“Yeah,” Maeve answered. “I just met them. They’re intense. And they are absolutely your best bet.”
He asked for a bubble bath, which seemed both childish and sweet, and so she obliged.
He clearly had every intention to break up with her back at the hospital and she had no desire to cry her way back through the ER, waving sadly at the sweet women who called her. So, she forced him into her car—which now seemed a bit like kidnapping in retrospect despite the fact she had proof his co-workers called her first and assisted in the plot.
She pulled out a bottle of bubble bath purchased by her mother last Christmas; something from a store at the mall that smelled like raspberries and peppermint or something else incongruent and fruity. When she put it in his hand, she couldn’t help but smile at the thought of him lounging in her tiny bathtub surrounded by soap designed to smell like a sorority mistake.
“So, Maeve. If you asked them, the club,” Derek asked, with one hand on the knob to the bathroom door, ready to head inside.
“They would totally do it,” Maeve finished with a smile. “Are you kidding? This is what we dream about. We don’t revel in the depravity of human beings because we think it’s fun,” she said with a burst of enthusiasm. “We want to solve these crimes. We want to understand the world enough that we can prevent them from happening in the first place. I majored in Criminology so I could use science to help people.”
“Is that what you’re doing?” Derek asked, not unkindly. He took a step toward her as she took a step back.
“Right now I feel like I’m trying to get you to see that you’re not alone.”
He flinched and Maeve’s heart collapsed as she saw the pain of recognition and his rejection of triteness flash for a moment before he turned and disappeared into the bathroom. A few seconds later, the water began to run and Maeve turned and sat down on her couch, Derek’s makeshift bed. Roger sat at her feet, sitting up with ears pert looking at the bathroom door with curiosity.
“Yeah,” she said and scratched behind his ears. “The boy is here. He’s staying over again. And I’m pretty sure he’s got some mighty big emotions I can’t navigate.” Roger yawned. “I don’t really understand what he needs either. But I’m trying.”
The water stopped and Maeve couldn’t help but listen to the sounds of Derek’s bath—splashing, occasionally, and silence, mostly. She imagined him resting against the vintage tub, eyes closed, dark hair matted against his forehead. Despite the trauma of the past week, Maeve couldn’t help but think of him—how close he was; how close they were; how much she’d wanted him.
Roger leaped up and pounced to the bathroom door, sniffing at the light underneath and managed to nudge the door open with his curious nose. The dog disappeared inside and she could hear Derek call to him and laugh as the pup no doubt sat on the mat, waiting, as he always did for her. Maeve watched as the door drifted and rested, casting a light out into the hall. To give him privacy, she got up and went to close it, but the moment she put her hand on the doorway, he called to her, “Come in for a minute.”
Maeve took a breath, bracing for whatever she would see next, and walked with trepidation into her own bathroom. The curtain around the bathtub was open and the rim of the tub was full of bubbles. She couldn’t see anything of Derek but his head, which was as she pictured it: resting against the side, dark hair damp with sweat and water.
“Yeah?” she asked. She expected him to ask her where the towels were or if she had shampoo but instead he opened his eyes and smiled. Sitting up a bit, he lifted himself to face her and rested his chin on the edge of the tub, his face red and splotchy.
“Sit,” he said and he pointed to her own toilet. Maeve, always a bit of a follower when it came to attractive men, followed his command took a seat on the lid, only a few feet away from where the tub sat.
“Hey,” she said. He reached out a bubbly hand and was able to graze her knee, leaving a trail of white.
“Hey,” he returned.
“It’s been a real shit week for you,” she said.
Derek nodded and rolled his eyes. The water moved beneath him and Maeve noticed then that bubbles also contained glitter. She could tell already he was covered in a golden sheen. “I appreciate you noticing,” he said.
The apartment went quiet. Roger trotted outside and they heard him hop back up on the couch, leaving the steamy bathroom for the humans. Maeve got up and shut the door.
