MARISSA
I spotted Wyatt with Ralph at a table in the far back of the simple bar that had been my haunting spot since I started at InkSpired. I smiled when I took in Wyatt and thought back to that time when I had had a drink with him here. It’s been a few months, but so much had changed since then.
When I by-passed two tables, Ralph elbowed Wyatt and waved at me with a big smile that was a contrast to the constant expression on Wyatt’s face. A frown was never far, and his lips rarely stretched in a boyish smile, but when I stared at Wyatt, he stole my breath.
Where most people would probably get stuck on Ralph because of his piercings, crazy purple fauxhawk and his tattoos covering his body from knuckles to neck, Wyatt never ceased to get my attention. It had very little to do with his tattoos that always appealed to me. It was his eyes. They held me captive, showing me the complexity that made him who he was. And I was at his mercy.
“Tell me if I need to make myself scarce and leave you to get your freak on,’’ Ralph said in greetings, laughing between words and threw back his shot without wincing.
Wyatt glared at his friend and shook his head after pulling the chair next to him without standing, but as soon as I was close enough to reach for me, he grabbed my hand and placed it on his denim covered thigh. The coarse fabric of his pants didn’t distract me from the way his thigh bunched under my palm and how petite my hand felt in comparison to his leg and his hand that engulfed mine.
“Don’t mind him. He’s on his third shot and that beer is his second.’’
I eyed the three fourths empty beer glass and then took in Ralph’s glazed over eyes and the circles under them quite impossible to miss.
“What’s wrong, Ralph?’’ I asked and gently squeezed Wyatt’s thigh. I knew how he was worried about his best friend. Just last week he told me how much Ralph was upset now that the woman I had seen him with at a club not long ago dated someone. Apparently, Ralph had been in a very destructive and unhealthy relationship with that woman and hadn’t been able to put an end to it.
“Why should there be somethin’ wrong?’’ He opened his arms wide and then dropped his hand with a loud thump on the table that attracted the attention from the tables nearby. “It’s a Saturday night, and I’m here havin' drinks with a couple. I’m the fifth fuckin' wheel. That’s the dream, you know.’’
“Don’t be a dick,’’ Wyatt grumbled and glared at his best friend over the brim of his glass. His hand tensed around mine under the table. Then, he flagged a passing waitress and ordered a Shirley Temple for me after quickly asking what I wanted.
“Believe me. I’m not the one who’s going to make her run. You don’t need anybody’s help,’’ Ralph said with a sad laugh and a shake of his head as he glanced at me before his eyes slid to Wyatt who buzzed next to me. His body was so coiled I felt a slight tremble coming from him.
“Shut up.’’ Wyatt’s cold voice snapped.
Ralph jerked back and blew out some air, closing his eyes. He rubbed his eyelids and then jumped to his feet. Unsteady on his feet, he bumped into the table, making my freshly poured drink spill on the wood.
“Sorry. Fuck, I’d rather go home.’’
“Ralph, no, wait,’’ I began, but Ralph stopped me with a hand held up in front of him as he fished his wallet from his pants with his other hand. He threw a couple of balled up bills on the table between the glasses.
“It’s okay, girlie.’’
“Ralph,’’ Wyatt mumbled and went to stand up, but his friend put a hand on his shoulder and pressed down with a hard look on his face.
“I know when to leave you alone to sort out your shit, do the same for me.’’
Both men shared a long look before they both nodded and Ralph walked out of the bar without a backward glance, not even when he bumped into someone as he swayed from left to right, earning himself several colorful curses.
I bit my lip and ran my hand up and down Wyatt’s thigh under the table as he put his elbows on the table and covered his face with his fists.
“Is he going to be okay?’’
“He’s walked home way drunker before,’’ he mumbled from behind his hands.
“I wasn’t talking about that.’’
“I know. Shit.’’ He sat back in his chair and gazed at me before he wrapped an arm around my shoulders and pulled me into his strong body, enveloping me with his warmth. “Don’t worry about him. If there’s something Ralph knows how to do is to get back on his feet. Maybe now he won’t let that bitch play with him.’’
“You don’t like her much, do you?’’
“She's made him feel like shit, like he’s not worth more than a night with her. He was ready to do so damn much for her, but she had always been throwing him away whenever she met someone she deemed a right fit for her. But when she wants some wild nights, guess who she calls?’’
“Why does he go back to her then?’’
“Who the fuck knows!’’ He took a deep breath against my hair and placed a soft kiss on my temple. “I’ve tried to open his eyes, but it’s been a tough subject. He’s going to drink and party harder, grab a random girl to fuck and then after a week or so he’ll go back to his usual self. Same MO every-fucking-time.’’
