by Roxy Reid
“We never did specify where I got to kiss you,” Finn says. “Would you like to set some boundaries? Just your mouth, after all?”
My brain knows that’s the smart thing to do, but my body revolts. My body wants everything Finn’s lips have to give.
Slowly, I shake my head.
The hunger in his gaze sharpens, “Maybe your neck too then? Just your mouth and your neck, would that be enough?”
It is possible I whimper a little. He’s not touching me, and I’m already a mindless pool of lust.
“What else should I kiss, Charlie?”
I don’t say anything, so he leans in closer, until his voice is soft and rough in my ear. He’s hot as a furnace, and I’m shivering from it.
His deep rich voice roughens as he asks, “Where do you like a man to kiss you, Charlie?”
“My breasts,” I say.
“Mmm. Good girl.” His thumb is skating under the edge of my camisole, sliding against my stomach, and I suck in a breath. “Where else?” he prompts.
My pussy. Kiss my pussy. But I’m not bold enough to say that.
Finn smirks, like he knows what I’m thinking, “Well. We have six kisses. You have time to think about it.”
And then he stands, scoops me up, and deposits us both back in the chair in one fell swoop, so that I’m sitting in his lap, my back pressed to his chest. He wraps an arm around my waist and holds me tight to him. Warrior king indeed.
“I’ve made my choice,” Finn says.
“Oh?” I shrug a shoulder, nonchalant. Like he’s said it might rain after all.
“Your neck,” Finn says.
I’m about to give him crap about being timid, when he says, “It’s the fastest way to make you wet.”
And then he finds that spot on my neck, kissing and licking and biting until my breath is coming fast and my hips are rolling. He pulls me close, and I bite my lip at the feel of his hard-on pressed into my ass.
Everything in my expects Finn to flip me around and fuck me good, but he stays on my neck with a single minded determination that’s beginning to feel a little kinky.
Finn’s not breaking the rules of the game. And as long as he’s not, I can’t either.
I stand, clearing my throat, trying to get a handle on myself, and go to the bed to get his guitar, “You’ve still got a chorus, two verses, and a bridge to write.”
When I turn back to Finn, the sight of him nearly undoes me. Big sprawling body, raging cock, hot eyes, and an attitude that says That’s fine, take your time. You’ll be begging for me before the night’s over.
I’m hit with a sudden fantasy of kneeling between his legs, of swallowing his cock, while he trails his fingers through my hair, lazy and confident, a king accepting his due.
I pass over the guitar, my face hot. I don’t get fantasies like that. In my fantasies, I’m the one getting serviced.
Finn accepts the guitar, “Did it work?”
I blink, stupidly.
“Did I get you wet?” he asks, and his delicious crudeness spurs something to life in me.
“From that kiss? No.”
“Liar,” Finn says, but he sounds uncertain. Aww. My warrior-king’s got a streak of vulnerability after all.
I snag my phone, and plop down on the bed, “I was wet before you kissed me. Honestly, we could have just fucked, but you decided to go the blue-balls route.”
He chokes a little.
I hit record on my phone and bat my eyes, “Ok, Finn Ryan. Write me a chorus.”
9
Finn
She’s killing me. She’s fucking killing me. Lying on my bed in that skimpy top. Wet for me. Sending me that challenging look, like she’s daring me to come over and shove her down onto the bed and fuck her senseless.
Or maybe she’s just challenging me to finish the damn song.
One thing I can say with certainty: this is not a masterpiece I’m writing.
I use every trick and trope in the book. Repurposing licks, dusting off old harmonies, going with the first lyric that comes to mind. It’s not high art, but if it will get me back into Charlie’s arms I don’t give a fuck.
I’m almost to the end of the chorus, when I get an idea for the lyrics that would flow way better.
Charlie bites her lip like she’s trying to keep from laughing, “You have to re-write the whole chorus don’t you?”
“Shut up.”
“Better do it now before you forget.”
