Zach

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I couldn’t get enough of Veronica Cruz.

Which was bad news, since the last thing I needed was a visitor nosing around my house. One wrong turn and she could figure everything out and then…

Would she turn me in? Would she even recognize what she was seeing?

No. The answer was clearly no. Let it go. Relax.

Not something I did a lot. Not with Granddad, because we just didn’t. We worked. From the time I came to move here, he drilled it into me: you want it done right, do it yourself. Being blind, as far as he was concerned, was nothing but an obstacle to overcome. I’m old, you’re blind. So what? Who says we can’t conquer the world? From this house, of course, since he wasn’t much on leaving.

I wondered, for a second, what he’d think of Veronica Cruz, this woman who thought she’d be a better leader than the usual blow-hards. Would he like her?

Probably. But what mattered right now was that I liked her. And I was ruining things by being way too tense.

She’d been here for half an hour now. And I needed to get my head back in the game, because things between us weren’t easy like they’d been last time. I was too jittery.

Not surprising considering how crazy she made me. Like a teenager. Which was exactly how I’d been acting since I last saw her.

What are you wearing? I wanted to ask. Can I touch you? Wanna make out?

Yeah, no.

Instead, I said, “How about another glass of wine?”

“Oh. I’m not sure I should—”

“You going somewhere?” I sent a smile her way and grabbed the steaks from the fridge.

“Guess not. Not like I’m driving anyway.” She paused. “Mind if I turn on some lights?”

“Oh, shit.” My belly was tight with embarrassment. I should know these things. And after everything I’d done to prepare for this dinner, turning on lights was a freaking no brainer. “Here.” I flipped a switch that hadn’t been on in years and listened to the unfamiliar electric hum above my head.

“What can I do to help?”

“Want to make a salad?” I indicated the fridge. “Help yourself to whatever you think would be good.” I’d ordered every crazy-named lettuce from the store, so there had to be something she liked.

“Sure.”

She hummed, grabbed things and washed them, opened a couple cupboards and found the salad bowl, then tossed it all together. My insides finally calmed as we worked alongside each other. This was good.

After a lifetime of living life on-line, I could apparently do this in person thing just fine.

When I went out back to grill the meat, she followed with our glasses, and something about the partnership of the whole thing squeezed at my chest. This is what it feels like to have someone.

But having someone is dangerous when your whole life’s a lie.

That little voice in my head chose that moment to screw things up for me. It was right, of course. Rational.

But nothing about my feelings for this woman were rational. The smell of her was my crack. I wanted to bend down, rub my face in her neck, and suck her in. I wanted to push her against the side of the house and feel the rest of her body. Was she big or small? What would her curves feel like under my hands?

Christ, I was getting hard just thinking about it. Not a surprise, considering the fantasies I’d played in my head all week. My hands on her—flesh like mine, only softer, I guessed, with more give under my fingers.

Jesus, Hubler. Keep it in your pants.

I flipped the steaks, shut the grill off and put the top down to let the meat rest before backing up a step. She was a couple feet away on my right, probably leaning against the railing, staring out at the dark. I set down the tongs and took a step toward her.

“You okay?”

“Yeah.” Everything in me settled. This is good. I’m doing it right. “I can’t tell you the last time I did this.”

“This?”

“Spent time outside, other than with you the other night. And canvassing. Recess, too I guess. I live in an apartment downtown, so I don’t really see much of the woods.”

“You like it?”

“Yeah. Feels good.” Her body shifted closer to mine and everything in me tightened up. Some animal part of me too long ignored reared its ugly head, telling me to touch her, to take her. I just hoped she wanted this as much as I did.

My hand went out, landed on her waist, and like we’d practiced it, she slid into my arms.

“Is this good?”

“Yeah.”

Where do you begin when it’s the first time around?

I wanted to touch her and taste her, to squeeze, pinch, and suck her into my lungs, to consume her, but also to prove that this wasn’t virtual. She was here. I forced it all down, pushed the animal, with its teeth and cock and tongue, back into its cage, and made my hands take the lead.

One wrapped around her hair—curly and thick. Soft, but strong. Like her. Fingers entwined, pulling back, just a little. Not enough to scare her, but enough to drag her face up where I needed it. My other hand reached out to explore: thumb to her forehead—sharp at the brows, smooth, and high. This is real. My fingers traced around her ear, stroked down to her neck, which I had to lean in to sniff.

And, goddamn. Ambrosia. “I want to kiss you again.”

“Do it.” It sounded almost like a challenge.

Another deep inhale and I couldn’t help a lick, a tiny bite—just to see—then a kiss for forgiveness.

I swallowed and forced words out. “You’re beautiful.”

She opened her mouth—probably to talk, though just moans came out when I angled my head to the side and nipped at her ear. Oh, hell, yes. It was good. Somehow, she’d wrapped around me, moving enough to rub my erection against her middle. I wanted it lower. Or her higher. I wanted…

Her face turned to mine, our lips met and I needed more of her, more sensation, more of this real, animal experience. I grabbed her ass and lifted her onto the porch railing, where everything was right there—laid out for me to explore.

It was almost impossible to pull away from those soft, hungry kisses, but I needed to know her.

Barely breathing, I put everything I had into my fingertips. I ran them down her nose—smooth, slender, strong—over her cheeks—plump, sweet, with a dip under sturdy bone—and then—pure, hot heaven with just a scrape of teeth—her mouth. She sucked on my finger, hard, and my cock pulsed at the idea that presented.

