It took Celia all of an hour to convince herself that she was a total idiot. That kiss hadn’t been special. It was Jean Luc that was special. And of course he was. He was probably a master of seduction. She’d followed his career. She knew the gossip headlines when it came to him!

She took a shower that she didn’t really need and hid in her bedroom until she heard the men and Martine leave for shifter practice. Then she took out her phone and embarked on the age-old journey of torturing oneself via Google. It took approximately twelve seconds to find a handful of websites specifically dedicated to Jean Luc’s love life and romantic entanglements. She wasn’t so far gone that she didn’t know that at least 50% of what she was looking at was probably nothing more than gossip, but 100% of what she was seeing was beautiful models and actresses. So where did that leave her?

There was no one under 5’8”, there wasn’t a single one with a retro, vintage style, there wasn’t a single one with T and A. And there were definitely, definitely no piercings or tattoos.

Celia flopped back on her bed. She realized that, for the first time in her life, she’d been kissed like a pretty girl. That was the kind of kiss that gorgeous models received all the time. Jean Luc, having only ever kissed pretty girls, must have just automatically hit her with the A game.

He hadn’t realized it was totally going to eff her life irrevocably.

Because it pretty much had.

She wasn’t trying to be dramatic. But she was legit not sure what life was supposed to look like after a kiss like that. What, she was just supposed to go back to work at the Brooklyn Public Library and go about her business all the while acting as if she didn’t know that at any given moment, one Jean Luc LaTour could incinerate her panties?

The man hadn’t even touched her. That was pure lips. And tongue.

At noon, when she knew she couldn’t stay locked in her room and maintain her sanity any longer, Celia took their rental van and drove east. She drove east until she hit the beach. Then she took a very long walk.

On her way home, she knew three things. One: the game had been fun, but it had gone too far. Two: she was not special to Jean Luc LaTour. Three: she was never going to kiss him again.

 

***

 

“Ho-ly shit, son!” Jack whooped and threw his baseball cap in the air.

Both he and Tre sprinted across the field to throw their arms around Jean Luc. Never mind the fact that he was buck naked, due to the fact that he’d just shredded his clothes to pieces. The kid had shifted. And shifted like a champ. He’d shifted and reared up to two great, grizzly back feet, and then he’d fallen forward onto all fours and shifted back into human form.

It wasn’t, perhaps, the most dramatic thing of all time, but it was certainly important to Jack, Tre, and Martine, who’d been laboring together for days, trying to figure the damn thing out.

Jean Luc grinned and accepted the hugs before he gently shoved them all away. “Hold on, let me try again. I think I can do it again.” He pointed to the other two. “This time, pay attention with your feelings. I bet you can figure out how to do it just based on reading my feelings, yeah?”

They nodded, eyes on him and waiting.

This time, when Jean Luc shifted, it was almost instantaneous. He knew exactly what to think about. Celia.

He concentrated on the thought of her, fuzzy and hot and leaning into him. He thought about the electric jolt of that. He thought about how, for the first time since his brother had died, he was glad to be alive. And, well, the shift just sort of happened.

“Shit!” Tre shouted, and then he was shifting too, tearing his clothes to bits.             

“Well, I’ll be damn—” and then Jack went too.

This time, all of them stuck around as bears for a bit.

Martine clapped her hands and ran amongst them, joy and excitement zipping through her body, lighting her muscles up. This was what she had been waiting for. This.

She wasn’t a failure and thank God. She hadn’t slayed the demon. And she hadn’t convinced the group that, truly, their only play was to capture Arturo. But she had done this, she’d really had a hand in this.

 

***

 

In lieu of family dinner and game night, they all just went ahead and had themselves a party. The bears had shifted! They’d cracked the egg! Lit the firecracker! Found the key for the uncrackable lock!

Celia walked in at 6 o’clock, sand and salt-whipped from her walk on the beach, to a margarita being shoved into her hand.

Music with plenty of bass blared from speakers in every room and… yup, everybody was dancing.

“Uhhhh,” was the only thing she could think to say.

“The boys shifted!” Martine hollered at her, while she danced in a freak train, sandwiched between Caroline and Jack.

Jack, at the front of the train, leaned forward and caught his woman in a twirl, bent her back and kissed her. “We sure as hell did.” Thea grinned like a girl, in a very un-Thea-like way.

