Heartless (27 page)

“You have a lovely voice,” I whispered. I felt his lips curl into a smile next to my cheek.

“I also play a little guitar.”

“Really?” There was still so much I didn’t now about him! I began to wonder if a lifetime would be enough. How complex a single human being was! So many interests, feelings, memories, and aspirations. It was hard enough to get to know oneself, let alone the deepest truth of another, but I was beginning to see that the journey was a rare opportunity.

Josh was still humming but I stopped moving. I grabbed his hand and pulled him toward the bed.

“Hold on,” he said. He’d been waiting so long and now he wanted to wait more?

He grabbed a couple of candles and brought them into the room. Once he’d placed them around the room, he collected a few others. He left the patio doors open, where the remaining candles flickered and the fairy lights glittered. Then he joined me at the end of the bed, with his blue eyes full of deep desire. With his hands, he drew my face to his, and I melted into his lips.

Josh

The bed is a white cloud and I’m standing beside an angel. Her lips are like flowers offering their nectar. My tongue is a probe to gather their sweetness. Her hands find my waist, slip under the clean cotton of my shirt. My skin ripples under her touch, pulling taut in the most sensitive places.

Heather

In Josh’s arms I no longer felt my own weight. He held me and lifted me and I felt like a feather caught up by a hot wind until I came to lie on the cool white duvet. He held himself over me and looked down into my face. We had no need of words anymore, only touch, and breath. I felt his legs press against mine as he lowered himself slowly to me. His hips met mine, the hardness of our bones met, and the softness of our bellies. I felt heat and moisture surge between my legs as his erection pressed into me from my pubic bone to my navel. I sighed, and a small moan escaped from the deepest part of me. A raw whimper of a moan carrying all the pain and pleasure I’ve ever felt. I sighed again and released a deeper sound this time, a sound that carried with it the anticipation of the pleasure I would soon experience, and of strength to endure whatever pain might come with the risk of living, with the vulnerability of being truly alive.

His chest pressed into mine and took my breath away for a second. My nipples were erect and sensitive to his pressure. A slight discomfort, but one that wanted release through greater pressure, rougher contact, and as his mouth descended toward mine, I caught a glint of the edges of his teeth and felt a sudden urge to be bitten, for him to take each nipple between his teeth and tug until I reached an edge of pain and then he would release me, and soften his mouth, and sooth and caress with his tongue until I couldn’t help but writhe beneath him. He kissed me long and deep, while my nipples felt their fantasies in the confines of their cups of cloth. His kiss roved from my lips to my temples, to my throat, and chin and cheeks until they paused, softly, against my eyelids. Soft as butterfly wings.

Then he lowered his face beside mine so we were cheek to cheek and I felt his breath warm my ear. His arms encircled my shoulders and head, the palms of his hands resting on the top of my head, his fingers woven through my hair. With his full weight on me I was enclosed by his physical presence as my back pressed into the bed. I felt so, so safe. Like nothing I’ve ever felt before. I savored this moment of complete envelopment, but at the same time I felt a raging desire building inside of me, a fire ignited that could not be smothered, a fire so hot I wondered if it could burn our clothes away and scorch our skin. As the desire built, so did a feeling of entrapment, and Josh seemed to feel it too. His breath grew more ragged. I felt his extra limb pulse against my belly. I
needed
to feel his skin now. I had to remove the barriers between us. Perhaps he felt my body tense, or the heat building inside me, because he lifted off me swiftly and gracefully and pulled me up to a sitting position beside him. We had been so close a moment before and now, only inches apart, I was aware of the sudden separation, and the cool air between us.

I grabbed at his shirt, pulling it off, and he helped me.

“I want to watch you take your clothes off,” he whispered. “Watch while you take them off for
me
.” His voice grew slightly hoarse with those last words and I froze for a moment, remembering another voice, long ago, telling me what to do and how to do it. I shook my head, reminding myself that this was now, not then, and that this was Josh, not
him
. These moments would take all my strength, and I willed myself to be strong, as strong as Josh believed me to be.

“It’s okay. You don’t have to,” said Josh, taking my head shake as a ’no’ to his request. A part of me wanted to tell him the truth of what had happened years ago, but a bigger part wanted to forget and act like it didn’t matter.
Fake it til you make it
, Beach girl whispered in my inner ear. But I didn’t want to fake anything with Josh. I wanted it all to be real. Beyond real. I wanted to pretend the past didn’t exist
and
I wanted this night to be the realest deepest experience of my life. Could I have it both ways? I was determined to try.

