Or, if he loved me more than her. Because I'd be able to live with that. I understood how that worked now. There's no such thing as bug-free software in the world, and I think if Clayton confronted his fears, I'd end up with only the bugs I could live with. Because he'd be operating on all processors when he was with me.
This would be the final step to finally knowing if Clayton was someone I was willing to invest all my Simoleons in. It was my own strategy game. And I was the Sim. I had to make a choice: Build a house and plant a flower-garden in it with him? Or bring in the bulldozer and tear that digital brick-and-mortar baby down?
The choice would be simple. If he'd be faithful to me in the face of that cougar-skank-ho, then I'd know he'd be faithful to me forever!
But if he couldn't be, well, I'd fall into that cliché of loving and losing.
I was willing to lose him. Now I was. Not before. Seeing Nathan had made me not only shed myself of his hold on me, but also made me shed myself of my own fears of losing people I love.
Because that's what love is: Being willing to let someone go.
Although I didn't realize it then, many months later, I would apply this lesson to my dad's death, and finally let him go as well. Because he'd actually been the first man I'd ever really truly loved.
But, like I said, that would happen later.
On December twenty-second, the final day of college, I stood with Clayton under the big oak tree that Mandi and I had always sat under. I tightened his scarf around his neck and looked him in his crystal eyes and I said, "Clay, I want you to do two things for me before we go off to your Christmas party after tomorrow, OK?"
"Sure, Layla."
"The first thing I want you to do is go and face Camila—"
"Lay—"
"Don't interrupt me. I want you to go and see her. And...I want you to answer for yourself if you love her...more than you love—"
"I don't love—"
"Stop interrupting! Clayton, we can't build an operating system on faulty code, honey. And I'm afraid you haven't fully closed the tab in your mental browser to Camila." I could see he wanted to cut me off. But he didn't. Good man. "I want you to do it for yourself. And I'll tell you the same thing you told me when I saw Nathan. If you fuck her, I'm gone. But I give you that freedom to let me go. And I give you that freedom to fuck her if you want to. Because it's your choice. And if you really love her, I shouldn't stop you from being with her. Because I realized that's what love is, being able to let someone go."
"Damn, Layla, you sound like an old romantic."
"It's those freaking classics I've been watching on Netflix every night."
"I don't really want to go and see her."
"And that's the problem, honey. Because if you can't see her, if you can't stare at those freaking tits that make me so jealous, and know you don't want her, then you'll never know if you really do want me or not. And if we're together, I want us to be like a motherboard to its central processor, not like a CD-ROM to its casing. We need to be sure we're inseparable."
"Damn it, I love it when you talk geek to me."
"Which brings me to the other thing. I want you to make love to me before you go see her."
"I'm sorry... Wh—?"
"Love, Clayton. Real, passionate, unmistakable love. I know that I love you. So, because of that, I want to sense it with you. I want you to be with me, inside me, and I want to rock those electromagnetic waves to the stratosphere with you." He bit his lip. "And then...I'm gonna let you go. And...come to think of it, I'll probably go get drunk somewhere afterwards while I wait for the results of your 'visit' with her."
"You're crazy."
"No, I believe I'm the most logical of the two of us. What time's this thing with your family on the twenty-fourth?"
"Around six, seven."
"I want it done before that. I've already arranged with Mandi to spend Christmas Eve with her and her lesbian lover—not like that!—if things don't work out. But I won't spend a holiday as special as Christmas with you if I don't know.
"Also, if you're gonna make love to me, you'd better do it properly. Candles, wine, food..." I started feeling warm for the first time despite the chill as we stood there. "So, if you need time to prepare, do it today and then let me know, like a gentleman tells a lady."
"Hell, Layla, you really must've watched a ton of movies."
"I did. And I like fiction now. Like it a lot. Fact is too weird. And hope is a good thing."