All Celia could do was laugh as she watched them all boogey-ing their hearts out. Tre grabbed Caroline from the back of the train and twirled her, then he reached forward and grabbed Martine and twirled her, too. Meanwhile, Jean Luc just skirted around the dancers and made straight for Celia. He set her margarita aside and caught her up in the hug to end all hugs. Her feet were three full feet off the ground as he swallowed her up.

“Really?” she asked him. “You really shifted? All of you?”

“All of us,” he nodded, setting her back down. The smile blazed through her like an electrical wire dropped into water.

After a day filled with slow, methodical deflation, it only took one smile of that caliber to fill her right back up. “And so, naturally, a dance party.”

He grinned even harder. “Naturally. Plus I made nachos. Which Caroline says we have to eat off of one plate while we all sit around on the floor.”
“Are they ready?” Celia asked. “I’m starving.”

Jean Luc grabbed her hand and dragged her to the kitchen. Considering the freak train, Celia didn’t think that anyone would think twice about as innocent a move as hand holding.

She gaped at him as he opened the oven and pulled out two full cookie sheets of nachos filled with just about everything they’d had in the fridge.

“Uh, which floor did you think she wanted to eat them on?” Jean Luc asked, looking adorably perplexed and just generally adorable in oven mitts.

Celia put her elbow on the counter, leaned down and buried her face. “Jean Luc LaTour in oven mitts. Well, I never.”

He blushed, hard. “Seriously, which floor?”

“How about poolside?”

“Perfect.”

Celia told the group where they were eating and the rest followed them outside, bringing all manner of drinks with them.

That was how Celia found herself with her sandy feet swirling around in the pool, all of them lit up with the aquamarine pool lights, shoving nachos in their faces and celebrating the accomplishments of the day.

She’d expected awkwardness and secrecy from Jean Luc when she returned. She was, in no way, prepared for his chuckling, boyish happiness at having shifted. She hadn’t expected to come home to a party. And she hadn’t expected to come home to him shooting looks at her the entire night.

In her mind, he was either gonna stare her down seductively, or he was going to out and out ignore her. The kiss was either going to be viewed as a chance to get laid, or it was going to have meant nothing at all to him.

In no world had she expected to catch him looking at her when she wasn’t expecting it. She wasn’t expecting him to try and catch her eye when Tre said something funny, or when Thea lifted her glass to cheers all the guys, or when Caroline was so happy that she flung her arms around everyone, one by one.

She just really hadn’t seen it coming.

But there he was, being sweet. And a little shy. The wall of mortification and regret that Celia had carefully and methodically built throughout the day shook on its foundation.

Celia stretched out on her back, her feet still in the water, she watched the night sky deepen in color, lit up on one side by the bright lights of Miami, not far in the distance.

Models and actresses, she reminded herself.

“You alright?” Martine asked, her head peeking into Celia’s view and eclipsing half of the night sky.

“Oh, yeah, I guess. Just trying to get my feet back on the ground.”

“What do you mean?” The party behind them was still swinging, music playing from the screened-in porch, the group laughing and drinking and deciding whether or not to play some poker.

Celia looked into Martine’s green eyes; they were calm and curious. “Just a human problem.”

“I understand most human problems,” Martine said, cocking her head to one side and leaning forward to flick a bug off of Celia’s leg.

Celia swirled her feet and, thinking of alligators, lifted them up out of the water to rest on the edge of the pool. She felt the cool drips from the pool seep down into her shorts and the back of her tank top. “I think I have an irrational fear of being seen as foolish.”

Martine looked surprised. “You are one of the least foolish humans I’ve ever met!”

“I mean, I have book smarts, I guess. And I’m not running my mouth about stuff I don’t know about. Which counts for something. But there are some things I’m really, really dumb about.”

“Like what?”

“Romance,” Celia answered immediately. They were talking low enough that she was sure no one could hear her besides Martine, but it still clanged her heart around her chest to say it out loud.

“Ah,” understanding came into Martine’s eyes. “You’re worried about seeming foolish in matters of the heart.”
“Or the body.”

“Ahhhhh,” now Martine really understood. She adjusted one of the shiny knives at her wrist. Then, out of habit, adjusted the ones at her ankles. “Desire isn’t foolish, you know. It’s a gift. From one person to the other.”

Celia, not really having thought about it that way before, snapped her eyes up to Martine. She was about to say something back when Caroline’s smiling face popped into view. “Poker! Come play!”

