Beyond Repair (Deeper Than Desire)

by Charlotte Stein

  Hell, maybe the tentativeness was the problem. Maybe he liked her fumbling approach. He certainly seemed to when she reached one shaking hand forward to touch him somewhere else. Just somewhere innocent, like his general chest area. His nipples were all stiff just like hers, and she only wanted to see how they felt.

  But when she actually brushed awkward fingertips over one...

  His reaction was way too big. His breath seemed to hitch somewhere high up in his throat, and when it finally got free a sound came with it. A choking, throttled sort of sound that set her hair on end—though here was the kicker. When she pulled back, startled by his response and sure she’d done something wrong, the gasp got louder. He added words to it. Fuck, I can’t believe how intense this is.

  And she had to agree.

  The air around them seemed to have thickened, grown heavy—which probably explained why she was struggling to breathe. Every time she tried all she managed was a thin, high whine, and it was the same for him. He was panting almost constantly now. His chest heaved with the effort. Then when she dared to reach forward again, it stopped altogether. All of him stopped. He went as rigid as a sergeant major’s salute, anticipation rippling off him in waves.

  She could almost hear him thinking, Will she, will she?

  So she did. She did. She touched him.

  She just didn’t do it with her hand. She did it with her mouth, simply to see what would happen then. If he forgot to breathe over a touch, what on earth would he do when she licked and sucked and bit that taut little point? She imagined him doing all kinds of cool things, like maybe pulling her to him in this helpless, desperate way. But the reality was much more exciting.

  The reality included dirty talk.

  “Oh that’s so fucking hot. God, it’s so hot watching you do this. Go on, go on, use your mouth,” he said, in a way that definitely suggested something else. She even knew what it was. She’d heard a guy in some porno saying it as he slid his cock all the way past someone’s lips, even though she was hardly doing anything of the sort. She had curled her tongue around one tight nipple—and was maybe playing with the other one a little bit, just to try it out—but that was all.

  Apparently all was enough.

  “Feels so good when you do that, don’t stop don’t stop,” he said, though he needn’t have worried. She couldn’t have stopped if a train had hit her. If anything she ended up doing more, like licking a long, wet path down his body in a way that made him even filthier and more lustful. He cursed when she laid a hot, wet kiss on that line of muscle above his groin, then told her she was a horny little thing for the nails she scored along his sides—all the time unintentionally pushing and pushing her into ever more daring acts. Some of them small, like the love bite she left on the inside of his wrist.

  And then some of them bigger, such as the hand she couldn’t help pushing under the waistband of his pants. Yeah, that one seemed pretty big, all right. Or at least, he sure seemed to think so. He went up on tiptoes the moment she did it, one hand snapping up as though to get hold of something—anything—on her.

  Before he seemed to realize he wasn’t supposed to.

  He actually realized and stopped dead, even though she knew he didn’t want to. It was obvious he was aching to touch her, and not just because that was the way things were supposed to go. He didn’t just need to stroke and caress her.

  He needed something to hold on to.

  He really, really needed something to hold on to, to the point where he had to say.

  “I gotta sit down, honey. I think my knees are disintegrating,” he gasped, but he didn’t wait for her permission. He just backed up until he was at the bed then threw himself on in a big messy sprawl, half on his back and half not. He kind of had to in truth, because she couldn’t seem to let up long enough for him to do it gracefully.

  She followed him with her hands, teeth and tongue, until he was practically writhing. His body made this beautiful twisting arch beneath her when she finally brushed him there, and everything only got more tangled and intense after that. Somehow she found herself near nuzzling the recently bared cheek of his ass, while he rocked and moaned and tried not to do a thousand things.

  She could see he wanted to rub against her fingers, because her fingers didn’t know what they were doing. She kept almost forming a circle around his thick length before darting away in a daunted sort of manner, and it was clearly driving him nuts. It was driving him so nuts she could now feel the pressure of his hands, even though they were still hovering an inch from her body.

  One was close to her face and the other almost at her breasts, and if she moved another millimeter they would be on her. God, she needed them to be on her. For a second she needed it so wildly every wire in her body crossed, and that led to something completely insane. She didn’t know how it happened, really. She only knew that it did. It did. He almost touched her right breast and there it was—one overexcited slide of her tongue between the cheeks of his ass.

  Of course she tried to tell herself she’d been aiming for something else. She’d just been mouthing along the curve of his spine, so really it wasn’t hard to veer down and hit...the thing she had hit. Yet somehow she knew that wouldn’t wash. How could it possibly, when he was already taking it exactly as she’d intended?

  “Jesus Christ, Alice,” he said, as though she’d just detonated a bomb.

  Only the bomb was really, really fucking fantastic, by all accounts. He pressed his face into the pillow the moment he registered what she had done, and the way his hips rolled and bucked, holy fuck. She could almost picture a slick little pussy sliding down over him just by the way he pumped his cock into nothing but air and material.

  And he had more things to say. Lord in heaven, he always had more things to say.

  “Are you serious with this? Are you seriously going to do that? I’m going to have to jerk off if you’re going to do something like that. If you wanna give me a fucking rim job I have to put a hand on myself. You understand that, right?”

