by Chloe Liese
I scrubbed my neck and grinned bashfully at her. “I mean, I’d say I’m proportional, yeah? That’s all.”
She shook her head while she crooked her finger at me. “The nuns in primary school always did say be careful what you pray for.”
Laughing, I crawled over her, my lips sweeping across her collarbone. “You prayed for a man with an over-average willy as a girl, Elodie? I’m concerned.”
The bed shook with our laughter, as she wrapped her arms and legs around me, then nestled close. Feeling her warm body finally against mine, I had to bite my lip. Nothing felt this good— the simple touch of two bodies—except this, with Elodie. To her I wasn’t a famous footballer or a CEO, a status symbol or a tall, decent-looking fellow to fuck and then mark off her dossier. I was a man whose weaknesses and particularities she knew, my neurotic need for tidiness and big breakfasts, my love of Debussy and a tight business plan, my dry sense of humor and my protective impulse. Elodie knew me. And I knew her.
This was intimacy, wasn’t it? Feeling like every part of what made us who we were was reciprocally known, accepted…
Loved.
My heart beat wildly, the need to be inside her overwhelmingly powerful. I pulled her close, tilting her mouth up to mine.
“I’ll go slow, okay?” I whispered, showering kisses, soft and gentle, over her face. Showing her I could be patient, even when my body felt about to detonate. She moaned quietly into my mouth, relaxing in my arms.
“There.” I interlaced our hands and began to kiss down her body.
Each soft kiss, I breathed in her warm, flowery scent, tasted her skin in sucks and tender bites. My tongue swirled down her stomach and to her pelvis. She rocked her hips, squeezing my hands.
“This is torture,” she whispered.
Finally I released one of her hands and slid a finger along her soft skin, a thumb against her swollen clit. “Christ, you’re drenched.”
“Lucas.” I loved how she said my name. Tenderly, desperately.
“How do you like it, sweetheart? Show me.”
She parted herself, showing me everything. My mouth went dry, starving to taste her. I leaned down, but she put a hand to my forehead. “No. Just because my cycle’s coming. I won’t be able to relax and enjoy it.”
I growled and nipped at her thigh. “That’s torture.”
She laughed, and I watched her slip a finger inside and then bring it up. Fast swipes over her clit. Quickly, her body tightened, and a flush crept up her cheeks. That meant—
“Now hang on,” I said. I shoved her hand off, and began kissing tenderly across her belly. “Not so fast.”
“Why?” she said tightly. “Why wait and draw it out unnecessarily?”
“Are you serious?”
She looked down at me. “Yes. I know how to come. I always make sure I come before a fellow does, too, so I’d say I’ve rather perfected the art of near-simultaneous orgasms, thank you very much.”
“No, no, no. There is so much wrong about that. First off, the whole bloody point is every minute before you orgasm. Where you get to feel incredible and teased and worshiped. Where I get to feast on your body and enjoy it for as long as I want.”
She cocked an eyebrow. “Is that so? I’ve been orgasming wrong all these years, then,” she said dryly.
I laughed and kissed my way up her body. “Not wrong, I take that back. It’s just…Elodie, you deserve time and attention. You deserve to be worshiped. Not given a three-thrust fuck and have yourself a good night.”
“But it still all comes down to an orgasm,” she said matter-of-factly.
I’d just have to persuade her, then. God, I was lucky. “Well, darling, let’s allow me to have a go, and we’ll see what tune you’re singing afterward, shall we?”
She grinned and nestled into the mattress. “I suppose so.”
“Now, where were we. Ah, yes.” I cupped her breasts, dizzy with desire as I saw them spill out of my grip. I had large hands. Elodie just had even larger, glorious tits. I sucked her nipple into my mouth steadily, teasing the other, and heard her breath hitch, felt her belly tighten as I pressed a hand down her stomach and cupped her.
“So beautiful, Elodie.” I stared down, watching my hand grow slick with her arousal, euphoric that this goddess in my arms was naked and wet and calling my name. I don’t know why, but French slipped off my tongue. I’d had my share of French lovers—I knew what to say—but this was unscripted. It was honest and reverent. I told Elodie how beautiful she was in the language she knew best. I wanted nothing lost in translation.