Celia rolled up to standing and held out a hand to Martine. “Thanks.”

Martine let herself be pulled up to standing. “Anytime.”

The women all walked up to the group, now sitting around on a circle of deck chairs, a table in between them and Thea shuffling a deck of cards.

“Interested in a little late night poker, ladies?” Tre asked, tilting his head backwards on his chair so that he could see them.

“What are the stakes?” Celia asked, leaning forward to flick Tre on the ear. She could feel Jean Luc’s eyes on her, and couldn’t help but wonder if he was hoping she would play.

“Strip poker,” Caroline decided immediately. “I wanna see Tre’s tattoos again.”

Tre’s head came up instantly, eyeing her across the group and everyone couldn’t help but smile at the instant red that crept up his neck.

“In that case,” Celia said, “I think that’s my cue for bedtime. Goodnight, everyone.” She waved behind her as she made her way back inside.

She reached for the screen door of the patio but a humongous hand reached over her head and pushed the door open for her. She tipped her head back to look at Jean Luc.

“Oh.” She cleared her throat. “You headed to bed, too?”

He ignored her question. “You still wanting that haircut?”

They walked forward into the cool of the air conditioned house. “Now?”

“Good a time as any,” he shrugged, following her into the back hall, lit from the side by the kitchen lights. His eyes were on her face, patient, attentive. “Unless you’re not into it. Then, of course, that’s totally fine.”

That wall of hers trembled a little more, some bricks falling from the top. “Actually, yeah, I’d like that.”

“Great, my clippers are in my room.” He turned and instead of waiting for him, Celia found herself following him. She hadn’t been in his room yet; it was the furthest one back on the right and she was surprised when she walked in and saw how big it was.

“Wow.”

He turned, seemingly a little surprised that she’d followed him; maybe he’d expected her to wait outside. “Yeah. This was the guest suite that Claude always reserved for the renters.”

He crossed the room, passing his made bed and his open suitcase with neat piles of folded clothes. She followed him right into the bathroom.

Desire was a gift, she reminded herself. There was no reason to be embarrassed that she wanted to be alone with Jean Luc. There was no reason to be embarrassed that she wanted him to touch her while he gave her a haircut.

The set of clippers was already out on the counter and when she turned to inspect him, she saw that his own haircut was looking pretty fresh.

“Here?” he asked her, clearing his throat. “Or the hallway bathroom?”

“Here’s better. That way we won’t hog the hallway bathroom if someone else needs it.”

He nodded and she stepped in front of him toward the mirror. He dug through the clippers for the right guard and turned the razor on and off, just to check. When he turned to her and caught sight of the two of them in the mirror, all the air left his chest at once.

“Jesus,” he mumbled, setting the razor down and leaning around her to put one palm on either side of her on the counter. He crowded her forward so that she was leaning over the sink. His forehead dropped to her shoulder.

“What?” she asked, her heart in her throat.

“You’re so fucking small,” he grumbled, before straightening up and showing her in the mirror exactly how they looked standing next to one another.

Celia bit her lip. He dwarfed her. He looked like such a man there behind her, like if a hurricane came, he could simply lay himself over top of her and she’d be completely safe. “Actually, I think you’re just freaking gigantic.”

“Pretty sure both are true,” he murmured, before tearing his eyes away from hers in the mirror, and still standing behind her, reached for one of her hands. He laid it, palm up, against his own hand and compared sizes.

Her eyes were glued to their hands in the mirror. To the sight of herself touching him. Of him touching her.

“Celia,” he said, his voice a low grumble, his eyes still cast down on their hands.

“Yeah?”

“I really want to kiss you again.”

Desire is a gift.

Slowly, Celia turned around. There was no mirror anymore. There was no illusion or reflection. There was nothing to see but him. His patient, fuzzy eyes. The wide-set shoulders. The stretch of that plain shirt across his chest. Her eyes on his, Celia’s mouth dropped slightly open. Her tongue came out to wet her bottom lip and then, only then, did Jean Luc’s eyes fall away from hers. She watched the black of his eyes expand, opening himself to her, to the moment.

She could feel herself opening to him. It was easy really, wanting him. Like stepping into warm water.

She planted her hands on the counter behind her and boosted herself up, bringing her face a few inches closer to his. “Yes,” she whispered.

