Between Brothers

by Lauren Gallagher

  His lips parted in surprise, maybe puzzlement, then he grinned. “I’ll keep my fingers in your pussy as long as you want, baby.”

  “Something tells me you want to put something else in my pussy.”

  He swallowed hard. Busted. He didn’t even try to keep the tough, controlled façade going anymore. “There’s nothing I want more right now, believe me.”

  It was my turn to be in control, was it? I gave him a challenging look. “Nothing more you want right now than what, Eric?”

  He kissed me and slowly withdrew his fingers from my pussy, laughing softly as my body tensed. “You know exactly what I want, and you want it too.” He kissed me again, sliding his tongue into my mouth in the same instant that his fingers slid free of my pussy.

  When he broke the kiss, he had that grin again, that smirk that said he wanted to continue with this banter, this verbal one-upmanship as we playfully fought for dominance, but before he could speak, I said, “Eric…”

  He blinked, possibly as startled as I was by the growl in my voice. He raised his eyebrows, cocking his head slightly.

  Now that I had his undivided attention, I wetted my lips. “Fuck me.”

  His lips parted again, but he didn’t make any attempt at a smartass retort. He reached for the sliding glass door and we both hurried inside. As soon as he shut the door, he stopped me and kissed me, pushing my bathrobe over my shoulders.

  “Condoms,” I said, edging towards the bedroom.

  “Got it covered.” He nudged me towards the couch a few feet away. He lowered me onto the couch and laid over me, his jeans brushing against my bare skin. He kissed my neck and whispered, “Back left pocket.”

  I put my hands around his waist and reached into his pocket as he’d suggested. He grinned as my fingers found the foil package. As I brought my hands and the condom back around, he raised himself up and fumbled with his jeans.

  “You never run out of energy, do you?” I said.

  “Not when there’s a pussy like yours waiting for me.” He reached for the condom, but I kept it away from him. He gave me a puzzled look.

  “Allow me.” I ripped the packet with my teeth, tossed the empty wrapper aside, and reached between us. I stroked his cock a few times, watching his face as I did.

  “Fucking tease,” he breathed.

  “You love it.”

  “I do.” He swallowed hard. “Baby, put it on, I have got to fuck you now.” The plea in his voice made my mouth water. I loved it when he was like that.

  He kissed me as I rolled the condom on. His breaths came in short, shallow gasps, and I thought he was shaking.

  As soon as the condom was on, he grabbed my wrists

  and pinned me down on the couch, thrusting into me with a throaty groan. Each stroke seemed to take his breath away just as it took mine away. I moved my hips with him, pulling him deeper.

  “Oh fuck, you’re so wet, oh my God,” he said, his voice edging towards a whimper. I tightened my pussy around him. Released. Tightened again. He closed his eyes and threw his head back. “Oh fuck, oh fuck, oh fuck…”

  Then he slowed down, stopped completely, paused to take a breath. “I want you on top.” He swallowed hard. “I want you to do what you did the other night.” The desperation in his voice sent a tingle up my spine.

  We quickly changed positions. As I lowered myself on top of him, I held his wrists against the couch just as he had done. I took just the head of his cock into my pussy, biting my lip and forcing back the barely-controlled urge to ride him hard and fast.

  I took a deep breath and whispered, “Tell me how you want it.”

  “Slow,” he said, almost groaning. “Just like the other— fuck, yes, just like that.”

  I took him inside me as slowly as I possibly could, which wasn’t an easy task with as bad as I was still trembling after the orgasms he’d given me already.

  He closed his eyes and wetted his lips as our bodies came together, his cock buried all the way inside me. I suppressed a moan, trying to stay in control. Fuck, he felt incredible inside me. His body tensed as I rose off of him, and his hips followed, as if trying to keep himself inside me just a little bit longer, but I stayed out of his reach. When only the head of his cock was inside me, I made circles with my hips, then let him a little farther into my pussy, then backed off again. He tried to thrust upward, but I always stayed just beyond his reach, refusing to relinquish this sweet control over how much of my pussy he could fuck.