I leaned over to kiss Josh and let my fingers trail over his bare chest. Then I slid off the end of the bed and stood there facing him. I slid one shoulder strap down and then the other until my dress was a skirt and only my bra covered my top.

“You can go slowly,” he said, his voice ragged. I could sense that neither of us wanted to take things slow anymore. Our bodies were in charge now. I stood in front of him while he sat on the edge of the bed. I closed my eyes as he pulled my dress the rest of the way down.
This is now, this is now, this is now
, I chanted in my head as Josh slipped my panties to my ankles. I reached behind and undid my bra. I stood naked in front of Josh with my eyes closed. I was wet, warm, and trembling. His fingertips touched my bare skin so lightly yet it felt like fire to me. I opened my eyes so I could look at him. He was looking at me, all of me, with such love and hunger. He pulled me to him. I pushed him back on the bed and climbed over him. He rolled us over until he was on top again, and then he turned me over and started kissing my back. I felt a trail of kisses along the length of my spine. His mouth paused at my sacrum. His hands cupped my ass cheeks and massaged gently. I moaned. He shifted lower on the bed and I felt his tongue slide along the crease dividing my cheeks from the top of my thighs. I couldn’t help but spread my legs a little wider in response to his kisses. And then I felt his finger exploring between my legs, a soft, sweet probe. He made a small sound, a happy sound, when he discovered how wet I was. He shifted around some more and I lifted my head, glanced over my shoulder, and saw him slipping out of his shorts and boxers. I wanted to see this, so I kept turning until I was on my back. He kneeled over me, between my legs, his erection free from its confines and hovering over me. Thick, smooth, and pulsing, it seemed to aim straight for my heart. I rose up, crawled toward this visceral expression of Josh’s desire, and opened my mouth.

Josh

Oh God, is all I can think. Oh God. Her perfect sweet lips have caught me. Oh God. Her tongue…

I tense with pleasure, feel the pressure of the blood coursing through my veins. I nudge my hips forward, going just a little bit deeper. It wasn’t what I was expecting. For her to do this. To take me her in her mouth… Swirl her tongue around my hot— oh, fuck, I gotta slow down. I pull out, kneel back on my heels, and push her shoulders lightly backward, so she’s lying on the bed again, and then I dive between her legs, my mouth watering. I think of the first time we really talked, the day we had frozen yogurt and she made fun of the flavors I chose. I want to tell her she is my favorite flavor now. As I lick and lave her folds, I feel as if I’m swallowing my own private heaven. Her whimpering and moaning sounds like a harmony of angels. I’m doing it again, thinking about God, and heaven and angels and all that. That’s what Heather does to me; she opens everything closed and tight and angry and in need of healing. I want to do that for her, too. I know my life depends on it. As I taste and suck her most private, tender places, I pray—godfuckingdammit did I really say
pray
?—well, fuck it. I pray that she’ll allow herself to open her heart fully to me.

Heather

Josh’s mouth was taking me to heights of pleasure I didn’t even know existed. I know I’d felt his lips and tongue
there
before. On my pussy… There, I said it. He’d tasted my pussy once before and I’d thought that was the top of the pleasure charts for me. But tonight I felt ravished all the way down to my deepest core, where a volcano full of hot flowing lava was churning and rising and threatening to spill out of every pore of my skin. I writhed and moaned as he fired up the super sensitive skin of my labia and clit. I felt as if I could take him all the way inside me, up through my hips and belly and right into my heart. He was already there, but I wanted every inch of him now, every cell of his skin, every breath in his lungs. I wanted to merge so completely that I wouldn’t be able to tell where his edges met mine. We’d flow into one, a fiery, steaming lava flow of passion and utter communion… I felt the holiness of the love energy between us and its healing balm. I could conquer anything feeling like this. One with Josh and completely whole within myself.

My head thrashed from side to side as his tongue drew up my lava-like passion from deep inside me. I squeezed my thighs together, not too tight, but enough to let him know that I needed respite from his driving stimulation. And I needed something else, too. I needed to feel him inside me. I was ready. I was wanting. I wasn’t going to be able to wait for much longer…

“Josh.” I hardly recognized the hoarse gasp that was my voice.

I slid my fingers into his hair, guided his face up over my belly to my chest, where he was momentarily distracted by my nipples and had to feed on them, too. Between my wet thighs I felt his hard cock slide and come so close,
so close
, to my opening. My pussy wanted him. She’s never wanted anyone or anything quite like this wanting for Josh.