CHAPTER 19

 

 

One Year Ago—An Innocent Suggestion

 

Asher: For somebody who never works out, you have a lot of restless energy.

Charis: Why do you say that?

Asher: Because you've been pacing around this room for an hour.

Charis: I'm thinking through an argument. And I do too work out.

Asher: What do you do?

Charis: FYI, I do situps and pushups and jumping jacks and squats and also dance sometimes.

Asher: Oh, like your mom.

Charis: Nuh-uh. She's crazy intense. I don't have any discipline. I just do whatever I feel like.

Asher: I'd like to see that.

Charis: I've started zumba, you can come to the class.

Asher: No way on earth. Why don't you show me?

Charis: Show you what?

Asher: Some of your dance moves.

Charis: Here? In front of you? Not on your life, buster.

 

Asher

 

MY BRAIN TRIED TO WRAP around the fact that I was sitting on Charis Sloane, my forefinger in her pussy, playing with her soft little clit. I looked into her eyes. She looked back at me with a stony expression.

She was trying to hide what she was feeling.

Good luck with that.

My finger was moving lazily now. The state she was in, I could bring her to climax in less than a minute if I went for it, but I wasn't here for an ASAP (Joel's pet term for a fuck you wanted to end as quickly as possible).

"I'm going to make you come now," I told her confidently. "When was the last time you had an orgasm?"

Her eyes said, no fucking way, and you didn't just ask me that.

Challenge accepted.

"I already know your favorite most perfect pet is a beagle and your favorite food is the kung pau shrimp at Palouse Garden China." I pointed out. "I know you can't stand the texture of satin and you belch like a sailor if you eat cabbage."

"What is your point?" she groaned.

"My point is, I know you intimately. If you think I'm not going to know this about you, too, you're out of your mind. Come on, when did you last get some action? How long has it been? What? Say again."

"Recently."

"Recently? Like when?"

"Oh for Pete's sake!"

"How about if I go first." I grinned at her. "So yeah, Sloane, I knocked it around last night in the shower, thinking about you and your mouth. Right before I came, in my head was this picture of your lips and that little pink tongue, wrapped around my cock. It was fun imagining that. Now you."

This was all new to her, I was pretty sure, this dirty talk as foreplay. She'd responded to it earlier. And now? Now her hips began jerking upward wildly.

I watched her moving against my hand, felt the slippery, soft heat, and gritted out, "When, babe?"

"A few days ago! I broke my vibrator! I ran the batteries down! And I can't believe I just told you that!"

"Girls who tell me dirty things get rewarded." I shoved my finger farther along and sank it deep into her pussy.

Tight. Narrow. Burning. That was some powerful clenching she had going there. Nice pussy, very nice.

So I rate pussies. Is it that much of a surprise?

Charis cried out as though shocked at the pleasure my finger gave her. While she squirmed around with her trapped legs, I frisked her hard and fast with my thumb. I know, it sounds coldly scientific. But this was my thing, what I did. I did it well.

And because I was watching her face closely, I caught her astonishment at what happened then.

"Do it, Char, it's all right, I know it feels so fucking good, my finger in you, you come for me, girl." And yes, it was happening, Charis coming all over my finger. With absolutely no inhibitions. She was moaning and she was writhing and she was incredible, riding my hand while I struggled to get my fly unzipped.

Then somehow I was springing free, my cock and balls hurting to penetrate, my shaft going straight for her. If her legs hadn't been closed up by those jeans around her knees, I'd have been inside her in seconds. That's how much discipline I had right now.

As it was I thrust against her softness, saying her name. I couldn't slide completely in, but I got damn close, coated myself with her wetness, and fuck it was nearly enough. Over and over. I could easily lose myself this way.

Not the plan.

Oh, right.

That open mouth gave me a needed diversion. I swooped down and took it, invading with my tongue. Her tongue came for mine and grappled. This was even better than before, with kissback.

Then I felt it—her hand on the denim over my ass. She was gripping me in her excitement. Charis was kissing me and feeling up my ass.

