by Amber Burns
“Wrong room,” I cough, readying an apology that never surfaces because she beats me to it. Feeling her restlessness I set her down on her feet and run a hand through my hair, messing it more with guilt.
“I’m sorry,” she repeats as if I didn’t catch it the first time. “I shouldn’t have lied about this space being for storage.”
I sweep a slow glance across the room. “Looks like storage to me. The prettiest storage I’ve seen, but storage still.”
Astra blinks up at me and then she nears and clinging to the sleeves of my jacket, she tiptoes into our lip lock. “Thank you,” she murmurs right off my mouth, her sweet, warm breath simmering my blood. Down onto the balls of her heels she gazes at the room and tells me about her little sister.
“She’s been working hard on the addiction for two years and has beaten it, I’m assured. She’ll be staying with me when she’s graduated her program at the end of this month. I wanted to make this place feel like home when she got here. It’s a close replica of her old room at our mom and dad’s.”
“That’s very sweet of you,” I find her hand and give her what I hope is a comforting squeeze.
It draws her out of the solemn reverie and I get a small, but heart-clenching smile from her for my actions.
“I just want her to feel at home. Mom and Dad haven’t exactly supported any of this, and though I can’t blame them for losing hope, sometimes I do.” She sighs, the despair palpable in the long drawn breath.
Hauling her into my arms, I secure my free arm around her waist and meanwhile keep our hands joined. I press a lengthy kiss over her crown and keeping my lips there, tilt my head for her to hear my two cents. “Someone once told me that it’s ok to be wrong, as long as you work towards being right. One of the best pieces of advice I got.”
Astra draws back and our faces are close and closing…
Her lips yield to my hard kiss, her mewl spearing to my cock as much as it wrenches my heart. Hauling her up in my arms again, I hold her legs about my middle and keeping an eye on my footing, I carry my girl to her room to finish what we started.
I place her at the end of the bed and shrug off coat and lose my shirt, jeans and boxers in the span it takes her to work off her shirt and PJ bottoms.
Stripping her of the matching emerald green underwear is the best part. I begin with her bra, and unclipping the front clasp, thrill at the sight of her naked tits bouncing out of their lacy restraint.
“Stop teasing me,” Astra’s hoarse chiding spreads a grin over my face. I do as the lady asks though and with one last suck of each rosy nipple I’m crawling down to pull her under through each of her legs.
I drag my tongue up her hairless mound, feeling her hand creep over my head and the telltale tugging matching my languid strokes. She massages my scalp when I vacuum her clit into my mouth.
“Ryker, please, stop teasing me.”
I chuckle with my mouth still latched to her and she breathes harder as I’m figuring she feels the vibration of my mirth as vocal stimulation. Popping my mouth off when she curses softly, not sure if I heard right.
When I ask and she’s ducking to avoid my knowing gaze, I laugh belly-deep. “Let’s see if I can make you swear more.” I nip her inner thigh and move back over her sopping core.
Wiggling my tongue deep inside her clenched bundle of nerves, I grip onto her thighs to keep her natural inclination to thrust up to a minimum. I alternate between spearing my tongue in and out of her pink folds and sucking the juices that are rimming my mouth and squelching onto my jaw.
My hand covering a good parts of her pussy, I pinch and rub and gently pull on the hard bud of her clit speeding her to climax she’s threatening to rip out my hair from its roots and begging for.
I can’t thing of anything I want or need more than that instant.
A mouthful of Astra is what I want… That and to be buried balls deep inside her, filling her in a way no other man can – or will ever again.
I ignore the negative thought screaming, have you lost your ever-loving mind, dumbass? It’s easy enough to drown it out with Astra’s panting, whimpering and then wailing release.
My tongue strokes through her shuddering conclusion, prolonging the orgasm and getting a long kiss and a hand-job for her. I have to balance on my elbows after I come up from her cunt and draw my mouth from hers to throw my head back at her lazy rubbing of my corona.
I look down in the small space of our bodies at her hand. She has her palm on the purple-y bulging head of my dick, and I catch sight of my pre-cum glistening over her hand.
“Astra,” I’m begging now. “I need you. Now.”
She doesn’t need to be provoked out of the foreplay.
Angling between her legs, I trap her in with my thighs and thrust forward. This whole on-top position doesn’t do it for me, so I roll us over, surprising Astra and then pushing up against her to watch her eyes roll to the back of her head.
Her sweaty palms breeze over my chest, nails pressing in just a fraction to clash pain and pleasure. “Ryker, ahh, mo-ore!”
“One order of more coming up.” I use her hips to brace the last few thrusts and then the world falls away and we’re falling with it, one after another, into each other’s arms.
Astra recovers first, cuddling against me and tilting her head up to brush her lips under my jaw. I have an arm over my eyes from the overload of passion.
“We can’t keep our hands off each other.”