I groan, but Charlie’s right. So I grab the notebook she left by the chair and re-write the lyrics. It’s still not Shakespeare, but it’s a little more tongue-in-cheek, a little more me, “There, done.” I toss the notebook aside.
“Sing it to me,” Charlie says, and something about her voice makes me raise my eyes from my guitar.
Fuck, she’s beautiful. And difficult. And kind. And passionate.
The stupidest thing I ever did was break up with Charlie. But I can’t say any of that, so instead I say, “Does it turn you on when I sing?”
“Sometimes,” she says.
“That must be kind of inconvenient, since your job is to watch me while I sing,” I joke, and she groans.
“You have no idea.”
“Wait, really?”
“JUST PLAY YOUR DAMN SONG.”
So I play the verse into the chorus, trying not to lose my head over the way she’s staring at my mouth.
“Right, get over here,” I say when I finish, setting my guitar aside.
“Why don’t you come over here?” Charlie whines.
“Because if I kiss you in that bed, neither of us are stopping,” I say, and I can tell by the way her breathing speeds up that I’m not wrong. “Now get your ass over here, Charlie De Luca, and claim your kiss.”
I watch her hips sway as she comes to me. She’s all grace and sexual hunger, and she’s driving me out of my fucking mind.
18-year-old Charlie didn’t know her power. 28-year-old Charlie does, and it’s hot as hell.
She settles on my lap. I yank her shirt off and unhook the back of her bra.
Charlie braces an arm on the back of my chair, right by my head, and I kiss the inside of her wrist on reflex. It’s simple and chaste. Her breath hitches; she freezes. I don’t get why until my sex-fogged brain catches up with our one kiss rule.
“That doesn’t count!” I say, but she’s already scrambling off of my lap.
Charlie stands over me, flushed, cupping her breasts so they don’t spill out of her unhooked bra. “I don’t make the rules,” she says sternly.
“Please,” I beg. To hell with dignity. I just need to touch her.
“You already have the melody. Just write another verse.”
I grab my guitar, “You’re a sadist.”
“I suppose I could give you a little motivation.”
She drops her bra and my brain empties. And then I write the fastest verse I’ve ever written in my life.
Charlie puts her hands on her hips, “That doesn’t even rhyme.”
I set my guitar aside, “Sometimes songs don’t rhyme.”
“The rest of it rhymes!”
I think half-naked Charlie scolding me for bad song structure is my new kink.
“When I tell my fans why, they’ll understand.”
She gasps, “Finn Ryan. You are not telling anyone how we wrote this song.”
I lunge for her, laughing, and we end up back in the chair in a tangle of limbs. I kiss her nipple, then start sucking in earnest, until her breath is a soft staccato rhythm that’s sinking into my skin, driving me mad.
I need to get inside her. I need to finish this song. I start to pull away, but she buries her hands in my hair, holding me in place, and who am I to argue?
I eagerly lose track of time. It’s disorienting when she suddenly pulls away, reaching for the notepad and pencil I tossed aside.
“What are you doing?” I ask.
“Writing your other verse,” she answers as she jots down some lines
in the notebook.
“That’s cheating,” I peer over her shoulder at the notebook. Her verse actually rhymes. Show-off. “You never used to help me out.”
“I used to care more about your growth as a person. Now I just want your mouth,” Charlie tosses the notebook aside and falls on my lips. Her tongue’s in my mouth, tasting me like I’m the one driving her wild, and I’m holding her so tight I think I’m going to leave bruises on her hips.
I lose myself in her textures: the softness of her skin, the silk of her hair, the delicious dig of her nails into my neck.
She breaks away, putting a hand on my chest to stop me from following. My heart is racing under her hand. I don’t know why it’s going so fast—I’ve dated women, I’ve had sex, and hell, it’s been good sex. Except this is Charlie, and my heart always speeds up for her.
I reach out and put my palm over her heart, because suddenly I need to know if I’m alone in this.
But her heart is speeding just as fast as mine.
Charlie peels my hand off her heart, like she’s self-conscious.