I raised my head and took an unsteady breath. "You like coming like this, Sloane? You want another finger up in there, in that pretty little, hot little pussy you got for me?"

"Yikes, what, oh, oh, crap, whatareyoudoingtome?" she wailed.

"Getting you off good, isn't it obvious? Tell me, talk to me. Say dirty things to me, sweetness."

"What do you want—me to say?"

"I want you to ask for more. Tell Mr. Norrell what you need."

"Yes, yes. More, Ash."

"You want another finger? Tell me where you want it. Be explicit." I rubbed it across her entrance.

"In me! My pussy!"

Yes. Hearing Charis say my pussy made me almost maniacal. I didn't know who was more frenzied, she or I, as I wedged another big finger inside her slickness. Her walls stretched to take it, bit by bit.

Then I was back to kissing her.

Oh, shit. Her mouth was heaven. I was in heaven. This was my idea of fucking nirvana. Charis demanding I pleasure her, giving me her body, needing my touch.

Just as my tongue curled with hers, I twisted those two fingers and a micro-instant later, my mouth began to vibrate with her scream.

Here's the thing I just then learned: making the woman who happens to be your best friend in the universe scream with pleasure is a truly mind-blowing experience.

When pussy muscles began clamping on my fingers in a strong-as-fuck orgasm, I almost hollered myself. Char had barriers that could keep out a charging elephant, yet here she was, letting me into her private place—and I don't mean just her pussy.

We'd talked about some deep shit, but never been this level of intimate. The fact that she'd let me tease her and fucking masturbate her to not just one, but this second wild-ass orgasm—that was intimacy.

I wanted to cry like a baby. I wanted to keep her coming forever.

"You are so fucking gorgeous when you do that," I ground out against her mouth, and pulled away enough to let me wrench her jeans and panties down to her ankles where her boots trapped them.

It would have to be enough because I wasn't pausing. I was tapping her knees apart and then back finger-fucking, back kissing, back making her feel good.

And she was letting me.

When I felt her nipple push against me, I began trailing licks and kisses down her neck until I reached her chest. I hovered, drawing out the anticipation for both of us.

"I have to suck this. I have to feel it in my mouth. You want it hard?"

"Yes, yes."

"First tell me you know how excellent you are."

Char looked confused.

"Come on. Say 'my, i.e., Charis Sloane's, left tit is the most perfect tit ever created and will be the fount of pleasure starting now.'"

She sputtered, "My…Charis…my ti—I mean my bre—I can't believe this!"

Chuckling, I went to town on her.

There were certain technical challenges to sucking her breast, drumming her clit, and ramming my fingers into her simultaneously. Not a problem, however. I can definitely multitask.

I was feeling incredible, rubbing my cock against her leg, getting off on her responses and on the delectable feel of her on my tongue. She strained under me, toward me, the total opposite of fighting. No tomboy present. She was all sweetness and eagerness now.

Watching her climax once more was the hottest thing I'd ever seen. Hotter than a porno. Hotter than Aura on her knees. Hotter than losing my virginity. Because Charis was a lust freak, and she fucking came like a tornado, letting her pleasure be known. Known to the neighbors. I made a mental note that next time we'd use my place.

I would have gone on this way, pumping her to orgasm until my hand fell off, as long as it pleased her, because why stop something this good? That was until I heard her sob.

 

TURNED OUT CUDDLING CHARIS, even with a throbbing dick, was nearly as spectacular as pleasuring her.

She was still crudely half in, half out of her clothing, and for me the sexual tension hadn't dissipated at all. I wanted to spread her legs and make myself at home.

But she'd had a meltdown. It was really only a few seconds of weeping, but for Char, any amount of waterworks was cause for pause.

Thus I was hugging her rather than groping her, lying sideways to her sideways, my leg between hers, dotting kisses on her forehead, jaw, ear.

"Why am I flipping out?" she bawled.

"It happens," I soothed.

"To you?"

"Nah."

"Well, why the hell not?"

I grinned. "I'm not a pussy."

