Intimate (24 page)

And so he
didn’t mind that he wasn’t fucking her. And he didn’t mind that she wasn’t even
looking at him. And he didn’t mind that she’d had to remove herself from
anything that reminded her of sex.

This was Marissa.
And he loved her. And she was more important than he was.

It sounded like
she was sobbing now, desperate, strangled sounds forced out between her harsh
breaths. Her flesh was hot and pulsing beneath his mouth and his hand.

“Caleb,” she
begged, one hand coming down to push on her belly, as if it were aching.
“Please, Caleb, please.”

He moved his
free hand up to her belly, nudging hers aside, and he rubbed it for her—a flood
of tenderness breaking over him before he could prepare for it. “You’re doing
so good, baby. Don’t try to fight it. Just let yourself go.”

She reached
back up to grab the headboard with both hands again. "Please, Caleb."

His pelvis was
involuntarily thrusting into the mattress, and his wrist was starting to get
tired.

Surely, she
would come soon. For both of their sakes.

He closed his
mouth around her clit and started to suck on it hard. Increased the tempo of
his pumping as he felt her muscles start to clench around him.

“Eh!” she
cried, the one syllable stretched out for several seconds. Her hips bucked
erratically against his face, and she froze for an exquisitely brief eternity.

Then shattered.

She choked out
“Caleb,” as her back arched high off the bed, her hips thrashing, finally
finding their instinctive rhythm as pleasure overtook her body. Her inner
muscles were clamping down around his fingers violently, and he continued to
thrust into them. He was too overwhelmed to count the number of contractions,
but he knew it must have been a powerful orgasm. His own hips were moving in
time to hers.

She had banged
the headboard against the wall a few times, and her face was almost covered
with her hair. But as she rode out her orgasm, her eyes finally flew open. She
gazed down at him with wild, naked satisfaction. Incongruously gasped, “Fuck,
yeah, Caleb.”

And that was
what did it.

Before he could
even recognize what the sudden, aching pressure in his groin signified, he had
ground himself against the mattress one too many times. Felt a rush of pleasure
cresting over as he came too. Hard. In his pants.

It was over
before he realized it was starting. He had muffled his roar of release, since
his mouth was still poised to sooth her as she came down.

She hadn’t
seemed to notice his embarrassment. There were tears streaming down her face,
and she shuddered helplessly, her hips still twitching up now and then.

Caleb gave her
some final gentle strokes with his fingers until he felt her relax enough
around him. Then he removed his face and his hand and pulled himself up—stiff,
and uncomfortable, and messy, and shaking almost as much as Marissa was.

He had
originally thought bringing her to her first orgasm might be some kind of ego
boost, but he didn’t think this had helped his ego.

He felt weak
and overwhelmed and like he was drowning in her.

Crawling up
until he was beside her, he reached over and grabbed a tissue to wipe his wet
face. “All right?” he asked, his voice thin and stretched.

“Is that a
joke?” She clutched at his shirt and slumped over on top of him, smiling. “So
that’s what all the fuss is about.”

He stroked her
back and pulled her more tightly into his embrace. “So I guess that means you
liked it.”

 “Maybe a
little.” She sniffed and wiped the remaining tears from her cheeks. “Is your
nose supposed to run when you have an orgasm?”

Her humor left
him feeling a lot more like himself. Chuckling, Caleb reached over and grabbed
a couple of tissues for her. She mopped at her face and then curled back into
him.

“I’m really
glad you were here,” she said, after a minute in which her body had grown
totally pliant against him. “And I’m glad we didn’t use the vibrator. Thank you
for helping me. And thank you for being so patient."

He smiled and
watched her in the flickering candlelight. “You're welcome. But I wanted to
help for my own selfish reasons. I keep telling you that I'm willing to wait
for as long as you need.”

“You still
might have to wait a little more. The orgasm doesn’t mean that sex is now going
to be miraculously fixed for me.”

“I know, but
maybe it was a big step in the right direction.”

Grinning, she
kissed his jaw. “A very big step. At the risk of feeding your inordinate pride,
it was absolutely amazing. I feel like I got to have a first orgasm worthy of a
fantasy.”

He returned her
kiss, his lips hitting her cheekbone since he was too befuddled to aim with any
accuracy. “It was pretty good for me too.”

After a moment,
Marissa suddenly went tense. “Oh, poor Caleb. I was so distracted that I didn’t
even think about you.” She pulled herself up until she was looking down at him.
“Let me do you now, Caleb. I want to. Please?”

