After knocking, Annie stood and waited just outside Cal’s front door, putting her ear to it. Muffled music vibrated through the building.
Deciding he couldn’t hear her over what she assumed was the record player, and figuring they were past the formality of knocking anyway, Annie crept inside. Despite the familiarity, she still felt a little like Goldilocks sneaking into the house of The Three Bears.
"Cal!" Annie yelled up the staircase. A song she didn't recognize at first blared from the speakers.
No response.
No sign of him.
Dropping her backpack on the desk, she let go of her luggage and took in a deep breath. Mmmm ... the scent. His scent. It wafted up her nose and registered in that little place inside the mind where memories were stored. The bank, the safety deposit box — to be opened by a trigger in the future when she would be old or may have forgotten. The time spent in Miami, the it's just the summer, the smell, the music, the things that couldn't even be explained, could all be retrieved and recalled and opened with a key. The familiar song she couldn't place but had definitely heard, she would now never forget. The voice and beat mixed with the intoxicating smell of Cal, creating a memory.
Here and now.
It wasn't cologne or detergent or anything artificial.
It was pure Cal.
Laundry in the sun hung out on the line to dry. Beach. Coconut. Sweet whiskey. Music playing, maybe from the fifties or sixties. A man singing about staying just a bit longer.
Stay…
Annie tapped her nails across the handrail, put a foot on the first step, and did the same with it in time. Tap. Tap. Tap.
"Cal..." she called again but heard nothing except the sound of the song ending, the player going silent, and her feet touching the wood floors as she stepped down and slipped off her flip-flops.
But as she glanced back up, she saw him.
Serious, sexy, contemplative — Cal.
He stared at her from across the room. Not much had changed. He still affected her without words or touch. He leaned against the frame of the bedroom door. Motionless. No shirt or shoes. Only jeans. She’d forgotten what his chest looked like.
Right… Not quite.
A thin patch of hair covered his pectoral muscles, creating a fine line to his navel. Lean and taut from running. Not ripped. No six-pack. Not what some might call perfection but what Annie would call wonderfully human — strong — a beautiful heart beating inside there. Soft, inviting, and warm.
She wanted nothing more than to bury her face against that chest, to push her fingers through the hairs.
"My God." Annie grinned. "How long have you been standing there?"
Eyes never leaving her face, Cal started to walk toward her, the hems of his faded blue jeans dragging on the floor. He didn't say a word. Jesus. He wasn’t even smiling.
He was plotting and constructing her demise.
Who knew how long he had been standing there, devising a plan of attack.
Annie’s face changed, matching his intensity, his lusty eyes, his anticipation. Whatever he wanted or needed she needed too.
Give.
Take.
Pass it back and forth.
The man hadn't even touched her, yet the rise had started. Beginning in her toes, inching up toward her overfull center, reaching it, surpassing it, covering her in tingly porcupine quills.
He came toward her, slow yet certain, charging like a slow-motion bull in the ring. He knew his intention, expressing it through his hell-bent will, through his eyes. The force with which he came at her would’ve surely knocked her off her feet. Without speed, but with plenty of purpose, Cal's determination took center stage.
The chess master about to check his mate.
Cal placed his palms on her cheeks, brushed his fingertips over her skin, and looked deep into her eyes. Their lips met. Their foreheads touched. He peered down at her while cradling her face in his hands.
Sliding his fingers down to the bottom of her tank top, he wriggled it up her torso and over her head, then dropped it to the floor. He slipped his tongue into her waiting mouth and pushed her body against the railing while she tried to steady herself.
She pushed her pelvis against him, ran her hands over his strong, unforgotten chest, weaving fingers through the hair, pulling at it, while moaning consistently into his nearly bruising kisses.
Cal grabbed Annie at the waist and picked her up — never breaking the kiss or the tongue or the sharing of the two pieces of their souls that somehow fit together like a puzzle — and carried her to the bedroom.
Pushing open the door, he held her against it, kissing her until they ached — until his days' worth of stubble burned her skin.
She didn't even know how they’d gotten there — a blur of kisses, smashed-up torsos, without shirts. Only the thud of her spine against the door was proof.
If it hurt, she didn't know it.
Cal pushed her into the door as if trying to weld her to it — or him. Each time her body banged against it — exquisite. His lips — exquisite. His tongue, his hands, his resolute cock she could feel trying to break free from his pants — all of it — fucking exquisite.
