Page 98 of Just Come Over
“Yeh,” he said. “Thanks.”
Her hand hesitated on the dashboard knob. “Sounds of the heartland OK? Relaxing, eh. Good for driving at night.”
“Uh... sure.” He didn’t care. He needed some cover while he got his equilibrium back, that was all. He had Zora’s hand in his again. Her left hand. She was wearing no jewelry but his pearls, and he laced her bare fingers through his, thought how much better it would be if she were wearing a ring there, and touched the pulse at her wrist with his thumb as the haunting melody of the bone flute wove its way through his body, its only punctuation the breath of the musician. The car picked up speed, and the flute mingled with the resonant click of percussion instruments, all of it sounding, somehow, exactly like a waka full of warriors rowing in perfect unison down a nighttime river. The fern trees and vines hanging low on either side, the water rushing beneath them, hiding the sounds of their passage. The harshness of their breath, the muscles of shoulders and arms standing out in fierce relief with their effort.
With every beat of wood on whalebone, the jade whale tail at his throat resonated all the way down his body, through his arm, his hand, and into Zora’s. Her pulse, he could swear, was beating with his, and with the music, like they were somewhere out of time. Or in another one.
He’d competed with his brother for her. He’d fought her parents for her. And he’d won. She’d turned toward him on the seat again, and he could see the rise and fall of her breasts, the luminous skin above her neckline, and the shine that was the choker of his pearls at the base of her throat. The music kept on, rising, falling, fading out and returning, all he was touching was Zora’s hand, and he knew that all she could see was him.
In his driveway at last, the white lights reversing, a glow of red flashing briefly, then retreating as he walked with Zora to his front door, got it open, set the bag with the food on the narrow table under the mirror and his shoes on the low shelf on the opposite wall, and tried to think of something to say.
She’d never got the chance to tell him what she was wearing under her dress, or how he’d made her feel from the moment he’d first looked at her tonight, and had let her know that he liked what he was seeing. The strength of his hand around hers, too, in the car, and what she’d felt from him then, like he needed her in his arms, and he was barely holding back.
Finally, though, the door had swung shut behind him in the tiled entryway with its single light shining on the two of them. The pale curve of the staircase floated down beyond it into the darkness, like they were on a raft floating on the sea, the only two people in their world. He was breathing hard, she could see it in the rise and fall of his chest under the black shirt, but he hadn’t grabbed her. He’d taken off his shoes, and she hadn’t.
They hung there, alone on their raft, for a long moment, and then she reached up, put a hand behind his neck, pulled his head down, and kissed his mouth.
She kept it gentle, trying to say with the touch of her lips everything that had been so hard to explain. She had her fingers splayed over his jaw, exploring the roughness of stubble, the indentation that was the dimple in his chin. He had an arm around her at last, his hand going not to her waist, but straight to her backside, tracing over the curve of it like he couldn’t get enough, and then his hand was under the hem of her dress, moving up the back of her thigh, sending shocks all the way up her body as he traced his way over the sensitive flesh. The insistent throb she’d been feeling for hours now gave a hard pulse, and her hand was in his hair, pulling him down to her. And somehow, she was kissing him deeper.
His hand on her thigh, and the other one on her bare back, tracing down the vee of her dress and dipping beneath it, and still, he hadn’t said anything. He found the zip, lowered it a centimeter at a time, and when he’d done it, brushed one spaghetti strap off her shoulder, then the other, and the dress fell to the floor with a whisper of fabric.
He said, “Step out.” Low and nearly rough, the first words he’d spoken to her in half an hour. She did it, one heel, then another, and he kept his arm around her and steadied her through it. Her eyes weren’t closed, and neither were his. He was drinking her in like she was all he wanted to see, and his hand was at the back clasp of her black satin strapless bra, the bottom curve of the cups outlined with tiny dots of pearl. The bottom hook opened, and then the top one, under his deft fingers, and the bra joined the dress on the floor.
All she was wearing was his pearls, her black heels, and a black lace thong that was more like a G-string. She wanted him to touch her there, and he didn’t. His hands were on her breasts, his thumbs tracing over nipples that had long since gone hard. He said, “I want to suck these,” she got another of those hard, fierce shudders, and he stood there and watched her do it.
She should be doing something, she realized fuzzily. Her hands went to his jacket, and he took a wrist in each hand and said, “No. Not right now,” and then turned her around. Slowly. She stumbled a little in her heels, and he held her upright, then ran his hands up her arms, and then, slowly, over her sides, until he was holding her breasts again, her nipples caught between his big fingers. And he hauled in his breath.
He’d meant to be romantic. But when she’d pulled his head down and kissed him like she couldn’t wait another second, when he’d got his hand under her dress—how could he have done anything but take it off? And when she’d been heaving her breath from all the way up her body, he’d needed her bra gone, too.
Now, he was looking at exactly what he’d imagined for so long, and it was everything he’d dreamed of. Dark hair falling in a tangled cloud to just above her shoulders. A back like the gorgeously smooth, generous curves of a cello, flaring out again into rounded hips and thighs. A lush bottom covered by a single strip of black lace down the center, and that was all.
He ran his hand down the string of pearls once, then again, and she shuddered all the way down, swayed toward the wall, and put her palms flat against it.
Holyshit.
He could hear his breath in his ears, and he could see the tremble in her as he ran his hand down her spine, pulled the hair up from her neck with the other, bent down, and kissed her there, at her nape, then moved on to the side of her neck, his lips gentle, exploring.
“Rhys.” It was barely an exhalation.
He kissed his way to her ear, explored it with his tongue, then took the lobe in his teeth. No earring there. Nothing but nakedness. He bit gently, rested his elbow against the wall, shoving her a little farther forward, and got his other hand around her breast again. Round and full, the nipple hardening under his fingers the same way, he suspected, that it had all night.
“I need to be... soft,” he said into her ear. “I know I do. And all I want is to fuck you against the wall.” Not exactly the kind of declaration he’d been planning, and he couldn’t help it. He squeezed her nipple some more, getting some rhythm into it, and she started breathing harder, rocking in the heels.
“I’m... not... tall enough,” she got out. “Oh, that feels good. I’m going to... come. Please. Touch me.”
He laughed, a huff of breath. “I told you, I’m here to take care of you.” His lips were still at her neck, his hand still at her breast, but finally, his other hand was tracing down her side, moving on down, and he’d swear she was holding her breath.
He didn’t go straight inside her thong. He touched her outside it, because he’d been exactly right. It was the tiniest vee of black lace, and it was soaked.
He said, “You were practically coming in front of your parents,” then rubbed the rough-edged fabric into her, and she squirmed under his hand, called out, and rested her forehead against the wall.
The flames licked all the way up his body. And they burned.
“Y-yes,” she managed to say. She was rocking now. “Oh. Do that. Do that. Please.”
He kept it up, drove her up a little higher, and then, when she was making some noises that she couldn’t help a bit, he slipped his hand under there, painted her with her own slickness while she shifted and moaned, got his fingers on either side of that nub, and started to squeeze in time with his other hand, the one that was on her nipple.
She was twisting. Trying to turn. Making some more noise. The pearls down her back swayed from side to side, her head was buried against her hands, and her entire body went taut. And just like that, she went off like a firecracker, jerking against his hand, crying out as the shudders took her and rolled her hard.
