"Leora, I'm terrified. Terrorized for fear of losing you, of being the reason that, maybe, something might happen to you. I wake up in cold sweats, fighting ghosts, punching at nothing. I don't have a lamp on my nightstand anymore because I broke three of them after some of those dreams. You are my everything. I can lose my fortune, my clothes, my car, my house, my friends, but not you. I'll die, I'll do anything, to anyone, before I ever let anything happen to us again — happen to you."
His sister. Alex. Me. He'd lost so much, and here he was, still loving, still holding on.
We hugged. I wasn't going to let him go. Not now. Not ever.
I thought of him disappearing last night, letting his fears go into a punching bag. And, when that wasn't enough, getting hit himself in a ring so that he could feel the pain, feel alive, feel something.
I could forgive him that. I could forgive him disappearing momentarily if it was for that reason.
I understood the feeling. The feeling of wanting to run, to fight. To hide.
In that moment, I sensed that I understood Conall completely. For the first time.
-3-
The pool in the wooden house steamed. How hot did he have this thing? Conall was all games again. All games and flirts.
I'd put on the bright orange bikini he'd bought me. It was petite, barely covered my breasts, and the bottom was a thong. It had been torture running through the icy yard to get in here, and my nipples were hard as stone from the cold.
When I arrived and saw Conall in his trunks, those nipples stayed hard for another reason... It wasn't only his skin color (go tanning salon!) or his snaking intercostals. Most of all it was that tattoo. My name. On his body. I stared at it for a while.
LEORA.
"You look good," he said.
I tried to play it cool. "You're wearing trunks?" I asked. "Not a Speedo?"
He raked my body up and down with his eyes.
"Conall?"
"Uh, right, um, no, no Speedo. It might get embarrassing."
I didn't get it. Not right then.
"It's really hot in here. Do you always steam it up like this?" I asked.
"No, only since I knew you would come over. It takes a while to get warm which is why it wasn't so steamy when you first saw it. I never use it in the winter. You jumping in?"
The water looked cozy. It looked more like a hot tub from all the heat. But it was no Jacuzzi, it was a pool, not huge, twenty yards lengthwise or so.
Conall went to the sound system.
"Doesn't that get damaged in here?"
"Maybe. Like I said, I never have it this warm, so there's usually not so much steam. But I'd hate to swim in a twenty-eight degree pool in winter."
"Um, you have to talk in Fahrenheit to me, bud."
He poked around on an iPod or iPhone. "Twenty-eight degrees is about eighty-two Fahrenheit. Right now I've set it to..." (he poked again on whatever conversion app he had there) "...ninety-five Fahrenheit or so."
My eyes bulged. Ninety-five! Yip, hot-tub.
I dipped my right toe in the water and it felt like a lukewarm bath. I could swim in there, definitely.
"This is quite the bikini you picked for me."
"I didn't pick it. Alex did."
"She did?" Damn, and to think I'd been jealous of her. Any woman would know that a bikini made of this little fabric means only one thing for any guy who sees it: Take it off!
He put on the music. When I heard the piano, and then the soulful jazz voice, all questions as to whether he'd planned on making this more than just a swim, disappeared completely. Disappeared into the sweet tempo and pitter-patter of drums, then the guitar, and the raspy, soulful voice of Norah Jones singing Turn Me On.
-4-
Conall swaggered over to me. He put his right arm around my waist. My left leg bent and went onto its toes. I looked at his chest. "You make me feel so special, you know that?"
He said nothing, just pulled me into him and kissed my neck. I melted. My heartbeat broke the sound barrier, and my forehead fell to his collarbone. He kissed me more around my neck, just lightly. "Are we even going to pretend to swim?" I asked.
"Pretend? Oh, I'm just saying hello. We're definitely here to swim."
I half digested what he said. I was still in bliss from his lips. Or maybe it had been the steam making me light-headed...
He eased back, supporting my leaning body with his interlocked hands behind the small of my back. I don't know if he planned it, but my crotch was right up against his hard-on, and then I remembered the Speedo, and I got the point. And, OK, I might've pushed up a little against him and felt a little twinge down below as I did it...
