by Kennedy Ryan
“Wait.” He grabs my hair, pulling my head back when I press into him, seeking more. “I want this slower.”
“Jared.” I reach between us and fist his cock. “We can do slower later.”
“No.” He chuckles and pushes my shoulder gently until I’m sitting on the bed. “Slower now.”
I’m shocked when he gets down on his knees in front of me. Both times we made love, Jared put in work, eating me out like a starving man. I’m fully prepared and dripping wet for act three, but he surprises me yet again. Taking my foot in his hand, he kisses the arch. A frisson scuttles along my leg from the place he kissed me, and I twitch. He embarks on a journey that carries him up my leg, sucking the calf muscle and behind my knee, his tongue warm, velvety torture. All the while his mouth worships me, he squeezes my hips, grips my waist, palms my breasts. By the time he christens the inside of my thighs with kisses, I’m thrashing, head flung back, heedless of my wet hair on the bed. The light caresses, the feathery kisses, the careful kneading of my flesh, he’s doing it on purpose. A passionate provocation pushing me to beg. It’s the best battle of wills, one where the end is already decided. Because he can go slow or fast, light or deep, but he will fuck me before this is over.
I win.
But I’m determined to resist as long as I can, gathering the fine linen of his sheets in my balled fists, pressing the tips of my toes into the cool stone floor, caging the moans and whimpers inside my teeth. Not giving him the satisfaction until he satisfies me.
And then the tide changes. Those gentle hands—the ones I want to ravage me, to dig into my ass while he barrels into my body—press my legs open. I tense, completely aware that I have no defense against that tongue, against the skill and patient hunger applied to the needy, weeping center of my body. I urge his head forward, deeper into the V of my legs, unashamed to ask for what I want. Prepared to demand it if he tries to go slow, to go easy.
“Banner,” he says, still kneeling, his hair damp and cool against my thigh. “Watch me eat this pussy.”
Barely hearing him over my heartbeat, I sit up on my elbows to follow his order. His eyes, blue fire, burn as he scoops his arms under my legs, lifting me, holding me immobile and open to him. Never looking away, he dips his head between my legs, and I watch his mouth on me. Watch the calm façade of his expression crack with hunger and fall apart with lust. I realize that in this battle of wills, his composure is as flimsy as mine. At the first swipe of his tongue in the wet folds, by mutual agreement, we both lose all pretense of control. If this bed is our battlefield, we are two white flags surrendering to the demands of the other.
“Fuck, Ban,” he mutters against my slick, wet mound. He jerks me closer to his mouth, and I watch as his tongue darts out furiously, flicking my clit. He drags his tongue from top to bottom, thoroughly enjoying every inch, every drop of me. I grunt, pulling his hair, pressing his head closer, bending my legs and sinking my heels into his shoulders. I’m a madwoman with no sense of propriety, no inhibition or pride. The need to join with him, to mate with him is paramount. I want to feel him aggressive and plunging into my body even more than I want to come, but I don’t have to make that choice. In tandem, his fingers and mouth persist until I unravel. I come loose from all my bindings. Every insult, every criticism, every word spoken against me loses its power in the center of his perfect desire. To be wanted like this eclipses all the times I wasn’t—all the times I felt unworthy. It billows from me, and I feel so completely free.
I’m still floating, drifting, when he joins me on the bed, scattering kisses over my shoulders, my neck, and the freckles on my nose. I smell myself on his face, and it spikes the frantic desire all over again. I clutch at his shoulders and urge him to position himself between my legs.
“Do I need a condom?” he asks, his voice urgent, hopeful.
“No.” I pull his hair and squeeze the firm roundness of his ass. “Please fuck me.”
“In a bed and with the lights on,” he says. “How do you want it?”
I know immediately.
“I want to be on top.”
It’s not that I’ve never been on top, but the self-consciousness never really went away. Am I too heavy? Can he breathe?
“I’d love that,” he replies.
“So you want me to ride you, Jared?” I ask playfully as he stretches out under me and I straddle his strong thighs.