And just like before, he slowly reeled himself in, his hands planted on the counter on either side of her. Just like before, his nose brushed hers first, his eyes open. And then his mouth was on hers and she was lost.

His tongue was hot and sweeping, and he tilted his head and deepened the kiss. Celia pushed toward him and then teetered backwards, on the edge of the sink. Instinctually, she reached up to him and grabbed around his neck. Her fingers found his hair, the heat at the back of his neck, and this time it was Jean Luc who was making the noise. A low, growling noise like a beast hidden in the tall grass. It thrilled Celia and made her clothes scratch against her sensitive skin.

She flattened her hands and just touched him. She gave herself that gift. The gift of his short hair rasping on one palm and the heat of his back as she slipped the other hand under the collar of his shirt.

He made that noise again and dropped his mouth to the hinge of her jaw. Her head tipped, giving him all the access he wanted. His nose bumped her ear, his lips, hot and soft, pressed into her pulse. She pivoted her head and ducked and then it was all lips and tongues. She was melting, needing, vibrating, but there were still two feet of space between their chests where he leaned down to her and his hands were still planted on the counter beside her.

In a move she never would have previously thought herself capable of, both physically and emotionally, Celia looped out with one of her feet. She caught him around his hip and yanked herself forward. Instantly, his hands came to her ass to keep her from falling and then she was fully in his arms.

In fact, he had her hoisted up so high that she was, for once, above him. His head was tipped back while she looked down at him, her eyes falling heavily closed as she leaned down to kiss him again.

Jean Luc swayed. He was caught between wanting to run his hands over every inch of her body and never, ever wanting to let go of this ass of hers. So little and so juicy. Damn, she was so soft. Her breasts were pressed hard into his chest. He pulled her a little tighter, careful though, like she was delicate and perfect and the best thing that could have possibly happened to him. Which, to him, was exactly what she was.

She dropped her head back and there was that graceful arch of her neck again. He leaned forward to taste her there and froze. Because those tattoos on her collarbones were peeking out of the collar of her T and he couldn’t think of anything he wanted to do more than press himself against her there. Solve the mystery of that colorful ink on such a beautiful part of her body. So he did just that, kissing along her collarbones, nosing aside the collar of her shirt when he had to.

Celia leaned back in his arms and his biceps bulged with her movement. She couldn’t, for the absolute life of her, believe what she was about to say. “Maybe,” she panted. “Maybe we should lie down.”

Instantly, almost the exact second she was done speaking, Jean Luc dropped them to the bathroom floor, him on his back, her stretched out over him.

He was lifting his head off the ground to take her mouth again when she laughed against his lips.

“What?” he asked dazedly.

“I kind of meant we should lay down in the bedroom.”

“Oh.” He shook his head. “Right.”

Effortlessly, he rose with her, took two long steps and laid them out the exact same way on the soft carpet of the bedroom floor.

Celia laughed again and dropped her mouth to his. “Close enough.”

For some reason, him being flustered enough to lay her out on the bathroom floor and then the bedroom floor bolstered her courage. She sat up over him, straddled across his hips and reached for the hem of his T-shirt. She lifted it, and knowing exactly what she wanted, he reached down and basically ripped it off of himself, tossing it aside. He was sitting up then, and the two of them were nose to nose. She planted her palms on his shoulders and pushed him backwards. He went willingly, joyfully. His arms flung out to either side of his body like a rag doll. Celia understood then that he was going to be gigantic and still and let her touch him however she might want to.

She shivered with the idea of it, as scared as she was excited. She knew her touch would be unschooled and clumsy compared to the other lovers he’d had. And there was just so much of him. The smooth planes of his pecs, the shadowed up and down of his abs, his gigantic, bowling ball shoulders. His chest rose and fell a full three inches with each breath, and she saw, in the side lighting from the bathroom, a smattering of chest hair she’d never noticed before. It was that that she touched lightly, with just her fingertips. She watched in amazement as goosebumps rose under her fingers as she moved her hand from side to side. It was almost like she’d summoned them up. Like she possessed an ancient and powerful magic.

She could do this. She could. Reaching down to the hem of her own T-shirt, she lifted it off over her head and automatically trailed her own fingers down the tattoos on her collarbones. Courage. She wanted to live a life of courage. That’s what all of this was about. Everything. Why she was even here in the first place. Courage.

