“Yeah, actually.” She grinned. “Inviting you to my place to look at my art.”
“And if I say yes?”
“May just have to kiss you.”
“Hell yes in that case.”
When her lips pressed to mine, all inhibition melted away. My hands sunk into her hair, enjoying the softness. I tasted flowers, smelled honey. Wow.
Never had I driven anywhere faster without speeding. It was like one of those racing videogames Ben and I used to play when we were kids, where the other cars were just obstacles to weave around. We got to her place in ten minutes’ flat, although if I’d had my way, I would’ve gotten there in ten seconds.
“This is your one warning,” Britt said, as we got out of my car. “Your car may get keyed, staying here – and my place is kind of a shithole.”
“Noted,” I said, taking her hand.
As an older man sprawled on her lawn leered at her, I put my arm around her.
“He’s harmless,” Britt said with a valiant smile.
The elevator took its sweet time coming, although we took advantage of the wait to kiss.
All of me was dancing with anticipation. Going to her place was definitely a good sign. And the way she was kissing me; full open mouth, matching my every tongue sweep with hers. Upstairs, in her place, would she match every move of mine with hers? And how far I was willing to go?
As the elevator arrived, we separated reluctantly. Although it was good in that I got some time to think – or at least try to. With Britt so close, being logical seemed a task too Herculean to even undertake.
But still, did I really want to sleep with her already? Neither of us seem to be in a place for anything serious, so why did what I felt around her seem so serious?
We walked into her place and she flipped on a light and kicked off her shoes.
“Want anything to drink? Water? Tea?” The last one Britt said with a smile.
“Ok. Some more of that Russian Tea Room stuff would be great.”
“I’ll just UberEats it and add it to your tab,” Britt said, smirking.
She lingered beside me awkwardly. Did she want to kiss me, or?
“So, that art of yours…”
“Right.” She nodded, as if coming out of a daze. “Let me get some. They’re only sketches, mostly, but that’s been my thing the past few years. I lust like how easy they are to start and stop, and transportable. Been doing it some days at work and…”
Her voice faded out as she went into a room that had to be the bathroom, seeing as her bed was in the corner across from me.
Her bed. Had I really been so nervous coming here that I hadn’t seen it? The big-ass red-silk sheeted masterpiece that was just begging to be rumpled.
My dick twitched with an image of me and her, the silky red swathing our nakedness. Fuck.
“…but yeah, here’s a few.”
She was holding a Biblical stack of sketches that I could only gape at.
“You keep those in the bathroom?”
“Yeah.” She shrugged. “There’s this handy cabinet on the wall I didn’t have anything else to put in. Plus, I figured if I get broken into, bathroom would be the last place they’d check. Not that they’d want to steal sketches anyway, but yeah, some of the crackheads and crazies here… I’m rambling, aren’t I?”
I kissed her cheek, gazing at the top one – a sketch of a whale in the ocean, its fins spread in proud jubilance, and then the next, a school of fishes bobbing to the shore.
“These are incredible.”
“Made them when I first got the job at the Whale. I left some back at the restaurant for my boss to look over, I’m hoping he’ll let me feature a few, maybe then I could sell some.”
“Yeah,” I said, half-mesmerized as I flipped through one – another fish sketch – and then the next – a girl laughing as sunlight exploded over her body. “You’d definitely sell these. These are, wow.”
As I scanned through some more – a mirror view of a girl who looked like Britt with tears coating her face, another of a girl in a lightless tunnel, hands-out, it occurred to me how intimate this was, her showing me.
“You capture it,” I said quietly. “Happiness. Sadness. What it’s like to be alone.”
“What it’s like to be a whale,” she tried quipping, but neither of us laughed.
Our gazes caught and held, and my lips went for what they’d wanted to for over an hour now.
10
Britt
When his kiss hit my lips, it bypassed my brain entirely. It shot straight to my body, let my limbs and nerves eke out the rest.
This man, this wonder. I had to savor it, let every part of me join into savoring it.
His lips, skimming my jawline. My lips, tracing his earlobe.
When his fingers dipped under my top, I groaned. After his fingers had slipped under the scalloped cup of my bra, he grasped my breast – once, twice.
He exhaled deeply, his whole face sinking in enjoyment. My hands skated down his soft blue shirt, then, back under and up it again.
We pulled it off together, and then I was face to face with just how sculpted his body was.
“How…” was all I could make my dropped jaw say.
Bradley smiled down at me. “Ever since the break-up, I’ve been hitting the gym hard. Helps me feel less gloomy.”
“Your gym is my art,” I said, smiling.
Now it was his turn to latch his fingers under my shirt and help me shed it. His eyes resting on my bare torso and bra admiringly, he said, “Your body is my art.”
And then, as though to prove his words, he nestled his fingers under my bra.
The surprise of sensation lit up the entirety of my breasts. By the time his fingers grasped my nipples, my chest was heaving with arousal.
With a final whip-away of his hand, he flung my bra aside.
I could only gape at him, as he lowered his head to the altar of my body and closed his lips around my nipple.
