The Thrill of It

Chapter Seventeen

Trey

The subway takes too long. But if I were in a cab with her, I’d probably jump her, and whatever is going to happen between us tonight needs to happen behind closed doors. I want to be alone with her. I want to have her to myself. I don’t want anyone around, anyone to walk in, anyone to find us. I want to hole up with her and kiss and touch her all night long, until morning comes and our lips are red and raw, and we still can’t get enough of each other.

But the practical matter of transportation downtown comes first.

“I have big news,” she tells me as the train rattles underground.

“Yeah?”

I trace the vein on her forearm, from the heel of her hand to her elbow. Goosebumps rise on her skin, and she shivers. I will never grow tired of the way she responds to me.

“You make it hard to focus,” she chides. “And I want to tell you something. I finished. I’m done with Miranda!”

“Shit! Are you serious?”

She nods several times. “One hundred percent. Sent it off tonight.”

“That’s amazing. I’m seriously proud of you. Which I know sounds like a weird thing to say, but I am.”

She pats her back, pretends to look over her shoulder to see what’s there. “See that? Oh wait. You can’t. Because the monkey’s off my back.”

“Good riddance, monkey.”

There are other chains that bind her though. My chest constricts as I ask the next question. “But what about Cam? Did you tell him you’re done? Are you done?” I ask, hoping, praying, needing her no more than air right now.

She lowers her eyes. “I haven’t told him, but I will now.”

She takes her phone from her pocket, taps open a new message. I look away as a thick plume of jealousy snakes through me. I don’t want to know what she’s saying to him. I have to trust that it’s exactly what needs to be said.

She stuffs it back into her pocket. “Done. I’m free of these burdens. I want to start over. Start my new life from this day forward. Start everything like it’s the first time.”

“So this is it? No more Miranda, no more Cam, you’re done with the past?”

She nods.

“I don’t want you with him, Harley. He’s no good for you, and you don’t need that anymore. Okay?”

“I know. I know,” she says, and she seems resolute.

“Promise me you’re done? Promise me he’s the past?”

“I promise. I told him I won’t do the job he asked me to do. Some stupid dinner event. I said it’s over.”

I shake my head in disgust. I hate every single guy who’s hired her. I hate every dude everywhere who’s hired a girl. Because I’d be willing to bet most of those girls didn’t really want to be hired. Fine, Harley made her own choices, but she also didn’t. Her mom boxed her into a corner, gave her no choice, no options. So Harley did what I did. She tunneled her way out through sex.

“Good. Because I don’t want you with anyone else,” I tell her as the train winds around a curve, and I’m struck with how easy that was to say. I used to think speaking honestly was impossible, but now I’m two-for-two tonight.

“But what about rules? And trying to stay away? And being in recovery and all?”

“Fuck the rules,” I say, squeezing her fingers. “I want to be with you.”

“I want to be with you so badly it’s killing me,” she says in a breathy, desperate voice that makes me want to stop time and never forget this moment. Because this is perfect. Us. Here. Now. On the graffiti-filled subway, chugging into my stop, after I’ve told her the ugly truth of me, and she wants everything I’ve ever wanted too. Each other.

“I’m dying, Harley,” I say, bending my head to her neck. “I’m fucking dying without you. I need you. I want you. I want to teleport to my apartment right now because I can’t stand being on this train a second longer. I want to touch you all over. I want to be with you.”

“I want that too but we can’t go all the way. We can’t have sex. I’m just not ready.”

“We can do whatever you want. I have waited six months for you. I can wait longer if I have to. I can wait as long as you need. If all you want to do is kiss, I will happily spend the night doing that. Hell, if you want to play bridge we can do that too. Even though I have no clue how that game works.”

“I bet you know how to play strip poker though,” she teases.

“That I do.”

“Or just strip.”

When the train stops, we practically leap out of the car and bolt up the steps. After several blocks of near race-walking, we make it inside my building and up two flights of stairs. I unlock the door to my tiny studio, open it, and before the door closes, my hands are on her face.

“Kiss me,” I tell her. “Kiss me, Harley. And don’t stop.”