He shook his
head. He knew it had been too easy. “No need.”

Her hand had
been fumbling down at his crotch, but she jerked it away when she realized he
was no longer erect. “Oh. But I know you were before. Was it so tedious getting
me off that you...lost your excitement?”

Caleb let out a
bark of laughter and pulled her back into his arms. “Don’t be ridiculous. It
was the most erotic experience of my life. In fact, I got a little…too excited.”

It took only a
moment for this to register with her. “Oh.” Then her eyes lit up. “Oh,” she
said again, this time drawing the word out. She rubbed her chest against his.
“Did you really come in your pants?”

He grunted.

“Poor Caleb.
You have had a hard time, haven’t you?” she said soothingly, caressing his face.
“Don’t worry. Next time I’ll take much better care of you. I promise.”

Caleb got a
little excited again at the thought, but was too drowsy to let it take over.
Decided the scent of jasmine and vanilla might be his favorite in the world.
Well, second only to the scent of Marissa’s arousal.

“I’m
exhausted,” she informed him after a minute.

“Me too.” He
felt like he'd been through a battle—but at least it had been a battle in which
he'd been victorious.
They
'd been victorious.

“Well, we
should both rest up. Because, you know, pretty soon, I’m going to want to do
that again.”

“You’re just too conservative.”

Marissa sat
across the desk from Dr. Sawyer, her least favorite professor, and felt a hot
wave overwhelm her, the way she always felt when someone criticized her or
implied she wasn’t what she should be. “I’m not conservative at all,” she said,
pleased that her voice sounded calm. “In fact—”

“I don’t mean
politically. I mean intellectually. The paper is solid. It’s beautifully
written and your translation is perfect—better than I’ve seen from a student in
years. But your ideas are…”

“Are what?” she
demanded with another surge of heated mortification and resentment. After the
huge emotional and physical victory she’d had the night before, she’d somehow
thought everything in her life would get better.

This wasn’t
better.

 “They’re too
safe. They’re boring. You just don’t take any risks.”

“What kinds of
risks should I be taking in a paper like this?”

Dr. Sawyer was
in his forties, with rumpled hair and a perpetually unshaven face. His glasses
needed cleaning, and at the moment she wanted to scratch his eyes out. “If I
could tell you that, then it wouldn’t be a risk. You’ve done fine. A B is a good
grade.”

“It’s not the
grade I want, and I don’t know how to improve if you won’t tell me what I did
wrong.”

“You didn’t do
anything wrong. You just didn’t do anything impressive.”

She clenched
her jaw and looked down at her hands, which were pressing into her thighs. They
looked pale against the denim of her jeans. The essay she’d spent endless hours
working on lay haphazardly on his desk, where he’d tossed it. “Okay,” she said
at last, reaching for the paper. “Thank you for meeting with me.”

“Anytime.” He
waited until she’d reached the doorway before he added, “You’ve got to stop
writing toward some imaginary perfect structure in your mind. Just write what
you believe to be true.”

She was so
annoyed by this vague, unhelpful piece of advice that she was shaking as she
thanked him again and left the office.

She’d always
done well in school. If she had a slip up, then she figured out what was wrong
and worked extra hard to repair the damage. She’d never been criticized to her
face before—not so bluntly, without any attempt to soften it.

She was angry
and humiliated both, and she didn’t like the feeling.

Her first
instinct was to call Caleb, but she didn’t want to always go whining to him. So
she headed home and worked out for an hour instead, powering through the
elliptical trainer so hard she was drenched and exhausted afterwards.

Caleb was
coming over for dinner that evening, so she showered and changed into something
cute, even though she felt more like pulling on sweats or pajamas.

She’d bought
ingredients to make an Indian recipe, so she worked on that in the time she had
remaining until he arrived. But she was tired and distracted, and she messed up
the spices, so she had to throw out her entire main course and start from
scratch.

She was on the
verge of tears, putting the pita bread in the oven to toast, when she heard
Caleb let himself in the front door.

He was smiling
as he came into the kitchen, and he looked laidback and masculine in jeans and
a black t-shirt.

“What do you
have?” she asked. He carried what looked like a bakery box.

He offered it
to her with a grin.

She lifted the
lid and gave a silly squeak at the sight of the huge red velvet cupcake with thick
cream cheese icing. “You didn’t have to bring anything.”

