188

Flynn
I wake to a loud, insistent banging on my door.
“Fuck,” I groan, rolling out of bed.
Nadia sits up looking spectacularly tumbled. Her copper-lit hair falls in her face, her cheeks are still flushed with sleep. She gets up and pads to the bathroom.
I want to kill whoever the fuck is at my door.
Especially because Nadia woke up with a nightmare during the night and could use all the extra sleep she could get.
Having Nadia sleep in my bed last night gave me a new purpose in life: Nadia.
I’m serious.
It’s like until this moment, I’ve just been drifting along. I was available to prop up my mom. I was a warm body in the band. But it’s like something in me just woke up. Or activated.
Some essential coding within me got turned on.
But to say my new purpose is Nadia isn’t quite right. It’s more like I was the lock and Nadia was the key. Now that she’s turned me on, I’m available for myself, too.
I’m willing to put some effort into my life.
I suddenly see my past self so clearlywho I was and who I was unwilling to be.
And this is the real methe person I was previously unwilling to be.
I know it sounds like I’m on a mushroom trip right now, but I’m not. I’ve never felt more sober or enlightened in my life. That’s the other thingI now see how my desire to party was a numbing mechanism. I used sex and drugs and alcohol to keep me from being my true self.
This man.
Because I’m capable of so much more, and I didn’t want to try. To be it.
I was afraid of failing, I think.
But for Nadia, I would totally try.
Anything at all.
I hop on one foot as I pull on my boxer briefs. “Hang on.” I call to Nadia in the bathroom, “I’ll get rid of them. I’m sorry.”
The thumping keeps pounding on the door. I close the bedroom door to give Nadia privacy and stomp to the front door. “What the fuck is your” the word problem dies on my lips as Adrian pushes me aside to enter my apartment. Kat follows behind him, throwing me an apologetic look.
“Did you come to beat on me again?”
“Where is she?”
The toilet flushes, making the answer to his question obvious.
“Are you out of your fucking mind? Nadia is fine. She doesn’t need you to rescue her from me.”
Nadia emerges from my bedroom wearingoh God, she looks glorious!one of my t-shirts. The vintage Ramones shirt hits her mid-thigh and makes her look good enough to eat.
“Adrian, what are you doing here?” She shoves her hair out of her face. Her voice is still laced with sleep, and I revel in the fact that she sounds happy. Like she just had the best night’s rest.
Adrian narrows his eyes at her. “Why the fuck haven’t you answered my texts?”
“Um, I think that’s kind of obvious, Adrian,” Kat says. To me and Nadia, she says, “We’re sorry. We didn’t mean to interrupt.”
“How did you even find this place?” Nadia asks.
“I have a tracker on your phone,” Adrian admits in a grumble. “For safety.”
“Well, I’m safe.” Nadia walks up behind me and wraps her arms around me. It’s the kind of gesture I normally hate from a girl on the morning afterand I don’t usually even do morning aftersbut I absolutely love it this time. It feels like Nadia’s claiming mewhich she has refused to do before now. Like she wants to stay and not run off with her brother this time.
I lift one arm over her head to draw her against my side. “Please stay,” I murmur. I sound like the clingy girls I try to avoid, but something about Nadia leaving today alarms me.
I want her with me, filling this apartment with her magical presence. I want to work on that song she inspired in me last night while I’m looking at her beautiful face.
Adrian tips his head toward the door. “Come on. I’ll take you home.”
“I’m going to stay,” Nadia says, and I let out the breath I didn’t realize I was holding.
“How long?”
“Bro,” I cut in. “She’s not a child. She has your number if she needs anything, but she won’t because I’m not going to fuck this up.”
Nadia lifts her face to me in surprise. In fact, all three of them stare at me as if I’ve sprouted a banana tree from the top of my head, and I realize I’ve said way too much out loud.
Nadia and I are officially just friends. There shouldn’t be anything to fuck up.
But it’s out there, and I won’t take it back.
“I have an extra rehearsal over there this afternoon. I can drive you home then,” I offer.
Adrian gives me a long, hard look. “I don’t trust you,” he says finally.
Fuck.
“I do,” Nadia pipes up. “I would trust Flynn to the ends of the Earth.”
Adrian shakes his head. “Nadia…” He scrubs a hand across his face. “Do you know how many girls have been in his bed?”
Double fuck. I feel like I’ve been punched in the gut. Of course, there’s nothing I can say to that because it’s true.
