by Daryl Banner
“And there it is,” I say with a mocking smirk.
He nudges me teasingly. “I want you, Nell. And I want you badly. I want you so much that I feel fucking … empty without you. I know we didn’t quite break up or whatever, but it feels like we did, and … and damn it, I don’t feel like I’m a better artist without you. I’m a crap one. You inspire me, Nell. Don’t I inspire you? Like, even a teensy bit?”
I shrug, considering his question. “Maybe a little.”
“So how can you make art without your muse?”
“Good question. And this is all about you, after all,” I tease.
“It’s about you, too. I’m a mess without my mistress of darkness at my side.”
“Mistress of darkness? Really?”
“It’s a catchy name,” he insists cockily. “You should totally steal it. Run away with it. Or with me.”
“With you,” I echo.
“I’m in the dark without you,” he says, his face suddenly serious, his eyes burning blue. “Be with me. Because the truth is, I’m afraid of the dark. The truth is, I’m still that fuckin’ awkward kid at the party who doesn’t really know what he’s doing and who … desperately wants that perfect girl at the other end of the room. He doesn’t want anyone else. He doesn’t want the easy catch. He doesn’t want to just get off and go. He only wants her. That girl is you. It’s always been you, Nell. I’ve been chasing you my whole life and didn’t know it.”
He shifts his weight to one elbow, then brings a finger to my shoulder, letting it trace down my body. The touch sends a party of goose bumps and delight throughout me. I have to close my eyes now, consumed with the way he’s making me feel.
Then he asks: “Do you want me?”
I shiver pleasurably under his touch.
“Nell?” I hear his voice draw closer to my face, bringing his lips with it. “Do you …” His lips press lightly to my ear, then to my cheek, then to my jaw near my mouth where it’s most sensitive. “… want me?”
I turn toward his lips, catching them, and the kiss that ensues casts an earthquake that rockets down to my core, shaking away all the pain and the doubts that have so plagued me. It leaves but one thing in its wake: a ringing assurance that this is precisely what I need, both as an artist, and as a human being.
“Yes,” I answer. “And now.”
Chapter 25
Brant
That thing I was missing …
That one, elusive thing I was missing that I couldn’t figure out before the showcase …
This is it.
I bring her tightly into my arms as my lips warm against hers. I taste her and feel a flood of comfort and excitement and heat that fills me completely. “I want you,” she whispers between our kisses.
The gravel of a rooftop is not the most comfortable choice to do the sexy-sexy, but neither of us seem to care. I roll onto my back anyway, pulling her over me so as to spare her the discomfort. She straddles my body as we kiss, and I feel the warmth between her legs as she rubs and humps my fast-growing stiffness.
Yeah, this isn’t going to take long.
“HEY!”
Startled, the pair of us crane our necks to peer over the ledge where the voice came from. One of the security officers down below seems to have spotted us.
“Oh, fuck,” Nell blurts.
We’re on our feet. Despite the agonizingly hard situation in my pants, we tumble for the door and race down the stairs. I catch the side of her face, and when our eyes meet, we find ourselves laughing. I take her hand and she grips mine tightly as we push through the door to some random floor of the building. The hallway is dim and no one’s in sight, but still we run, chased by a security guard who might not even be pursuing us.
Nell’s laughter rings in my ears, and it might be the most beautiful sound I’ve heard all day. I wonder if I’ve ever truly heard her laugh before.
We shove through a random door, which slams against the wall in our abrupt arrival. A classroom of ten or so students look up at us, startled from their apparent boredom.
“The End Of Year is just simply amazeballs,” I announce to them.
“Yes, really,” Nell agrees, clinging to me. “You should all be there instead of—um, what’s this class?”
We don’t wait to find out. Rushing back out of the room, I burst into laughter as Nell, red-faced and tittering excitedly, races by my side. Our hands fumble, finding one another’s again, and we tear down another flight of stairs. My foot catches on a step halfway down, but I manage to keep myself from falling.