He swallowed. "OK. OK, I'll do it. I mean, both things. I'll make love to you, properly. And I'll go see that...cow. You know I don't want to see her—"
I put my index on his lips. Denial. I knew it too well. It's how I'd felt about Nathan. Only when I saw him could I admit that I actually loved him.
And only then could I admit that I loved Clayton more.
And that I could let Nathan go, forever.
Clayton had to get through his own denial. Maybe he didn't love Camila, but he needed to know it.
And I needed to know it.
Or, I at least needed to know that he loved me more.
"So, where will you dine me?"
He swallowed again. "Um, um, let me get back to you. I'll need to prepare. Um, but let's set a time. Tomorrow? Tomorrow night?"
"It's a date."
He moved down to kiss me but I shook his hand instead. "Uh-uh," I said. "You're courting me now, remember?"
"Damn, I could kiss Netflix. Now you're geeky and a hopeless romantic!"
Only, he was wrong.
I was a hopeful romantic.
-20-
Clayton told me he'd be dressing up. But that I could come in my torn jeans if I wanted.
I dressed in a long gray sweater that doubled up as a skirt, and I even put on a bra. A push-up bra to be precise. I might be "letting go" of Clayton, but I wasn't gonna let him go without a fight. I styled my hair and did up my eyes. I put on stockings with elastic hold-ups that looked like they belonged in an erotic short film and finished it all off with sexy woolen socks that went above my knees. Then I put on black boots that reached up to just over my calves
That's right baby, I'd been on Lookbook and searched for "Sexy Winter" and then put together the outfit. Clayton needed to know what he was gonna be missing if he decided to "love Camila more."
He'd given me an address to go to at six P.M.
Not his dorm.
Just before I arrived I called Nathan to find out what dirt he had on Camila. He said, "Baby, I got it all. I got everything to bring that bitch down! Oh, and the PI is off your back."
"Thanks, hon."
"So, you want it?"
I did want it. But if Clayton was truly in love with that psycho-bitch, well, I wouldn't do that to him. "Not yet. I'll let you know tomorrow."
"Now, Layla, I do have a question...and I hope you won't be offended."
"Nathan, after all I've seen with you, you'll never offend me."
"Well, you see, in hunting this broad's history, I kind of...got a little interested in her."
"Interested?"
"Yeah."
"You fucked her," I said.
"No! I haven't even met her. But I'd like to..."
"You're kidding me."
"I'm not. This woman is the she-devil herself. Bad. She's trouble. And, well, I ain't no saint, babe. I need a woman like that to keep me in line. I have...certain needs, you know that?"
I cracked up laughing. Right there on the cold street, I guffawed.
"You find that funny, baby?" he said.
"Actually, no, I find that...a godsend."
"Only thing is, Layla, you'll always have a special place in my heart so..."
"You're asking me for permission?"
"I am."
"Wow."
"Like I said, you're always first choice, honey. I know I fucked it up with you."
"And if you go on over to the dark-side with this chick, you'll still give me the dirt on her?"
"All of i
t. You'll be able to destroy the woman I'm with if I ever step out of line with you again."
"Damn!" It struck me that Nathan had...let me go as well. "I'll let you know tomorrow. But, Nathan, you say she's the she-devil. I don't want you getting hurt again, babe."
"Oh, Layla, the bad girls don't hurt me. Because I don't fall for the bad girls. Only the good girls can hurt me."
"You always make me feel warm and fuzzy when you talk to me, you know that?"
"I know, babe. I know. So, let me know on catwoman here when you can."
"I will." I clicked the phone off.
I reached the address Clayton had sent me. It was a typically small, English house. White door. Brass knocker.
I knocked.
When he opened the door, two things struck me faster than data running through a fiber optic cable:
The warmth of the golden-lit room blew across me like steam from that manhole under Marilyn Monroe's dress.
And the heat from Clayton himself, who was dressed...in a freaking tux. It damn near knocked me unconscious!
