Her lips were parted. She rested her tongue on her front teeth.
“I get to go back and have what I wanted,” he said. He picked up one of her ankles and lifted it high enough to kiss it. Cherry was wearing back-seamed hose. (She’d pulled out all the stops.) Russ rubbed his face into her calf and ran his hand up her thigh.
She closed her eyes again. She tried to breathe past her fourth rib. The dress was eventighternow that she was lying down—she felt like she might rip out a seam just trying to inhale.
Russ’s hand moved between her legs. Cherry wasn’t wearing underwear. She was wet. (Pulling out all the stops—even the autonomic ones.) Russ groaned again and rubbed his knuckles into her pussy. Cherry groaned with him.
His head was suddenly under the skirt and between her thighs—she shrieked. He was sucking and biting at her through the hose. She spread her knees and lifted her feet, gasping.
Russ popped his head out of her skirts. “How is this going to work?”
Cherry looked in his eyes. “What?”
“How am I going to fuck you,” he said, “without taking off your clothes?”
Cherry’s elbows gave out. She fell back, laughing.
Russ jerked one shoe off her foot. He tucked it under his chin. He pulled off the other shoe and tucked it under his arm. Then he reached under Cherry’s dress, looking for the waist of her pantyhose. She helped him push them down. He got the hose off and tossed them behind him—then tried sliding her foot back into a shoe. The shoes were too pinchy for that. Cherry sat up to help. She was still laughing. Between them, they got both her red heels back on. Russ kissed her ankle again. “These shoes make your feet look so tiny.”
She wrinkled her nose, smiling. “Is that a thing?”
“Everything about you is a thing.” He kissed her other ankle and walked away from her, leaning over the side of the bed. Russ kept condoms there, in a drawer. He tore one off and dropped the rest of the strip on the comforter.
Cherry watched him put the condom on. It didn’t make Russ self-conscious when she watched. Cherry liked the smell of the latex—it was like a bell ringing. Russ rolled the condom up, and stroked himself once. He was watching her, too. They’d both stopped smiling.
Russ came back to stand between her legs. “Like this, the first time,” he said softly. “Okay?”
Cherry nodded.
He maneuvered her knees and felt out the path with his fingers before he pushed his cock in. Cherry arched her neck and looked down at him over her cheeks.
Russ was still dressed. Still standing. Still wearing his glasses. Still young, really. Even at thirty-eight. Russ Sutton would always be young. He just had one of those faces.
“You haven’t changed,” he said, maybe reading her mind. His hands were outside her dress, anchoring her hips. “I’ll never forget how beautiful you looked the night we met.” He closed his eyes. “So sexy. I couldn’t keep my hands off you.”
He rocked into her. Cherry shifted her hips, so he’d rub against her clit. She breathed hard through her nose.
“God, Cherry.”
“Russ,” she panted.
Russ pushed harder. He leaned over Cherry, lifting her legs by the ankles, then gripping the backs of her knees, folding her up, so he could sink deeper. Her skirt and petticoat were between them. The lace edges were tickling her nose. Cherry couldn’t breathe at all like this, not even a little bit.
Russ was looking into her eyes. “Do you feel good?”
She grunted. “Yeah.”
“Are you close?”
“I can’t—”
“Cherry, I’m—”
“Unzip me,” Cherry choked out.
“What?”
She tried to pull herself up by his shoulders.“Unzip me.”