She pinched my arm but didn't stop rubbing her face in my chest, getting snot and drool all over me. My arms tightened. This, this was what I loved. I'd happily go on this way, kissing and snuggling a sniveling Char, until I was cross-eyed.

Okay, I might as well get this out there. I've got a fucking cuddling fetish. I've been told I was a cuddler from the time I burst out of the womb. Winnow claims I must have been passed around to every female in the family my first week in existence.

It's possible. It's kinda not something you'd willingly share around, but there it is. I love holding a woman's softness, her heat, her smell against me. I can keep a hard-on for hours just nuzzling a babe.

Charis wasn't soft everywhere, but we fit together like puzzle pieces, her arm draped around me, her hand resting on my rear end, her leg hooked over me.

"We're so doing this for our next PvP game," I said, sucking on her earlobe.

"I don't even know what this is." She rubbed her nose on me. "What's happening here. This is stupid."

I wasn't sure what to tell her. I knew it wasn't anything like it had been with Aura. I knew it was exactly what I wanted. Anything else, my brain wasn't processing.

I kissed her ear. "Fuck if I know. We're hanging out together." I rubbed my cock, sticking out of its open fly, suggestively against her.

She gasped. "Did you dare to make a pun? At this very moment?"

"Oh, I dare," I said, voice deep. I kissed the frown lines between her eyebrows. "Correct me if I'm wrong, but you just experienced some genuinely apocalyptic orgasms, did you not, Sloane?"

"Huh."

"Are you blushing?" I turned her face. "Cool trick. I could actually hear you blushing. So…apocalypse?"

"Apocalypse," she said reluctantly. "And why the need to point out the patently obvious?"

I smiled, feeling awesomeness deep in my bones. "Because, sweetness, I'm sitting here like a dog with two dicks while you're having a cow. Why is that?"

"There—you calling me sweetness. That's what I'm having a cow about."

"What else should I call you?"

"Something normal. Buddy. Amigo. Homey."

I cracked up.

"I don't know. This whole thing is crazy. You and me. Everything's gone back assward."

"That is as it should be. Shit, you are so hot." My hand ran down her ass. Small, yes, but meaty and plump where she needed to be, and the skin. Everywhere on her body her skin was sleek and baby-soft. "You make me hard, Char. I want to do so many dirty things to you. Do you have any notion how badly I want you?"

"I'm getting there," she muttered. "You, uh, you don't have to hold back. Obviously I'm willing."

Motherfucker. She had to say it like that, casually. My heartbeat went out of control.

But now I had to know. "How much experience have you had with fucking?"

I felt her body jolt. "Some. A lot."

I kept silent, and she added, "With one guy."

"Dude from college?"

"Reggie, yes. We did the act every Friday for years."

Did the act? That was a strange way of putting it. Then her statement registered. Every Friday? As in, on a schedule?

Oh hell no.

I opened my mouth, but Charis's proud look stopped me. I guess she really had no idea how pathetic that sounded.

So I just said mildly, "His name was Reggie?"

"Is that a problem?"

"Nope." Then it hit me. She was practically a virgin. I was going to be her tutor.

"What's so funny?'

I let my smile widen. "You're not really older than me where it counts. One random guy. Pshaw."

"Long term, dumbass. And it was perfectly good sex."

"Oh, it was, was it? Perfectly good sex. Kind of like a perfectly good pair of socks, or a perfectly good refrigerator, or a per—"

"It counts. It does count!"

"Was it as good as being tossed to the land of O just now?" I probed her from behind as a pointed reminder.

"Tossed to the land of O?"

"You know, the land of apocalyptic orgasms."

"It was not that good, no."

I smiled smugly. "So, just so we're clear, you're saying it was more fun getting off to my fingers than Reginald's pee-pee."

She smothered laughter. "Yeah. I wouldn't use 'fun' to describe what Reggie and I did. It was more…interesting and businesslike."

Businesslike sex? With Charis? Wild sex. Fun sex. Those I could see. But businesslike? I couldn't wrap my mind around it.