She’s sitting half naked in my lap after practically devouring me, and the thing that makes her shy is me knowing that, at least right now, her heart speeds up for me.
“I guess I have a bridge to write,” I say, feeling the weight of the moment, because I know what happens after I write the bridge.
Slowly, Charlie nods. She starts to stand up, but everything in me revolts at the loss of contact, so I catch her and tug her back, so that she’s sitting with her back pressed to my chest. I wrap my arms around her, holding the notebook in front of us. “Ok. What should the bridge be about?”
“How quickly it gets awkward once you’re the only one who’s shirtless,” Charlie says, so I pull my t-shirt off and slip it over Charlie’s head.
She makes a little sound of contentment and cuddles into me, and that … that does something to me. Her in my shirt. Treating me like I’m her safe-space.
“I’m thinking we do a key change on the bridge, but keep the basic melody the same,” I say. “Slow down the guitar rhythm.”
“Don’t slow it down too much. It’ll kill the momentum.”
“We can do double time on the percussion.” It’s not a particularly original idea, but it’s a classic for a reason.
“So now you just need an idea for your lyrics.”
“You already came up with an idea,” I say.
I can practically feel Charlie’s eye-roll. She mumbles, “A real idea.”
I tuck my chin against her shoulder and sing, slowly working my way through the song, “Did I say too much/ Did I leave us exposed/ Cause I put it all out there but your smile says no/ So if I’m going too fast/ Honey take my shirt/ Write this fucked up song with me/ Darling just say the word.”
Charlie stills against me, and I wonder if she hates it. But all she says is, “You’ll need more lyrics for how long the bridge is.”
“I’ll just riff on the last line. Darling, just say the word/ Say the word/ Oh baby come on, it’s half a rhyme without you/ baby give me your word,” I sing.
Charlie turns around to stare at me.
“I mean, it’s not set yet, obviously,” I say, defensively. “I can do better.”
Charlie slugs me in the arm, “Finn. You just wrote a song in what, an hour? Two? And it doesn’t suck. You’re a good songwriter. Why did you ever think you needed Zane?”
Because it wasn’t this easy without you, I think. But I don’t say that. I just smile.
It feels almost too good to be true. After months of doubt and fear and, frankly, hating that part of me that couldn’t fucking write, I finally wrote a song.
Well, Charlie and her kisses wrote a song. I just tried to keep up.
Which brings me back to our game. And now I’m feeling straight up euphoric. I wrote a song, and now I get to kiss Charlie where she needs it most.
I grin, and her eyes widen. Like she can tell some of what I’m thinking.
“Get on the bed,” I say.
“You said if we do this on the bed neither of us are stopping.”
“I did say that, yes.”
Charlie stands, and backs toward the bed.
“Jeans off,” I say, and she stumbles a little, catching herself on the bed.
“You want them off, you take them off,” Charlie says.
So I do.
I strip her jeans off, enjoying her sigh when I run my fingers underneath the lace trim on her cute polka dotted panties. I press her into the bed, shoving my t-shirt up above her breasts. I cup the breast I’ve neglected and lower my mouth.
“Um. Not to critique. But there are other places you could kiss. And you only have one kiss left.”
“Nope. Two,” I say, grinning at her confusion. “I finished before dawn.”
Charlie starts laughing, falling back into the pillows, “Oh you absolute fucker.”
I like her laughing, but right now I want her gasping, so I nip at her breast and get my wish. I kiss and bite and lick until she’s arching and moaning and calling my name, all thoughts of games and counting kisses gone from her head.
At least I hope they’re gone from her head, because I can’t wait anymore.
I ease down her body and kiss her through her underwear.
“More,” Charlie moans.
So I give her more. I slip her panties off, grip her soft, wonderful ass, and kiss her clit.
And Charlie pretty much shoots through the roof.
So I stay, working her until her hips are bucking and she’s making inarticulate noises. When I don’t think she can take anymore, I slide two fingers inside her, curling them in a beckoning motion, until I find a place that takes her from hot to wild.
