CALVIN

 

I made us a makeshift bed by the fireplace. It was past two in the morning and I had never been more sexually sated. More in touch with my body and its needs and desires.

I had never been happier.

But even though I’d just fucked Lucia Bell like the world was about to end, I wasn’t tired. And I wanted to keep making her feel good.

The entire time I made our bed she sat, curled up in one of the armchairs, wearing my shirt. Her hair was everywhere as she watched me quietly, her blue eyes clear and bright. We didn’t say a word to each other, and for the first time in my life I didn’t feel guilty that I’d let my most secret sexual fantasies become a reality.

I re-lit the fire, held my hand out to Lucia. She took it, stepping over the books still littering the floor (the store was a fucking disaster) and settling onto the blankets I’d laid out.

She laid down on her stomach, head on a pillow, and smiled at me. I massaged her scalp, watched her eyes flutter closed. Massaged her neck, lightly stroked her back—sore and red. I’d bruised her hips, just like I said I would, and now I kissed them, over and over. Rubbed the palm-prints out of her ass, nuzzled her thighs.

“If you keep doing that, I’m going to want to fuck again,” she said sleepily and I laughed.

“You’re insatiable,” I said, kissing her cheek. I continued to rub her back in large, lazy circles.

“Will you read to me?” she asked, turning onto her side. She was so fucking beautiful it hurt, illuminated against the fire. No makeup on, hair undone: just natural. Authentic. This wasn’t the Lucia Bell of Maxim magazine.

She was so much more than that.

“Of course,” I said, voice raspy with emotion.

I stood, stepped over more books, index cards, photos of famous authors with my grandfather, signs. I thought about what she needed in this moment, whose words she wanted to hear. My fingers danced along the spines, the names as familiar to me now as any relative. I picked up 21 Love Poems, which she said she loved so much.

I didn’t think about how she’d be leaving. I didn’t think about the severely small odds that I would ever see her again. I was just fully in the moment, about to share words with a beautiful girl after having the best damn sex of my life.

A few minutes later I settled next to her in the blankets, leaning back against a chair so she could rest her head in my lap. I stroked the golden strands of her hair, flipped through the pages. She hummed gently against my skin every time I scratched along her scalp.

“You make me feel so good,” she whispered, nuzzling closer.

I picked up her hand, kissed her palm. “It’s an honor,” I whispered back.

“Sleeping,” I started, reading from the book. “Turning in turn like planets, rotating in their midnight meadow.”

“Midnight meadow,” she said sleepily. “I’m in love with that.”

I stroked her hair and kept reading, her eyes growing heavier, the embers of the fire dying.

A substantial silence settled over the bookstore, a completeness. Eventually I shifted her from my lap, pulling the blankets up to her chin. Watched her for a moment, trying to remember every detail: the sweep of her lashes. The freckles on her nose, the way she clutched her hands towards her mouth in slumber.

I wasn’t sure what I’d done in this life—or another—to deserve this night, this week, this woman. But I was grateful.

 

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There’s a special kind of feeling in this world when you wake up on the floor and realize you hadn’t dreamed you’d fucked a gorgeous, funny, poetry-reading supermodel against a bookshelf.

Especially when that same woman wakes you by wrapping her lovely legs around your waist and peppering your face with kisses.

“We’ve only been asleep for three hours,” I said against her lips, amused.

We were lying side-by-side. She was naked—gloriously naked—and as I trailed my palm up her thigh to grab her ass I wondered, yet again, how this was happening.

“You look hot when you sleep,” she said, lips tracing the shell of my ear.

“Really?” I asked, shuddering beneath her touch.

“Mm-hmm,” she sighed. “Like a sexy male librarian or something.” I laughed and she giggled.

“If only I’d known this was the secret to getting all the girls.” I squeezed her ass, rocking against her pussy and she gasped. “Apparently being awake is the real turn-off.”

She laughed again, head thrown back, and I took the opportunity to run my tongue up the column of her throat. I rocked harder, loving the feeling of our bodies moving together in early-morning light, sloppy and messy, just delicious friction.

“How do you do it?” she asked, stopping to meet my gaze.

