by Loren, Celia
“I was serious when I said I wanted to talk, you know,” he said, kindly. “I know this isn’t exactly...ideal.”
“How do you mean?”
“I mean we’re not—well. On paper, we’re not the best match.”
“What happened to, ‘when you realize how hot you are, you’ll be a blablabla? Queen of the Nile?’ Whatever it was you said.”
“I wasn’t lying!”
Chloe stood up, just to make sure the blood was still flowing through her veins. Upstairs, someone flushed a toilet. They went silent.
She thought, for a moment, about the boys of her youth. They seemed to pass in a parade behind her eyelids. When she expected to see Ryder stumbling across her imagination, another, older Mormon man—knowable by his tidy suit, his warm grin—entered the procession.
They sat in their cautious silence while Chloe considered this man in her imagination, this strange hypothetical. She saw him meeting her father. Their joyful clapping of hands. A wedding. A new home in Provo, just for her—perhaps with a spare room dedicated to all her books. This figment man was kind, and steadfast, and handsome in a whole-milk way. She saw their life continue on the most familiar of trajectories. The babies she’d have with him, filling up the phantom house with all their life. The nights and mornings spent with her extended family, her sisters, her friends, the thriving, thoughtful community that knew her better than she knew herself in some ways. Dedication ceremonies at the temple, Christmas at the church. She saw her life pass her by. Then, Chloe put her chin in her hands, and started to cry.
It was really hard to imagine Ryder, in the place of the whole-milk man. It was really hard to imagine her world bending to accommodate a spirit so massive, so muscular, so opinionated, so...not Mormon.
“Hey,” Ryder spoke softly. Once more, the danger of being caught had passed. Her lover rose from his chair and moved around the table to fold Chloe into his arms. She sank against him like he was pillows, tested him with all of her weight—but he didn’t stumble. He stayed upright.
“I haven’t done any of this before,” she blubbered, half-hating that he was seeing her as this pathetic damsel creature, but feeling relief at the same time. “I’ve never been with...look, I don’t want you to think I’m like this.”
“Umm, Chloe,” Ryder whispered into her hair. “We’ve met. I never exactly took you for a hussy.”
This made her laugh. The laugh slowly coiled into a kiss. The Spiderman kind she’d seen in the movies, with Ryder’s head moving above hers upside-down. She was pleased to realize that she remembered the contours of his mouth. The flaky terrain of his lips, the buzz of his stubble—this was all familiar ground.
Slowly, she folded herself into a more accessible position, spinning around on the chair so they were face to face. The hum of the refrigerator covered the gentle smacks of their mouths meeting, but she knew in her bones that it wouldn’t conceal all the sounds she wanted to make.
“Wait,” Chloe said, breaking away. “Come with me.” She brought herself to standing, and gave Ryder a doe-eyed look, lifted straight from a movie. He rolled his eyes fondly.
“Where are we headed, ballerina?”
Chloe just pursed her lips and shrugged, dragging him slowly toward the basement door.
No one had been down in the Christiansen’s basement for years. In fact, this area of the house held about as much family superstition as Ryder’s designated bedroom, when Elder Johannes had used to keep his “treasures” locked there. The basement was considered off-limits because her uncle David had lived in the spare room down there for a while before he died, and Chloe got the sense from her mother that her father had maintained the space as a kind of shrine to the dead man’s memory. But the other rumor, received from the twins, went that the basement was off limits because their father used the space as a kind of holy man cave in the event of the visit of high-ranking church officials. As far as she knew, the Bishop had never come to their house (why would he?) but her father was apparently prepared, on the off-chance.
“This is mad creepy,” Ryder said, as he descended the stairs behind her. She tried to see things from his secular perspective. Sure, there were a few church artifacts, and a full wall of bound scripture. Blueprints for the old temple were framed on the walls, and their grand, castle-like facades did look strange on the grid paper.
“You got a Mrs. Rochester down here? Waiting to pounce on us?” Chloe felt some of her usual confidence return.
“Mrs. Rochester lives in the attic, meathead.” She grinned, and pulled Ryder in for a kiss.
