Three Little Words

by Jenny Holiday

  Her hands came to his head, and her hips lifted off the bed as he worked her with his tongue. “Be still,” he admonished as her thrashing made him lose his rhythm. “I’m fixin’ to eat you out here, but you have to stay still.”

  She moaned, a torturous noise that was half pleasure, half frustration, like she wanted to comply but couldn’t. So he hooked his arms under her legs, clamped his hands down on her hips, and immobilized her against his face. His intent was to spread her open before him, to have her utterly at his mercy. But once again, he wondered if the joke was on him, because it felt like the reverse was true, like he was a penitent, bowing before a goddess.

  “Oh my God, Bennett. I’m going to come.”

  He paused long enough to chuckle and say, “That’s the idea.”

  “No! It’s too soon. Too fast and— Oh! Oh my God!”

  Her legs clamped around his head, and she went utterly quiet. The delicate flesh against his mouth fluttered and fluttered. He flattered himself that it lasted a long time, and he tried to prolong it even more by staying with her, helping her ride out the aftershocks.

  There was something to be said for this blackout. It had enabled their game of intimate confessions. It made it feel like they were on a break from reality. But now, as Gia went postorgasmically limp, he wished more than anything that he could see her face.

  He settled for pressing a kiss on her inner thigh, then disengaging himself from her legs and feeling his way back up to her.

  “Everything okay up here?” he asked, grinning stupidly into the darkness, loving the taste of her on his lips.

  It took a while for her to answer, and when she did, her voice had lost that bossy, almost-confrontational tone that drove him so bonkers.

  “Yep,” she said. “Everything’s fine.”

  * * *

  Everything was not fine.

  Everything had been fine—everything had been spectacular—until that kiss.

  She should calm down. It had just been a quick kiss on her thigh, a mere peck, over in an instant. It didn’t mean anything, had been a mindless gesture.

  The problem was, it had felt like an affectionate kiss. There was no reason, beyond the expression of affection, to deliver that kind of kiss after everyone had gotten what they came for.

  Except, of course, everyone had not gotten what they came for. Once again, Bennett had left her a pile of helpless mush and had not gotten off himself.

  He intended to, though, she was pretty sure. He wouldn’t have asked about condoms otherwise.

  Okay, so she had to get past the stupid kiss.

  Because despite her discomfort, she really, really wanted to find out what Bennett Buchanan was like when he lost control. He was so disciplined, normally; he exercised such mastery over himself and his kitchen—and over her. What would he be like when he stopped doing that?

  The weird thing about Bennett was that when she was with him, she could feel things that were contradictory. She could hate that he’d kissed her thigh but still want him more than she’d ever wanted anyone. She could be uncomfortable yet move through that discomfort and not die.

  “Give me your phone.” She pushed back against his embrace—he’d sort of sprawled over her after her orgasm.

  He made a vague noise of displeasure and tried to hold on to her, but she slithered out. “I need the flashlight on it. The condoms are in my makeup bag in the bathroom.”

  That spurred him into action so fast, she cracked up.

  The phone’s light cast an eerie glow over the room as she made her way through it, making everyday objects—a TV, a dresser—look weirdly distorted. Distortion: everything that should be familiar made strange. Wasn’t that the perfect metaphor for this unlikely night?

  Inside the bathroom she found a condom. Then optimistically dug around to find a second one—hey, you never knew. When she was done, she held the light up and looked at her face in the mirror.

  The other amazing thing about Bennett?

  She had told him her secret, and he was still here.

  He still wanted her.

  Wanted her so much, in fact, that he was breaking his weird commandment against casual sex in order to have her.

  And she was pretty sure her beauty didn’t have anything to do with it, judging by the way he had, on more than one occasion, vehemently insisted that she had more to offer than a pretty face.

  It was an astonishing thought.

  Plus it was pitch black, so he couldn’t even see her.

  “I’m not sure if it’s possible to die of blue balls, but I think we’re about to find out!” he shouted from the bedroom.

