Page 55 of The Night Shift
‘Okay,’ she said after a pause which involved some fairly persuasive kisses along her throat and jawline.
‘Ok-kay.’ Gus’s breath was hot against her neck as he slid his hand up her top to brush against the outline of her breast. ‘Can we take this off?’
‘My jumper?’
‘All of it,’ he said. ‘Do you think you’ll be cold?’
She considered this for a moment. ‘No, I think I’ll probably be alrigh?—’
Gus was already sliding her jumper up her body so she reached down and pulled it over her head, dropping it on the counter behind her. She then reached around and undid her bra, letting it slip to the floor. She was now sat right in front of him, legs spread either side of his body, naked to the waist, but bizarrely she didn’t feel in the slightest self-conscious. She leaned forward, her fingers tucking inside the waistband of his trousers but he pulled his hips away a fraction.
‘Not yet,’ he murmured into the base of her throat, trailing warm kisses down to her breasts, flicking his tongue across her skin until she gasped. Violet wrapped her legs more tightly around him, pressing herself against the hard muscles of his torso and he lifted his head, returned to her mouth, kissing her deeply while his hands remained busy on her body. At some point she felt him tugging at her leggings, sliding them off and trailing his fingers back along her bare thigh, up to the top, pressing his palm against her until she cried out in frustration. He finally relented, inching his fingers underneath the elastic of her knickers and as he touched her she felt the external world slipping away– sound became muffled, her vision blurry at the edges, as if her body could only focus on this one level of sensory input.
He moved his mouth back to her breasts, kissing and teasing while his fingers worked away inside her underwear and she felt a pressure building inside, nothing like the predictable response she had when she touched herself. This feeling was out of her control, a fire raging through her body, and when Gus moved further down, pausing to peel off the remains of her underwear, she put up only the most feeble of mumbled protests.
‘What if I taste funny,’ she said– a little worried voice poised on the crest of a tidal wave.
He pushed her very gently back so she was resting on her elbows and began a leisurely progress of kisses down the flat of her stomach. ‘Do you want me to stop?’ he asked, his fingers ceasing their action, his mouth poised just above her.
‘No,’ she said, the word emerging with a guttural urgency she hadn’t known she possessed. ‘Don’t stop. Please don’t stop.’
She tightened against his fingers as his tongue moved lower and he pushed her thighs apart, hungry for her in a way she hadn’t expected.
‘You tastefucking amazing,’ he murmured against her, the vibrations of his voice finally tipping her over, drawing her into a whirling vortex of rhythmic sensation that started at her core and spread through her body like a flood, waves of heat flowing over and over and over again. In a brief moment of clarity, a tiny point of calm in the sensory storm, she thought to herself,this is it.This is what everyone talks about. A once in a lifetime pinnacle moment. I must hold onto it, keep it close. Because surely,surely, I can’t be lucky enough to ever feel like this again.
Gus
Gus was amazed that he’d had the foresight to put a condom in his back pocket before he’d even started cooking and almost wept with gratitude to his earlier self. In a feat of near superhuman manual dexterity he managed to tear open the wrapper and roll the condom on with one hand while his other was still occupied with Violet. The advantage of anaesthetic training, he thought to himself, was an ability to keep a lot of plates spinning simultaneously.
It was difficult to get the angle right though– he wasn’t sure he’d ever had sex with someone on a kitchen island before– and the momentary indecision about choice of venue allowed him a second to compose himself. In one easy movement he picked Violet up and carried her the two steps to the sofa, stepping carefully out of his trousers to avoid breaking his leg, or indeed his cock. He briefly imagined explaining to colleagues why he was arriving at work in the back of an ambulance.
‘You okay?’ he asked her as they sank onto the cushions, and by way of an answer she pushed him into a seated position, straddled her thighs across his legs and lowered herself onto him with a sigh of such deep satisfaction that he didn’t need to ask again. She rocked her pelvis slow and deep, pressing down on him until he finally let himself go– the roar of white noise in his ears, hot skin slick with sweat, and the taste of her on his tongue.
He threw his head back against the sofa cushions, trying to catch his breath and it was a moment before he realised she was crying.
‘Violet?’ He peeled her body away from him, alarmed by this new development. ‘Are you alright? Shit, did I hurt you?’
She shook her head and he could see that she was smiling despite the tears and the occasional hiccupping sob escaping from her mouth. ‘No,’ she said. ‘No, it’s fine. I just feel a bit…’
He wrapped his arms around her. ‘I get it,’ he said. ‘Don’t worry. Sometimes it feels a bit like that– sex– a bit overwhelming.’
‘It’s never– I’ve never…’ She paused, clearly frustrated with herself for not being able to find the right words. ‘I’ve never feltemotionalabout sex before,’ she said eventually. ‘I usually enjoy it, don’t get me wrong. But I nevercry!’ She made it sound as though she’d done something completely unacceptable.
‘Well, you’ve had a pretty emotional few days to be fair,’ he said, pulling a blanket over from the arm of the sofa and tucking it around her shoulders. ‘Everything with Marvin, sleep deprivation, deep and meaningful conversations about families, Maybe that was just the icing on the cake.’
She laughed. ‘More like the whole bloody gateau,’ she said, shaking her head. ‘More like a four-tier showstopper from theBake Offgrand finale.’
He inclined his head a fraction. ‘Why, thank you,’ he said, modestly. ‘I don’t think I’ve ever been given that particular accolade before.’
She was still shaking her head as she climbed off him, rubbing the traces of tears from her cheeks. ‘I have clearly been sleeping with the wrong people,’ she muttered to herself.
* * *
Later, as they made their way back to the hospital Violet was still speculating on the sheer power of the female orgasm.
‘I feel bad for men to be honest,’ she said, tucking herself under his offered arm and snuggling into his chest as they walked. ‘I mean, there’s no way that the male version could ever compare to what’s just happened to me. I’m sure of it.’
‘Oh, I see. You’ve had one, and now you’re the expert,’ he said laughing as he squeezed her shoulders.