Where had the two weeks gone? How had she managed it all along? Celibacy for months? The denial of pleasure?
Not breaking for air, his mouth consuming hers, he pushed up her bra, exposed her tits, then lowered his head to them. She arched, legs about his waist, ankles at his back, pulling his hair, scratching nails across his spine as her eyes rolled toward the sky.
He was busy kissing a stiff, pink nipple, licking it and tugging it between his teeth. Pulling, twisting, and biting it hard — the way he’d wanted and waited to from the start.
Mind-altering pain resulted, wiping her slate clean and leaving room for only his ministrations. She shifted her head while cradling his, moaning and yelling while he did the same to the other breast, until she was a blessed knot of cords tangled up in pain and passion intertwined. God, she wanted more friction at her crotch. Naked friction. She needed her motherfucking pants gone.
As if he’d read her mind, he dropped her on the bed and pulled her jeans off, tearing them from her skin. He landed over her body, arms on either side of her, looking down at her as though he had brought her to his castle after capturing her in the wild.
He.
Had.
Captured.
Her.
Wild, unbridled … his.
He straddled her hips and stared at her — for what felt like days — with the intensity she’d sorely missed.
"I missed you," Annie said, leaning up on her elbows, her chest rising with the three soft words.
Cal made a silent reply using only his eyes. Then he kissed his way from her neck to her navel before standing and pulling his belt from the loops and losing his jeans.
Returning to the bed, he leaned close again, placed a hand on her cheek, and stroked his thumb across it.
What is he saying?
My God, my God, my God.
Annie’s throat swelled at the insistence on his face and penetration of his eyes.
He kissed her lips softly as the weight of his body pushed her down against the sheets. Cal’s kisses enveloped Annie, consumed her. His kisses were real, part of the earth — the nearest thing to bliss she could possibly imagine.
The strength of his masked feelings poured from his lips, mouth, and tongue. What he could usually only say by sharing a song, in body language and actions, became clear. The mask fell — his feelings grabbed her, held her, overtook her.
The bull had charged. Nostrils flaring. Hooves scraping the dirt.
Cal began to nuzzle his stubble-covered face over the whole of her body, starting at her jawline, her cheeks, and her neck. He could never shave again as far as she was concerned. She wanted it rougher. She needed the prickly little hairs to dig into her skin.
She wanted him to climb inside her body. She needed a hurt. A sacred kind. One controlled only by him.
Annie squirmed in near-drowning elation as his cheeks skirted over her breasts, her stomach, her thighs, the instep of her feet. Oh my God. His beard was tingly, scratchy, and exceptional, and now she couldn't help but giggle and writhe as Cal kissed and scratched his way back up the front of her body — slowly, with purpose, making her feel cherished and loved … safe.
Shhh. Don't think.
How was it possible?
Climb his tree.
Wait. Wait. Wait.
He paused as he reached her face and gave her the look again.
What was he saying? Why wasn't he speaking?
He looks pleased.
Not smug, but pleased — content, at peace.
Safe, like me.
Annie trembled watching his expression, quivering over the enormity of her feelings for him.
It's supposed to be just sex. It isn't. It is.
As she touched Cal's face, pushed her palm along his cheek, he looked deeper into her soul. He fell over the edge of her skin, gazing at her with those eyes that read her, sized her up, and saw all the way to the backside of her insecurities.
She wanted to speak, but her mouth seemed to be shot up with Novocain. The dry sand desert of her throat cracked.
"Say something to me, Cal." Annie split the dirt softly, tears welling up in her eyes. "Please."
Cal continued to stare into Annie’s eyes, but he was silent. He kissed her lips the way only a lover could — not a player, not a jerk-off asshole. No, he kissed her the way only a man with a closet full of feelings possibly could.
She had opened his walk-in, and all sorts of shit was falling out.
He pushed hair from her eyes and ran his hands over her skin, all over, touching her so she could feel his unspoken, silent words bleed through the tips of his fingers.
His eyes were piercing.
His mouth was smooth.
His hands were all-knowing.
Annie was beginning to think Cal wouldn't speak to her out loud at all until it was over.
And it wasn’t nearly over. It hadn’t nearly begun. Their underwear had yet to come off. And, as usual, he seemed in no hurry — a fury of passion transpiring at the pace of a snail.
