Restricted Release Page 5

  I squawked. “What?”

  “Did he tie you up? Spank you? How about some nipple clamps?” She made twirling motions around her breasts and my face felt like it might burst into flames.

  I swatted her hand away and then poured the boiling water into the press. “Stop.” I whispered it and my sister stilled.

  “Sorry, kid. I know. This is a big thing for you. I get it, I do. But I don’t want you to overthink it and cripple the moment with analyzing. Just enjoy it. You never would have done it if you didn’t like him. And fuck knows you would never have done it if you didn’t feel some kind of trust in him.”

  I looked at my feet and when the timer was done I poured her mug of coffee. My sister took the Snoopy mug and started to doctor her drink. “Maybe I was just horny,” I tried.

  Her eyes cut to me and she snorted. “Yeah. That was it.”

  “Could be.”

  “Not unless you’ve had a personality transplant recently. If you fucked him.”

  “Had sex,” I sighed.

  “Nailed.”

  “Made love to.” But even I couldn’t say that with a straight face.

  “Boffed, reamed, humped, rode—”

  “Okay! Okay!” I screeched but I was laughing. “Whatever. What is your point, Cat?”

  “If you were with this guy,” Cat said, leaning close, “then there is something there. Something palpable to you. Richard rerouted your mind and self-esteem. You’re still healing. I know you, baby sister. You wouldn’t be with this guy if something in you didn’t say it was good. It was okay.”

  Her voice had gotten soft, almost pitying, and that was somehow worse than all her obscene wordage. “Okay enough. I’ll just tell you. He was good.”

  “Whew,” she said, pretending to wipe her brow. “Good. To. Know.”

  “And if you look out that window you might see him at his sink.”

  She practically broke her neck getting to the window.

  “Nothing.”

  “Sorry, chick.” I hid a laugh behind my hand.

  “Bleh. You’d think after all this time I’d get to see him. So, was it…”

  I held up my hand. “Don’t make me relive it blow by blow. It was good. Good enough—he’s good enough—to make me feel…” I shook my head. “Weird.”

  “Good weird or bad weird?” She dug through my cabinet without asking and finally came out with a box of biscotti. “You know it’s like trying to pan for gold to find sugar in this house.”

  That was because sugar still scared me. Sugar, cheese, bacon, chocolate. I could go on. Apart from the packs of raw sugar for my morning coffee, I tried to avoid it. And that was only because toxic artificial sweeteners scared me more than sugar.

  I ignored her statement and said, “Good weird. But the good part terrifies me.”

  “Ah so you felt something.” She sat in the chair and crossed her legs, swinging her top leg wildly. Cat wore argyle socks that made me think of Valentine’s Day, which had just passed. Red, pink, white and gray diamonds of color decorated her calves.

  “I felt stuff, yes.”

  “And by stuff you don’t just mean his cock?”

  My head hit the table and I considered just staying like that and banging it. “Caaaaaat,” I moaned.

  “Okay, okay, I am just kidding. Jeesh. Don’t get your panties in a bunch. I mean, if you still have them.”

  I kept my head down and a groan rushed out of me. “You are terrible,” I whispered, feeling suddenly exhausted.

  “Nope. I’m fun. And honest. I’m a real pip as Grandma used to say. But I am also very late. Being a high priority—” she snorted “secretary for a big mortgage firm doesn’t stop just because of a little snow. They let us come in late today but I’m already pushing it.”

  Cat stood, kissed my head and whispered, “Do some work, watch some TV, get drunk, think it over…whatever you need to do, chick. Just realize that if you feel something you are not only on the road to healing your fine self, you are also recognizing something in him that is good.”

  She pulled her boots back on and her hat and waved before slipping out the kitchen door. I went behind her to lock it and a smiling, rosy-cheeked Matt glanced up from his back stoop where he was sweeping the steps free of snow.

  I gave him a smile. The smile touched my stomach where butterflies were currently flocking. I waved fast and ducked back inside before I could give in to a sudden manic urge to rush over his back fence and kiss him.

