Crave for Me

by Rayman Black

  I flicked the clasp of her bra open and drew her nipple into the warmth of my mouth, then slid my fingers beneath her panties and into her heat, intent on finishing what I’d started in the dark strip club. She cried out and bucked beneath me, straining my control. Oh, God, I wanted to be inside her. But I also took a masochistic delight in holding back while I pleasured her, while I listened to the sounds she made.

  I stroked my fingers into her heat, crooking them toward me inside her as I flicked her nipple with my tongue and listened to her whimper. Her hands sought the front of my pants and soon she freed me, wrapping her hand around my shaft and stroking me firmly. I could feel my control starting to slip.

  With one quick move, I slipped my fingers out of her, held her panties aside, and buried my cock deep inside her. Her body wrapped around me, coating me in her silken moisture. I took her mouth with my own as I pulled my cock out until only the head was still inside her, then slowly pushed my full hard length into her velvet sheath. Her hips rose to meet me and I felt her muscles clench around me.

  Whatever control I had left snapped. I pushed her legs back so I could thrust deeper, harder. She moved with me, moved against me, and made these noises in my ear that drove me crazy. I pounded into her, listening to her sounds become cries, and then turn to screams as her body tightened around me and her orgasm washed over her. I thrust again, and again, her passion drawing me in and sending me over the edge after her.

  15

  Katie

  The phone jangled close to my ear, ripping me out of dreams and into the dim light of early morning. Chris rolled to his feet fluidly, his eyes not even fully open even as he held his body taut, ready for anything. He grabbed the phone.

  “Hello?” he mumbled into the receiver, blinking owlishly at the clock on the dresser. “Oh, yeah, okay. Uh, thanks.” He hung up and looked at me with disbelief. “That was the front desk. With your courtesy wake up call.” He slumped down onto the side of the bed. “It’s 5:15 in the morning. Did you ask them to call you this early?”

  I smothered a laugh and reached out a hand to smooth back his hair. “Yeah, I did. I have something special planned for today, but we’ve got to start soon or we’ll miss it. Didn’t I tell you we were going to have an early morning?”

  Chris flopped down next to me. “It must have slipped your mind,” he said, his jaw cracking on a huge yawn. “You know what else is special? Sleeping in and ordering room service, then having lots of sex. We could do that here.”

  I laughed out loud and shoved him with my foot. “Get up, sleepyhead. Adventure awaits!”

  I left him there and headed for the shower, turning the water on nice and hot. I leaned in further to adjust it, then jumped when I felt a hand on my shoulder.

  “Jesus Christ and all the angels!” I exclaimed, pressing my hand over my racing heart as I spun around to see Chris. He was trying not to laugh.

  “Sorry,” he said, leaning in to kiss me softly. “I wasn’t sure if you could hear me come in and I didn’t want to scare you.”

  I rolled my eyes. “Mission failed.” I slid my arms around his neck and returned his kiss with some added heat. “Wanna join me in the shower? I can wash your back.”

  When we finally emerged, we were running late. Chris was still brushing his teeth with a hotel courtesy toothbrush and I was pulling on some jeans when the phone rang again. I dashed over to get it, nearly tripping myself in my own pants.

  “Hello?” I said, slightly breathless. I hopped on one foot, trying to jam the other into the narrow leg.

  “Good morning, this is the front desk. The car that you ordered is waiting for you.”

  “Oh, great, thanks,” I said, excitement and trepidation filling me in equal measure. I hung up the phone and called, “Chris! It’s waiting for us. You gotta go pack.”

  I heard him rinse his mouth and spit into the sink, then his head popped into the hall. “What is?” he asked curiously, smiling at me. “Where are we going?”

  “You won’t find out if we don’t hurry,” I said, tossing him his clothes. “Go get your stuff.”

  “Mysterious,” he said, waggling his eyebrows. He pulled his shirt over his head and sat on the edge of the bed to pull on his shoes. He stood and kissed me, slow and lingering. He smiled as he pulled away. “I’ll meet you in the lobby in fifteen minutes.”

