The Story of Lansing Lotte (44 page)

“You’re shutting down on me.”

I giggled. I don’t know how he guessed it. It wasn’t really that I was shutting down so much as it was that I was getting turned on by his constant stroking of my thigh. It seemed so old-school compared to what I imagined would turn him on.

“That’s not it,” I said with a laugh. His palm flattened and he stroked higher.

“What is it then?” he said slowly, seductively, as his hand drew upward. My pulse heightened in more than one place. The lingering touch of his fingers made me feel him everywhere, but there was one place on my body that desired him the most.

He slipped off the couch and knelt before me. I brushed my fingers through his hair and his eyes closed at my touch. He moaned.

“You like it when I do that, don’t you?”

“I do,” he sighed with another sound of pleasure.

“What else do you like?” I boldly asked.

His eyes sprang open.

“I like you, Lila.”

It was sweet and it surprised me. I leaned forward to kiss him softly, but he was having none of that. Those tender firm kisses began the moment my mouth hit his, and I was warm all over. I wanted to blame it on the wine, but I couldn’t. The heat was in me. Kinetic energy and all that. I was going to combust if he didn’t touch me.

My hands slid over his shoulders and his hands curved around my hips. He dragged me forcefully toward him then shifted me so I lay on the floor. Fortunately, I had a rug covering the floors and it softened the hard wood. Lansing continued to kiss me, letting his hand lazily scan over me. First my hair, then my neck. Over my shoulders and through the valley between my breasts. He slipped under the mountain of my heavy breasts, across my flat stomach to his favorite peaks, my hipbones.  I don’t know what the attraction was, but he loved to slip his hands over them.

Finding my jeans in his way, he unbuttoned them and slipped his hand inside to touch my warm hips with his hotter hands. He sat up a bit and reached over his head to yank his shirt forward. His bare chest brushed mine only seconds later, as he returned to kissing me and discovering parts of my body. He wasn’t touching anywhere essential, but mapping a course over my skin, under my shirt, just inside my jeans, at the top of my underwear. I was squirming as I needed relief. I needed him to touch me or I needed to touch him.

“Where’s the fire?” he said against my mouth

“In my pants,” I mumbled with a giggle.

He made quick work of undoing my zipper and sliding my jeans down off my ankles. He returned to kiss me and my bare legs wrapped over his. I ground into him with my thin cotton panties and he bit my lower lip.

“You keep pressing into me like that and it will lead to more than a fire.”

“I’m thinking inferno proportions,” I said, as he tried to kiss me again.

He laughed that time, as did I until his hand hit a spot that was more wet than incinerated and I sighed deeply.

“Jeez, Gorgeous, you’re soaked. Fire out, uh?” He removed his hand and I almost cried.

“Don’t you dare,” I muttered.

“Don’t I dare what?” He slipped his fingers under the band of my panties and brushed across me, but pulled back again. My lower body was beginning to ache. I might have even whimpered.

“Lila, do you want me?”

“Yes,” I breathed.

“How badly?”

My head had been tipped back, and I looked at him to see what he meant. His voice was more serious than I expected.

“Very badly. But not if you don’t want to,” I said hesitantly, quietly. My passion was slipping and I wanted to cry.

“Does this feel like I don’t want you?” He forced my hand to touch him over his jeans. He was solid and I squeezed him, even after he let go of me.

“No,” I choked.

“I want it to be for all the right reasons.”

I swallowed hard. He was turning me down. I sagged a little under him.

“I’m a selfish man, Lila. And I’d like to ask you for the biggest…the only thing I want for Christmas.”

I stared at him, my mouth suddenly dry, and liquid blurred my eyes. I was so turned on and he was about to ask me to stop. I knew it.

“I’d like to have you, Lila. A very special part of you. For me. Only me. For Christmas. Right here under the tree that we decorated together.”

The tear escaped and slowly slid down my face to my ear.

