Chapter Twenty-Three
I straddle him before he can respond. With a hand on the back of his head, I push out my chest and guide his mouth to my nipple. His hands slide up my body. They rest at the sides of my breasts, lifting and pressing my softest parts to his face.
Our shadow dances on the wall in front of me. And it’s bigger than life. As big as the rolling in my gut and fluttering in my chest. As big as the realization that I don’t want him in Paris. Or Yellowstone. Or anywhere else in that damned mountain range. I focus on the looming image of our bodies pressed together in a single form and breathe in slowly. But with each burst of oxygen this is more real. This link between past and present. Between dreams and new beginnings. Between mouth and breast and floating and falling.
He drags his teeth across the lace and my nipple strains toward the vibration. I gasp and pull him closer, clutching him to me. His tongue circles my pebbled nipple and my thoughts run together as a coil curls through my belly. He works his hand toward his mouth and rolls my nipple between his fingers as he nudges his way to my other breast. I relax my grip on his head and let him take over, licking and pinching and sucking me into a frenzy through my bra.
I shift my hips and clumsily seek out any hard part of him. He groans onto my breast when I brush against the erection his pajamas can’t hide. So I slide my knees apart and lower myself as far as I can without pulling my tit from his teeth. I brush against his hardness. Once. Twice. But I can’t grind against him without giving up the furious need he’s sucking from my nipples.
His heat radiates toward my core and I writhe, searching. Paul sucks me deep into his mouth and my cries bounce off the walls. My knees shake when his teeth nip the sensitive skin and my legs take over on instinct, spreading farther apart and dropping me closer to what I need. Paul’s teeth tug against my bud, warning me that I’m about to lose his caress. And I can’t take it. Frustration and need rumble in my throat. I need more. Now. With a groan, I force a hand into my panties and my entire body shakes as my fingers slip across my wet folds. “What are you doing to me?”
He chuckles against my chest and spreads a hand between my shoulder blades, holding me close. Paul leisurely draws his tongue from one breast to another, and clamps his mouth around my nipple. He sucks hard, twisting his tongue around my peak. My finger slicks through my wetness and circles my clit. “How. How are you doing this to me?” I gasp.
The point of his tongue draws every nerve ending to the surface. He hums against my skin and reaches for the clasp to my bra, snapping it open and taking his mouth off me for just long enough to peel the lace from my swollen breasts. The smooth wetness of his mouth soothes my abused nipples and I moan into his neck.
He pinches my nipple and rolls it between his rough fingertips. “What am I doing to you, Amy?”
I grip him by the wrist and urge his fingers into my underwear. “This.” My voice is breathless. “You’re doing this to me. And you’ve only touched my fucking tits.”
His fingers swirl over my wetness and I pitch forward, gripping his face to my chest. He licks the swell and lingers on the peak, circling his fingers in time with his tongue. I weave my fingers into his hair and press into his hand. He seals his lips around my pebbled nerves and presses hard on my clit. I cry out and roll my hips against his hand, rubbing my sensitive bud against his calloused fingertips. He moves to the other side, sucking me deep and circling his fingertips hard against me. I rock back and forth on his whirling fingers and my gasps and his sucks drown out the sounds from our forgotten movie.
My hips slow and the pressure from his fingers increases, taking over for the movements I can no longer get my body to make. He releases my nipple with a pop and presses his swollen lips to my panting mouth. I grip his jaw and he catches my scream in his mouth as his fingers keep time with my shuddering, slowing to gentle pets as my release subsides.
He kisses along my jaw. “Why do you think I do that to you?”
“I don’t know.” My shaking legs give out and I sink to his lap. His cock lodges itself against my sensitive core and I nudge into the crook on his neck, tracing it with my tongue.
He holds me to him and we lean together as he pulls a card from his deck. He nods toward the screen. “Truth,” he says. “If you could be anywhere in the world, where would you be?”
“Here,” I breathe in his ear and shift in his lap. “Right here.”
He draws in a breath through his teeth. “Dare.”
I nod into his neck.
“I dare you to let me stay.”
I freeze while the words fall through my post-orgasm haze. But they hit me hard and my head shakes so fast that my vision blurs. “No.” I crawl off his lap on wobbly legs. “No. I can’t.”
He reaches for me. My hand doesn’t escape fast enough. None of me escapes fast enough. “I was leaving to find this, Amy. What we have.”
I tug my hand from his. Grip it with my other. Press them into my lap. “What we have is an arrangement. A deal. You can’t stay.”
He forces his hand through his hair. “Why not? Give me one good reason why I can’t stay a little longer—why we can’t see what we could be together.”
“Because.” My voice catches. My heart is still racing from coming on his hand. I can’t control my breath. “Because I don’t have dreams, or goals, or hopes. Not like you do. That’s why I’m here. To strip everything away and see what I miss. What I actually give a shit about.” I find his eyes. “But you. You know what you want.”
“Yeah,” he says. “I want you.” He runs his hand up my arm and I jerk away.
“You want me to break your dry spell. I want you to take the edge off before a dry summer.” The blankets blur under my stare. “That’s the deal.”
“We’ve changed the deal before.”
“Not like this.” He sweeps my hair off my neck and I have to flex every muscle in my body so I don’t lean into his touch. My voice shakes. “You’d never be able to handle staying here if you weren’t running camp. You’d get bored.”
“There’s always stuff to do, remember? I could chop firewood, or be your muscle when teens try to sneak out, or make sure you never run into another skunk. I could do whatever you didn’t want to do.”
“But that’s the point.” My words shred over the tightness in my throat. “I want to do it all. I need to do it all. Alone. So. Thank you for the orgasm. I owe you one. But you need to go. Now.”
“Don’t do this, Amy. Don’t shut me out again.” His voice takes on a roughness that tears my insides. “I’m telling you that I want to stay. That I don’t want these days to end. That I want to take you to bed at night and wake up with you in the morning. That I want—”
“I know what you want. You want the impossible fantasy. Your camp and your woman. But camp isn’t yours. Not anymore. And I’m not her. I can’t be.” I pull my knees to my chest. “Please. I need you to go.”
A high-pitched scream screeches from the speakers and I train my eyes on the screen. My teeth clamp together until it hurts.
“Amy...”
“Go, Paul!” I dig my nails into my legs. “Just go. Please.”
The tarp crinkles when he steps out of the nest I built for us. I can pick out each of his footsteps under the surround-sound shrieking. I tangle my hands in the blanket like cramming it in my fists will somehow fill the hole in my chest. But the door thuds closed behind him. And I stay empty.