  As I locked the door I wished I’d asked him for the picture he’d drawn of me the night before. I wished I could stare at it to maybe see what he saw in me.

  Chapter Eleven

  I immersed myself in the online world of plants and dinosaurs and genetics for two days. I pushed away the thoughts of Matt and his offer to call when I was ready. The moment I’d left him that night I felt like I’d been ready. But the other part of me—the dented, dinged-up part of me—felt I’d never be ready. It was easier to hide.

  “You need to go out and shovel snow,” Cat said Saturday afternoon. “You’ll be snowed in.”

  “We got three inches. I doubt I’ll be snowed in. Plus…” I wavered for a moment.

  “Plus what?”

  “Plus when I peeked out to get the weekend paper—”

  “Dudley Do-Right had shoveled!”

  I nodded to the phone. “Yep. He’d done it and never knocked. Front and back. I must have been working upstairs.”

  Cat proceeded to read me the riot act and still it took the remainder of Saturday for me to admit to myself that I wanted to call him. That part of me needed to call him.

  The conversation with Cat and the realization of need. Oh and the accidental glimpse of him walking from the bathroom butt-naked. It was just a slight feeling at just the right moment and it got me right in the chest and between the legs.

  I wrestled myself in bed that night, trying to stay silent as I touched myself, clutching my sex with my hand, fingers driving deep, my palm pressing, pressing, pressing my clit as I tried to get off. And when I did it was loud and big and free. It had been so long since I’d been those things even with myself.

  I fell asleep replaying the image of his muscular back and thighs and ass as he’d left the room. The image of him entering me Thursday night and hovering over me like some dark, shorn angel. And explaining to me what I was. Not the person I imagined I was but the person he saw.

  When I woke Sunday morning I rolled to my belly and found the pilfered sweatshirt. I pushed it to my face and just stayed that way, smelling him on the cloth.

  “You are a mindfuck, Matt Millen,” I said. I rubbed my fingers slowly over my belly until I shivered with the sensation. The smell of him rushed into my head and I moved my hips up a little.

  Parting my nether lips with my fingers, I pressed to feel the nerve endings on either side of my clitoris buzz with the pressure. A steady thump had infiltrated my pussy and my womb and it matched my heartbeat.

  I pushed my face against the gray sweatshirt and dipped my finger into my juices, rolled my fingertip over my swollen clit. That knot of flesh let loose a warmth that spread through my pelvis and my belly. I went tense with it until the tension broke and bled into a lazy kind of pleasure.

  My fingers filled me and in my mind it was him. My palm pressed down and in my mind it was the root of his cock. My fingertips pressed my G-spot so my toes curled with the anticipation and in my mind it was the tip of him. Working me, nudging me, brushing me in the plump pink places I needed it most. And when I called up the taste of his tongue on mine I came with a sigh that sounded like I was deflating. The way the orgasm shook me to my bones and marrow I felt like I was.

  I stayed sprawled there, my hand in my pajama pants, my heart finally slowing. The distant tick of the living room clock filled my ears and the smell of him still filled my head. Finally I rolled to my belly again and snagged my cell phone from my nightstand. I hit the Menu button and found my contact list. MM was number two
, right after Cat. I pushed the green receiver icon and it dialed.

  “Hello?” He sounded sleepy and groggy and I pictured him with a squint on his handsome face and some serious stubble on his jaw. He didn’t have enough hair to have bedhead, but I bet he had a section flattened from sleep. And I knew he’d have an erection. Morning wood, as Cat called it.

  “Hey, it’s me…” I coughed lightly to get my heart beating again. I was dying from fear. “I was ready to call.”

  “Good morning, Clara. Can I bring you coffee?” he asked without missing a beat.

  * * * * *

  He came in the back door and we hit my grandmother’s sideboard with a clatter. A colander went flying and a stack of clean tea towels slid to the floor.

  “Sorry, sorry,” he muttered.

  “It’s fine,” I said, but he cut me off by kissing me hard. He clutched my ass and he pinned me there, leaning over me and pressing his chest to mine.