“I’m not so good with my Victorians,” he murmured into her teeth. A blissful silence enclosed them from all sides. Away from the secret meeting space, shoved into a spidery corner, Chloe found them a ratty old red sofa. It might have been dusty, but it sure looked comfier than the leather monstrosity above their heads.
She brought him down.
“I like this bossy you,” Ryder said, once again into her teeth. Their kissing was speeding up. But Chloe realized, somewhat sadly, that it wasn’t scratching the same itch as it had the night before. She wanted more.
“I’m just being myself,” she replied, drawing him toward her. “Your problem is, you’re judgmental. You think you have my number, but I’ve got a lot going on you don’t know about, Mr. Strong.”
“Whatever you say, ballerina.” In a dazzling, unexpected move, Ryder dove toward her on the couch and picked her up in a fireman hold, so her head dangled down his muscular back. She squealed with delight, and proceeded to thank her lucky stars that she’d remembered about the basement’s sound-proof insulation.
Ryder laid her out on the couch like a prince might his betrothed, and Chloe let herself play the part. He hovered above her for a moment to drink her in, and she tried her best not to flinch from his gaze. He was just so...intense. He made her so giddy.
“It’s not just because you’re here, you know.”
“Gee, thanks.”
“Or because you’re stunning, and somehow don’t seem to realize that fact.”
Chloe bit her lip.
“You have a great fire, Chloe. It’s something I’ve only seen in....” he trailed off. A shadow passed over Ryder’s face, and she knew he was seeing something terrible, something from the war. She rose up onto her elbows and kissed him lightly, sweetly. First on his nose. Then, on his forehead. Then on his lips.
Then, she made a decision: she would follow this feeling. Dangerous though it might be, she would follow Ryder Strong as long as he would let her.
No sooner had she given herself permission than relief flooded every vein, every cell. There was no Elder Johannes. No Mama Christiansen. No twins, no Brigham Young, not even a Gwen. There weren’t a dozen roads not taken, a dozen questions un-asked. Her brother had never lost a piece of himself in someone else’s unjust war. There was no right, no wrong, only her mammoth want for Ryder. Here. Now.
She drew him into this new, shameless safe space, pushing her tongue past the barrier of his straight teeth. He responded to her intensity by cupping her chin in his massive fist. Chloe felt pressure, but she resisted the urge to fear. It was just as her very limited sexual education had promised: the time had come, and her body knew what to do.
And luckily, Ryder had apparently read the book of love many times. His fingers drifted south, fluttering against the soft skin of her throat. He tapped her on her sternum, just above her thrumming heart. Then, his hand slipped easily past the buttons on her sweater. His fingers arrived on the warm flesh of her breast, and he began to massage her skin. Chloe cooed. She let her shoulders relax against the grimy couch. So this was freedom.
Ryder responded to her shift by straddling her about the knees. She felt the pressure of his muscular weight on her legs, but decided she enjoyed it. With one hand still working away on her tit, he began to kiss a constellation on her pale throat. All the hairs on the back of Chloe’s neck stood attention. She dug her fingers into his broad, meaty back.
“You like this,” Ryder murmured, into the hollow of her collarbone. “You like it when I suck your neck.” Before she could respond, his grip on her breast strengthened. She felt her nipples go erect, and at last that sweet, forbidden pleasure from the night before jolted through her body like an electric shock. This time, she didn’t need to check in with herself to know that her panties were wet.
“I like it,” Chloe managed. Her voice surprised her once more. It was gravelly and hoarse. Ryder was beginning to lightly press himself against her middle, so she began to be aware of the outline of his genitals. I’m really doing this, she told herself. All the air left her body.
Because their positioning on the couch was quickly becoming awkward, Ryder pulled back for a moment. With hands both rough and tender, he peeled Chloe off the couch. Grinning, he began to tear the pillows from the sofa frame. She let out a laugh.
“What are you doing, Strong?”
“I’m building us a pillow fort, ballerina.” After he’d tossed all the cushions to the ground, Ryder dove into the center of the pile and grinned up at her. Chloe’s knees went weak. He was so sweet, so impish, such a little boy at heart.
