by Loren, Celia
He slipped two thick fingers along the edge of her panties, teasing her with her own wetness before sliding them inside of her—as he began to stroke himself with the other hand. The pressure he applied was intense, but measured. She felt herself gushing over his hand. Her body contracted and stretched as his gestures grew faster, harder. Then he bent low again, letting his tongue take a slow lap of her clit. Her ass clenched and she felt her body tense before she gave herself over to the intense orgasm crashing over her. She came into his mouth, harder than she ever had before.
Before she had a chance to recover, Bryson mounted her once more. Scanning her eyes for approval, he softly pushed all the fabric away from her pussy and pushed himself slowly inside of her. They moaned in unison, each overcome with inexplicable pleasure as their bodies intertwined. Romy's body was still rocking and shaking from the powerful orgasm, her clit still sensitive. And Bryson's cock was swollen—deft with its movement, but huge, seeming to stretch her soft flesh to its limits.
She tilted her body towards him with what little power she could summon from her quivering thighs, and Bryson reached over and gathered the small of his lover's back in his palms. They bent away from each other like petals of a flower, but Bryson continued to push up and against her. They fit together so perfectly, every inch of their lower bodies seemed to be touching. Romy reached across her mate and summoned the strength to squeeze his sculpted buttocks in her sweaty fingers.
He kissed her neck, still rocking her slowly. Romy gave in to the contact fully, feeling her body begin to build towards an impossible second orgasm. She clenched his ass tighter, and Bryson yelled with a primal pleasure as his thrusts came quicker and quicker.
“Are you going to come?” Romy managed, though her voice was hoarse from the moaning.
Bryson couldn't respond, but his eyebrows joined across his face in a kind of apology. With a pleasing shudder, Romy felt her lover contract and pulsate inside her. He came for a long moment, dripping hot against her welcoming thighs. Romy gripped his wilting frame, letting the last few thrusts of his member against her walls take her to a sapping, sweet second climax. She let her head fall back against the couch frame, utterly spent.
They lay that way for a while, like exhausted athletes. Long enough for the sun to dip fully below the horizon, and long enough for tall shadows to stretch across the parlor walls. Bryson's skin became cooler and cooler as he gathered his breath. Their chests were still pressed tight against one another, and she could feel the strong thump-thump of his heartbeat. Romy let an arm and a leg droop off the couch. She felt the cool wood of her apartment's floor, and was surprised: it seemed impossible that this pedestrian wood, that pedestrian table, that all of these pedestrian things could exist just the way they always had—when the important part of the world now seemed dramatically different.
With a sudden burst of energy, Bryson shook himself off his lover's body and came to a standing position. She missed his touch immediately. Instinctually, Romy reached for him.
“I didn't...” Bryson began, as he hunted for his shirt and pants. “Look, I don't want you to think—”
“Shhh,” Romy said, curling into a ball. She felt the cool patches along the couch where their combined wetness lingered. “You don't have to say any of that. I know. And I'm on the pill, if that's what you were worried about.”
“That's not it,” Bryson said. He was buckling his pants. “I mean, of course it was, but...see, Romy...”
“You're anxious around a woman after you've near-literally drilled her brains out?” Romy asked coyly. Another improbability: seeing him standing there, mere moments after their coitus, she found she wanted him again.
“If it's a woman I really like, yes. Yes. I guess what I'm saying's that I really fucking like you.”
“Language!” She mocked.
“I mean it.” And now, he bent low. “You're the most incredible woman—person—I think I've ever met.”
“Stay with me,” Romy blurted. “Sleep here tonight.”
“Oh, baby. I want to. I just don't think—what if you're being watched, you know?” The look in Bryson's eyes was all pain and longing. He kissed Romy on the forehead.
“But I'll be back here tomorrow. Earlier than is polite or reasonable. And I won't be able to sleep between then and now, for obvious reasons.” And then came that melting grin, that beloved melting grin. She felt she owned this particular face Bryson made. Was responsible for it, whenever it appeared.
“So goodnight, my sweet darling. You will be safe as you sleep. I promise.”
With that, the man rose. He left the picnic basket on the table, they'd need it for tomorrow's session, but took the leather jacket he'd swung over her kitchen chair earlier that day. He unfolded the jacket and draped it gently across Romy's naked form.
“Collateral?” she asked. Her eyelids were beginning to flutter. She was drained enough to fall asleep right there on the bare futon.
“A promise,” he said simply. Then Bryson Vaughn stood tall, and made for the exit. She listened all the way from the sound of the foyer door closing sharply until she heard the gunning of his bike against the quiet street. She listened until she couldn't hear the engine anymore. She nestled below his leather jacket, cocooning herself in the smell of him. And then—not long after sunset—Romy fell asleep.
When she woke the next morning, with a crick in her neck and a messy house, Romy was briefly confused. Why was she on the futon? Why were the pillows off the futon? Why was she shivering in the cool blast of AC? Goofy, on seeing her waking, came to nuzzle his owner immediately.
