“For three years, it was me and my vibrator.”
The lines between his eyes deepened. “You mean…?”
“I’ve only ever wanted you,” I said. “Even when I was angry at you, even when I thought you’d betrayed me, I couldn’t stop loving you. I didn’t want anyone else. Like you, even in my dreams, I’ve always been faithful to you.”
***
Dash
The gods help me, I believed Thena. I believed her with all my heart, and yet her admission hit me like a clap of thunder.
It wasn’t as if I had some sort of ridiculous virginal expectations about my woman or women in general. I wouldn’t think any less of her if she’d slept with other men. This was not about toxic masculinity, or antiquated notions of purity, or possessiveness in itself. In fact, I’d expected that a woman as fine as Thena would’ve had many asks and many takes.
The emotions that clogged my throat were not about any of that crap. They were about me, about the fact that I’d had nothing until Thena gave me her heart and then her body. I’d never loved or been loved by any woman other than her.
We’d grown our love as we ourselves grew up. We’d learned each other’s hearts way before we became intimate. Sex had been the natural progression of our love, not the cause of it, but the expression of it. We’d discovered it together, explored, practiced, and perfected it in each other’s bodies.
I hadn’t lied when I told her she’d given me my heart. She’d fashioned it out of hers, blown life into it with her care, and deposited it in my chest, right before she taught me how touse it. I didn’t crave anyone’s love but hers. Simply put, she was my only notion of love.
All the wrongness in my life began to right.
Unable to resist her pull any longer, I caught her in my arms, claiming her naked body. Seizing her mouth, I sucked her lips and drank her flavors. Our tongues entwined, engaging in a dance that echoed in other parts of my body. Sliding my fingers over her velvety skin, I caressed her neck, her back, the plump halves of her ass. She rubbed against me, defying the fabric of my jeans until I hurt from need.
I scooped her up in my arms, fell to my knees, and forcing my stiff thigh to yield, eased her down on the blankets. Her eyes glittered with desire and her naughty smile hardened me to pain as she stretched out over the blue duvet. Looking down on her, she reminded me of a siren floating in the sea.
“Come here.” She reached behind my neck, pulled my face to hers, and kissed me. Her lips were soft but also demanding. The gentle rake of her teeth trapped my lower lip. Every nerve in my body sparked with jolts of desire as my dick throbbed against my zipper.
She cocked her tapered eyebrows at me. “Is it unfair that I’m naked and you’re not?”
“Only if you want me naked.”
“Oh, I want you naked.” She sat up on her shins and faced me, appropriating the bottom of my T-shirt.
I lifted my arms. She pulled the T-shirt over my head and tossed it aside. I needed no help to be naked with Thena, but her hands caressing the span of my chest and thumbing my nipples felt like an infusion of new life.
“You’re a beautiful hunk of a man.” She traced the squares of my abdomen with her fingertips, leaving me shivering with want. “Do you know that?”
“I’ll have to take your word for it.” I melded our mouthstogether, feasting on her flavors, inhaling the scent of her arousal until my head spun. “My only idea of beauty is you, dressed or undressed, beneath me, on top of me, spooning, on your knees, facing me, facing my feet, however and whenever you want me.”
“I want you every which way.” She slid her fingers down the middle of my body and rested them at the top of my jeans. “Right now, I also want your pants.” Keeping her eyes on me, she undid the button and lowered my zipper.
The expression on her face announced all kinds of mischief.
My need turned into urgency. She slid her hand between the denim and my boxers and cupped my package. My body bucked at her touch. My balls contracted and my dick jumped, demanding her body’s shelter. Rising to my feet, I wiggled out of my jeans and boxers. I was about to ease down again when she spoke.
“Don’t move.” Craning her neck up, she caressed my naked body with her gaze. “Give me a second here. I want to appreciate you.”
I stood before her, humbled by the erection from hell, suffering through her perusal, clenching and unclenching my hands in a bid to fight the forward motion of my body and my need to fuck her mindless.
While she took me in, I got to enjoy her as well. I loved the pink desire that flushed her cheeks, the subtle way in which her generous breasts rose and fell, and the sight of her rosy nipples spearing the air.
“I love everything about your body, even your scars.” She reached up and trailed the tips of her fingers over my collection of wounds. My nerves sparked at her touch, marking the path of her fingers, which left behind a record of delight and a promise of rapture.
A tremor vibrated through me when her index finger slowly circled the round, puckered depression of the recent gunshot wound on my side. Up to this moment, the spot had felt numb, as if the round that almost killed me had succeeded at murdering yet another part of me. Yet now I felt her touch keenly, spreading through me in healing waves of pleasure.
Her hand meandered down my body to trace the jagged scar on my thigh. Her fingers explored the raised, angry line. The wound had given me so much trouble. For months, it had refused to heal and then it had left me with chronic pain and the limp that had only recently gotten better.
“These two are new,” she pointed out, as if she was a historian reading my body’s archeological record. “How did you get them?”