This doesn’t feel like the right time to make that confession to Nadia that I want something more than what we have. I wish to hell I’d done it last night before she fell asleep with her sweet head resting on my shoulder.
“Yes,” Nadia says simply, chin lifted. “It doesn’t matter or make him untrustworthy. It just means he’s good in bed, which is what I need right now.”
Ouch.
I’d like to think I brought more than sex to the table, but maybe I’m delusional. I mean, Nadia was honest from the start about what she wanted. A bed partner to help her have sex again.
I did that for her.
Maybe now is when we go back to being friends.
But no, she said she’s staying.
Just for sex, a voice in my head grumbles. I know I should ask her. We need to have a conversation to clarify and redefine, except even as I think it, I know I probably won’t do it. Because I don’t want to end this prematurely.
If she only wants sex, but isn’t finished yet, I want it to keep playing out.
I don’t want her to end things because I declare myself in love with her.
Dammit. I’m in a fucking pickle here.
Well, for starters, I need her to stay and Adrian to leave. I focus on him. “I won’t hurt Nadia. I understand what she’s been through, and I’m careful. I’m paying attention. I know how to be the guy she needs.”
Adrian considers me like he’s seeing me for the first time.
Or like he sees the new me. The one Nadia revealed. “You have bigger balls than I expected,” he admits.
“I won’t hurt her,” I repeat.
She may demolish me, but I would die before I hurt Nadia.
“If you do, I’ll cut those nuts off and feed them to your”
“Oh-kay,” Kat interrupts loudly. “We’re leaving. Bye. Love you, Nadia.” She blows a kiss to Nadia with one hand as she tugs Adrian’s elbow with the other.
Adrian doesn’t move despite Kat’s attempts. He points a tattooed finger at me.
“Go, Adrian,” Nadia says.
Abruptly he turns, puts an arm around Kat and guides her out the door.
Nadia groans when the door shuts. “I’m sorry my brother is such an ass.”
“It’s cool,” I say. I’m still smarting from the notion that I’m just a sex therapist for Nadia, but I don’t plan to let it show.
She still has her arms around me from the side, and she peers up at me now. “Why are you so nice to me?”
I smile down at her, dazzled by her affection. “You’re pretty good to me, too, Peaches.”
“Am I?”
I nod, cupping the side of her face and kissing her forehead. I breathe in her butterscotch scent. “Really good. What do you want to do for breakfast?”
Excitement lights her face. “We could…um…go somewhere?”
I know it’s a leap for her. Or a week ago it would’ve been. Now she’s suggesting outings herself.
“Absolutely,” I say immediately. “But there’s something I need first.”
“What is it?”
“Come here.” I swivel and walk her backward until her ass hits the overstuffed arm of the sofa. I pick her up by the waist and sit her on it, then drop to my knees and spread her thighs.
“Oy.” I loved the shocked, pleased syllable that leaves her lips.
I delve my tongue between her folds, seeking that now-familiar taste. Exploring her delicate pleats with the tip of my tongue.
She grips my head to keep from falling back, shrieking and laughing a little. “Flynn…. da.”
I work her into a frenzy with my tongue, then slip my thumb inside her as I push back the hood of her clitoris and suck the little bead between my lips.
She screams, her knees slapping against my shoulders as she comes around my thumb.
It occurs to me that any upright sexual position might be a win for her. If she was chained to a bed, she couldn’t have been on her feet.
I rise and slip my thumb out. “Stay here. Don’t move, okay, Peaches?”
She looks too dazed to go anywhere, anyway. She gives me a glassy-eyed nod, and I rush to the bedroom to grab a condom. Her gaze drops to my tented briefs when I return, and a smile plays around her soft lips.
“Put one foot on the floor,” I direct as I shove off my briefs and put on protection.
She slides her butt down enough to touch the floor with her right foot, as she watches me. Appearing enthralled, she reaches for my cock.
“That’s right, sweetheart. You want a ride on my dick?”
“Mm hmm,” she hums, nearly making me come when she tightens her grip and pulls me toward her entrance.
I steady her with a hand behind her back as I slide the head of my cock through her juices. “Same rule as last night. You want me to stop or slow down, just say so.”
She drags her lower lip between her teeth and nods.
“You’re beautiful,” I murmur as I press the head of my cock against her entrance. The soft flesh gives, and she takes me in.
I hook my hand under her left knee to pull it up, so I can get a better angle to drive into her. The position is perfect. I sink into her and bottom out, then ease back and give it to her again.