“Poor little guy,” Romy murmured. “You didn't even go out last night.”
Rising and blinking to a hot Vegas sunrise, Romy hunted for her pet's leash through the mess of abandoned card games and clothes which were strewn about her living room. At a glacial pace, the events of last night were returning, revealing themselves in clues: the hastily pushed aside furniture. Her clothes, littered over the floor. Romy reached first for the leather jacket that had slid to the ground in her sleep, pressing her nose deep into its aromatic folds: Bryson. He'd been here last night. They'd fucked. The memories this brought back were compelling enough that Romy felt a sudden lightheadedness—so she fell into a waiting chair.
As her dog lapped at her ankles in anticipation, Romy clutched her head in her hands. A part of her felt hungover, but sans all symptoms—she was merely out of joint with the real world. Today was what? Tuesday? Tuesday meant no class, but lots of studying. But how could she be expected to study after such a miraculous, non-mundane thing had come to pass? Bryson Vaughn had laid her across this very couch. He'd looked at her the way she'd always dreamed of being looked at. He'd looked at her like he understood her completely, and cared about her. He'd looked at her like he'd never seen another naked woman, or heard another person string a sentence together before. She felt tingles moving about her sleepy nerve endings. Though she'd never been fast to care about someone before, Romy felt the urge to let herself admit that she cared about Bryson.
Collecting her disparate thoughts and feelings as if in a bucket, Romy prepared for the day. She took her dog on a walk. She righted the living room. She showered and dressed. Then, she began to study the charts her bad boy lover had left behind. Despite her humming blood, she wouldn't let herself forget the stakes of Saturday's mission. It was, after all, the whole reason they'd been forced to forestall their relationship. Romy fought away the dark, flickering hypothetical of being made to sleep with another man. She wouldn't be able to do it, she decided simply—not after last night. She'd rather take whatever punishment Zaida or Lefty could cook up. There was but one man for her now, one knight in shining armor. Only one.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Around the same time that morning, at a road stop diner out near city limits, Kellan Vaughn glared out a picture window at the swallowing Western light on the plains. He'd left his parent's house before the sun came up, in the grand tradition of Devils
Aces-men. He didn't care for the ghosts that haunted his childhood bedroom. He was simply too eager to see their bona fide counterpoints—namely, the Romy of his memory in real life. His obsession with her memory was getting stronger and stronger, harder to contain. He couldn't articulate why her safety had become so important to him now.
Bryson was supposed to meet his brother at the road stop diner and had also risen early with the sun. As he drove across the flatland towards their meeting spot, practicing ways to keep the guilt from his expression, anxious thoughts tore through his mind: What if Lefty DiMartino had found out about the affair, and was at just-this-moment sending muscle to Bryson's apartment in order to break his knees? As it always does, sex had complicated everything. But Bryson grinned, in spite. Come hell or high-water, he wouldn't trade a moment from last night for anything.
He was nearing the meeting place and could even discern a shape in the window directly facing the road which might have been a Vaughn man. And sure enough: there was Kellan, waving indolently at his brother from behind a familiar pair of Aviators. Those glasses, Bryson knew, had very clearly been swiped from the bedside table of a likely-sleeping Hughie V.
“Glad you could meet me,” Bryson said as he rolled into the cafe. “We've got a lot of planning to do. I know the last time I checked, you were a good card shark. Still true?”
“Jesus, brother. Sit down! Take a load off first, eh? You want pancakes? On me?”
Bryson glanced at his watch. “I should actually be going kind of soon, Kelly. Just wanted to go over this Saturday with you, so we can kick off prepping. First things first: you'll need to check out the Windsor, get the lay of the land. Their style is pretty Strip-typical—”
“I'm not saying anything until you get a coffee.” His kid brother pouted a little, jutting out that famous lip inherited from their perpetually-snarling father. “Oh, and Mom and Dad say hi.”
“Kelly, I don't have the time to just sit and shoot the shit with you.”
“Why?”
“I've got to get back to Romy. We've got to work on her tell today.”
“Let me come with you! I'd like to see her again.” Again? Bryson sputtered on his glass of tap-water. Slowly, he pushed the glasses up the bridge of his face. Again?
Kellan seemed to realize he'd chosen the wrong words. “I mean...you know. Just to get an idea of ...”
“Again? What do you mean again? You know her? You know Romy Adelaide?”
Now it was Kellan's turn to take off his protective shield. He stared his older brother down, and then took a slow sip of his steaming coffee. Bryson racked his brain—and then, of course, it all clicked. High school. Same grade.
“No need to get all macho-protective, Ace,” Kellan said, through a slurp. He was still sizing his brother up, in the cold, clear manner of a practiced gangster. He was willing him to remember more. Bryson tried.
He remembered Romy in the library, naturally—but much of the rest of his secondary education was cloudy at best. As much as he'd loved his brother, they'd never been close as friends; Kellan had all but married his guitar as soon as he'd mastered a basic chord progression. And his brother—he'd certainly been vague about women, and infrequently circled by his own buddies.
