by Amelia Wilde
Eva must see the challenge in my eyes, because there’s a little flare of recognition in her eyes, and those full lips turn up at one corner.
Suddenly, she’s not a woman in crisis. Right before my eyes, she’s made taller and more confident. She’s not shying away from my gaze. She’s connected to it, reveling in it.
And then she turns around.
I groan out loud, and it’s only then that I realize how tightly wound I am.
It shouldn’t be possible for the rain to get any louder, for it to beat any more powerfully on the roof of this cabin, but it does. It’s so deafening that it sinks its claws into those old memories of explosions in Afghanistan, of that tearing metal blooming beneath our Humvee, and I take all of them in my fists and shove them deep into the reaches of my mind.
I don’t have time to think of that right now, because Eva has gripped the hem of her tank top and is wriggling out of it. The wet fabric sticks to her skin. It’s possible she’s teasing me. It’s possible she’s taunting me.
It’s over her head.
There’s no bra underneath.
Eva lets it fall to the floor next to her.
Lightning flashes.
She’s silhouetted in front of the giant picture window and the afterimage of the perfect curve of her hips leading to her pert round ass is permanently seared into my memory.
Eva turns, her profile backlit by the next flash of lightning, and I can tell by the set of her lips that, yes, she was torturing me.
There’s not enough blood left in the rest of my body at this point. It’s all painfully concentrated between my legs. There’s still an entire room between us, but the hairs on the back of my arms stand up.
Something about the storm has freed Eva.
From what, I don’t know.
From what, I don’t care.
She turns around.
I hadn’t turned on a lot of the lights in the main room in the first place—just a light over the stove and a little lamp with a cover meant to look like birch bark at the far end of the room.
Just as Eva’s nipples—and holy fuck are they exquisite—come into view, the lights flicker once, twice, and then go out.
The storm rages and howls.
Eva glances downward.
It’s one moment, one change, but that’s all it takes. The confidence I saw a minute ago wasn’t an illusion, but it ebbs and flows, and that flicker of her eyelashes might as well be an invitation. A wave needs a shore to crash into, is what I’m saying.
The room might as well be nothing. It might as well take me one step to cross it, because in the blink of an eye, I’m standing on the rug in front of Eva.
Lightning. Thunder.
And just like that, she’s a fucking queen.
I sink down to my knees in front of her and hook my thumbs in the waistband of her panties. At the first touch, she gasps. I don’t hear it; I see it in the way her stomach curves inward. It happens again and again with every inch that I tug the black athletic fabric down her thighs, over her knees, and to the floor.
I don’t care what happens to them next.
All I care about is the shadowy cleft between Eva’s legs. Another bolt of lightning casts everything in white light, and I don’t need more than that split second to see her skin there is perfectly smooth.
I take her thighs in my hands and spread them apart. She helps me; she has to. Eva plants her feet against the rug and leans forward, bracing herself on my shoulders with trembling hands. Wider. Wider.
I spread her apart with the pads of my thumbs and she moans into my ear. This time, I hear it, and the sound snaps at something inside me.
I’m already breathing the sweet scent of her in and there’s nothing—not water, not cloth, not light—to stop me from leaning forward and licking her like an open fruit.
So I do.
Eva’s hands dig into my shoulders, her nails carving little crescents into my skin, and the rain on the roof drowns out the sound she makes, but it can’t stop the vibration of it through her skin and bones. I feel it in my palms. I take another greedy lick, tasting her on my tongue. She’s as sweet as I thought she’d be. Sweeter, even. I never would have joined the army if I knew a person could taste like this. I would have spent my life searching the country for her instead.
Never, never, never.
Her legs shudder in my hands, and when I suck her clit into my mouth, the sound she makes mixes with the boom of the thunder through her body and I’m rewarded with another burst of her sweetness on my tongue.
The army gave me a lifetime’s worth of questions. It gave me an unrelenting desire to find the answers. And it made me strong enough to survive the search. It made me tough. Too fucking tough. The only other relationship I had after I got out withered and died when I was walking across the desert with American money and cigarettes stuffed into my pockets.
I gave up everything to get the answers I was looking for.
But right now?
This is holy fucking communion.
This might be divine intervention.
I don’t care about anything but my mouth on Eva’s willing flesh and the taste of her on my tongue and my knees sinking into the rug beneath her feet.
The lightning cracks again.
I only need one more answer.
I dive deep, licking her like I’ll never get another chance, and then I stand up and sweep her into my arms. I can’t hear anything over the rain, but I can feel the little sounds she’s making. Like a prayer. Or maybe she’s begging. Maybe it’s both.
The bedroom is too far for what I want to do to her.
For what I need from her.
I go for the first blank stretch of wall like a man possessed. Her legs tighten around me when her back hits the paint, and with one hand, I reach down and shove my boxers out of the way.
A flash, and Eva is frozen in my memory this way, with her back arched against the wall, eyes closed, arms around my neck. She holds tight even though she doesn’t have to. I wouldn’t let her fall for the world.
