by Paige James
Ebon leads me up the stairs to the master on the second floor. The French doors are open and the balmy night air is spilling in, carrying with it the sound of the waves crashing against the shore. The moon is mostly full, giving us plenty of light to see one another.
He releases my hand and walks to his bag, taking something from one of the outside pockets. It’s a folder, much like the one I gave him my pages in. When he hands it to me and moves to turn on the dim bedside lamp, I realize that it is the same folder I gave to him Thursday morning. I made the black ink scratch on the upper left corner as I was trying to get my pen to work. The knowledge that he read my pages sends moisture gushing into my panties. I wrote them with a passion that came from having tasted Ebon. And from wanting more.
From a few feet away, I hear his low voice. “Read.”
I look up at his face. His expression, his eyes are fathomless. My fingers tremble as I open the folder and read aloud the first line.
SEVEN- EBON
Sage’s voice is soft and sexy as she begins. I can almost feel her excitement. It’s washing over me like the water outside the doors is washing over the sand of the beach.
“Did you mean what you said,” I ask you, the moonlight pouring onto one half of your face, illuminating every beautiful angle, shadowing every breathtaking curve.
“Of course I meant it,” you reply.
“Then say it again.”
Your lips tremble as I watch. In anticipation? In fear? The idea that you might be a little bit afraid to surrender to me is like an aphrodisiac. Blood floods my cock, turning it to stiff, throbbing stone.
“Y-you can do anything to me. Anything you want.”
“Anything?” I ask, pulling my shirt over my head as I take a predatory step toward you.
I hear your shallow breathing. I love the way you pant your answer. I curl my hands into tight fists, determined not to lose control and go too fast.
“Anything,” you whisper.
I pull my polo shirt over my head. Sage stops reading long enough to look up and see what I’m doing. Even though the light is dim, I see her pupils dilate even further, turning her eyes from afternoon to midnight. The dark orbs rove over my chest. My pecs twitch in response. When they travel down my stomach, it’s not my pecs that are twitching, but something lower. And harder.
“Read,” I command quietly. Sage’s eyes return to the pages, but when I unzip my shorts and push them down my legs, they stray back to me. I watch her mouth drop open. I don’t think she’s even aware that she does it every time she looks at my hard dick, but she does. And it makes me want to fuck her so hard that her mouth stays open on a moan the entire time. “Read,” I repeat. Again, she drops her head. I see her lick her lips.
“I’m going to take off your pants,” I tell you, “and you’re going to stand there like a good girl. Don’t move. Don’t speak. Just stand there.”
As Sage reads, I approach her, my every muscle rigid with barely controlled desire. Need. Hunger. I see her chest rise and fall with her shallow breathing. My fingers tingle in anticipation of what I’ll feel when I press them to her panties.
Denying my urgency, I untie her shorts and let them fall down her legs. She’s not watching me; her eyes are on the pages. I think she knows that’s where I want her attention.
Before I can tell her to read, Sage resumes.
“Now I’m going to take off your panties,” I whisper in your ear. You shiver when my lips graze you. “Don’t think about what I’ll do when I drag them down your legs. Don’t think about my hot breath against your thighs. Don’t think about how badly you want my tongue inside you. Just concentrate on the way the silk feels sliding over your skin.”
Sage’s voice is breathy as she speaks the words. I kneel in front of her, looking up at her face as I curl my fingers into the elastic of her panties. As slowly as I can, I ease them down her legs, loving the way goose bumps break out in the wake of my knuckles brushing her skin. When I look up again, her eyes are closed and her lips are parted.
“Read.”
“Spread your legs for me,” I command. When you do as I ask, I can smell the heat coming off you. It’s sweet, like melted sugar. Your body is ready for me, ready for my touch.
I press a light kiss to your smooth pussy, then I nuzzle it with my mouth, loving the way your juices coat my lips. I hear the air hiss through your teeth. I know you’re silently begging me to touch you. I smile against you before I slide my tongue into your slit.