“It’s drafty,” she explained and she sat back down and ran her hand across the top of the bathtub. Derek moved his hand around, displacing bubbles, creating a wave that traveled from one end of the tub to the other.
And Maeve slid to the floor by the tub and at first put her hand on the edge, but then dipped her fingers into the expanse of white, fruity, golden glittery goodness. She flicked them back and forth, making little splashes.
“I’m not alone,” he said with a sigh. His hand, underwater, found her fingers and tugged them to stop. She paused and caught her breath.
He brought up a second soapy hand and cupped Maeve’s face, “I don’t want you involved. With me.” They still held hands underwater, their fingers intertwined.
His words and his actions—Maeve didn’t know which ones carried more weight.
Maeve dipped her head and tried to stop the growing anxiety filling her entire body. She could only hold off his honesty for so long. The wine-induced haze of their first night together had worn off and now he needed to back things up and put her in her rightful place. She wiggled her hand free and pulled it up, wiping it on her pants, staining them with water. She watched him as he sat up and took a deep breath.
“My dad dying this week and my trailer burning down…those aren’t accidents or coincidences and the end game is me. My silence. I’m the end game. Which means you’re in danger if you’re with me, Maeve, and you don’t even know what for…” Derek looked at her, his hand still on her chin. “I like you too much to let you do this.”
“Do what?”
“Walk right into this mess. You didn’t ask for this.”
She bit her lip and tilted her head back and forth. “Actually, I did, Derek. I called you back and I went on the date. I went to your house and slept outside, and I know more about you than I have the last two people I dated seriously and you can let that scare you or —”
“I’m not scared,” Derek interrupted, and his eyes flashed brightly. Maeve wondered if she could already see a streak of gray in his hair. “Not about you. For you. Those are two very different things. When this blows over, Maeve, and there’s not a resurrected serial killer on the loose, I am going to take you back to the Italian place and then my house for a date that doesn’t end with the police.”
“Like a real gentleman. How chivalrous.”
“Sure,” he said with a nod, a knowing smile, but it disappeared faster than it appeared. “Because…I’m no good to you now.”
“Because there’s one way to be with me?” Maeve rolled her eyes. She didn’t know how to convey quickly that she understood his depression and his shock, and she wasn’t turned off by it. She didn’t expect him to be anything. “You say you’re no good to me as if I need you for something and you can’t deliver. But maybe,” she leaned in closer to the tub, setting her chin on the edge so he would know she was serious, “I don’t need you at all.”
He nodded and looked down into the water. The bubbles started to dissipate across the surface and he didn’t seem to mind as more of his body came into view. He hit the drain with his toe and the water began to swirl, collecting the suds with it, but Maeve reached over and stopped the bathwater from draining. She poured in another small batch of bubbles and turned on the water again and watched as the mountain of white foam climbed up the side.
“But I want you,” she said, taking a risk.
Oh, how Maeve knew it was a gamble, redirecting his attention from the danger they were both in to how much they both wanted each other. She slipped out of her shirt and h
er bra and exposed her topless self to Derek.
He stared at her chest and then his eyes found hers and he said, reaching up to her, his voice commanding, “Are you sure?”
“I am,” she consented.
“Get in the tub?”
She stared at the soapy water for a minute and then shook her head.
“No,” Maeve answered coyly. She bit her lip and slipped out of her leggings and her underwear next, her clothes and his clothes now mixed together on the floor, and she paused. She was fully aware this was the first time she’d been truly naked around him and she tried to view herself as he might see her. She hoped he noticed the fresh fullness of her breasts—they’d been the source of mockery in high school, but now her chest belonged on her, a powerful tool if wielded correctly. The curve of her ass and the attention she paid to grooming; the smoothness all along her bikini line.
She hoped he didn’t notice how fast she was breathing and how her hands shook with the threat of rejection. Naked, she trembled. He turned and let the water down and he stood, covered in suds, and Maeve tried hard not to stare. He walked up to her and their naked bodies touched. Her dry. Him wet.