I could have come from fucking my thumb into her soft, willing mouth. After years of listening to porn, years of using lotion and whatever was handy to get off while my latest online girlfriend moaned in my ear, I was here, with this woman. The smell of her arousal messed with my control. It was so animal, that smell. My body couldn’t help but respond to it.

Harder than I intended, I ran my hands from small, square shoulders, over collarbones that were heartbreakingly frail, down her sharply curved sides—so different from my own straight, uncompromising lines—and then back up to her breasts which were…

“Fuck. Me. Your tits are big.” I didn’t realize they’d fill my hands.

She made an embarrassed little sound when I hefted them, but it didn’t stop her from pressing into me.

“Is that a good thing?”

A deep laugh came out of me while my thumb dragged over one hard nipple. “Like a dream.” The catch in her throat told me she liked that and I experimented with a pinch. She let out an indrawn breath, but didn’t stop me with a hand or a word.

“I want to…” I swallowed, words suddenly lost. “Can I—”

“Yeah.”

She didn’t even know what she was agreeing to. And shit, that ramped me up. I became less nerves and more excitement as she shifted on the railing.

“I’m gonna touch your pussy.”

“God, yes.” Her hands tightened on my shoulders.

Every little sound she made was a gift to me. The excitement in her voice had me close to coming. I reached down and pressed my hand to my erection to stop the throbbing, while right there in front of me, she wouldn’t stop shifting, like she needed me.

And, because I was a glutton for experience, I put a hand on one thigh, stroked up to squeeze her rounded hip and ran it back down to her knee before I delved into the place between her legs.

“You’re hot.” My face was so close to hers I could hear every little hitch in her breath. “And you smell like…sex. Exactly how sex should smell.”

“Don’t…”

I paused, set my hands on her hips, and waited, suspended. “You want me to stop?”

She huffed out a weird little laugh. “No. No, just… When you talk it makes me…”

Shit. I’d only ever been with people online. Talking was stimulation. If she didn’t like it… “Is it bad?”

“No.” Her voice was high and breathy and it sent a rush of pride running through me. I did this to her. “It turns me on. It’s just…hard to listen to.”

I wasn’t sure I got it, but I wasn’t about to question her. “I can stop.”

“Don’t. It turns me on.” She shifted and messed with something in her lap before grabbing my hand and sliding it to her waist, where…

“Ohhhhhh, yes. Fuck yes.” She’d undone her pants for me and it was easy to step to the side and slide my hand in.

With one arm around my neck, she shifted and lifted, inviting my hand to slide through curls and into hot heaven.

“You’re so slippery.” Another moan from my girl. Nothing intelligible. I pulled my hand out to put it to my nose, to lick it off and I swear I almost passed out right there on the porch. “Jesus Christ, you taste amazing. I want to finger you. Can I fuck you with my hand?”

“Yes.” She cleared her throat. “Yeah, do it.”

It was all here—her lips, slick and soft. Her clit, a little bead, higher up than I’d imagined, and there… I shuddered as my middle finger slid easily inside her. I pictured my cock doing this and it didn’t seem possible. “I can’t fit in here. My cock can’t, I mean.”

She was breathing too hard to talk, her hips lifting to meet my hand as I fucked into her.

“So small.”

“It would work.”

“You think?” She shook when I flicked my thumb against her clit, so I did it again and again, quick and hard. “I don’t even think I could get the head in.”

It took me a second to realize that one of her hands had left my shoulder to slide up under her shirt. I followed it up, laid my fingers against hers and took in the way she touched herself. A hard, thorough pinching, twisting, through her bra.

It was sexy as hell, but I needed more skin. Roughly, I reached for the bottom of her bra—a stiff wire—and yanked it up.

A loud, exhaled puh left my lips. I had a hand on her pussy and another on her breast. My cock was aching to be a part of this, but I was so far from complaining. “You know how long I’ve waited for this?”

“Why?”

I tightened my hold on the tender swell in my palm, lifted it, bent down and licked her nipple.

“Don’t get out much.” I pulled back. No more mouth. If I licked or sucked or tasted her, this would end right here.

“You’ve had opportunities, though.” I could hear the smirk in her voice, along with something else. Hesitation, maybe?

“Didn’t want them.”

“You want me.”

“Hell, yes.” Her pussy was wet, with this area…rough, almost pebbled. “This your g-spot?”

“Not…not sure.”

I put pressure there and the noise she made told me it was.

“You want another finger?”

She nodded against my shoulder.

I slid in a second finger, slowly, so I could enjoy every second of this. “Jesus, this is hot.” The sound of my finger in her wetness was pure pornography. I could live off the memory of this for ages. Sensation after so many years of words and sounds.

“You feel amazing.” I quickened my thumb until she was just one big, moaning mess, tightening around me and then—

“Zach.”

I slowed, loving the sound of my name. Did she want me to stop?

“Faster. Please.”

I picked up speed, fingers fucking, thumb brushing, my cock pressed against the porch railing, me rutting up against it like a wild man. One of her hands worked at her tit, the other one was clenched tight in the hair at the nape of my neck.

It felt big, all of this, outside in the woods, the air cool and fresh, no sound but the occasional hoot of something nocturnal and the very distant sound of a car. I could smell grilled meat and the addictive perfume of her body, all of it working toward a climax of epic proportions. Hers, mine, it didn’t matter, but the crescendo was huge.

Finally, frantic, she yanked me toward her, hard, put her open mouth to mine, and fed me her orgasm, her body tensed up so hard it had to hurt.

After a few seconds, one of her hands went to where mine was still wrenching the pleasure from between her legs, and stopped me.

She was out of breath when she spoke, her body shaking in my arms. “Holy crap, Zach. That was…”

“Good?”

“Unbelievable.”