JESSIE
Something big has changed.
Ryan isn’t distant anymore. There’s a passionate ferocity to him, a determination that I knew was there but haven’t truly felt until this moment. I know where this is heading now. I know, despite the way he got me here, that he’s a good man. What he said has made all the difference.
It doesn’t stop me from worrying that this might end up feeling like a terrible mistake for both of us. I think back to night we first met, when Ryan had been too raw to see me dance, and this is so many giant steps on from that. Yes, he’s seen me naked. Yes, he’s made me come, but penetrative sex is a whole different ball game.
Inside I’m vibrating with arousal and uncertainty, but if I’ve learned nothing else from my current employment it’s that you can do almost anything if you just decide to.
My uncertainty isn’t about Ryan. I know that I want to be with him this way. It’s more about how I’m going to feel tomorrow than tonight. How I’m going to feel in twenty-eight days when all of this has to come to an end. When a woman takes a man inside her body she gives away a part of herself. She accepts him inside physically but also emotionally. Whether I want to or not, I know that having sex with Ryan is going to make the feelings I already have for him sharper and deeper rooted. I know that I’m going to feel bonded to him in a way that I wasn’t before.
I lie beneath him without the armor of my sexy underwear that makes me feel so in control at The Kitty Cat Club. I lie beneath him wearing my Hello Kitty pajamas from home, bare faced and authentic. This is me. Jessie Ford. Like this I feel more conscious of my flesh and blood body than I have been in all the months of dancing at the club. He gazes down at me, eyes scanning over my face and trepidation in his eyes. This is a big thing for him too. I have to remember that.
Resting up on his arm, he strokes from my face down my neck and over my shoulder following the path of his hand with his eyes. “I’m glad you’re dressed like this,” he says.
“Why?” I whisper, trembling from the simple touch of his palm, and the look in his gunmetal eyes as they find mine.
“Before… that was fantasy… but this… this is real.”
I lean up to kiss him, holding onto the fabric of his t-shirt, heart beating double time. Everything else slows when we touch, as though we are moving together through water. The kiss starts as a soft press of dry lips and hot breath, our fingers stroking tentatively as we begin to discover each other. I wait for it to feel wrong but it doesn’t. I wait for him to pull away and say it’s too soon, but he’s the one who moves the kiss out of 1920s movie territory and into something more.
When he teases my lips with his, taking each in turn and sucking gently it is as if we are both taking our first sip of water in days. My nerve endings explode and everything in me suddenly wants.
We kiss and kiss, soft and deep, while I grasp the hem of his shirt and begin to tug upwards. He takes over, revealing himself in a way that seems so frantic. His tongue enters my mouth gently but firmly, stroking against mine, making my fingers tremble and slowing my progress over his chest. I groan softly and pull back to look at what I’m doing, wanting to see as well as feel his skin. His collarbones look fragile but he’s solid and muscular with a fine dusting of hair that I want to nuzzle against. Ryan waits patiently as I caress him, watching my hands, and stroking gently over my hair in a tender caress. I lean up and inhale against his chest, press a kiss where his heart nestles behind a cage of bone and sorrow. Like a child who had fallen, I want to kiss away his hurt.
“Jessie,” he whispers, beginning to slide up the fabric of my pajama top, eyes never leaving mine. Beneath, my breasts are bare and the brush of the rough skin of his hands over my erect nipples has my back arching. We’re quick to undress, the weight of him above me so unfamiliar I feel startled. The smell of him is different from Jackson — citrus rather than spice — but I’m relieved about that. It stretches what we were doing away from the past and that can only be a good thing.
One of Ryan’s thighs nudges against my legs, heavy and solid, and I welcome it against me, pulling him down so I can feel his mouth some more. His kiss is harder now, dirtier, almost as though a switch had been flicked when he removes his boxers, or maybe when he feels the contour of my pussy through my panties. He presses his thigh up, grinding against me, each stroke of his tongue matched with more pressure below. He has one hand cupping the back of my neck using it to angle my mouth to his in a way that makes him seem so in control. His other hand squeezes at my breast, plucking at my nipple, making it ready for his mouth.
“Jessie...” He nuzzles my name against the softness of me, sucking hard enough to make me feel it in my cunt. Then he bites so hard I arch my back from the bed.
“Oh,” I gasp, not used to what I’m discovering is a heady mix of pleasure and pain.
Ryan’s eyes cut quickly to my face. “Did I hurt you?” he asks, stroking gently where his teeth have made my nipple the brightest shade of pink. I shake my head, wanting him to do it again, needing all the ways in which he is new. When he pinches my nipple I moan loud and long, rubbing my pussy against his thigh, wanting more friction, urging him to give it to me. “Fuck Jessie.” He’s raised up above me, chest rising and falling.
“It’s okay,” I whisper, running my fingers over the soft hair of his forearms and the smooth skin of his curved bicep. Ryan has a scar on his shoulder that I trace as he caresses me gently, lulling me back into a false sense of security before he nips me again. There is so much I don’t know about him but I am learning with every new moment that we spend together.
I can’t believe how turned on I am, how in the moment, relishing everything that this strong, wounded man is making me feel. Ryan is so hard, his cock digging into my stomach with an urgent pressure.
“Let me see you.”