“Never,” she says, and then her mouth is on mine. She kisses me hard and ruthlessly, attacking my mouth, sucking on my tongue, nibbling and then biting my lips, and it’s like she’s devouring me and I want it. I desperately want her to feast on me, to leave bite marks all over my neck, to pin me down if she wants to, I don’t care, I just want her. I want to know what it feels like when the girl I am mad about is consumed with this kind of wildfire, this kind of intensity that she digs her nails into my wrists and slams her body into me, like we’re being crushed by some unseeable force that’s pushing us together, and if there’s any air or space left we’re dead. She wriggles that sexy, beautiful, insane body of hers against mine, her breasts smashed against my chest, her hips jammed into me, and her lips insisting on exploring every inch of mine.

This girl can take me, have me, tie me up, blindfold me if she wants, even though that’s honestly not my thing. But how I feel for her threatens to overpower everything else because this is a sweet unraveling as she obliterates my hold on the world, on time, on space, on anything but the ferocity of her kiss.

Then, in an instant, she breaks the kiss. She’s panting, and her brown eyes are wild, so wild, and her lips are parted and bruised already, and I feel like I’m a cartoon character seeing stars swirling around my head. Like I’m one step away from a dizzying collapse brought on by all these sensations that don’t just race – they tear like crazy fucking race cars taking curves at high speeds – through my veins.

“Hi,” she says, breathing out hard.

“Hi.”

“Are you going to show me your tattoos now?”

“Um, yeah,” I say, managing a few syllables though I doubt I’ve recovered the power of speech, considering how she kissed me raw and senseless. I am standing here stupid with lust, hard as a rock, and unable to form coherent thoughts.

Fortunately, I don’t have to.

She takes my hand, guides me over to my futon a few feet away. My apartment is crazy ass small, like most in New York, but it’s mine, and it’s stuffed with my notebooks and drawings and paperbacks and music. I hit the on button on my iPod in its base next to the futon that doubles as a bed, and turn Arcade Fire on low.

“Best. Band. Ever,” she says as we fall down onto the futon.

“No. Questions. Asked,” I say, with a smile, repeating the words we both said the night we met. I curve a hand around her neck. Bring my mouth to her ear. Hear her sigh. Whisper. “You said that the first time I saw you at my shop.”

“I know.”

“And we talked about everything that night. We talked about the beach and how much you want to go there again, and how you felt when you were there as a kid visiting your grandparents. And we talked about the music we love, and what we wanted out of life. And now here we are again.”

“Full circle or something like that,” she says with a smirk. “If I were a poet I’d make that sound all artful. But I’m just a wannabe. And now I want your shirt off.”

“Be my guest.”

She’s up on her knees now, grabbing the waistband. I raise my arms over my head and she tugs off my shirt. There’s no striptease, no slow, lingering removal of clothes. It is frenzied and necessary. She closes her eyes briefly, then opens them and inhales sharply. Seconds later, her hands are on my chest, her palms spread wide on my pecs, and I don’t ever want her to stop touching me.

She moves her index finger to my throat, then trails down my chest, softly, painting a line, drawing on me. I feel like I’m being marked by her, like she’s claiming my body. Down my ribs, along my side, across my waist.

I hitch in a breath as she touches my abs, her fingers turning me ragged with want.

I’m fighting every instinct to yank her down on top of me, to rip off all her clothes, then flip her over, open her legs and thrust into her. To look into her eyes as I enter her for the first time. I won’t do that though until she’s ready. But I won’t do anything tonight either until she explores me like she wants. Her hands leave my chest, reach my arms, her fingertips traveling from my shoulders down to my wrists, each second of contact winding me higher. I swear I’ll have to grip the edge of the futon soon to stay still.

She stops at my wrists, then bends her head, and her lips are on my skin, mapping an agonizingly slow trail of kisses up my arm until she reaches my right shoulder with the trio of sunbursts.

“What are these for?”

“Life,” I tell her. Her hair is draped over my arm, silky soft sheets, as she layers quiet kisses on my ink. First one sun. “Energy. Heat. Strength,” I add.

“To remind you to be strong?”

“Yeah,” I say with a forced laugh. “Didn’t work.”

She looks up, her eyes fierce again. Powerful. Passionate. “You are strong, Trey. You are so strong. Don’t ever think otherwise.”

Her belief in me is the strangest thing I’ve ever known. I’ve felt lust, I’ve felt rage, I’ve felt pain. I’ve felt sadness. I’ve felt power. But now this – faith in myself from another person. It’s foreign, and it’s heady, and it’s addictive in its own way.

She returns to my arm, kisses the other sun.

“And, I know this may seem obvious, but the sun means a lot of things to different cultures. Some believed it had the power to heal,” I tell her.