“Finn—Finn, I can’t—I’m going to come, it’s too much, I can’t—” she breaks off with a moan that’s somewhere between despair and hope.
This is where a gentle lover would soothe her. Slow his pace. Reassure her.
But I am not a gentle lover. I’m selfish as fuck, and it’s been too long since I watched Charlie De Luca cum. So I thrust my fingers harder, nip her clit, hold her down with my other arm so she has no choice but to take everything I give her.
It’s a matter of seconds before she breaks. First in sharp jerks, then rolling waves, seizing around my fingers in a way that makes me desperate to bury myself in her and fuck her blind. Her cries are the best music this room has heard all night.
I kiss Charlie’s hip gently as she finishes the last of the aftershocks, and crawl up the bed to lie next to her.
“That was … wow,” Charlie lifts a shaky hand to pull the hair back from her face. “You got better at that. A lot better. Please send a nice thank you note to the woman who taught you how to do that, because I sure didn’t.”
“I wasn’t that bad.”
“Well, you’re that good now,” Charlie looks over at me with the blissful smirk of the newly-orgasmed.
I like that look on her. I like that look a lot.
I reach over to tuck her hair behind her ears, and then remember my hand is sticky from making her cum.
“What?” Charlie asks, catching my hesitation.
“Want to clean this off for me?” I tease, mostly to see her blush. I love Charlie’s blushes. I love them even better in bed.
But Charlie doesn’t blush. Instead, she gives me a sly look. Then she puts my fingers in her mouth and sucks, and I feel my world tilt on its axis.
I’m not the only one who’s changed in ten years.
And suddenly I’m desperate to know all the other ways she’s changed and all the ways she hasn’t changed at all.
“Charlie, I need to be inside you,” I say, my voice raspy. “I know that’s not part of the game, so if you don’t want that—” I’ll fucking die, “—it’s absolutely fine.”
Charlie rolls away from me, and my heart sinks as she stands and crosses the room.
But she’s just pulling out a condom from the top left pocket of my su
itcase.
I blink, “How …”
“You haven’t changed that much,” Charlie says.
And then she’s back in bed with me, and she’s sliding the condom on me, and I’m pinning her down and rocking into her, loving her little cries, and the way she clutches at me, and the way she arches and rolls her head away when I hit a sensitive spot.
God, she’s beautiful. I know there are other women in the world. I know that technically. But in this moment my world has narrowed to Charlie. The heat and sounds and scent of her. The way her eyes lock with mine just before she cums again. The rough holy pleasure of it when I do too.
I collapse on top of her. I know I should move. I’m too heavy for her.
But Charlie trails her hand idly through my hair, across my neck. I’m worried if I move she’ll realize what she’s doing and stop. And it feels so damn good. I could fall asleep like this.
“You’re about to fall asleep, aren’t you?” she asks, and there’s amusement in her voice.
“If I did, you’d have to stay,” I say, and the hand running over me stills.
“Do you want me to stay?” Charlie asks cautiously.
I hesitate. I know I should come up with a joke. Make it sound like it doesn’t matter one way or another. That’s how it is between us now. We don’t do simple sincerity. We don’t leave our hearts wide open like that.
Instead I say, “Yes. I want you to stay.”
I know Charlie’s smiling, because I can feel her whole body relaxing. “Ok,” she says. Her hand starts trailing through my hair again, like I’m hers to touch. And after months of fear and stress, I finally relax too.
10
Charlie
I wake up in soft sheets that smell like Finn. The sun is warm on my cheek, and there’s the soft picking of a guitar coming from the far side of the room, near the window. My eyelashes lift just enough to see Finn sitting in a pool of sunlight, clad only in his boxers, curled around his guitar. He’s singing softly under his breath. At first, I assume he’s playing someone else’s song, because it doesn’t sound anything like the stuff he sings from the stage at night. It’s soft and delicate, and the lyrics are simple, unvarnished, about a man waiting for dawn with the woman he loves. About being so incredibly happy, but also knowing it’s doomed to end.
