by Emily Mayer
“Your hot dogs are almost done.”
“My hot dogs?” I blushed, hoping he hadn’t noticed me blatantly checking out Sebastian’s butt, but also confused as to why I was given the honor of claiming the hot dogs that looked grilled to perfection.
“The ones Sebastian insisted we have for you. He said they were the same brand they sell at the stadium or something. I’m Tyler, by the way.” He extended his free hand and I slid my hand forward into his, giving it a firm shake.
“I’m Lennon.” He probably already knew my name, but I felt like I should introduce myself anyway. “Everything smells so good.”
He smiled at me, turning his attention back to rotating various meats. “That’s because we’ve managed to keep Henry away from the grill.”
I stood awkwardly for a second trying to come up with small talk, even though all I wanted to do was find Sebastian and thank him for the hot dogs. Thank him long and hard, with lips and hands. How did I ever think he was self-absorbed?
The man himself appeared with paper plates and two beer bottles in his hand. As soon as he got in range, I wrapped my arms around his middle, squeezing, and stood on my tiptoes to place a kiss on that spot under his jaw that was made for kisses.
“What was that for?” His husky voice and those little crinkles at the corner of his eyes had me leaning in for one more hug.
“Nothing, just felt like it.”
He pressed a quick kiss to my head. “Thank you. What do you want to eat?”
I hmmed, pretending to think about it. “The hot dogs look really good.”
I could feel his eyes on me as I placed two buns on my plate. I attempted to ignore him as Tyler placed the hot dogs in them.
“Did he tell you about the stadium dogs?” Sebastian finally asked, shooting a look at Tyler, who was suddenly super interested in something happening in the yard.
“What?” I tried to sound confused. “Stadium dogs?”
He sighed, shaking his head. “You’re a terrible actress.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” I tried and failed to keep the smile off my face. “Do you want some of this pasta salad?”
I dumped a huge spoonful on my plate. It was the good kind, with big chunks of cheese.
“I’ll have a bite of yours,” he answered, loading his plate with vegetables and fruit salad. I looked down at my plate, filled with chips, pasta salad, and an unidentified substance that might be taco dip. Sometimes the sedentary life really was the good life. I would choose pasta over muscles every time.
I followed Sebastian to two open chairs at a folding table. We ate our meals, chatting with the people at our table—okay, Sebastian chatting with the people at the table. The best part of lunch wasn’t the specially requested hot dogs or the delicious pasta salad, but the way Sebastian found an excuse to touch me the entire time, a hand resting on my thigh or sweeping a strand of hair away from my face, and the way he stole small bites off my plate giving me a secret smile each time.
40.
I stood in front of the mirror in the white-tiled bathroom looking myself in the eyes.
“You can do this.” I tried to be firm and authoritative like my mom during every pep talk she’d ever given me. “It’s just a swimsuit.”
My stomach gurgled loudly. I clenched my hands into fists, rolling my eyes at my reflection. I was more nervous about leaving the bathroom in a modest red swimsuit than I had been about defending my senior thesis to a room full of my professors and peers. I turned one way and then the other, looking at my body encased in the red nylon from different angles.
“You’re being ridiculous. You look good in this suit. Everything is staying in place; all your wobble is contained. And hey! If you ever stop being ridiculous and leave this bathroom, you will get to see Sebastian in a bathing suit. He might even be one of the Europeans who wears a speedo. But you’ll never know unless you leave this room.”
Great, I’d resorted to bribing myself. I growled in frustration.
Three hard knocks caused me to jump, accidently knocking the soap off the counter Boomer-style.
“Lennon, are you all right in there?” Sebastian’s concerned voice sounded from the other side of the door.
“Yep, just… uh…” My eyes landed on the bottle of sunscreen in my bag. “Looking for my sunscreen!”
I whipped the floral sarong around my waist, haphazardly tying it, and grabbed the bottle of sunscreen. I counted to three and then opened the door, hand clasping the sunscreen held out in front of me.