  Luckily for him, she did.

  She understood that he’d said rim job.

  Good Lord, was that what she’d just done? She supposed it was, if she was thinking of the right thing. She’d seen it done and sort of paired it up with terms for various filthy novels, but by God it didn’t seem like her. It seemed like some other super-horny girl, who got so carried away on a wave of moaning and dirty talk that she did sex acts on people without her own permission.

  Then did them again, before her brain could kick into gear.

  She licked him—this time deeper, hotter, wetter—and holy mother of all that is holy the sound that came out of him. It didn’t seem like something a human being should make. It was practically a grunt, so guttural she had to wonder if he’d come right there and then. The only thing that told her he hadn’t was the hand he had on his cock, though once she’d seen what he was doing she sort of wished she hadn’t.

  He wasn’t slowing through the spasms of an orgasm. He was fucking his fist in the most desperate, delicious sort of way. For a second she actually forgot what she was meant to be doing and just watched as he pumped his cock—though he had to take some of the blame for that. He’d warned her what to expect, but he certainly hadn’t done it enough. Not by a long shot.

  He was so thick he was practically straining against his own enormous grip, and so long he had to use two hands instead of one. She watched him rub the root of it with one and work the swollen head with the other in a way she’d never seen anyone else do before. Not even in that one Tumblr clip someone had tagged size kink.

  And that made her mouth hang open just a bit.

  She knew it did because after a second he asked her if she wanted to stop—even though he clearly didn’t want to. He’d passed the point of stopping about seventeen years ago, yet still he said it. He even tried to slow down a little in deference to a fear she didn’t feel. He had to know that she didn’t feel it. She wasn’t afraid.

&nbs
p; She was full of this sort of thrilling fascination, to the point where it took almost nothing to carry on. She simply bent her head and licked that bad place until she felt him falling back into that good, good rhythm again. The one that made him arch his back and rub too hard, pushing himself toward his orgasm at a punishing pace.

  Or was she the one doing the pushing? It certainly seemed like it, whenever he managed to pant out a word. They were all about her—about how good she was, how hot, how it got him so close to feel her doing this filthy thing to him.

  And he wasn’t lying, either.

  The more she did to him the harder he lost it. She gripped his hips and his moans skewed sideways, and the second she licked a little deeper—right over his tightly clenched hole in a way that made her zing too—he called out her name. Alice, he said, Alice, Alice, and for the first time since she’d met him she found herself wishing for something odd. Odd because it happened in the middle of this insane sex, and odd because she was so sure she wanted to be this person.

  But for just the barest moment...she would rather have been herself.

  And then it passed, thank God it passed. She didn’t have to suddenly stop all this lovely pleasure with a pathetic announcement. She could simply let herself sink back into it, drawn by the sights and sounds of him coming. Anyone could forget anything in the face of that. He seemed to clench all over like a fist, eyes tightly shut and muscles taut, everything straining so hard it almost looked like a fight...like maybe he didn’t want to go over yet.

  Or maybe he did, and his body just wasn’t willing to give it up. Either way it was making her heart pound—hard enough to be visible. Her chest actually appeared to be vibrating, and she could hear a sound in her head like coming thunder. If he didn’t go soon she was pretty sure she was going to pass out, but oh it was no relief when he did.

  She almost swallowed that pounding heart to see him do it. To see him arch and shudder so violently, eyes locking with hers for just a second before he went over. And then the way his cock seemed to jerk in his hand, spilling thickly over his still-working fist...to see him shooting in these thick ribbons all over the sheets...it was much too much to take in all at once. No reasonable person could be expected to withstand it, without at least nibbling on their own insides.

  Thankfully, however, she made it her lip, instead of anything vital. And her lip was pretty easy to hide. All she had to do was swallow the blood she drew when she bit down a little too hard—then maybe not talk to him for a few hours. He probably wouldn’t notice that she’d mangled herself, but better to be safe than sorry. Plus it didn’t turn out to be too hard.

  She didn’t know what to say anyway, when he straightened himself out enough to gasp a rather shocked few words.

  “What the fuck?” he asked, and though she knew he meant it in the good way it was a little unnerving anyway. He just looked so stunned. He didn’t seem to know whether to laugh or be amazed or share his total confusion, and that made it next to impossible to respond. She wasn’t sure whether he wanted soothing or a handshake.

  She didn’t know if she wanted soothing or a handshake.

  Both sounded really nice and really bad in equal measures.

  But what he settled on was twice as intense as either of them.

  “How do you do that? How did you do to that to me? I’ve never felt anything like it, honey, I swear to God—I’m fucking daunted. That was daunting. I don’t even know if I can make you feel half as good as that but if you want I’ll try, I’ll—”

  She didn’t mean to cut him off. Or shout as she was doing so. It just sort of happened. The no burst out of her like a bullet from a gun—but luckily without the brutal impact. He didn’t clutch himself and reel back to hear her say it, thank the Lord. He just looked...faintly puzzled.

  Then a little less so when she added, “No really, it’s okay. I’m just tired now that’s all.