“And you wished the sun could have healed the hearts of your brothers?”

“Yeah,” I say, nodding, choking back the emotions that threaten to overtake me again. “But it’s also a symbol of light. And light in hard times. So I kinda wanted the sun to represent that. That the sun would shine through the past, and the darkness, and the death. That the day would start over, and maybe…” I say then trail off, because this is too much, too much closeness, too much admission.

The shadows from the moonlight stream in through the window, playing across her beautiful face.

“It’s okay, Trey. I believe that too. That maybe the sun can shine through the darkness. That’s what you were going to say, right?”

I nod.

“You wanted all of that,” she says, and it’s like she can see inside me, like she understands on such an instinctual level. “You marked your body because these were your hopes and your wishes for a new life. For a new future. For a life without so much pain. So much death.”

She moves to my chest now, kisses the three small silhouetted birds on my right pec. “And this bird? Is that for freedom? Flying away or something?”

“It’s a phoenix,” I whisper.

She tilts her head to the side. “I didn’t realize it was a phoenix.”

“It’s small. It’s hard to tell. It’s supposed to just be a representation anyway.”

“And does it mean resurrection? Rebirth?”

“Yeah. That’s why I did it. But then I was researching the phoenix when a client wanted one, and I learned something kind of cool. The Chinese believe the phoenix represented grace and femininity.”

“Really?”

I nod. “Yeah. It’s like a yin and yang thing. Dragons and phoenix together are a yin and yang. They are each other’s other halves.”

“They’d make quite a couple.”

“Maybe I need a dragon now. You know, so I can be whole again,” I say, reverting to mocking myself, because sometimes that’s easier.

She flashes a quick smile, but then continues her travels, the tip of her fingernail outlining one of the birds. I draw a deep breath. The feel of her is almost too much. “Or you could put a dragon on me,” she says in a low and husky voice.

I swallow. “I can?”

“Yeah. I liked it when you inked me. I want more.”

“I would love to give you another tattoo,” I tell her, and I can’t resist. I thread my hands through her hair, grab hard on the back of her head, and pull her in for another kiss. This time, I lead. I inhale her, savor her, run my tongue along her sexy lips, then crush my mouth to hers, hearing her whimper as I kiss her deeply. I want to kiss her so hard and so fiercely that it erases every other kiss she’s had, every memory, every client, every moment with another man. I want to brand her with my kisses, mark her as mine, make her lips all red and swollen, so everyone knows I’m the only one allowed to touch her, the only one with permission, the only one she’s ever wanted.

We kiss like that for hours, or maybe minutes, and she’s wiggling against me, and sighing into my mouth, but then her hands are back on my chest, and she pushes me away. A firm clear push.

Her nimble little fingers sneak their way down to my ribcage, to the new fresh art on my body. Three trees, twined together.

“Your trees,” she says, ginger with her touch, even though it doesn’t hurt. “You had them done today.”

“Yeah, I did.”

“They’re beautiful. And they’re perfect, because a tree can be many, many things. But it is always, forever and ever, the symbol of life,” she says with a kind of reverence as she stares, mesmerized, tracing the outlines on my flesh.

Life. It’s what’s happening now. It’s the real, scary, dangerous, amazing possibility in front of me. There are no guarantees. I don’t know what happens next or tomorrow or in a week or a month. With all my other women, I knew what they were. They were temporary. They were pills, they were bottles, they were long, slow hits on a pipe. Some left you high for hours, some for days, the rare few for a week or more. But you always came down. You always found another. I kept painting over all the vacant corners in my heart, a new coat, then another, then I’d try for one more.

But now, I don’t know what’s going to happen.

And I have to be okay with that. All I know is this moment, this night, is the closest I’ve ever come to magic, and I want to feel every second of it.

“Your turn,” I say, grabbing her hip, tugging at her shirt. “Let’s take your shirt off.”

“Why, I thought you’d never ask,” she says, playfully, and in seconds she is shirtless too.

God, she’s breathtaking. She has the most beautiful body I’ve ever seen, and I’ve seen plenty. But no one can hold a candle to Harley. I could say it’s her breasts or her belly or her legs. But it’s not. It’s the tiny mole on her right shoulder. It’s her elbow. It’s her ragged cuticle. It’s the slim white scar on her kneecap from field hockey. It’s every part.