She looked back down to see that Jean Luc’s hands were on his head, gripping at his own hair as he stared at her chest. She wore a white lace bra that left very little to the imagination.

“White,” he murmured and his hips pushed involuntarily off the ground, kicking her up a few inches from where she straddled him. “Of course it had to be white.”

For some reason that made her giggle as she leaned forward, planting her hands on either side of his head. “Touch me, Jean Luc.”

She didn’t have to ask twice. His hands were suddenly on her. All over her, hot and calloused. He was barely moving them, yet his hands were so big he was touching her nearly everywhere. He slid his fingers underneath the clasp of her bra, brought his other hand around her front, dragged the backs of his fingers over the soft skin of her belly. Then his hands were at her ass, over her shorts, against the skin at the backs of her thighs, back up around to the back of her neck. His fingers were under one bra strap and then the other. His hips made small, uncontrollable movements. She was both frozen and arching.

She’d never been touched this way before. It was like he was burying her under a blanket made of heat, one inch at a time. She didn’t know what she would do when she was completely buried. A jolt of reality burst through her. What if she did something embarrassing? What if he realized exactly how into him she was? What if he was turned off by how much she wanted him?

She had to tell him. She didn’t want to tell him. Not at all. But this wasn’t a fantasy. This was reality and she needed to at least have the buffer of having said the words out loud.

“Jean Luc,” she whispered.

“What is it, baby?” he whispered back, his mouth against her neck and she almost lost her resolve.

“I want you.” She swallowed as his body tensed, his hips pushing up into hers again. “But…”

He froze and his head fell back, his hands stilling against her. He was breathing hard, but his eyes were patient. He blinked them hard. “But?”

“But, um, historically, I’m not very good at this.”

“What?” Was she speaking English? He rearranged the words in his head a few different ways and still couldn’t make them make sense.

“I just,” she scratched at one arm. “I know you’ve had a lot of experience and I just don’t want you to be disappointed.”

He shook his head and looked at the ceiling, hoping that some clarity would be written there, explaining what the hell she was talking about. “I’m sorry. What are we talking about here?”

She cocked her head to one side. “Sex?”
“You’re telling me that you’re not good at sex.”

She nodded, looking absurdly relieved that he was understanding.

He was not understanding.

“Celia, what are you talking about?”

She sat back, that insanely hot white bra shining in the dim room. One of her hands went to her mouth and Jean Luc realized that she was biting her nails. The nervous gesture made something roll over inside him. Something he’d thought was good and dead.

“I’ve just… received complaints in the past and it would really wreck me if you were disappointed. So I figured I should just temper your expectations to start out with.”

“Complaints.”

She shrugged. “Yeah.”

“You’ve received complaints.”

“Yes.”

“Men have complained about your skills in bed.”

“Jeez, beat me over the head with it.” She slid to one side, about to crawl off of him, but in his first show of strength with her, he planted his hands at her hips and kept her there over top of him. She relaxed back and gave him her weight again.

He watched her face in the dark and saw exactly how nervous she was. “What do they complain about?”

She fidgeted, biting her fingernails again and crossing one forearm across her bare belly. “Um. That I can’t, you know… come?”

“Oh, for fuck’s sake.” He thumped his head backwards.

She misinterpreted his ire. “Some women just can’t, you know! And I can, I mean, I can by myself. It’s just that it’s different with someone else and—”

“Celia, baby,” he traced his hands slowly up her back, warming her skin. “I’m not exclaiming about you. I’m exclaiming about these dipshits blaming you for not being able to come.”

“No,” she shook her head adamantly. “It’s not their fault. Well, most of them. Most of them have tried very, very hard to make it happen. Like really hard.” She shrugged, her shoulders sagging in defeat. “And I just couldn’t.”

“Huh.” A thought was occurring to Jean Luc, one that he was wise enough to keep to himself.

“And I know that a lot of men pride themselves on their ability to make a woman orgasm. I just wanted to let you know that that is not on the menu and that I don’t want you to be disappointed when it doesn’t happen.”

“Uh huh.”

His eyes stayed on her. Quiet, patient attention that was wrecking her. She tried hard not to fidget but she was biting her nails again. He reached up and gently laced his fingers with hers, pulling her hand away from her mouth.

“Celia, do you enjoy sex?”

“Yes,” she nodded adamantly. “I really do.”

“Even when you don’t come.”

“Yes.”