  She grinned at herself, liking the satisfaction—and power—she saw in her reflection. When she turned away to head back to the room, no trace of her previous discomfort remained.

  She held the flashlight up when she got to the edge of the bed, dropped the condoms on the nightstand, and said, “Take off your clothes.”

  He snorted. “Bossy, bossy.”

  She rolled her eyes. “Please, Mr. Buchanan, sir, would you consider disrobing?”

  Without a word he did. She kept the flashlight on him. His shirt was already gone, of course, from his push-ups, but he lifted his hips and pulled his pants off, snagging the waistband of his underwear along with them. Then he leaned back against the headboard in a pose that was, on the surface of things, casual and lazy. But she could feel the tension radiating off him.

  And, of course, his dick gave him away. Shameless, she aimed the phone’s light straight at it. It was a nice one—pleasingly large and with an interesting curve that she suspected might be capable of rocking her world.

  “Do I pass?”

  “Yes,” she whispered, her mouth suddenly dry. She cut the light and put the phone down with a shaking hand, plunging them into darkness again.

  Was she nervous?

  Okay, hell no. She didn’t get nervous when she had sex. Nervous wasn’t in her repertoire.

  So, before she could overthink things, she climbed on top of him. Straddled him. Lifted her arms as he reached for the hem of her tank top—he’d taken her shorts off before—and pulled it over her head.

  Then, emitting a huge sigh, a relieved one like you might make as you stepped into a warm bath after a long, hard day, he wrapped his arms around her and hugged her.

  Hugging was another thing that wasn’t really in her repertoire, at least not when it came to sex.

  But once she forced herself to relax into his embrace, it was actually kind of awesome. His arms banded around her tightly, enough to make her feel contained. Wanted. Safe. She pasted herself even closer to him, smashing her breasts against his chest and hugging his outer thighs with her inner ones.

  It was her turn to sigh, and with this one all the vestiges of her apprehension dissipated.

  Another example of Bennett inspiring her to endure initial discomfort for a bigger payoff.

  They stayed like that for a long time, breathing together in the dark. Even as it was invigorating and lust-inspiring, it was calming. It made space. Enough space to relax and just be.

  Enough space for something weird to happen, something she hadn’t seen coming: a wave of emotion. It came over her steady and sure, just like an actual wave, gaining speed as it approached. She couldn’t even really identify it, label it anything other than “emotion.” Though her first impulse was to turn away from it, to hunker down behind a wall of sandbags, she wondered what would happen if she didn’t do that. If she let it come.

  If she let herself react to it—that was the scariest part. No, letting him witness her reacting to it. That was the scariest part.

  Tears prickled in the corners of her eyes. A deep inhalation she attempted in order to calm herself surprised her by becoming a sob on the exhalation. She let it happen.

  Bennett tightened his hold on her. She kept…letting it happen. She didn’t fight the tears that had gathered in the corners of her eyes, just let them spill over. Let her body quiver as
she cried. Surrender was unfamiliar but a profound relief.

  He had to feel the wetness on his bare shoulder, but he did not remark on it, just kept holding her. She thought of the storms they’d passed through—snow yesterday and hail today. Here was another one.

  But somehow, astonishingly, it was okay. She could ride it out.

  Eventually her faith was rewarded, and the wave passed. She felt empty in a good way. Like her tears had carved out some of the junk inside her, leaving behind a hollow that was hers to fill as she liked, with intention and care.

  Her next deep breath wasn’t shaky at all; it was cleansing. As her lungs filled, her chest expanded, reminding her of his proximity, drawing her attention to his hard chest and to her own suddenly sensitized breasts.

  She knew he would make no move. He would sit here and hold her forever if she wanted him to, she was pretty sure, but he wouldn’t presume to touch her beyond that, not after that episode.

  If she wanted anything to happen, it was up to her.

  And she wanted something to happen, desperately.