  Though maybe it wasn’t quite enough. He held out an arm to her and let her cuddle down to sleep, but she could tell he was still thinking. His breathing seemed to take a long time to turn into something longer and steadier, and even after it had she could still see a faint frown between his brows.

  And he was justified in it too. Even she wasn’t sure why she’d said no so readily, when faced with the state she seemed to be in. She was still so turned-on she could have taken a trip to the bathroom to sort it out, and only the thought of waking him stopped her. He was quiet now and unquestioning, and she wanted him to stay that way. But as she finally sank into something like oblivion, she couldn’t help wondering.

  How long could that possibly last?

  Chapter Eight

  She woke from the same dream she’d first had a few nights ago. The one that had made tears run in great tracks down both sides of her face. She wasn’t sure why, however. There wasn’t anything horrible about Captain Amazing. It was undoubtedly his best role and even if it hadn’t been, even if the character was an out-and-out disaster in spandex, he hadn’t done anything bad to her.

  She was somehow sinking into a big tar pit, so he’d hauled her out.

  That was all. That was all. There wasn’t any subtext. Holden wasn’t even anything like Captain Amazing. He didn’t smoke a pipe, for a start. And to the best of her knowledge, he had never eaten a crystal from the planet Corian then split into an evil version of himself. Unless the guy she was with was the evil version of himself.

  In which case, she hoped he wouldn’t fly her into space then leave her there.

  That would be a real downbeat end to their little love affair.

  Though once she really thought about it, there were a lot of things that could count as a downbeat end to their little affair. He might decide it wasn’t a love affair at all because they’d never been out on a date or met each other’s parents or admitted anything of the sort aloud. She might decide it wasn’t a love affair at all, just because she couldn’t do any of those things that he was possibly bothered about. Then finally the worst one—he could have realized that she was a lying pervert.

  Space sounded almost cool when compared to any of those reasons, and especially that last one. Why on earth had she let herself fall asleep the night before? At the very least she should have explained to him why she’d done all of those things. She could have told him she read books. Hell, she could have told him about the weird internet porn.

  Everyone watched weird internet porn these days. He was probably watching right now, in an effort to catch up with the crazy things she’d done. When she closed her eyes she could almost see him Googling My virgin girlfriend is a secret sex freak who licks my butt, but of course the moment she did she had to poke something hard and sharp right through her ear and into her brain.

  He wasn’t really thinking that, was he? How bad had she been, on a scale of one to ten? She suspected a six, then had to bump it up to an eight when he wasn’t where she expected him to be. He usually took a shower first thing in the morning, but she couldn’t hear him singing Goodbye Horses. And he wasn’t in the basement either, picking stuff for them to devour together. She shouted down and didn’t get, Hey remember that bit in Clue when he goes for the door handle and gets sprayed in the face?

  There was only silence.

  A long, long silence, of the kind she used to love. No people asking her if she was okay, no endless questions about how she’d managed it. No constant wondering how she had. Just that shush of the ocean, low and calm. The sound of her own breathing, saying clearly that she was alive—that it was all right to be alive.

  But suddenly that wasn’t enough.

  She’d grown used to his voice, his presence. She’d made a space for him inside herself and wasn’t sure how to make it go away now. She tried to shrink it with terrible thoughts about his playboy lifestyle, or maybe that picture she remembered of him with a perm. None of it worked, however. The space remained.

  And when she heard him calling her name, that same space swelled to three times the size. It made mo
re room for him, more doors for him to open, more of everything.

  “I’m out here,” he said, and she had about thirty seconds to wallow in relief. Thirty seconds of spontaneous smiling and lots of soppy thoughts about how cool he was and how he kept not disappointing her...before she realized with a start. He wasn’t actually in the house. He was outside.

  He had gone outside onto her porch.

  “Why are you out there?”

  She did her best to keep her voice light. To make it sound as if she thought he were somehow silly for doing this—even though there was nothing silly about it at all. He hadn’t accidentally fallen into a big hole. He’d just walked out the door. There was nothing ridiculous about that, no matter how hard she tried to make it so.

  “Come inside and get some breakfast,” she said, but knew she was fighting a losing battle. It was obvious before he’d even answered.

  “First you have to see this sunrise, Al. It’s amazing—seriously, how do you not want to look at this every day?”

  Because I have agoraphobia.

  I have severe and crippling agoraphobia.

  “You know how much I love sleeping.”

  “I do know that. I have enjoyed you sleeping on me many, many times now. Last night was a particularly good example of your passionate relationship with snoozing.”

  “Oh I didn’t...I really didn’t mean to nod off, I—”

  “It’s fine, baby, it’s fine. You worked hard. You deserved a rest.” He paused. He paused so much she could practically hear him thinking. “Besides...I can’t talk. I lapsed into a coma about five minutes after that. And to be honest, I’m amazed I lasted that long. I think you liquidized most of the bones in my body.”

  “That doesn’t sound like a good thing.”

  “I’m pretty sure that’s a good thing. It still feels like a good thing now.”

  “It does? I was worried that I...seemed like a sex maniac.”