He eyed her for another minute. A plan of action in place, one that she didn’t need to know about, he slicked his fingers up her sides and back down. “Alright. I consider myself warned. And my expectations tempered.”

Feeling like she maybe should say a little more, she opened her mouth, but Jean Luc was sitting up, pressing her against him and tipping her head back for more of that kiss of his.

This time, it wasn’t a blanket of heat. It was a tsunami.

His hands were everywhere and then so was his mouth. He tipped her head back and feasted at her neck. His hips lifted toward her, called by her heat, and she sank down on him, gave him her weight and heat.

He lifted her up off of him and set her on her feet. She steadied herself against his shoulders and stood there, swaying, while he unbuttoned her shorts and dragged them off her legs.

He stared at her for a second, burning into his brain the image of those white panties, thin at the hip and already tangled in his fingers. He didn’t remember diving his fingers all in those panties, but the pads of his fingers slipped over her bare hips and there was no denying it. He pulled her forward and buried his face in her soft belly. He let her go and unbuttoned his jeans, pushed them down his hips.

She helped him, kneeling, when they got caught on his ankles. God, he realized, she was as anxious for this as he was and she had zero expectations for pleasure. It both inflamed and infuriated him. He didn’t like to think about Celia having had other lovers. But he really, really didn’t like thinking of Celia’s other lovers not taking care of her.

When they were down to just underwear, his tight briefs severely tented, he cuffed her around the waist and laid her out over him, stem to stern.

“God, you’re soft,” he muttered into the curve of her neck as his hands traveled all over her, as far as he could reach in either direction.

He rolled them and for the first time, had her on her back. Her eyes were dark and heavily lidded, her mouth opened halfway and she panted, one of her legs falling open and one hand reaching for him.

All signs pointed to a very, very game Celia, but he wasn’t a man to take anything for granted.

“You want me, baby?” he asked her, on all fours over top of her, surrounding her.

“Yes,” she whispered, her back arching toward him, her breasts pushing against her bra.

He dropped to his forearms and kissed along one plush slope of her breasts and then the other.             

“What do you want?”

“I want you.”

“You want me what?” He tugged one cup of her bra down and raked the flat of his tongue over her beaded nipple. As sweetly pink as her lips, it immediately stood up tall for him and he groaned against it.

“I want you inside me,” she said, her voice ragged and silky at the same time.

“Alright,” he muttered, moving to the other breast and treating it the same way. “Alright.”

He wanted that, too. Very badly. And he was absolutely about to give it to her. Jean Luc reared back, slipped his fingers in the edges of her panties and slid them down her legs, his eyes glued to her core.

He groaned and tossed those panties aside. “Fuck.”

She was pink and bare and perfect. He ran his hands from her ankles up to her knees where he gently nudged her legs apart. She spread for him, even farther. As far as she could go.

Just the look in his eyes was already the best sex she’d ever had. She’d never had man look at her this way before. Like she was the antidote to a poison. Like he was dying without her.

She, for the first time in her life, was not shy about being this exposed. She planted her heels as far apart as they could go. Opened herself for him.

He laid a fist on the floor and dragged himself forward, toward her, like she had a gravity he couldn’t fight.

Recognizing his trajectory, she instantly tensed. She slipped a hand over her pussy and five inches away from her, Jean Luc paused and looked up, his eyes seeking hers.

She really thought they’d covered this ground a second ago.

“Really, Jean Luc, there’s no point in that.”
He gave her a look she couldn’t interpret and didn’t have time to try. He leaned forward and licked the back of her hand. A soft, complicated press of tongue that showed her exactly what he wanted to do to her pussy. “Trust me. There’s a lot of point to it.”

“I won’t be able to—”

“I know, baby. I know,” he told her. “But 1, I really, really, really like doing this. Seriously, I’ve been thinking about doing this to you pretty much nonstop for the last week.” Her legs fell open a little further again. “And 2, I’m built in proportion. If I don’t get you good and ready for me, I’m gonna end up hurting you.”

She glanced down at his briefs. She’d seen him naked twice, both for bear-shifter-related reasons. And he’d been soft then. And even then he’d been impressive. Maybe he was right. She needed to be as ready as possible.

Her legs fell all the way open and her hand slid away. “Alright. Just so long as you know that—”

“I know, baby. You’re not gonna come. Trust me. This is not for you. This is for me.” He finally lowered his mouth to her and groaned. He came away and nipped at the inside of her thigh. “This is completely for me.”