-21-
Inside, the place was cozy. There was an elaborately set dinner table beyond some one-seater tweed couches which huddled around a warm fire. The lights were dimmed. Candles were on the dinner table. I started sweating the second I walked in. Clayton had put on strong cologne. When it wafted into me, for a second I got confused, because Nathan had always been the one who oozed that certain manliness about him.
But now it was Clayton doing it. And doing it well.
It was almost like...like a freaking rite of passage for the guy!
He took my coat off. I fanned my sweater. His eyes lingered for a second on my breasts and I stuck them out a little more.
Men never look at my breasts. So I relished in the moment for a second.
It smelled heavenly in there. Roast. "You cooked?" I asked.
"No. My sister did."
"Oh." I looked around for her.
"She's not here."
"This is her place?"
"Yeah."
"I thought you guys didn't get along."
"We don't."
"And yet she cooked a meal for your girlfriend, and loaned you her place?"
"I had to beg. A lot. And pay her."
"My, oh my, Mr. Remington... You sure know how to make a lady feel special."
"And you sure know how to make a man realize what's important in his life... Wine?"
"Hell, why not?"
Another wooden table sat in front of the fire, between the one-seaters. Small. Red wine was one it. And two glasses. Clayton poured us both one.
The Matrix soundtrack played in the background. He knew me so well... I've always found The Matrix soundtrack to be darn romantic.
We sat on the couches a second and said nothing, just sipping wine. I warmed up my toes in my boots by the fire and soon felt sweat form just above my knees, under my stockings and socks.
"It's warm in here," I said.
"For more reasons than one. You look..." he tightened his lips, shook his head, let his eyes linger all over me "...fine."
We chit-chatted for a few minutes like a regular old couple out on a date and then he walked me to the dinner table and pulled my chair out for me and sat me down. He brought out the most incredible roast with baked potatoes, and sliced it up and served me.
I ate very quickly. Because, for the first time in my life, I felt suddenly all woman.
Food was the last thing on my mind.
I even felt coy and embarrassed a little. I forgot about hardware and wiring and speed tests. Suddenly, things in my mind were fluffy and soft and warm.
I was in a daydream.
So much so, that I didn't even notice Clayton getting up.
My wine glass was at my lips when he was standing next to me.
He stuck out his hand and I took it. He flipped a remote and then The Matrix soundtrack died and on came a slow jazz song I didn't recognize, sung by a woman with a throaty voice.
"I don't know how to dance," I said, reaching out for his hand.
"Neither do I."
It was getting even warmer under the sweater.
I felt...like a little girl!
I stepped on his toes a few times. He also stepped on mine. I started to get a feeling like I didn't want to "let him go" anymore.
But I was also getting the feeling that...maybe he didn't want to either.
He put his hands on the small of my back and rested his chin on my head. We swayed, just lightly shuffling our feet. It was better that way. No more stepping on toes.
I wrapped my arms around his back and breathed his manly scent in.
Our pelvises grazed against each other and I felt him grow. His hands slid down my back and to my butt and soon they were on my bare legs, just above the elastic hold-ups of my stockings. With his fingernails scraping against my hamstrings, he lifted my sweater-dress up above my ass.
Then, smoothly, he eased two warm hands inside my panties and over my butt cheeks. He pulled me firmly to him.
I dripped.
And I gasped.
The kisses began on my neck, but I wanted them on my lips. I eased my head back and our lips met, moist and blazing. He tasted of roast and potatoes and Merlot. I heard our lips smack while my nether lips engorged with every firm caress of his on my ass.
He pulled my panties out of the crack of my butt, then started slipping them down. They stuck for a second to my crotch before I felt the cool open wind hit me on my wet vag.
"Not here," he said.
He lifted them back up, took my hand, and walked me to the bedroom.
He laid me on the bed and started taking my boots off.
He sat by my side.
He took off his bowtie and flung it away to a corner. With his left hand, he rubbed the inside of my left leg slowly up to my knee and, finally, to the top of the woolen sock, and then beyond that to the stocking hold-up. He curled his fingers into the elastic, and eased it down.