I lift my arm and smile at her observation, adding, “Just our hands?” and chuckling at her reddening cheeks, nothing to do with our love-making.
Now it’s love-making? You, man, are fucked.
“Uhh,” my incoherent groan at her lavishing kisses over my chest earns a laugh from my girl. Astra’s tongue shifts me into go-mode. I grab her and roll her onto her back, sitting over her, my flaccid cock over her warm, quivering belly.
She’s trying not to laugh.
“You little tease,” my pretend glower frees her pealing giggles. I magnify that beautiful sound by wriggling my fingers over her side until she implores me to stop, catching her breath and reaching down to thumb the slit of my cock.
I hold her still by the wrist. “It’s too much, Astra. Let me rest, you ravenous woman.”
Falling beside her then, I keep her hand busy by lacing our fingers together.
Fingers entwined, I kiss each of her short, clean, polish-free nails. Astra shivers through each soft touch, watching me through lidded eyes as I turn our connected hands around and touch the wrist bone and work my way to the soft inside of her elbow.
Poking out my tongue, I trace an ‘A’ over her skin.
“Ticklish,” she says, giggling when I trace another ‘A’ and look to her.
“Did you get that?” at her head shake I do it for a third time.
“It’s an A, I think.”
I trace a plus-sign and she guesses that correctly too. An ‘R’ takes a few more times to figure out, and by this time she’s laugh-crying from my ministrations.
Tracing the last pattern, I meet her eyes and she’s breathlessly smiling wide, eyes sparkling and chest heaving. “A heart. A plus R and a heart,” she says.
And, really, how is that different from telling her you love her.
“Beautiful and brainy, love it.” I stretch to meet her lips and then we glide into a half-sleep. When we rouse, it’s closer to midnight and after I rummage through her fridge and return with a snack for the both of us, we talk into the earliest morning.
“Do I have to wear anything particular?” she asks, our topic shifting to the dinner with Custodio and the Campos.
“Depends on who you ask as I’d prefer you wear nothing,” I waggle my brows and emphasize by squeezing her waist. She squeals and nearly upends our dip and the plate of chips.
“Ryker,” she says my name with loaded warning, but she’s grinning right back at me. “Seriously speaking, is it formal or semi-formal?”
"I’ve been
to the bistro a couple times – Custodio is close with the many of the staff, and I’d say it’s as formal as formal can get minus a black-tie affair.”
She scrunches her brow and looks to her closet. “I might not have a dress to wear.”
“Nude is it then,” I get a light punch in the shoulder for the remark. “Don’t worry about it. We’ll find something. Can you leave work a little earlier tomorrow?” I know she has a dedication to her job that supersedes her actual workplace, and that keeps her to working a couple hours later than regular school time.
“Maybe.” She says.
“Make time for me and we’ll go shopping just before dinner. Plenty of time to find you the perfect outfit and meet for seven.”
She chews a couple chips thoughtfully and then asks, “I have a budget though.”
Feigning hurt, I clutch a hand over my heart. “Oh, you think because I’ve got a couple extra zeroes tacked on to my annual salary I don’t care for money.” When Astra ducks her head I realize I’ve gone to far with the joke.
Hooking my finger under her chin, I force her up to face me and my apology. “I don’t really think that you think that of me.” I shake my head and laugh nervously. “What I mean is your budget is sensible and we’ll find you something. Don’t worry.”
The kiss melts the final uncertainty tensing her limbs. She kisses me right back and I taste the chips and dip, and it never tasted better. “Not that it matters: You’ll look radiant in whatever you wear.”
She brings our lips together for a sweet, shy peck in her own way of gratitude.
Clearing our snack to her night stand, we roll back into bed, fluffing our pillows to the headboards and turning into each other.
“Thank you for helping me out.”
Astra flattens her palm over my chest and locks me into her bright gaze. “I want to, so stop thanking me. It make me feel like...like I don’t have the right to help you.”
“And thank you for coming to the birthday party.”
“I’d have to come,” she smiles, “or face Holly’s wrath for not braving TzaTza and the hordes of teens to see her. She tells me it’s coming along well.”
“I’ll have to thank Holly then.” I study our locked fingers, feeling her stare and not expecting her question.
“Why do I get the feeling you don’t want to do the party?”
“A part of me doesn’t,” I say.
“And what about the other part?” Astra asks when I don’t say it right away. She’s rubbing my chest, leaning in closer, tossing one of her legs over mine.
I try to concentrate on my words, ignoring the heat wafting from her core and my dick’s magnetized reaction to her nearness. “That part just wants to play for whoever wants to listen, in this case Lola’s teen guests and any adults her parents are inviting.”
“What if I don’t come?”
“Are you still sick?” is my first question. I know she’s recovered from the severe cold that required she take antibiotics a week ago.
“No.”
