by H. M. Ward
“Give me that. Don’t you know a girl’s e-reader is more sacred than her personal diary? Don’t touch my smut!” I laugh and reach for my e-reader, but Graham pulls it back from me to read out loud.
“His pulsating manhood throbs in my mouth and I feel his release slide sensuously down my throat.”
This is mortifying. My face flames up, and I yell, “Hand it over, Cracker! Now! It's for research okay?” I reach again, but Graham pulls it further away. I have no other choice but to climb over him to get my book-porn back. Graham is laughing so hard that his words are barely decipherable, and tears form at the corners of his eyes while he reads.
“Research? The salty, creamy taste of his cum? That's research? Jesus, Kia! What kind of study are you doing?”
He doesn't understand. It's not about getting myself off while reading. I hike up my skirt and straddle Graham’s lap, reaching for the device he keeps waving away from me. “Gah! Give it back!”
Graham keeps the device out of my reach.
“So, let me get this straight. You're researching the ideal man and your idea of Mr. Perfect is,” he clears his throat, adjusts his glasses and quotes the book once more, “eight inches of throbbing man meat?” He switches hands again and looks at me with a devilish grin. “Your standards are pretty high. No wonder you went on a man strike. You know that these are falsified measurements, right? There is no way a man can be,” he looks back at my book again, wiping a tear from the corner of one eye, “harder and bigger after his fifth climax?” Graham laughs harder.
I slump down on his lap, giving up the fight. It’s useless. I'm not about to explain to him the reasoning behind my recent BDSM reading. “You’re just jealous.” I push off from his lap and get up, adjusting my dress, which has ridden up quite a bit. Graham wipes another tear from his eye and sets the book down, catching his breath. He gets up and walks over to me, arms crossed over his chest.
“Of what, exactly, am I jealous? You’re swooning over fictional men or my own lack of cheesy reading material?”
“You're just jealous you’re not as well-endowed as… Dick.” That came out so bad. Maybe he has a point. Maybe my book is cheesy, but it's more than that. Graham bursts out laughing, bending at the waist and slapping his thighs.
“Dick? Eight inches of throbbing man meat is named Dick? That’s just priceless. We need to get you better books. And, FYI, I’m not jealous of Dick’s dick. I'm perfectly fine with what God gave me. Now, let’s get going. The guys will be waiting.” Graham winks, turns on his heels, and heads for the elevator.
“Um, maybe I should change into something a bit more casual? I'll be quick.”
Graham looks at his watch, “No time to change. You’re staying dressed just like that.”
Who cares about the dress code at this point? I grab my purse, and we head out.
CHAPTER 25
"It's your turn, Kia. Are you buying anything in the village?"
It turns out RPG stands for Role Playing Game—and not in the sexy bedroom, maid costume, kind of way. It's more of the playing board games in Stark’s mother’s basement kind of way. Except this board game has no actual board to play on. We sit around a small table in the musty basement, under dim lighting. Stark sits half-hidden by a tower of books at one end of the table, hiding whatever secret notes he's using to manage the game. He's the game master, guiding us through a make-it-up-as-you-go, medieval story—when we manage to play. An immense quantity of time is spent debating the rules and looking them up in hardbound rulebooks.
A man must have created this game. We pretend all of this is real, yet we have to wait our turn to do anything, and can only do one thing at a time. That’s not the way things happen in real life. I multitask. If a crazy-ass monster is chasing me, I’m sorry, but I’m not waiting my turn to run. I don’t care that it’s your turn. I’m spraying the bastard with my pepper spray, getting the hell out of there, and calling the cops, all at the same time. But these guys don't seem to get that. So I have to wait my turn to do what I want with my elf while all hell breaks loose around her. It's actually Lori's elf. They're letting me use her character sheet with strict instructions not to do anything stupid that could get her killed.
Still, I kind of like this game. Furthermore, I love teasing this horny-ass bunch of guys. Dink spewed his beer all over the table when I suggested my character was going to suck off Graham’s character in a dark cave. Graham nixed my action, calling it incest since it was Lori's character not mine. So I never found out if my d20 granted a blowjob or not. Oh yeah, that's another thing. We can't call it "dice". It's always "dee" plus the number of sides it has. I'm doing my best to speak ‘Geek.’