“Here it is,” I laughed woodenly. “I thought I forgot it, and that would have been terrible because this skin burns. Approximately 9,500 people are diagnosed with skin cancer every day, making it the most common form of cancer worldwide, and people with less pigment in their skin can be more susceptible to getting it. And this skin clearly has no pigment.” I held out my arms like chicken wings. “I mean, just look at it.”
Sebastian’s eyes were glazed over and laser-focused on my chest. I glanced down, worried one of my tiny tots had popped out when I opened the door, but both girls were still covered.
“Sebastian?”
He cleared his throat, adjusting his stance so that his hips were pointed away from me.
“Christ… you look… fuck it.”
His hands were on my waist shoving me backward. My mouth started to form a question but the words died on my tongue as his mouth descended on mine. This wasn’t a kiss—no, he was devouring me. I forgot about the swimsuit and my nerves as his tongue clashed with mine.
I was vaguely aware of the door slamming shut and the cool granite of the counter against the exposed skin of my back. My hands moved up his back and across the muscles of his tense shoulders to tangle in his hair. His hands glided up my rib cage, stroking the underside of my breasts. I was panting as his mouth traced the curve of my jaw to plant open-mouthed kisses on my neck, his light beard scratching the tender skin there and causing my hips to jerk forward, searching for the same friction. He responded with a growl, one hand moving down my body to hook behind my knee. He lifted my leg up, placing it around his hip so I could feel his hardness where I wanted it the most. I could hear incoherent words tumbling out my mouth, trying to urge him on. His hand left my leg to part the gauzy material of my sarong and then travel up my thigh.
“Please. Please. Please,” I begged, not knowing what I wanted, just knowing that I needed something.
“Everything okay in there, mate?” The crisp accent on the other side of the door was like a bucket of cold water being poured over me. I whimpered in frustration.
Sebastian cursed under his breath, dropping his forehead to mine. I reached up to adjust my glasses, bringing his face into focus. He was visibly trying to catch his breath, fingers biting into the flesh of my thigh.
“Do you think he’ll go away if we ignore him?” I asked hopefully, my leg sliding down his leg, a sure sign of defeat and no orgasms.
He only sighed, lifting his forehead from mine.
“No, he’s a persistent little shit.”
“He’s right, and I’ve got to piss,” Tom Harris added from the other side of the door. This was one immigrant I was suddenly fine with deporting. “Quite badly, actually.”
“Sod off!” Sebastian yelled, his voice like gravel.
My hips jerked reflexively in response, connecting with the very large bulge in his swim trunks, causing him to bite back a groan.
“Sorry,” I whispered, trying to put some distance between us. I watched as he adjusted himself and turned away from me.
“I’m going to have to piss in one of these plants if you two lovebirds don’t open the door soon.”
Sebastian took several deep breaths and then opened the door. Tom was leaning against the doorframe, arms crossed, with what Harrison would call a shit-eating grin on his face.
“A little afternoon debauchery in the bathroom, Kincaid? Well done, mate.”
My face was the exact same shade as
my swimsuit. I kept my eyes locked on Sebastian’s back.
“Go to hell, Harris,” Sebastian barked. He turned back to take my hand, his grip at odds with the harshness in his tone.
I let him lead me out of the bathroom, avoiding eye contact. I could hear Tom’s laugh echoing through the space as we walked away. There was a very real chance that I would never be able to look him in the eye again. I hurried to keep up with Sebastian, suddenly less concerned about appearing in a physically gifted group in my swimsuit than about staying in the same spot with Tom heckling us.
“You don’t think he’ll tell anyone about that, do you?” I asked, trying to tighten the knot keeping my sarong up with my free hand.
“Not bloody likely. He’ll be telling anyone who’ll listen.”
And he wasn’t wrong. Tom was soon regaling people with a much sexier, very imaginative version of interrupting our bathroom make-out session. It wasn’t long before everyone at the cookout knew. Sebastian didn’t help anything. He basically spent the rest of the cookout fondling me in the pool, and then managed to make toweling me dry one of the most erotic experiences of my life. An R-rated performance that did not belong anywhere near a general audience. I exchanged numbers with Brooke and the “new best friends,” my cheeks still tinted red.