“I can’t believe this is happening,” she repeated, half to herself. Ryder crawled to her, on his knees. He wrapped himself around her quivering torso, so his face was eye level with her mid-drift and his arms clasped securely above the swell of her ass.
“Don’t believe it then,” he murmured, into her skirt. “It’s just a dream we’re both having. Got it?”
Granted fresh permission, Chloe let herself be pulled to the floor of her family’s basement. Ryder made sure to place the comfiest, largest pillow beneath her head. But no sooner had he secured her comfort than an animal look entered his stormy eyes. He kissed her more intently than before, probing the moist cave of her mouth, as his fingers fumbled to peel off her blouse. Her own temperature was rising, so she helped him, with shaking hands.
His breath came faster, once her bare stomach was exposed. Accordingly, Ryder returned his mouth to her typically hidden surfaces. He began to kiss her on the sternum, greedy fingers tearing aside the fabric of her blouse, her bra. He planted kisses on the pale expanse of her stomach. Each one made her spine tingle in a different place. She rested her palm against the base of his neck.
“I want to eat your pussy so bad,” he murmured into her flesh. The language began to shock the Other Chloe—the upright, do-gooding one from the day before the skating trip—but this new, 2.0 version of herself began to buck at these words. She let her hips thrust against the air, sending a cool stream of air between the sticky, hot passage her thighs made.
“Oh my God,” she groaned. Ryder’s hands found her hips. His mouth found her hot center, over her underwear.
“You’re not wearing the thing today,” he murmured.
“What?”
“That...garment thing. You let me take your clothes off.” When she glanced down her body, she saw his grinning little-boy face smiling at her. She couldn’t help it. She burst out laughing.
“You make me sound like such a freak!” she cried, wiping joyful tears from the corners of her eyes. “‘That garment thing...’”
“I don’t think you’re a freak!”
“Uh-huh.”
“You don’t believe me?”
Chloe shook her head, still rocking with laughter. Ryder’s eyes narrowed. He lifted himself off her lower body and straddled her knees once more. She stared up at the rising plinth of his torso, drinking in his perfect, manly frame. Lust returned.
“I want you to believe me,” he said then, his voice low and serious. As he spoke, Ryder moved his fingers to the damp surface of her panties. He didn’t break eye contact as he began to press up against the small, sensitive pad in her folds that had provoked such gasps the night before. Her clit. Chloe gripped his wrist.
“You still don’t believe me?” he repeated, raising his eyebrows. But Chloe couldn’t summon the energy to nod. Ryder’s fingers pressed up, hard and fast. She felt the twinge of attending pleasure in her stomach, before it spread out to cover the whole map of her limbs.
“Naughty girl,” he said, pressing harder, faster. One finger slipped past the elastic of her panties, and began probing her damp folds. Chloe cried out, and this time her yell was so loud she was sure it could be heard three floors up.
“Do you believe me yet?” His own breath was coming faster. She looked down and saw the thickness gathering in his dark jeans. The want took on fresh form, and she felt she suddenly understood all the rock n’ roll songs she’d listened to illicitly at college. She wanted his massiveness inside of her. She wanted nothing to separate her from Ryder Strong. She wanted to be fucked back to life.
“Yeah, come for me, baby,” Ryder growled, flicking and pressing harder and faster. Chloe’s thighs were clenching, throbbing. She felt like her whole skin was blushing.
“Do it. Come for me.” This was not a request, it was a command. Her breasts quivering, Chloe tightened her grip on her lover’s moving wrist. He continued to stare daggers into her eyes. Her lips parted to make sound, but then, suddenly and sweetly, her body clenched. She felt a jet of cool moisture press out of her secret folds, and then the residual throbbing waves, receding like the tide. Gasping, she opened her eyes. Ryder was smiling, and looking satisfied.
“Good girl,” he said. He folded his body over hers once more, leaning in to whisper in her ear: “I love making you come like that. So hard. So wet.”