Annie leaned over Cal’s body and pushed him back against the bed. As she straddled his waist — her hair dangling all around him, against his face, caught like Velcro in his beard, along his chest, pieces stuck in her mouth — she smiled. Sitting up tall, she unclasped her bra, removed it, and squeezed his torso with her thighs.
Cal smiled, his face lighting up completely.
She took his arms and held them above his head while grinning a most mischievous grin. She leaned closer, her nipples pointing at his chin, her hair scattering everywhere, and said, “Don’t you have anything to say to me after almost two weeks of no sex, Prescott?”
Annie squeezed his torso again, then pressed her hands harder into his wrists.
In one swift motion, Cal flipped Annie onto her back, grabbed her wrists, and pinned them and her body to the bed.
Holy fuck.
Her chest rose. Up. Down. Fast. Sideways. Or maybe she couldn't breathe at all. That was it. She couldn't breathe.
He looked at her with those stellar green readers. Asked questions with those freaking eyes.
Annie answered.
Her eyes told him everything he wanted to know.
Her eyes told him who she was — unequivocally.
The girl he knew. You know who I am.
Her eyes held a promise of everything he wanted to be.
Her eyes were in full bloom.
"I need to fuck you, Annie," Cal said in his finest slow drawl as he peered into Annie’s telling eyes, his eyes never roving from hers. "That's what I need to say. That's what I need to do. Do you want me to fuck you?"
"Yes," she breathed out, spastic. God, the urgency, the hunger. No one had ever spoken to her in that way before, and if they had, it wouldn't have gone over.
It was him. Only him.
His words were raw. His tone velvet. His gaze the hot sand at the beach she burned her toes on. His ardent insistence was blinding. She needed to shut her eyes.
"Don't turn from me, Annie. Did you lie in your bed each night and think of me fucking you?"
"Yes."
Cal smirked as he slid his mouth to her thighs and licked her over her underwear.
"Oh God. Oh my God."
He pinched the garment away from her cunt using only his teeth, inhaled her scent, feeling the damp of her underwear, and then put his hands on the elastic and pulled them off. Lying on his stomach, he put his face back at her pussy in a nanosecond, his nose already tickling her clit, his fabulous fingers spreading her wide.
God, what was he doing, opening her up like the petals of a flower, looking at her? The words I need to fuck you, Annie played over and over in her mind as he touched her, breathed on her, and began to lick her.
She wanted him to own her body. God, she wanted to own him.
It was always like this.
This was only the third time he would be inside her, but it was always like this.
A haste, a flurry somehow under control, under a guise, a mask.
Fucking was the mask of love he was making to her.
She squirmed, writhed, and attempted to inch away. But each time she scooted toward the headboard unintentionally, Cal would pull her close again, toward his face. He pinned her hips so she couldn't flee as he continued to taste her, his tongue exploring every inch of her pussy, his breath warm and divine.
She was going to die. Thighs trembling. She would die. On his perfect bed, in his perfect hands, with his perfect tongue licking her folds and clit. She would die.
No. No. No.
She bunched the sheets in her hands. She was going to come. Lifting her head, she watched his scruffy, exquisite face rub her thighs.
"Oh God," she cried out, over and over, ready to explode. The first time coming with his tongue in her center, his tongue in her, a part of her. God, she wanted all of him.
"I'm coming," she said, gripping his head and lifting her hips off the bed. She writhed against his face, holding him in the position, taking her pleasure without inhibition.
"Yes, baby. Come," Cal breathed against her skin.
She let go the moment it began. Her feet lifted off the bed, becoming suspended yet relaxed. Her breathing slowed, and he, the man between her legs, continued to strum her with his tongue, waiting out each last contraction until she begged him to stop.
"God, you did miss me," he said, nuzzling his nose along the folds of her delicate skin.
"Shut up, Prescott. God." Annie dropped her head against the bed, pushed away pieces of hair matted at her forehead, her eyes wandering, still floating on the cloud of her orgasm.
Cal kissed his way up her body and met her mystic eyes. "How was your trip?"
"Fuck me," Annie replied instead, speaking in a subdued trance.
Their eyes became magnets.
The color of the tropics danced in his irises. Annie was being pulled into the beat.