  She had been straddling him, but sort of sitting back on his thighs, so while their torsos had been mashed together, their pelvises had not—which suddenly seemed like a lost opportunity. So she wiggled herself up until he was pressed right against her center. Amazingly, her tears had not been a boner killer.

  “Gia,” he bit out.

  “Shhh,” she said, though it was funny that it would be she whispering soothing reassurances in his ear and not the reverse. Before he could say anything else, she lowered her lips to his.

  They kissed slowly at first, tongues leisurely exploring. She ground down on him, the slickness of her arousal making her feel powerful. Eventually his hands came down to her ass, helping press her against him, increasing the pressure as he rocked his hips up to meet her.

  She gasped as her desire, which had been unfolding in a controlled way, suddenly overwhelmed her. Her head lolled back, and once the seal of their lips was broken, he moved his mouth to her ear, biting down gently on the lobe.

  “Oh!” she exclaimed. The dark made every move a surprise. His mouth was one place on her body, and then, with no warning, it was another place. No sooner had she gotten used to him playing with her ear than his mouth moved from her flesh to her earring. She felt more than heard the clack of his teeth against the metal.

  “These fucking earrings drive me crazy,” he rasped.

  “I thought you said they were cute.”

  “I was trying not to freak you out, but cute is not the word. They’re…fuck. I don’t know. Evil.”

  She laughed even as she moaned, which was not a combination that had ever come out of her mouth before. “Evil ladybugs.”

  He clamped down harder on her ass and bucked his hips up even as his lips moved to her breasts, lavishing them with openmouthed kisses.

  “Can you come again?” he asked, and just as when she thought she might explode from all the attention on her breasts, he worked a hand between them and sought out her clit.

  “Yes!” she practically shouted. Then, a little abashed, she lowered her voice. “But you’d better put on a condom, or I’m going to continue to outnumber you on the orgasm front.”

  “Well, if this is our final performance, you outnumbering me sounds like a good idea. In fact, I think my masculine pride demands it.”

  “No way.” She scrambled off him and felt her way to the condoms, handed one to him, and then moved back between his legs. This time she left some room between them, though—enough to bend down and lick his penis. “Time for you to catch up,” she said before she took the head into her mouth.

  It felt like an imperative, in fact. If he hadn’t had sex with a human since his last girlfriend a year ago, he was long overdue. And she was dying to witness his loss of control. To be the cause of it.

  And it was working.

  “Oh, fuck.” His hands flew to her hair. They rested gently there, but she could tell it was an effort—there was so much tension coiled in them. He was still holding back. His body was practically vibrating, every inch of him leashed. She took him deeper.

  “Oh, no, you don’t.” He pushed her gently off him.

  She made a mew of disappointment, but then sucked in a breath when she heard the sounds of him sheathing himself.

  “Get up here.” He clamped a hand on her arm and pulled her back onto his lap. A bolt of lust tore through her as she positioned him at her entrance.

  “Yeah,” he said. “Yeah, ride me, Gia.”

  She moaned as she sank down on him, savoring the delicious stretching sensation. When he was all the way in, when they were as close as they could be, another involuntary moan ripped from her throat.

  “Does that feel good?” he rasped, wrapping his arms around her like before, except this time he was inside her, and instead of crying, she was moaning.

  “Yeah,” she breathed, though as good—as amazing—as it felt, she didn’t want to be still anymore, so she started to move, to lever herself up on to her knees, pulling almost all the way off him and pausing—probably for too long, but she wanted to make him lose his mind—before lowering herself again.

  He made a wild, half-unhinged noise, and she loved it.

  “Does that feel good?” she asked, mirroring his earlier question.

  “Fuck yes.”

  So she did it again, pausing a bit longer at the top of the stroke, just to toy with him, to stretch out the delicious anticipation of the friction yet to come.

  And when she slid down, she went harder, deeper, summoning another moan from him in the process. She was unraveling him, and she was pretty sure not many people had ever managed to do that.

  On the next thrust, he raked his teeth gently over her collarbone as he growled.