He began pressing himself against her damp, exhausted center. Their lips found one another in a sweet kiss. Chloe was sweaty all over and she ached with evaporated pleasure, but she still found herself returning Ryder’s humping. The breath felt pulled from her throat.
“My turn,” she heard herself say, just as Ryder’s moans in her ear had begun to come hard and fast. Dry humping was the extent of her own sexual experience. (There’d been one hot night with a sophomore named Neil, at BYU. A big group had gone to a Train concert in Salt Lake City, and gotten...riled up.) But Chloe wanted to abandon the amateur with Ryder. She wanted to give him something she’d given no other man.
“What’s going on?” he asked, as she, grinning, pressed him back to a kneeling position. First, she scooted his black t-shirt over the narrow cage of his stomach. To her delight, his six pack was dusted over with a fine train of dark hair, pointing like an arrow to his manly center. Ryder helped her ease the rest of the shirt over his head, and Chloe pawed at his perfect frame. He looked just like the hero he was.
“Ms. Christiansen...” Ryder began, catching on to her plan. She wiggled her eyebrows, then blushed in the direction of his crotch. The hidden, heavy member was still shielded by fabric, but Chloe was tired of playing coy. She fixed her attention to Ryder’s zipper, easing it down slow. She slipped her hand into the dark beyond.
“Oh sweet Lord,” Ryder called above her, immediately arcing his back so his muscular chest was bared. Chloe secured her grip on the surprisingly smooth, long, rigid shaft. With her free hand, she peeled at the remaining fabric that separated their skins. Ryder helped her, humping lightly so her hand began to move up and down on his cock.
When the fullness of his manhood was exposed to the light, Chloe took a moment. His was the first penis she’d ever seen up close, in the flesh. She was struck by its vulnerability, yet she also sensed Ryder’s virility, his strength. Tentatively, she brought her lips to the surface of his tip. She tasted salt, and smooth skin.
“Oh my God,” he repeated, easing forward once more so Chloe could take more of him into her mouth. She opened to him, trying to be tender. One hand she kept fixed around the base of his shaft. She tugged him, experimentally. When he groaned again, Chloe began to flick her tongue back and forth across his tip as she worked his shaft.
He buried his hand in her hair. “Oh, Chloe,” he whispered, driving farther and deeper all the while, so she had to adjust her knees to keep from choking. He was so thick around;
like a wrist. She didn’t mind the feeling in her mouth, and she especially didn’t mind the fact that she was giving Ryder great pleasure.
She sucked harder. Pulled harder. Attempted to swallow him down.
“Fuck,” he cried through gritted teeth. Chloe pressed her free hand into the taut, flexing muscles of his ass. She continued to gobble him.
“I’m gonna come,” Ryder cautioned. “Oh, fuck, Chloe. I’m gonna come so hard.”
She wasn’t quite prepared for what would happen next, but in that second, it didn’t matter. Her mouth was flooded with hot juices, and above her head, Ryder let out a tremendous, weakening sigh.
“Oh, baby,” he cried. “You send me.”
He collapsed beside her, on the ruins of their pillow fort. After a moment’s heavy breathing, Ryder scooted toward her, gathering her sweaty body in his own. He folded her against him, spooning, and she let herself begin to drift against his critical mass. His breath came soft and sweet, ruffling her damp hairline. Chloe thought she had never felt safer, nor more satisfied.
But for a moment, the Old Chloe returned. She floundered around for the right words to say; the we can’ts, the we shouldn’ts. With a roll of her shoulders, New Chloe of the New World banished all questions. There was nothing to worry about for now. Just bliss.
Chapter Twelve
“And....STRIKE!”
John Christiansen raised his hands in a victory pose before turning to gloat at his bowling buddies. Ryder allowed his competitor a smirk. Though these were technically duckpins, it was still a pretty big deal to see the vet upright and athletic. It had been a a month and a half since they’d left the rehab facility together, and a few days since John had been fitted for his newest prothesis. He’d been chipper as ever, with that relentless positive attitude—but it seemed to Ryder that a little of his buddy’s old personality was returning. He was starting to joke and tease like the less-than-holy friend Ryder’d known as a SEAL. It was all very nice to see.
