A Mess of Reason

by A. Wilding Wells

  “You know I can get off anyway I like—those are the rules.” Forget the step back, I guess. She’s her own blizzard, but at some point here the bank of snow she’s crashed into is going to give her frostbite.

  “Well, good, then get chopping. I think it said fifteen minutes, right? The clock’s a-ticking, baby.”

  “Fine, I think I’ll use you.” She’s no cornered animal, my Tess.

  “How’s that? I don’t vibrate, and I’m not gonna touch you. You just gonna impale yourself on me? I’m not even hard right now so that’s gonna be a challenge. You’re welcome to open your legs on my mouth, of course, but I’m not going to be participating. My tongue will stay firmly planted inside of my closed mouth. But if you just want to rub that sweet cunt of yours over my lips, then who am I to object? Hell, I’ll even help you out and tip my head back, if you’d like.”

  “Fuck you, Scout.” She gives me the double bird along with an unflinching glare.

  “Nope. I told you no fucking until you make a few choices.” I took a swig of beer. “Speaking of fuck: this tub is fucking hot. Do you need me in here so you can use me like that blowup doll in there—what’s his name, Mr. Stud or Captain Pecker? Otherwise I need to sit up on the edge to cool off, but don’t worry, Tess…I’m not going anywhere. Wild horses couldn’t drag me away from this show. I’m naked, by the way. You don’t mind seeing a little skin, do you?”

  “Go ahead. I’ll make my own fun.”

  She’s all heart of gold, brain of naughty.

  She sticks her tongue out at me in a classic five-year-old move. It’s happens to be really damn cute on her, of course, but then, everything is. I scoot myself up and out of the tub after brushing the snow off the edge. My legs dangle in the water as the jet massages my feet. Tess moves into me like a cat in heat. She opens my legs and settles herself right in front of me. My soft cock sits against my thigh, though I’m pretty sure it won’t be soft for long since I’m watching her press her hips into the jet. Have I told you how impossible she is? Thank fuck she has her shirt on because if she was naked doing this, I might toss my own rules out the door. Not the first time I’ve considered it tonight. Her hands are on my thighs, and I don’t move them because she already needs me here as a brace. It’s sinister watching her get off, watching her buck her hips against that jet. Listening to her moan. Every part of me wishing I were that jet.

  “Scout…fuck…”

  She’s almost there. So am I. My cock is hard and her hands are griping my thighs, moving right toward it. I should stop her, but I don’t. I let her go…I let her hands wander. If she thinks anything is going to come of it, she’s delusional. I’ve already spelled it out. But I certainly won’t stop her from touching it. It deserves a little hand-holding, a few strokes. And there it is, she has it in her hands. Both hands, in fact, gripping it as if it’s holding her up.

  “Tess, come on…danger, danger. Nothing’s gonna come of this, baby.” Fuck, does it feel good. Fuck, she’s wrecking it, sliding her wet hands all over it, dragging saliva from her mouth onto it…and then she does it. She has no scruples, none at all. I’m in her mouth and I know exactly what she’s doing, and exactly what I’m doing—and oh God is it amazing—and it has to stop. Now. Or I will—with my fucking gorgeous girl—be ruined more than I feel I already am.

  “No. Tess. You know how this works. You don’t get to have it all ways; you don’t get both of us. You don’t get to do this to me.” I push her face off of my cock, and doing it is just fucking painful.

  “I want it… Fuck, Tess, you know I want it…but not like this, not with you walking down the aisle into his arms. At this time next week, you’ll be a married woman, love. Married to another man. So you see, baby, you don’t get my cock in your mouth; you don’t get my hot come pumping down your throat. But you can get yourself off, and I’ll keep watching from here.”

  The look in her eyes is priceless. She’s pissed, turned on, and about to come. I just watch on the sideline with my hard-on aching like a son of a bitch.

  “Fuck off,” she says as she keeps going. I gotta give it to her, this side of her is hot. She truly, truly wants me but I’m not giving in, because she still won’t talk about it. I keep bringing it up, I keep tempting, taunting, teasing. But nothin’.

  “Fine. That’ll do. I can fuck off. You want me to leave? Or you want me to watch?”

