistful sigh.

  However, Sam’s expression was growing more anxious, pensive. “Did you…?” She licked her lips then nibbled on the bottom one, not finishing her question. Yet, the implied meaning was there. It hung over us both, the word sex in capital letters followed by a giant question mark.

  I nodded, shifting my weight between my feet, unable to stand still.

  “Oh my God.” Her eyes lost a bit of their focus briefly and I couldn’t tell what she was thinking. Then she blurted, “Please tell me he used a condom.”

  I felt a niggling bit of guilt or regret, which I pushed away immediately, instead deciding to roll my eyes. “Sam…”

  “Kaitlyn, don’t you Sam me. Please tell me you were safe.”

  “I’m on birth control,” I whispered. I didn’t know why I was whispering.

  “So? Birth control doesn’t stop genital warts.”

  “Sam…” Apparently my only defense against her commonsense facts was to roll my eyes.

  “Kaitlyn, you are not stupid. So why are you acting stupid about this?”

  “I trust him,” I said without thinking, and shrugged.

  Sam’s eyes widened then closed, her chin dropped to her chest; I heard her exhale then say to the floor. “You think you love him.”

  I didn’t respond. At my silence she lifted just her eyes. She looked sober, concerned, bracing.

  I shrugged because, though I could guess the source and reasoning behind her anxiety on my behalf, I didn’t share her worry. My feet were too far off the ground. I was basking in post-boat bliss. Martin loved me. I loved him. And the genital wart-covered world could go hide itself in a chemistry lab cabinet for all I cared.

  “I do. I love him. I’m in love with him.”

  “Oh.” She tried to smile, but it looked more like a grimace. “Well, that’s…great.”

  I laughed at her effort to be supportive. “I know what you’re going to say—”

  Really, there were so many warnings she might give, concerns she might voice gi
ven the situation and how little she knew about Martin.

  But instead she held up her hands to keep me from continuing. “I’m not going to say anything. Other than I hope you know that I will always be here for you should you ever need anything. Anything at all. Anything. And that includes a visit to the gynecologist or the name of a hit man.”

  I smiled at my friend because there was no doubt in my mind that she did love me. “You’re a good friend.”

  She returned my smile, but worry still rimmed her eyes as she spoke, “You too, Kaitlyn… And you deserve the best, especially from Martin Sandeke.”

  Sam crossed the room and pulled me into a hug, and added in a whisper, “Never accept less than his best.”

  ***

  Dinner wasn’t uncomfortable at all. It wasn’t. Really, it wasn’t.

  Sure, Sam gave Martin the I will cut you glower at random intervals, but all in all, our foursome got along quite well. Her periodic awkward stare-downs were actually kind of funny because she’d typically pair them with ominous statements and dubious double entendre, like:

  “Are you going to use the mustard, Martin? Or do you not use condom…mints?”

  Then she’d lift her eyebrow meaningfully.

  Another of my favorites was when we were discussing travel, places we’d like to go. Eric said he wanted to go to Australia and Sam blurted, “How about you Martin? Ever gone Down Under? Or is south of the equator not to your tastes?”

  I noticed that Eric had to hide his smile and/or laughter behind his napkin on more than one occasion.

  Martin didn’t smile. Instead he’d answer her questions plainly, as though they were just normal questions; but I could see through his poker face that he thought she was equal parts funny and irritating.

  After dinner and dishes were done, Martin pulled me away from Sam’s suggestion that we play a game, setting his arm firmly around my waist.

  “We’re tired,” he said.

  “We are?” I glanced at him beseechingly, then back to where Sam was setting up Risk. Man…I loved board games. Especially games of world domination.

  “We are.” Martin narrowed his eyes at me and I wasn’t so oblivious to realize he wanted more alone time.