It was incredibly erotic, that exquisite stimulation to her nipples, the wicked thrust into her cunt, and the powerlessness of her position, the way he controlled her.
She moaned, almost in panic, almost climaxing with just that one fuck. He heard all of that.
His head was on her back, his teeth scraping at her shoulder. “You liked that, didn’t you?” He did it again, and she cried out.
“Say it.” He fucked her again.
“Yes!”
“Again.”
“Yes! I like it. I want it.”
With a growl he moved his mouth to the edge of her spine just below her neck. He sucked on her, drawing hard until she knew his intention was to mark her.
He held her there, sucking hard, and started pounding into her.
Delilah wailed with it immediately. It all was too much—the hard fucks piercing her, filling her impossibly, the brutal grips on her nipples with the violent tugs, and that grasp at her neck, his mouth making his mark on her. The mastery of it, the helpless submission.
In moments she was screaming, an orgasm overtaking her that had her shuddering, heaving under him in its ferociousness. Every jerk and spasm of her body increased somewhere the stimulation of his possession.
“Ben! Ben!”
He drove her until she cried with it, until she begged for respite.
When it was done he held over her, silent and still, and she knew his orgasm was still looming.
“We’re not done, baby. One more thing.”
He pulled out of her and lifted her forward, laying her flat on her belly. He came over her, and she knew what would happen next.
His fingers circled her anus, rubbing moisture there. Then he was there, his cock pressing in.
“No. Oh, God.”
“Yes, sweetheart.”
With one long, slow thrust, he filled her, letting out a satisfied groan. He brought his entire body weight down on top of her, his hips over her ass, his chest to her back. He took her hands, and entwining fingers, brought them up over her head.
“You’re mine, aren’t you?”
She was, of course she was. What could say it more? He enveloped her completely, his body wholly covering hers. And his cock in her ass, proclaiming ownership.
“Yes.” It was a whisper, but he heard it.
His fingers clasped hers, and he fucked her. Long, slow strokes that made her whimper. Taking, gritty thrusts that had her moaning.
Keeping them entwined, he moved their right hands together and slid them under her hip until they reached her clit. Then, with each next thrust, the movement wasn’t just gritty but erotic.
“That’s it, love.”
He knew her so well, knew exactly when she was turned on, knew exactly when she would come.
This time, he joined her. A couple more hard thrusts into her ass, then his spasms along with hers, his hot cum spilling into her core. His taking of her complete.
* * * *
Delilah didn’t remember falling asleep, didn’t remember moving, didn’t remember anything until she opened her eyes to daylight and Ben.
They lay on their sides, facing each other, not touching except for the clasp of their hands in between their bodies.
He watched her carefully, not smiling, waiting.
She looked back for a long minute. “You want to know if I’m okay. But you don’t want to ask.”
Still keeping his gaze on hers, he brought her fingers to his mouth for a kiss. “Yes, that’s right.”
“Asking would be a little like offering an apology, and you don’t want to do that.”
He nodded. “That’s right.”
She sighed a little. As she walked down the steps last night, letting him into her life for this one week, she’d sworn to herself that not once would she bring up Sunday, or the need for him to leave. She swore she was accepting what he offered and wouldn’t ask for more.
But she couldn’t understand this one thing. “When you…fuck me—”
He kissed her fingers again. “Make love to you.”
She lifted a shoulder. “You act as though you want me forever. As though you’re trying to bind me to you.”
“Yes,” he said. “Those things are right, too.”
Until Sunday. She refused to say it, but she couldn’t help thinking it.
He sighed, and she knew he read her thoughts. He squeezed her hand. “I want everything I can get from you in this week, Delilah. I love you and I want as much of you as I can have.”
“Before you go to Mars.”
He grimaced and nipped a little at her fingers. “I don’t want to apologize for having you the way I did. I want to fuck you blind every chance I get. I want you to remember, months from now, what it was like between us.”
Soothing with his tongue, he stroked where he’d bitten. “But I’m sorry for Mars, Lilee. I’m sorry it’s going to hurt. You won’t be alone in that.”
* * * *
They spent all of their free time together that week. Ben was cheerful and loving and willing to do anything she wanted. Delilah savored their time together, enjoying all of it but for those moments when she couldn’t suppress the sense of melancholy at impending loss.
He was astute and mostly would see when it happened. He’d stop what they were doing and pull her into his lap and sit quietly with her until it passed.
She got better at disguising the ache. Those moments when he silently held her were just too wounding.
He joined her in the shower that first morning. They kissed and held each other tenderly, until the heat between them inevitably rose, and they each pleasured the other with soap and hands. The next morning their time in the shower was more intense, prolonged enough that he drove her to work to save her being late.
That became their habit then. He’d drop her off and pick her up later, making time they could share even out of their commute.
Their first evening together Ben insisted on helping her with her basket-making. It was an attempt, she knew, to prove to her he wasn’t just all about the sex. After a few failed efforts, he got the knack of slivering the bamboo into reasonably useable withes, and a couple nights later he worked with her as she took on the challenge of starting the weave. It was a complicated task, requiring that she start lacing together every withe that would eventually form the basket. Generally, she accomplished it by using her bare feet as well as her hands as she crouched in the center of the circle she formed.