  “Scout…oh fuck…stay…Scout…please.”

  Both of her hands grip my thighs, If she touches my cock, though, I’ll get up and go back into the house. I can’t take much more of her want without my own resolve weakening. She’s wearing me down inch by inch. She has to know it. But hopefully I’m wearing her down too.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  TESS

  I don’t know where to go from here. I keep wanting more of him and he gives in to me tiny little bits at a time…but never all the way. Not ever. He keeps stopping and starting, and every time I think we’re moving into a new place, he ends it before I have the chance to claim him in the way I want him. All of him.

  I could walk away from Creed tonight. Problem is, how much of Scout will I get if I do? Let’s face it, there are two elephants. Creed and the fact that Scout wants all of me. It’s quite simply put: impossible. It’s a circle. I can’t give all of me…so he won’t give all of him. We’re chasing each other’s tails. I can’t be sure he’d marry me if I did give him all of me. To give in…no, no, no—it’s too raw, too naked. Too ugly. The risk, too great. Once he sees me like that, he may never want me again. Repulsive doesn’t begin to describe the way I look underneath.

  “Scout…I’m coming…oh God…coming…please…” I grip his thighs and he holds my face in his hands as I look at him while I come on the jet, in the hot tub, between his legs. The look in his eyes, filled with desire, is the final push that took me right over the top.

  I don’t know how he does it, how he’s able to resist what’s going on between us. The magnetism, the ache, the longing. He never looked away, not once. But he kissed my forehead and keep his lips on it the whole time I was moaning out his name in my delirium. I could have five more orgasms because yes, I’m that charged right now. When I finish I lay my head down between his thighs, his massive hands massage my shoulders, and he places tiny kisses on my head and my face as he bends over me. It’s about the sweetest thing ever. He’s having a post-sex cuddle and the poor guy never even got to blow his wad.

  Scout stands and lifts me out of the water, then in one big step has us out of the hot tub. He takes us into the house, back to my bedroom. He lays me on top of the bed, then rifles through my clothes, grabbing me a new T-shirt, a dry bra, and panties. Then he starts to leave.

  “Will you come back…in a little bit?” I know I sound desperate; I know it’s okay for him.

  “Of course I will. You want another beer?”

  “Yeah, please. Just give me a few minutes, okay? And, um…I really kind of like that you’re walking around my cabin naked. Can you please come back naked?”

  “Anything for you, my princess.” He shoots me an irresistibly devastating grin, then walks out and closes the door. Oh, and that view.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  SCOUT

  I climb into bed with her. She has on her dry T-shirt and dark purple, very sexy, very tiny panties that I catch a peek of when she opens the covers for me to climb in. The room is lit only with candles that she’s managed to place on nearly every surface. It feels more like a honeymoon suite than two friends cuddling with a couple of beers. She’s leaning against the headboard, mostly horizontal. I sit with my back against it and move her body onto my lap.

  “You’re beautiful, you know that,.” I say. “And I love you. Here’s the thing, Tessie girl: I don’t just love you. I’m completely, mind-bendingly in love with you. This—what’s going with us this weekend— might just be one of the hardest things I’ve ever done. And I realize saying that to you, my sweet girl, with all that you’ve endured, might sound rid
iculous. Because I can’t imagine the pain you’ve gone through, nor can I imagine the pain you are still holding on to. But I know it must be massive, bigger than the both of us. I genuinely want to know why you can’t make the choices because it sure as hell looks like you’re craving something you can’t have. And maybe, Tess, I won’t understand your decisions…but then again, maybe I will. Maybe you can tell me, and maybe I can help you decide. But I won’t decide for you because I love you too much to do that, sweetheart.”

  She lifts her head and looks up to my eyes. Hers are filled with glassy tears as her lips quiver while she slides her arms around my waist.

  “I’m trying,” she says, then bites her lip and glances away. Her face looks uneasy and she seems fragile in my arms. I know she’s struggling with uncertainty—we both are. I’ve made all the moves I can. It’s really up to her now to move us in whatever direction she chooses.

  “Are you?” I know I sound frustrated, and it makes my stomach churn to think of how it might make her feel, but talking is what we need now, more than anything.