I stopped too, unsure of what she meant. “Do what?”

Lucia turned away, suddenly shy. “Be…” she bit her lip. “Be one thing last night. Another thing this morning.”

I rolled her onto her back, thrust against her again. “You are many things, beautiful. Coy isn’t one of them.” Thrust again. “Explain.”

Her fingernails lanced down my back, re-opening scratches from last night. I hovered my lips over hers as she searched for the right words. “Last night, you were…so primal,” she finally said with a sly grin.

Primal didn’t begin to describe last night for me. Last night, I was basically a goddamn animal finally let out of its cage.

“This morning you’re so…sweet.” She kissed me. “Gentle.”

I held her hands down, lacing my fingers with her, keeping up a steady rhythm of rubbing my cock right against her clit.

“Maybe I’m both,” I finally said, since I didn’t really have an answer. She was exhaling these breathy moans, smile still on her face.

“Mmmm,” she said, turning towards me. “I like that about you.” I rocked harder and she grabbed my ass, pulling me in closer. “And I like this.”

“I feel like we’re in high school again,” I murmured against her neck. “Dry humping in your parents’ basement or something.”

She laughed deep in her throat, her moans growing louder. We couldn’t seem to stop kissing each other, touching each other, fitting perfectly together. Lucia’s wet heat sliding up and down my cock like some kind of paradise.

And she was still such a mystery to me, the tiny nuggets of information she’d let me see so far painted her as complex. Intriguing. I wanted to know more, wanted to spend more nights reading to her before we fell asleep.

I wanted more nights like last night—to explore this woman who demanded my authentic self when we fucked. Who didn’t want me to shy away, to hide it, but to unleash it.

And yet she’d be gone in a few days.

I pushed back those thoughts, focusing on the way her nipples hardened under my fingers. Memories of last night flooded back, of almost bringing her to orgasm this way. The way she thrashed about, trembling, gasping.

“God, Cal, this feels good,” she sighed, head tilting back, fingers tightening in mine. “Everything you do…everywhere you touch me…”

I shifted her leg up higher, hooking it over my shoulder. Her back arched off the ground, hair fanned around her face. I ground harder, already feeling the beginnings of orgasm tightening at the base of my spine.

“Maybe later I’ll fuck you like this,” I groaned into her ear, trying to keep our sweet morning-sex sweet, but unable to stop the filthy things she inspired in me.

“I’d like that,” she moaned, fingernails digging into my skin.

“Dirty girl,” I rasped. “You want me to bend you in half,” and I didn’t wait for her answer, hooking her other leg over my shoulder, circling my hips. The new position brought us even closer together. Part of me wanted to fuck her; part of me liked the intense teasing, the fact that we were both close to climax without penetration. That we’d woken after only three hours, too desperate for each other.

“I have so many ideas for you,” I said, running my tongue up and down the curve of her ear. Gentle, curious. She panted faster, a flush working its way up her chest. “So many things I want to do to this perfect body.”

My index finger slid down the curve of her ass, down to the tight ring of muscle between her cheeks. I circled my finger there, testing. Teasing. Stroking lightly. “You make me want to do illegal things,” I said, and she gave me a seductive grin.

“You are full of surprises this morning,” she sighed and she kissed, sucking my tongue into her mouth. We were balanced on the edge between filthy and sweet, our soft sighs the only sound in the room. Except my finger was pushing gently on her anus and she didn’t seem to want me to stop. I hesitated for a moment, since this was brand new territory to me, but then my finger slipped inside with a slight pop and she started to go crazy.

“Jesus Christ,” she panted, “That’s…fuck that’s…how did you know?” and just as quickly our movements spiraled out of control, our hands clawing at each other, lips bruising, a string of nonsense words spilling from my mouth. I didn’t think I could come this way, except as Lucia’s climax wracked through her body, mine roared up my spine and stole every bit of breath I had.

I thought she might roll away but she clung to me instead, shaking, hands in my hair and legs around my back. And when our eyes met something happened.

A bolt of lightning, an electric current; everything in the bookstore turned a pale blue.

But Lucia glowed, brightly turquoise.

 

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