“Do I want you to ride?” He challenges me with one cocked brow. “Hell, no. If you’re taking the top, you better drive.”
We laugh like the kids in that laundromat, hearts free and minds clear. And for a handful of seconds, it’s simple between us, but as I hover over him, the humor evaporates. I’m on the threshold of something I’m not sure I’m ready for. Not him being inside of me. I’m panting for that, but this intimacy with nothing between us. Not secrets, no lies, no misunderstandings, no one else. The path to him is clear, and I’m afraid once I start down it, there is no turning back. Jared is a one-way ticket.
I take him in my hand and into my body, and the hot, tight clasp has us both gasping, foreheads smashed together. The first thrust gives me that almost-too-much feeling, that slight stretch you first mistake for pain, but it’s actually the ache of your body begging for more. I’m wet, so I’m ready, but I’m not prepared to feel even more than I did before. I’m not prepared for the click in my soul, the key turning in my heart. I’m a door flung open when I rise and fall over him. He spans my back with his hands and buries his face in my neck, nuzzling me, licking me, biting me, growling and claiming like an animal. With every push in and pull out, he taps into something I didn’t know was there. Something I didn’t know needed to be found.
With one hand, he brushes the damp hair back from my face, and with the other he grips me by the hip.
“You’re so beautiful,” he gasps. His face contorts with pleasure, and he pistons up into my body, his pace bruising. I lift my legs and hook my ankles at his back, needing him even deeper, even harder. Steadily invading and withdrawing, he finds my fingers, linking them with his and leaning into me until his lips brush against my ear.
“Chinga,” he says, a salacious whisper, a memory from our first time together.
A breathless laugh escapes my lips, and I squeeze the fingers tangled with mine.
“Chinga,” I whisper back.
Fuck.
We exchange the vulgar word like an endearment, passing it between us, incited by the sound of it on each other’s lips. And then there are no words. Just our eyes holding as our bodies reunite—a sweet, sweaty merger. One heart slamming into the other. Breaths congregating between our mouths. The wills we both master with so much pride collapse, yield, give way. A détente between our bodies and a truce between our hearts. And with one final plunge, one last kiss, finally peace.
29
Jared
Classic rule of negotiation: when the terms are more than you bargained for, consider abandoning the deal.
Banner Morales is more than I bargained for. We’d had sex twice in ten years, and I remembered every vivid detail of both encounters. Last night was . . . more. Her stripping down to nothing, dropping her robe and her guard, not just showing me her skin and the ripe curves of her body but showing me herself, she completely bared her inner self to me. The trust of that act heightened the intimacy between us in a way I’ve never experienced.
“I think I’ll have steak.” She smiles at me in the glow of lit candles. The restaurant, one of the island’s finest, features a private terrace, which hangs over the Caribbean with its gradated shades of blue, a startling bed of aquamarine, cerulean, and turquoise. The balmy breeze off the water toys with loose strands of Banner’s hair and carries her clean scent across the table to me. If it weren’t for the solicitous server checking on us every few minutes, I could imagine we are the only ones here.
“Points be damned,” she says with a laugh. “I’m on vacation. What are you having?”
I stare into those lon
g-lashed espresso-colored eyes, and all I can think of is how she looked down at me when I was between her knees, head buried in her pussy, slurping at her like one of the intoxicating island drinks that deceive you with their fruity sweetness. That’s Banner. She’s so sweet, you don’t realize how dangerous she is at first—that she goes to your head until you’re reeling from the effects. You don’t realize she’s a beautiful snare, and once you’re trapped, not only can you not get out, but you don’t want to.
“Jared?” She shoots me an inquiring look over her menu. “What are you having?”
“Oh.” I glance at the menu I’ve been holding for the last ten minutes, but hadn’t bothered reading. “The paella looks good.”
“Oooh.” She narrows her gaze on the menu and nods. “I’ve changed my mind. That does look delicious. I think I’ll have that, too. It’s one of my favorites to make.”