  “I’ll hold you to it,” I said, smiling as he walked out of the room. I went to the bathroom and looked in the mirror. I could hardly recognize myself. My eyes were bright, my cheeks were pink, and I couldn’t stop smiling. I pulled a brush through my hair and brushed on some mascara and lip balm. The balm I tucked in my pocket, along with my ID, debit card, and hotel room key. My phone went into the other pocket, and I slipped the stem of my sunglasses into the collar of my bright yellow sweater. I slid my feet into my tennis shoes and quickly packed the rest of my things in my bag. I took one more look for anything I might have missed and left the room, jogging to the elevator banks. If Chris really did show up in fifteen minutes, he was likely to beat me there.

  As it turned out, I stepped off the elevator at the same time he did. His eyes met mine and a wide grin creased his face.

  “Fancy meeting you here,” he said, sliding his fingers through mine. “Come here often?”

  I groaned. “Oh, no. Cheesy pick up lines? Chris, I expected better from you.”

  “Those aren’t cheesy,” he protested. “They’re classic.”

  “They’re cliche,” I corrected, leaning against his arm. “I think that’s our car.”

  The same women from the morning before were manning the desk again. I stopped at the counter. “Good morning,” I said pleasantly. “We need to check out, and I think that’s our car out front.”

  The younger of the two women eyed Chris suspiciously as she took our names and typed rapidly on her computer. She glanced at me. “Did you enjoy your stay here?” she asked.

  “Yes, ma’am,” I said. “Thank you.” She handed me the key to the car with obvious disapproval. I gave the women a cheery wave as we left and whispered, “Why do they look like they want to search you for hidden contraband?”

  Chris nodded respectfully to them and whispered back, “I tried to get one of them to give me your room number yesterday, so now I think they’re convinced you’re on the run. I think they’re worried I found you.”

  We left the hotel and I shivered in the early morning air. It was warmer than back home, but even southern desert mornings were chilly in early spring. “Do you want to drive?” I asked, offering him the keys. He took them, so I slid into the passenger seat. I pulled up the directions on my phone. “Okay, we’re heading south to the interstate.”

  Chris raised his eyebrows but put the car in gear and drove away from the hotel. My heart fluttered with excitement. This might have been the most spontaneous and impetuous thing I’d ever done. We were on our way.

  “So now that we’re driving, you want to clue me in on our destination? I’m happy to go anywhere with you, Katie, but if there’s anything I should know, now might be a good time to tell me.” He paused, glancing over at me. “Wait, we’re not robbing a bank or something, are we? My getaway skills are rusty.”

  I laughed. “No, I’ve given up heists for Lent.” I point to a familiar coffee shop with its ubiquitous green awning. “Want to hit the drive-thru for a coffee before we get on the interstate?”

  He cut his eyes to me, but engaged the indicator and pulled into the quickly filling parking lot. We joined a line of three cars in the drive-thru. “You can’t keep it a secret forever,” he said, reaching over and squeezing my knee. He winked at me. “I can’t wait to see what that creative mind came up with.”

  “All I can tell you is we’re going to be on the road for awhile this morning,” I said, relenting a little. “It’s a little over five hours away.”

  Before long, we were properly caffeinated and on the open highway heading south. Chris didn’t ask any more questions about our desti
nation, turning the conversation instead to questioning me about school and what I planned to do after graduation.

  “I’m not sure,” I confessed. I was sitting cross-legged, half turned in my seat so I could look at him. He kept his eyes on the road, only occasionally looking over to smile at me, so I studied him shamelessly from my place leaning against the door. “There are so many good grad schools to apply to, but I don’t know what I want to go for. Judith is pursuing a degree in social work and Lori wants to have a private practice after she gets her doctorate, but I haven’t decided what I want to do yet. I know I love psychology, and I would love to be a real help to people, but I’m afraid of graduate school.” Whoa. Why had that popped out? It was true, but it was the first time I had said it out loud.