Sebastian spent the entire car ride home stroking my leg, venturing above the hem of my shorts and then back down my thigh to rest on my knee. Each pass of his hand sent ripples of awareness through me. I squirmed in my seat so much I was worried the leather of the seats would be worn by the time we reached my building.
“Did you want to come up? To my apartment? Where I live?” The words tumbled out of my mouth in the single boldest moment of my life as soon as Sebastian put the car in park.
Sebastian’s ‘yes’ overlapped with the end of ‘live,’ and then we were both tumbling out of the car. For the first time in my tenancy, I was glad my apartment building’s lock was chronically broken. Sebastian made a beeline for the stairs. I was hot on his trail enjoying what the movement did to his butt in those shorts. Was I a butt girl? I was so focused on his butt that I missed one of the stairs and fell forward, one knee hitting a stair, arm frantically grabbing the rail. But I was up and moving before Sebastian even realized what had happened.
My hands were shaking so much it took me three tries and help from Sebastian to get my door unlocked. It felt like my body was vibrating with more energy than an electron cloud.
“Did you know the Rutherford model of the construction of atoms comes from Manchester?” I said, pushing the door open. “The Bohr model is more accurate since we know stable atoms exist. All atoms would have to collapse under the Rutherford model, but it’s still used more widely.”
Sebastian shut the door, caging me in with his forearms. “I had no idea.”
He was clearly done talking about atom models. His mouth kissed a gentle path down my neck while his hands found the hem of my shirt and lifted it over my head. I felt his eyes sweep over my chest like it was a physical caress, lingering a little on my scar.
“It actually healed really well.” My fingers traced the groove. “I know it looks terrible, but being so young meant that my skin was able to heal a lot better than most people who need open-heart surgery.”
Sebastian placed his hand over mine, moving it down to my side. His head dipped, placing a line of kisses down the scar. Hot tears filled my eyes. I tried to force my eyes to absorb them. He was just too much, made me feel too much. As if he could sense the shift in my mood, he straightened to place kisses on my closed eyes, thumb swiping at the tears that had escaped.
“Talk to me, Lennon.”
I shook my head, like I could shake the unwelcome thoughts from my head.
“I’m sorry,” I sniffled. “You’re just being so nice about it. I don’t hate my scar, I really don’t, but not everyone reacts well to it. I know it’s objectively ugly.”
Sebastian once again reached for my hand, this time leading me to my bedroom. He scooped a sleeping Boomer off the bed and deposited him in the hall, shutting the door against his angry yowls. His attention back on me, Sebastian placed his hands on my shoulders, guiding me down to the bed. I watched, fascinated, as he pulled off his shirt. He turned so his left hip was eye level and pointed to a discolored patch of skin.
“A cleat. Took ten stitches to close it.” He rotated his knee toward me next, showing a scar slashed across it. “Meniscus, ACL, scar tissue. Three surgeries later and it still hurts every time I play.”
His hand moved to the scar dissecting his left eyebrow. “And this beauty was a tennis racket wielded by an angry sister. It only needed five stitches, but my eyebrow never grew back.”
Finally, he stroked down the bump in his nose, moving closer to me with every pass until my hands reached out to rest on his hips. “I don’t even know how many times it’s been broken at this point. Headers, elbows, too many blows to count.”
I shifted to kneel on the bed so I could press a kiss to the scar on his eyebrow and the disjointed bump on his nose.
“All your scars just make you more handsome. I thought that the night you came to Spout.” I punctuated my sentence with a soft kiss to his lips.
His hands hooked around my back, unclasping my bra then moving the straps down my arms slowly. I swallowed as the cool air hit the sensitive skin on my exposed breasts. The fingers of his right hand traced the entire length of my scar, now that the path was unobstructed.
