Winning Ruby Heart

by Jennifer Lohmann

  “I’m risking it.”

  This time she laughed outright. “Yes. I wonder what they’ll do if we go out together and you’re wearing a New Balance shirt. They could not have foreseen you.”

  It was Micah’s turn to laugh. “Neither of us could have foreseen us.”

  “When life gives you lemons, make lemonade, but no one gets to dictate where you get your sugar. I’m glad you’re my sugar.” Who knew Ruby Heart could be cheesy?

  “So,” he said with a lift of his eyebrow, “did you invite me here to talk about your shoes and to sleep in that bed, or are we going to do something else?”

  “Else. But you did all the work last time. I’d like to do some of the heavy lifting this time, but I’m not sure what that entails. I remember a fantastic orgasm on my part the last time, but if I asked you any logistical questions, I was too out of it to remember the answers.”

  He wheeled himself forward, past Ruby to the side of the bed, and transferred himself out of his chair. When he’d gotten himself into a balanced position with the help of some pillows, he caught her attention and she walked over to him. She walked between the thighs he’d pushed out wide. The points of her hip bones pressed into his palms. His fingers rose and fell with the movement of her belly. Intimacy was here, in their bodies finding a rhythm together, more than it had or ever would be in the mechanics of sex. He opened his heart and his mind to the sensations, both physical and emotional, that would follow, then looked up at her, completely aroused by the simple act of watching their bodies move together.

  “Logistics. My lower body functions in every important way but ejaculation.” He kept his eyes locked with hers, both because the intensity of her warm brown eyes was incredibly erotic and in order to keep a read on her reactions to their frank conversation. She wouldn’t be the first woman he’d been in this position with who ended the evening with hurt feelings because she believed a lack of ejaculation was about them and not about his body.

  Ruby lowered her head slowly, her eyes still locked with his. Deep breaths allowed oxygen to fill every part of his body. Ruby’s ever-present salt smell filled his nostrils. Before his head could float away, he ground his attention down to the present. One thing he understood, in a way he could never have understood in his preaccident body, was that intimacy was not two naked bodies rolling around together. Intimacy—real, deep sexual intimacy—was communication.

  Scary, intense shit.

  “And my lower half still feels pleasure—it just doesn’t communicate the feeling to me anymore. Touches to my upper half feel good, sure, but the real pleasure is in my mind.” Micah grinned, open, wide and feral, while he tapped his head. “I like to watch.”

  This time she lifted and lowered her head slowly several times as the import of what he was saying settled on her. Finally she removed her hands from his shoulders and placed them over his hands, still resting on her hips. “What do you like to watch?”

  Ruby guided one of his hands off her hip bones, under her T-shirt and onto her taut belly. “This?” she asked as she steered his hand under her shirt to her breast.

  Her shirt still covered her skin, so he could only see the lump their hands made together under the fabric. He could also feel the peak of her nipple and they sucked air between their teeth in tandem when she directed his fingers around her nipple and pinched.

  “Or do you like to watch this?” she asked. She pulled their hands still resting on her belly into a claw shape and walked them under the waistband of her gym shorts and down the crease where her thigh met her belly. Again the fabric covered their hands, and watching the lumps of their hands aroused him to the point of bursting. He knew what her skin looked like there. When their joined fingers tiptoed lower, he could picture her brown curls against the white of her thighs and the pink of her labia.

  She led his finger between the lips of her pussy and he licked his lips, remembering the taste of her. The warmth and dampness of her folds and the changing rhythm of her breaths under his hand cried out her arousal. His breaths slowed, becoming deeper and filling the scent of her into his soul.

  “Or is this a better view?” She gave each of his hands a pat, which he understood as a directive that they were to stay where they were and continue what they were doing. He was happy to oblige.

  Ruby flung her shirt across the room in one quick movement. One instant he had been looking at a lump under a gray T-shirt. The next instant he was staring at her pale skin. One of her nipples was a deep pink, hard and pointed; the other was covered by his hand. He moved his palm so it didn’t completely cover her breast, and this time when he pinched the nipple, he saw the flush of her areola while air whistled between her teeth. Blood pounded in his ears.

  “That’s a good view,” he choked out.

  She slipped her thumbs under her waistband and lowered the elastic of her shorts a quarter of an inch, his eyes tracking each extra cell of skin she revealed. He licked his lips again, desperate to taste her. Her answering smile was wicked, her mouth wide-open and her tongue swiping across the edges of her lips while her shorts bared only that extra tantalizing inch of skin.

  Anticipation pounded fire in his ears until he could hear little more than the music of his arousal. The view of Ruby half-naked was intoxicating, as her nipple poked out between the fingers of his one hand while his other hand made light circles between her legs.

  When he eased one finger forward a little to find her clitoris, her head fell back, her hands locked in the waist of her shorts. Her thighs twitched against his hand, clasping his hand with the power of her muscles. In an experiment, he brought his thumb to meet his finger and rolled her nub between them, like he had with her nipples, not taking his eyes off her face. Her eyelids flittered. Her nostrils flared. He did it again, this time easing his middle finger inside her.