  His lips parted with a sharp breath. Frustration? Arousal? I couldn’t tell. His wrists twitched in my hands and I watched with satisfaction as his fists clenched. He groaned softly. Eric was amazing when he was in control, but he was beyond words when he was under my control.

  All at once, I took his entire cock inside me in one

  swift stroke. His eyes flew open and he gasped, his back arching. “Holy…fuck…”

  I rose slowly again. I took several more long, slow strokes, then a fast one. Three or four slow, one fast.

  “Oh my God, that’s…” He arched his back again as I took another rapid stroke. “Oh fuck…” His muscles rippled. His head fell to one side as his eyes scrunched closed and his lips pulled back in a grimace that could almost be mistaken for one of pain. “Oh God, oh my God, Marisa, you’re…” He gasped. “You’re going to make me…” He thrust upward. I didn’t avoid him this time. No, this time, I gave him everything I had, fucking him as hard and fast as I could, rocking my hips back and forth with each stroke.

  “Fucking…holy…fuck!” His hips launched off of the couch so hard that he almost knocked me off balance, but I recovered and kept riding him as he roared and shook and groaned and trembled beneath me.

  After a moment, he pleaded, “Stop, stop, stop…”

  I did, finally letting him breathe. He closed his eyes and was still and silent for a moment, taking long, deep breaths, the occasional aftershock making him shudder beneath me.

  I leaned forward and kissed him. “I thought you were going to be in control tonight.”

  “Fuck me like that,” he slurred. “And I’ll be your Goddamned slave.”

  “I might hold you to that.”

  He closed his eyes again. “I think…” He paused.

  I kissed him again. “You think what?”

  He licked his lips. “I think I need another cigarette.”

  Thirty Two

  I squirmed in my seat at the restaurant the next night. My pussy still ached from everything Eric had done to me, but tonight it was nerves, not horniness, that unsettled me.

  My fingers played with the rim of my water glass and I tapped my foot against the table leg while I watched the door. Come on, let’s just do this and be done with it.

  Over and over, I silently begged him to show up, to just get here and get this over with, until the moment he appeared in the doorway. Then my chest seized and my blood turned to ice. I wanted to run, but I couldn’t move. Fuck.

  “Marisa,” John said, beaming as he approached the table.

  My heart in my throat, I forced a smile and stood, pleading with my legs to stay beneath me. “John.” His name was sour on my tongue and I barely kept myself from grimacing as he hugged me gently.

  We sat across from each other, the table not providing nearly enough space between us. For a while, we were silent, just looking at each other. Perhaps he was searching me for signs, emotions, something.

  It had been six months since we’d breathed the same air, and he was suddenly a stranger to me. Everything about him was both familiar and foreign; the way his smile rose slightly higher on the left than the right. Those dark, unreadable eyes. The bold way he set his shoulders back. As much as I loved a man with strong, powerful shoulders, the way he set his was almost arrogant, and it irritated rather than aroused me.

  He shifted in his chair, leaning forward slightly, and I barely resisted the urge to lean back. The way he squared his shoulders and folded his hands on the table in front of him made me think of a
brooding, menacing tycoon getting ready to take on a competitor in a boardroom.

  I swallowed hard. “So,” I said. “Here we are.”

  He nodded. “So we are.” He avoided my eyes for a second, then looked at me. “I’ve missed you, Marisa.”

  My heart pounded. “I’ve missed you.” As soon as the words were out, I wondered if he believed them any more than I did. It felt like little more than an automatic response, the next line in the same script we read through every time we came back together after another “trial separation”.

  He smiled, though, and reached across the table, putting his hand over mine. “I guess absence does make the heart grow fonder.”

  “So it does.” I resisted the urge to pull my hand away. His thumb brushed the back of my hand, a gesture I once found comforting. Now it just made my skin crawl.

  We were silent for a long, uncomfortable moment before he cleared his throat. “So, where do we go from here?”