And then we’re in a totally empty hall. Nell shoves me against a bulletin board full of “submit here” and “seminar there” and “sign up for this and that”. It’s against that bulletin board that her hand presses firmly against my crotch and her lips hover by my face challengingly.
“You want me, Brant?”
“I want you.”
“Come and get me.”
She slips out of my grasp as fast as a cat sprung by a sudden sound. Her hair whips around the corner and I follow, a dog in pursuit, until I turn the corner and find her so far down the hall, I have to wonder how the hell she runs so fast.
I pick up my pace, running faster. You’re not getting away from me.
When I make it around the next turn, I don’t see her at all—but I also don’t hear her. I slow down, my dress shoes tapping loudly on the tile. Annoyed with my utter lack of stealth, I pull off my shoes one at a time, hopping and grunting as I do so, then pitch each shoe in an opposite direction, forgetting their existence. Padding down the hall in my socks, I listen and look for her. Our chase has become a sudden game of hide-and-go-seek.
I see a classroom door wide open, the inside dark. At the foot of the door is a pair of jeans. Nell’s jeans.
I move inside quietly. Easels are sprinkled throughout the dark space, looking like giant pointy creatures protecting a treasure. My treasure. I stalk further inside and my foot catches a shirt. Hers. I pick it up off the ground and press it to my nose, inhaling her scent as I continue my slow, patient pursuit through the room.
A bra hangs from the easel to my left. I cast her shirt to the side, grinning as I move on. Then I see a pair of panties hanging from the next easel. I stop, take them into my hand, then press them to my face, inhaling so deep, the room fills with the sound of my breath.
It’s all Nell. It’s intoxicating.
And it makes me so hard, I ache.
With the panties still in my fist, I come around the final easel and happen on a little stage with a stool … a very familiar stage and a very familiar stool. Perched on it is Nell, completely naked, with a finger at her mouth and a set of seductive, lusty eyes locked on me. Her breasts are so full and perfect, it takes everything in me not to rush up and bury my face between them. Her thighs are smooth and glowing in the subtle light that washes in from the distant windows. Her hair, partly cascading down her supple shape, casts a shadow that masks the beauty of her petite shoulders and that irresistible ridge of collar bone that makes me want to lift her into my arms and protect her from all the darkness of the world.
I approach her.
“Not just yet,” she murmurs.
I stop, lifting an eyebrow. “What is it? You expect me to … take an easel and draw you? Are you the nude art model, now?”
“No. Just yours.” She crosses her legs the other way, which pulls my eyes straight to the prize. Fuck, she knows how to work me. “I need you to do something first.”
“Name it.”
She draws her hair behind an ear, lifting her eyes to meet mine. The green in them, even with so little light, seems to glimmer.
“Take my picture,” she says.
I give a gentle shrug. “I don’t have my camera.”
She smirks teasingly. “Have I taught you nothing, Brant?”
I lick my lips, understanding. When I reach the lip of the stage, I go to a knee, looking up at her and catching just the right angle. She watches my ever
y move. I close just one eye and lift my fingers in front of my face, creating a rectangle with them.
“Turn your face, babe.”
She does, taking my directive.
“A bit more.”
She obeys. Just that tiny adjustment brings the light onto her cheek, illuminating her face perfectly.
“Bring a hand to your breast.”
She doesn’t move her head, but her face furrows. “Are we shooting a porn, Brant?”
“No. Just you.” I open both my eyes and crane my neck around my own fingers, as if pulling my imaginary finger-and-eye camera out of the way. “If you want me to take your picture, you’re gonna need to obey the photographer.”
She presses her lips together, succumbing, then gently lifts a hand to her breast.
“Good.” I return to my position, squinting one-eyed through the rectangle of my fingers. “You’re doing a great job, babe.”
She tries to play off my compliment coolly, but I see the hint of a proud smile in her otherwise untelling lips.
