She shakes her head. “No, don’t be. You’re right. Oh God, you’re right.”
I can’t convey to her all I wish to say—that she should be free, that she should be mine. Only one of those will come true. “No, I was foolish. But of course safety is real.”
Except that I’m lying, and we both know it. Safety is a dream that only children have. Both of us grew up too soon, aware that everything we knew before would never come true.
Her eyes are as wide and as mysterious as the universe itself. She is a galaxy and a black hole, creation and destruction in one female-shaped body. “Dream with me,” she says.
That’s the only invitation I need. I lay her back on the picnic blanket, resting her head on my folded-up jacket. Unveiling her body to the moonlight has a sense of rightness, as if I’ve been waiting all my life to see her pale curves made luminescent, as if she’s been waiting forever to be bared.
Sailors used the night sky to guide their path. That’s what I become this night, finding my way over the slope of her breast to the tight point of her nipple, following down the flat of her stomach. They are signposts along the way, but my direction is the North Star. For this I must spread her legs with my hands, push her thighs apart and part the copper-colored curls.
The feel of her clit against my tongue is almost enough to burn. Too bright for mere mortals. I curl myself around her, letting her feel my desire, my devotion. She’s the one who moves first, finding friction against my tongue. Yes, mon amie. Take what you need. Fuck me.
I don’t have to say the words, because she’s finding freedom underneath the stars. Finding safety in this shared dream, where she can rock her hips against my face, pulling her own orgasm to the surface.
Two fingers slide in easily. It’s a little harder to fit the third, because she’s still tight. Still untried, so I move her softly—easy, easy. I twist my fingers inside her to the same rhythm she’s given me, because she is the one playing me. I may have arrived with my bedroom tricks and my sexual experience, but they were only an ordinary song. She’s the one who turned it into something new, something beautiful. Something uniquely her own, the way she does at the piano every day.
She comes with a wild sound at the sky, her head thrown back.
There’s something animalistic about her like this, naked and primal. It calls to something primal in me, and I tear off my clothes with an urgency that causes the bespoke shirt to rip. And I don’t fucking care. All I need is to feel her against me, around me, underneath me. Nothing else matters.
I mount her with a need unlike anything I’ve ever known, barely tugging on a condom before I press inside her, expecting to find relief, surcease in the wet heat of her pussy. It only drives me higher, the swollen pressure, only makes me need more, feeling her dampness at the base of my cock.
She doesn’t watch the night sky anymore. She’s looking in my eyes, but her expression holds the same wonder, the same wariness. What does she see inside me? There’s a vast emptiness there, too. Only she has the stars. Only with her is there ever any light.
“Once more,” I tell her. “Come again, so I can feel you on my cock. That’s how I want to come, Bea. Against my will, with your beautiful body forcing it out of me.”
Her eyelids lower. “Make me.”
So I angle her hips to receive my thrust in the right place and then drive home. It only takes a single thrust before she’s panting, squealing, squirming to get away. It’s too acute, this kind of pleasure, but the challenge can only be answered this way. Again and again. I fuck her until she comes with an almost guttural sound, grasping at my shoulders, clawing at them as if we’ll never get close enough.
The pain would be enough to wake me from a dream, so I relish the red marks she leaves on my skin, proof that I must be awake even as an orgasm rips through my body like a shooting star, too fierce to be contained by my body, rushing out of me like a thousand fiery sparks. I convulse over Bea’s body, collapsing onto her because she’s the only relief I’ve found in a wide-open universe, the only light in a too-dark sky.
We’re spread out on the seat cushions, which are the only thing separating us from cool, hard concrete. That and the dubious protection of my jacket as a blanket, but I’ve never been warmer. The residual heat between us simmers in the air. Bea rests her head on my arm, looking up at the stars. They’re beautiful, I know. Luminous and ever-expanding, but I can’t take my eyes off her profile. The faint constellations of her freckles glow a thousand times more.
Without the physical sensation the dread rushes back, gnawing and fierce. The realization that we have very little time left. Maybe only tonight. My hands tighten instinctively around Bea before I can catch myself. I release her, right away, pretending to run my hands down her arms, but she looks back at me with too much awareness.
“Is it difficult?” she asks, so soft I almost don’t hear. “Doing this?”
My standard answer would be something charming and glib. Of course I do not mind having sex. It’s the easiest job in the world. Something keeps me from giving her pretend, because it’s not always easy. The sex is good, but the façade… it wears on me. Having to be someone else.
I don’t want to do that with her. “Sometimes.”
Her fingers draw lazy circles on my chest. “If you aren’t attracted to a woman?”
“That’s rarely a problem. I love women. Their bodies. Their hearts. Their minds. The way they’re so wrapped up saving the world that it almost hurts them to focus on their own pleasure.”
She looks skeptical. “There’s never a woman you don’t want to…”
“There’s not much honor in my profession,” I try to explain. “But if there’s one part… a woman who doesn’t feel beautiful. One who isn’t attractive, according to what society tells her. Showing her that she deserves to be cherished is something worth doing.”
“Is that what I am to you?” she asks. “A charity case?”
There’s a wild thump in my heart. Surprise. “Non.”
“What am I then?”
“You’re a gift.”
Bea rests her chin on my shoulder, watching me with too much knowledge. “What about you?”
“I do feel beautiful,” I say blandly, a small attempt at humor.
She gives me a shy smile. “You deserve to be cherished.”
My stomach clenches, hard enough that I’m afraid the baguette and brie will make a swift return. It’s no secret that women want me for the way I look, for the way I make them feel. No one wants what’s inside. There’s nothing here. A hollow space where a person might be.
I look up at the stars, counting them, distracting myself from the earnest woman, warm and willing in my arms. As if I won’t dream of this later.
The tickle of her hair is my only warning. Her lips are warm and lush against my chest. Every muscle in my body tenses as she places another kiss, this one an inch lower. My cock does not mind that it has just been spent; by the third kiss it’s already hard again.
Her lips are heaven alone, but the brush of skin as she moves over me drives me insane. The whisper of hair over my body makes me mad. “God,” I groan. “What are you doing?”