“I have no choice. I have to take your bra off,” I tell her, then loop my hands around her back and undo her bra, letting it fall to the floor. I cup her breasts and she gasps. I knead them and watch her reaction as she closes her eyes and her head falls back. Her lips are parted and she breathes out hard as I run my thumbs over her nipples. Reflexively, she moves closer, shifting her hips, and I don’t know how the hell I’m going to hold out, because I love everything about how her body reacts. I want to know every inch of her. I want to kiss her from head to toe. I want her under me, on top of me, beside me. I want to drown myself in her scent, in her taste, in her.

I bury my head between her breasts, licking and kissing and squeezing, and her hands shoot up to my head. Her fingers grapple through my hair, and she tugs my mouth closer, and I go with it. I give her what she wants. More of my mouth, kissing and flicking her pert nipples, until she’s panting harder, and I can’t fucking wait anymore.

I’ve gone six months without tasting her on my lips, and I want to be drenched in her right now.

I pull back, plant a quick kiss on her lips, then trail my tongue along her jawline up to her ear. “Let me go down on you.”

She doesn’t answer immediately. Then quietly, in a small, squeaky voice, she says “Okay.”

But she’s all monotone and she doesn’t sound into it. I give her a sharp stare, tilting my head. “Okay? That’s it? Just okay?”

“Trey,” she says, and her voice is shaking.

“Trey what?”

“Do I have to spell it out?”

“No. I mean, maybe yes. I just want to make sure you want it.”

“It’s hard for me to say what I want,” she says, turning her head, and flinging her hand over her eyes.

I gently remove her hand. Kiss her eyes. “Hey. It’s okay. I’m sorry. I don’t want to pressure you.”

“I want it,” she says. “I want you. It’s just that I’m not used to wanting it. Okay? I don’t know how to ask for it.”

I grin. I can’t help myself. “This is how you ask for it. Trey, I’m dying for your face between my legs. Say that.”

She narrows her eyes at me and huffs.

“Just try,” I say softly, nuzzling her neck.

“Why?”

“Cause it’s so fucking hot to hear you say that I think I might come just from hearing you say that.”

She smacks my shoulder. “Jesus.”

“I’m sorry, but you’re insanely hot, and I’m dying to taste you and I know you’re not vocal or into saying what you want and that’s fine. But fuck, Harley. I’ve never wanted anyone like this. And I could spend all night touching your body. And it’s not because you’re hot or beautiful. Because you are those things. It’s because you’re you. You’re the girl I want. You’re the girl I want to be with. You’re the girl I’m crazy for.”

She inhales sharply. “Trey,” she whispers. I meet her eyes, they are fiery and wild, but tentative too. Then she pushes through. “I’m dying for your face between my legs,” she says in a broken little whisper, so low it’s almost inaudible, but I hear every delicious word and they set me on fire.

I undo her jeans, pull them off quickly, then tug off her panties. I don’t even have time to admire them. I have a mission and I’m going for it.

My whole body is a live wire right now. I am consumed with nothing but desire for her. My bones, my blood, my nerves are all firing at mach speed with the need to have her. Of course, I’m pretty sure all the blood in my body has been diverted to one place and one place only because I am too hard for words.

But fuck words.

It’s time for action.

She trembles with anticipation and looks at me with desire, want and the tiniest bit of fear, but I know she’s not scared of me. It’s the fear of letting herself feel that’s gripping her. But I am going to make her feel everything. I place my hands on her knees. “I’m going to spread your legs now,” I tell her.

“Okay,” she says with a twinkle in her eyes, giving that lame-ass word right back to me. But her okay doesn’t bug me now. Because her body has made everything clear. She’s so ready, she’s beyond ready, it’s like she’s fucking glistening for me, and I can not wait to taste her.

She lets her legs fall open, and that’s it. I’m fucking done. I kiss the inside of one leg, from behind her knee, up her thigh. She shivers, the soft little hairs on her leg stand on end. Then I switch to her other leg, inching closer, and she’s already breathing harder. Her hands search for me, her fingers lacing through my hair as she tries to pull me in.

“Do you want me to lick you, Harley?”

“Yes.”

“Do you want me to taste you now?”

“Yes,” she says again, her voice nearing a beg.

“Do you want me to make you come on my tongue?”