Sage’s muscles are tense and trembling as I enact the words I wrote. Her voice gets more breathless as she reads and I work magic on her body. My balls are tight with the excitement of what’s to come, with the hope that she’ll let me finish the scene exactly the way I wrote it.
I feel your body jerk against me as your knees threaten to buckle. I come to a stand before you, reaching between your legs, my finger poised at your slick opening. “Can I tell you something?” I ask.
“Anything,” you say, struggling to keep your eyes open and your attention on my words rather than on my hand. I’m holding you right at the edge of your orgasm, refusing to let you fall into your bliss.
“I want to feel you come around my cock. I want to feel your body squeezing me,” I confess. “But not from here,” I say, plunging a finger into your dripping pussy.
I see the hazy question in your eyes. I don’t answer it. I simply wait, reaching back with my middle finger to brush the ring of the opening I’m aching to be inside.
“You mean…?” Your pupils dilate as realization dawns. You’re afraid. Nervous. But also excited. I can feel it in the way that you tighten around my finger. It’s dirty. Taboo. And you want it as much as I do, despite your fear.
“I’ll be easy. I promise. And you’ll come harder than you’ve ever come before. I promise you that, too.” I remove my finger and I raise my hands to your shoulders, turning you away from me until you’re facing the bed.
Sage quiets when I raise my hands to her shoulders. Before turning her around to finish what I’ve started, I pause, giving her time to stop me before things go too far. In my mind, I’m begging her to be brave. Because I’ve never been more voracious in my need. I know this is new to her. This moment has the feel of so many that I imagined with Willow—introducing her to things that I doubt she’s ever tried. Watching her desire overcome her fear, feeling her open up beneath me, physically and metaphorically.
I can almost hear her heart thundering in the same rhythm as the waves outside. My cock aches painfully. I need to be inside her. I want to violate her in ways that no man has ever violated her before.
Neither of us says a word. Long seconds pass. When she doesn’t make a move to stop me, I urge her gently, turning her until her back is to my chest. I reach for the hem of her shirt and pull it over her head, rubbing my palm up the smooth skin of her stomach to the front clasp of her bra. I free her plump tits and tweak the nipples before I reach between her legs with my other hand to tweak her clit, too.
She’s so wet and slippery I groan aloud, unintentionally. “Holy fuck,” I whisper. “I won’t need any lube, will I, baby? Not when you’re this excited. Because you are excited, aren’t you, Sage?” I ask, flicking her earlobe with my tongue as I play with one nipple and tease her pussy at the same time.
Her chest is heaving with her labored breathing. She’s all but whimpering and it’s making me crazy. “Put your forearms on the bed,” I command gently, bending with her so I can still touch her, still keep her wound up. “I don’t want you to come yet. Do you understand?” I ask, rubbing her in a maddeningly slow pace. I want the timing to be perfect. I want the explosion to be epic. “Do you want to read about what I’m going to do to you first? Or are you ready?”
Her pause is protracted as I move to finger her from behind. I’m penetrating her so lightly that I’m barely even touching her walls.
“I-I’m ready,” she stammers, her body sucking at me as if to say it’s in agreement.
> I ease my finger from her and bring my hands to her hips, using my thumbs to pull her ass cheeks apart. She’s pink and puckered for me, and it’s all I can do to be gentle as I press my cock into her sopping cunt. But somehow I manage, taking my time with her.
She’s so wet that I have to stop when I’m half way in. I hear her moan. I feel the ripples of her sheath. I’m vibrating with need, but I hold back. For both of us.
After a pause, I slide in the rest of the way, not too forcefully or too deeply. She’s so close to coming, if I move too quickly, she’ll pop and I don’t want that to happen.
I coat my length in her juices and pull out most of the way, running my finger in alongside my head to wet it. I close my eyes, enjoying the silky feel of her insides.
Fuck!
Part of me wants to pound into her so hard that it rocks her whole body, but only patience will win the day. She whimpers again when I pull my finger out and slip my cock back in.