“He’s hurting.’’
“When you hurt, you have to face it on your own. That’s the only way to get over it.’’
“It doesn’t hurt to have someone in your corner to help you through it."
“But nobody else knows your pain, Marissa. It’s yours to bear.’’
“That’s because you don’t let people all the way in,’’ I replied and placed a hand on his chest, right on top of his beating heart. My smile was soft and sad, but I didn’t dwell on it. Instead, I faced the table, dropped my hand from his chest and grabbed my drink for a refreshing sip.
“You’re in.’’
Our eyes clashed and held then. How could I look away?
My heart beat so hard in my chest, the rhythm so hopeful my whole self warmed up until my blood boiled to the point that nothing else existed.
“Let’s go to my place, sweet thing.’’
He didn’t wait for my nod to stand up.
***
WYATT
I had gone through a lot in my life, and it had started early on. Over the years it made me wary of opening up to other people, to let someone all the way in. Marissa was different.
She buried herself in me over time, quickly working her way through piles of bullshit and wading until she settled in my stupidly hopeful heart.
It’s time I showed her, even if I couldn’t use words to tell her. She took a chance on me even after I had hurt her, fully intending to hurt her. I owed her honesty and another part of me that was hers anyway.
Heart beating, eyes full of her, I watched as she walked backward in my bedroom. For each step I took, she backed further into the room. Soon, she bumped into the bed. Her eyes didn’t waver from mine, they flashed with need then, so stark it pushed away my nerves, but didn’t ease the trembling in my limbs or slow down my heart that created a particular song under my ribcage, a song that followed Marissa’s rhythm.
I would tell her how beautiful she looked right now with the streetlight shedding a glow around her, how she took my breath away and made me hope for something special in our future, but I couldn’t form words. My jaw was shut tight, and my eyes did all the talking.
One more step and I stood right before Marissa, so close her breasts brushed my chest when she took a deep breath, the sound loud even through my buzzing ears and the beats of my heart that seemed to echo through me.
I wanted to grab her, to throw her on the bed, strip off her clothes and fuck her until she screamed and my muscles seized with pleasure, but I didn’t.
I stared at her, deep into her eyes until everything else faded away, until she stopped fidgeting and she saw only me, felt only me, thought of only about me. Only then did I touch her.
The shock of the warm skin on her forearm made me hiss, and her gasp made me tremble. And still, I didn’t grab her. I let the tip of my fingers trail up her arms. My eyes fell on her skin, away from her eyes full of lust to focus on the goosebumps that raised her skin and her small hands clenched into two small and tight fists.
“What are you doing?’’ she asked in a whisper that broke on another gasp as I bypassed the sleeves of her t-shirt to trace her collarbone, a touch so slow and soft I barely recognized myself or the way I burst with the need to worship this woman like she had never been worshipped before.
I shook my head and bent down to press my forehead against hers, cupping her jaw in my hands. I closed my eyes and breathed her in, taking stock of her fruity scent from her body wash or lotion, and the scent that was Marissa that got more pronounced between the sheets.
“Wyatt?’’
“Shh…’’ I caressed her cheeks with my thumbs and sucked on her pouty lower lip, that damn lip that drove me insane even in the dark hours of the night. Her moan, strong, shook her. Her hands found their way to my waist, balling my shirt and tugging it as if she wanted it gone.
I released her lip. It was red and swollen, a beacon to get me to kiss her more, to make her beg for it. But that wasn’t what I wanted right now.
I took a step back, grabbed the hem of her t-shirt and waited for her to look at me before I slowly hitched it higher, unveiling her flat stomach. Then, her navel made its appearance followed by the underside of her breasts only covered by a thin scrap of fabric. When I reached below her chin, I stopped and leaned closer with her t-shirt still in my hands.
“Let me show you how deep inside me you are, sweet thing.’’
Her lips parted, but she didn’t say a word. She put her arms up and let me get her t-shirt off. I threw it on the floor and ran my mouth down her neck, over her left shoulder. My hands followed another path, tracing the line of her spine in slow strokes.
My cock, hard, pushed against the zipper of my jeans, begging me to let it free, but it wasn’t about me. It was all about her, about showing her what she did to me and how gone I was for her. It was about using our bodies to demonstrate my feelings when that was all I knew.
She stopped me before I went for her pants when she tugged my shirt up to bare my chest for her wandering hands, hands that traced my ridges and valleys in such a way that I shivered without shame. I hastily complied when she uttered just one word. “Off.’’