“You cook much?”
It’s when I have to ask these kinds of questions that I realize how much Banner and I don’t know about each other. Despite feeling like I left irretrievable parts of myself inside her last night, and that I’ll carry the secrets of her body to the grave, we’ve missed a lot in the decade we were apart.
“I do actually.” She shrugs, the olive skin of her shoulders gleaming sun-kissed and smooth in her strapless dress. “When I have time.”
“Maybe you can cook something for me.”
We stare at one another across the table, the possibility of an actual relationship— something we’ve never had the chance to consider—silently unfolding between us.
“Yeah,” she replies. “I could make you my favorite dish.”
“Which is?”
“Chicken enchiladas with mole sauce. I make it even better than my mama.”
“You and your mom are close?”
“Yes, in the way mothers and daughters who are too much alike are close. Usually arguing after ten minutes together.” She sips the fruity drink she ordered and grimaces. “I didn’t realize this had pineapple. Blech.”
I laugh at the face she makes. “I take it you don’t approve?”
“I hate pineapple. Always have.”
She sets the glass down on the table and there’s a tiny lull in our conversation. It doesn’t feel like that awkward “so what do we talk about now,” as much as there’s so much to talk about, we aren’t sure where to start. I hesitate, unsure if I should say what I’m feeling, but then I remember her bravely sharing herself, her fears and insecurities with me yesterday, and I know there is only forward for us. I’m not sure where we’re going, but it has to be forward. I reach across the table for her hand, smiling at the wary look she offers. She’s unsure, too.
“I feel like we have a lot to learn about each other,” I tell her. “In some ways it feels like I’ve known you for years and can predict your next move before you think it, but in other ways I feel like I know nothing at all.”
She squeezes my hand, a smile blooming on her mouth and rising on her cheeks. “You’re right. I don’t even know if you watch TV, much less what your favorite show might be.”
“Billions.”
“I’m seriously not surprised.” She smiles at me across the table. “Let me guess. Your favorite character is Bobby Axelrod, right?”
“Wrong,” I come back, pleased that she mis-pegged me.
“Who, then?” she asks, eyes narrowed in speculation.
“Wendy Rhoades.”
Her mouth falls open and she leans forward, elbows on the table.
“I’m shocked you didn’t say Bobby, or at least Chuck. Why Wendy?”
Because she reminds me of you.
I don’t say it. I can’t shake every rule of negotiation. I can’t give her everything up front.
“Bobby is the billionaire and Chuck runs the city as the DA,” I say. “But Wendy runs them both. They’d do anything for her. Bend their morals, break their rules. They’d even act against their own self-interest for her, which is antithetical for them both.”
“You’re so sure?”
“If there’s one thing I know for sure,” I laugh harshly. “It’s selfish bastards, being one and all, and those two selfish bastards would do anything for Wendy. That’s what ultimately drove Bobby’s wife away. She knew she might be the wife, but Wendy was the queen.”
“Yeah, I didn’t see their divorce coming.”
“I did,” I scoff. “It’s so obvious Bobby would fuck Wendy if she ever gave him any indication he had a chance.”
I pause, capture, hold her gaze in the moonlight.
“That’s what we selfish bastards do,” I tell her. “We fuck the girl we want the first chance we get.”
Static electricity crackles in the air, drawing us to one another even though neither of us move an inch. It’s invisible and inexorable, this pull, and I hope she’s truly done resisting it.
“And how do you deal with the guilt?” she asks, her voice low and barely above a whisper. “The guilt of just taking and doing whatever you want?”
“What guilt?”
The truth lands on the table among our appetizers and silverware. Her heavy conscience and my lack thereof. Before she can probe any more, the server comes to take our order. He walks away and I shift the conversation instead of talking more about my general lack of morality.
“Favorite movie of all time?” I pick up where we left off before the interruption.
“Shawshank Redemption. You?”
“The Godfather.”
“Figures.”
“Yeah, it does.” We laugh together.
“Favorite food?” she asks.