I pull in and out of her in short strokes meant to excite rather than fulfill as I press my finger to her ass. I let her get used to the sensation of having something touch her there. Finally, I introduce the tip of my finger. It glides easily past the tight ring of muscle and I have to stop myself again before I come.
I’m close, but I realize when I feel Sage’s body tense that she is too close. I thrust into her a little more forcefully and she squeezes around me. I reach around to circle her clit, flicking it until she starts to rock back against mine. When she’s spiraling up faster and faster, I pull out of her in one smooth motion and place the head of my cock right at her entrance. She doesn’t stop rocking against the hand that’s toying with her pussy, so I rub the head of my shaft between her cheeks. She doesn’t tense, she just continues to pant. She wants it as much as I want to give it to her.
I straighten and spread her ass, pushing in an inch. “God, Sage, I wanna fuck you so deep.” I hear her suck in a breath, so I wait. But then she moans, shifting against me. I push in another inch. “Tell me I can come in your ass, baby. Let me fuck it until your pussy explodes.”
I feel it the instant she tips over the edge. The constricted opening tightens around my throbbing cock and I know she’s coming. I push all the way into her just as the spasms of her orgasm begin. I pull back and plunge into her again. She cries out. I pause, even though it’s so hard to stop that it’s almost painful. But I don’t want to hurt her.
I realize quickly that she’s not hurt. Sage eases away from me and then slams her hips back against mine, her body a clenched fist around me.
My hands clamp down on her hips, holding her still as I pull back, and then I fuck her. I fuck her just like I wrote. I fuck her just like I want to, like I need to. And she lets me. She rides my cock with her ass until I shoot come so deep in her that I hear her panting my name over and over and over.
Blood is coursing through my body. A buzz is ringing through my ears. Nothing has ever felt so good. This good. I could stay inside her for hours.
Finally, seconds or minutes or hours later, my dick starts to soften and I let her go. She collapses onto the bed and I follow her. We’re both covered in sweat and breathing heavily. Sage’s eyes are closed and her lips are curved. She’s mumbling something, like she’s nearly delirious. As delirious as I feel. I still my breathing so I can better hear her. It comes in pieces at first. Until it clicks into place in my brain.
“We fucked a flame into being,” she’s muttering.
A quote from Lady Chatterly’s Lover.
EIGHT- WILLOW
It takes me a few seconds to focus on Ebon when he leans up on his elbow to look down at me. His face is a handsome blur at first, but I can still see his smile.
And his little bit of a frown.
“Lady Chatterly?” he asks.
I blink several times. “Pardon?”
“You just quoted Lady Chatterly’s Lover.”
It’s my turn to frown. “Did I?”
“You sure did.” Still he watches me. Still, I’m confused.
“Annnnd?” I ask with a slow grin. I don’t get it.
“Since when does Sage Masters quote literature?”
My heart drops through the bed and onto the hardwoods below. Holy. Effing. Shit. I keep my casual smile in place as I scramble for some way to excuse the slip. Finally, I roll my eyes and give him a breezy wave of my hand. “I’ve been around Willow too long.”
Ebon’s smile doesn’t waver as he leans in to nuzzle my neck. “Damn,” he says, his breath tickling my ear. “And here I thought maybe I’d fucked you so deep and so hard that you could read my mind for a minute.”
My pulse is racing, but I keep it together, turning my face toward Ebon’s. I cup his stubbly cheek and lick at his bottom lip, desperate to change the subject. “If you think that might be the case, we can always test your theory in the shower.”
His smile turns sleepy. “Mmmm, give me thirty minutes to recover and we will do just that,” he says, kissing the tip of my nose before he urges me onto my side and pulls me into the curve of his body.
I snuggle in, making sure to let him hear my deep, contented sigh. It’s hard to feign such relaxation when, in my mind, I’m frantically hoping that he’ll go to sleep and forget about my quote slip. But when I finally hear Ebon’s deep, even breathing, I’m able to unwind for real.