The girl who wanted the talking deciding to be silenced with a muzzle only his cock could impart.
"You said you wanted to," she whispered, "that you needed to..."
Annie's words dropped off as she watched Cal stand, lose his underwear, and retrieve a condom from the drawer. He was in her body in an instant.
Her legs open and suspended on either side of him, she accommodated the luscious invasion. A relief from the last several days of grief.
This was what she needed.
His cock buried to the hilt, fingers through his chest hair, a hand clutching his bicep. Their eyes never breaking contact. Hers begging for things she couldn’t express as he pushed in and out — relentlessly but with purpose.
"Do you still want to know about New York?" she groaned.
Easing himself from her body, he licked her nipples, one and then the other, while teasing her opening with the tip of his cock, brushing his erection against her clit until she was in a panic again.
So responsive. So easy to stimulate.
"Cal," she moaned, writhing beneath him.
"What?" He went in, then out, repeating the process several times, much to Annie’s dismay. "Do you want to come again?"
Frenzied, she pulled his hair, gripping him. Endorphins seemed to be piling up inside her brain, one by one, stacking themselves, filling her mind. Could she come again after such a short time? No one had ever tried. She’d never tried.
"Do you want to come again?" He breathed the words against her chest, pushed his nose into her breasts. "Tell me."
"I do. I want to."
"What? What do you want?"
"I want to come."
"Do you need me?"
"God," she said, eyes opening wide, trying to shake free, trying to take his cock inside her greedy entrance with a flick of her pelvis. He held her between his arms, his weight keeping her pinned beneath him.
"What do you need?" He went into her again a little, pressing, playfully refusing to give in, but the control he exercised to maintain the game etched fine lines of stress across his forehead. Perspiration beaded there too.
"I need you," she said.
"Yes?"
"I need you to fuck me."
In one smooth push, Cal thrust into her, smashing her backside into the bed, causing her to burst with guttural sounds he wanted to hear more of. A sob, a moan, and a scream — all rolled into one. The best sounds. The best sobs. Happy endorphin sobs. Whimpers.
He did it again and again. Exiting her, then thrusting, rushing the full length of himself into her pussy, pounding her body into the sheets as the sweat dripped from his forehead.
"Look at me," he said, stopping the feverish jolts, holding himself inside her with an intense pressure she’d never felt.
She cast her eyes into his net.
"Come, Annie. Again. For me, baby."
She nodded, then cried. Honest-to-God cried. A tear slid down her cheek.
Their eyes became windows, each of them peeking into the other’s soul. Peering into the panes as long as their orgasms lasted, they both finished simultaneously — for the first time together.
Cal fell into her and slipped up beside her. She laid her head against his chest and truly sucked back the sobbing now. The real sobbing. Releasing it instead with several shaky breaths.
The two of them sat in the silence, the silence Cal often preferred, sharing a something, sharing their everything, sharing a comfort neither knew how to orchestrate. They sucked up the comfort in the silence, against the sheets, listening to their hearts beat against each other’s chests for a few minutes of post-orgasmic bliss.
"So, now do you want to tell me about New York?" He grinned.
Annie smiled. He was such a fucking enigma. She smoothed her fingernails forward into his chest hair. It was soft, fluffy, juxtaposed to the strong, lean body it covered. Would she ever tire of the smell of his skin, or of the electromagnetic field on the tips of her fingers, on her palms, over the entire surface of their skin whenever they rubbed together?
"No takers on my work," she replied.
"None?"
"Nope. One curator asked for my information, though."
"They aren't ready for you yet." He traced a finger along the curve of her hip.
"Maybe."
"The timing has to be right."
She propped herself up on an elbow and stroked her index finger under his chin. "You believe in that sort of thing? Timing? Fate?"
"I don't know that I would call it fate, but yes, I believe in timing."
She plopped back down into the crook of his neck. "Maybe they'll never be ready for me."
"Did you not meet with anyone in Manhattan before you moved, while you were in school?"
"No."
The soft rush of the word told him all he needed to know… Peter.
"I'm sorry, Annie." He needed to pull her body into him further — more, if possible — and she was already spooned against him tightly. "It is timing. It has to be right."
"How old were you when you first moved to the city?"
He paused, staring at the ceiling. "Twenty-two."
"Was that ... the girl Maggie spoke of at dinner?"