My eyes rolled, and I got wet, instantly.
He looked down, excruciatingly slowly, over my eyes, nose, lips, ..., my chin. He eyed the cleavage of my breasts, lingered there. Oh, fuck, take me now!
"Have I told you how amazing you look?" he said.
"Hmmm?" I was somewhere else entirely...
He licked his lips, then looked up at my face again. He smirked. I knew that smirk. It was the smirk which said, You know I'm going to make you wait and beg for this, don't you?
I was ice-cream on a mid-summer sidewalk, man. I pushed my head against his chest and even gave a giggle. "Argh! You!" I cried.
He laughed. He so knew what he was doing.
"Urgh!" I cried again, knowing, as I'd come to expect, that he was just fucking teasing me!
I jumped in the pool!
When I came up for air I saw Conall standing akimbo. It was the first time I'd taken a good look at his legs. Perfectly proportioned. Just enough hair on them to show off their manliness, their strength.
I shook my head. "You know," I said, "to put it fucking bluntly, I'm getting a little sick of this 'making it special crap'!" I didn't mean it... But I was damn horny now. And frustrated. And my mouth was shooting off. That's how it goes with me when I'm hot and have to stop. I get rude.
The song changed. New York City. I realized this was going to be a Norah Jones night... Player. This damn...romantic...player.
Conall dove in, swam once around my legs, stayed underwater and then lifted me up out of the water with his arms. I yelped! When his head came out the water, I was too heavy. He fell back with me and I hit the surface. There were bubbles all around me, hair in my eyes. Then Conall's face. He smiled at me, underwater, breathing out bubbles. And, still underwater, he kissed me.
This. God. Damned. Player!
I shot up for air, swallowing some chlorine. "You make me nervous, you know that?"
"Why?" he asked, easing himself, again, against my skin, his arms looped around me back.
"Because you're so damned confident! So assured of yourself. I always feel like you're playing with me. Like you think I'm some toy or something, just for your fun." This statement I did mean, kind of. Because his games did make me a little nervous. They were thrilling, yes, but, well, we think irrationally when it comes to love I guess. At least I do. And that's what was going through my mind at the time.
Conall frowned pensively. He'd heard me. And that's when he stopped teasing me. Stopped it like a fully freighted bullet-train heading into a town with no brakes:
He kicked off the bottom of the pool, against me, pushing me backwards. We hit the edge, the only edge by one of the wooden walls.
His eyes drilled a hole in me. And he moved in. A hawk. A lion to the neck. A hunter firing. He kissed me. He kissed me so passionately that I forgot, momentarily, that I had arms. They dangled somewhere above him, over his shoulders, then next to him. Because I was being kissed. We weren't kissing.
His tongue buried itself in me. He bit my lips, pressed his hard-on right up against my middle.
And then, when the sudden shock of him now being fully into me and not teasing me anymore, disappeared, I got into it. And I kissed him back.
We fought for position. Raw and passionate gropes for the hair, the neck, the chest. He ripped my bikini-top off like so mu
ch hay off a pitchfork. Somewhere I saw it floating. But mostly my eyes were closed. The sudden wash of water across my nipples made me mad with desire for him. Warmness filled my otherwise water-cooled center.
His hand held my left breast, massaged it, then eased out until only the tips of his thumb and index squeezed my nipple. It hurt beautifully. And it sent a shock of sensation through my neck.
Conall moved me from that wall to the next adjacent side of the pool, all the while kissing me, pulling me across the water with his arms. I loved being nude for him. I wanted to show him all of me. He'd never seen me completely naked.
He moved me to the stairs. And I got what he wanted: He wanted us to get out of the pool.
This was going to be it. On hard concrete, on the side of a pool, my hair dripping wet, Conall's muscled body filling me. I couldn't imagine it being more perfect. Because, with Conall — this sweet, lovely, hurting man — anywhere would be perfect.