“Yes, please,” she says, and that last word has several syllables as it turns into a long, low moan of pleasure as I bring my lips to her. To where she wants me. God, she tastes fucking amazing, and I have missed this, I have dreamed of this, I have jerked off to this many, many times. And now I’m back in the promised land, where I want to be. I want to have her, to kiss her, to do everything to her with my mouth. To feel her body move and arch against my face.

I grab her ass, cup her cheeks, pull her closer, and she makes another sound. A bit louder this time, but still, she’s a quiet one. She might always be a quiet one and that’s fine with me. I don’t need her to scream or shout to know I’m doing it right. I know because of how she’s moving beneath me, how she’s starting to rock her hips and grab my hair. I know because of how she’s breathing out hard and stilted, and how she tastes on my lips and my tongue. I will never get enough of her, I will never stop wanting this, wanting her, wanting to taste her come on my tongue.

Judging from the way she’s arching her back and thrusting into me, I’m pretty sure that’s going to happen any second. I follow her lead, kissing and tasting and licking her exactly how she likes, in the ways that make her go crazy, make her thrash around. I glance up, watching her reaction, as she grabs the pillow, digging her nails into it, gripping it hard.

Then she says the most glorious thing I’ve ever heard. She says my name so loudly, and she doesn’t stop saying it until the orgasm has rocked her body, and even then she’s still gasping, her legs trembling as it fades like a wave rolling back out to the sea at night.

Harley

I feel it in my fingertips. In my toes. In my hair. Hell, I feel that orgasm in my split ends. Not that I have any. Split ends, that is. But if I did, I’d feel it there too. It’s still radiating through my entire body, and I think I may be floating for days on this cloud of absolute and utter bliss, like the whole world has turned bright white and gold, and everything is beautiful.

Trey flops down next to me, looking immensely pleased.

He nuzzles my neck, whispers in my ear. “You are so sexy when you come.”

“Thank you,” I say, feeling the slightest bit embarrassed. I’ve only had five, maybe ten orgasms tops, in my life. I’m guessing four have been ones he’s given me. All the others were self-delivered, and I’ve never been terribly preoccupied with rubbing one out. Sex has always reminded me of things I don’t want to be reminded me of. There was too much sex around me anyway—smells and sounds, all those awful sounds from my mom’s bedroom or her office. Sounds I never wanted to hear. Sounds I never wanted to make. To be honest, I’ve never wanted to be touched before. I didn’t want someone trying to get me off, trying to make me feel good. I didn’t want to know what I’d sound like when someone did that to me.

But with Trey, I let go of all that. He’s the only man I’ve ever wanted to feel things with, feel things for. With him, I am learning to let go. Learning that sex doesn’t have to be embarrassing. That contact doesn’t have to remind me of all the ways I grew up. Giving up control, and trusting another person doesn’t have to be the scariest thing in the world. It can be incredible on its own.

“Hi,” he whispers.

“Hi,” I say back.

“You look woozy. But that’s a compliment.”

I smile, but say nothing. I’m not sure what to say.

“I know I should feel guilty since I’m supposed to be a monk or something,” he says, tracing lazy circles on my belly. He bends his lips to my stomach, kisses me there, makes me tremble. “But I don’t.”

I run my fingers through his hair, so soft to the touch, so nice on my hand. “Me neither.”

He tugs me closer. I’m naked against him and he’s still wearing his jeans. With him wrapped around me, I can feel his erection. I can feel how hard he is through the denim, his size pressing against my naked skin.

I feel a rush of heat between my legs, thinking about how hard he is. Damn. I already had an orgasm and now I’m wet again, ready again. I squeeze my eyes shut, and I don’t know what I feel. If I’m ashamed, or excited, or both.

He kisses my eyelids. Then I open my eyes so I can look at his beautiful face and trace his scar that I love.

“What’s wrong?” He runs his hand along my arm, concern in his features. I don’t think he can stop touching me.

I open my mouth to try to speak, but my throat feels dry. How was I able to be such a seductress when I worked the men up and down Manhattan, and now with him I can barely eke out anything but okays? This is a new language I am learning. I am relearning the basic words, saying them for the first time, mucking up the pronunciation.

But this is Trey. He wants me as I am. He takes me as I am. He wants me sans makeup, sans costume, no lies, no airs, no tricks. So I try on the words for size, hoping I can get them out. “I’m turned on again, feeling you against me.”

His eyes widen with lust, and he groans loudly. He clamps a hand onto my hip, pulls me closer. “Fuck, Harley.”