"Tell me more," I demanded. Then, at the idea of another man fucking Charis: "On second thought, never mind, I'm not ready to hear that just yet. Just tell me…these were the best orgasms of your life. True or false?"

She went into a fit of coughing. "True. Okay?"

"Okay then. We're on the same page. Finally. I am going to love getting you up to speed. Because you. Are. Unbelievable."

Her eyes shadowed. "I guess I have to ask, did you mean that in a good way, or—"

Her very real uncertainty made me tighten my arms. "Charis Sloane, if I tell you that you are amazing, that there is nothing I want to do more than open your legs and drill you for hours, that I am a hundred percent sure that fucking you will blow my mind, will you believe me? Or will you assume I'm just trying to make you feel better?"

Her eyes searched mine. "I'll believe you, Asher."

"Good. I'm sick of being told I'm full of shit. I've never seen anything hotter than you coming. It was pure sweetness, which is what you are, which is why I call you that, and I can't wait to do it again."

Her eyes widened. She seemed to brace herself. "Okay, you told me that. I can say this. I have wanted you, Asher. I've wanted you for a long time. A…really long time, actually."

With that breathtaking admission, that hand, the one on my butt, eased around, and Charis delicately touched my cock.

I'd been so intent on her, I'd almost lost track of our intimate entangling. With that one gesture, my body surged.

Yeah, I lost it, really lost it, like a punk kid in Stage One.

Now, I'd had a lot of women touch my cock.

A lot.

It's not even funny.

Touch, kiss, suck, pet…if anything, they went for it sooner than I was always comfortable with.

But this wasn't any woman.

This was Charis.

My programming looped.

Char wanted me, she'd just given herself to me with abandon, she was hesitantly wrapping her hand around my shaft, and how was this not my fucking lifelong dream again?

Pleasure engulfed my body; heaviness took my limbs. I pushed her onto her back, driving myself through her hand, butting the tip against her belly. "Harder. Oh, fuck, yes, please, squeeze me harder, girl."

Her hand tightened; my balls contracted dangerously. Now there was zero thinking happening. I grabbed her hips. With the dangerous surge that followed my pleasure-seeking thrust, a glimmer of sense awakened and I tried desperately to control the roiling need.

Had I really implored my best friend to squeeze my dick?

That wasn't the plan. Fucking her today wasn't the plan. What was I doing?

Stage Three, you bastard. Must control cock.

She ruined that plan.

"Asher, I want to touch you however I want. It's like a crazy need. But I feel like I should ask. Or I don't know, I don't know what I should do."

It took a split second to absorb.

Then I almost shot my load.

Oh, fuck, no. I would not come in Charis's hand like a snot-faced adolescent. I was supposed to show her I was the experienced one, not the immature jerk who cared about only one thing. Not gonna happen, especially not with Sloane.

Not. Gonna.

How many electrons in calcium? Two in the first shell…

"Go ahead and touch me any way you want," I managed. "Just be careful."

She froze. "Why? What could happen?"

I rolled onto my back, clutching my cock protectively in my tight fist. A wimp? Maybe.

"The problem is, I'm kind of on the edge here."

"Edge? You mean irritated, don't you? Crap, I was inappropriate. I knew I—"

"Fuck," I groaned, "are you messing with me now?"

"No! I don't understand! I just want to know a simple thing. May I touch you or may I not? Apparently there is a risk of which I am unaware, and before I do something really bad I sh—"

A laugh burst out of me. "The risk is that I'll lose control, Sloane. If you want to watch me lose control, sure, take that hand of yours and go right ahead and touch me."

"Oh." The look she gave me then was of dawning delight, like a kid who'd just been awarded her first prize from the gumball machine.

I could practically see her brain calculating her options. After a few moments, she took me literally. She shuffled in close and reached out to stroke between my fingers. The tantalizing contact of just her fingertips on my cock had me swearing under my breath.

"I take it you don't mind the idea," I gritted out.

She met my eyes. "I want you to lose control. That would be perfect."

Fuck me.

I expelled a breath, then cautiously released myself and spread my arms out to my sides, giving her access.