Chest to chest, the only scrap of fabric preventing us from being flesh against flesh was her bra, I wrapped my arms around her and soaked in the way she felt. Slender and soft, all warmth and temptation.
I breathed harder, louder. My heart soared, and my limbs tingled. Even my head was weightless, and nothing there polluted this moment. My hands fell to her ass still covered by her jeans. I toyed with the edge of her pants at her waist and groaned when she put her hands on my ass and pushed me into her. My balls tightened, drawing up as if she could make me come just with her hands on my ass and my cock pressed against her stomach.
Lips in the crook of her neck, I traced kisses, licking her skin as I sneaked my hands between us and unbuttoned her jeans. Her zipper was the best fucking sound there was at that moment. It announced the time when I’d be able to take her in, almost entirely, the time when I’d be teased by her tiny panties and scant bra.
With deliberate movements, but slowly, I pushed down her pants. My hands, palms against her soft skin, went to her legs, pushing her pants down until I had to pull away and kneel in front of her to take them off. She didn’t need me to direct her to step out of her jeans. She did it on her own with her hands on my shoulders and her eyes deep in mine.
Contrary to me, she never shied away from what was in my eyes. She was strong and had the kind of strength that only made me feel more for her than I could ever explain aloud. I was fuck out of words where Marissa was concerned.
Right here, right now, kneeling in front of her with my heart in my eyes, I bared myself to her like I had never let myself, not with a woman who wasn’t my adoptive mother.
My hands caressed her calves but stopped when I reached behind her knees. Loudly breathing, I pressed my mouth to the inside of her knees, the left then the right and slightly up where her thighs flared, where her muscle started to quiver.
Her fingers tightened on my shoulders, and her nails bit my skin. That made me gasp against her skin, eyes tightly closed.
Too much.
Too fucking much.
I shook. My damn hands trembled so much I had no doubt she felt it. The urge to pull away, to hide what she did to me rose, but I pushed it away. It wasn’t about me protecting myself, it was about her and showing her how deep inside me she was, in every possible way. It was about her.
My hands slid further up her legs. I took hold of her panties in both hands, and with another look at her face, flushed and open, I pulled them down.
The cold, hard floor under my knees barely registered. Neither the fact that my cock was so hard in my pants it didn’t have any room left, and it threatened to peek out from the low hanging jeans. She took over all my senses.
My eyes fell to her dripping sex, taunting me to get a taste of her, to make her come with just my mouth, but I resisted. I breathed her in, blew air right where I knew she craved me and when she choked out a moan, I stood up. My fingers trailed over her hips, her waist and up until my thumbs teased the round edge of her breasts still covered by her bra.
Now towering over her, I let her shaking mingle with mine, creating something out of this fucked up world. As much as it made me appear pussy whipped, it was as close to perfection as I’d ever tasted.
I traced the edge of her bra, both of my hands working their way to the clasp at her back and undid it without waiting, without teasing, without fumbling even though my fingers tingled so damn much I had no idea how I wasn’t messing it all up.
She didn’t let me get it off her. No, that wouldn’t be my girl. She had to always toe the line with me, matching me for each and every one of my moves. Equal in all things. Enthralled with her, I watched as she dropped her bra at our feet, stared as she placed her hands on my hips to let me get my fill of her perky breasts, the taut nipples already a deeper pink.
How a fuckup like me could have a woman like her, naked and willing to let me show her how much she meant to me, boggled me.
I wasn’t a good guy, even though I wanted to be for her, better myself and all that shit.
I wasn’t going anywhere career-wise, in fact, I was going backward now that my hours were cut short and I was so damn pressed for money I had no idea how long I could go like this.
I was the perfect example of a guy who didn’t know where he was going most of the time. I was the opposite of Marissa.
Still, without a word, she unbuttoned my pants and quickly rid me of them and my underwear, smiling softly at me once they were at my ankles and my cock jutted in front of me, damp at the tip and so engorged it was red with need for her.
Her hand hovered near my cock, driving me mad with want, with the same desperate need I always had for her whenever clothes weren’t involved, but I held on. Or maybe I broke down because the next moment I took her mouth in a searing kiss, so damn deep I wanted to feel her fucking soul, wanted to climb inside her and never leave.
Her muffled moan in my mouth spurred me on. My fingers weaved through her thick hair, holding her face to me, keeping her there, right there where I felt her, where I had her so close her breasts were plastered against my chest and my cock pressed against her soft stomach. I groaned in her mouth and dropped a hand to her perfect ass.