“You say fuck a lot,” I say.

“I know. But fuck. Fuck. Fuck. You say these things to me and I’m dying. You don’t even know how sexy you are. How hot you are. How much I want you.”

Want.

I decided to borrow his words. To mimic. “I want you,” I say.

He raises. “You do? I thought on the subway you said…”

“I know. And I’m not ready for sex. But you know that thing I said I’ve never done? In the drinking game?”

“Oh god,” he moans roughly, pushing his hand through his hair.

“Can I?”

“Please,” he says, his voice has already turned into a beg, and he’s so ready, so turned on that he already has his hands on his jeans and is starting to unbutton them.

“Wait,” I say.

“For?”

“I don’t know how to do it. You have to teach me.”

“It would be my greatest pleasure,” he says.

I sit up on my knees. Place a hand on his belly. On his ridiculously flat and carved abs. “You have to let me undress you.”

“I won’t argue,” he says, and lies flat, tucking his hands behind his head.

I undo the button, then unzip his jeans, tug them down his hips, over his knees, and off. He pushes off his socks. I return to his underwear. White boxer briefs that leave nothing to the imagination. He’s so hard and I can see the outline of his cock perfectly. I draw a sharp intake of breath because he’s So. Fucking. Big. I don’t know how I can take him in my mouth, let alone have him inside me someday. But yet I want to know. I want to learn. Because I love that he’s big and I place my hand on him through his briefs, and he groans and rocks his hips against me instantly.

“Take them off, Harley. Please,” he says, and this guy, he has no problem asking for it. Like he asked me to kiss him. Like he’s asking me to undress him. I don’t want to linger on the why, but he has no hangups and there’s something so freeing about that. Maybe because he’s so different from my clients. Because this is so different from any encounter I’ve ever had. It seems so normal, so right, so the way a guy and a girl feel for each other. All want and heat and lust.

I reach for the waistband, pull down his briefs, and his erection springs free.

I touch him and he’s hot and hard and smooth. And I have no fucking clue what to do next. Do I just wrap my lips around him and suck?

His eyes are closed and he’s already breathing hard. “Um, Trey,” I say, red rushing to my cheeks. I’m an absolute idiot. A clueless idiot. Because I’m a former call girl and I don’t know how to give a blow job.

He opens his eyes. They are hazy and glassy and he looks like he’s drifting off to a happy land.

“I don’t know what to do,” I admit.

He props himself up on his elbows and this is awkward. His cock is in my hand, twitching against my palm, but we’re talking about what I’m about to do as if it’s a medical procedure.

“It’s actually pretty simple,” he tells me. “You just take my dick in your mouth. And you try not to bite, and the way you do that is like this,” he says, then he shows me by pushing his lips over his teeth. “And that’s really the most important part. Trust me, as long as you don’t bite down hard, I’m going to be coming in about a minute.”

I nod. “Okay, here goes nothing.”

Then he stops me. “Wait. Do you want me to come in your mouth?”

“I don’t know. Do I?”

“That’s up to you. But if you don’t I’ll just tell you when I’m about to come, and you can stop sucking, and then just use your hand, okay?”

“Okay,” I say, and I smile, and I laugh, and I drop my face into my free hand.

“What is it, Harley?”

“Nothing. I mean. It’s just this is funny, right?”

He nods and smiles too. “Kinda.”

“I mean, we’re sitting here, and your dick is in my hand, and I’m asking you for tips, and you’re giving me advice for my first blow job, and I’m laughing, and you’re laughing, and it’s kind of awesome.”

Then I lick the head of his cock. “Holy fuck,” he says, and that’s all I’ve done, but he’s into it.

I lick more, kissing the head, then bringing more of him between my lips. He groans and moans, and I love the way he sounds, how he just lets go, and curses like a sailor, or a biker, or a guy in a bar.

Or really, like himself.

Like my Trey.

I pull my lips over my teeth, like he said to do, and I take him in further. I can feel myself start to gag, but then I relax my throat. I don’t know that this is my new favorite thing in the world, I don’t know that I’ve found a hobby like knitting is for Joanne, but I know this – he likes it.

And he likes it because it’s me. Because I’m doing it. Because I’m licking him, tasting him, and wrapping my lips around his hard length, and he likes it because he’s not paying me, and I’m not seducing him, and there’s no agenda. We are just a guy and a girl trying to figure out what it’s like to be with someone when it’s not a game, when it’s not an addiction, when it’s not a transaction.