  Chris was nodding. “I think that’s a healthy fear,” he said, looking over at me with those intense brown eyes and flashing me a smile before returning his attention to the road. “I’ve never been, but I hear graduate school is as different from an undergraduate degree as college in general is from high school. It’s pretty normal to be nervous about different.”

  “It’s just that I struggle a lot with staying on top of things as it is,” I said, finally putting into words the shadowy fears that gathered in the back of my mind. “Staying organized and getting my stuff in on time, that kind of thing. It’s been a bigger problem this year than it’s ever been before, because the workload has gotten so much heavier. It really shook my confidence that I could even succeed in grad school.”

  Chris reached over and squeezed my hand. “You’re a survivor, Katie Halls. I could tell the first time I saw you. If you decide grad school is what you want, I have no doubt at all that you’ll make it work for you.”

  I sighed, squeezing back. “I guess so. I mean, if I committed to grad school, I would have to, wouldn’t I?” I pushed the thoughts away before they could make me sad. Or worse, worried. “We’ve been talking about me for nearly an hour now. Tell me about your job.”

  Chris smiled. “I love it,” he said simply, and the truth of his words seems to shine from him. “There’s nothing else I’d rather be doing. I work twenty-four hours on, forty-eight hours off, and those twenty-four on can get pretty crazy. For example, the last shift I worked before the trip out here, we had a house fire called in. When we got there, the back end of the house was pretty well lit, but we did what we could to contain it and keep the front from catching, too. We made sure everyone was out of the house, but no one could find the dog. I guess she had a habit of going walk-about and everyone just hoped that’s what she was doing.”

  I waited, rapt. I loved dogs, and I couldn’t stand the thought of one being trapped in a fire. “Did you find her?” I asked.

  He nodded. “Well, we didn’t, but she was found. She eventually came out from under the porch, dragging a newborn puppy, and went on to deliver five more on the lawn, away from the fire. Her owners hadn’t even known she was pregnant.”

  I felt my mouth open in astonishment. “Holy cow. Were the puppies okay?” I asked.

  His eyes went sad. “The first puppy didn’t make it,” he said. “The vet said it probably got smoke in its lungs before the mother dog could move it. She kept the others, though.”

  I shook my head. “That’d be a hell of a thing, wouldn’t it? Your house burns down and then, surprise! You have puppies to care for now.” I looked at him, considering. “But it’s not always a happy ending, is it? It seems like a job that would wear on you.”

  “It does,” he admitted, flashing me a sweet smile. “There are calls that haunt you for days or weeks, and some never really leave you.”

  “Why do you do it?” I asked. Well, shit, I thought. Maybe that was too personal. He didn’t seem offended, though. He went quiet, thinking about my question.

  “We all need help sometimes. It’s important work to make sure help is there when it’s needed,” he said finally. “Isn’t that why you do what you do?”

  It was, but I hadn’t expected him to see that. “It’s why I’m considering grad school at all,” I said honestly. “Our country needs better access to mental health for the people who need it. Like you said, it’s important work.”

  We talked for nearly the entire trip, even when we stopped at a roadside diner to eat. He loved animals, too, but he didn’t have a pet of his own because he worked too long a shift to be fair to one. His parents had always had dogs, and he visited them often, so he got to play with theirs when the mood struck. We shared a love of cooking, and he told me he liked to read police procedural crime thrillers. I told him I wanted to learn to draw, and had even gone so far as bookmark some videos online, but I hadn’t started them yet. I didn’t tell him about Samantha, or India. I wondered what he didn’t tell me.

  “My family is pretty close, as you could probably tell last night” I said later, choosing my words carefully. “I don’t see them as often as you do, but we have dinner together when we can. My sister, Terri, is halfway through her undergraduate, too. Well, she’s fulfilling basic requirements. She hasn’t declared a major yet.”

  The GPS said we were about a half hour away when Chris’ phone rang from where he’d stashed it in his bag in the backseat. I tugged it out and glanced at the screen.

