Lindsay

 

Kate loves her job at XP, and within two weeks of her starting there, I leave the food court without a backward glance. I get a graduate entry-level job with an advertising company—a great foot in the door for me.

We’re both earning better than we did with our temp jobs, and we’re saving money, but in the end, we talk it through and put off our trip to Europe for a year.

I’m okay with that. Kate wants to be able to walk around without a limp, and we get to plan the ultimate trip for next July. Plus, it means I don’t have to leave Gavin so soon. The more I see him, the less I want to be away from him for even a day, never mind three weeks. I’m hoping I’ll calm down about that by next summer.

I see him most days, and Kate gets more and more relaxed about the whole thing, especially when she starts going out with a guy from work, Julian, one of the producers at XP. He’s ten years older than her.

Even so, we don’t talk about our love lives in any detail. That would be a step too far, I think, though I long to say, “Experience has a lot going for it, doesn’t it?” I like to think her smile when she’s going on a date with her guy tells its own story.

As Kate’s the only friend I have close enough to talk with about such things, it’s just as well I have no problems I need to discuss. Far from it. Gavin delights me in all kinds of ways I blush to even think about, never mind discuss with Kate, but I like to surprise him too.

I love it when I try something new that drives him wild. He calls me a vixen or a minx when I do that, and if we visit the pond, which we have done twice, I’m a “wood nymph.” He tells me he is under my spell, that I’m trying to make sure he never leaves me, and that I don’t need to worry about that. He never will.

I just laugh and do things I didn’t even know I knew how to do. With my tongue, my fingers, my body—things that make him cry out my name.

Kate, her Grandad and Gavin spend Thanksgiving at our house. My parents are used to the idea of Gavin and me being together now, and we have a great day eating too much and playing stupid games. Gavin’s Dad makes us laugh with his jokes and stories, and I can see why Kate loves her Granddad.

In the late afternoon, when we all need fresh air, we go out for a walk at the beach with Pluto. Usually I don’t touch Gavin at all when Kate is there, but we’ve had a few glasses of wine, everyone is in good spirits, and I drop my guard. Gavin reaches for my hand when I stumble and doesn’t let go.

No one raises an eyebrow, and Kate just smiles at us. At the end of the walk, as we go in and kick off our shoes, she gives me a hug for no reason. But it seems to me she’s trying to show how much she accepts her dad and me being together now.

Christmas comes around so fast. Mom and Dad are taking me away to Vermont, so I’ll be apart from Gavin. I surprise him with an early Christmas gift, a night at L’Etoile, a little boutique hotel I found online.

He’ll meet me there in the room, but I’m nervous.

When I open the door, his eyes widen. I’m wearing my blue summer dress. Maybe it’s wrong to remind him. I don’t know. “I haven’t worn this dress since the night of Kate’s accident. But I thought we ought to exorcise it,” I say.

He kisses me and smiles. “The perfect dress for fucking.”

“You remember.”

“How could I forget? And not because of what happened afterwards.”

“I want to be able to wear it. For you.”

He smiles. “I want to undo those buttons again. My fingers are itching to get at them.”

“You said it was like unwrapping a gift at Christmas, so I thought, it’s nearly Christmas…”

“Hold that thought. It’s a good one.” He starts undoing the buttons, kissing down my body as the dress falls open. “Fuck! You really are a minx.”

I giggle. He’s reached the point where he finds out I’ve got nothing on at all under the dress.

“I should spank you for that.” But he’s laughing. He’s said that before now, but he never has.

“So spank me.” I lead him over to the bed and lie over his lap. He playfully taps me on the behind over my dress.

I raise my ass to him.

“You want harder?”

I raise it higher.

“You do, don’t you? Right then. Not going to stop until you tell me to.”

He pulls up my dress so I’m bare for him, and his hand comes down sharply. I gasp. I wasn’t expecting it to sting quite as much as that.

Bad plan? I don’t know, but I don’t tell him to stop. I want to know how this feels.

He spanks me again. Then again. My behind tingles. He caresses my red bottom between strokes. His fingers delve between my folds.

“You’re soaked,” he says. “You love this.”

“I love you too. Otherwise I wouldn’t be doing this.”

He laughs and continues.

I have no idea why I like it. But I do.

He spanks me over and over, his big hand coming down hard and sharp each time, until I’m groaning out loud and my bottom is radiating heat, a mass of stinging sensation, making every nerve ending come alive, a mixture of pleasure and pain like nothing else I ever experienced. He spanks me again, and I groan, but I still I don’t tell him to stop.

“I think you’ve had enough now, baby.” He stops anyway. “You’ll not be able to sit down tomorrow if I go on too long, and I thought you were never going to give in.” He pulls me up to sit on his knee, my dress gaping open, my behind hot against his legs. “Fuck! You’re crying. Are you okay? You were supposed to say stop.”

Tears are falling silently down my cheeks.

“Yes. I’m fine. More than fine.” I laugh through the tears. “I thought it might make me forget what happened after the last time I wore this dress. But it didn’t.”

“Oh, Lindsay.” He hugs me tight.

“I liked what you did, though. I liked it a lot. We should try that another time. I think the dress is just making me remember how I felt that night, good and bad all mixed up.”

“If it’s going to make you cry, I never want to see it again.”

“I’d rather you did something else to make me forget. I’ll be okay now.” I grab a Kleenex and blow my nose. So attractive! But he doesn’t seem to care how messed up I get, he still loves me.

He holds me tight and buttons up my dress. “Let’s start over.”

He kisses me deeply, holding my face and I kiss him back. We kiss as if we were teenagers going as far as we can with nothing but kisses. We kiss until we are panting with need.

And only then, Gavin starts touching me through the soft cotton of my dress, making my nipples ache for him. He lays me back on the bed then, and bends his head to suck them hard through the fabric. I throw my head back and call out with the intensity of that, then he uses his teeth softly on them, and I almost come. He unbuttons the skirt of the dress, letting it fall open over my thighs.

He moves between my parted thighs and holds the dress away from me, exposing my body to his gaze. Then his mouth is on me, so hot and wet and hungry, licking and sucking my stiff, aching clit, entering me with his darting tongue.

I want to look into his eyes tonight, though. I want to see everything we had to go through to get to this point reflected there. I tug on his arm, and he traces a line of kisses up my stomach.

“You were bored by that?” he asks laughing. He knows the noises I was making mean I was anything but bored.

“I want you inside me when I come. I want to look at you, and not the top of your head.”

“My pleasure,” he says and grunts as he presses deeply into me, then he slowly moves in and out, our gazes locked on each other.

“I’ll never tire of this,” he says. “I’ll never tire of you.”

“Me neither,” I say. “But I need hard and fast tonight.”

“You got it, babe. Anything you want.” And he rams into me so hard I slide up the bed. “Hang on tight,” he says, and I hold onto the headboard while he plows into me, over and over, hot and raw, delighting me as if I’d never been touched, thrusting in deeper each time he pounds me with his body until everything spirals out of control and I come, my knuckles white on the headboard, as he rides out my orgasm and pumps into me in his release.

I lie in his arms, limp like a rag doll, and he soothes me, stroking my hair, my back, my sore bottom.

“I love you,” he says. I never tire of hearing that. “Do you love me and my cock?”

I laugh. “I love both of you.”

“Now I’m jealous. Did we exorcise your dress?” It’s still draped over me, as I lie in his arms.

“You did. I think you nailed that exorcism malarkey.”

“That wasn’t the kind of nailing I thought was going on there,” he says, and we laugh, before we start all over again.