“Putain,” she panted.
I laughed against her lips. “Only in French can the word for whore mean, wow.”
Elodie smiled as I kissed her again. “Whores and brothels,” she said. “The foundation of French profanity.”
“Well,” I whispered over her mouth, “what’s the verdict?”
She shook in my arms, breathing unsteadily, arching into my touch. “I…didn’t think I’d like it. I don’t like to wait. But…oh God…” She sighed. “I like it with you. I like you touching me, making it last.”
Christ, her words were heady. She reached for me and swept her thumb over the tip. I swore into her neck, her words, her touch, wrenching me closer and closer to the need to come. My cock had a pulse, and my bollocks were so tight they hurt.
“Don’t, or I’ll shoot my load,” I muttered. I kissed her temple as she released me begrudgingly.
I bit along her neck, nipping her collarbone, down to her nipples again. I sank my teeth over one, then the other, laving and kissing between bites. She started to shake, her belly pulled in as she gripped my hair with her free hand. “I want you. I want you inside me.”
“I want you too, love.” As our mouths met and tongues tangled, I slid myself against her, where she was warm and wet. Kissing her lips, I dragged them softly between my teeth and grew hungrier with each taste I took.
“Elodie,” I whispered against her mouth.
“Mm?” she answered, slipping her hands through my hair, making my scalp tingle in the wake of her nails as they scratched their way.
“Tell me if I hurt you?” I ground against her, groaning as I felt how ready she was.
“Oh, it’s going to hurt, Loulou. But the good kind of hurt. There’s no way around it. You’re massive, and I…I haven’t been…” She sighed. “It’s been a while.”
I laughed. “Well, wait for my poor showing, because me too.”
Her eyes cracked open. “You’re joking.”
“No, I’m bloody not, woman.” I paused. “Why is it so hard to believe?”
Elodie tugged me back over her. “Don’t get cranky. You’re just a very desirable man with a high sex drive. It’s not unreasonable to be surprised.”
“How do you know I have a high sex drive?”
“You wear it like a stamp on your forehead, Lucas. I’m the same way.”
I groaned as she gripped my length again. “How often do you like it?”
“Daily,” she said happily. “Twice or more, ideally.” Our kisses resumed as she ran her hand across my shoulder and over my back. I shivered when she whispered against my skin, “Let me guess. Loulou likes sex before coffee. Sex after lunch. Sex before dinner and then right before bed.”
“Possibly accurate,” I croaked.
Fact was I was a lecherous bloke, but the idea of that much sex in and of itself wasn’t what made me wild. It was the thought of all of that with Elodie. How I’d wake her up with my face between her thighs; drag her into my office’s little sleeping room right after a lunch meeting; shove her skirt to her waist and take her against the wall right after we got inside the door at home; kiss her and make love to her so slowly, she’d be weeping for joy before she fell deep asleep at night, sated and adored.
We fell into silence as I dragged myself against her, over and over. Only her quiet gasps punctuated the air as her fingers sank into my skin. For long minutes I stared down at her, wanting to m
emorize every feature of her face—full soft lips, those deep sapphire eyes that flickered as she grew desperate. Her dimples flashed as she bit her lip, fighting a cry. I kissed them quickly, licking the tiny divots and lavishing her face with my mouth, so fucking needy to taste and feel her.
“Now, Lucas,” she whispered, reaching for me, and making me curse as she wrapped her warm fingers around the base of my length. “I want to come when you’re inside me.”
With my knees, I nudged her legs wider, then dropped to my elbows and framed her face.
She drifted her hands over my shoulders and down my back. Every touch of her hands was bliss, more erotic than the deepest kiss, the dirtiest position of my past. Elodie’s touch was a pebble skittering over the surface of my body, shooting wider and wider waves until they built to a tsunami. I kissed her deeply, pressing the head of my cock against her entrance.
“Lucas, do you have a condom?” she whispered against my lips.
I shook my head. “Don’t need one.”