"You don't forget, do you?"
"Was she one of your mad loves?"
A subtle noise came from his chest. A rattle of laughter. Cynical, bitter laughter. Quiet too. Like him.
Oh, Cal had not thought of the woman he’d once shared an apartment with in New York for so long. Was Allison maddening? Yes. A mad love? No.
Annie picked her head up and touched his lips. Her mouth was so close to his she could’ve swallowed it. "She's not one of the two?"
"No. She is not." He took her fingers from his lips and kissed a group of them. "I don't want to talk about her. She was venom. Lethal." He laughed again. The same way too, like it was a private joke he could only share with himself. He wasn't going to spill. And for once, she had him talking, damn it — and after sex.
She kissed him, then bit his chin. "I don't want you to stop sharing. Tell me something else."
He returned the kiss but not the bite. "Stop what?" He put his hand on the apex between her thighs and cupped her. "God, you're still wet." He rested a finger on her clit.
She was wet. And he was—
"And you are changing the subject."
"I'm going to fuck you all night, Annie. In ways you've never been fucked before."
She sucked in a sharp breath. He’d already accomplished that. And there was more?
"I didn't have Carl bring you here so I could spend all night talking about myself."
For once, Annie thought talking might be overrated...
He spread her legs, peered at what he wanted, needed — at what he knew how to bring to the brink again and again while Annie lay there, open, vulnerable … his. She didn't know how his dick could already be hard again, but it was, his erection pressing against her hip.
He looked into her eyes as if he wanted to consume the whole of her, limbs and all, starting with the wet area his palm covered.
"You are beautiful,” he said, then paused. “Put your hands above your head. Good. Now, close your eyes."
"Cal..."
"Trust me." He kissed her cheek.
"Do you even know how beautiful you are … here?" He barely grazed her clit with his thumb, his words and touch causing her to shake everywhere.
He made her feel beautiful.
Kneeling, he peered. Worshipped her pussy. And she knew because she peeked. She saw the adulation in his eyes.
As he left the bed, she pinched them shut again.
"Open." After swiping his belt from the floor, he held it in the air, folded, above her face. "Give me your wrists." He looped the leather around them, fastened it, tightened it, then pushed her arms overhead until her fabulous tits jutted out.
After taking a condom from the drawer, he said, "I never want to wait ten days to be inside you again."
Five days in London. One day in between on her period. Four days in New York.
After rolling it on, he slid up to her entrance and nudged her clit with his dick. "Do you understand?"
She didn't. Because it was just the summer just the summer just the summer.
"Did you touch yourself while you were away?"
"Yes."
He took an inch or so of her, then slid out. "Did you like waiting?"
She smiled, then looked away, but he pulled her chin back front and center.
"You know, I went without for thirteen months before I met you. I can wait." She grinned. What do you think of that, you insatiable man?
His arms extending on either side of her, he hung his head, then shook it.
"Didn't you ever have to wait? Or do you wait for no one?"
He smirked. "I did. I have. Not that long. Christ. But long enough.”
Her eyes asked him questions.
“The longest time?" he replied.
"Yes?"
"It was when I decided to train for my first marathon."
She laughed. "A dry spell?"
"By choice."
"Same."
He continued to tease her entrance with his dick, inching up her folds, torturing her. "You mean no one ate your delicious pussy? No one had their fingers inside of you? Nothing … for thirteen months?"
"No. Only my fingers." Legs wrapped around his waist, she cradled the small of his back. She tried to pull him toward her, but he didn't budge.
"God, Annie, no wonder you're so responsive."
She shook her head. "No. It's you." She giggled.
He smiled as he circled a finger around a nipple. He pinched it, and as he did, she made an explosive sound. "Did you like the biting?" He nipped her nipple with his teeth.
"Yes." She arched, willing him to repeat the action. "Couldn't you tell?"
"Close your eyes again."
As she did, the weight of the bed changed. He had departed. She instinctively began to push her legs together.
"No." Cal touched her knees. Ah. He hadn't gone far. "Keep yourself open to me, baby."
"Don't make me wait," Annie said, pulling against the bindings, cocking open an eye, peeking.
He pushed her knees up and out, bit her nipples, one and then the other. "No peeking. No moving."
"Where are you going?"
"No peeking and no more fucking questions. I'm asking the questions. I'm doing the talking."