I expected him to take the other stocking off but, instead, he bent forward and put his lips to the inside of my now-bare knee and kissed it as if it were my lips. Or as if it were my other lips...
He kissed slowly down, just one light peck a second, all the way, on the inside, right down to my big toe. He licked the tip of my toe slowly once.
The moisture from the trail of his tongue on my leg left me cold, sending shivers up my body.
Then he started with the other stocking, same process, so that I knew all that was happening before it happened. And I waited for each step with nervous anticipation.
He pulled the other stocking and sock down, kissed the knee, licked a trail down. And kissed my other big toe.
My mind howled. Screaming like a violin being played at smoking speed.
He stretched his arms out to me and I gave him my hands. He lifted me.
As I sat there, legs stretched out behind him, he eased a hand up my thigh. Our lips met, and his finger met my other lips.
He pressed above my panties, into me.
I whimpered.
While our tongues touched each other he eased his finger around the seam of my panties to meet my engorged and sodden labia.
My legs tensed. I gasped.
He pressed in slightly and now the moans that were coming out of me were constant.
I heard the squish below as his index, then his middle finger, moved my own wetness around me slowly. He pressed around the outer lip, scraping down with his fingernail in a line from the top to the bottom. Then he grazed inwards...popped a fingertip in just slightly...then out on the other side.
He pulled his lips from mine, raked my body with his eyes.
He stretched his hands under my sweater-dress and yanked my panties down.
There was a dark patch of goo down the center of them.
He flung them to where his bowtie was.
I undid his buttons, kissing his torso down the center after each one. I took his shirt off. H
e took my sweater off and didn't waste a breath on my bra.
I was bare now.
Urgently, I undid his belt buckle and his zip. Then I took his boxers off.
"You got a French wax," he said.
I didn't answer, because he'd done some trimming himself, and the clean look of his shining cock just made me want to bury it in me.
I moved him onto the bed and laid him back. I straddled my legs over his mouth, facing his cock, and I bent down to put him in my mouth.
Before it reached my tongue, his own tongue was already flicking away at my center. My legs tensed inwards. I groaned as I tasted his salty pre-come. My lips glided up and down his pulsing shaft. I let the saliva of my mouth drip over it as I sucked and massaged him with my tongue.
His own tongue was warm and slow. Licking and tasting every bit of me. I thought of the lemony tang he'd told me of before, and I imagined it seeping into him, and him swallowing it.
The thought made my lips tighten around his shaft and he jerked up once and groaned yearningly.
I found myself rocking down on his face, moving my pelvis back slowly against his chin and lips and nose in a steady rhythm, ever getting faster. As my vag went back, my lips moved up his shaft. When I rocked forward, my lips moved down his shaft.
I remembered us coming together like this in the field all those weeks ago. How good it had felt to have him spear his seed into me while my muscles pummeled and convulsed against his mouth with his tongue inside me.
I wanted that feeling again.
But that we'd done plenty off.
I wanted something else tonight.
Taught as a rope holding a piano, I got off him, trembling from the urgency, breathing furiously.
My cunt shone brightly with his saliva and my own come. His shaft glistened from my lips.
I lay back, rested my head on the pillow, and widened my legs.
No words were exchanged.
Clayton moved his perfect body over mine. I wrapped my hands around his neck, clenched my eyes, and waited.
When his tip touched me, it felt like the electrical charge of a space-storm exploding all through me. He pressed again once, twice.
Then he entered me.
Slowly.
My entire body felt like it was made of iron, not moving, hard and tense. He eased his long shaft out of me. It seemed to never end, just slowly grazing those inner lips, out, out, out, out, until I finally felt the tip again, just barely inside me, like his gentle fingertip had been only minutes ago. Then began the inward thrust once more, agonizingly slowly, moving, moving, moving, moving, entering, sliding ever inwards. Until... "Uuurgh," I groaned.
Girl-Nerds Like it Longer (Erotic Romance) Book 4 Page 9