I clambered backwards, up the pool-steps, Conall kissing me all the time. I was out the pool. I lay down as soon as I could, ready for him. His lips moved in on my right breast, kissed my nipple, bit it.
I reached for his shorts, pulled them partly off. The song had changed but I didn't give a hoot what it was. It was romantic. It was soulful. Whatever it was, it was fucking perfect.
He took his trunks completely off and pressed against the middle of my legs.
Heaven.
Suddenly the song came through to me as being the most beautiful voice to ever have sung a song anywhere at any point in time or in the world (I'm on Your Side, Maria Mena).
Conall rode me, pressed against me, pushed the length of his shaft right down the middle of my outspread legs, over my clit, over my thong...
No, I thought. Not above. Inside. Please, get inside me. Today. Now. Right here.
He rubbed against me, kissing my chest. His face grimaced — the most beautiful, sensual grimace I've ever seen. His chest tightened, his neck muscles hardened. He breathed heavily. I breathed heavily.
I needed him, deep within me. I absolutely craved his fullness inside my body. I put my hands on his traps, tried to push him down lower as a hint. "Conall, fuck me. Just fuck me, hard, inside. Please, I need you. I need you now. I want you inside me, all the way."
As I'd spoken he'd kept rubbing. He'd rubbed so hard that I'd started, almost, climaxing. My legs tensed. I was almost there, almost...
I writhed. My butt clenched. Conall moved up and down and groaned "Oh, yeah" with such beastly and manly power that it fucking pushed me over the edge...
I cried out, screamed, in that pool house. Night had fallen outside, the orange lights above me spun. I came. I moved my pelvis, pushed against his cock so I could feel it as close to me as possible, just inside my lips below.
And then it was he who roared, a manly roar. A primal, burning "Urghhhhhhhh, arghhhhhhh" that trembled against the windowed walls. His come reached my breasts, some falling precisely on my left nipple, then on my stomach. His face went red, his neck tensed. Then he sped up!
His motions squeezed the last few bits of my own pleasure out of me.
Right at the end, he pushed with his shaft, against me, let it stretch, and the last little bits of his come escaped. I grabbed his cock in my hand, squeezed it around one more time. He was still pretty hard. I knew what that meant, but I didn't want him to know how I knew it. He could come again. It would take a little while, but he wasn't fully done yet.
I started yanking, pulling, jerking him off passionately.
With my left hand, I pushed against his chest, laid him on his back, and I pumped him with my right. It felt like forever. I felt him soften just a bit a few times, but not fully. I knew that my rubbing was keeping him hard. And that was good, because that meant he'd come one more time.
My bicep burned.
Eventually, he came.
His eyes pinched into the most exquisite expression of satisfied pleasure that I have ever seen in a man. I kept pumping him, then stretched it, right at the end, shook him. He put his hand around my own, squeezed a bit more. Slowly, we squeezed upwards together. One more drop came out.
He exhaled.
By now, of course, with this whole coming-for-a-second-time thing on his part, I was hot again. I bit my lip.
Conall's head lolled. He was out. I'd seen enough TV to know this about men. They only have so much stamina. Or so I thought...
I started throbbing again. I felt so beautiful around him, my breasts bared fully to him, sitting there looking down at him. My breasts were his. They belonged to him and no one else.
As his eyes rolled around the room, lulled, he saw me. And he must've figured out what was going on with me. He smiled. He got up. Before I knew it, his hand was in my thong, his fingers sliding inside me, pushing up against my inside the only way Conall could do it — right up to the sweet spot. Only then did I realize how wet I was. And when he put a third finger in me, I realized how ready I was for him.
Somehow we landed in the water again. My mind had been too far adrift by Conall's movements down below to establish exactly how that had happened. Conall pushed, thrust, stroked. He kissed my neck, manhandled my pelvis so that it swayed by his strength, hanging, in the water, with every movement of his hand. With his left arm he held me up by my back.
I lost control. I lost focus. All I knew was there was a man — a strong, able, kind, caring, powerful man — doing me with his fingers.
