Love Will

by Lori L. Otto

  “So, scientifically, what will warm us up more?” she asks. When I open my eyes, she is wearing the most suggestive grin I’ve ever seen in my life.

  “Scientifically?”

  “Yeah. This is just for science.”

  “Yeah, right, well, contact pressure has the most influence on contact conductance because it causes the surface area of the contact to grow.”

  “I feel like we’re touching everywhere now.”

  “Oh, no. There are tiny air pockets everywhere.” I pull her into to me, tighter, and rub my torso against hers. “But that action right there gets rid of a lot of those air pockets.”

  “And causes friction.”

  “That it does,” I agree, feeling both of our heartbeats against my chest.

  “What does kissing do?”

  “If it arouses you, it will cause increased blood flow that will warm–” Her lips are colder than they were the last time I kissed them, so I’m more than happy that she felt the need to steal the warmth from mine. “Hold up,” I say, resting my hand on her ear and holding her back about an inch. “Is that confirmation that kissing me arouses you?”

  “You got confirmation of that last night, Will,” she says.

  “Did this just become non-scientific?”

  “I think so…”

  “Is that okay with you?” I ask her, swallowing to try to calm myself in case she tells me no.

  “Definitely,” she says.

  Enough talking. I push her onto her back and nudge my way between her legs, savoring every second of this one, prolonged kiss until I literally think I’m going to pass out. “Holy shit,” I say, gasping for air as I tuck my head into her neck. “I have never been this turned on in my life. And we’re just fucking kissing.”

  “And we just fucking started,” she adds with a mischievous smile.

  “Hold that thought.” Without getting out of the bed, I reach for my jeans and find my wallet in the back pocket and pull out the three condoms I have in there. “Is this okay?”

  “I would have been upset if you told me you didn’t have any.”

  “Okay, good. I didn’t want to be presumptuous.”

  “I am not that much of a tease.”

  “Oh, thank God. Wait,” I stop at the sound of the word tease. “We, uh… we haven’t talked about you at all.”

  “I passed all my tests with flying colors.”

  I smile at her, looking her in the eyes. “Do you know how heartbroken I would have been if you had said anything else?”

  “I can only imagine. Now pull that blanket back over us and let’s get some friction going.”

  “You’ve got to kiss me like that again,” I beg her, lying on my side and pulling Shea on hers. I could easily just have sex with her right now, but I really want to prolong the foreplay.

  “It’s the only way I know how.”

  “Oh, fuck, thank you.”

  She runs the tip of her tongue along my bottom lip before I give in to my own impulses and press my mouth to hers once more. It’s the way she holds in the air between us, sucks in her breath when we kiss… that’s what it is. That’s what makes it so carnal and sexual. It’s the light sucking because it makes my one track mind think of her doing that elsewhere. Once that thought’s in my head, I can’t let go of it, and then I get caught up in the kiss and forget to breathe. She must know what she’s doing.

  Once again, I’m left struggling for air. “You have to know that is the dirtiest fucking kiss outside of Arkansas, Shea,” I tease her. When I look at her, her tongue is peeking out through her teeth and she has this faux angelic look on her face. “Oh, you so know.”

  “What do they do in Arkansas that’s dirtier?”

  “They do it with their cousins,” I say.

  “Oh, gross!” she yelps.

  “A part of me wants to know where you learned to kiss like that, but no. I’d rather you just keep doing it. This is… astounding.”

  “What is?” she asks.

  “Just… no. Never mind.”

  “Say it,” she urges me, but I wish I’d never made the comment.

  “I just thought I’d experienced everything,” I tell her quietly, pushing her hair back again. “I didn’t think I’d feel something new.”

  “Tell me that’s not a line,” she pleads.

  I shake my head and break away just enough to cross my pummeling heart. “Not a line.”

  “I feel pretty special right now.”