  “I missed you.” He licked my lower lip and I felt a tingle and tug in my pussy. He kissed me again before I could answer.

  I touched him through his jeans, feeling him gloriously hard and ready under my palm. When he groaned I managed a few words. “We just met. You can’t miss me.”

  “You’re the kind of person who’s missed once she’s met,” he said.

  “You’re scaring me,” I blurted and my heart jumped like a beached fish.

  Matt buried his hands in my tousled hair and gripped just tight enough to spark a bristling pain in my scalp. But when he heard my words he pulled back to look me in the eye. “You’re serious?”

  I nodded once, my mind and body at war. I wanted him so badly and yet his words had set off a waterfall of fear in me.

  “Then I won’t say it out loud,” he said. “I’ll just think it.”

  I blinked but had no time to respond because he crushed his lips to mine and his tongue poked between my lips to tease me. His fingers slipped beneath the elastic of my panties, found me wet, slid inside me as I held my breath.

  “You’re very wet, Clara. Did you want me?”

  I bit my lips and stared up into his big brown eyes.

  It had started sleeting and the sound of it ticking against the kitchen windows was oddly soothing. It was me and Matt in my cozy kitchen as the world turned on. As the weather invaded. As the heating unit in the basement kicked once like a big metal jackrabbit and started to blow.

  I nodded.

  “Say it.”

  “I want you, Matt Millen. I want you.”

  He chuckled. “It’s so good to be wanted, Clara.”

  He pushed my panties down fast and I gasped. But he just kept going even as they dropped past my knees and to my ankles. He knelt on my old green-and-red linoleum and parted my thighs. Matt studied me for a moment, just looking. He parted my nether lips and blew softly on my sex so I groaned. I wiggled in place and he gave me a crooked grin.

  “Stay still now.”

  “Impossible,” I admitted.

  “Try.”

  “I am trying.”

  “Try harder.” He kissed my clitoris gently like a gentleman and when I grabbed his shoulders and made a noise like I was dying he licked me with just the tip of his tongue.

  I locked my legs and steadied my breathing. He sucked me into his mouth. The hot suede of his tongue on my clit, nudging and licking until I thought for sure I would fall. He put his hands—ink-stained and nicked, I noticed wildly—on my upper thighs and pressed so that I was steady.

  His tongue dipped into me, the length of it spanning me from clit to opening. It was so hot—his tongue—and so on point. Every place he painted me with the tip, my body flared. Every time he sucked at me I shivered.

  Finally he worked his fingers into me, pushing deep and curling them just so. I came with a burst of heat and bliss and my eyes flooded with tears. I didn’t realize I was going to do that, but the release was overwhelming and it triggered an emotional rush that left me gasping.

  “You okay?” He looked up at me, kissed my thigh.

  “Don’t talk,” I whispered.

  He nodded and stood, turning me to face away from him, wrapping his arms around my waist. Matt covered my breasts with his hands, his chest smashed to my back so I could feel the gallop of his heart. When he pinched my nipples more of my own moisture joined the moisture he’d imparted on my pussy with his tongue.

  The sound I made had me blushing. It bordered on a sob. He squeezed my breasts again, teased my nipples to hard peaks and pressed his lips to the nape of my neck so they grew harder still.

  I couldn’t think about what he’d said or that I’d almost cried or even the fact that he was whispering in my ear, “My God you’re beautiful.”

  I could not think about it. So I parted my legs to about shoulder-width apart and leaned forward just a touch. Just enough that his erection pressed to the space I had created between my legs and he could feel my heat.

  It worked because he groaned. It was lusty and amused and something more—something richer and deeper that I couldn’t put my finger on.

  With his hand on the small of my back, he levered me forward just a bit more. Matt touched me between my legs, testing me. I was so wet and so swollen and so ready I was slick with it. “This is how you want it then, Clara?”

  I could only nod and bite my lip. I did not trust my voice.

  I heard his zipper. The rustle of fabric. “I don’t have—”

  “I’m on the Pill,” I whispered. “I’m clean. If you are…do it.” I couldn’t think or I’d run. I was afraid and yet I wanted this. So badly.