I let him. He could've done whatever the fuck he wanted to do to me right here and now. But Conall, as always, did only what he felt I could handle at that stage.
I put my legs around him, and rested my forehead at the base of his neck. I wrapped my arms around that neck. And I let him finger me as I held onto him.
Time passed... So much time. I loved every eternal second of it. His fingers were in me, in me, in me, in me, inside me... I forgot everything. Pushing, pulling, tugging, deep inside... Water gurgled around me...and his hand was inside me all the time. The longest time...
It took a while, but eventually I came again as well. A deep, quick, sharp orgasm accompanied by a whimper of sweet pleasure from my lips. When he was done, I was finished, smiling, every muscle in my body preciously relaxed. A bomb could've gone off outside and I wouldn't notice.
Conall carried me out. Literally, carried. My legs were still around his waist, my arms around his neck. I could feel I was still smiling. He put me on a chair and wiped the water off me with a towel. He cleaned me off where his come had landed on me earlier, although there wasn't really any left there to be cleaned off. Then he licked my nipples once more, both of them, once.
I'd been so doped up from the heat of the moment that I'd barely noticed that he was, again, hard. Not massively so, but enough to tell me he wasn't yet totally done. How long were we in that pool? Eventually I did notice. So, on that chair, I rubbed him, and then, seeing as he was standing right there anyway, I put him in my mouth. I licked him, moved my tongue around his shaft and his head and devoured every bit of him that I could. Then I made him move back and forth while my lips tightened up around his shaft, pressurizing it so he'd come again.
Was it even possible?
I pushed his butt into me and felt him go all the way to the back of my throat, and felt his sac hit my chin.
I stopped him once, as he got deep inside me, and I held him there. He throbbed once inside me. I felt him try to ease out but I tightened my lips. He twitched again. I almost fucking came just sitting there on that chair. I let him out easy, my saliva dripping all over that shaft, a long line of it falling to the floor.
I turned my head and put his sac in my mouth, licked the one side, then the other, then licked him completely on the underside from bottom to top, his entire length.
He was ready to come again. Red and hot and hard, his shaft pulsed and twitched.
I put him into me, and looked up at him, and I smiled — I felt so badass.
I was ready to let him come
in me. I wanted him to. I wanted to feel him. All of him. In every part of me. To taste him. I loved him with all of me: physical, emotional, spiritual. His body was my body. But, as I pulled on him and licked my tongue around him just one more time, Conall pulled himself out of my mouth just before climax. He was about to come into a towel next to us but I grabbed him and made him come on my breasts at least. There wasn't much now anyway, only a few drops. I rubbed him off right at the end, and he, again, wrapped his hand around mine and we finished him off together.
His groans, at that last stage, are still the most golden sounds I've ever heard from anyone, ever. Because they told me more than that he loves me. They told me I was his, and he was mine. And we were one.
Three times down, on his part, and twice on mine, we were, finally, done. For real.
-5-
Conall chuckled. His body was magnificent. It was the first time I'd really looked at him completely naked. And there was my name: LEORA.
Standing there, me still on the chair, he put his hand on my cheek, leaned down to kiss me. "I love you," he said.
"I so love you back," I said.
-6-
We lay down on the hard (and now slightly cold) cement floor by the pool. It was hopelessly uncomfortable, and we loved it. I think we were there for an hour or so. Maybe more. Who knows. Conall's romantic playlist continued. I held his hand. It felt like, as we looked up at the pool lighting, as if we were looking at the stars. Just two, innocent kids who hadn't suffered shit in life. Staring at the sky which was the top of a pool-house. And wishing.
"Leora," he said after an eternal silence of us just lying there holding hands. I knew it was going to be important, because every time he wanted to say something important or to get my attention, he always started the statement with "Leora."
"Yes?" I said.
"I'm not playing with you, or teasing."
Oh, right, that... That's the topic we'd been on before the most incredible friggin quintuple (that means five, I had to look it up myself) orgasm make-out session in the history of quintuple orgasm make-out sessions!
East Rising (Naive Mistakes #2) Page 16