“You’re definitely coming then.” I’m firm. There’s going to be no arguments about this one, and if Astra tries she’ll lose out. There’s no way I’m doing this alone now that I met her and we’ve got all this...baggage.
“What’s with that face?” I lean back. “You’re still on the fence? I guess I’ll just have to convince you to come.”
And before she’s got the ‘how’ fully formed, I drag my hand between us, over her smooth, fleshier belly to cover her clit. At my slow rubbing the whites in her eye grow and her mouth opens on an “oh”.
She shivers from my touch and that gives me a power like no other. Knowing I can strum and pluck her like my guitar and yet so unlike my guitar – I’m heady at the thought alone.
In the short breath I space out, Astra slips her hand from my chest to wrap my thick shaft.
She strokes once, a quick up-down that briefly squeezes my eyes close, reminding me how easily she can string me up, and with a sultry smile reserved only for me, forever for me, she says, “I think I can be convinced.”
10
I’d need more than my fingers to count the times I’ve been uncomfortable, but this situation definitely eclipses standing in front of an audience waiting to be blown away, reciting a speech for the Grammys, or being interviewed on SNL.
It ties in close with telling Astra I love her.
Yeah. I came to terms with that.
It’s got to be love…
Or something damn close to it, because my heart leaps out of my chest at the sight of her throughout the night and I’m finding it hard to sit still and not touch her.
It doesn’t help she’s looking particularly glamourous tonight. Astra’s enchanting red hair is twisted into a braid, but soft tendrils frame her round, rosy cheeks. Her glossy pink lips part to answer something our guests are saying, and unlike me she’s more riveted by the table talk.
We found her dress in the end, and she’s wearing that gold, sequined sheath dress like nobody else’s business – whatever the fuck that means.
My mind’s a mess having her so near, yet still far considering I can’t exactly clear the table of everything and throw her over to give her the screw of her life.
I’m itching for more of her gentle touches under the dinner table. I’m on pins and needles and it fucking hurts.
The last thing I need is a freak panic episode in the middle of Le Durendal, the French bistro in Newark that Custodio lauds time and time again. When Astra discreetly squeezes my thigh and turns her smile in my direction, I decide I might as well concentrate now and then pit stop for a quickie on the way to her place.
I expected this go...to go, honestly. By the time Astra and I arrived together we’d closed off our little group. At least I hadn’t had to introduce her as my dinner date twice, to Custodio and TzaTza and the Campos daughter-father pair.
Awkward hadn’t summed it up. I could see Custodio’s business plan come crashing down and sense disappointment...maybe interest from the Campos who’d been hinted a marital union. All eyes were on me in those first few minutes, but in the end Astra was the star of the show.
“I haven’t been to Spain, but I’d travelled through southern parts of England, Switzerland, Italy and Germany as far as Europe is concerned.” Astra turns back to the midst of her wanderlust topic with Campo senior.
No younger than Custodio, the latter who pushing his mid-sixties, Campo has his knife and fork still over his pasta al dente as he chuckles through a humorous anecdote of travel perils.
“It’s so refreshing to see young people out and about,” he says, turning to the waifish, dark-haired, olive-skinned woman beside him. “My Katherina is not so enticed by the sweeter airs outside her city.”
Katherina Campo is as Custodio described her; poised and pretty, I’d give her a ten out of ten, but then I’d have to break that maximum for Astra – my girl’s a cool eleven.
So far I get bitchy ice queen diva from Campo’s daughter; she hasn’t said a word past the ‘hello’ when Astra and I joined the table. I figure she had been actually looking forward to the messed up arrangement.
Can I blame her for feeling the butt of a cruel joke? Not entirely. But Custodio should be the one strung up by his black tie, not me – I never had any plans to take this lying down. Thank God for Astra’s good heart, otherwise I wouldn’t know what I’d do to dodge the set-up.
“It’s a journey from the Bronx to Manhattan to the Island, padre, and in one night I can meet half of the world if I introduce myself and talk to strangers.” Katherina blinks her large, dark eyes through the Lopezes’ polite laughter.
My lips twist up at her wry comment. Our eyes lock briefly and she shows the first emotion of the evening, a small smile.
“Senor McBride, your plan is to return to Los Angeles after this?” Campo asks, turning the tables on me. Ignoring Custodio’s glare, he’s been keeping that up all evening, I lean forward to answer the question.
&nb
sp; “That’s my hope, yes.” I say. “Give my dear goddaughter a sweet sixteenth to rival that reality TV show.”
Katherina has to explain what I mean before Campo shakes his slicked dark hair in understanding.
“And will you be travelling with him?” he asks of Astra. She lowers her wrists, holding her fork and knife into the bit of smoked fish on her plate. I am ready to leap in and rescue her, but her smile eases the friction caused – not by the question alone, but by her would-be answer.
By the reality that I’m going to have to stare in the face in two more days, the time left until Lola’s birthday party.