  It scares me to admit that I think she really is. We return to the kiss again, the lightheadedness ensuing, and the erection’s getting more out of control, throbbing and wanting a proper warm place of its own. Clearly, it’s not behaving, so I decide to switch positions before we get ourselves into accidental trouble thanks to a few kisses that are depriving my brain of oxygen, and therefore relieving my mind of any rational thought.

  Plus, I seriously need to breathe.

  Keeping with the trend of slow, deliberate and thoughtful kisses, I move my lips down her smooth body, pulling the blankets over me entirely as I venture further down to make sure she’s still warm since I’ve removed nearly all of my contact points from her skin.

  Suddenly I hear a whirring that stirs me from under the covers. The lights are on, and a blast of air is coming from an overhead vent.

  “The electricity just came on,” I state the obvious, noticing her eyes are closed.

  She pushes the top of my head while she shakes hers. “Your imagination. I’m sure of it.”

  “No, your heater just came back on. I feel it.”

  “Shut up, Will. It’s not reliable,” she says, and her dimple starts to appear. I crawl all the way up, aligning my body with hers and planting a kiss there. “We can’t trust it’ll stay on.” Her mouth meets mine for one more kiss before she tells me I can continue on my previous path.

  Unless Shea stays perfectly groomed and smooth every day of her life, I can safely say that she was planning on this happening tonight. I smile at this realization, planting a firm kiss between her legs and running my hands up the calves of them.

  Determined to discover these other orgasms she mentioned last night, I get my fingers involved, finding her g-spot easily as I move my tongue against her. Instead of grabbing for my hair or the sheet, she takes my hand–the one that was gripping her side–and holds it, loosely at the beginning, but firmly as she begins to lose herself in waves of pleasure. She’s still not very loud, but her moans are lower, richer, coming from somewhere deeper inside her.

  Makes sense.

  Idiot.

  I like how she drags the curled toes of one of her feet up and down my back as she calms down, and she lets me know she’s finished by tugging on my hand, linking her fingers with mine as soon as she can.

  When I emerge from under the blankets, she’s holding the condoms in her other hand for me. I take them from her and set them back down, keeping her one hand in mine and wrapping my other arm around her, pulling her on her side again so I can kiss her some more. She traces the palm of my hand with her thumbnail and slides her leg up over my hip.

  “You didn’t need any instruction,” she says, breaking away. I don’t want to talk. I just want to keep kissing.

  “Mm-mmm,” I confirm, putting my lips back on hers. “Wait,” I say, halting everything. “Is that a bad thing? Were you saying that like you’re disappointed that I… knew…” She shakes her head, slowly at first, quicker as she starts laughing at my insecurity. “Was it okay?”

  “Will?” she asks, sounding serious.

  “What?”

  “I can feel how turned on I am just rubbing up against your thigh. I know you’re a smart man. You don’t need to ask me if it was okay. This body does not lie. That’s why I was handing you the condoms.”

  “I thought that was like an ‘it’s your turn’ sort of thing.”

  “No, that was an ‘I need more of you, and I need you now’ sort of thing. Don’t make me beg you,” she warns.

>   “Oh, Shea,” I say, jutting my lip out. “I kind of want to hear you beg.”

  “Here,” she says, leading my hand down her body and placing it between her legs. “That is me crying out for you.”

  “Fuck,” I say, expressing my astonished disbelief in the situation more than anything else. I start to get carried away, trying to please her again, now that she’s translating her body’s language for me.

  “Make love to me, Will. Please?”

  I inhale sharply, turning my full attention to her face, returning my hand to hers. Surprised at her request, I swallow hard. Over the years, women have made all kinds of requests.

  “Do me.”

  “Fuck me.”

  “I need you inside me.”

  Just a general, “Let’s have sex.”

  “Give it to me.”

  “I want to suck you off.”

  “Let me make you happy.”

  Their demands have always had an immediacy to them, and suggested hastiness. Transience.

  But make love to me?

  If anyone has ever made that plea to me, it went in one ear and out the other–probably by my choosing. It was something I never wanted to hear. Don’t say the word love to me.

  But I heard Shea loud and clear tonight.