“So, did you want me to join you out here?”
“Isn’t that what you want, too?” she asked.
Derek took her hand and placed it on his penis. He was semi-hard. That was a yes. He kissed her and he grew as she held him. Her heart quickened as her mouth worked on his, he became stiff and demanding against her upper thigh.
“Every inch of me wants you,” he breathed. “But I might get too attached to you and—”
She stroked him. He pushed and pulled away. She took a small washcloth off the bathroom towel bar and used it to wipe off the bubbles from his body and the soap, and she got on her tiptoes to kiss him, pushing her breasts—her nipples hard. Every atom fired and Maeve knew she was out of control as all her hormones and forgotten desires pushed to the surface.
His tongue found hers and they spent time tasting each other, hands moving downward. She continued to stroke him, rubbing her thumbs against the head of his cock and he gasped.
They both came up for air.
“I want to take some of the pain away,” Maeve said.
Derek nodded. “You can’t,” he answered. He looked straight at her and slackened a bit. “But you can help mask it for a bit.”
“Is that what you need?”
“I like you, Maeve,” Derek said.
“I like you, too, Derek,” Maeve answered. I like you, I like you, I’ve liked you for as long as I’ve known you.
“You’re beautiful.”
“You’re only saying that because your dick is out,” she whispered.
“Then let me say it while I’m inside you instead,” he teased. And his teasing was exhilarating, fun. She was having fun.
He placed his hands underneath her ass and picked her up. Maeve held on to his shoulders and Derek walked them out through the living room, bypassing the open space, and went straight to the bedroom. When they crossed the threshold, Maeve bent down and kissed his neck and his collarbone and he slid her down on to the bed. She kept a hand on him, up and down, and he watched as she touched him.
“No,” he said, and Maeve stopped and looked at him.
“What?” she asked, sitting up slightly.
Derek smiled. He leaned over her. “No, I meant…no, I’m not just saying I’m turned on by you because you’re beautiful. I’m turned on by you because you’re fun.” He kissed her. “And smart.” He kissed her again. “You know I’m scared and you don’t care. You’ve already seen me cry.” He kissed her deeper and she tried to get out of her damn head so she could enjoy the moment. Derek Shelton is actually, in real life, praising your mind, girl. “And your body is…” he slid down her body, kissing her stomach and hips until he nudged open her thighs with his chin. She could tell her body was ripe for him as he slid one, then two fingers into her vagina, stroking her, penetrating her. Then his tongue landed little flicks and long sucks against her clit, and soon she was gone and sinking into an orgasmic bliss.
He never finished his sentence.
My body is, Maeve thought, giving fully into pleasure.
She trembled underneath him and grabbed at the sheet above her head as bucked her hips, his head and hands moving with her, refusing to lay off until she came completely and vocally. Her breathless gasps and her hand slapping against the mattress, cued him to offer her a reprieve.
“I came,” she whispered, grasping at his shoulders, pulling him on to her. Without embarrassment, without anything but pure joy, she’d let him bury his face in her pussy and what was the feeling? Could she describe it? “I came. I came. I came.”
Her wetness was on his chin and when she kissed him it gave her an insane pleasure to recall the idea what they’d just done. Her body appeared recovered enough from her first orgasm and he seemed pleased with himself, too. He whispered about wanting to enter her and Maeve reached down and placed the large head of his cock at the entrance of her vagina. He teased her, running the head over her clit and around her labia until she pushed her body down, rocking upward and moving with him in a fast motion.
He was inside her.
It was not a moment taken lightly.
Maeve wanted to freeze life. She wished for an erotic photographer to come and capture in black and white the exact moment she felt him joined with her—because then she’d have, forever, memorialized, the culmination of nearly every fantasy she ever concocted. It was a moment she wanted to remember forever. Let someone come in and witness this lovemaking, she thought. Let them see what we’re creating with our bodies. Sex as art. Sex as magic. She almost came again at the thought. Sex as healing. As medicine. A tonic for the downtrodden.