As his hands meandered down, and my pulse picked up with them, between my legs rushing hot and tingly, my hand closed on his, stopped it.
He peeled his lips off my nipple, swept his gaze my way questioning.
Suddenly, I stepped back and away. He gaped at me.
Shit, shit, shit. I was ruining everything.
“I’m sorry,” I said, curling up into myself.
“What’s wrong?” Bradley asked, tentatively touching my shoulder.
There was not the slightest irritation in his voice, only concern.
I relaxed into his comforting shoulder, his voice. “It’s just… it’s been a while.”
“It’s okay.” He withdrew his hand, his voice coming over once again more concerned than anything. “Do you want to stop?”
“No,” I admitted. “I’m just… afraid.”
He squeezed my shoulder. “Me too.”
I twisted around so that I was facing him, so I could see the truth of his words. “Really?”
He nodded. “Really. Last night, when I saw you with the others like that…”
“You felt jealous. I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be sorry. I really like you, but I don’t think I’m in a place for anything serious. Are you?”
“No.” I felt relief across my skin. “Not at all.”
“So then” – his fingers stroked a dance down my front, up and down and around, “What do you want to do?”
I pulled up my skirt, looking him straight in the eye. “I want you to keep going.”
That look in his eyes was pure fire. Bradley wasted no time in complying. Next thing I knew, his fingers were dipping inside me. I slid my hands around him, holding him, clasping him, pressing my face into his chest, groaning into it.
“Yes.”
Whether Bradley heard me, or he was compelled by his own urges, he fingered me slowly and painstakingly. When my hands dipped down to his pants and clasped the hardness waiting there, my body shook with anticipation.
Talk about wow.
/> We took off his jeans together and laid on the bed, his glorious erection probing my entrance as if asking me for the last time if I was sure. I responded by grinding myself onto him.
He plunged into me and I moaned loudly at the sensation of him filling me. His first few strokes were more of the slow sensuous variety, rippling pleasure out into me. It was both appreciated and maddening. I loved that he was taking his time, but I so desperately wanted a release, I was sure that I was going to lose my mind if he didn’t speed up.
His powerful body pinned me to the bed as his smooth strokes awoke a frenzy in me I hadn’t felt in years. Soon, I was clasping him desperately, coming once, then again.
When his dick started twitching, I knew he was close.
“Britt,” he said, looking down at me, his eyes looking slightly dazed. “You’re so fucking beautiful. You’re….”
“Yes,” I groaned, as another orgasm rippled through me.
“Yes,” he moaned back, burying himself to the hilt inside me.
“Yes,” we said together, as the final great tidal wave of release crashed over us.
And then we lay together like thetas release ebbed and sleep took reign.
--
The next morning, I woke up alone. Frowning at his imprint on the side of the bed, I mentally shrugged. Bradley had said he didn’t want anything serious, and neither did I. But still.
Out in the kitchen, though, there was a distinctive smell that didn’t belong. My apple scented dish soap wafted to my nose. I furrowed my brow and walked out into the small kitchen. Laid out in the dish rack were all of my freshly washed dishes.
Smiling, I checked my phone.
Sorry for not saying goodbye,’ his text said, ‘You looked so peaceful sleeping I didn’t want to disturb you. Last night was perfect.
11
Wyatt
“No, Francis, that was not Beethoven that Melvin played last, that was Mozart,” my stepmother reprimanded sternly.
“Great,” my father muttered, shoving some mutton to his face and tearing off a bite.
“Manners, please,” she hissed.
With a head flick away from them, she indicated the long table of guests, who were eating their meals obliviously.
“Ah yes,” Father said with a sigh. “They all look so concerned.”
“Francis, I’m warning you,” my stepmother hissed, her hand clenching her fork so redly it looked like it might pop off her arm.
“If you’ll excuse me,” I said, hurrying away to the bathroom upstairs.
Behind me, more whispered fighting was audible, probably prompted by my abrupt departure. Only once I was safely in the all-marble confines of the bathroom and sunk onto the terrycloth bath matt, did I allow a sigh of relief to escape my lips.
As if enduring Melvin’s three-hour-long piano recital hadn’t been bad enough, we had to come home, flocked with indifferent forgettable relatives and endure some good food and bad company.
I pulled out my phone and began scanning through it. Who could I go to tonight? Sammy, with the long legs and the droopy smile? Jennifer, with her never-ending questions and that uncanny ability of hers to bite her lip? Or maybe just Anna, with her no-nonsense throwing-off of clothes and leaving right after, no kiss, no nothing?
Maybe I was imagining it, but it seemed like the vent I was sitting on was a direct telephone-like access to hearing Father and Stepmother argue some more. If anyone was a paragon of why marriage should never happen – it was Father. His divorce with my mother had been so ugly, the poor nerve-addled woman had fled to the Dominican Republic, never to return. His marriage now was even worse, full of barely-disguised fights and a resounding hatred that knew no bounds.
I scowled. Truth be told, I didn’t want to see Sammy or Jennifer or Anna. Or even Nina, Michaela, or Irene. I just wanted the girl with the chocolate hair and the half-smile. Britt.
My thumb stopped and pressed without thinking.