  “Make love to me,” she’d said, and I think of all the things it really means.

  “Care for me.”

  “Take your time with me.”

  “Be vulnerable.”

  “Be open.”

  “Don’t hurt me.”

  “Don’t fuck me up against a wall and ask me to leave ten minutes later.”

  That’s not the man I want to be anymore.

  Not with Shea.

  “Will?” she asks, tracing over the lines in my forehead.

  “I want to,” I tell her, kissing her briefly. “I will.”

  She runs her fingers through my hair, then drags her hands down my face and gently scratches the stubble on my chin while I put on the condom. When I’m ready, I return to her for the unfamiliar kisses that I can’t wait to experience while I’m…

  …while I’m making love to her.

  In her bed. Under way too many covers now that the heater is on, but I don’t even care.

  While we’re lip-locked and she’s kissing me, I ease into her body that’s still very much crying out for me. She holds my head to hers as I hold her hips to mine with one arm and use the other for leverage. I take shallow breaths through my nose, wanting to feel a bit of the lightheadedness come on as I move inside her, deeper. She cries out as best as she can without releasing me, too. I go slowly, and feel the tumultuous electricity coursing through me, creeping up inside me. It’s a steady buildup–prolonged–and fuck! It feels so good.

  We keep moving together at this careful pace, taking these small breaths together until I realize I’m going to need a full one soon. It’s at that realization that everything starts coming together at once. We speed up in unison. Her muscles tighten around me. She scrapes her nails down my back. And–holding my breath for as long as I can–I climax like I never have before.

  It seems to go on for minutes, even after I start gasping for air, and alternating between her beautiful name and all the obscenities I’ve been saving up since we started this adventure together. I realize she was shouting–actually shouting–my name, too.

  “Holy fuck. Shea.” I realize I’m completely collapsed on her, and it’s probably not too comfortable for her. “Holy Shea,” I whisper. I worship. I don’t think she hears me.

  “You have the sexiest ass I have ever seen,” she says. I push off of her and glance behind me, noticing that we are sans covers now, and yeah, I do have a nice ass. I move to the side of her, staying on my stomach and collapsing on the other pillow, facing her.

  “You are the sexiest woman I have ever known,” I mumble into her bedding, hoping she can hear me. “Was that tantric sex?” I ask the question before even thinking about what I was saying.

  “I hear it is all about breathing…” she says.

  “Well, I wasn’t doing much of that,” I tell her, joking. “That was intense.” I flop my exhausted arm across her body as she turns on her side to face me. Her hand caresses my backside. It takes all the energy I have to lean up and kiss her once more. “Shea, that was incredible. Thank you.”

  “Thank you…” she says.

  “Hey, you actually yelled,” I tease her. “You yelled my name.”

  “Yeah, ummm…” she says pensively. “That was a new one.”

  “A new what?” I ask her, rolling onto my side and weaving my legs between hers.

  “A new orgasm.”

  “What?” I ask her, smiling.

  She tucks her head into my chest like she’s embarrassed. “I thought I knew my own body better than that, but I have no idea what spot you hit…”

  “What, really?”

  “I swear,” she says, finally looking at me when I tip her head up.

  “Did you like it?”

  “Well, let me demonstrate something.”

  “Okay…”

  “I’m thinking about it right now. Have been for the past five minutes.”

  “All right.”

  “Where’s your hand?” I release my grip on her back and hold it in front of her face. Once again, she takes it in hers and eases them both between our bodies, back between her legs, and drops my hand off there, returning hers to my ass.

  I kiss her on the dimple that’s made itself visible once more. “You’re crying out for me again?” I whisper in her ear, then take her lobe into my mouth. Her fingertips dig into my cheek.

  “I’m begging you. Can you go again?”

  “On a normal day, I’d need more time. But I’ve been saving up for this moment for…” Days? Weeks? Let’s be honest. Years, Will. I shake off the thought and decide not to finish the sentence aloud. I don’t want to jinx this. “Shea, I want to make love to you all night.”