Despite her bad
day, she was touched by the gesture, that he’d wanted to acknowledge the
incredibly sensual experience they’d shared the night before.

“I happened to
pass the bakery. What’s the matter?”

“Nothing. I’m
just running late with dinner.” She kissed him quickly, but couldn’t linger
without ruining her second dish on the stove. She gave him a beer and went back
to check her pot, while he sat on a stool at the kitchen counter.

He asked her
casually about her day, and she made small talk as she worked on the meal. She
didn’t tell him about her conversation with Dr. Sawyer, and then she stopped
talking altogether so she could focus on getting the elaborate mix of spices
right this time.

She was just
letting out a sigh of relief for getting through that hurdle successfully when
Caleb asked, “Are you going to tell me what’s wrong?”

“Nothing’s
wrong. Why are you asking me that?”

“Because I know
you. Remember? And you’re making this dinner like there are lives at stake in
getting it right. Something obviously happened to upset you.”

She was touched,
yet again, by the slightly impatient demand and felt emotion burning in her
eyes.

Then she
smelled a different kind of burning.

“Damn it!” she
exclaimed, grabbing a hot pad and yanking the burning pita bread out of the
oven. She dropped the baking sheet in the sink with a loud clatter. “Damn it!”

The bread was
ruined.

She almost
burned her fingers pulling it off the baking sheet and tossing it in the
garbage. Embarrassed that she was so emotional, she kept her face turned away
from Caleb.

She was being
ridiculous. Nothing that happened today was a big deal, so she shouldn’t keep
acting like it was.

Caleb got up
from the stool and approached her, wrapping his arm around her waist and
pushing his front against her back as she busily scrubbed at the pan. His touch
was tender but his voice definitely wasn’t as he said, “If you don’t tell me
what’s going on right now—”

“It’s nothing.
It’s stupid. I just had a bad day. It’s no big deal.”

“Then there’s
no reason not to tell me.”

“I don’t like
to whine over stupid things.”

“If you have
reason to whine, even about stupid things, then I want to know what they are.”

She sighed and
gave up, turning around so she faced him. She told him briefly about her
conversation with Dr. Sawyer.

He was frowning
when she finished. “I’ve told you all long that the man is an ass.”

“I know. He
is.” She felt a little better at his frown. He always came to her defense, just
like she did to his.

“But I think,
in this case, he might be right.”

She gasped in
shock, astounded at the unexpected turnaround. “What?”

“Not that he’s
not an ass. Of course, he is. But you do always work toward some imaginary
ideal in your mind because you think that’s what others expect of you.”

“What’s wrong
with that? There’s nothing wrong with trying to be the best you can be.”

“I know. But
it’s more than that with you. It’s like you have to be perfect. All the time.”

She tried not
to stiffen defensively. “I do not.”

“Yeah, you do.
It’s like you have to meet some impossible standard in order to…”

“In order to
what?”

“In order to
take care of the rest of the world.”

She felt the
pain of the words in her chest, her throat, her stomach. Not because Caleb was
saying it but because she was afraid he was right.

She remembered
very well how it had felt as a child—that pressure to do everything exactly
right so her mother, her world, wouldn’t slip away.

She leaned her
head down, her forehead pressed against his chest.

He wrapped both
arms around her. “Marissa?”

She didn’t
answer. Couldn’t answer.

“I’m sorry, baby.
I didn’t mean to hurt you. You know I’m on your side. I’m always going to be on
your side.”

She could tell
he was worried—that he thought he’d said too much. “I know,” she said hoarsely.
“I’m thinking.”

She wasn’t
really thinking. She was trying to process, and it was painful and
disorienting.

Finally, she
was able to look up at him, and she softened at the sight of his worried
expression. “I just love you,” she said, a little shaky.

His face
relaxed into a fond smile. “I love you too. And I’ll be happy to go beat up
your ass of a professor if you really want me too.”

She couldn’t
help it. She burst into laughter and pulled him into a hug until she remembered
the remains of her meal.

Most of it
turned out fine, and they ate it at the kitchen counter, followed by the
cupcake.

She felt a lot
better—about almost everything. And she was also starting to picture herself
telling Caleb what she’d never been able to tell him before.

She couldn’t
take responsibility for everything. She couldn’t be perfect enough to take care
of the world all the time.

So maybe it was
time to stop trying.