  I looked into my water glass, chewing the inside of my cheek. I didn’t have an answer for him. Six months ago, I hadn’t wanted this at all. I wanted him to call and tell me that the separation was over, that he wanted me to come home. But the call never came, and the six months went by, and now there we were, just like we’d agreed, ready to decide if we were going to stay married or go our separate ways.

  And all I wanted was to be anywhere but there.

  Guilt tightened my throat. This was the man I married. For all the things we’d both done wrong, he must have wanted to give things another try if he was willing to get together and sort this out. We’d been apart for a long time, and things had been rough between us for much longer before that, but maybe time had tempered some of the conflict that had driven us apart. We’d barely been in the same room for ten minutes. He deserved the benefit of the doubt.

  “Marisa?”

  I looked at him. “I, I don’t know.”

  He pursed his lips. “Look, I’ve done a lot of thinking over the last few months.”

  “And?”

  He took a breath and thumbed the edge of the tablecloth. “I guess I needed a lot of time to figure everything out. Maybe the short separations we’ve done before weren’t enough.” He looked at me, but I said nothing, so he continued. “You were right about everything. I ignored you. I took you for granted.” He paused, swallowing hard before looking me in the eye. “I’m sorry, Marisa. I’m sorry for everything. And,” He took a breath. “I want to make this work.”

  Blood pounded in my ears. Six months ago, those were the words I longed to hear, but now I wasn’t so sure. I couldn’t count the number of times he’d “figured everything out” and “wanted to make this work”, but we’d never been apart this long. Maybe he was sincere. Maybe he wasn’t. We’d had a good thing a long time ago, and part of me ached to have that back. I didn’t know which prospect would result in more heartache: Letting go of any hope of having that happiness back, or giving him another chance and winding up in this position again.

  On one hand, I had no reason to believe he’d changed, since he’d sure as hell never changed before. On the other, we had taken vows, and he did seem as sincere now as he did on our wedding day.

  Then there was that nagging thought: Changed or not, did I even want to be with him anymore? Whether he’d changed or not, the fact remained that I had.

  I rubbed my eyes and sighed. “John, I just don’t know what to do at this point.”

  “We can try.” There was a hint of a plea in his voice. “Counseling, whatever it takes. I mean, even if it doesn’t work out this time, at least we can say we gave it a shot.”

  “Again?” I raised an eyebrow. He looked hurt. I sighed. “John, how many times are we going to do this before we either get it right or just go our separate ways?”

  “As many times as it takes to get it right,” he said. I swore he had tears in his eyes, and I looked away before I choked up myself. His hand squeezed mine and I barely kept myself from jumping, having forgotten that his hand was on mine in the first place.

  I met his eyes again. I was right, he did have tears in his eyes. Everything about him seemed sincere, heartfelt. He really wanted to make this work. The John sitting across from me wasn’t the John that had coldly told me we needed to “take some time apart” half a year ago. Back then, he’d kept a stiff upper lip and seemed almost flippant about taking a step towards ending our marriage.

  I dropped my gaze and watched my fingers toy with the edge of my menu. I loved him. I couldn’t pretend that I didn’t. But I needed a sign that he was sincere. I needed to know if the John sitting across from me was a changed man, or if going back to him was setting myself up for more heartache. And I needed to know that I hadn’t changed so much that we were no longer compatible at all.

  “Marisa?”

  I put my hands in my lap so he couldn’t see how badly they were shaking, and I looked him in the eye again. “I’m not sure about anything yet,” I said, barely managing a whisper. Swallowing hard, I forced myself to hold his gaze. “But maybe we’d stand a better chance of reconnecting if we went someplace else.”

  Thirty Three

  We tumbled through the front door in a tangle of arms, legs, and disheveled clothing. Somehow we made it across the condo to the bedroom, where we struggled out of our last remaining clothes before falling into bed together.

  John’s kiss was more passionate than it had been in a long time, his tongue probing my mouth as if he hadn’t tasted my kiss in years. I couldn’t remember the last time he’d wanted me like this.

