Neil stroked my hair with a fiery rapture.
“If we had more time, I’d lick you all over,” he said softly, grabbing my butt. He gave it a firm squeeze, and I plastered myself against his quivering, breathless body. He bit my lip, and I moaned in pain. Involuntarily, I became aroused once more. How he managed to turn me to jelly with a butt grab, I had no idea. It seemed my body was happy to accept whatever kind of touch he offered me, tender or savage. Which was crazy, even for me.
“You have no idea how much I want to fuck you right now, Babygirl,” he went on crudely, and the more he talked like that to me the harder I had to clench my thighs together to keep from giving into the urge to shove him back down on the bed. I squeezed my eyes shut, pressing my forehead to his, and he smiled, licking my freshly bitten lip. He saw the storm going on inside me, and it pleased him. I sometimes wondered if Neil knew how Ireally felt about him. He was an unpredictable man, one to whom I could never openly admit my love, but the need I had to be near him and to know him inside and out had to be obvious.
I couldn’t say it with words, but I shouted it with every inch of my heart.
“I’m glad you came to see me today. Thank you for giving me another little piece of your past,” I said with all the enthusiasm of a little girl at a theme park. But he just looked seriously at me before turning away. I sat up on the edge of the bed, thinking that I must have done something wrong. Maybe I’d gone too far, telling him too much of what I thought? I watched uneasily as he felt around in his coat pocket for something, presuming it was his pack of Winstons. Instead, I furrowed my brow when he pulled out a small box and offered it to me. I looked back and forth between his eyes and his open palm in confusion. His eyes were locked on me, waiting to see what I would do. So I took the little box and studied it: It was a rectangle made of decorative wood about the same size as my palm; it had a metal crank on the right side and…
My name. Engraved in the wood next to a little moon.
The moment I saw it, I felt my breath catch in my chest.
He brought me a gift?
I raised my head to look at the giant man standing a short distance away, fretting over my reaction. He ran a nervous hand through his hair and then jerked his chin, urging me to open it, which I did. Immediately, I saw a miniature set of pipes like on an organ, but I had no idea what they were for.
“It’s a serinette. If you turn the crank, it plays a song,” Neil explained before clearing his throat. He clearly wasn’t used to doing this kind of thing, and I was still dumbstruck. I slowly turned the crank clockwise, and a tiny tune began to float in the air.
I recognized it: “The Scientist” by Coldplay.
I felt my eyes prickle, and a knot of joy swelled in my throat.
“Did you get it specially made for me?” I asked, looking up at his face, but he looked away and chewed his lip.
“It’s…it’s not a big deal. When I saw it, I thought of you,” he said vaguely as though to assure me that I shouldn’t assign too much importance to it, and I instinctively jumped on him, clinging to him like a koala. Neilcaught me on the fly, cradling my thighs and marveling as I wrapped my legs around his hips.
“Thank you, Mr. Disaster. You never cease to surprise me. I am absolutely right when I tell you you’re special.” I kissed first his lips and then his jaw, rubbing my nose against his scruff while he grumbled under his breath.
It was adorable.
“Okay, Tinkerbell. Don’t push it. Sit back down, come on now.” He tried to pry me off, but I clung to him like a little kid. Neil rolled his eyes and snorted. “Why do you have to be so sickly sweet? Fuck…a thank-you would have sufficed,” he groused. I smiled and nodded just so he would shut up. “Now get off me. Release. Come on.” Another peremptory order. I gave him another delighted nod and didn’t obey. “Don’t just nod like you’re humoring me, Selene. I’m starting to get mad,” he warned me roughly. My only response was to stroke down the straight line of his nose, and he frowned, ceasing, at least for a moment, to object to my embrace. So I moved on to his lips like one enthralled, like I was trying to memorize every detail of his face. And, with a cheeky little smile, I gave him a chaste kiss. And then another and then another.
I looked impishly at him, and he cocked a skeptical eyebrow. Then he mumbled something about knocking it off.
We continued that silly tussle for a few minutes with me trying to kiss him all over, all the way to his soul, while he cursed and tried to squirm away from me.
Eventually, he put me back down on the bed and straightened his sweater, shooting a look of mock reproof at me. I cheekily stuck my tongue out at him and sat back as he put his coat on again.
Already it was time to tell him goodbye, and I had a ridiculous empty feeling inside.
“Do you really have to leave right now?” I asked him, tucking my hair behind my ears. He turned to face me, fixing his collar. I stared at him with frank admiration, totally consumed by the irresistible, almost magical hold he had over me.
“Yeah,” he answered. “But now I have to go to the bathroom before I leave. I have another giant hard-on to deal with,” he went on, gesturingtoward his groin. I looked right there and went red. I had inadvertently rubbed myself on him when I leaped on him, creating another wave of lust in the both of us.
“Okay, I’ll just wait here for you,” I told him awkwardly, and Neil left. I breathed a sigh of relief, but his presence had a way of transporting me to another world from which there was no escape. I shivered at the simple memory of having pleasured him with my mouth like that and wondered when I got so uninhibited. Or maybe I was simply in love, and that crazy feeling was what encouraged me to abandon all modesty?
At least when it came to him.
I patted my burning cheeks and looked at the little serinette. He’d never honestly tell me why he made such a thoughtful gesture, but I appreciated it all the same. That box was worth more to me than any verbal declaration of love.
I understood that it was all imperfect.
That we were imperfect, but at the same time we were a perfect mess.
I wanted his chaos.
Because that’s how Neil was.