I have to force us apart to get the leverage I need, to lower her down to the perfect angle, and even though we’re still touching, it’s a battle. She has nowhere to go, and I have nowhere else I want to be.
The next flash lights up Eva’s eyes. She’s looking at me, watching, and the expression on her face is like nothing I’ve seen before. There’s no filter. There’s only naked lust. Eva leans her head down next to my ear and says, “Please, please, please.”
I drive into her in one stroke and she tips her head back against the wall. The sound that tears from her throat is pure pleasure, verging on pain, and I’m not surprised; she’s tight and swollen from all my licking and sucking.
It doesn’t make me want to slow down.
I can’t slow down.
We have both been running nonstop for a long, long time, even when it looked like we were walking. She might as well have sprinted into that party at Whit and Wes’s place. Maybe it seemed like I was causally sitting in the living room with some beer, but I fucking wasn’t. I was on leave from a racing mind and a restless soul, and nothing on earth could stop it.
Until now.
She’s light in my hands, light enough for me to rock her hips forward and pull her down onto me with every stroke. Her muscles tighten around me again and again. How can she get tighter, how can she be any slicker, and how can this be such a perfect fit?
It’s enough to shatter my mind.
And it would, except I never want to forget a single moment of this. Even while the need builds, my balls tightening up between my legs, begging for release, I keep my eyes on Eva. I keep breathing her in. I keep reminding myself over and over of the way her skin is so soft and still so slick underneath my hands.
I’m going to come.
It’s going to be hard and it’s going to be rough and there’s nothing I can do to stop it. All I can do is ride the wave.
And...reach forward to press my thum
b against Eva’s clit.
It sets her off like a firework. Her release is a gift and torture, because it makes it unbearable to exist without my own orgasm, which is exactly what I thought it would be when it comes—vicious, like I’ve been denying myself for too long.
I open my eyes.
I didn’t know I’d shut them.
Eva tilts her head down to my lips, and between rolls of thunder when I can hear her, she says, “More.”
13
Eva
That. Was. Everything.
I wake up early feeling like I slept all night, which in a way, I did, and in another way, I totally didn’t. Bennett is still sleeping deeply on the other side of the bed. If he’s as spent as I feel, he’ll be asleep for a long time.
But I want to talk.
I pull on a sweatshirt and yoga pants and take my phone outside. The grass is covered in dew, but I don’t care.
At all.
Whitney answers on the first ring.
“Eva! Oh my God. Are you okay? Where have you been? Are you still in the country?”
“Yes, did—did I miss plans we had?”
“You didn’t miss them so much as showed up and bailed. You do remember my party, right? I am worried about you. I don’t even care about the party. You looked...pale when you left with Bennett Powell.” Whitney gasps. “Are you still with him?”
“Do I even need to be part of this conversation?”
Whitney laughs. “I feel like I’m missing most of the story.”
“I told him about a problem I’ve been having. And he thought a getaway to this nice-as-hell cabin on a lake was the solution.”
“How many bedrooms does it have?”
“Two,” I say.
There’s silence.
It stretches on.
“Eva, I swear to God—”
“We’re only using one of them at present.”
Whitney is glee personified. I don’t have to be in the same room to see the grin on her face.
“The thing is—”
“Oh, what could possibly be wrong with Bennett Powell? Have you looked at him? Did he not whisk you away for a getaway?”
“The thing is, I’m not sure I can...or I should...be with him. Because then….” My throat gets all tight and weird.
“Because of the thing with your family?”
“We haven’t really talked about it. I never talk about it, Whit. I barely ever mentioned it at school.”
“You didn’t have to mention it, obviously. Most of us were at the funeral. At least, I was. There were a bunch of us there.”
This is news to me. All I remember is a blur of faces and hugs, because back then, I really was in shock. “You did? But we were just kids. How did you—”
“Girl, everyone’s parents went. From the entire class. Some kids stayed home since we were young, but mine took me along. They didn’t share, you know, the details, but...people talked. Anyway, I am not so confident in the rumors of children that I didn’t confirm it for myself.”
“There are.. other details.”
“Eva.” I can practically see her sitting up straight in the cubicle at her job, fixing her gaze on her Man of the Year pinup. “You don’t have to tell him anything you don’t want to. You don’t have to tell me anything you don’t want to.” There’s a pause. “But don’t psych yourself out because the two of you don’t know everything there is to know about each other yet. I’m sure there’s plenty you don’t know about him.”
“Really?” I go closer to the sand and wiggle my toes in it. “He doesn’t seem like the kind of guy who’d have a lot of secrets.”
“Everyone has secrets,” Eva intones. “To have secrets is but to be human, and to fear them is only to cloak them in darkness, which—”
“I get it.” I laugh. “I really do.”
“Do you?” There’s a creak in the background, Whit leaning back in her chair. “Because you sound tense.”