***

Marissa was attempting to work
up the courage to tell him when they moved to the couch after dinner, but she
hadn’t quite gotten up the will before they started making out pretty heavily.

After that, she
decided confessions could wait until a more opportune time.

She was hoping
for another orgasm this evening, after all. But first she was planning to give
one to Caleb.

So after a long
stretch of kissing and petting, when she felt his hand dip into the waistband
of her jeans, she shook off enough of her dazed arousal to push away his hand.
“Not yet,” she said, as firmly as she could, when he gave a grunt of
disappointment. “You first today.”

“You don't owe
me anything, Marissa.”

“I wouldn’t
have offered if I didn’t want to. But, just so you know, even though you went
down on me yesterday, I think I better take it slower with you. Is it okay if
it’s still just my hands for today?”

His eyes
glinted—with humor, she thought. "Definitely. We don't want to push our
luck and end up having to start over."

“Don't even say
that. We're doing pretty good, I think. And now it's my turn to indulge you. So
you have to sit there like a good boy and enjoy it.”

Pushing him
back, she knelt beside him on the couch. Chuckling, he did as she instructed,
but he was still watching her intently.

Marissa was
kind of nervous about this, but she made sure not to let it show. She actually
had a good time taking off his shirt. His chest was gorgeous, rippling with
well-toned muscles and masculine with a scattering of coarse hair, and she
kissed a line up it as she pushed up his t-shirt. When she pulled it off
completely, she ran her hands up and down the lean planes of his abdomen.

He made a soft
sound of pleasure in his throat, and Marissa kissed him deeply again, sinking
her tongue into his mouth to stroke and twirl.

As soon as she
pulled away, she had to move on to the scary part—the part that still had unpleasant
connotations her history she couldn’t quite forget.

Her whole body
was now flushed, and she breathed erratically. And she had to be so careful
because his eyes never shifted away from her face.

So she sucked
in a deep breath and moved her hands to the button on his jeans. One of her
hands drifted down to brush over the hard bulge she could see beneath the denim.
He moaned faintly at her touch, and Marissa felt immediately more confident.
She could please him. She
was
pleasing him. Even if she wasn’t very good
at this, he still wanted her to touch him.

He loved her. She
loved him.

And she didn’t
have to be perfect.

She could do
this.

She undid the
button and then slid the zipper down, focusing on her task rather than on his
intense face. She pushed away the fabric of his jeans and then his underwear.
Pulled out his erection.

Felt her heart
thud in faint disappointment when she didn’t find it particularly stunning.

Like every
other erect penis she’d ever seen, Caleb’s looked uncouth and rather
bizarre—like it didn’t quite belong on a human body. Penises just weren’t
aesthetically pleasing.

But she didn’t
reveal any reaction as she brushed her fingers up and down his hard length.
Finally glanced back up to meet his eyes.

He was still
observing her cautiously, as if he wasn’t quite convinced she was ready for
this, but underneath that worry she recognized some real need and insecurity.

He wanted her.
And wanted her to want him. So she could destroy him now, if she admitted that
she didn’t like this most intimate part of himself. She’d put him through the
wringer already, and he hadn't buckled yet, but in this he was so much more
vulnerable.

Marissa wasn’t
about to destroy him that way.

She leaned
forward and took his lower lip between her teeth, still holding him gently in
both of her hands. “Very, very nice,” she said huskily. “Why did I wait so long
to see it?”

She smiled at him
with nothing but affection in her face, in her heart.

He smiled back
wryly. “Are you planning to do anything with it now that you’ve unwrapped it?”

Marissa
giggled, adjusting her position until her shoulder was leaning against the back
of the couch and her chest was pressed up against his side. He agreeably lifted
his arm to the back of the sofa to give her more room. Laying her cheek against
his shoulder, she looked back down toward his lap.

Felt strange
when she saw her small fingers around him.

“I don’t think
I’ll be very good at this,” she warned him, as she lightly moved her fingers.

Caleb hissed. Shifted
the arm that was draped above her. “Baby, it’s going to be good for me no
matter how you do it.”

She chuckled
again, wondering if that were true. Wondering if he were so desperate for her
to touch him that anything she did couldn’t fail to please him.

She wasn’t
quite sure how she felt about that—it thrilled her at the same time it made her
feel guilty.

“Just tell me
if I’m doing something wrong,” she murmured. “I promise you won’t hurt my
feelings.”