“Hold still.”
I focus. I let the image of her burn into my memory, as if I really do hold a camera in my grasp.
Aim. Focus.
Flash.
I rise from the floor, step onto the stage, and stand by my model. She looks up at me, wordless, and her shimmering eyes say everything that the both of us are feeling. I take hold of her face gently, then bring my mouth to hers.
Explosions, red-hot and palpable.
A flavor that ignites every nerve in my body.
Her touch, waking the regions of my brain that scream I need this woman and I’m never letting her go again.
She clings to the buttons of my shirt, pulling gently, tugging here, tugging there, feeling blindly for her way in.
I help her by slowly undoing the buttons, not wanting to break from our kiss. Slowly the shirt releases me, slowly the material pulls out from my pants, and then it opens up, dropping off my back.
But it’s not enough; she wants more. Her fingers tug at my pants, undoing them. I let her have this one, bringing my hands to her face and caressing it as our mouths explore one another. It feels like the first time, like we’ve never truly touched.
It’s like we were, all these months, pressed up against each other’s bodies with some imaginary second skin in the way, never truly feeling one another, never quite knowing one another.
Something’s changed. Something in each of us has been freed.
And then my pants open, freeing something else.
After they drop to my ankles, I kick them off, and still Nell’s greedy fingers persist, hooking in the waistband of my boxer briefs. I feel her take her time, tracing the rim and teasing me.
My cock throbs in response, desperate to get out.
Our lips still locked, my hands run slowly down her body until they reach her breasts, cupping them. I feel her nipples harden under my fingers, exposed as they are to me. Nell responds with a deep moan, encouraging me as I massage her breasts with my big hands.
Her fingers slip inside. She wraps around my cock.
Now it’s my turn to moan.
Slowly, my boxer briefs slide down my skin, revealing the last part of me to her. Kicking them away, I feel the cool air of the room on every inch of my sensitive body. One hand on my cock, her other hand explores my hip and the side of my ass cheek where it dimples. She grabs a healthy handful of it, pulling me toward her with need.
All I want to do is answer that need.
I break from the kiss at long last, then run my hands down her smooth, soft body and lower to my knees. With her up on that stool, I slip my hands between her legs and pull them apart. As if by instinct, her fingers slide up my face and entangle themselves in my hair, ready to brace. Yeah, she knows what’s coming.
I move my face between her thighs and let out my tongue, raking it softly up her pussy. She trembles in response. Her fingers dig into my hair, which tells me I’m doing it right.
Painstakingly slow, I work her up, licking from bottom to top, lapping up every inch of her and earning every little moan she lets out.
The tighter she grips my hair, the tighter I grip her thighs.
Finally, I pull her clit into my mouth, sucking gently and slowly working her up into a state of insanity. I feel her thighs clench, squeezing my head between them. I fucking love the way she headlocks me with them, suffocating me with her unrivaled pleasure.
The moans grow louder. My cock grows harder. I can’t wait any longer; I have to have her now.
When I pull away from her, she moans with frustration, until she sees me grab my pants and fish a condom out of the pocket. Tearing off the wrapper, she watches me in surprise as I roll it down my length.
“You kept a condom in your tuxedo pants?” she asks, baffled.
I give her a look. “Have we met?”
And then I wrap my hands around the small of her back and lift her slightly off the stool, positioning her perfectly. Just the tip touches her. She squirms, desperate for me to enter her.
“I don’t think you’re ready for this,” I taunt her.
“Fuck me.”
I let just the tip inside. She quivers, her eyes rocking back.
“Definitely not ready.”
“Brant. Please. God.”
An inch slides in. I make sure to watch her face. I want to see every little twitch of her muscles. I want to notice every flit of her eyes. I want to capture each bite and pull and suck of her lips as I enter her.
I lean into her face. “Do you want me?”
“Yes,” she sighs, fraught with urgency.
