A growl rattles my chest, and I pull out of her, scooping her up in my arms and throwing her backwards onto the couch. Climbing over her, I’m tempted to flip her over, make this less personal, less intimate somehow… but I don’t. My jeans and boxers hit the floor as I kick them off, her underwear following, and then we’re face-to-face, our expressions shrouded in silhouette as I situate myself between her spread thighs and push back in.
Our groans are mutual, my palms trailing up to her cheeks, cupping her more gently than I’d intended, while my thumb drags down her bottom lip.
I move in for a kiss.
Melody’s arms link around my neck, her legs crossing behind my lower back, and our mouths lock, every single piece of us hopelessly entwined. I think this is where I’m supposed to unleash—go savage on her, leave her bruised and quivering, begging for more through her fucking tears. But my hips move with deep, deliberate strokes, my tongue exploring her, more lazy than desperate, and my hands continue to cradle her face with tenderness instead of crazed urgency. There’s a power in the air, some kind of palpable charge, and when I pull back from her lips to meet her eyes, I know she feels it, too. The exact same sentiment twinkles back at me like a sky full of stars.
Our eyes continue to hold as my pace increases, thrusting into her while she holds me so fucking close, I feel like I’m suffocating and purging at the same time. Our noses knock, our lips hovering together, barely touching, breaths hot and needy. Her body tenses beneath me as I grip her face in a possessive, clingy clutch, unable to tear my gaze from hers.
Little squeaks and gasps permeate the air as her orgasm builds, her fingers lifting to my hair and tugging at the strands. When I angle my pelvis to grind into her clit and push into her, slow and deep, Melody begins to buckle, her limbs wracked in tremors.
“Fuck…” I breathe against her lips, drunk on this feeling—this unfamiliar fucking feeling. “You’re so goddamn sexy when you’re about to come.”
“God, don’t stop…”
I don’t want to stop. I don’t ever want to stop, and the notion is equally thrilling and terrifying.
With my own release climbing, I lean down to kiss her hard, our tongues instantly battling, seeking and craving. I feel her clench around my cock, her whole body tautening, bracing for climax, and I lose myself in it all—in her pleasure, in mine, in the chemicals threatening to incinerate me, in her fucking kiss that I can’t seem to get enough of.
One more jerk of my hips, and she cries out into my mouth, gripping my hair so hard it would hurt if I weren’t completely consumed by the feel of her pussy contracting around my dick, causing me to fucking unravel.
“Fuck, Melody,” I groan, pulling back from her mouth to bury my face into the curve of her neck, holding her tight as I come inside her, pulsing and breaking.
The waves hit hard, taking me under. Melody squeezes me as I collapse on top of her, riding out the feeling until I’m nothing but shudders and shockwaves, crushing her with my weight. Her palms slide up and down my back, over the fabric of my shirt, the only barrier between us. It’s a comforting sweep of her fingers, and I lose myself in her touch for one blinding moment as I shift my weight beside her on the couch.
What was that?
What the fuck was that?
It was just supposed to be sex—simple biology. A physical reaction.
But it felt like a goddamn resurrection.
We lie there in silence for a few long heartbeats, my head tucked into her shoulder, and my arm draped around her middle. The smell of sex and sweat hovers in the air, mingling with traces of her lemony shampoo.
Melody’s chest heaves with a labored breath. Shaky fingers dance along the expanse of my forearm as she whispers, “Are you okay?”
She echoes my words from earlier, but they are not the same.
I don’t have an answer for her because I don’t fucking know. I’m not okay, not at all. I feel dismantled and picked apart. Lost. Drowning in confusion and uncertainties.
And yet, I feel the most okay I’ve ever felt.
The only words I can muster as I stew in my inner turmoil are, “Sorry I held back.”
She asked me not to hold back, and instead of going apeshit on her, I took it to a weird-ass vulnerable place. Fucking dumb.
But Melody only gives my arm a gentle squeeze, sighing as her breathing steadies. “You didn’t.”
Swallowing, I try not to dissect the meaning of her words. I just lie idle beside her, my frazzled thoughts dying out and pacifying when she twists in my embrace and nuzzles into me, a sweet kiss meeting the side of my neck.
Once upon a time, the dark was my enemy—the place where I had never felt more alone.
But not tonight.
Tonight it’s where I’ve never felt more alive.
—TWENTY-SIX—
I really could get used to this.
We take the liberty of using our fifteen-minute meeting break to sneak out to the parking lot and fuck in the back of Melody’s Camry, like two horny teenagers.
It’s been a week since our intimacy-laced rendezvous on my living room couch, where she fell asleep on my chest like a satiated lover, and I stared up at my ceiling fan trying to count the amount of times it spun around in unsteady circles. Melody’s languid breaths were a muted soundtrack to my racing mind, mingling only with Walden’s wheezy snores from across the room and my kitchen faucet leak. The morning-after came quickly, with Melody stirring awake just before five A.M., and I drove her to her car still parked at Breaker’s.
We didn’t say much, but it was a comfortable sort of silence, brimming with quiet musings, heated glances, and the occasional smile from her. Melody even reached for my hand during the drive over to the bar, squeezing it in her warm palm, transmitting a flurry of feelings that shot straight to my heart. Before she hopped out of my truck, she leaned in and pressed a kiss to my lips, something sweet and wistful, murmuring softly, “Thank you.”
I was too fucking tired to decipher the meaning.
Thanks for the good dicking?
Thanks for the really uncomfortable few hours of sleep on my small ass couch, my elbow jabbing into her ribs, when there was a bed right down the hallway?
Maybe she was thankful for my impeccable hosting abilities. I didn’t offer her anything to drink or eat—I basically just fucked her senseless, then sent her on her merry way.
I’m not exactly sure what she was thankful for, but I know what I’m thankful for right now—the feel of her crumbling in my lap, coming so hard, her nails almost pierce through my cotton t-shirt as her teeth bite into my shoulder to stifle a sharp moan.
A prideful smile lifts on my mouth when she pulls herself up in my lap, eyes drunk with post-orgasmic bliss, cheeks flushed bright pink. Her hair is chaos, matching the energy swimming in the air. “That was quick,” I tease, gliding my hands down her spine.
“I’ve been waiting all week for that.”
Fuck.
Me, too.
I’m pretty terrible at the whole communication thing, but I’m really fucking trying.
I texted her.
The night following our hook-up, I texted her because I was thinking about her. I was thinking about a particular sound she made, kind of a raspy mew, wondering the exact thing I’d done in that moment to procure such a sound, so I could do it again, a million times over.