  “Trying…can’t you tell…how hard?” Her voice sounds puzzled and it gnaws at my mind. Her mouth is crumpled in pain, her heavy fringe of wet eyelashes barely able to stay open with the flood of tears seemingly blinding her.

  “I think you’re trying to throw yourself at me in all the wrong ways. It’s not that I don’t want you in all those ways—I do. More than you can understand. But I need you to throw other things my way. Answers, and you know exactly what I mean…don’t you?”

  She chokes back a cry. The raw emotion in her face terrifies me. I feel her hands opening and closing into fists as though she’s thinking things through. She steers her eyes up to mine and her face wears a look of shame, a heartbreaking, gut-wrenching look. One that stabs me everywhere inside. She looks defeated, stuck, and horrified. For the life me, I can’t imagine what must be going through her head.

  I set down my beer, and I pull her up to a sitting position on my lap. She moves herself into a straddle over my thighs. Big tears river down her face while she takes both of my hands to her mouth. She kisses them…kisses my fingers, my knuckles, my palms. Then she takes them and slides them up under her shirt and places both of them on top of her bra. Her swallows are intense and loud; her breathing, shallow and jagged. Her lips are shaking as she tries to form a small olive branch of a smile. I feel tears prick in my eyes because what she’s doing—this self-sacrificing gift—is huge and beautiful and I know how very scared she is in this moment. She studies my face, looking for me to cringe or remove my hands, but I love her with my eyes, my expression, and my hands, but I especially love her with my heart and my soul.

  “You see, I love…you too, Scout. I’ve…I have…I have always loved…only you. I’ve always…only…ever wanted you.” She’s stuttering, barely getting words out…but they come little by little. Each one a promise. A story about to unfold between us. She’s trying. Trying so damn hard. I move my hands slowly as I nod my head. It’s as though I’m touching the wires on a bomb and if I make the wrong move, touch the wrong wire, everything will explode and I may not ever, ever get a chance again to find her.

  “I know baby girl, I know.”

  “I’m…this is…you know…this is….”

  “I know this is hard for you. I know, Tess. It’s just me and it’s just you and I will only ever love you, okay? I won’t hurt you; I won’t take anything away from you. I will only give to you…only love. Do you want me to kiss you? Please trust me. You can trust me, Tess.”

  “Just touch me. I just…I need to know.”

  She buries her face in my shoulder, and a deep, long breath comes out as though she’s resigned to try.

  “What, baby? What do you need to know?”

  “I need to know if I can…. um…if I can let you do this. I’ve never…”

  “You’re already letting me. So brave…so beautiful.”

  I want this part of her that she won’t release. The part of her that’s anchored so deeply inside of her that she can’t see around it. The part that will make her dig deep and find a new form of respect and love for our relationship.

  Her fingers are at her mouth as though she’s trying to still her quivering lips. Her face is turned away from mine. She wants to look at me, I know, because her eyes come to me, then dart away, threaded with humiliation.

  “It’s okay, Tess. You’re so beautiful…you feel amazing.”

  “I want you to…I need you to…take…you have to do it for me…make me do it.”

  “What do you want me to do, sweetheart? Tess, can you look at me? Can you look at my eyes and trust me…and tell me what you want me to do?”

  Her eyes are closed; she looks miserable. Too emotion-filled to speak. But the truth wants to persist, wants to resolve our questions. I’ve not moved my hands but an inch and really it’s only the lace of her bra that I’ve touched. Her breasts are small, and the padding under the lace is thick-ish, but not so thick that I don’t feel a very hard nipple on her right side. Her left side feels flatter, but I touch her exactly on her areola, if there is even one there. Her heart is beating wildly. I talk slowly, calmly, and soothingly to her.

  “Tess, tell me what you want.”

  “Uh huh.” She looks at me, then just as quickly drops her eye lashes down as if she’s hiding behind them.

  “It’s okay, baby. It’s all okay. Take your time.”

  “Please, Scout…take off my…take off my bra.” She talks to me in a broken whisper. The space between us sacred as she moves through a crossroad. And though there’s tortured disbelief on her face, I feel like the luckiest man on earth that I’m the one she’s chosen to do this with. A rite of passage for us if ever there was one.

