by Julia Kent
“But I — ” I frown. “Okay. That’s some strong logic. Fair enough. What makes me a good kisser?”
“You kiss like you mean it.”
“Explain, please. Because I don’t know what that means, but then again, half my brain exploded with that orgasm you gave me with your thigh.” Did I really just say that? Oh, God. If I could smother myself with one of these twenty-seven decorative pillows, I would.
“I gave you an orgasm with my thigh.” He looks at the body part in question the way some guys look at power tools.
“And a little help from your tongue and fingers.”
“They played a supporting role?”
“You could say that.”
“My tongue would like the opportunity to play the lead.”
“That can be arranged,” I respond, my voice suddenly a thousand miles away as he kisses his way from the spot between my breasts down my belly.
“Wait until you see the orgasms I can give you with other body parts of mine. But tongue first.”
“Is it hot in here? I’m feeling dizzy. And hot.”
“You’re hot all right. Hot and sweet and I need to taste you. Now.”
I’ve never been so aware of my own breath, of how my body and my mind work together. Reaching down, I cover Ryan’s hand at my hip, taking in the feel of the back of his hand, the thick muscle of his palm, the simple majesty of the size of his masculine hands. He retreats, respectfully, and I jut one hip up, making it easier to slip out of my panties, sliding them down and over my thigh-highs.
Now I’m naked. Naked, in heels and stockings, with my best friend on top of me, eyes dark with desire, broad chest expanding with every hushed breath, the room thick with anticipation.
Somehow, the silence is comfortable. It shouldn’t be. Two Carries are at war inside me, one fumbling and awkward, the other deliberate and yearning. No man has ever treated my body the way Ryan is right now, with an expression of worship, a gentle, slow absorption that makes me wonder how I’ve lived for so many years without knowing that a man can look at me like this.
A woman could bathe in this kind of attention forever, floating in bliss, enveloped by the high regard of a lover who is here, fully, to enjoy and be enjoyed.
All my internal weirdness drains out of me, fading into the shadows as if it’s been told to step down, told to go back and rest. Heal. Recover from years of being on guard for a battle that never ends.
In Ryan’s eyes I see a warrior, a peacekeeper, a general with reinforcements.
A benevolent king.
His eyes tell me I am a queen.
His queen.
As he bends toward me, one hand stroking my ribs, his mouth descends over my breast, tongue circling my nipple with tight, wet heat. It feels so good, my belly moving as I begin to breathe, excitement infusing everything. With hesitation, I reach down and run my fingers through his hair, enjoying his touch at the same time I keep thinking, This is Ryan!
He slides up my body, kissing all the way, until his hard heat presses over me like a protective forcefield, his mouth taking mine in a kiss that makes me think Oh, yes.
This is Ryan.
I run my hands across his shoulders, fingertips brushing along the big, built joints, covered with fine muscle that feels so smooth yet so calibrated, honed through effort. He is raw power in motion, a gentle giant with my body as he breaks the kiss and moves down, down between my breasts, over my navel, kissing his way to that line of no return where his hands smoothly part my thighs and his face, oh, his face is between my legs and he’s about to —
“You don’t have to do that!” I gasp, my hands on my breasts, frozen. I want to reach for his head but he’s right there, breathing warm fire on my vulnerable, wet clit, which throbs so hard, pulling toward him, wanting what he’s about to give but terrified of the unknown.
“I – what?” Ryan kisses the inside of each thigh, drawing out his moves, moving up to my torso and staring right into my eyes.
“You don’t, you know. Have to do, um, that.”
“Do what, Carrie?”
I wave in the vague direction of my screaming, throbbing sex parts. “You know.”
“Say it.”
A new wave of wet warmth rushes between my legs. His voice is commanding, soft and urgent, with a steel tone that makes me feel like I’m a student in the hands of the ultimate master.
“Erm?” I squeak.
“Tell me what you don’t want me to do, Carrie. Tell me,” he says between taking mouthfuls of my nipple, “what you don’t want. Because I don’t think you can.”