But then, when I nibbled on her lip, and she moaned, a delightful melody to my ears, I slowed down until I broke the kiss. Slow. I had to go slow.
Taking a deep breath, I bent down and hoisted her up in my arms. She squealed gently in my ear and buried her face in my neck as she tightened her arms around me. But she didn’t ask me to put her down. She held onto me, and that made all the difference. That also did something to my heart, making it hers even more.
With more care than I had ever handled anything or anyone in my life, I deposited her in the center of my bed.
At that moment, watching the woman who brought me to my knees spread out on my bed, naked and waiting for me to get to her, looking at me with such openness and trust, fear tackled me. It was the kind of fear that came from being terrified to fail someone, to be short of what they deserved, because Marissa merited the fucking world.
Swallowing past the boulder made of emotions I couldn’t express in my throat, I joined her on the bed, crawling on top of her but keeping my weight off her with my forearms next to her head. She bent her knees and drew them up until she cradled me between her thighs, pushing my hard cock against her wet pussy.
Her arms around me, her hands on my back, I shivered. We only touched, skin against skin and nothing more, but it felt like she was inside of me, in my damn bones and cells. Not a part of me was untouched by this woman.
I couldn’t move. Oh, I wanted to be inside her, to thrust in her tight heat and earn her sweet moans, but I couldn’t move. My muscles, coiled tight, protested. My arms, supported my weight off of her didn’t cooperate. I was there, pressed tightly against her warm body, soaking in her warmth, her presence, this moment.
This didn’t sound like me at all. It wasn’t like me either. And yet, nothing had ever felt more right, not when what I saw in her eyes filled me with so much happiness and hope that my usual darkness was nowhere in sight.
“Please, Wyatt, make me feel,’’ she whispered against my lips, so soft I felt her words more than I heard them. And what an effect they had on me.
I pressed a kiss on her mouth, slowly tracing her lips with my tongue until her gasp gave me the opportunity to slide inside and deepen my connection with her. I couldn’t have enough of this, of her, of what she made me believe in.
My body finally responded, and I sneaked a hand to her pussy, finding her so wet and ready that as soon as I pressed a finger against her clit, she bucked against me. My eyes crossed with need and pleasure, so damn intense I ached. I fucking ached for this woman.
I circled her clit a few times, drawing out the moment when I’d be inside of her, but soon, too soon maybe, I couldn’t take it anymore. Not when her breathing accelerated. Not when she whimpered my name. Not when she threw her head back in pleasure and her cheeks colored further.
I wrapped my hand around my cock, and as soon as my tip came into contact with her pussy, I pushed in slowly. So slowly I gritted my teeth and the muscles in my back tensed and burned.
My breath came out on a hiss through my teeth right when I bottomed out inside of her. She opened her eyes, and as soon as those incredible eyes found me, I lost myself inside her. Languidly, I pulled back, not once looking away. But damn if it didn’t feel like heaven. Once my cock was almost completely out of her, I pushed back in, not speeding up. Her contented sigh was my reward, the ripple of pleasure going down my spine and up my balls was the cherry on the cake.
I surrendered to my feelings for her and deposited them in her care. There was no going back and no regret either.
***
MARISSA
Eyes brimming with tears, I came, clenching around Wyatt’s cock deep inside of me. His loud groan of my name as he came with me only heightened the experience.
My breath came out in fast pants. My palms slid over his sweaty back, stopping only at the small of his back where I held onto, not ready to sever that connection, to end this magical moment.
I blinked back my tears and sighed when he kissed my forehead in that sweet way of his that never failed to make my heart trip. If I could, I’d hug his breath away and fill his lungs with all of me. If I could, I’d never move from this place in his bed, from this moment.
“Let’s stay just like that, sweet thing.’’ His gruff voice didn’t have the terseness he often displayed. No, I only perceived emotions that I didn’t think he would ever feel for me.
His cock softened inside of me, but not fully and that was the single most intimate moment in my life.
I squeezed him and kissed his shoulder. “I wouldn’t want it any other way, Wyatt.’’
Heart full, body limp and sated, mind at ease; bliss had never been so strong. I sighed and closed my eyes, sleep fast overtaking me with the knowledge, the assurance that whatever this was between us, we were together in this, feeling way more than lust alone.
At that moment, right there after he fully let go with me, showing me a side I was sure he had never or very rarely shown, I knew that nothing would be the same.
We were an us. We were in this. We were together, and our hearts were fully involved.
A powerful declaration was on the tip of my tongue, ready to get out to put words to what we shared tonight, but I held it in.
One thing at a time. We had time after all, didn’t we?