  “Of course, anything you want, Tess…anything. We have all night. You can tell me to stop if something isn’t right. We can do this anyway you like.”

  I slide my hands slowly to her back, mostly keeping my palms on her bra. Her body is so small and my hands are so big that her skin is touching the edges of my fingers. Her flesh is bumpy and textural, and her sharp breaths nearly startle me as I make my way to the clasps on her bra.

  “Wait…I don’t know if I can…” she says as she grabs both of my arms with a look of sheer panic on her face.

  “It’s okay, Tess. I can stop. Do you want me to?”

  “I’m afraid, you know. I’m so scared that if you touch me… I don’t want to lose you, but this might be too much for you. I know what you’re used to. I know you’re a…well, you’ve felt lots of nice…and this, what I am…it’s not… Well, it’s not anything close to what you’ve had…. So I just…”

  “Tess, stop. Sweetheart, you can’t do that to you and you can’t do that to me. It’s not fair for either of us. This is only going to bring us closer, okay? This will not—I promise you with all my heart—scare me away. Nothing about you can scare me away. Trust me, can you do that? Can you trust me to touch you? To love you harder, to give you more…to give us a chance at more?”

  “Okay…okay, do it. Do it now…just do it.”

  I unfasten the claps, then tenderly open her bra in the back.

  “Can I take it off you? All the way?”

  “Uh-huh.” She’s nodding, but her face is filled with fear. I will her to echo the thoughts in my mind.

  “You’re doing great, baby. I’m gonna go slowly, okay?”

  “Okay, yeah…slowly…really, really slowly.”

  She pulls both of her arms into her shirt and I loop the bra straps over her hands, then pull it out from her T-shirt as she slips her arms back through her sleeves. I slide my hands back up into her shirt, which is very loose and baggy. Above her breasts, I place my palms against her skin and hold them still, moving only my thumbs across her uneven flesh. The look in her eyes is one of panic and distress.

  “Is this okay?”

  She nods and her eyes bathe me with question.

  “Can I keep going?” I ask quietl
y. She nods again.

  I slide my hands around to her backside, feathering them in slow sweeps down her back, then up again. Quick sharp breaths come from her, and I wonder if it’s good to finally be touched…or if it hurts.

  “Scout…. I…” This time my name on her lips sounds like a call for help.

  “Tess. So beautiful…you feel so good. How does it feel? Is it okay still?”

  “Yeah, it feels…feels like I’ve never been touched.”

  “Good, then?”

  “Yeah, really good…keep going.”

  I want to cry for her and for myself. It’s like the goddamned breakthrough of the century. The fact that she’s not panicking, no longer shaking, and wants me to keep going makes my guts knot. I slide my hands down around her waist and wreathe it in the same way I have done hundreds of other times, but this time is different. This time my skin is on hers—and touching her like this so intimately triggers all my most primitive yearnings. I start to slide my hands up toward her breasts, across the plains of her taut belly, and I’m almost there when her hands stop me and rest on mine.

  “It’s okay, Tess. I only want to make you feel good…can you let me do that?”

  “Scout, I just…my breasts aren’t…you know…perfect or anywhere close it. They won’t feel like…”

  “They’ll feel beautiful. You feel beautiful…all of you, Tess. Nothing’s changed—you’re still my girl. I love you for trusting me with this. I know how hard you’re trying.”

  I place a kiss on her lips, and she opens her mouth for me, kissing me back. It’s electric, sensual, and urgent. She takes all her breaths from me and explores my mouth with passion and need, and as she does, I slowly cup her small, soft breasts in my hands. She feels tiny under my touch, but more beautiful than I could have ever imagined. And yes, her skin is melted and textural, smooth in parts, then bumpy and weblike. But not for a minute is there anything about touching her that is less than perfect…in fact, it’s my heaven. She’s my heaven. I caress all of her skin gently, then I find her nipples, which are very different from each other. I circle them, caressing each with the smallest amount of pressure. I keep reminding myself that she’s a twenty-nine-year-old woman who’s having a first-time experience, one that’s more of a rite of passage than it would be for most teenage girls feeling this for the first time.