Seconds pass, maybe a minute, with no response. My face burns with mortification and I wish, more than anything, that I could start today from the beginning. I wouldn’t invite Julian over. Would certainly not have spent the morning pushing my cart around the local Jewel for ingredients for tonight’s dinner. I would have been comfortable in sweats and slippers, not battling acid reflux and a nip slip in this too tight velvet number—
Suddenly, I am being propelled roughly forward. It takes me a second to realize that it’s Julian, tugging me into the space between his legs by the fabric at my hips. I tumble into him, my hands grabbing hold of his shoulders for purchase and my knees knocking against the edge of his seat, but he doesn’t apologize, just watches me with a stare so intense that I feel the pressure of it against my skull.
“Do you think I don’twantto sleep with you?” he says. His voice is strained. The way it used to get before, like he is one temptation away from eating me alive.
“What else am I supposed to think? I—”
The rest of my words are swallowed in a gasp; Julian tugs the skirt of my dress up and over my hips. The cool air hits my stockinged thighs, and I don’t even have a chance to shiver before his warm hands cup my ass. Julian sighs, then rests his head on my chest as his hands wander higher. They find the waistband of my tights, tug at them like he’s trying to decide whether to roll them down or tear them apart.
“You don’t have to worry about if I want to sleep with you,” he says, deciding on the former. I step out of my heels as he rolls the tights down over my hips, pausing to caress the exposed skin as he reveals it. “You should worry more about whether I’ll be able to find the strength to stop.”
There it is again, hesitation that has no reason to exist. I hook myhands around his jaw, tilt his head back so that he can see the conviction in my eyes.
“Let me make this even more abundantly clear,” I say, watching his lips part, his eyes darken. “I don’t want you to stop.”
I can almost see the moment when the final thread of Julian’s tenuous control snaps. He makes a sound that is half growl, half groan, and suddenly I’m being lifted into the air and deposited onto the cool granite of my kitchen island, one leg of my tights hanging helplessly between us. He snatches the rest of it off, tosses it to the ground with a finality that makes my thighs quiver.
“You are something else,” he whispers, his mouth hovering so close above mine that I can feel the words form. His other hand wanders between my legs, and I hiss, the familiar friction so welcome that I could almost cry. “So wet already.”
“Yes,” I whimper. “Always, when I’m with you.”
Julian finds my clit through my panties, nestles it between two firm fingers. I’m not sure what sound I make, whether it is a moan or a cry or even his name, just that his jaw tenses with satisfaction and his mouth meets mine. He’s rough, but he rides the line between inflicting pain and pleasure as perfectly as if he lives in my head, feels what I feel.
It is everything I have dreamed of, everything that I have wanted. I am hungry for him, my fingers scrabbling at the buttons of his shirt as he searches for the back zipper of my dress. When our bare chests collide we groan in gratified unison, and I mourn all the hours we have spent not pressed skin to skin, not exchanging heat like we do now. My body remembers him, recalls his shape and stretch and rhythm, and this time when I unbuckle his belt and close my hand around him he doesn’t pull away, only gasps my name.
“You’re so hard,” I observe stupidly, stroking this object of my affection.
Julian’s eyelids flutter, his chest expanding in a stammering inhale.
“Always, when I’m with you,” he repeats, and before I can retort, he takes my chin in a gentle bite, lavishes my neck and clavicle with open-mouthed kisses until he finally reaches my breasts. I push them together with my upper arms, presenting them to him like a gift. My nipples, already pebbled, throb under his gaze, and he jerks, a live, wild thing, in my hands.
Julian’s first touch is tentative, a feather-light course of his tongue around my areola that leaves it damp and singing for him. His second is ravenous, a suck of my nipple into his mouth that makes me hiss in pleasure. He wets his fingers, rolls the other between them, and it’s like he’s flipped a switch, taken me from panting with need to writhing with it.
“Please, Jules,” I cry, delirious. I scoot to the edge of the counter, direct him to where I want him. He slides against the seat of my thong, which is still on,why is it still on, and my eyes nearly cross. “Please.”
Julian’s moan rips out of him helplessly, and he ruts against me harder, pushing against my entrance through the fabric.
“I want to, Sean,” he says, voice shaking. “I want to so bad—”
I arch against him, demonstrating how badly I want him too.
“Then stop thinking so hard,” I whisper against his ear. “Fuck me. I want you to.”
Julian’s sigh is one of defeat. He breathes into my neck, a slow, almost doleful exhale. Then, finally, he drags my panties to the side, and with a firm, declarative thrust, gives me exactly what I’ve been begging for.
My world flashes white.White satin fabric, white walls, amber eyes,pleasure so all-consuming I think it might kill me.My grip on the back of Julian’s shirt is vise tight and my throat feels raw from breathing or crying out or both. There’s no gentleness in what he’s doing to me right now, no finesse, just an animalistic drive to pound me into the granite. I hold on for dear life, let myself become undone. He feels so good, like every part of him, from these soft lips to those strong hands to the dick that ravages me now, was made just for me, just for this.
“Tell me you’re mine,” a voice says in my ear.
Julian’s voice, but not from Julian’s mouth. That one is busy and full of my tongue. Behind my closed eyes, my world flashes white again, and he comes into focus: Dream Julian, with his burnished bronze skin and eyes like hot coals. His fingers twist my nipples as Real Julian’s grip my hips, his teeth tug my earlobe while Real Julian’s worry my bottom lip, but they’re both inside me. I feel them both, like shadows of the other, their rhythm syncedjust so, so that I am always filled. It’s sin personified, so debauched that just the thought of it drags me to the edge.
“Tell me, songbird,” Dream Julian says again. “I want to hear it.”
The temperature we generate rises to boiling, not just the heat of two bodies clasped together, but something else, something that floods me from the center of my chest to the tips of my fingers, pleasure that leaves my nerves shivering in their sheaths. I remember this. I balked at it last time, but now it seems like there’s nothing to fear. I embrace it. I want it.Give it to me, I think.Let me burn.
“Yes,” I sigh. “Yes, baby, please, I’m y—”
Julian pulls out of me suddenly, and it feels like someone has just turned on their brights.