  “Jeff,” I said, handing it to him. “That’s your brother, right?”

  He nodded, his face unreadable. It seemed like he was hesitating, but then he took the phone and answered with a terse, “What’s up?”

  He was quiet for a long time, listening as his brother talked. He kept his face carefully blank, completely expressionless. I thought that must be his professional face, the one he used when having feelings was a job hazard. What could his brother be saying to make him look like that? Whatever it was, it must be bad. I hoped he would tell me, because given everything I wasn’t telling him, I wasn’t in much of a position to ask.

  “Okay,” he said finally, his voice softer but no warmer. “Okay, yeah, thanks.” He tossed his phone on the seat behind us and offered me a smile, but he was clearly distracted. “Just news from home. Everything’s fine. What exit are we looking for again?”

  I caught his gaze and held it just long enough for him to know I wasn’t buying his everything’s fine act, then smiled and gave him the number. We fell into silence after that, the sound of the tires eating up the miles filling the small car. Chris brooded over the information he got from his brother, and I tried to give him some space and watched the passing traffic out of my window. I hoped it wasn’t anything serious, like someone was sick or had an accident. But that seemed like something he would tell me, so that probably wasn’t it. And what could it be, coming from his brother whom he just told me last night he wasn’t close to? I shook my head. Thinking about it anymore wouldn’t help at all.

  I turned to him, ready to just ask him, see if he wanted to talk about it, when he said, “Here it is. Where do we go next?” He took the exit and we spent the next several minutes navigating our way to our destination.

  When we pulled into the driveway and parked, Chris looked over at me with wide eyes. “Canyon Diving?” he said, incredulous. A smile stretched over his face, his eyes alight with delighted pleasure. “Are you serious? Skydiving over the Grand Canyon?”

  I nodded, biting my lip. Now that we were here, my hands shook and a queasy feeling settled in my stomach. “I thought it would be something you might like,” I said, forcing a smile. “Surprise.”

  His smile became a grin. “This is perfect, Katie. I can’t imagine how you could have known this is something I’ve always wanted to do.”

  I shrugged, but inside I felt a warm glow of satisfaction building. This was the right choice. I was just feeling nerves. I needed to push through it. We’d be fine. I would be fine.

  We got out of the car and went into the squat, drab building with a black and white sign that said Canyon Diving in script. Chris held the door for me, and we entered an essentially open room. Different stations had been clearly marked throu
ghout the space, with couples or small groups occupying three or four of them. The only solid walls in the place were the ones surrounding the bathroom.

  We stepped up to the long counter that separated the waiting area from the working space, and a bouncy blonde woman stepped up to greet us. “Welcome to Canyon Diving. Do you have a dive time with us today?”

  I nodded, pulling my license out of my pocket and handing it to her. “Yes, we do, under Halls.”

  The woman was somewhere around forty, with bright blue eyes and pale hair pulled back in a ponytail. She smiled brilliantly at me. “You must be mine, then. My name is Dana, and you’re right on time.” She picked up two clipboards and handed them over with a couple of pens. “You’ll have to fill these out, then we can bring you back to get suited up and start your training.”

  “Training?” I said blankly.

  Dana gestured to the different stations behind her. “We walk you through it, step by step, so you know exactly what to expect. I’ll be tandem jumping with you, just in case you forget something. This is your first time, right?” Chris and I both nodded. “Well, don’t you worry about anything. You’re going to have an experience you’ll never forget, and you’ll have a ball, too.”

  I looked at Chris as we each took a clipboard and retreated to the chairs placed in a row along the wall. “If we can survive this together, we can survive anything,” I said. It was supposed to be a joke, but there must have been something about my face or voice that alerted him. He turned to me and took my trembling hand in his.

  “We don’t have to do this,” he said, searching my face. “Not if you’re scared.”

  I shook my head. “Don’t be ridiculous. This is what we came for. It’s an adventure, right? Adventures are always scary.”