  He slid the tip of his cock from my opening forward to my clit. Repeating it over and over again, creating a slippery maddening friction that had my heart jumping. I wanted him in me and he was amusing himself fake fucking me. Maybe not fake fucking—maybe he was just torturing me.

  Matt kissed my hair, the back of my neck. His lips traveled over my shoulders until my entire body pebbled with the stimulation and my clit thumped in time to my pounding blood. I pushed my ass back to try to force him, but he simply smoothed his hands along my sides, sweeping his fingertips along the tops of my thighs.

  His fingers found me even as he pulled himself back and grazed the damp split of my sex. The head of his cock nudged my ass and I gasped, fear and anticipation warring in my stomach, but then he was moving again. His fingers pressed to my clitoris and made fluid revolutions until I had to curl my fingers to the wooden sideboard top. Until I had to hang my head to keep the world from tilting under my feet.

  “Show me how,” he said in my ear. He moved my hand to cover his and whispered, “Show me what you like, Clara.”

  It sparkled in my mind. How I’d made myself come that morning just thinking of him and smelling his smell. I pushed my hand down on top his, pressed his finger to that pink knot of flesh a bit harder. I arched my hips against his hand and heard my own struggling breath.

  “Like that?”

  “Yes.” I nodded and moved, my body undulating to the music of my own arousal. It was a dance I hadn’t done nearly enough lately.

  “Harder?” he asked, because I pressed my fingers harder to his.

  “Yes.”

  And then I slid my hand and tried to move his so he filled me with his fingers again, driving the heel of his hand for maximum pressure. “Like this?”

  He curled his fingers when I moved my hips and the orgasm hit me and pushed me under. A bright-yellow pool of bliss rushed over me and I was drowning in it. How fucking good it was. How fucking right it felt.

  “Yes,” I sobbed as the final spasms shook me.

  Then he pushed me forward again, my fingers clutching at the fancy antique wood, my hair swishing in the dim winter light. Matt inched into me, sliding his cock inside a little bit at a time like we had all day.

  Maybe we did.

  Chapter Twelve

  He moved slowly at first. Rocking against me and moving me like a water plant in a sluggish tide. I went wi
th it, not fighting the natural motion of our coupling.

  He kept one hand on my hip and one hand on my shoulder, steadying me as he moved. I let my head stay down, pushed my ass back to him as hard as I could. Absorbing and trying to memorize every stroke of his body as he forced into mine. His lips traveled my hair, my shoulders. He was talking but my mind had narrowed down to nothing more than where we were joined so it was a sibilant background hiss to our fucking.

  I did manage to pluck the words tight, gorgeous and good from the air but not in order and they were just small droplets of happiness from the ether.

  I sighed, my body shaking with it, as he reached around and found my clit. Matt didn’t so much rub as press and the pressure was steady, allowing me to buck my hips forward as he moved in and out of me. Letting me control how hard he touched me, how close I got to losing myself again.

  “I’ve been thinking about nothing but this since Thursday. Since you left. I’ve tried to be patient.”

  He said it right in my ear so that I had to focus on his words and somehow his rich, earthy voice became a third party in our sex. I nodded, no words coming to me that would even come close to conveying what I wanted to say.

  “I’d rather be doing this face-to-face.”

  My body stiffened at his words. I felt my anxiety rumble to life and I bit my tongue hard to create a burst of pain to sharpen my focus.

  He felt it too because he whispered, “But I’ll take you any way I can get you, Clara.”

  I shut my eyes to the weak gray light. I shut my mind to the fear and the worry. I shut my soul to the repeated internal message that I was not good enough and that he should not be seeing me—really seeing me—this way because I was not pretty enough to warrant it.

  I honed my mind down just to what we were doing. The way he touched me. The way he moved into me. The way his breath was shifting from controlled and even to rough and wild. The way his fingers curled tighter on my shoulder and his kisses turned to small bites and his finger pressed my distended clit just a bit harder.