Page 37 of Service Included

In the darkness behind her closed eyes, she pictured his mouth finally going down. She had to be still. He would touch her where she needed, he would, he must, but only if she didn’t move. She didn’t know how she survived his warm breath on her sex, then the coolness, and then again the heat of his hovering open mouth, the ever-higher bill she’d have to pay for the promise from his lips. He still hadn’t used his hands or his tongue, but she shook furiously with the effort of remaining locked to the mattress. He must see how much it cost her.

And then his hands wrapped around her knees and lifted her legs from the mattress. She’d been freed from being a statue, and that was all she needed. She heard herself begging, felt the thrust of his shoulder blades under the backs of her thighs, and heard him gasping too. She was open, and this time, he must be about to put his mouth on her, he must, he couldn’t continue teasing. “Come in me, please. Please. I’m going to—”

And then his tongue speared her nub, and the pleasure rolling from that one point obliterated all. The wet strength of his tongue worked her back and forth, faster, faster, and little noises filled her until she must be rising, but his hands anchored her hips so that the room swirled instead. Fingers, his fingers, inside her and his mouth still working and her skin shivering and contracting. Up and up, her cry not stopping, she flew beyond their bodies. She was here with him and she was above them, she was in the room and in the sky. The day disappeared, and her body became waves of color with flashes of knowledge, like billboards announcing this was his tongue, these were hisfingers, this was her pussy, her skin, her, her, her, as she became feeling that had no form.

When he lowered her legs, the flashes behind her eyelids stopped, but her skin still felt two sizes too tight. She opened her eyes. Her young Apollo’s lips and chin glistened, a flush colored his cheeks and throat, and his chest heaved from exertion. Her gaze dropped to his cock. Covered with the condom, it was as big as any she’d ever seen, rising from dark hair at his groin. She wanted that.

His fingers traced her labia, spreading her, and she lifted toward him, inviting him before she even knew his question, but then he paused at the threshold of her body. “Ready?”

He expected an answer? Crazy man. Crazy good. But she choked out a yes. She was so slippery, so ready, that he plunged deep with the first thrust. And smoothly pulled back, even though her body sought to keep him. Each thrust notched that thick shaft where she wanted him, and her whole being gripped him when he pulled back. Her legs tried to wrap around him, but he held her raised enough that she was the receptacle, he was the pumping force. He did the work. She merely felt, wrapping around him with everything she could move, and then he was shouting “Yes” and shuddering like her, and his lips pulled back from his teeth and he closed his eyes against the light he must also see.

The chirps of birdsgreeting dusk brought Megan back to awareness. She faced Nico across the mattress, their feet touching while their upper halves angled away to leave space for sweaty skin to dry.

“Thank you,” he said. His jaw had slackened and his eyelids drooped a little, like he was tired and relaxed. He seemed more like his actual twenty-seven years than he had when he’d confessed his abstinence.

“Thank you too,” she replied. “That was—I’m just really good right now.”

Out of words, she rested her hand on that dip above his hip, where his abdominal muscles made a deep plunge around his navel. She could feel each time his breath went in and out. To avoid continuing the awkward close-range eye contact, she studied the tattoo on the upper left part of his chest. It was a carabiner, one of those metal clip things rock climbers used, with a length of rope winding out and over his shoulder. But the hasp—hank? Shank? What was the clicky metal part actually called?—was cracked.

She laid two fingers gently on the dark image. Broken things had meaning, especially when someone took time and money to ink them. Even a woman who didn’t have any tattoos knew that. Her throat closed, thinking about survivor’s guilt, Tyler saying “We all remember Chloe,” in such a somber tone, and Nico’s years of celibacy. There was a tragedy written here. A story people couldn’t see when they looked at a dark-eyed, smiling, clever god and shared a laugh. A story that had changed more than a patch of skin on his shoulder, one that must have changed his world.

She ached for him.

He reached up and wrapped his hand around hers, lifting it from his shoulder and bringing her fingers to his mouth. “I’m glad.” His voice was low and quiet, but sounded sincere.

Their hands blocked the lower part of his expression, so she couldn’t tell what he was thinking or how he was processing what they’d just done.

Like her, he seemed to want connection despite the heat. His fingertips trailed up and down her forearm and paused to draw invisible figure eights over the reminder she’d jotted this morning. “Write on yourself often?”

She welcomed the simple topic. “Sometimes.” Usually nothing more interesting than pickup times for Callie’s activities or a reminder to stop for milk, but after today, maybe she’d reference assassin cults more frequently.

He propped himself on an elbow and studied the length of her body. Between her legs, she felt the sticky combination of arousal and leftover condom lubricant, and her skin prickled with self-consciousness. Her legs weren’t smoothly shaven, and her breasts had started to flop a tiny bit over the last year or two. She didn’t want to get up, didn’t have the energy to find her clothes or leave the mattress, but posing here in the last light while he stared was unsettling. She rolled to her stomach, pillowing her left cheek on her folded arms.

The weight and pressure of his hand stroking her back felt good, almost too good. She sensed vibrations deep in her throat each time he pushed into the muscles between her shoulder blades. He used the base of his palm to press into the tight strips connected to her spine, which must be connected to her eyelids’ automatic off switch.

“No real ink?” he asked. “No tattoos?” He could see her body, with the answer obvious, so maybe he too didn’t know what to say.

“Only real marker.” She didn’t think she was afraid of the pain, but the permanence had never appealed.

“I have an idea.”

His massage was stealing any energy she might once have had for implementing ideas, not to mention that her mouth felt like she’d sucked a hair dryer. “I need water first.”

“Will a bottle do? Glasses are gone.”

She lifted her lids enough to watch him sit and roll his shoulders.

“I take my job seriously, you know.”

“Excellent customer service.” She too stretched, but without shifting from her stomach. Her fingers reached past the top of the mattress and her inner arms brushed the edge of her ears. She pointed her toes toward the other end and arched into the dips and bumps created by years of use. The contour where she’d settled fit exactly to her pelvis. “Exemplary.”

“Before we get to starred reviews, I need to deal with—” He gathered the used condom from next to the mattress and rose to his knees, apparently confident that, even flopping and spent, his cock didn’t need to be covered. It hung almost relaxed between his legs, no longer erect, but still long. “The only garbage is downstairs. I’ll be right back.”

How could he move when her bones felt like melting ice cream? That was the difference between her thirty-five and his twenty-seven, she guessed.

“Stay right here?” His grin and lifted eyebrows clearly indicated he was plotting something. “Just like that, until I come back?”

“Hmm.” She caught a hint of a latex smell and hoped he’d take time to rinse off. She pictured his wet hand stroking over himself to remove the stickiness and rubbery taste. Cool water might draw him tight, but she’d warm him with her full appreciation when he returned. She shifted , and felt the crisscrossed stitching on the mattress catch the tip of her nipple. It felt good. “Won’t move.”

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