Whatever.
If she were there an eternity, it wouldn't matter — she would wait.
Strangely, she could feel her arousal increase as the seconds ticked by. It increased with the eye closing and with the belt on her wrists, the anticipation.
God, when had she turned into a ball of horny nerves waiting to be released? When had the commands of a lover made her want to come without even a touch? And when had she ever been commanded in bed?
Never.
Only by him.
Cal Prescott.
The stranger. The chameleon. The puzzle. Her puzzle piece.
His commands sounded like a symphony. His voice plucked all her strings perfectly.
"What else did you do up there?" He’d returned to the bed. "Lift your head." He wrapped something soft around her eyes. A necktie or a scarf?
"You are a wicked man."
"You like to talk, so we’ll talk." He knotted it. "What did you do?"
Lost my mind. Cried a river. The usual.
"Went to a play. Met curators. Hung out with my friend." He hovered over her. She couldn't see him, but he was there. The tip of his dick taunted her entrance again. A gasp escaped her lips. "We ... talked."
"About sex?" he asked as he slid inside without any haste, torturing her again by controlling the speed of the fucking.
He needed to be the one to ask the questions. She could barely speak or move or fucking think.
"Everything is not always about sex," she managed to blurt out between his soft exertions.
"Girls talk plenty of sex."
He entered and exited — without pressure or speed. It was slow. Easy. Annie was prepared for the other shoe to drop.
"Tab is married."
"So."
"So, I don't ask about her husband’s—"
"Dick," he said, then thumped her cervix, jolting her. "Did you talk about me?"
Back arched, strained, fists closed over the restraint, Annie couldn’t think or breathe. "God, Cal, please."
"Did you?" He was out again, the tip of his cock sliding over and over her swollen and achy folds.
"Yes."
"What did you say?"
"You're the worst, Cal Prescott."
He took his dick away.
"No," she cried like a petulant child.
He chuckled under his breath as he spread her legs and began to stroke her clit. "Calm down, baby." He touched her erect little nub as light as a feather, brushing it as if he weren't even touching it, as if he were striking the air, bringing her to the edge again.
"Talk, Annie."
"I told her this is sex."
"Indeed." His clit-strumming motion increased.
"I told her ... it's only sex."
Cal stripped the blindfold from her face, and even though she’d only been covered a short time and the room was fairly dark, she still squinted and tried to turn from his startled gaze.
"Say that to my face," he said, and his words felt like a slap to the face.
His cock filled her. All. The. Way. He thrust into her to the hilt several times. She moaned and moaned and moaned.
Then he pulled out.
"No!"
"Beg me."
"Fuck you."
"Say my name."
"Fuck you … Cal." The syllables shook out of her mouth as he rocked her into a frenzy of not waiting ten days to be inside of you, of it’s just the summer, the summer, the summer, of it’s just sex, it's just sex, it's just sex.
A mess was what it all was.
The leather of the belt chafed her wrists. Her breasts bounced. Each push of him inside her a reminder of what they were, who they were.
He slowed.
Stopped.
Pulled out.
"No," she whispered, bit her lip, and yanked on the restraints.
"Shhh." He moved his mouth to her clit, licking her. "Be still. Grab the headboard." He pushed her forward as she gripped it. "Tell me if you like this."
Like what? She didn't think she could take much more — of any of it.
Immediately, the soft pad of his tongue on her clit turned to teeth.
"Fuck." She pulled the headboard away from the wall as she wailed the expletive. Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!
He resumed caressing her clit, gently sucking it, barely licking it.
"Again," she moaned and tugged.
He used his teeth, then he repeated the gentleness. Nibbling, tenderly biting, and then taking care of her body as though he were before an altar, lighting a candle, ready to pray.
He repeated the sadistic combination — bite, nip, suck, lick, pray — until an explosion occurred. A white light of pain burst into red-hot fucking pleasure. Could she tell him how much she liked it in words? She was past words. Could she speak anything other than animal sounds? The grunting. The broken gasps. The mmms and ahs.
He rose on his knees over her and squared her hips. "God, Annie, I've wanted you for two fucking weeks." He pushed one of her knees up and to the side, stretching her open, and then he thrust inside her.
Eyes rolling, she yelped, alternating between watching how he fucked her and looking into his insane eyes.