Doing the job together became an entertaining game of Twister as they crawled around each other getting the weave started. Twister with an R-rating.
They spent a couple nights at Ben’s. He enlisted her help as he tended his plants, watering and grooming. One night he grilled again on his back porch.
Other nights they ate out—a nice dinner in a high-end restaurant or hotdogs at the Boardwalk or a picnic on the beach. They spent one evening at the monarch butterfly preserve and biked the Cabrillo Highway on another.
All the time Ben touched her, caresses and kisses that unpredictably ranged from warm to hot. And he made love to her, also surprising her first with playfulness, then with incredible intensity.
Delilah found it lovely and exhausting all at once. She wouldn’t say no to any of it, but as the week wore on it became more and more difficult to take pleasure in the moment rather than regret the passage of time and dread the coming of Sunday.
On Saturday they joined the Sugar Daddies and celebrated another victory. The team started talking about an undefeated season—they were halfway there at 5 and 0. Hank proposed another pizza and beer outing, but Ben read Delilah’s face and declined for them.
They walked to their bikes, for once not touching. “Will you be at the game next week?”
Ben leaned forward to study her face again. “Would you prefer I wasn’t?”
Delilah mulled that over. It wasn’t Mars, then, if Ben would be in town for the game. “It’s your team.”
“And yours, Lilee. I’ll com
e or not, whichever you wish.”
“Why don’t you play, and I’ll come or not, whichever I wish.” Maybe she didn’t keep the bitterness out of those words. She heard Ben’s sigh even if he suppressed it. He put his hand on the back of her neck, but she resisted just a bit his drawing her close. And was relieved when they got to their bikes, and she could step away.
He looked at her as they fastened their helmets. “What would you like to do now?”
She shook her head, not able to make eye contact. “I don’t know, Ben. What would you like?”
“I’d like to make love to you, but I should feed you first.”
They stopped at a salad place and ate in near silence. When they got to Delilah’s home she went to shower. Ben waited on her upper deck with a glass of wine for her. He showered, too, and then they stood at the rail, Ben’s arms wrapped around her, sipping their wine and watching the sunset close another day.
She shivered as dusk came and Ben rubbed her arms. “Come,” he said. He took her to the bed and gently undressed her and then himself. He lay down with her, using his body to warm hers. He watched her face in the lingering light of near summer solstice.
Without speaking he began touching her, worshipping her with his mouth and hands. Every caress was gentle, lingering. He moved down her body until his head nestled her mound, and he brought her to a quiet climax with his tongue.
He came back up to her, his head tucked beside hers, and pushed into her. He held there for the longest time, as though that connection, that union, was everything he needed. When he began to move inside her, it was with long, slow thrusts.
Gradually his lovemaking became more heated. His small hums of pleasure became needy groans. Intense now, he lifted up over her, his lips skimming hers, his hands cupping her face.
She knew exactly when he felt her tears. His fingers stroked into her hair and the dampness was there, sliding down from the corners of her eyes.
He stilled and held her, no doubt searching her face. She wouldn’t open her eyes to him, even as he waited.
Finally, he lifted, pulling out of her, and lay down at her side. He circled his arms around her and pulled her close, hard against his body. His arms stayed firm, clutching harder, until she returned the embrace.
A long time passed as they held each other. It was full dark when Delilah spoke. “Will you leave, please, in the morning? Before I get up?”
It would be Sunday. They could have the day together, maybe even the night, but Delilah had reached her limit.
Ben was silent for a long moment. “Yes,” he finally said. “If that’s what you want.”
It wasn’t what she wanted, just the best she could do.
“I’m so sorry, Lilee.” He leaned over her, whispering. “I swear, one day I’ll make it right.”
Hours passed before she slept, and, in the morning, he was gone.
Chapter Nine
Nick Owens died the same afternoon Austin Hart spent in surgery having rods and pins and shit screwed into his tibia and fibula so he’d be able to walk again. A bad hit had resulted in an ugly, compound fracture. A career-ending injury.
There would be no more football for either of them.
They’d graduated from high school in Norfolk, riding a high as they’d taken their team to the state championship—and won it. Austin chose Berkeley while Nick stayed in the East, becoming a Terp. They vowed one day they’d face each other in a college bowl game.
And then bitched to each other by phone, almost that whole first season, when all they did was warm the bench with their asses.
Austin wished he could take it back. He’d have happily spent every single season riding the bench if it would have stopped Nick playing that December game that took his life. Long QT syndrome, one of those rare conditions that could lead to sudden death in a young athlete.
Like anyone had ever heard of that.
He never even knew about Nick’s death until the funeral was already over. Austin’s parents had flown out from Virginia—they were there almost before he was out of surgery. They’d spent four days telling him they couldn’t find his phone, holding the news back out of concern about his own recovery.