“I’m clean too,” she said, misunderstanding my meaning, “but I’m out of my birth control pills.”
Fuck.
It had left my mouth before I could stop myself, and now I had no reply to that. We didn’t need birth control, but I didn’t want her knowing that. That’s what I got for opening my gab when ninety-nine percent of my blood was concentrated in my dick.
She pulled back and eyed me disbelievingly as she connected the dots. “You mean we don’t need birth control?” I hesitated a moment too long, and she grabbed my shoulders firmly. “Tell me.”
I dropped my forehead to the bed, letting my body be a dead weight over her. As I did, she slid her hand slowly up and down my back, waiting patiently. She was so fucking patient with me.
“I had a vasectomy,” I said. “Two months ago.”
“Oh, Loulou.” Her forehead pressed into the crook of my neck.
“It’s hereditary, Elodie. I don’t want to pass it on.”
She exhaled shakily, squeezing me toward her.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered against her temple, nuzzling her hair, breathing in her scent. Her body was home and incense, respite and prayer, the only thing that held me together.
Her arms locked tight around me as I pressed my lips to her ear and confessed. As I poured out my heart and began to slip inside her. “I’m sorry for everything I can’t give you, for every way I’m going to fall short. I’m sorry that I want you more than I want to spare you.”
“Lucas,” she cried softly. I paused, sensing how overwhelmed we both were by our bodies, finally connected. She was impossibly tight, squeezing me to the point of near pain, but even so, I ached to bury myself inside her. She cupped my arse, pulling me toward her. Apparently, she had the same idea.
“Please, Lucas. Don’t be gentle.”
I shivered in the wake of her touch, her quiet pants against my neck, as I eased in further. My need built, and I thrust into her until I was fully seated, making us both cry out.
I dropped my forehead against hers. I could barely breathe she felt so perfect. “You okay?”
“Yes,” she whispered, but beneath me she was shaking like a leaf.
“You’re trembling.”
She squeezed my arse and kissed my neck. “You feel incredible to me, Loulou. I’m all right, I promise.”
Dragging back, I felt her breath hitch. Sparks of pleasure shot up my legs, straight to the base of my spine. “Elodie.”
She was all I could say. All I could feel or think.
Elodie, Elodie, Elodie.
Deep, steady strokes inside her, each one a heavenly hell. A fit so tight it nearly hurt, yet with each thrust, as my body met hers, Elodie softened and opened, and I felt the gift that she was giving me. Her heart, her body, entrusted to me.
The emotions, the relief of us tangled together, built to an urgency, unleashed a volatile demand. I couldn’t be slow or patient or any other gentlemanly bedroom practice. I needed to fill her completely, feel my body become the same thing as hers—whole and strong and redeemed.
“I’m sorry.” I drew back and drove into her. Hard.
“Yes!” Her eyes locked with mine as she cradled my face. “Don’t stop, please don’t stop.” Her body shook beneath mine, her full breasts swaying with each drive, hair swirling around her as if she floated in water. I felt her begin to tighten around me and prayed I could fight off my own release.
“Lucas,” she gasped, her grip increasing, her breaths choppy and strained. “Tell me.”
“Tell you what?” I choked.
“What you need,” she whispered, smiling up at me. A flush crept up her neck, her hands still cupping my arse.
I stared at her mouth. With other women—even the one woman who I’d spent years with, that I refused to think about at a time like this—I hadn’t wanted to kiss as I came. To fall apart so openly. Elodie bit her lip, and I knew what I wanted. Maybe it was juvenile or insignificant, but it was what I wanted, and she’d actually asked. No woman had ever asked, like it was simply a given that I’d get off and that was that.
“Kiss me,” I said quietly. She wrapped her legs tight around me, drawing me somehow farther inside. Then she leaned up and pulled me hard against her. Every surface of our bodies was crushed together, and Elodie demonstrated that she’d been holding back just a little, because she kissed me like a bloody prodigy. My mind scrambled, my body soared; all I could do was feel.
A moan rumbled out of me, as torture became euphoria, a level of bliss I’d never known shocking my body. She keened quietly, arched her back as she came, wet and hot around me. On a grunt that sucked every drop of air out of me, I poured inside her, felt our release soak our skin while we moved together.