Soon, as in seconds later, he grabs hard on my hair and moans loudly. “Fuck, Harley. Fucking, fuck. Use your hand too. Grip me with your hand,” he tells me in a hoarse voice, pulling me close, but not too far that I gag. Because, let’s face it, he’s occupying a lot of my mouth right now and I had no clue I could open that wide. I wrap my hand around the base as I move my mouth up and down. He’s salty and musky, and it’s a scent I could get used to because it’s him and I want him. I want him so badly, I am aching between my legs again. I am slippery wet because the sounds he’s making are the complete opposite of me. He’s loud as he curses and narrates everything. “Just like that. Oh god, Harley I’m going to come. I’m going to fucking come now.”

I could finish him off in my hand, but I’ve gone all in. I’m not giving my first blow job in a half-baked, half-ass way. I’m going all the way. He comes in my mouth, and I swallow the taste of him.

He shudders and hisses, and then he whistles. Yes, he actually whistles as I release him and slink up next to him. His eyes are closed, but his lips are curved into this crazy sexy grin, and he’s fucking humming.

“That’s adorable that you whistle after a blow job.”

“I’m whistling a happy tune,” he murmurs. Soon, he opens his eyes, and he looks drunk and happy. “Congratulations on your first blow job, Harley.”

I roll my eyes, swat his shoulder. He grabs me, pulls my naked body next to his.

“How was it?” I ask.

“You want to know?”

“Yes.”

“You really want to know?”

“Yes, idiot. That’s why I asked.”

“Now, I’m gonna tell you. But you can’t get mad at me. And you can’t analyze it. And you can’t hold it against me.”

I tense. “That’s not good.”

“No. It is good. It was good. Harley,” he says, holding my gaze, looking intensely serious. “It was the best ever. Because it was you.”

I melt and wriggle against him. Then, he slips his hand between my legs. Raises an eyebrow when he feels how wet I am. “You liked doing that to me evidently?”

“Yes,” I say, and I feel no shame. I did like it. I like him.

“A lot, huh?”

He slides his thumb across me, and in an instant I am gasping for breath.

“Yes,” I pant.

“So much that it made you this wet?” He draws a delicious line through all that wetness. I’m sure I’m coating his fingers right now, and I’m also sure I don’t care.

Nor does he. Because he brings his fingers to his mouth, licks them, them returns them to me. “You’re so fucking delicious,” he tells me, as he strokes me more, and I grab his shoulder to hold on. We’re lying next to each other, facing each other, and he slides his fingers across me, and I moan.

“Oh,” I say, and I start to close my eyes and just let go, let myself feel what he’s doing to me.

“Open your eyes, Harley,” he tells me, and I do. “I want to watch you when you come. I want you to look at me as I touch you.”

I nod, whimpering heavily as he rubs his thumb against me where I want him most. I open my legs more for him, hooking my thigh over his as he runs his finger across me. I’m so aroused again, throbbing with heat, and I can’t believe I am already this ratcheted up after what he did to me, but I am.

My body is unlocked. Everything I’ve kept inside, everything I’ve forbidden myself from feeling, is happening. It’s like I had lost my voice for ages and I didn’t even want to find it, but then I found it, he found it, and he opened the treasure chest and set me free. Now I’m feeling the most delicious, delirious, intense feelings in the world, in the solar system, in the whole damn universe as he strokes me, his fingers slipping across my wetness. “Rock into me,” he tells me in a hot whisper as I dig my nails into his shoulder. “Rock into my hand. I want you to get off again. I want to be the one who makes you come again and again. I want to hear my name on your lips.”

“Trey,” I whisper.

“Like that,” he says, and I move again, arching into his hand, his touch some kind of deliciousness, his eyes searching me, knowing all my past, all my secrets, all my shame, and even so, he still wants everything about me, every part of me, and this part too. I grip his shoulder harder, needing terribly to hold on to him as pleasure ripples through me, lighting me up, like fireworks sparkling through my whole body. My belly tightens and my breathing grows erratic as he sends me off into another orgasm.

“Trey,” I say, then I manage two more words. Words I have never said out loud to a man. “I’m coming.”

“Yes, you are. You’re coming for me Harley. You’re coming for me.”

“I’m coming for you,” I repeat as the pleasure floods me, and I close my eyes, rocking into his hand, the spasms and aftershocks rolling through me.