Page 42 of Reading Between the Lines
I fondled myself.
His attention slipped to the goods and darted back to my face. “Are you going to lie down, or what?”
I hit him with all the sultry mischief I could muster, licking my lips salaciously. “Yes, Guns. Are you ready because it will mean getting cozy?”
“No, I’m not fucking ready. Just do it.”
I joined him, nestling between his tree trunk thighs and lying my back against his concrete front. It was a tight fit. Even the oversized claw-foot wasn’t meant for two grown men, especially when one of them was built like a tank. It was a good thing I hadsometwink qualities.
I spent a minute silently evaluating Diem’s reaction, giving him time for more processing while tuning into his breathing. I sensed the staggering rise and fall of his chest beneath me. When it changed from short, tight struggles to draw oxygen to longer, easier inhales and exhales, I tipped my head and peered at him upside down.
“Doing okay, big guy?”
He offered a jerky nod.
“Uncomfortable?”
“What do you think?”
I faced forward and peeled his fingers from where he held a death grip on the tub’s edge, moving them so he wrapped both arms around me. I pressed his palms to my abdomen, encouraging contact, urging him to explore my naked flesh. In time, his tension waned, and after a few lazy strokes, when the earth didn’t crack open and swallow him whole, he grew more confident.
Diem’s past had taught him touch was synonymous with hatred, not love. Touch was violent and punitive, never tender, and at no time used to show affection. His therapist hadexplained it would take time to rewrite those pathways in his brain, but his wasn’t a hopeless case. I didn’t think Diem always believed him, so we practiced. A lot.
I stopped guiding Diem’s hands and brought mine to his spread thighs. He’d needed to bend his long legs to fit in the tub, and his knees stuck out of the water on either side of my body. I caressed the coarse, wet hair over his quads and down his shins as I waited to see what he’d do without assistance.
Diem still required guidance and many hand-over-hand demonstrations before he felt comfortable enough to venture out on his own. Even then, his exploration was hindered by his self-consciousness and doubt.
It took a minute, but the soft brush of uncertain fingers over my navel tingled my blood to life. I closed my eyes and absorbed all he was willing to give. Patience was a virtue when it came to Diem and intimacy. When he felt brave enough to explore on his own, I floated on cloud nine.
Baby steps.
I hummed with pleasure when he grew brave enough to flatten a palm against my sternum. At the first pinch of his thumb and pointer over a nipple, I hissed and dug my nails into his legs, arching my back.
He paused, but sensing my reaction was positive, he did it again.
“It’s good, D. Don’t stop.”
The entire time, his ragged breaths ghosted my ear. His thundering heart rate echoed through him into me.
Sex between us had always been a work in progress. I dreamed of a day when Diem would take me to bed and worship my body without hesitation or second-guessing. I wanted to cut the puppet strings and see him act of his own free will.
His lips brushed my neck, but I knew he wouldn’t progress unless I demanded it, no matter how much I hinted by tipping my head to the side and moaning his name.
The fact that he was able to run his hands over my sternum and abdomen with a modicum of confidence was already huge. Playing with my nipples was a line he’d never crossed.
My cock ached and swelled when he skated his fingers lower, teasing the top of my groomed pubes, but they stilled, only going so far. Under the small of my back, Diem’s erection grew to a pillar.
“You’re so fucking hot,” he said, his voice choked.
Unable to resist any longer, I rolled in his arms, sloshing water over the edge and struggling with the tight confines of the tub, but I wasn’t a quitter. Face-to-face, I attacked his mouth, kissing him aggressively and hungrily, growling as he often did, and hoping he took it for the frustration it was.
The touch he’d been so carefully administering vanished, and I broke from his mouth to glare. “You’d better put those hands back on my body right now, Guns, or we’re gonna have a problem.”
It wasn’t often Diem looked punch drunk, and it could have been the heat of the water making his cheeks flush, but I didn’t think so. The lust swelling his pupils was something I’d been seeing more of lately when his walls came down.
With renewed reticence, he took hold of my sides and glided his palms up and down.
“You can do better than that. You like touching me, remember. You like this naked body.”