“You don’t think I can tell you what I don’t want?”
“I think you want everything I’m about to do to you. With you. In you.”
THIS IS RYAN!
“I just mean, um, I know guys don’t really like to do, um, that.”
“That?”
“You know. Oral sex.”
“You think guys don’t like to lick you. To taste you. To slip their tongue between your legs and bury themselves in your sweetness?” He reaches down and uses his thumb to perform magic between my legs. Pure magic.
All the heat in my body rushes to my face, breasts, and clit. All of it. My organs turn to ice and my blood has fled to Argentina.
“Um, well.” Words escape me. They all went to South America, too, along with most of my brain.
Ryan pauses. My body sputters, hips moving up to catch his touch again. “Carrie, who told you that?” His words are so soft, so skeptical. A little angry.
“What?”
“Who told you men don’t like to do this?” He crawls down my body, shoving my legs apart fast, putting my knees up and heels on the bed. A blast of chilled air hits my exposed vulva and he dips his head between my legs, giving me one beautiful, perfect lick that makes me arch up, body begging for more.
Self-consciousness wars with the desire to let go, to follow Ryan’s lead, to actually believe what he’s saying.
“Carrie? Answer me.” He’s looking at me from between my legs, confident and bare, intent on hearing my answer. I can’t get out of this, his eyes say.
“Every guy I’ve ever been with.” It comes out like a laugh, a choked sob, a confession, a charge. “Or sometimes I could just tell.”
“Then you’ve been with the wrong men, Carrie. Let me show you how much I want to do this. Let me show you how much I’ve fantasized about tasting you for all these years. Let me show you how it feels to have a man who wants more than anything to give you what you need.” He shakes his head, eyes stormy. “And when I’m done, let me do it again.”
Every word he speaks is a permission slip submitted to the part of me that resists, each sultry, earnest pleasure vow a code that opens the door inside me.
I let go, closing my eyes, letting out a long sigh that I hope he understands.
His tongue tells me in no uncertain terms that he does.
It’s not that no one has ever done this to me, but the way Ryan does it makes my whole body yield to his ministrations, interconnected and entwined. Sex is something I do to connect on a deeper emotional level with men I love. Intimacy forges bonds. It has a purpose. It’s pleasurable and nice, the cuddling afterward is a welcome retreat into affection that feels settled. Safe.
Anchored.
As Ryan slips one, then two fingers inside me and I clench around him, his touch rippling through me as if he’s pulling me in, daring me to show him all of me, every sound, every nuance, every everything, his tongue isn’t just performing a task or a ritual.
He’s enjoying this.
He’s truly enjoying me.
I’ve never been so naked and vulnerable and alive and excited with someone who urged me to go further, to give way, to be wet and wild. Someone who takes his time, enjoying himself and in no hurry. I’m squirming as an orgasm of a new sort starts to take over, a soaring, swollen sense inside me that fills every muscle, making me hold my breath then gasp for air. It’s too much. I move so his t
ongue stops touching the spot that makes me feel like every blood vessel in my face is about to explode into rosy fireworks.
“Is this good?” he murmurs. “Tell me what you want, Carrie.”
“Is this good?” I moan, my clit lit up like a Fourth of July sparkler, all my nerves jangling. I sit up and he moves to me, like grey smoke in human form, so languid and graceful. Our kiss fills my mouth with my own juices and I giggle.
“So that’s what I taste like,” I blurt out.
Ryan’s shoulders drop, his face a blend of anger and understanding. “Oh, Carrie.” His grin is that of a predator as he backs away, finding his place between my legs again. “We’re not even close to finished.”
This time, I put both of my hands on his head, loving the lush softness of his hair, my hands guiding him to rhythms I didn’t know I had in me. Some part of me detonates, sending shockwaves of heat to the far corners and curves of my body, my core tightening at the same time I hold my breath and climb, climb, climb to to the top of the world.