  Her hips jutted forward with such ferocity that Micah lost his balance and fell backward onto the bed with an “oomph.” As they were still attached, Ruby fell on top of him, her breasts landing on the line of demarcation so he could feel one of her nipples against his though not the other.

  “I don’t think I used enough pillows,” he said to the top of her head, short wisps of her hair moving with his breath and sticking to his damp lips.

  When she looked up at him, her eyes seemed to have a line of demarcation as clear as the one across his chest. Above hot, below startled. Unable to help himself, Micah burst out laughing. He untangled his hands from between their bodies, gripped her under her arms and slid her up his body until her face was level with his. Once she was where he wanted her to be, he put his hands on either side of her face, lifting his head up to meet hers. His tongue answered the invitation of her parted lips, slipping in and around her mouth.

  Between the shifting of the bed and the movement of her upper body against his, he was pretty sure she was grinding her hips against his. He sucked her tongue deep in his mouth before taking it lightly in his teeth and drawing his head back to the mattress, her tongue gliding along the tops of his teeth until they were unlocked from each other.

  Arousal had taken control of her eyes again.

  “So what’s next in the Ruby Heart plan of attack?” He matched his question with a smile and a raised eyebrow.

  “Who says I have a plan?”

  He raised his other eyebrow.

  “Okay. I was going to slip off my shorts and then take extra care undressing you. Me naked and presenting as many full views of myself as possible to you.” She cocked her head at him, certain she was back in control. “Maybe touch myself while considering what piece of your clothing to remove next.”

  In demonstration, she slid her hand between their bodies and it passed from where he could feel to where only his lower body could enjoy the movements. But her wicked smile gave away what she was doing, especially as she drew her hand back out and pressed a glist
ening finger to his lips.

  “And after that?”

  “Sharing my game plan with the other team?” It was her turn to raise a brow at him. “I don’t think so.”

  “Does it involve my mouth where your hand was?”

  “It could.” Her voice rolled with suggestion.

  “I want that.”

  “You are a bossy man.”

  “And I expect my whims to be catered to.”

  She used her finger, the one that had been inside her, to trace a line down his jaw. “I’ll think about it.”

  He craned his neck to watch her slide her body down the length of his. Freed from the grip of his hand and the cover of her T-shirt, her breasts jiggled as she shimmied out of her shorts and panties. Hypnotic. And he was going to get to play.

  Together they stripped the clothes off his body in record time. In a hurry to get where they were going so they could spend more time there, Micah grabbed as many pillows as he could and shoved them to the headboard and scooted himself to the head of the bed, in a sitting position. It was Ruby’s turn to watch him and she stood at the side of the bed, eyeing the movement of his limbs, both controlled and not.

  For about two years after his accident, the continued atrophy of his legs had bothered him. The doctors said it would stop and that spastic movements of his muscles would keep some muscle tone.

  This was the first time Ruby had seen him laid out in full view, no clothes in the way. And he might not worry about the state of his legs any longer, but all men liked for their lovers to look upon them with pleasure. Ruby’s eyes were still dilated and her lips plump and wet, but she also looked uncertain for the first time that night. He patted the side of the bed and she sat down.

  “Can I answer any questions for you?” Sex required trust, no matter the partners, and after the fifty-mile race, Ruby had put all her trust in him to both relax and give her pleasure. He had to trust her to do the same. Trust and communication went hand in hand.

  He put his hand on her thigh, with enough pressure in his grip that he could see shadows in the indentation of her skin but not so much that he couldn’t move his hand around. She tightened her quads and he gripped the strength hidden beneath the soft surface of her skin. Her nipples, which had relaxed, began to harden into peaks again. He moved his hand around to her inner thigh, brushing against her soft folds before pulling his hand back. Her mouth parted. Micah had to concentrate on his breathing to keep the pleasure from flooding his mind. Just because his orgasms were all in his head didn’t mean he wanted to come prematurely.

  “I don’t mind repeating myself in the name of hot sex. In fact, talking about sex while you’re sitting there naked and glorious is almost as erotic as watching.” This time, when he moved his hand to her inner thigh, his fingers breached the folds of her skin again and the musky smell of her filled his nose. He slipped his fingers back out and rubbed them together, reveling in the slipperiness of her juices.

  Another truth his preaccident, young-stud self had not realized was that sex may be the act of insertion, but intimacy and eroticism were the smells, the sounds, the mind, the emotions, the trust, the connection—everything about sex that nineteen-and twenty-year-olds tended to forget about in the rush for the big O.

  “You said you like to watch because the orgasm happens in your mind.” Despite her evident attempt to control her breaths, they were short and shallow. The conversation and connection between them was as arousing to her as it was to him. “And you said that your lower body feels pleasure, but doesn’t tell you. Where can and should I concentrate my attentions? Maybe more important, are there parts of you that you want me to stay away from?”

  He opened his arms wide and gestured down to the rest of his body. “Have at it. Just don’t do something where I can’t see it, because I definitely can’t feel from about here—” he put his hand below his nipples “—down, and if I can’t feel it or see it, you’re doing it only for you. Which is fine—”

  “But I want to do this for you,” she interrupted. “With you.”

