I dive back to her sex once again and lave and torment her sensitive skin. She’s pushing toward me as I suck her folds into my mouth, and when I reach the tight bundle of nerves I know will set her body free, I pull it between my lips and torture her. I flick the tight nub with my tongue over and over again before massaging intensely. As her orgasm mounts and her gasping breath quickens, I lave with an insistent and steady pressure until she cries out and clenches her hands into fists. Pulling my mouth from her, I move my body between her legs and kiss her mouth. I can taste her sweet personal flavor, and I share it as I dip my tongue into her mouth and caress my lips along hers.
Once she finally manages to get into the shower, I wash the glitter from my face while I wait, and when she emerges, once again looking like my sweet Adeline, I hold her, inhaling the scent of her bargain-priced shampoo. Lifting her to straddle me, I carry her to the bedroom and cover her body with mine as I lay her down gently.
She makes short work of getting me out of my clothing, and once I’ve taken my place above her again I watch her eyes as I push with very deliberate slowness into her body. Her eyes are their vibrant crystal blue, watching me as I drive with agonizing patience to her core. I pull from her, letting the swollen head of my cock linger between the warmth of her lips before pushing to my hilt into her once more. I set a slow and steady rhythm that is hypnotic and gentle, and when I roll our bodies to put her above me, I watch as she continues the slow dance of our lovemaking. I lace my fingers with hers, and she rolls her hips to mine, humping my arousal with her own deliberately patient movements.
She looks incredible. Her breasts are small but round, and they bounce just slightly as she works her hips. Her skin is so creamy pale and youthful. Her belly button beckons my tongue, but that will have to wait for another time. Her lips are parted and her expression is shy, her eyes are wide and heated, and her wet, chestnut-colored hair cascades over her shoulders, strands sticking to the skin of her chest. I stroke her clitoris for only a moment before guiding her hand to take over for my fingers. She strokes and pleasures her body while I watch, and when she comes with a cry tearing through her, her stomach muscles clench and she curls forward.
I pull her chest to mine, smashing her breasts to my pecs as she nestles her face into my neck, and pinning her hands behind her at the small of her back, I roll my hips into her, thrusting, fucking, and invading in harsh abandon as her body is forced to comply with mine. Her moans reassure me I’m not hurting her, but as I drive to her core with one final, pounding penetration, a gasp that sounds more like a punch to her gut passes her lips. That’s her limit, but as I spill my seed within her body, relaxing my thrusting and releasing pulsing jets of cum into her depths, my stomach muscles ripple and crunch inward toward her. I let loose her wrists from my grasp, and she lifts her head from my neck, brings her hands to my cheeks, and cradles my face in much-needed warmth and intimacy. Her lips find mine and slowly pull my own between hers. She takes my top lip, sweetly suckling it before claiming my bottom one and doing the same.
When I roll us to our sides, she curls up to my body and I wrap my arms around her. She’s quiet, but she must have a million questions. You don’t experience something as ridiculous as my parents and not have them. And for the first time in my life, I don’t wait for the inquiry to begin. I talk.
She listens as I tell of their abandonment, being raised by nannies in a massive, empty mansion, Christmas presents mailed from overseas that I opened alone on Christmas morning. I tell her of receiving a new car for high school graduation, but not having parents present for even that milestone, and when I tell her they were too busy to make it to my college graduation but managed to send me a check for half a million dollars instead, she cries silent and sad tears for me. I had five nannies present at my graduation, but not a parent, and I gave them each a hundred thousand dollars the following week, care of my dear parents’ graduation gift to me. I talk about my sham of a marriage, my inability and unwillingness to pull myself from work for long enough to be a husband, and about the pain of being deceived by her. She touches my cheeks, stroking away the pain with her fingers, and when I’m finished telling her every pathetic detail of my life she kisses me once.
I make love to her again, narrowly escaping disaster when I almost utter, “I love you,” not thinking a thing of it until the words nearly pass my lips. Of course it would be the most right thing to do at this point, but I’m terrified. Since when have I become such a chickenshit? Apparently since I fell in love for the first time in my life. I may have cared for my ex-wife, but I didn’t love her—not like this. There is no question of that fact at this point. I would die for Adeline, kill for her, go to any length necessary to protect her. I’m a possessive prick who cares more for her than I do myself, and for the first time in my life I like myself. I like me with her. She makes me better; she makes me whole. She, in fact, erases every last moment of bullshit from my life.
Every time I make love to her now, I come inside her knowing she won’t be pregnant but wishing she was. At least if she were, she couldn’t leave me, and oddly, half the reason I enjoy leaving my seed within her is because a woman carrying my child feels right and appropriate for the first time in my life. I used to shudder at the thought. I looked at children with pity, always remembering myself at their age, but now there’s joy that didn’t exist in my mind before. I see a child’s laughter, their smile, their trust and happiness, and for the first time, it isn’t a depressing precursor to some sad, lonely memory, it’s the sign of what’s to come … of what should be to come. If I can just get out of my own way long enough to let her see me—let her love me if she will.
She should have the world, and I pale in comparison to the enormity of what she deserves, but I want to be the one to give it to her regardless. And with our end in sight, we embark together on the second to last week of her internship and less than two weeks from her graduation. The time has come, and with every passing day, every passing touch, every last look of her gentle eyes that always watch me so closely, I’m growing one day closer to losing her. But I won’t lose her. I will beg, plead, cry every last tear I’ve withheld from myself if I must, but before the end is here, she will know just how strongly the unlovable can love. If she rejects me, so be it. It will destroy me, but she will know my feelings regardless. They are the only thing left that holds any value, and they belong to her now.
Chapter 23
It’s only two weeks away, and I’m desperate. He cares for me; he must. And yet, he holds back from me still. When I think of our parting, I panic. My breath comes in gasps that strangle my throat and leave me wanting to collapse to my knees. My emotional reaction feels more physical than the world around me, and after his body and mind have drifted off to sleep beside me every night, I watch him. I whisper, “I love you” to the heavy breathing beside me. He doesn’t hear my words, but I pray the words somehow reach him.
He spends every night with me, either calling me to his place or showing up at mine. He is as content in my double-sized bed that leaves no space between our bodies as he is in his king-size bed, which neither requires nor promotes closeness but finds us clutched together nevertheless.
We wake together, make love more often than not, shower together, and watch each other get ready for the day. His eyes study me as I blow dry my hair and try to make it look respectable, and I watch, with just as much interest, as he stands naked at the sink shaving. When I dress, his gaze follows my every movement, and as he drops me at the ‘L’ it’s with one final kiss. I walk into the building twenty minutes later only to see him standing in the lobby waiting for me. It was my refusal that led to such a bizarre arrangement. I told him I wouldn’t let him risk driving me to work, and so he waits until he knows I’m there safe and sound.