“God,” he breathed. “Oh, God.”
She clenched harder and he let out a deep growl, lowering his lips to hers. Neither of their hips moved—he stayed hard and deep, his left hand finding her nipple and rubbing it down until he brought his tongue to it and flicked it a few times, the smell of her still on his breath.
She lay flat and bucked upward; he rocked with her.
They paused. And then they started up again—a rhythm, a movement, so perfectly timed and so wordlessly understood, that Maeve felt like she’d met the one person who could read her every action. She counted: one, two, three, four, five.
And again. And longer and deeper. And then faster. One. Two. Three. One. Two. Three. One two three. And one two three and onetwothree, like a waltz with a tempo set to steadily increase.
He smiled down at Maeve and then with ease and practices professionalism, he flipped her seamlessly so she landed astride him.
In that position, he was easier to see. His dark hair spread out across her pillowcase, and his chest, toned. His biceps bulged and his veins were visible as he put his hands on her waist and directed her in circles. As they picked up speed, her hips grinding against his, she took his hands and placed them on her breasts, directing his fingers where to rub and how hard.
“I got this,” she said in a raspy tone. She rocked back and forth, watching his face for that tell-tell-sign of building pressure and pleasure. She brought her body up the entire length of his shaft and then eased back down again, and again, and again.
He groaned and closed his eyes. “Maev-ey.” He’d invented a coital nickname. “Fuck me. Fuck me. Maeve-ey. Keep, oh, keep—”
She followed the length of his cock again and his own orgasm surprised him as he opened his eyes wide and came. He pulled his penis out and a fresh stream of cum between them, on his stomach and a bit on her leg.
“I came inside you a bit,” he said, apologetic, rushed. A frantic thought coursed through both of them—and she rocked her body upward and kissed him. “IUD. I’m protected from little Dereks, darling and I’m clean. You?” she tilted her head with knowing expectation. If he wasn’t clean, he was an asshole.
“Yeah,” he replied, breathing out. “Clean.”
&
nbsp; “I was close again,” Maeve said in a hungry rush. “If you want to…” as if one time around wasn’t good enough and she was pouting for seconds. He didn’t seem to shy away from the suggestion that she come again.
He rubbed himself on her, his erection fading, but she wouldn’t need long.
She slid up and down, watching his face the entire time while she writhed against his pubic bone. His fingers were inside her and she could feel the second orgasm building from deep within her. And when she came again—inside the well of her being and all the way down her thighs and calves and toes— she shook and quaked, the muscles all over her body responding with spasms. And she was certain she could go again. She could. It was like someone had spiked her with the female equivalent of Viagra. Except, she realized the only aphrodisiac was just Derek and his cock. So cheesy. So true.
Deep down, she knew she deserved sex like that.
She wanted to demand it for the rest of her life. I deserve a man to love me that way.
She plopped back, spent. Derek picked her up and he cradled her for a moment before sitting up.
“Holy. Shit,” he said. “We made a mess. We’ll need to get back in the tub,” he offered with a wink and he went and got them a towel. When he came back, he swaggered, a semi-smile on his face.
Before that night she might have described her own sex life as robotic. Most jerks wanted things to play out like a porno: a blowjob to start or it’s a no go on intimacy off the bat. Some doggie-style, then missionary, and God forbid she’d ask for him to go down on her. It was too easy to check out during those sessions and run through the motions; that wasn’t the type of sex she hoped she be having in her mid-20s.
Maeve enjoyed good sex and thought she’d had a few instances of great sex in her twenty-five years, but she was wrong. The sex of her past was gone—erased—and the only memories that remained were of Derek. She felt like he worshipped every part of her body. She realized she’d been clenching her toes and she winced a little as she unclenched them and tried to return feeling to her feet. To say he was attentive was like calling a dog loyal—he anticipated her needs before she did.
Forgotten Obsessions (The Love is Murder Social Club Book 1) Page 14