  Ruby slipped her naked form off the side of the bed, eyeing his body up and down, forming a strategy, as he had known she would. Then she smiled, a wicked smile that lit up her face and was more for herself than for him. He took several deep breaths to calm his overactive mind and focus on her. Their connection. The thing that would make this interaction different from closing his eyes and simply imagining.

  Ruby licked her lips until they glistened in the lamplight. If Micah wasn’t careful, he would catch his breath while watching her trace the bedcovers next to his legs, and in catching it, he’d lose it completely. His legs must have sensed something was near them because his right calf muscle twitched, a movement that traveled up his thigh.

  She climbed onto the bed. His legs lowered slightly from her weight. The hairs on his arms stood on end. A bomb could explode in the next room and he wouldn’t be able to look away, especially after she cocked her head at his reactive legs and said, “Interesting? Good or bad, I wonder?”

  “Good. I don’t think my taste and the interests of my lower limbs have diverged much since we stopped talking to one another, and I think it’s good.”

  “Huh. I wonder...” She straddled his feet, with knees wide, her face pointed toward his toes and her firm ass in the air as if she was presenting herself to him. Then she leaned forward, and he could see her breasts brush his legs and the lights dance across her glistening pussy.

  As she walked back on her arms and knees, he could see everything. Her breasts bounced above his legs, her nipples brushing against his skin, which jumped in reaction. Hair interplayed with rosy folds of skin, open, deep and on display for him. The muscles of her hamstrings and her arms bent and flexed. And—he drew his gaze back up to her bottom hanging in the air—she was open to him. When she scooted up until her mouth was level with his dick, her pussy was practically in his face.

  The view wasn’t entirely perfect. Despite her intentions, her hair and breasts were in the way, so he couldn’t see all of what she was doing. But when he reached his hand out to stroke her, she gasped, and the muscles of her upper thighs quivered. He moved himself higher on the pillows, grasping on to her hips and swinging her ripe ass until he could lean forward and press his mouth against her. She didn’t even question.

  He spread the cheeks of her ass wide, providing his tongue direct access to her core and enveloping himself in the smell of her. She shuddered and moaned, giving herself completely to him. He still couldn’t see what she was doing to his lower half, but positive energy came up through his body in waves, flooding his mind with images, colors and sounds. As she moved, her breasts bounced and brushed against the edges of his hand. Her breaths got increasingly shorter. Her knees tightened around his chest, squeezing every last breath out of him.

  “Turn around,” he said, unable to see farther than a couple inches of her skin. “Ride me.”

  The mattress depressed under her knees as she moved and shifted around to reach into her bedside table. Together they rolled a condom onto his erection. As he held his erection in his hand, pleasure only traveled one way, but he guided her onto him. The skin on his legs was red with pleasure and interest. Her nipples were hard peaks and her mouth was soft.

  She lifted herself up off him, coming down with such intensity that both their thighs twitched. He gripped her waist, keeping her movements steady so he could watch. Pressure mounted in his mind, emotions flying at him from all directions. If he tried to avoid them, this moment would be lost. The most frightening part of orgasm was right before it happened, when Micah felt splayed wide and vulnerable. But Ruby’s sharp gasping breaths kept him as pinned open as she was, unable to stop the mounting weight of sight, sound, taste, touch and smell.

  When orgasm started to overtake her, she leaned forward and he caught her shoulders in his hands, keeping her
aloft so he could continue to watch. Her long hair bounced against his chest.

  “Oh!” She sat up so quickly she nearly unbalanced herself. All her muscles seemed to tense at once. Then she finished her “oh!” with a breathier “Micah,” and she fell forward again.

  Before he caught her, he relaxed the grip he’d had on his mind. Everything he’d experienced burst through him like a geyser. He closed his eyes and shuddered, riding the waves of emotions until he crashed onto the shore in exhaustion.

  Physically and emotionally depleted, Micah opened his eyes. Judging only by the exhaustion evident in her thighs, Ruby probably felt the same. His fingers creaked as he loosened his grip on her hips, and he gave a tired smile when her hips wavered, this time from weariness rather than arousal. He patted her behind. The bed rocked as she shifted her weight to climb off him, a small groan escaping her lips.

  He removed the condom and tossed it into the trash, then scooted over until he was on one side of the bed. She took advantage of the space he’d made to collapse next to him. Was she a postsex talker? The last time hadn’t been a good measure because she was recovering from a fifty-mile run. Maybe he wouldn’t be able to judge accurately this time either, since that bit of sport had apparently exhausted them both.

  The mattress swayed under Ruby’s changing weight as she got comfortable. She tucked her head on his chest, her soft breaths dancing across his skin. Her breathing was slow, but it wasn’t even enough for him to be certain she was asleep, plus her head didn’t press down onto his chest. She was awake enough to hold herself up a little. He put one arm around her, resting his hand on her moist back. The other hand he walked down the length of his body until his fingers came across her leg, which was draped across him. He took a moment to let his fingers explore the different textures of their skin before resting his hand on her knee. He closed his eyes, too tired to express anything that had just happened, though his mind was still racing from the experience.