I try to draw back, curl in, because the feeling is too intense, too wet, too dry, too cold, too hot, too luscious, too bold, too —
“Oh, oh, oh,” I cry out, grabbing his hair, grabbing the sheets, grabbing thin air as if I am about to drift into space. He flattens one palm against my hip, making me feel, making me endure, making me turn every part of me into every part of him and I can’t move, can’t freeze, can’t stop panting, can’t stop –
I become everything.
The world pulses with me as Ryan follows my moving body, my fingers digging into his neck, his mouth smiling against me, tongue working that mystical chaos that splits me open and swallows me whole. I scream, a sound in the back of my throat that is all my muscles from the inside out trying to cry out his name.
Blood rushes to my head, a pulse in line with his strokes, and I go limp, little shocks nipping at my clit, my walls, my nipples, my thighs. I release layers inside me I didn’t know were tense, and just when I think I’m done, Ryan looks at me, moving halfway up my body, and whispers, “You’re so real, C-Shel. So beautiful. ”
“Come here,” I whisper, reaching for his chest, running my hands all over his rugged body. He’s thick and huge, breathing hard and so big. Big chest, big arms, big thighs, big erection.
I want him inside me. I want to give him the pleasure he just gave me.
“I can’t believe we’re doing this,” I murmur, amazed by his body, touching it so intimately after two years of looking at it mostly naked five days a week. But we’re alone now. What a difference. He’s tanned and sculpted, skin going tight every time my hand sweeps across it. His body responds to me as I sit up on my knees and just take him in.
While I touch him, Ryan looks at me until he comes in for a kiss, making it long and full. Vibrant and restrained, he’s so present. The ocean beats against the shore outside, loud and then lulling, and all I hear is the water and our heartbeats. I lick his collarbone, leaving a small love bite, my hand moving down the corded terrain of his eight pack, finding thicker hair, then his shaft, ready for me.
The groan he makes when I wrap my hand around him is so gratifying. I’m in a place where the world still spins with frantic joy, so I bend down to taste him, finding warm silk. His sharp whistling inhale is punctuated by an exhale of my name. When Ryan says it that way, I feel emboldened. Brazen. Empowered.
Ready to give. Wanting to give.
He’s big. So big. That’s not some cliché, and while I can count on one hand the number of guys I’ve slept with and still have room to flash the OK sign, even I know that this is, well...
Special.
He’s so open with his body that I relax and pull him in, deep, my tongue flattening, spare hand unsure. Abruptly, he stops me, and I’m on my back, Ryan over me, cock hard and wet.
“If you keep that up, I’ll come.”
I give him a sly smile. “Isn’t that the point?”
The look on his face is so endearing, so brutally honest and stripped of facade that my heart expands, filling my chest until I feel it in the marrow of my bones. He cups my breasts, touching them with great care, then kisses me gently.
“The point is to do this right. I want to make love. Not just get off, Carrie. It’s...” He frowns slightly, brows coming together, and I see a vein in his forehead pop out. He’s restraining himself, fists tight, and I’m aware of more between us than we had even seconds ago.
I sit up and kiss him, widening my legs, and as he lowers me gently onto the bed he tears something in his right hand and reaches between us.
“Condom,” he whispers.
“I’m on the pill.”
“Good to know.”
And with that, he’s in me, his forehead pressed against mine, the slick sweat of our bellies gliding against each other as he fills me, more and more with each stroke, an impossible fullness that grows as he moves. Just when I think he’s reached as far inside me as he can get, he finds a way to give me more.
This is Ryan, I think as we rock our way to orgasm, his hips rising and falling, moving at angles that render me mute, his powerful arms on either side of me, encasing me in a tiny world our bodies make with motion and flesh, friction and skin, kisses and strokes.
He moves faster, instinct making me widen my legs.
“Wrap your legs around me, Carrie,” he urges, the sound of my name on his lips as we fight for what comes next so arousing I damn near come now. I do as he says, my heels digging into his ass, which moves like a wild animal, all dominance, no mercy.
