I snorted, working to hold back the tears that fought to escape, and he smiled back ruefully. “Seeing what those kids had, exponentially more than I’d ever even known to dream about having, man.” He shook his head. “It pissed me off so deeply that it was like I walked around with this red haze in my eyes. I couldn’t see straight.”
“You never seemed like it,” I said, realizing I could remember all of that very well. How cheerful Jon had always seemed. Always cajoling me into some expedition into the city, or sneaking into each other’s rooms for a movie-watching fest. Not unlike the last few days.
“Yeah, well.” His smile went crooked. “I was the master of showing only what I wanted people to see. Just like you.”
My chest went tight as that hit home with painful accuracy. I really hoped I wasn’t going to cry. “That’s what you alluded to last night. Me pretending to be what I’m not.”
“That’s not what I said. I—”
“You know,” I broke in, “my mother always said that to me. You can’t make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear.” I said it in her voice, a deadly mimic of her that cut across my nerves. “And here I am, just a nasty, dirty, low-bred pig pretending to—”
“I never said that,” he interrupted, sharply enough to give me pause. “Your mother is a weak-willed, codependent enabler who let your father terrorize you and raise your brothers to be just like him. You’re the jewel that came out of the volcanic fires of that cesspool of a family.”
I stared at him. “I lost count of how many metaphors you just mixed up there.”
“Yeah. Well. You should know that pigs are very clean and highly intelligent.”
“Am I still the pig here?”
“You are very clean and highly intelligent, it’s true.” He reached out and touched my cheek. “And you are the silk purse. Quality, through and through.”
That made the tears leak out and I dashed them away before they could get too far. Then took a deep swallow of my cooling drink. “I don’t know why I’m crying.”
“Maybe because you know it’s okay. You can be yourself with me.”
“It’s so easy for you.” I couldn’t decide if I was mad or sad. Just wretched, maybe “Sitting there and analyzing me. Must be nice to have all the answers.”
“This is three years of therapy talking,” he said evenly. “Easy it not how I’d describe it.”
“And you think you know me so well,” I added.
“I do know you,” he countered. “Because you were in the trenches with me. You were the shining star of those dismal years. You know me better than anyone and I know you. That’s okay because you can trust me. I’ve waited this long. I’m not going to walk away.”
Feeling a little stunned, and oddly broken-hearted, I reached out. And he took my hand. “Are we really going to do this?” I asked.
“Yeah.” He smiled, looking as fully happy as when he’d walked in the kitchen. Like a kid on Christmas morning. “I think we are.”
~ 21 ~
Jon lifted his other hand to caress my cheek, his eyes full of emotion, then cupped the back of my neck and urged me closer, coaxing me into a soft kiss. I returned it, one hand in his and the other still folded around my mug. Facing each other across the bed, our hands and the kiss our only connection, I felt like a teenager again. Or still. Absurdly virginal and clumsy with it.
So far from who I’d become. Something about Jon took me right back to that girl I’d been, like a movie where my adult mind got sent back to my sixteen-year-old self, only without anything I’d learned along the way.
“Jon,” I whispered.
“Yes,” he replied, taking my mug and setting it aside. He pulled me closer, fully into an embrace that had us falling back on the pieced duvet I’d made in fashion design class in college. And we kissed. Long, leisurely kisses, like I hadn’t done since I started having actual sex. The kind of making out I’d done with boys while parked in cars, or in the shadowy back row of the movie theater. It was something I missed, that kind of kissing. Once there’s no obstacle to full sex, it seems we always just rush right on to stimulatory foreplay, then intercourse, and done.
But Jon seemed to be in no hurry, savoring the kiss and me, his one hand stroking over my back, hips, bottom, and thighs. Exploring my body and mouth. The other arm he had pillowed under my head, elbow crooked around my neck, palm on my shoulder, cradling me close. I fell into the dreaminess of it, working my way under his shirt, loving the feel of his skin. He murmured and assent and did likewise, his hand finding my naked breasts. “No bra,” he murmured against my mouth as I pressed into the touch. “You were killing me with that.”