Jean Luc’s tongue tunneled inside of her. He swirled it and started to open her up for him. Her breath left her body as he came up and gently sucked at her clit, his tongue making soft, insistent swipes across her. Her body tensed and something unexpected uncurled inside her. Wow, he was good at that. But it didn’t matter. Because she’d had skilled lovers before. They’d never made her come. And he wasn’t going to be able to either. She was an unpickable lock. She just wasn’t made that way.

He fluttered his tongue over her again and her hips picked up a little bit. He planted his hands on her thighs, pinning her down; his head came up and his eyes trapped her. “This is not for you,” he told her. “You are not going to come.”

Her fingers clawed into the carpet. Right. They were on the same page. She was so relieved they were on the same page. HOLY—“Gah!”

Celia’s heels slammed into the floor as she widened her legs even further. He was pressing a finger inside of her and she was opening for him. He started doing something to her that made her lift her head up off the ground, slam it back down. Suddenly one of her hands was in his hair.

Her eyes were open and unseeing. He added another finger and twisted them slowly, inexorably. He lifted his head again and told her point blank, “This is not for you. This is for me. You are not going to come.”

She gasped and arched. Tried to respond and couldn’t. There was a familiar beating of wings within her. Like a bird trying to get enough lift to take off from a branch. She strained toward it and away at the same time. She wasn’t going to be able to make it. She couldn’t get there.

Suddenly, Jean Luc pulled away completely, everything gone.

“No!” she shouted, reaching for him.

“Do. Not. Come,” he told her, his eyes flashing as he loomed over her. And then he was back, sucking insistently at her, burying his tongue inside her and then his fingers. He made a sound that ended her. Just right there. Here lies Celia, dead by sexy noise.

He was everywhere, touching every good fiery place she had. Inside out. She could hear her wetness on his lips, his tongue. It made her back arch. Then he groaned again, took her clit in his mouth and did that fast little pet with his tongue that had her planting her heels in his back and destroying herself.

Celia’s voice was weak and split in two as she moaned for him. As her body arched and held and held and held and collapsed for him. He didn’t stop licking at her. He kissed her right through it. Her body tightened hard, rhythmically, around his fingers. She was covered in a fine sheen of sweat that made her glimmer, made his one hand on her thigh slip.

Her breath came in shuddering puffs, and that’s when the trembling started. He gave her one last little kiss over her pussy before he came up over her. He wanted to kiss his way up that stomach of hers, but the trembling concerned him.              

“You—” she tried and stopped. “How did you—”

“You alright, baby?” he asked her, tracing his nose from one collarbone to the other.

She lifted her head and let it fall back. Lifted and fell back.

When he lifted his head to look in her eye, he was expecting a lazy look of satisfaction, maybe surprise, maybe even a little gratitude. He did not, however, expect to see a woman on a warpath.

There was a fierce and contending look in Celia’s eye that pulled him back. “Celia—”
“Condom. Now.” She reared back and up. Was crawling across the floor. He rolled to his back, tried to reach out for her.

“Baby.”

But she dodged his hand, knelt at his waist and yanked his briefs down his legs the same as he’d done for hers.

He reached for her hair. “Baby, Celia, wait—oh fuck.”

She was already opening that little mouth of hers and swallowing him down. She pulled off to take a deep breath, staring down at his cock with a look he wasn’t sure he liked. He knew he was big. He was big all over and always had been. She was breathing hard, like she’d just partially suffocated herself.

“Baby,” he sat up. “I don’t want you choking on it.” He paused. Thought for a second. “I mean, to be honest, I wouldn’t mind you choking on it, because that’s kind of hot. But maybe after a good amount of practice with you not choking on it first.”

She looked up at him and for a second he thought she might laugh, prayed for it. But she didn’t.

“Condom. Now,” she repeated.

He eyed her for a second and hedged his bets. He rolled to one side and grabbed the edge of his suitcase, dragging it toward him. Unzipping one pocket, he pulled out a box of condoms which he tore open and pulled one out, handing it to her.

She tore it open and slid it down his length so fast he barely had time to blink. Next thing he knew she was tossing a leg over top of him, about to take him inside.

Yeah. It was time to get off the floor.

In a smooth motion, he rolled up and took her with him.