Dink sits to my left, and there’s an empty chair to my right. Bags of chips and bottles of beer are scattered all over the place. Graham stands by the stairs and opens another case of beer, retrieving two full bottles. He takes the cap off of one bottle and hands it to me, waiting for my answer.
“I’m getting breast implants for my elf.”
“You can’t do that.”
“My elf is eight hundred years old, Graham, I think she’s legal and more than overdue for a lift. She's probably saggy, so she's getting a boob job. Just watch my charisma level shoot up!”
Graham takes the empty seat next to me and rests his arm over the backrest of my chair. “Why don’t you use your money to upgrade your blade?”
“No. Hey, Stark, how much for a pair of triple-d’s?”
Graham looks discouraged and looks toward Stark for help. Dink just sits there and smiles, stroking his beard. Obviously, he agrees with me.
Apparently, so does Stark. “Okay. Roll the d20. If you get one to six, you get a breast reduction, seven to nine your boobs stay the same size and ten to twenty your tits get bigger. The bigger the number, the bigger the implants. As for charisma, yes, breast size will make it go up. However, it’ll be at the expense of your intelligence, based on cup size.”
“HEY! That’s totally discriminatory and stereotypical you male chauvinist pig.”
“If you want bigger tits, you suffer the consequences. You may still be intelligent, but no one—real or fictional—will be interested in what you have to say once those puppies get bigger.” Stark folds his arms over his chest and waits for my final decision.
Defiantly, I pick up the d20 and roll it in my hands. “Come on! Mama wants a triple-d cup!” I let the dice roll on the table, and it lands on eighteen.
I jump up from my chair and squeal. Graham rubs a hand across his face muttering, “Lori is going to kill me.”
My elf is now badass with her big breasts.
The game continues until we face an ugly-ass ogre. My turn comes to fight off the big bad.
“Okay, so since you guys are already in place for the kill, I'm going to help you by stunning the ogre. I'm flashing my boobs.”
“Uh, Kia, we’re trying to win here. Use your sword or one of your potions or a spell.”
“No way, Graham. I’m a four-foot elf with triple-d cup breasts and the equivalent of a butter knife for a sword. I don’t stand a chance with the sword, and I just got these babies. I’m going to use them.”
Graham shifts in his chair, looking discouraged. His frustration is adorable. “Your sword is the equivalent of a butter knife because you refused to upgrade your blade back at the village. You can’t use tits to stun an ogre.”
“Hey, Stark! Is the ogre a heterosexual male?”
Stark opens up his monster book and does some searching before looking up from behind his fortress of rules. "He's male, and I've never heard of a homosexual ogre so, yeah. He's a straight dude."
I clap my hands in victory. “So I’m stunning him by flashing my spanking new triple-d girls.”
Graham lets out a sigh. “Stark, a little help please.”
Stark rummages through his books looking for ways to prove my theory is wrong.
"Oh, come on guys. This is supposed to mimic real life, right? He’s a dud. I’m fla
shing him. While he’s stunned, Graham can chop his head off with his sword of overcompensation." I rest a hand on Graham's thigh. "Are you trying to hide something by the way? I mean, you wouldn’t need THAT big of a sword if you were better equipped elsewhere. Just saying.” I wink at him.
“I’m not overcompensating for anything, and this will never work.” Graham is pouting. He feels like I'm going to win this argument and he hates it. Which makes me press on further.
“Oh? I know from personal experience that when faced with a lovely pair of tits all heterosexual males most definitely end up stunned for a brief period. It's like a refractory period. Here. I’ll show you.”
I stand up, the legs of my chair scraping the cement floor. I push the straps of my dress off of my shoulders.
"Kia, what are you doing?"
"Relax. I'm making things even for the Grahamy Panties—and proving my point." The top of my dress falls around my waist, giving the guys a full view of my bare cleavage.