“Yes,” I said, not sure what I was agreeing to, except that the urgency had grown. I helped him pull off his shirt, then found his mouth again as I dragged my nails over his chest, wanting to burrow into him. He pushed up my shirt, rolling me onto my back and taking one nipple into his mouth, cupping the other in his hand. I clutched at his head, impossibly moved along with the rising need flooding me.
We were really going to do this.
I arched, moaning, and his hands and mouth were everywhere, shoving down my yoga pants, his breath as ragged as mine. I gazed blearily at him as he pulled off my pants, socks and all. Then ran his hands up my legs to my hips, avid, admiring. “So gorgeous,” he muttered. “So lovely. My Amy.”
I clutched at his shoulders, urging him up, feeling suddenly awkward and exposed. The senseless haze had lifted and I found myself torn. New Jon and old Jon overlapped. I should count the points. But my brain wouldn’t work. Jon was kissing my thighs, murmuring endearments, his mouth soft and his hands hard.
“Turn off the light,” I managed, and he lifted his head. Then he crawled up over me, sliding along my body so he lay fully on top of me, finding my hands and lacing our fingers together, holding them on either side of my head while he studied my face.
“Why do you want the light off?” he asked. “You’re beautiful and I want to see you.”
I bit my lip against the callous answer, that it would be easier for me not to think about this being Jon. “I’m shy,” I said, an answer that had always worked with other guys.
But Jon barked out a laugh, then kissed me, affection and knowing in it. “My darling Amy, you are the least shy woman I’ve ever known. Tell me the real answer.” He shifted against me, his naked skin against my nipples sending shivers through me. Against my groin, his erection pressed hot and hard through the soft cotton of his sweat pants. I wanted to spread my legs and bring him into me.
“Fine. Leave the light on. Condoms are in the bedside drawer. Enough teasing.”
He didn’t move, still studying me. “I’m calling that another evasion.”
I rocked my pubis against his cock, making him hiss and those sharp eyes fog with need. “I’m calling all this talk needless delay when you could be inside me.”
Something crossed over his face, and he lowered his mouth to mine, kissing me now with devastating sweetness, still not letting me up or making a move to go further. Just kissing, opening my mouth and tasting me, drinking from me, our breaths sliding into a deep rhythm of exchanged air. I moaned, a sense of desperation in it, and he finally lifted his head.
“Open your eyes,” he urged. When I did, he kissed me in reward. “I don’t want you pretending I’m someone else. Or telling yourself I can’t see you. Lights on. Eyes open.”
“Jon,” I breathed, feeling ragged.
“Or we don’t have to do this yet.” He slid kisses down my cheek, to the spot under my ear that made me tremble. “We can just fool around.” He found his way to my lips again, then stared into my eyes. “But when we make love, it’s you and me. No pretending. Real.”
“I…” I had no words to finish that. I didn’t even know what I wanted to say. Or how I felt. I only knew I wanted this, that I’d agreed to most anything if he just wouldn’t leave me again. “Please.”
“Yes,” he agreed, kissing me and letting my hands
go. I slid them into his hair, groaning as he levered up on an elbow and slipped one hand between us, cupping my mound. Opening my thighs to him, I threw my head back when his fingers found my slickness, his mouth taking my nipple and pulling hard.
I came, fast and full, sinking my teeth into his biceps braced next to my face so I wouldn’t scream aloud. Jon’s fingers fisted into my hair and he cursed, sucking harder on my nipple, pulling more of my breast into his mouth. I let go and his mouth found mine immediately. I got my hands between us, slipping inside the elastic waistband and finding the long, hot length of him. His body stiffened and his breath wooshed into my mouth and I inhaled him. My Jon.
“My Amy,” he whispered, sounding wrecked. I gripped him in both hands, working him hard and fast, a rhythm I knew he wouldn’t be able to resist. No guy can. “Oh God—I can’t.” And he came in my hands, the fluid spurting and I milked him, undulating under him, my mouth clinging to his as he panted desperately, muscles rigid.