I gasped for air, pulled her hands from my face and interlaced them with mine. We sounded as though we’d surfaced from nearly drowning, and I knew I was crushing her, that I should get off, but I couldn’t make myself move. Her body was too warm, too perfectly soft and molded to mine. I was buried still, deep inside her. Even as I softened, I never wanted to leave.
Her cool lips pressed right below my ear and sent a jolt of fresh desire through me. Turning toward her and finding her mouth, I worshiped it with featherlight, then deep kisses, every feeling I had expressed in my touch. I hoped she felt as I did—that she knew how I felt, even though I couldn’t yet convey it in words. That now and forever, even long after I’d released her from what I’d become, I would be hers, and hers alone.
Twelve
Elodie
I woke up the next morning gloriously sore. Lucas’s heavy leg draped over my arse, his arm wrapped around me possessively. I watched his face, relaxed and peaceful. Admired his long, aquiline nose and smooth lips that looked so full, slightly parted in sleep. His lashes were dark blond like his hair, and the faint scruff along his angular jaw sparkled in the morning sun. It was blond too, and seeing it for the first time made me grin. Massive and fair, he looked remarkably Norse. Suddenly his authoritative, possessive tendencies made much more genetic sense.
“My Viking,” I murmured, admiring the beauty of a face that would be almost too lovely if it weren’t for the sharp angles that roughened it.
He shifted and pulled me tighter to him. A man whose size, so long and built, felt foreign to me, because as a tall, athletic woman with plenty of curves, I was used to being at least the same size as the men I’d been with before, if not larger. In the past, it had suited me fine.
But now, lying next to him, his handspan nearly covering the breadth of my back, his leg so heavy on my arse that it had gone numb, I realized it was an unfamiliar comfort. And it wasn’t that he made me feel small or dainty. Who needed to feel that? I wasn’t petite or thin, nor did I aspire to be. With Lucas, I just felt…right.
For how imposing his body was, Lucas was a gentle giant. He stood six foot four in bare feet and filled a doorway with his broad shoulders. His voice was deep and brisk, his slate and sage eyes intelligent and viciou
sly observant. But while he was to the outside world a formidable man with a stunning physique, a stellar football career, and a position of power at his prestigious company, to me he was the tenderhearted fellow who both fell into my arms and laughed at my terrible knack for colloquial English. Who kissed reverently and made sure I knew he believed in a firm three-to-one orgasm ratio. In my favor, of course.
He sighed quietly, and his warm breath fell over my face. How absurd. He even had nice morning breath. Shifting my head on the pillow, I looked at his features differently, imagining what a child of his would look like, wondering why he’d decided so abruptly to end his chances of having a baby of his own. I understood hereditary diseases, but wasn’t there a way to test for those things? To know for the future? Maybe I was naive, but his choice seemed rash and violent. As if he’d been boiling mad and needed to do something tangible about his fury to regain a semblance of control.
Lucas’s eyes scrunched in his sleep as his hand slipped down my ribs to my waist. He looked troubled, and his grip tightened.
Now that I knew his worries, I saw the mark of months of grief. The crease in his brow, dark smudges under his eyes. He was worn down by this, tormented. And yet, while I grieved for him, there was no room for pity. Lucas wasn’t helpless. I saw how his tenacity and strength would get him through it. He would mourn and struggle, but I believed in the man who held me inside his grasp. He would find a new way to normal and stand tall and happy again one day. He was going to be all right.
“Do you normally stare at your bedfellow in their sleep?” he croaked, cracking open one eye. “No, don’t answer that. I don’t want to know about your past bedfellows.” Hauling me closer to him, he opened both eyes now and smiled at me as he pressed our fronts together. “As far as I’m concerned, they never existed.”
I had to bite my cheek not to moan when our bodies touched. Lucas had no idea just how ready I woke up, but he was about to find out. Lucas woke up ready, too, like most men. His cock was stiff and jutted straight between my thighs, sliding easily along my entrance. His eyes widened.