  She extended the next pause even more, and he clamped his hands on her ass and bucked off the bed. She resisted, pulling back a little as his hips jerked, maintaining the distance between them so only the tip of his cock was inside her.

  “You’re killing me,” he growled.

  “What? You don’t like this?” she teased, putting on her best coy voice even as it was increasingly difficult to keep up her measured assault.

  His answer was an indistinct grunt.

  “Well, if you don’t like it, you’d better tell me what you do want,” she breathed, using all her willpower to pull herself fully off him.

  It was a bluff, but as soon as she was kneeling above him, his cock no longer inside her, her body gave a quick, angry spasm, like it was mad at her.

  “Oh,” she bit out, surprised by how bereft she felt without him.

  But he knew, somehow, or he felt the same, because he surged to his knees and spun them so her back was to the headboard. It was physically awkward for a moment, but then he grabbed her thighs and wrapped them around his waist, and oh.

  “Is this okay?” he whispered, pausing outside her entrance.

  “Yes.” It was more than okay. She was pinned between his body and the headboard, her legs wrapped around him, and he was about to lose control. But, ever the gentleman, he was asking permission.

  “Yes,” she said again. “Go.”

  And he did. He started pistoning into her, hard and savage and fast.

  She tried to grab on to his shoulders, to hold on and brace herself, but he was slick with sweat, as was she, so she let her arms fall limp and surrendered to the sensations. To the sounds of Bennett Buchanan finally, finally losing it.

  “Oh, fuck,” he said. “Fuck. Gia.”

  He’d been holding her legs, but he let go of one, and with one hand brushed her hair, which was tangled and matted, away from her face.

  “I wish I could see you.” He continued the punishing pace of his thrusting. “I don’t care what you look like…in a magazine. Or…how much you weigh.” It was hard for him to get the words out; his sentences were broken by his efforts.

  It was hard for her to hear them, too, because another orgasm was bui
lding. But she forced herself to pay attention.

  “I bet you’ve never been as beautiful as you are right now,” he rasped, his rhythm stuttering. “And I wish I could see it.”

  The lights came on, and the room roared to life.

  “Bennett!” she screamed as she came. His face was right there, inches from hers, glistening with sweat. His pupils constricted rapidly in response to the sudden flood of light, but his gaze didn’t waver as his final few strokes inside her grew even more wild, uncontrolled.

  He came, too, his body jerking but his eyes still not leaving hers.

  Gia blinked, the brightness hurting her eyes. She became conscious of the blaring of the TV and the noise of the beleaguered air conditioning unit chugging to life.

  Bennett seemed aware of none of these things, even though, at least in terms of the light, he was getting what he’d just wished for. He continued to study her face like he was trying to memorize it.

  Then, as if he was coming to some private conclusion, his features relaxed into a smile. “I knew it.”

  Chapter Eleven

  THREE DAYS BEFORE THE WEDDING

  When Bennett woke up with a sleeping Gia in his arms, it was dark. Not the dark of before, though. It was a less heavy, predawn dark. He could make out shapes in the room: the bulky dresser, the open door of the closet.

  The gentle curves of the woman tangled up with him.

  He felt a little like he was at a precipice. Not just the pivot point between night and day, but between…what? Before and after, as stupid as that sounded.

  Like everything about him had changed.

  Which, again, he tried to tell himself, was ridiculous. He’d had good sex before.

  Well, okay, he’d never had precisely the spectacular variety that had gone down last night, but it was still only sex. He wasn’t a teenager or a doomsday cult member. Even he, who liked his sex to come with a degree of devotion and commitment, knew it didn’t have the magical power to change personalities and heal wounds and shit.

  But then he started to think about the boundaries of the concept of sex itself.

  He had never been one of those dudes who thought that for something to meet the threshold of “sex,” a penis had to go into a vagina. No, they’d definitely had some variation on sex two nights ago when he, fully clothed, had gotten Gia off with his hands. She had called him on that very thing, and she’d been right.