And then gradually collapsed.
* * *
“Shit,” Jon finally said. He’d rolled over and lay on his back next to me, still wearing his now semen-soaked sweat pants, both of us staring at the circles of light on the ceiling from my lamps. He put a hand over his face and scrubbed it. “That is so not how I pictured this going.”
Absurdly, I giggled. He turned his head to glare at me balefully. “She laughs at me.”
I turned on my side, propped my head on my hand, and trailed my fingers over his chest, exploring the sparse chest hair. “It’s okay.”
“It would have been okay if we’d done this when we were sixteen. All the years I planned how I’d do this… I’m not a teenager anymore. I can do better.”
“How do you know?” I asked as seriously as I could.
He frowned, and I unreasonably relished seeing him be uncertain. “Because I know.”
“Have you practiced?” I prompted. “Have there been other women?”
A worried look crept into his eyes, caution crinkling the edges. “Well, yeah, I mean… some. It’s been years, and I didn’t know if—” His face cleared and he tackled me as I burst out laughing. “You bitch! You totally had me going.”
I laughed and laughed, squirming away from him as he tried to wrestle me down. “The… look… on your….” I panted. “Face!” I finished on a squeal as he pinned me.
“I can’t believe you’d do that to me,” he muttered, holding me down and nipping at whatever bit of skin he could reach. He found one of my sensitive spots and my giggle morphed into a moan. He paused there, exploring and exploiting, then trailed kisses up until he found my mouth. Then he pulled back. “Now that my head has cleared, I’ve realized you did that on purpose.”
“Teasing you? Well, yes, I—”
“Not that.” He smoothed the hair back from my face. “Do you want me to leave?”
Where did that come from? “No,” I replied, almost without sound, because I really didn’t.
“Do you want to stop here, go to sleep?”
“Jon…” I didn’t know. So many questions. I rolled my head, seeing only the array of photos on the wall.
He kissed my temple, nuzzling me. “I have an idea.”
He got up, clicked off the bedside light, then the lamp in the corner, leaving the room lit only by my Christmas tree. I rolled on to my side, watching him as he paused by it. “This is really pretty,” he said. “You made it?”
“Yes. How did you know?”
“It feels like you.” He left it on and came to me, shucking his sweats and climbing naked onto the bed. “Delicate.” He dropped a kiss on my shoulder. “Elegant.” He slid a hand up my spine, soothing and comforting. “Steely and beautiful at the same time. Shining bright. Turn onto your stomach.”
“What are you—”
“Shh… trust me.”
I turned face down, the alternating textures of linen and silk against my cheek. The little tree shone by the window, bright in the darkness. Steely and beautiful, it could never droop or sag.
Jon lay over my back, a soothing weight, and brushed my hair off my neck. A kiss to the nape of my neck, making me shiver, then more, trailing along my vertebrae. I curled my fingers into the duvet, and he put his hands over mine, lacing the fingers together and kissing my neck, holding me still when I shifted restlessly.
I moaned and he hummed in agreement, kissing, licking and nipping, driving me slowly wild.
I pressed my bottom into his growing erection, the long length of him hard in the cleft, and he rocked against me, unhurried, taking his time. His skin all along mine felt nearly magical, soaking into me with warmth like a human blanket, covering and protecting me.
And I began to dissolve under it.
“Jon…”
“Yes.”
He turned me over and lay against me, our bodies sealed together, completed by a long and luscious kiss. I wound my arms around his neck, feeling languid in my need, like a deep hunger for good food, not the craving for sweets or alcohol. I wanted him to feed me. Parting my thighs, I wrapped my legs around him, gasping when his erection slid hot and hard against my slick and swollen tissues. Arching my hips, I got him nearly into me, the head of his cock pushing at my entrance.
“Wait,” he groaned. “Condoms.”