He wouldn’t have made it to the funeral anyway. He was on his back with his leg suspended for a week, and nearly a month passed before the external fixtures were removed and he could start rehab. Eventually, he’d sent a card and then called Nick’s parents. They’d been close—during their high school years, Nick and Austin were as likely to eat and crash at one family’s home as the other.
But it was Delilah he’d wanted to talk to. Delilah Jane—D.J., her brother and then Austin had called her, and they often shortened it to Deej. He knew she loved her brother and that she, of all of them, would be suffering.
She’d never take a call. He texted and wrote, but she never answered. He thought she needed him, whether she’d admit it or not. But he spent that winter break working hard in rehab, and by the time summer came and he made it back to Norfolk, the family was gone.
Delilah was the kid sister he’d never had. She’d adored Nick and hung around even when she wasn’t wanted. Mostly Nick indulged her, throwing a disk or even a football with her, shaking her off his tail only when he and Austin were up to something illicit. Beer, girls—they had a few secrets from the moms, or thought they did, but Austin was pretty sure Deej knew it all.
By his senior year, Austin noticed that Delilah had stopped being a kid and had turned into a girl. He liked her. She’d had Nick and him to train her up, so she wasn’t idiotic about the whole girl thing. She didn’t giggle or simper. Well, he and Nick could get her giggling, and he’d enjoyed that, but she never simpered. She was competent and competitive and didn’t tattle. Like a guy, she could be trusted.
Not that she wasn’t hot—she was. And as she started to play with hair and makeup and girly clothes, he started to notice some more.
He watched her more and more, until one day he became aware that Nick saw him watching her. Nick raised his brow in that QB look he’d mastered—that I-put-that-ball-right-in-your-hands-so-stop-screwing-up way. And Austin knew there would be blows, and an end to his best friendship, if he didn’t stop looking.
So he had, but he hadn’t stopped thinking. And what he thought was that when he’d finished college, when Delilah herself would be out of high school, then that might be the right time to take another look.
Then Nick had died, and Delilah had cut him off, and he’d let thoughts of her drift. But he’d known, the minute he’d seen her face on that job application Mavis had sent around before she retired. He’d known she was going to be his.
She was here now in Santa Cruz. And it was his turn. Ben had come in that Monday morning just as cranky as Linc had been for the last few weeks.
He didn’t care if his buddies had fallen in love. They’d chosen the wrong girl. He might be sorry for them, but she was his.
* * * *
Delilah should have been looking for a permanent job. It was nearly the end of June, and despite the pleasure Katie took in her mom-life, she would want her job back in a few more months.
The two women spoke by phone a couple times a week. As Katie’s maternity leave advanced, there were some issues that came up that Delilah needed to touch base about. They enjoyed their chats as though they were friends, and Delilah thought maybe they were. They always handled the work problems easily—Katie was so good at her job and knew Howard so well that the solutions were always obvious to her.
But the calls were extended by the interest they took in each other’s personal lives. Delilah enjoyed hearing about the baby and Katie’s pursuit of a full night’s sleep. It reminded her of Sarah and her little Pookie Bear. And Katie, like married women everywhere, enjoyed vicariously experiencing a single woman’s love affairs.
She’d heard about Linc from Howard, and she’d offered to kick his ass. She knew him well, she said, had liked him. His behavior seemed out of the ordinary for him, but sti
ll, deserving of a good whupping.
Delilah had volunteered the details about her week with Ben on her own. There had been a long pause when Delilah mentioned his name, but Katie wasn’t the least forthcoming about the reason behind it.
Katie was happy at home—so happy that she wanted more time. In fact, she didn’t want to commit at all about when she would come back.
That left Delilah in a kind of limbo, though that was a state that seemed to suit her at the moment. She wasn’t ready to make any hard decisions.
The decision she needed to face was about where to focus her search for a new job. The wild range of options she considered was an indicator of how unsettled she was. Back East, she thought, back into the comfort of Sarah’s warm friendship? That felt like a retreat. Maybe Japan—it was far away, and she had valuable language skills. But she was sure thoughts of Ben would haunt her there. Stay in Santa Cruz? She’d come to love it, but it would hold the ghosts of both Linc and Ben.
She couldn’t garner her discipline to form any kind of plan. Katie was content to lengthen her leave, Delilah was happy filling in for her, so she just let the weeks go by without much thought.
Her only complaint about her job was that the work hours were too short. They left her too much time on her hands, particularly when sleep didn’t come easily.
So she went on a weaving craze, often staying up into the wee hours of the night working. She became a bit obsessed about it, finding herself annoyed when she was pressed into other activities. Howard, concern for her in his eyes, scolded her into a couple weekend sails with him and Dolly. Katie insisted Delilah join the family as they celebrated her oldest son’s birthday, finally beating down her resistance with a plea for help. Suspicious of her friend’s motives, before she relented Delilah swore she’d leave if there were any single men present. There was one, but Katie handled Delilah’s objection by the simple expediency of handing over baby Clara, saying, “I’ll be right back,” and then disappearing into the barely-controlled chaos of the party for two hours.
Three Men and a Woman: Delilah (Siren Publishing Ménage Amour) Page 14