Something in me breaks, a snap I feel in my heart, like a new ship’s ribbon being cut, the cry of a newborn, the finish line victory of a marathon runner. Tears spring to my eyes, pinpricks that fill and fill and fill me like Ryan, who is gasping my name, face buried in my hair, our bodies saying two years of feelings.
This is Ryan, I think as my last coherent thought before ecstasy washes me out to sea.
This is Ryan.
Chapter 12
CARRIE
Have you ever seen that viral video of otters swimming in a bucket of water? Then you know what I look like getting into my maid of honor dress by myself.
That’s right. By myself.
I woke up to an empty bed the morning after we made love, the morning of Jenny’s wedding.
No Ryan. Again.
I’m sure there’s a perfectly reasonable explanation for why he disappeared after a night of wild passion with me. When I opened my eyes, the room smelled like warm sex and coffee. There was a hot latte next to the bed.
Latte, but no note.
I refuse to panic. As I finish putting on my stockings, an unsure smile makes me chew my lower lip. He’ll be back.
Right? Of course he will. Don’t be silly.
I admit this is a flattering dress, and it achieves that with structural engineering that probably requires a college degree like Ryan’s. But how are you supposed to fasten a row of hooks in the back of your own dress? It’s not like a garter belt, where you can fasten it in front and just spin it around. By the time I manage closure, there are dark circles of sweat under both arms.
But my breasts are higher, my waist is smaller, and my ass is perkier than they were when I started. Too bad Ryan isn’t here to see me.
The bridesmaids have finished brunch, hair, and makeup, and now we’re supposed to get dressed for photos, three hours before the actual wedding. You heard me — three hours. I’ve been able to get a driver’s license faster. It would have been easier if I could have asked Ryan for help with these hooks. Judging by the way he unzipped me last night, he knows his way around women’s garments.
At least, he knows how to remove them.
Is that from working at O? From past girlfriends? Or just from having four sisters? And why do I care, anyway? Last night was just…
I don’t know what last night was. But one way or the other, it changed my life.
Forever.
I take a last peek in the mir
ror. Several wisps of hair have pulled free from my updo, and are hanging down in inconvenient places. There are mascara smudges under both eyes. I blot the black circles with a tissue. It looks like the morning after a long night and I haven’t even left the room yet.
“Oh well,” I sigh, “It’s about how Jenny looks, not me. No one’s going to be looking at me.” I dust on a little powder and head out the door. Wherever Ryan is, he’ll join me at the wedding.
Right? A date’s a date.
The wedding party is gathered outside on the lawn overlooking the ocean below, and Jenny is indeed a gorgeous bride. She’s always been tall and thin, but Bridal Boot Camp defined her arms and sculpted her back. Her gown is a perfectly simple column of white satin, and although it’s a surprisingly warm day, the Atlantic breeze keeps the temperature perfect. There’s something so romantic about a long white veil billowing in the air.
“Carrie!” She rustles over and hugs me, enveloping me in a cloud of Cristalle perfume. “Your flowers are over on the table.”
“Jenny, you look so beautiful!”
“I should!” she laughs. “Six professionals have been working on me for two days! It’s never going to get any better than this. If I weren’t the one wearing a long white dress, Aiden wouldn’t recognize me.”
“Where is he?” I ask, looking around. “I don’t think I recognize him, either.”
“He’s over there with the ushers. The hotel just sent over a tray of IPAs. And a Champagne cocktail for Jamey.” She smiles, then looks at me sweetly. “I am so grateful you’re still in my wedding, Carrie. And that everything’s working out so well for you. Ryan seems like a really great guy. And it’s obvious he really loves you.” Her eyes fill. “I want you and Jamey both to be happy, as happy as I am.”
Before I can reply, Jenny’s mom appears at her elbow and points to the photographer, who has set up his tripod and is waiting. Another quick hug and she moves off to take care of bride business.
What was it she said? It’s obvious he really loves you… obvious he really loves you...