The Brad condoms. Seemed all wrong. “I’m on the pill and I’m clean. If you are.”
“You trust me?”
I did. Devastating to feel that, but I did. And I wanted to feel him inside me, skin to skin. A kind of giving him the innocence I’d spent elsewhere. “Yes.”
With an incoherent sound, he slid into me, filling and fitting, breaking a cry out of me that sounded curiously like pain.
“You okay?” he asked, panting and ragged.
“So good. Yes.”
“Good.” He levered up on elbows, gazing down at me as he stroked inside me. The silvery light gilded his face, glinting in his shadowed eyes that stared into mine. I lifted a hand to his cheek, and he turned his head, kissing my palm, gaze still fixed on mine.
I lifted my hips to meet his, finding the slow, sensual rhythm, the rise and fall. And the build, the intensifying burn as the coil of pleasure from each depth stroke furled it outward, filling my body and infusing my heart. His chest hair brushed my tight nipples and I arched, surprised by the intensity of it. He accelerated, thrusting into me, face going into rigid lines, urging me on, waiting for me.
I dug my nails into his shoulders. “I don’t think I can.” I’d already come once, and hard. And this felt… too much. “Go ahead.”
“I can wait.” He adjusted, putting a hand under my hips, lifting them and changing the angle, then pressing deep.
My spine arched of its own accord, a guttural sound grating out of me.
“Yes,” he breathed. “Like that.” He repeated the intensely deep thrust, spearing into my very heart, and I cried out again, feeling unmoored, at sea in raging storm.
“I’ve got you,” he told me. “You can let go.”
I didn’t think I could. I held on to him, pulling him to me for a kiss. He obliged, but kept the angle, driving into me with meticulous and devastating accuracy.
“Oh, God,” I nearly sobbed. “Jon!”
“Yes.” He slid back, then drove home in a series of hard strokes that shattered me. I fell apart, climaxing in rending and wrenching intensity, sobbing his name and clawing at him like a mad thing. He stayed with me, his body a bulwark against the storm that was me. “My Amy,” he said over and over.
I finally crested with a despairing cry, and he followed me over, the final thrust sealing tight against me and lifting me off the bed. He shouted hoarsely, then gathered me against him, holding me close as we shuddered through the aftermath.
And I burst into tears.
~ 22 ~
Not dainty little, oh-that-was-such-a-great-orgasm-it-made-me-leak-little-tears either, but great gulping sobs.
Jon rolled onto his back, taking me with him, holding
me against him as I wept, slobbering snot and tears against his shoulder in the worst, most ungraceful, unbeautiful fashion. I knew I should get off him, that we were getting sex fluids all over my duvet, and that this was the worst kind of behavior, but I couldn’t. I didn’t even know why I was crying and I couldn’t make myself move. I just burrowed into his skin like some pitiful snotty baby animal, and he let me.
More, he held me, stroking my back and my hair, telling me it was okay. Finally I got a grip. Or ran dry. I sat up, muttering about needing a tissue, unutterably grateful for the shadows and the silver radiance of the little Christmas tree. I grabbed the box off my bedside table and set it between us, then blew my nose as gracefully as I could manage, given the circumstances. Then I pulled out several more tissues to clean myself up.
Jon was doing the same, lying on his back, not saying anything.
I’d pulled myself together enough to speak—and to stop myself from apologizing. “I don’t know what that was about.”
“You’re just wound really tight,” he replied softly, “You needed a little catharsis.”
My laugh came out ragged and soggy. “Everything with you now is about emotional release.”
“Well, yeah.” He tugged me down beside him and kissed my cheek, right above the corner of my jaw, nuzzling there. “I got wound the same way, building up the stress, pretending all was fine until I blew. Sometimes I didn’t recognize myself.”
“I know the feeling.”
“See? And you didn’t even need three years of therapy to get there.”
“True. Just a cripplingly public humiliation where I wrecked my entire future inside of thirty seconds.”
Missed Connections Box Set Page 38