He slammed into the back of her pussy. "I could barely concentrate on work. You feel so good. I'm taking you all night." Slam. "I'll bite you." Slam. "I'll lick you. I'll make it so you can't speak unless I command you." He pushed, pushed, pushed deep inside of her. "Tomorrow morning you’ll be so sore, you won't be able to walk."
Everything he’d said came out as a pledge while she groaned, held back sobs, her pelvis meeting his with each thrust.
"Look at me."
She opened her eyes. "Yes?"
"Not yet." He slowed. "You said you had patience. You waited thirteen months." He slid out. "I let you come already. Twice." His eyes swam with contentment. He was in his prime. His element.
"Beg me for what you say is just sex." He looked down at where they’d been joined and rolled the tip of his dick over her wet slit.
"You're a fucker." She yanked the headboard, wrestled with the belt loop, and rocked against the steel plank of his body.
"Beg me." He took her nipple, squeezing it between his teeth.
Body going slack, she exhaled. "Please..."
"Your body is mine this summer." His dick filled her pussy. "Beg," he demanded, fucking her just enough to keep her on the edge but not enough to bring her release, and then he pulled out.
"God. Please, Cal. You know I need you. I want you. Please." She closed her eyes. Sweat glistened off every part of her body. Her eyes held more need than her words. Still, she spoke, she begged, she pleaded. "Please, fuck me. Please. I. Need. You."
Pushing himself inside her again to the max, Cal sealed her body to his until it was complete. A palm on her shoulder, brushing a thumb against her clit, he listened to the sounds pour out of her voice box in broken grunts and chants and weeping.
"Please, look at me, Annie." Each word hitched. He’d worked himself up into his own frenzy. The next four words matched his four thrusts. "It's. Not. Just. Sex." He nodded. "Yes?"
She knew he was starting to come because his eyes became glass, his face tensed.
"Yes," she agreed, telling the truth while practically choking on her own spit.
It's not just sex. It's not just sex. It's not just sex. The mantra repeated inside her head until the words became her undoing. The look in his eyes as his orgasm consumed him became her undoing.
His groaning, his unraveling — stripped her bare.
Her entire body filled with those stupid four words, and his sounds and his skin, as she began to release.
A third time.
She watched his eyes glaze, his head droop, then shake. She listened to the quiet way he released his breath with each pulse of his orgasm. Her eyes never left his face.
He unbuckled her in an instant, fell on his back and blew out an elongated, exhausted breath.
Annie stared up at the ceiling, running her fingers over her tender wrists.
He took her hand, palm up, and kissed the veins and red marks. "It's not just sex."
"Then what is it?" She turned and put her ass against his pelvis. "Am I allowed to ask you questions now?"
Cal wrapped a hand around her waist and pulled her toward him. They were spooning again — cut for each other, made to fit. She smelled like home. Fields of citrus, seasons, a reason. He buried his face into the tree-lined rows of her neck.
"I missed you too, Annie. We said no discussion of what-ifs or plans. Go to sleep. I want to hold you just like this until you fall asleep."
She started to cry without moving. Somehow, she kept her chest from shaking. He wouldn't know she released tears. He couldn’t know. Everything they’d done had felt good and right. Fucking amazing, physically and emotionally. The biting, the nipping, the kissing, the quiet, the way he called her baby, the insistence in his words, even the sensual torturing and taunting, the delaying — she took it all for him.
She wanted it without knowing what it was.
She somehow knew he needed her to take it and destroy it, to own it, and she did it all in the way she submitted to him. Freely. None of it was without power. She wasn't weak. It was a belt-on-her-wrists, eyes-on-task strength.
She’d never felt stronger.
And now, they both needed this.
The spooning. The comfort. A peace. Another few moments of only feeling, without talking or articulating or speculating. No microscope to examine every one of their hundreds of motherfucking feelings, because despite some of the things he’d ever said, the way he sometimes tried to disguise his emotions, she knew he was just as much of a philosopher as she was — an old soul, maybe more so. She’d seen the deep wells of a thinking man residing in his eyes from the very first time.
She wanted to swim in the pools of his greens without a life jacket.
She wanted to drown in him and never be rescued.
Everything. All at the same time.
No what-ifs. No future best-laid plans.
Only sleeping, spooning, fucking. Only now, now, now...