But hadn't there been one girl, one apple of his brother's eye? Yes. He knew that for a fact. One pretty, young thing who'd been the subject of many painstaking adolescent emo-songs, at least a few of which Kellan had made him listen to. A few strands of lyric worked their way through the fog of memory:
Don't tell me you can't feel it/ with your body next to mine...something something...think that you should be my homie, now and always, sweet, sweet...
Jesus.
Bryson steeled off against his brother, trying to read all the folds of his face. It had been Romy. Romy had been his younger brother's high school sweetheart, the object of his single-minded affection. And while they were all some six years out of Reno, the look on Kellan's face now told the whole, miserable story: he still had a thing for her. At the very least.
“Wow. You know, I completely forgot you guys' whole...history.”
“I thought you might've. Well. It wasn't really such a big deal.”
“No, Kelly—I mean, it's just that we've never really talked about women before.”
“Not particular women, no.”
A waitress sailed by with a mug of coffee, sloshing this down in front of Bryson. He stared at the spot on the table where a small pool of spilled contents now formed. This was awkward; awkwardness was ringing down around this breakfast.
“Look. I'm an adult. And I know high school was a long time ago.” Bryson started.
“Forever ago.”
“Ages.”
“So, bygones. Of course.”
“Of course.”
“Great.” Kellan wanted the conversation ended.
They took labored sips of their drinks.
“And this doesn't affect the plan,” Bryson ventured. “We'll get to the table together, and...”
“No. Of course not. Look, I'm just invested for, like—old time's sake. That's all.”
“Well, great. Goddamn. I'm amazed I didn't remember.”
“I'm not,” said Kellan, with a wry smile. Bryson searched his kid brother's face for tells; just how hurt would Kellan be if he knew about the previous evening's “study session”? But the younger Vaughn was playing with a poker face. He downed the remains of his coffee, stood up, and offered a hand.
“See you Saturday, then. Mr. High-Roller.” And with a cool incline of his shaggy head, kid brother flew the coop.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
The next few days proceeded in a whirlwind of activity and new routine: Bryson would zoom over to Romy's house early, the pair would practice all manner of complicated card counting techniques, and punctuate their breaks with long, soulful bouts of love-making. As she learned his playing style, his mannerisms, all the little pieces making up his demeanor—so too did Romy learn her new man's body. They fucked on the futon, over the back of the futon, flush against the wall, on the table, on the floor, and—at long last—in her bed. On one of the last practice days, Bryson made a risky move and stayed the night. Sleeping beside him in her own bed was far better than their sordid evening at the Windsor, and waking to his snoring frame, Romy let herself indulge in the vision of this life becoming habit.
She could be a biker girlfriend. She could be a biker wife, even. She could balance the books and run the household. Teach math by day, and spend her evenings on some prairie porch, waiting for the comforting sound of her lover's roaring engine. They'd pass their evenings playing card games—but not blackjack or poker. She'd cook in this alternate life, and they'd eat lavish meals and have long talks and end every day entwined together, screwing in the direction of the sunset.
It was getting harder to stay focused on the task at hand, even though Romy was making progress with her game. Bryson remained a patient but stern teacher; though their “study breaks” were a difficult distraction to skirt. Romy was abstaining from classes all week—which left an unpleasant pit of guilt in her stomach—but, as Bryson reminded her, if all went well on Saturday she'd be in the position to resume her studies with incredible ease. That was a secret lynch-pin to the master plan: if they all made it out of Lefty's scheme alive, not only would Romy be able to flee her job, but she'd be part of a three-way split of serious casino cash. All she had to do was ensure that Bryson, and his still as-yet-unmentioned partner, made it to the final round of a tournament.
On Thursday, the fourth day of their practice sessions, Romy squared off against her partner in a lazy game of Texas Hold'em. Bryson was going over a basic card count on a single deck game. His shirt was off and his skin was sticky from earlier in the day, when he'd all but jumped across their game and interrupted her mid-question with a kiss that led to more...and then more. She herself was naked from the waist up, flushed and glowing. His skill in the bedroom remained unparalleled. From the unexpecte
d softness in his lips to the firm hold of his muscular arms around her small body...she'd never been treated so well.
“I'll thank you to stop looking at my tits, sir,” Romy said archly.
“And here I was thinking you meant to distract me with your huge boobs.” Bryson's eyes didn't lurch from her round, perky breasts. He licked his lips hungrily.
“I don't know what you're talking about. I'm a professional.”
“I'll bet you are.”
“Hey!” Romy said sharply. “Not funny!” Bryson met her eyes, suddenly humbled.
“Not sorry.”
They played in silence for a moment.
“Do you really think I'm—?” Romy started. She didn't quite know how to finish this question, so she let it hang in the air for a moment. Bryson paused in his dealing; they were just at the turn card. He set the deck down, giving his lady full attention.
“What?”
“It's just...I know you think I'm this sweet, innocent woman, but I can't help feeling so stupid about this whole thing. Like it's kind of my fault, at the end of the day.”
“Disagree.”