And then I enter her, full force. She groans loudly, clinging to my body for dear life as I start to pump her deeply. Torches and works of passion surround the building, and here we are, two human torches on a stool generating a fire that no torch or brazier or blazing bonfire can compare to. And here we are, a work of passion two lifetimes in the making.
I feel her tightening on my cock already. I know she’s close, but I can’t let her get off yet. I slow down and thrust my mouth at hers, tasting her, forcing her to keep pace with me and savor every long, tormenting moment of my desire for her.
She claws into me, forcing me to feel every pinch of hers.
With our lips interlocked and our tongues wrestling for dominance in our mouths, I cling tight to her and pick up the pace. My heart hammers against my chest. My throat constricts, feeling the impending wave of orgasm. She must feel it too, if the scars she’s making down my shoulder blades are any indication.
I feel myself rushing to the edge. She tightens, rushing to her own.
Our bodies react together, flexing and tensing as our mouths part and our breaths turn into cries. I empty into her as she crashes into her orgasm.
I feel it from my arms to my bucking thighs. I empty into her so deeply, it never seems to end until the chasm in my chest is filled up, until I feel flipped inside-out, until my brain is flooded with the bliss of relief.
We collapse in the exact position we’re in, clutched to one another on that fateful stool. I hold her tightly, protectively, lovingly … and she grips me, her legs wrapped around my waist. In and out we breathe, cherishing the incomparable closeness we’ve just discovered.
How have I been missing this my whole life? Nell has completely undone me. I’m ruined, in all the best ways possible.
“That part I said,” she murmurs quietly, her chin resting on my shoulder. “That part about me being a better artist without you …”
“Yeah?”
She grips me tighter, then breathes in my ear: “I was wrong.” She pulls away and meets my eyes. “I’m just darkness without you. Brant, you make me a better person.”
“And I was just a player without a game,” I tell her. “You helped me find myself. I’m just … dirty bed sheets without you.”
She wrinkles her face. “Dirty bed sheets? Gross.”
“Not if you’re the reason they’re dirty,” I growl
into her ear, and when she laughs, I close her mouth with a deep, warm kiss.
I love this woman.
Epilogue
Nell
– Six Months Later –
Dessie and Clayton’s house is remarkably packed, though I guess that’s to be expected at a celebration of this magnitude.
It’s the evening, but the sun still paints the sky a brilliant orange with pink and crimson highlights, and it looks downright beautiful pouring over the fence of the backyard where everyone is gathered.
No, no one’s getting married. In fact, quite the opposite. It’s a party for everyone who’s graduated this year, myself included. And really, a graduation is a lot like a divorce. Except everyone’s happy.
“I’m so unhappy.”
I face Sam, who stands by my side in a green lace top and her huge thick-rimmed glasses. It’s hard to say if Sam is sulking because she only ever seems to sport one particular facial expression, and she does it expertly: deadpan. I feel like her furiously angry face, her arm-chillingly excited face, and her bored-to-tears face are all exactly the same. There’s something oddly comforting in that fact.
“Why?” I ask after kicking back the bottle in my hand.
She squints into the sunset. “All my best friends are graduating. And even people I don’t know all that well, but kinda wish I got to know better.”
“Like who?”
“You.” She shrugs. “I don’t have any close artist friends.”
“I don’t have any close musician friends,” I note. “Unless you count the band that lives across the hall from me.”
“Dessie’s graduating and moving back to New York,” Sam goes on, speaking once again in perfect monotone without any slight sense of punctuation or breath. “Clayton is going with her, obviously, and that shouldn’t come as a surprise but it does, kinda, not really, and then Chloe is going too because of something to do with her sister—I didn’t know she has a sister, but she does—and then Eric’s graduating, which I guess isn’t that big a deal because he’s still living with Brant, but I just have this feeling I won’t see any of them again, I don’t know. Why didn’t I make any friends of my own? Why are all of my friends Dessie’s friends? I make bad life choices.”