Stark's face goes blank. His mouth drops open, and his eyes almost bug out of his head. His reaction is priceless, and I know I’ve completely blown his brains out. Dink laughs, but I'm fairly sure he's gay, so he doesn't qualify for the experiment.
I gesture to Stark. "See? He's useless right now. If he were the ogre, Graham could go in and sever his head." I lift my dress back into place and reclaim my seat next to Graham.
It takes Stark a few minutes to regain his senses, his speech slow and sluggish at first.
Graham grumbles from his seat. "Well, that didn't make things weird at all."
I turn my head to him, suddenly worried by his tone of voice. "Are you upset with me?"
He shakes his head and gets up. "I think we should call it quits for now. Goodnight, guys. Kia, let's go home."
CHAPTER 26
The ride back to the apartment is silent. He's not being distant, which is good, but we both feel the weight of weirdness, the kind I've been trying to avoid from the start—and I caused it. As soon as we crawl into the back seat, he wraps an arm around my shoulders, keeping me close to his side. I hate that I may have broken us over something so childish. I've just given him every reason to believe all the false rumors about me. He probably assumes I'm the tasteless woman the press portrays me to be—my legs open wide, welcoming any piece of man that comes my way.
The ride up the elevator is just as quiet. Graham still doesn't say a word except that this time his eyes are on me the whole way up. I can't tell what he's thinking, but his mind seems to be traveling a mile a minute, his expression ever changing, and I’d give anything to know what's going on in his head.
When we reach my penthouse, Graham finally decides to speak. "I think it's best if I go home tonight. I'll call you tomorrow." He wraps a hand behind my neck and kisses my forehead, then heads off to pack his things.
I need to fix this. There's no reason for him to act this way. We were able to get back on track almost immediately after my seeing him nearly naked, same thing after our kiss. I try to figure out what made those situations different and the answer is clear—we've always been open about stuff. Now, Graham refuses to talk about it. I need to point out the giant elephant in the room in such a way that he won't be able to avoid it.
Graham steps back into the living room, his duffel bag over his shoulder. I stand to face him, wearing nothing but my black panties. He diverts his gaze away from my body. "Please, Kia, put your clothes on."
"No. You and I need to talk. I'm sorry if I offended you, but I don't see what the big deal is. Graham, look at me! It's ME."
"I can't look at you, Kia—not until you get dressed."
"No. I won't get dressed. I saw you this level of naked and it didn't break us. Why is this different?"
"It was different because I had no idea you were in my room when I walked in. I didn't deliberately undress for you."
"Perhaps, but it still affected me. I was scared I would only be able to see you as a sexually desirable man, but that's not what happened. I was able to see you. Look at me, Graham. Please."
He keeps his head turned to the elevator. "This is still different."
"Why? Why is this any different? Why should this matter? This body is barely mine. This isn't me!”
“It matters!”
“Why? It’s all fake! If you take the time to look, you'll see it too. My face, my hair, my skin, my breasts—none of this is real." I gesture to my body as a whole.
“It just does,” he growls.
"That’s a good reason—a completely understandable reason, in fact. Let’s record that for posterity it's so brilliant!” I’m in his face, yelling at him, having a fight that makes no sense, but I can’t stop. I don’t back down, and neither does he.
“You don’t get it!” He tugs at his hair, and when his gaze snaps up, our eyes lock. He’s so close. The curve of his angry lips could kiss mine if he weren’t so pissed.
“Then enlighten me, because you're not making any sense at all!”
“Enlighten you?”
“Yes, Graham! Tell me why it matters who sees parts of me everyone else has already seen. They were the talk of this city, photographed for the front page of all the plastic surgery magazines that year. Who the hell cares if I—”
“I do! I care!”
“Why?”
“Because I love you!” He’s breathless and suddenly has a wary look in his eye.
I bring my hands to my hair and pull in frustration. "Yeah, I love you, too, Graham."