I won't say I wasn't excited. My cock bobbed like a pupil wanting teacher's attention. Call on me, call on me!

And she noticed. But since she muttered, "It's criminal how good looking you are," with her eyes far south of my face, I believe it was a good thing.

Somewhere I found the wherewithal to tease her. "I always knew you dug the way I looked, Sloane."

"Oh, I do. I'm probably the shallowest person in the world in that respect."

"Yeah, that's you," I joked. I was relaxed by our banter, but when she went and delicately stroked the length of my shaft with one fingernail, it was like the zing of a burning match.

"Ah! What just happened?"

I refused to believe she didn't know. I forced my spine back down on the mattress. "It's fine. You're good. Keep on."

She did it again, exactly as before, on the other side. Somehow I managed not to arch off the bed completely.

Now she was cupping my balls. I sucked breath in through my nostrils. "This all right?" she asked, this being a fairy-light circling of my glans.

"Yep," I managed. "You could go a little harder there."

Whether she meant to tease me or not, she was really into this exploring shit, but I knew I couldn't last much longer. How many electrons in the next shell? Twenty in all, making eighteen more with eight in 2S, then another eight, filling up three orbitals and two free…

Even as I gained a small degree of self-mastery, those fingers left my cock entirely to trail up the center of my abdomen and over my pecs and circle one of my nipples.

"You like this too?" she asked. "Around your nipple? That's pretty neat."

"Yeah, it's…awesome." Abruptly I was done with this passivity shit. I rolled to my side and cupped the gentle rise of her breast, swallowing it completely with my palm. And now I had to kiss her.

I pressed her down, my mouth taking hers. Our kiss was messy, crude, lascivious. Now we knew what we were doing, and were doing it together, our kiss was amazing, like a journey we were taking together. With our tongues swirling, her hand on me, my hand on her…it just got better and better.

She pulled away. "So how do I make you come?"

"By doing what you're doing."

"Tell me how," she gasped. "I'm fuzzy on the details. I need clear instructions, with examples."

This was classic Charis Sloane. Laughing at her a little, I gave her the graphic instructions she wanted, but honest to fuck, it was like handing a two-year-old a lethal weapon. She applied herself with the dedicated precision of a woman determined to earn Olympic gold at hand jobs. Her goal was to race to the finish line.

Mine was to make it to the finish line before I expired.

"Time out," I managed, and she went motionless.

"Crap. What if I can't do it?"

"Sorry, Sloane—the problem is not—how to make me come. It's how to—make this last more than two seconds." As I said the last part, I felt her hand pump from base of shaft to head, and she bit my nipple with her cute little teeth, and I was done for. "Ah, ah."

I managed to pull away right as I lost control.

On her coat.

A crazy part of me thought it would be more gallant than spending in her hands. I started having doubts about that when my body was racked by one of those rare, earth-blasted-to-smithereens orgasms, the kind that knocks you sideways, the kind that makes you swear all through it because it's so intense you get a foot cramp.

"Not typical!" I huffed out. "Results are—not typical."

Panting, sweating, my muscles lax at last, I turned my head and focused gradually on her stunned expression.

I flopped over and grabbed her hand to kiss it, thoroughly enjoying the shit-eating grin that slowly spread over her face.

"Something funny, babe?" I went for her breast, the right one, the one I hadn't touched yet, slurping it up. I lay there next to her, suckling her. My cock softening. Feeling fucking fantastic despite my epic fail.

Her coat, for chrissakes.

I chuckled, and after a second, she started giggling in a, dare I say it, girly way.

"You. This bed. It's drenched. My coat…my coat. Freaking hounds of hell, I still have my boots on. Do you? You do. You just…I just…and…"

"And? And? You got any other complaints?" I poked her in the precise spot to launch her into peels of laughter.

"No!"

"Good, because this is all down to you," I growled. "If you weren't so fucking sexy, your outerwear would be clean right now. You know it's your fault, right? For being the hottest thing since erections were invented? Right?" I sucked on her, smiling and still tickling her.

"Yes!" she screamed."Yes, yes, yes!"