  Chapter 10

  Upon opening my eyes and checking out my surroundings, I realize someone has been meticulous about tucking me into the warm bedding. I check both sides for Shea, but she’s no longer next to me. A clock on the wall tells me it’s nine in the morning, and since the power’s back on, I presume the restaurant is open for business. I wonder what time she got out of bed, because we were up very late. Five hours of the kind of sleep I normally get wouldn’t cut it for me, but I’m feeling strangely rested today. I’m pretty sure I actually slept.

  She’s left sticky notes with directions all over her bathroom

  SHOWER ——>

  Figured that out.

  <—— TOWELS

  Could have found them by digging around in the cabinets, but I guess she didn’t want me doing that. Too bad, I’m going to anyway.

  NO RAZORS aka “I don’t want you to shave today. How can you be even sexier this morning?”

  Cute. I see a razor in the shower, but there’s another note over it that says NOT FOR YOU. I rip the paper from the wall and toss it in the trash. I didn’t want to shave today, anyway.

  What I did want was morning sex, but I knew it wasn’t happening. I was out of condoms and would have had to return to the hotel to restock. I have every intention of doing that before tonight, though. She’d already invited me back for my last night in town.

  I hate that tonight’s my last night.

  After drying off, I spend extra time drying my hair so I don’t emerge from Shea’s apartment looking like some random guy to her staff who just woke up in her bed. It’s exactly what I am, but she’s the boss, and I don’t want to tarnish her image. I peek out of her apartment door, seeing no one in the kitchen before I make my way toward the restaurant. No one’s cooking or washing dishes. It doesn’t sound like the place is open.

  Tentative, I round the corner, seeing Shea cleaning menus at the counter and watching a couple at the front of the restaurant. The OPEN sign isn’t lit.

  “Peron?” I whisper in She
a’s ear, recognizing my bandmate, but not the giddy smile he’s sporting as he converses with the woman across from him.

  “I’m sorry, Will,” Shea says. “I overstepped some boundaries or something.”

  “Hey, Will!” Peron shouts at me.

  “Hi, Per! You okay?”

  “There was a girl… I knew it!”

  I nod my head curiously and take Shea by the hand into the kitchen. “What’d you do?”

  “Your phone started ringing this morning. Multiple times. You slept through it–”

  “I don’t sleep through anything.”

  “But you did. I swear, and so I thought I’d let you sleep… but then they started texting.”

  “Who?”

  “Well, Peron. He said Ben was going to call the police because they couldn’t find you… since you didn’t check in to the hotel last night.”

  “Yeah, right. Police don’t give a fuck about a twenty-four-year-old guy being out for a night.”

  “I overreacted… and I tried to be you.”

  “Huh?”

  She hands me my phone, and I read the conversation aloud.

  “‘No, Dude, don’t call the cops. Please? I’m doing really great!’ I’m doing really great, Shea?” I ask, making fun of her choice of words.

  “Well, weren’t you?” she asks.

  “Sure, but… this doesn’t sound like me.”

  “Yeah, read on,” she encourages me.”

  “‘Who is this?’ ‘It’s Will.’ ‘Prove it.’ ‘How?’ ‘What’s the answer to the math question you ask girls?’ ‘Y squared.’ Wait, you guessed Y squared?”

  “I didn’t figure it would be a number…”

  “It’s a trick question. It is a number, but it’s answered in steps… nine steps.”

  “Anyway, he called, and I had to answer and confess. And he was in a pretty shitty place. Some Brooke girl?”

  “Evil woman…”

  “A text break-up. The absolute worst,” she agrees. “So I told him you were here, and I invited him for breakfast but I told him I wasn’t going to wake you up. I hope that’s okay.”

  “For Peron, it’s fine. Come here,” I say, pulling her to me for a kiss. We’d discovered last night that she can kiss in a more casual way when both of our lips began to feel numb and tingly after a few hours of suction. “See, we can do this in public,” I tease her, letting her hands explore my backside again at will. I pick her up and set her on the countertop just inside the kitchen.