“I’m slightly tense. But I’m slightly—”
“You little minx,” she says, and it makes me laugh, the sound echoing over the water. “How long did you two—” Whit lowers her voice. “—go at it last night? Tell me it was hours. No! Tell me you’ve been up all night, and he’s finally passed out. No! Tell me—”
“There was a thunderstorm,” I offer. I don’t really have the words to tell Whitney what happened. Well, I do, but there’s no part of me that wants to say Bennett Powell has the most perfect dick I’ve ever seen and he knows what he’s doing with it. That, and his hands. And his mouth....
“Hot,” she says. “Hot.” Then: “Ms. Lipton, I assure you, we only offer the best when it comes to life insurance. Your family will be well taken care of if you decide to purchase a policy from us. We have our No Worry Guarantee, and…. Sorry, my boss just walked by.”
“Go back to work! I just wanted to—”
“Chat with your very best friend. I get it. I get that way after Wes and I have a particularly—No, no. That guarantee never expires. You can trust it from now until the day your family needs to cash in on the policy.”
“Love you, Whit.”
“Love you too. Are you and Ben going to the meet-up this weekend?”
“Meet-up?”
“You know—for the Warriors?”
So maybe Ben does have more secrets than I thought. It intrigues me, and it makes me feel vaguely ill. Which…why? I’ve been keeping secrets from him too.
“He’s in it with Wes,” Whitney prompts. “There’s a hangout this weekend. It’s different from the usual Friday night meet-ups. Some private trivia night, and significant others are invited. On Saturday?”
“Oh, yeah, right. Right, that.”
Whitney laughs. “So you two haven’t talked about it.”
“No. No, we haven’t. But I would. I might go.” I still don’t want to go. Whitney’s party was a disaster, but then there’s the thought of being somewhere with Ben. And my guess is, a roomful of men like him wouldn’t be the type to pry about my writing career. Even if he is a world-class pry-er.
“Lies,” she says with a sigh. “What’s going on with you, Eva?”
I open my mouth to tell her.
“Eva.”
It’s Ben’s voice, low and gravelly from sleep.
“Is that him?” Whitney asks. “I heard something in the background. Is it time for round two? Or wait. Is this round three? Five? You don’t have to tell me. But, really, tell me. Six?”
“I’ll call you later,” I tell her.
“Come back to bed,” says Ben.
It’s slower this time, not so volatile and hard, and in the morning light, Ben takes his time exploring my body.
He spreads me open wide.
His eyes aren’t on my face. They’re between my legs.
“Does this embarrass you?”
“Does what embarrass me?”
“The way I’m looking at you.”
He is looking at me. Like he wants to devour me...again. He has my legs spread open wide, thumbs moving in gentle, torturous circles on the insides of my thighs, and I honestly hadn’t thought about it until he said something.
“In the light of day, yes. It’s very bright in here,” I whisper. I can feel all of me heating up. I wonder if he can see it between my legs. My guess is yes.
“And you love it.”
I stretch my hands above my head. “I won’t admit it.”
“You don’t have to.” Ben sinks two fingers into me. There’s hardly any resistance I’m so wet. “Your pussy gives you away.”
I tighten around those fingers and he bends his head. The pressure and suck on my clit has every muscle vibrating with that pleasure, and he takes it slow, so slow.
“God, you’re the worst.”
He raises his mouth from my body and I let out a mewl that I have never heard myself make before. “What do you think now?” he asks.
“This is the worst. This. This. Please—”
“So pretty
when you say that,” Ben murmurs, and then he goes back to his work. The man is methodical, patient, and he’s being so unkind as he brings me up to the very edge of release then backs off, rubbing at my clit with the pad of his thumb. I’m breathless with anticipation, my mind a haze of need and want and oh fuck that feels good, yes, more of that, yes. This is what we should have been doing all along. No massage, no glass of wine, could compare to this.
He makes me come with his tongue, bracing my legs apart with his arms, and I am so utterly exposed that it feels dirty, feels filthy, feels right. And then he makes me come on my hands and knees, ass in the air, with his fingers. When the shaking stops he takes my thighs in his hands and spreads them another inch apart and blows between my legs, the cool of his breath on the hot swollen skin making goose bumps rise on my arms.
And then…those fingers.
He takes another long, slow lick, my cheek pressed to the pillow and my back arched in a way that I honestly never thought it would be with another human, and I groan at how wrong and how good it feels. I have another little aftershock of an orgasm right then. His fingers never stop working my clit. He’s figured out the exact degree of pressure I need, and he will not relent, he won’t—
“How many times?” I gasp.
“How many times what?” Ben’s voice is calm and languid, though I’d bet anything that he’s hard as steel right now and biding his time.
“How many times are you going to make me come before you fuck me?”
I’m never this outspoken about it. I’m never this explicit. But I need him like I need air and light.
“Until you’re a puddle.” His breath is close to my ear. More goose bumps. “Until every single thought is chased from your mind. Until you’re a clean slate. A white rose. Until nothing in the world worries you.”
“But I can’t…” Even while I’m protesting, I come again, this one slow and electric. “I can’t keep… please, Ben, I need—”
“To be fucked?”