She gasped and gripped his shoulders as he walked to the bed and threw back the covers. He set her down and she reared up for him, attempting to climb him like a tree.

Instead, he slid his hands around her back and unclipped her bra, let her be completely naked for him.

She stilled, her eyes getting even bigger than usual. He couldn’t read her thoughts and it bothered him.

He climbed onto the bed beside her and rolled her, careful with his weight, until they were side by side facing each other. Then he grabbed the covers in one hand and tossed them over their heads, cocooning them inside.

“Hi,” he whispered to her, just a murky blue light filtering in through the sheets.

She paused, her hands on his chest, her eyes searching his. “Hi.”

He leaned forward and kissed her mouth. A soft kiss, almost like a first kiss. Searching, questioning, testing.

As the kiss spanned out and out, Celia felt herself go from nuclear, toxically hot, back down to a burning, healthy boil. She’d lost herself for a minute, wanted to jump off a cliff without a parachute. She’d wanted to smash herself on the rocks below and cry about the inevitability of it. She’d wanted to fuck things up.

But he hadn’t let her. They were naked against naked, his hands were everywhere. Her hands were not. Instead, she just gripped him hard on the smooth skin of his back. Clung to him, rode the slow, undulating wave of his body.

When the tip of his hard cock slipped through her wetness she gasped and threw one leg over his hip, opening herself to him. It felt so good he did it again. And again, torturing himself with her heat.

On the next pass, this time he nudged forward and pressed the tip of himself inside her. It was a tight fit and he clenched his teeth. She threw her head back and he couldn’t help but kiss a line up her throat. She pushed down and took another inch, her hands grabbing at him, his arms tightening.

She took another inch and he gripped her hips and rolled them so that he was on his back and she was over top of him. The blankets fell away and pooled all around them as a burst of fresh, cool air washed over them. She took his eyes with hers and dropped down, burying him inside her.

He wanted to speak, to say a hundred things. Yes and I’ve been waiting so long and thank you and fuck and just like that and yes. But words wouldn’t come out. All he could do was lift his head and drop it back, his hands at her hips, pressing into the soft flesh of her ass, guiding her as she lifted up and pressed back down.

She was getting used to him. Her eyes fluttering closed. She’d never taken a man this well-endowed. For a second, a flash of porn fluttered through her mind. She’d seen porn stars ride dicks this size like they were jumping on a trampoline. Celia was not there for that. She was not trying to commit suicide by gigantic cock. No. She needed to ride slow. Figure this out.

And so that’s exactly what she did. Jean Luc clenched his teeth and breathed in giant huffing puffs of oxygen as her body started a fluid, gorgeous wave. She was like an hour glass, with all that breasts and all that ass, that little waist he was currently tracing. And the way she was moving was so hypnotizing his eyes blurred. When they did, she wasn’t an hourglass, she was almost a figure eight. An infinity symbol. On and on over top of him, dragging him into a forever he’d thought wasn’t possible for him.

“Fuh—shit. Yes. Goddammit. Holy. Holy.” His hands slicked up to her breasts and her rhythm stuttered as she let him play. And God that was good.

Jean Luc knifed upwards, swallowing her in his arms and smashing her front against him. He felt her ankles lock behind his back and knew that she was holding her elbows behind his neck, exactly the way she’d been when he’d carried her across the yard, except now he was ten inches deep and that perfect little pussy was threatening to strangle the life out of him.

He sought her mouth and found it, pushing his hips up and making the bed creak beneath them. She pivoted her hips to meet him and hissed. She pulled back from the kiss, surprise showing on her face. He knew what that look meant. She could come like this.

“Yeah?” he asked, a smile coming over his lips as he moved his hips exactly as he had before.

She nodded her head yes, her eyes wide and surprised and lost. She started to move faster on him, her wetness spreading between them. He could feel her on his lower stomach, slicking them, and it only made him move faster against her. They were racing against each other, grinding for friction against the slickest surface imaginable. He held her tighter, huffed his breath into the crook of her neck, the bed shaking and creaking. Her head fell back for a second and then she, too, buried her face in the crook of his neck. They breathed one another’s air and raced, raced, raced.

He felt her pull tight and clamp down with a sob of breath. She was squeezing him so tight he could barely catch breath as her body trembled and tightened and climaxed. She was whispering his name over and over when he finally let himself go. He pressed her down on him, jogged his hips up, and spun away.