“This scar made you the brave, amazing woman you are, and I am so fucking crazy about that woman.” The reverence in his voice almost made my tears reappear.
His hands moved to cup my breasts and then he was moving over me, pressing me back on the bed. Despite his words, I couldn’t help sending out a silent plea of “please be enough” as he unbuttoned my shorts and ripped them down my legs. He placed a kiss just above my underwear, making my hips rise off the bed. He ignored my silent plea, his lips burning a path up my abdomen before lavishing each breast with attention. He flattened his tongue over my nipple, making me frantic. My fingernails bit into his shoulders, looking for purchase and trying to pull him closer at the same time. I felt his hardness press into me right where I wanted it, and I was done waiting. I pushed him up enough that my hands could reach the button on his pants and then I was shoving them down his legs. He grabbed a condom out of the pocket before helping me remove them the rest of the way.
My eyes immediately darted to the erection straining the material of his boxer briefs, and I silently gave thanks to whatever force had decided that I got to see this man naked. Before I could look my fill, he was moving over me again, one hand stroking up my thigh while the other moved my head to expose my neck for more of those open-mouthed kisses that made me crazy. His fingers reached the spot that ached for him the most, leisurely rubbing me over the damp material. I moved faster, needing more. He nipped at my earlobe and I thought this was how I would die. I would die if he didn’t touch me.
“Please, Sebastian, please,” I begged, moving my hips faster and reaching for the bulge in his underwear. He moaned, jerking into my hand as I stroked him over the material. Those wonderful fingers gripped my panties and ripped them down my legs so fast that the movement barely even registered. He spread my legs, opening me for him, and then one of those long fingers was filling me.
I arched off the bed, whimpering in relief. I made noises I didn’t even know I was capable of making as he pumped his finger into me.
“You’re so tight, baby,” he growled in my ear, adding a second finger and stretching me. He slowed his pace, then withdrew them completely.
“No, no, no.” I grabbed his wrist, trying to pull his hand back to me. He chuckled, tugging off his briefs with his free hand. “Oh. Yes please.”
“So polite,” he teased, tearing open the condom and rolling it down his length.
His hands were on my thighs, opening them wide enough for his hips, the tip of his erection rubbing against my openi
ng. He bent down, kissing me, and then thrust forward, filling me completely. We both moaned. He was motionless for a minute, letting me adjust, only the strained muscles of his neck giving away how hard it was for him to hold back. My hands squeezed his butt, trying to urge him on. His hips started moving, setting a slow, steady pace. It was too much and not enough at the same time. Every cell in my body felt like it was on fire.
“So good,” he whispered in my ear. I nodded my head, too far gone for words. He brought one of my legs up, draping it over his hip to deepen the angle. The new angle caused each thrust to hit just the right spot.
“Sebastian,” I gasped, when his head dipped down to take one of my nipples into his mouth. The light scrape of his teeth pushed me over the edge. “Oh God!”
I squeezed my eyes closed as waves of pleasure moved through me. He slowed down, letting me ride out my orgasm while he whispered rough words of encouragement.
When I had some control over my body again, I opened my eyes and took in the man hovering over me. I rolled my head to the side to take in the veins on his forearm where it rested next to my head. I moved my hips in a gentle circle.
“Lennon.” He bit the word out, my name sounding like a curse and a prayer.
I made the same eager little circle and his control snapped. He set a punishing pace this time, each movement pushing me a little farther back on the bed. Sebastian lowered himself until it felt like there was no space between us, his hips pounding into me. My sensitive flesh tightened around him and I heard him grunt, hands tightening in my hair as he came.
I stroked up and down his back while he caught his breath, marveling at the muscles and naming them as I went. He propped himself up on his elbows, taking some of the weight off me, and looked down at me with a soft, satisfied smile. One hand moved to push the hair off my forehead.
“Good?” he asked, and somehow I knew he was asking about my well-being and not the sex.
“Very,” I responded enthusiastically, smiling up at him. My stomach chose this minute to let out a very unsexy rumble. “A little hungry.”