“Hello?” Britt said.
Shit. Had I done that on purpose?
“Hello!” she was saying.
“Hey, sorry,” I said. “What’s up?”
“Just drawing,” she said in a you-were-the-one-who-called-me-remember? tone. “You?”
“Finishing up a dinner with the family,” he said. “Good times.”
“Cool.”
“Yep.”
Great, this conversation was going straight to nowhere.
“Listen,” I said. “There’s this charity event for work on Friday. Want to come with me?”
An unpromising pause.
“Just as friends,” I added. “My boss will
there, so yeah.”
“Okay, are you sure that that’s…”
“A good idea when both of my friends are also attracted to you?” I asked. “Maybe not. But I’m not a reckless idiot, whatever the others might tell you.”
“They haven’t said that at all. They’re just looking out for you.”
“I know. I’m just – listen, it’s been a shitty day. Want to check out the city for a bit? There’s these places I’ve been wanting to check out.”
“Places…”
“Yeah, overly promising, I know,” I admitted. “They’re abandoned, if you must know, though they’re pretty easy to get into it. I saw them on this art board a few weeks back and have wanted to go ever since. They’d be great for photography – probably drawing too.”
She paused, but this was a promising one. She wanted to go, I could tell.
“I think we’d enjoy it,” I said. “I could pick you up and we could hit up a couple. Figure that’d be enough for one night.”
“Isn’t this kind of impulsive?”
“Aren’t you?”
“Sometimes.”
“Good enough for me. I’ll pick you up in 30 minutes?”
Another pause which could’ve been good or bad, and then, finally, “Ok.”
Britt
He was five minutes early, but I had been waiting anyway.
“Hey,” I said, going in to sit beside him.
“Hey,” he said. “Dig my ride?”
“Definitely,” I said.
We drove a few short minutes to a building that looked like it had seen better days. “You sure this is safe?” I asked, gripping my sketch book to my chest.
“Yeah, I know it looks bad, but there’s a lot of people in here all the time. You ready?”
I nodded my head and he came to open my car door.
“Watch out,” he said suddenly, grabbing my arm. His flashlight beam glanced off a massive hole in the ground.
“Thanks,” I said.
As we continued on, I was unsure whether to point out that he was still holding my arm. Maybe it was the fact that we were in some probably structurally unstable abandoned building, or maybe it was just the ease with which he touched me, but it felt right.
We walked into a room, the cement floor littered with debris, as well as a gutted graffitied car.
“Beautiful,” Wyatt said, letting go of my arm to start taking pictures.
I glanced down at my sketchpad. When I sketched, I often went into a trance-like state, hardly realizing what exactly I’d drawn until I’d drawn it. This time was no exception. In the first room we’d gone into, while Wyatt had taken his pictures, I had sketched – although not what I’d expected. There, staring out at me, his eyes morose, was Wyatt.
Frowning, I turned the page. No, I didn’t need any more indication just how crazily attracted to him was – the way my heart had leapt when I first heard his voice on the other line had indicated that enough.
Now though, I set my attention to the task at hand – sketching the work of art that was the gutted car before me. I got so into capturing the contours, lines and shading that Wyatt’s cool breath at my cheek, “That’s really good,” surprised me.
“Thanks,” I said, glancing to his camera. “Can I see any?”
“Yes,” he said, turning on the past photo display.
I don’t know what it was; whether it was the angle or just how obliviously ephemeral I looked in them, but they touched me.
“You really see me like that?”
Wyatt took the camera away. “You weren’t supposed to see those. But yeah.”
And now, as we stood there, staring at each other, my phone went off.
It was Simone.
“Can we talk? Right this instant, I just had the most horrible date.”
“Hold on,” I told her.
“It’s my friend,” I told Wyatt. “She needs to talk. Mind if we go outside for some air?”
“Sure.”
Outside, once I took off my dust mask and spoke to Simone, the whole story came out. Apparently, her date had ditched her midway when he spotted a long-lost ex.
“He made up some BS excuse about how they were old friends, but I saw right through it,” Simone grumbled. “Anyway, can I sleep over tonight?”
I glanced at Wyatt, who seemed to understand with a look.
“If your friend needs you, then you should go,” he said with a shy smile. “We’ve done enough exploring for one night.”
“But the rest of the factory…”
“Will keep for another few days. It’s been abandoned for over a decade now.” He took my arm. “Here, I’ll take you home.”
Once I’d told Simone that she should come over in 30 minutes and we’d gotten into the car, Wyatt turned to me.
“You’re still up for that police gala, right?”
“Yeah,” I said. “Buts it fancy? Because I’m not sure if I have anything suitable if so.”
Wyatt smiled. “I was hoping you’d say that.”
Reaching behind him, he produced a box which he placed in my lap. “Open it.”
Inside, was a dress that looked like it had been made with me in mind. Black velvet with see through straps twining and joining just under the arms.
“I can’t take this.”
Wyatt shook his head. “The place takes no returns or exchanges. So, either you wear it or I give it to Kingston for a nightgown.”
Her Protectors: A Reverse Harem Romance Page 6