“Why are you crying? You don’t have to do anything you don’t want,” he said tenderly, as he wiped the stream leading down my face.

“Because I’d like to give you me for Christmas,” I whispered.

He kissed me sweetly, but it quickly deepened as I tried to relax from my panic moments before. He pulled up the hem of my shirt and made fast work of removing it. His palm traced down over my body and his eyes followed the trail.

“You are incredibly gorgeous, Lila. Not only on the outside, but the inside as well. I want to unwrap you for Christmas. I want to be in you and feel that gorgeous surround me.”

His words left me speechless. His hand slipped around to unhook my bra, drawing it forward slowly, as if he was unwrapping a present and taking his time to find the surprise underneath. His joy was newfound when his mouth hit my hard nipple and sucked me even harder. His thumb and forefinger tweaked my opposite breast, and then he switched to allow each their equal attention. He kissed down my stomach and used his teeth to remove part of my panties. Dragging them back slowly and rubbing his nose along my skin before using his hands to remove them completely. He again took his time, as if discovering tortuously slowly the prize inside the box.

He rubbed his hands up my legs then spread them to look down at me.

“I want to taste you again, but I have to wait. I need to be inside you. Now.”

His eyes stayed trained on the apex of my legs as he made faster work of removing his own jeans and underwear. He lay at the entrance of me for a moment and I stiffened.

“I’m using a condom. Just let me feel you for a moment before I slip it on. I want nothing between us for just one minute.” He closed his eyes as he guided his head through my folds. I opened my legs wider for him. I sensed I was moistening his already wet tip.

“Lila?” He looked at me with both a question and a plea. I should have said no. My brain told me to say no. But my mouth said yes.

He slipped inside me with an exaggerated force, then he stilled. It was slow and I held tight as it had been a long time for me.

“Lila,” he groaned, “you feel amazing. Gorgeous. Gorgeous inside.” He sighed in the ecstasy he felt as I surrounded him and he filled me. A tear escaped my eye again and he looked down at me.

“What’s wrong?” he asked softly, kissing the tear away and licking another with the tip of his tongue. “Am I hurting you?”

I was overwhelmed. Overwhelmed with his words. Overwhelmed with his body. Overwhelmed with what we were doing. I couldn’t answer him.

I moved my hips upward and his eyes opened wider. The brightness that signaled his desire was reflected in the low twinkling lights of the tree. He began to move. Dragging himself to the edge of me, then impaling me with cautious forward motion. He repeated that several times until my hands gripped his hips. I tilted my pelvis in a way that forced him deeper into me.

“Lila?” he moaned. I was beginning to meet him thrust for tempting thrust. Pulse for pleasurable pulse. We gradually increased as if we were totally in sync with each other. It was like I wasn’t sure who moved first, who was leading. We danced almost. My hips circled and his pushed forward, and I’d never felt so connected to someone in all my life.

Lansing watched me as if taking note of things, but I was lost to him. I was lost within him. The sensation of him all around me and in me. It was slow and delicate and building. The flames were growing and it was delicious.

“Lansing,” I breathed, as I held his hips and wrapped my ankles over his calves. He hooked his hand under one knee and brought it higher over his hip. He was suddenly deeper, filling me. His hand slipped between us and I kept my knee raised as he pressed against my nub and I saw stars. I burst forth on a sweet orgasm that dragged on and on and on. It wasn’t slowing, when Lansing warned me that he was close.

“I’ll pull out,” he warned, and I knew what his concern was. It would be mine too if my brain was working, but it wasn’t. Only my body did what it felt was right at that moment.

He did pull out quickly, and he lay against my stomach, releasing his seed over me. My mind was slowly catching up to what I’d done. What I’d let him do.

“Holy shit,” he said. I thought he meant the fact we’d just gone bare on the first time together.

He fell forward putting the full weight of himself over me and sealing us together with the spread of him between us.

“That was so intense,” he said against my neck. “You are the most gorgeous woman…ever.”