Graham shuts his eyes and drops his head. "You don't get it. I love you. I'm deeply, madly, ugly, fucking in love with you. "
What? I stand mute, frozen in place. I can’t blink or breathe. The world spins past me, hurling itself over the edge of nowhere. Time halts and all I hear is Graham saying something he shouldn’t say.
His eyes scan every exposed inch of me, a pained look on his face, and it makes my heart race. "It's different because I want so badly for you to see yourself the way I see you."
Graham is so close now that his chest brushes up against my hardened nipples, sending tingles down to my toes. He lifts his hand and gently brushes his thumb over my cheekbone, just underneath my left eye.
"All of this matters, Kia. More than you can imagine. Your eyes are real, and they hold the key to everything there is to know about you." Graham's hand trembles, slowly trailing along my cheek and down the length of my neck. His eyes follow his hand every painfully slow inch of the way down. His long fingers trail down over my collarbone, toward the little dip at the base of my throat. Graham swallows hard. His breathing grows deeper as it washes over my face. My eyes flutter closed, and I'm overwhelmed by sensations. The warmth of his breath, the deafening sounds of our heavy breathing, the softness of his touch as his fingers move down, in between the two well-defined swells of my breasts. He presses his palm onto my breastbone and stops moving.
"And here, in your heart, lies your true beauty. You are the most beautiful woman I've ever met. As for the rest," Graham stops mid-sentence.
I open my eyes and look up. There's a look in his eyes I've never seen before. His cheeks flush, and his eyes are wide and hungry, full of desire, and it lights every single one of my dormant nerve endings. His hand slides down one side, tentatively cupping the underside of one of my breasts.
He's holding himself back.
His touch is gentle, but the emotions flashing across his face are raw and tortured. He lets a little groan escape while his fingers gently squeeze the firm swell. I lift my hand and place it over his, coaxing him to move higher, giving him permission to touch me. His thumb strokes over one sensitive nipple. I haven't felt this in what seems like forever. The feeling is exquisite, and I let my head drop back, a little moan escaping my lips. My eyes close again, wanting to drown in the feelings coursing through me.
The warmth on my face moves, becoming more intense and scorching along my neck. His mouth is close to my skin, but he's still holding back. I need to be touched. I
need to be loved. A small voice inside of me warns me to back up, that this will only lead to another broken heart, but another voice takes over yelling at me that this is different. Graham isn't like the others. I can trust him.
Graham's voice reverberates against the skin on my neck and it makes my knees give way. I fight to try to hold myself up. "How can you tell me this body isn't real, that it isn't yours? I know you felt that, Kia. This body may not be what you were born with, and others may have had a hand in the way you look now, but it is all yours now, and you shouldn't take it for granted. Every touch," Graham's thumb strokes over me once more. "Every kiss," his hot mouth connects with the spot just under my earlobe, "should be given, not taken. Other men have stolen too much of you for you to see it. Every part of you should be a precious trophy earned by the most deserving of men. You're worth it."
My hands reach up to stroke his stubbly cheek. "Then every inch of me belongs to you. I love you, Cracker."
CHAPTER 27
He takes a step back, no longer touching me. He won't. He said so himself. He won't take anything from me. I have to give it to him if I feel he's deserving of it.
I reach out and trail my hands across his stomach, up his chest, over his shirt. My fingers disappear under his jacket, wrapping around his shoulders and down his arms until it falls to the ground.
This power scares me.
I've never taken what I want. I was never entitled to do so. Graham is right. People have taken from me over and over again. Now, it's all up to me, and it's scary. I tug on the hem of his t-shirt, bringing it up. Graham helps me by raising his arms over his head, taking over when I can no longer reach. His body still takes my breath away. Every line of muscle is as defined as if he'd been drawn comic book style on paper. I lean in and kiss his chest. My mouth moves upward, trailing kisses from his chest to his collarbone, to his neck, while my hands trail down to the buttons on his jeans. My fingers tentatively unfasten them, his body trembling under my touch. I kneel down in front of him, not in submission or obligation. I push his pants down, revealing the longest, most beautifully sculpted legs I've ever seen. I toss his shoes, socks, and jeans aside, then stand up.