“Lasagna.” I sip my drink, a jalapeño margarita or some shit. I miss my Jameson. “Best lasagna I’ve ever had in my life was my mom’s.”
“I’ve never heard you talk about your mother,” Banner says. “Only your stepmother.”
There’s a pain in my chest every time I think of my mother. Some emotions are so strong, some losses so essential that the heart—not your beating heart, your feeling heart—can’t contain them, so the body absorbs the blow. That’s how I grieve my mother.
“She died.” I clear my throat and take another sip of my spicy margarita. “Breast cancer.”
Banner has this way of making you feel like you’re the only person in the room, maybe in the world. She doesn’t blink, as if she might miss some vital detail of what you’re saying if she does.
“How old were you?” she asks, her undrifting stare compassionate.
“Ten.” I cough, less about the spices in my drink and more about how foreign it feels to talk about this, about her. “It was really fast. She was already stage four and . . .”
That’s as far as I typically go, and I assume she’ll do what other people do. Murmur condolences and move on. It’s an old hurt, no place to linger, but Banner does what Banner does.
“Tell me about her,” she says softly. “What was her name?”
“Angela.” My laugh is short. Truncated. “Dad called her Angie. God, he yelled her name all the time. ‘Yo, Angie, where’s my socks? Angie, you pick up my dry cleaning? Angie, there’s no beer in the fridge.’”
I pause to offer a knowing look.
“I can hear your thoughts from here,” I tell her with a crooked grin. “And yes, he did have some chauvinist tendencies my stepmother cured him of pretty quickly.”
Her rich laughter and the warmth in her eyes ease the ache in my chest a little. I rarely talk about it because I hate feeling this way. Weak and helpless, like I can’t make it hurt less and I can’t ever bring her back, but I don’t feel those things tonight. It feels right to tell one incredible woman in my life about the other.
“Mom wasn’t a pushover, though.” I toy with the cloth napkin wrapped around my silverware. “She just loved my dad so much. Wanted to make him happy all the time. That’s how she was. She always wanted everyone to be happy.”
“Was your father still in the military then?”
I don’t ev
en remember telling Banner my dad was military, but I nod.
“Yeah. Army, so we lived all over when I was young.” I shrug, dislodging the tightness creeping over my shoulders. “Dad got out soon after she died. Retired.”
“He wanted to be there for you? I imagine that was such a tough time with you being so young.”
I hadn’t thought of it in those terms before. It never occurred to me that my father did that for me, but maybe he did. He wasn’t around as much when he was in the army and if he’d been deployed, I would have had to stay with relatives.
“Maybe.” I look down at the table but don’t see the white linen tablecloth for a minute. I see, instead, my dad crying at my mother’s grave. Feel him clutching my hand like a lifeline. “I guess that is when we started getting close.”
“You have pictures?”
The question takes me off guard, and I stare at her like she asked me if I know where they buried Jimmy Hoffa.
“Uh, yeah. I do actually.” It’s the only physical photo I carry around. Everything else is digital, but this one I like to hold every once in a while. I dig out my wallet and pull the time-worn photo from the hidden pocket.
“Wow.” Banner studies the photo I handed her. “She’s gorgeous. That skin!”
“She was Italian. Guess it’s why I’m a little darker, too. Little bit of year-round tan in the genes.”
“That’s the only difference between you and your dad.” Banner raises wide eyes. “You guys could be twins, otherwise.”
My father was a little younger in that photo than I am now, and Banner’s right. The likeness is uncanny.
“Was it hard for you?” She passes the photo back to me. “When your dad started dating your stepmother?”
“You know, it wasn’t. Me and my dad had a few years, just the two of us, before she and August came along. I was a little older and frankly ready to have a woman back in the house. My dad couldn’t cook for shit.”
We share a chuckle, a lingering glance because talking about this stuff feels so . . . close. It feels like we’re venturing into something new and deeper. The water’s at my ankles, but for Banner, talking with her this way, with her looking this way, with her being this way, I’d wade in to the knees. Higher.
