“Mae,” he managed to say after a minute, pulling away. “I want to go slower this time.”
“Yeah,” Mae breathed, eyes blown out, mouth so very pink. “I want to see you.”
But even with the best of intentions, somehow the next ten minutes went by very fast, clothes shed without grace, hands moving with fervor, until he was on his back and her hands were on him, guiding him inside, and she was sinking down, down, eyes fluttering closed, sounds escaping her throat, tiny gasps and long breaths and it was only when she was seated, only when she started a slow, languorous rhythm, leaning over him to kiss his chest, his shoulders, bellies pushed together, that Dell caught his breath.
Not completely. But enough to breathe, to blink his eyes wide open and look.
He had been in such a hurry when he’d entered the ADU, taken over by such a desperate need, that he hadn’t been able to fully absorb the details of her. When Dell had taken off Mae’s shirt on that counter, revealing she was braless, Dell’s main thought had beenTITS.But now he took the time as Mae moved over him to run his hands over her shoulders, taking special care to investigate her left arm. The one with the tattoos. All the black lines and color.
“Incongruous,” he said with a soft smile.
She smiled back.
“Incongruous does it for you, huh?”
“Yeah.” He met her heavy-lidded eyes. “It does.”
He’d spent enough time with her now, had cast enough glances at her arms to already know most of the tattoos, every flower, every trailing leaf and vine. But he had never had a chance to kiss them before. Had never had a chance to bite her tattooed shoulder, until now.
Her skin was salty underneath his tongue, soft underneath his teeth. She whimpered as he made his way down her arm, past the lavender and poppies and forget-me-nots, the barbs of all the stems and thorns in between. Until she lifted his own arm, removing it from where it caressed her side, to bring his hand to her mouth. His head dropped back onto the pillow as she kissed his fingernails, one by one.
“They’re starting to chip,” he rasped, wishing it hadn’t been weeks since his last manicure, wishing they were fresh for her.
“They’re perfect,” she said before sucking his pinky into her mouth. Each of his fingers followed, each digit wrapped inside her tongue until he couldn’t help but push up into her, even deeper inside, until she was moaning around his thumb.
“Dell,” she whispered, eyes closed as she finally let his hands drop. “Slow.”
And Dell tried; he really tried to listen. To do his part.
But then Mae found a spot. A spot where the friction on her clit must have been just right. Where he was hitting her inside just so. Whatever was happening, a sharp gasp escaped her throat as her mouth dropped open, as those ombré eyelashes fluttered against her cheeks. It was a sound Dell heard in a place deep inside himself, deeper than his own pleasure, a sound he would never forget.
“Oh,fuck,” she whisper-screamed. “Oh fuck oh fuck oh fuck.”
Dell tried to lift his hips, to meet her halfway, but she smacked his arm.
“Don’t,” she breathed, moving against him abruptly, shockingly fast. “Don’t you move. This is perfect. Perfect. Oh god.”
“What are these?” Dell tried to grasp the pendants of her necklace in his fingers as they bounced against her chest. “These flowers. Do they mean something?”
“Dell. You cannot seriously be asking me this now.”
“I want to know. I’ve always wanted to know.”
“Oh god don’t move. They’re the state flowers of all the places I’ve lived.Fuck.”
Dell dropped his hand and didn’t move, only held onto her hips as she rode him, as she kept sayingfuckover and over, barely audible, high pitched, a sloppy pleasure-filled symphony, until she was shouting and then suddenly silent. Her face was cherry red, forehead creased, and Dell could only look at the palette of her as she came, the pink of her hair and red of her cheeks, the pink of her mouth and the red of her tongue, the gold pendants quaking on her chest, the pastels of the tattoos caging his body in, and as he came soon after all he could think about was how she looked like dessert, like a sticky summer treat, like a spring garden showcase.
“Fuck me,” Mae shouted as she collapsed on top of him, her breasts smooshed against his, her breath hot on his neck. “Oh god Dell that was so good.”
“I’m glad,” he murmured, arms wrapped around her back, holding her close, the way he always wanted to hold and be held, after. “I’m so glad.”
* * *
On Monday, the glass in the picture window of Bay Books was finally replaced. Mae hesitated only an hour or two after the workers had left, and then she put up her flags once more.
On Tuesday, Mae and Dell fucked in the office.
She hadn’t planned that particular chain of events, but Dell had taken to sneaking up behind her as she arranged and rearranged books on her shelves—Dell had installed four more of them; there were only three to go; there was so much space, now, for her to play with her books—and kissing her neck, wrapping his arms around her belly. It was a rather rude trick, she thought. She really did have a lot of work to do.
