Page 4 of Honey Pot

“How come you never told me you wanted to kiss me?” Cael asked, his breath hot on my neck.

“You never asked.” I smiled against his mouth as his tongue slid between my lips and tangled with my own, sending all my senses haywire. I felt his fingers play at the hem of my shirt, tickling a line across my stomach to my hips before he wrapped them tight and tugged me closer.

“I’m asking now,” he said in such a sober tone that all the thoughts in my head went fuzzy, and all I could focus on was how nice it felt to have his hands all over me and his lips on mine. “Clem, don’t make me beg,” Cael whined against me as his hands moved further under my shirt, tickling my ribs slowly as he worked his way up.

“I think you should,” I giggled, skirting away from his touch to steady my pounding heart.

I pushed back and sat down on my bed, staring up at him with stars in my vision and butterflies in my chest. I had forgotten how tall he had grown over the summer, towering over me with built-in waves of slim muscles from farm work and horse riding.

I watched him roll the blue button down over his shoulders, dropping it to the floor and showing his toned muscles beneath. I had been around him more naked than he was now a thousand times, but the sight of him made my breath catch in my throat. He flicked the heavy metal latch of his belt buckle and slipped the leather from its loops, the sound echoing through my room. Without a second to breathe, he shucked from the jeans and stood in front of me in nothing but a pair of loose boxers, his white tank, and the golden pendant necklace I had given him for his birthday. I dug my fingers into the sheets beside me to balance myself as he dropped to his knees before me.

“I think I like you best on your knees,” I found the courage to say, watching him with hungry eyes. He laughed, his head dropping to look at the floor and then back to me with a smirk.

“Clementine,” he stepped forward on his knees, slipping from his undershirt and chucking it into the pile of his clothes. “Mary,” he crawled forward a little more until his fingers were within reach to brush a line up my calf. “Matthews,” he whispered, and his breath hitched, causing his stomach to flex as his fingers roved over my thighs and dug into the meaty outer muscles.

“Yes, Cael Cody?” I answered with tight, sticky words that I barely got out.

“If you’ll let me,” he kissed the inside of my knee before positioning himself between us carefully, his hands daring to rake up under my shorts to my upper thighs. “I will spend whatever time we have left kissing every inch of your skin until the feeling of my lips is burned so brightly into your memory that you never kiss another boy again without thinking about me.”

I had never been talked to like that, and I had certainly never heard Cael speak to anyone like that, so I must have turned the color of a ripe tomato because Cael just smirkedat me.

“Is that a yes, Plum?” He asked, kissing my thigh, “You have to say it out loud for me.”

“Yes.” For such a tiny word, I managed to stumble over it as I said it, but Cael didn’t seem to mind as his fingers found the band of my shorts and began to pull them down over my thighs.

I felt warm, but I loved the way his eyes traced over all my bare skin as he exposed it slowly. He set the pajamas next to me, and as I went to remove my tank top, he stopped me.

“Just wait,” he said, “I want to do it.”

I felt giddy at his authority; I had never seen him so serious. The light-hearted, playful boy I had grown up with had receded behind the walls of a grown man. I dared to touch him again and realized I could, lifting my hand to brush it through his dirty blonde hair. I momentarily raked them back through the soft locks and tangled them there when I realized he was staring at me in awe.

“What?” I huffed lightly.

“You’re beautiful,” he said so quietly that if the wind had wanted to steal the sound, it could have.

There was no stopping him once he had declared what was on his mind. I had seen that look in his eyes a few times before. It was determination and want, and Cael never stopped until he had what wasn’t his. The problem was that I had been his from the beginning, and I was worried he might get bored without the chase.

“Why’d you get sad?” He pushed up onto his knees, brushed his nose against my jaw, and kissed a soft, wet line down my neck to the swell of my breasts in my tank top.

“No reason,” I whispered, wrapping my hand around his neck and leaning back onto the bed.

Cael followed my touch, crawling over me until his legs framed my thighs. With so little fabric between us now, I could feel the hardened length of him against my thigh. A fire burned in the pit of my stomach like I had never experienced before as he pressed a hand between us and brushed against the damp fabric of my underwear.

He looked up at me, blue eyes shining in the moonlight, and smiled. “If you need to stop, want to stop,” he paused and kissed me, tugging my bottom lip between his teeth as gently as he could. “We stop, no questions.”

“I thought you said you had never done this before,” I pressed my hands against his chest. It was so warm beneath my palms that I nearly got distracted from my worry.

“Clem, this is still second base,” he kissed me, and I could feel his boyish smile on my mouth. “Do you want to stop?” He asked me.

I shook my head no and stole another long, much-awaited kiss from his lips. He smelled like fresh grass and the fruity cologne he swore he hated but wore because he loved his momma, and it was a gift from her. I loved that smell. It reminded me of home, safety, Cael, and everything I had been lucky enough to love about him over the years. It was a smell that I would hold on to after he was taken from me. Soon, it would be the only thing I had left of him. It was bittersweet to be consumed by it only to know how quickly that moment would end.

He held his promise and kissed me until he could no longer, smiling against my skin like he savored the taste of it. For the longest time, I had felt awkward in my skin, like it was too tight and worn in for someone who had only lived for seventeen years. But Cael proved every thought that swirled around my head wrong with every kiss of his lips, every pinch of his fingers around my thighs and tummy. He honored me for who I was, not who the world told me I should be.

“I’m going to take this off,” he informed me, “you look so pretty in the moonlight, and I want to remember all of it.” He smirked, rolling the hem of my tank top up until he needed me to lift my arms. But he didn’t throw my shirt away. He wrapped the fabric carefully around my crossed wrists and left them above my head.

“Cael,” I huffed, wiggling a little as he did so. My mouth was so close to his chest that every time he shifted, his skin brushed against my lips, eventually tempting me to kiss him there over and over until he directed his attention back to my face. “I can’t move my hands now,” I whined.

“Good,” he said, “I don’t want you covering up,” he chuckled and kissed a hot line down my collarbone to my breast.

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