I relaxed under him as his weight crushed me in a pleasant way. He pulled up to his elbows and looked down at me. He searched my face, looking for something. When he didn’t find it, he smiled and a dimple exposed.

“Merry Christmas, Lila.”

“Merry Christmas, Lansing.”

There’s that saying about feeling like a kid on Christmas morning. I felt that way and it was Christmas morning. Christmas Eve morning, and I was looking forward to having the best Christmas I could remember, since I was a kid. Fleur was a bundle of energy since she felt better. The tree was fully decorated. The lights lit. We had a late breakfast and spent the day watching holiday movies. It was very family-ish and I had to laugh a Galehaut’s nickname for us:
family.

That night we exchanged one present. Lila said it had been a custom in her family to exchange on Christmas Eve and Santa visited overnight. She renewed the tradition with Fleur, despite their small family. I’d spoiled Fleur, and Lila let me have a part in being Santa. She was going to get an American Girl baby and a stroller from the big man. I was thrilled to be part of the excitement.

I had more gifts for Lila, as well.

“You already gave me the dining room table,” she said, confused when I pushed a box toward her.

“Just open it.”

Her eyes widened as she took out the extra attachments she needed for her camera. In a way, I wanted to give her this gift to show that I supported her work, and I forgave her. She didn’t need my forgiveness per se. We’d already established that she didn’t have a direct link to Arturo’s accident, but I needed her to know I had let it go. I think she needed to know it, too.

“This is too much,” she said under her breath, looking at the various packages and implements I’d placed all in one box.

“If any of it isn’t the right thing, we can get what you still need.”

“It’s…it’s perfect. Thank you so much.” She leaned forward and kissed me chastely on the cheek. She was hesitant, as Fleur had already caught us several times, including the very obvious kiss from yesterday.

She slid a box to me, and bit her lip nervously.

“It isn’t as great. I mean, you are Lansing Lotte. What do I give a superstar?” She laughed nervously.

I carefully opened the thin awkward box, slipping the item out one end. As I slowly unwrapped the tissue paper, I held a frame in my hands. It was a black square, filled with a collage of black and white images of the band. Of Arturo and I on stage. Of Tristan and I battling with guitar. Of Perk and I laughing. It was a blend of photos arranged in a way that it told a story: The Story of The Nights. I stared at it for a long time, a surge of memories taking over, and the room grew very silent.

“Thank you,” I whispered. I could feel Lila’s eyes on me, but I couldn’t look up at her. My own eyes grew liquidy and I had to blink several times to clear them. When I did look up, Lila was working her lip so hard I was afraid she would draw blood.

“It’s beautiful, Lila. How did you do it? Where did you get all these pictures?”

She laughed a little before answering, “The Internet.”

It broke the tension. We both looked over at Fleur, who was holding in her hands the princess nightgown costume I had given her and the plastic shoes to match. Her eyes were drooping and Lila said it was time for bed. I needed another minute to collect myself. Lila must have sensed that because she took care of Fleur without asking me for help.

We looked young in the pictures: Arturo with his longer waves, wet and wild. a dark shadow on his face at different times. Me, clean, and lean next to him. Tristan with his model good looks and sandy brown hair slicked back to curl at his neck. He’d ripped off his shirt in most cases, and his large dragon tattoo covering one side of him was exposed and hungry over his heart. Perk, with his shaved head and big body, eyes closed as he belted away at the drums. We were a unit. A band of brothers, like the soldiers would say. Like Shakespeare once said. We were more than a band; we
were
brothers. I realized for the first time in months, I missed them. Deeply.

Lila returned to the living room and sat in front of me on the floor.

“Was it too much? Or do you not like it?” she asked softly.

“I…I love it, Lila. Honest. It’s amazing.” I hoped she could tell from the sound of my voice that I meant it, and more. There was more to say to describe my emotions about the band, about the thoughtfulness of making the collage, but I didn’t have the words to describe it.