Ryan grasps my hand and pushes it against his erection, grunting when I wrap my fingers around him and squeeze. He’s bigger than I anticipated, thicker too and pulsing with desire. It’s been so long since I had sex that I wonder how it’s going to feel to accept him into my body. Will it hurt? The thought of that moment of penetration makes me feel so hot and swollen between my legs that I moan.
“That feels so good,” Ryan shudders, moving his hips to fuck the ring of my fingers, his eyes closed as he soaks up the pleasure. My panties feel wet, and the pressure from his thigh isn’t enough anymore. With my free hand I push my panties off one side of my hips and Ryan, noticing what I am doing, pulls back to help me finish the job. I have to draw up my legs to fully remove them, giving him a quick look at the place he had buried his face only hours before. His eyes are fierce as I lower my legs on either side of him, bent at the knee, letting him see how wet I am for him. He pulls his own cock in long firm strokes, using the fingers of his other hand to stroke through the soft blonde hair of my pussy. “You’re so light here,” he says, “And so soft.” His index finger traces the seam of my lips where I had waxed myself smooth. Ryan sighs when he reaches my opening, pushing his finger inside slightly in a way that had me writhing. “You want this?” he asks, but it doesn’t sound like a tease, more as though he has suddenly woken up to what we are doing and the potential ramifications.
“I want this,” I whisper, sitting up to kiss him and stroke his face. “Do you want this?”
“So much,” he sighs.
“Well that’s good then.” I reach for his cock again and shift so I’m in a better position to take him in my mouth. His thighs tremble as I suck him, his taste salt-sweet and blissfully unfamiliar. Ryan’s fingers trace my ears and run through my hair in tender appreciation. I can feel him pulsing in my mouth and he draws away, obviously getting too close for comfort.
“I need to get a condom,” he says, reaching off the bed to the drawer in the nightstand. I lay back watching him get ready for me, burning inside for what I know is coming. When he’s sheathed himself, he looks down at me and shakes his head as if he can’t quite believe what is happening between us. In the eerie light cast from the lamp outside, everything seems dream-like. “Are you ready?” he asks, pushing a thick finger inside me to find out.
“Yes,” I pant, and I am.
“I’ll go slowly,” Ryan says, positioning himself closer, dragging me by the hips until my legs are spread, knees high against his hips. He stays seated, resting on his heels as he uses his thumbs to open me wide, everything on display. My clit is exposed and throbbing, then I feel the first press of his thick cock and I have to close my eyes. He rocks forward, pressing in an inch and it’s easy because I’m so slick. The second push is harder and deeper, opening me wider, and it stings. “Watch,” Ryan says, and I open my eyes, seeing his soulful gray irises fixed on the place where our bodies are joining. I raise myself up on my elbows to get a better view as he thrusts deeper. It looks so explicit, his wrapped cock splitting my body open, lips flared midway down his length, clit straining for contact. He so dark, skin olive, his trimmed pubic hair almost black and me so pink and fair.
I moan loudly with the fourth thrust as he holds himself inside me so still. Ryan’s eyes meet mine — dark grey to ocean blue — and he blinks and smiles. He says my name as he leans forward to kiss me, adjusting so he’s lying on top of me. The weight of him is perfect. Now when he thrusts he does it hard, grinding upwards and slightly to one side, dragging himself against my clit and nudging my g-spot. I hold him close; bringing one leg up and tucking my foot over his shoulder, giving him deeper access. I can feel pleasure beginning to build and I want the relief again so badly. I close my eyes, imagining my beach again, the ocean lapping at the sand in the same rocking motion as Ryan’s hips, the peace and tranquility of that place in my mind. As I relax, so does my body and the sensations rise as his thrusts get harder and more demanding.
“You’re so fucking beautiful,” Ryan breathes into my ear. “You feel so good.” One of his hands slips under my ass, raising it against him. I’m so wet I can feel it trickling onto his hand. “Oh fuck,” he says when he realizes, as if my pleasure is just too much for him to bear. I buck against him, now so close to coming I’m almost out of control.
“Harder,” I say, clawing at his back and he slams into me, forcing the breath from my lungs. “I’m so…”
I don’t get the rest out before my orgasm hits in deep waves that make my toes curl and my body seize. Ryan slows his thrusts but doesn’t stop as he rides out the pulses of my pussy. His cock seems to throb in the same rhythm, his face a mask of concentration. His eyes are closed as he presses his face into my neck and fucks me until he comes.
We don’t pull apart for minutes afterwards, as if we are both rendered incapable. He is quiet save for the gusts of his breath against my skin, still save for his hips that continue to move against me as if he doesn’t want to stop. I don’t want to think about Jackson but I do. I remember the way he used to spoon me after sex and then fall asleep right away, and the little noise he would make as he slipped into his dreams.
I miss him but he’s gone.
The life I had with him is gone.
The me I was when I was with him has gone too.
Now I’m a different Jessie Ford. A little bit broken. A lot less hopeful about the future. A whole ton more realistic about the highs and lows that life has the potential to shove in our direction.
In this moment, beneath this man who is part familiar and part enigma I am completely unsure which direction life is pushing me in. This whole situation feels like a rollercoaster. Even if it feels good now there is no telling how I’m going to feel in a few week’s time. I stroke Ryan’s back and when he rolls over and pulls me with him so my head is resting on his chest and his arm is draped around my shoulders, I nuzzle against him and decide to stay right where I am.