Crisis averted.
This time, anyway.
I’ve calmed down enough that I’m nearly asleep, too, when I hear the loud buzz of Ebon’s ring tone. He rolls away from my back and walks to the foot of the bed, bending to retrieve his phone from the pocket of his discarded shorts.
It’s a pleasure just to watch him, to be able to freely enjoy his naked form. His legs are long and muscular with just the right amount of dark hair. His hips are narrow, as is his waist, and his abs are ripped into a delicious six pack. The V of his torso widens as it approaches his shoulders, which are square and strong and would be the envy of any football player. He’s just beautiful, from head to toe and everywhere in between.
My eyes rise to his face, which is where they stop with some small amount of alarm. Ebon is pale and his frown is deep as he stares down at his phone where it rests, unanswered, in his hand.
I know that something is wrong. And, of course, being the only person in the room who is basically living a lie, my first thought is that I’ve been discovered. Paranoia—the cornerstone of any deceitful life.
“Ebon, what is it?” I ask, my chest heavy with dread.
He raises his concerned green eyes to mine, but says nothing at first. My throat constricts and the backs of my eyes burn. I imagined that when he found out, it would start in a way very much like this.
But then he rescues me from my downward spiral. “Sage, I haven’t been completely honest with you,” he says, his words pouring over me like a shower of relief.
I sit up and crawl to the end of the bed, sitting back on my haunches and turning my face up to his. “What is it, Ebon? You can tell me anything.”
I’m actually oddly pleased to hear that he hasn’t been completely honest. It makes me feel a tiny bit—like, a-grain-of-sand-in-an-ocean tiny bit—better that he, too, has fibbed about something. I don’t even really care what it is. I’m just glad I’m not the only one with a black soul. Even though this hardly means Ebon is even a bad person, much less that his soul is the color of mine.
When he doesn’t offer anything further, I prompt him. “Who was that?”
Ebon sits down on the end of the bed and pulls me into his lap. I rest my head on his chest and he rubs his chin back and forth over my hair.
“It was my mother,” he replies, dead pan.
Of course, I don’t understand the significance. “Oh,” I reply vaguely, unwilling to admit I have no idea why that would be a bad thing. As Sage, I might be expected to know.
“You don’t remember me telling you about her, do you? About my parents?”
I answer in a small voice, hoping it’s the right
choice. “No. I’m sorry.”
I hear a sigh whisk through his chest like a light puff of air might whisk through my bedroom window. “It’s okay. None of it was true anyway.”
I circle my finger lazily through the sprinkling of dark hair that dusts his pecs. “Do you want to talk about it?”
I want him to. God, how I want him to. I want him to open up to me, to tell me his worst fears and his darkest secrets, to trust me and love me. But the thing is, I want him to do those things with me. With Willow.
But that will never happen. It never can. He isn’t interested in Willow. He’s interested in Sage.
I feel him move and his arm rises. I hear a scratching sound and I imagine him rubbing his hand over his stubbly face. A weary gesture for a weary man. I can feel that as well.
“I…I don’t know. I just…”
I lean away from him to look up at his face. He’s watching me. I don’t know what he’s thinking and his expression gives away nothing. I stroke his strong jaw, all the way down to his chin, and then I cup his lean, warm cheek.
For the rest of my life, I will probably wonder what in the world would possess me to do this. And why now. But I do it. Without thinking twice and without looking back, I do it.
“Ebon, I’m in love with you. I would never hurt you. I would never judge you. I would never betray a confidence. If you want to tell me, tell me. If you don’t, then don’t. But please don’t feel like you can’t. Because you can.” Suddenly, as though my body was somewhere else when my lips betrayed me, I feel a rush of belated emotion. My eyes burn beyond that which I can control and my lip trembles. I just told the man who I’ve loved for months now that I am, in fact, in love with him. I’ve never been more relieved and more afraid than in this very moment. “I love you,” I whisper again, my voice cracking on the last syllable.
