I groaned and dropped my head to pull her nipple into my mouth. A soft gasp slipped from her lips as I rolled my tongue over and around her tightened bud. It stiffened further when I clamped it, gently, between my teeth. I released it only to repeat the process with her other one. She undulated her hips forward and backward in rhythm with my tongue.
With a small noise of frustration, she sat back a little, even as I continued to ply her nipples, and tugged the band of my boxers down just enough to free my dick. She wrapped her fingers around my length and stroked me until I strained within her grip. Her other hand dropped to the seam of her underwear, tugging them aside. She stopped stroking me and guided the head of my dick to her opening.
She was wet already, and it made me wonder what we’d been doing in that sunny Hawaiian dream of hers. I stopped wondering the moment she slid down my length. There was no stopping and starting now, like our first time. Her body felt like it had already becomeaccustomed to my size, and she took every inch of me inside her in one gloriously slow descent.
“I love this feeling,” she said, voice soft as she leaned back and planted her hands on either side of my legs.
“What feeling?” I asked. I wanted to hear her say it.
“Being so full of you I feel like I could burst.” She arched back and thrust her hips forward, just once, as if to accentuate the words.
I reached down and gripped her ass. “Do that again.”
She moved just as slowly as the first time, her body supple and languid as she lifted her hips and flexed her stomach. I fully approved of this slower pace. It allowed me to look my fill of her. To watch her thighs clench. Her breasts rise and fall with every breath. To glance lower still and stare at where we were joined, see her sliding down over my shaft even as I felt her inner muscles gripping me tightly, pulling me deeper.
It was almost too much right now. Feeling overload after I’d been numb for so long. Instead of letting myself be overwhelmed by it, I let myself be reminded by it. This sensation, this thrill of being vibrantly alive, deep inside a woman who cared enough about me that she had literally plastered herself to my side while I went through one of the hardest moments in my life. This woman who had seen me deep in a depressive state, and instead of running away, had brought her light closer, keeping the worst of the darkness at bay.
I didn’t have the words to thank her right now, so I let my body do the talking. I took a hand from her hip and let it roam, pausing to cup her breast, ply her nipple, and then fall, fingers splayed, down over the warm, taut skin of her stomach before I pressed my thumb against her clit.
She moaned softly and sat forward, gripping my shoulders, still moving in that slow, torturous rhythm. I followed her sounds and hermovements, giving her everything, reading the signs her body sent me. There, right there.Thatwas how she liked it. This deep, penetrating angle paired with my thumb stroking her clit.
“Ben,” she breathed, her hips picking up speed.
“You’re so fucking beautiful,” I told her.
I memorized the sight of her, back arched, head thrown back, shadows and highlights playing over her muscles and softness as she lost the rhythm and came, whispering my name.
I clenched her hips and spilled myself inside of her.
Afterward, we were both out of breath. She slumped forward against my chest and tucked her head beneath my chin. I wrapped my arms around her and pulled her closer.
I love you,I wanted to tell her.
But I didn’t. Because at that moment, I wasn’t sure if I could trust the words, or the feeling. Was it my grief talking? My thanks? This brief emotional bliss brought on by sex? Or had I really fallen in love with her?
***
I managed to leave my room around noon the next day. Ella had slipped from the bed much earlier to make breakfast, and I think I must have fallen back asleep after she coaxed me into eating.
The sound of laughter was what pulled me from my mattress, that and a series of little, yipping whoofs that I knew so well. The puppies were back.
“They are so stinking cuuute. Hani, look at them!” Mom said as I rounded the corner of the living room.
My parents and the woman I may or may not have loved sat on the floor between the couch and the fireplace, their backs to me as two living marshmallows tumbled over their legs. I leaned my shoulder against the frame of the door and watched, letting the scene fill my mind, committing the sight to memory, as I had with Ella last night, so that later, maybe in just a few minutes, when my future seemed so fucking bleak I felt crushed beneath the weight of it, I could remind myself that there were still good moments.
“Can we get puppies when we get home?” Mom asked, picking Doodle up and burying her face into his side. The puppy turned his head and tried to eat her hair.
Dad reached out and pulled the strands free. “If we actually commit to training them this time, sure.”
Mom set Doodle down. “Ella can help. Benny said she knows all about training dogs. You’d give us some tips, right, sweetie?” Mom asked her.
“Absolutely,” Ella answered.
Mom turned back to Dad. “Plus, pets have been proven to help combat depression, and God knows we need all the help we can get right now.”
Her words stabbed at my heart like a knife. I’d been so busy dealing with my own grief that I’d completely neglected thoughts of what this must be doing to my parents. It made me want to apologize. To beg their forgiveness for putting them through this.
This isn’t your fault, Ben,Brian had told me, over and over, as if he’d known a moment like this was coming.