  This is the moment of truth, I told myself.

  I gently took his hand and guided it to my pussy. He watched our hands, then glanced at me. With a little more guidance, I brought his fingertips to my clit and circled them slowly. He took my cue and continued the motion on his own.

  “Mmm, just like that,” I said, exhaling heavily. After a moment, I let go of his hand. “Yes, just like that.”

  And just seconds later, he moved his hand, bringing it back up to cup my breast as he kissed me again. His eyes were closed, so he didn’t see me roll mine with frustration. Once again, I guided his hand to my clit, and once again, he moved it away as soon as I released his hand.

  Maybe I needed to try a different approach.

  I broke the kiss. “You know what I would really, really love right now?”

  Grinning, he pressed his erection against me. “I think I know exactly what you want.”

  I smiled through the frustration. “I mean before that.”

  He raised his eyebrows. “What?”

  “I want you to…” The insecurities came crashing back as he eyed me. I swallowed. “I want you to go down on me. Until I come.”

  Cocking his head, he said, “But you never come that way.”

  No shit. Because you don’t spend enough time down there to make me come. I tried not to grit my teeth. “Try me.”

  He considered it for a second, then shrugged. For a moment, I thought he was going to ignore my request, but he kissed my neck, then my breasts, and as he kissed his way down my belly, I realized he was actually going to do it. I couldn’t remember the last time he’d gone down on me.

  His lips touched my hipbone and continued towards my pussy. Oh my God, he’s going to do it. He’s actually going to do it.

  What I didn’t count on was how sensitive my clit was after my night with Eric. Nor did I expect John to attack it with such fervor.

  Yelping in pain, I nearly came up off the bed as soon as his tongue hit my clit.

  He looked up, his eyes wide. “I thought you wanted—”

  I exhaled, forcing myself to relax. “Just not—just, be gentle.”

  Furrowing his brow, he dipped his head again and ran his tongue across my clit. I tried not to flinch, but after he lapped at it a couple of times, I couldn’t stop myself.

  “Easy,” I said. “Just go slow, gentle.”

  He eased up on the pressure, but not by much. I gritted my teeth. />
  “Easy…”

  He shook his head as he came back up to kiss my mouth. “See, you’re way too sensitive down there for that.”

  “I just have to get used to what you’re doing, that’s all.”

  “I have a better idea,” he said, reaching towards the nightstand. He paused and glanced at me. “You don’t mind using condoms, do you? I mean, since we’ve been separated…” He lifted an eyebrow, eyeing me like he was expecting me to get angry.

  “Go ahead,” I said with a nod.

  He put the condom on and positioned himself over me. “God, I’ve missed you.” His voice was a low growl, but it wasn’t that arousing, primal growl that Eric or Darren had. If anything, it just made John sound like an ass. That thought amused me, but I refused to let him see it.

  “I’ve missed you, too,” I said, not even caring if I sounded as flippant as I felt.

  He fucked me hard and fast like he always did, but just like always, I didn’t feel much. He somehow managed to fuck me without putting a single ounce of pressure on my clit –though, that night, that was probably not a bad thing–and missing my G-spot entirely. I didn’t bother giving him any suggestions.

  Every woman for herself, I thought bitterly. I gripped his shoulders and rolled my hips back slightly, repositioning myself so that he hit my G-spot in spite of his apparent best efforts not to.

  Then I started to feel something. My orgasm built quickly, perhaps not to the intensity to which I’d grown accustomed in recent months, but it was more intense than I’d ever thought possible with John. I closed my eyes and moaned softly, digging my fingers into his shoulders as he pushed me towards the edge.

  Just before I came, he adjusted his own position, lowering himself to his elbows instead of holding himself up with his hands. And once again, he bypassed my G-spot completely.

  “The way you were,” I whispered breathlessly. “Just a little bit more…”

  “I like it this way,” he murmured. “Fuck, you feel so good.” His voice was strained, tense, the way it always was right before he came.