“Da…da,” she chants. I love how she reverts to Russian when she’s excited. It’s so damn cute.
I keep the tempo slow and steady, glorying in how easy this is. Even when it’s hard, it’s still easy. Nadia and I seem to know each other on a deeper level than two people who just started hanging out. We know each other on a soul level. But even our bodies seem to know each other. Because with Nadia, I understand the term, “making love.”
Even this round, which on the surface seems like base fucking, is an act of honoring. Of pleasuring each other with total freedoman unfettered gifting and receiving.
And then I can’t keep to the slower pace. Energy builds at the base of my spine, and I speed up, hooking my arm behind her back, so she can arch over it, her lips parted with her moans, her eyes looking skyward.
“Oy…oh…oy!” she cries.
I fuck her harder, slamming in and out at a frenetic pace. “Yes, Nadia…yeah!” I exclaim. I slow down to drive in deeper, thrusting like my life depended on getting deeper, grinding my loins over her clit with each savage instroke.
“Please…pozhaluysta…yes!”
Her cries, her satisfaction, brings on my orgasm, and I beat into her, harder and faster until my balls draw up tight, and I have to release.
“I’m going to come,” I grunt.
“Come!” she screams. “Please, Flynn! I’m ready.”
I wring both of our orgasms out with powerful thrusts that end with me buried deep and both her legs wrapped tightly behind my back.
YA tebya lyublyu, she murmurs against my shoulder.
“What?” I ask.
“Oh. Nothing. I said it was good. So good.”
She’s lying. I make a point of trying to memorize the syllables she uttered, but my brain is so scrambled, I’m not sure I get it right. It was something like, “yeah, tibaya blue.” Maybe Oleg can translate it for me.
No matter. Nadia is in my arms, and it feels so right. I carry her like that into my shower where we take the time to wash every inch of each other, exploring all our edges and curves. Hard places and soft.
This is love. This is meaning. This is the way I was supposed to feel every time I shared my body with a woman. But I never knew it until now.
Nadia
After Flynn takes me to a corner bakery for breakfastwhere I was absolutely finewe return to his place. I sketch designs for the burlesque dancers on a pad of paper he found for me while he composes music.
Like last night, it’s more than comfortable. There’s an ease between us. A familiarity. Like we’ve been together in past lifetimes, so we just settle right in like it’s old times.
I don’t ever want this to end.
Gospodi, I said I love you to Flynn when we had sex this morning! Fortunately, I said it in Russian, and he didn’t understand me.
I now realize why everyone was so afraid I would get hurt. It’s not that Flynn would hurt me. But I’ll hurt myself.
I have hurt myself.
Because now that I’ve tasted Flynn, now that I’ve been the focus of his attention, the recipient of his talents, now that I’ve basked in the glow he casts, I don’t ever want to leave it.
Flynn puts his guitar down and picks up a notebook. He sprawls sideways in an armchair, his long legs extending over the armrest, far beyond the confines of the furniture. He holds the notebook on his knees and a pencil between his fingers. When he glances up at me, he catches me watching him.
Instead of reacting, he just looks steadily back at me, his brown eyes seeming to see deep into the depths of my soul.
That look alone makes me want to swear my undying love to him again. In English this time.
But I know that would be foolish. He’s not mine to keep.
After a moment, his gaze drops, and he writes something on his paper.
“Are you writing a song?” I ask. For some reason, my pulse quickens.
He nods, his gaze lifting to mine again.
“Is it…” I can’t finish the question. It seems way too assuming. Of course, it’s not about me! Only a delusional middle-schooler would think such a thing.
“About you,” he answers, stealing my breath.
I want to run over and look over his shoulder, but that would disturb his process. He’s in the creative flow. I happen to be his muse. Even if I think it’s about me, even though I desperately want to assign all kinds of crazy meanings to thisit’s not. Artists are inspired by whatever is around them, and I’m the one who happens to be around him right now.
Instead, I force myself to look back at my own drawings. To borrow his creative energy and get in the flow myself.
I sketched the most beautiful corsets, tie-dyed in shades of red and wine, trimmed in black velvet, of course. The bottoms would match but the cut would varyone dancer could wear short shorts with ruffles on the ass, another could be in a short, poufy skirt, one a long, ankle-length skirt with crinoline underneath, then another with pants.
I can’t wait to take measurements and get started.
Flynn picks up the guitar again, plays the tune he’d been working on before, then returns to his notebook.
I rearrange myself on the sofa, turning sideways to put my feet up and just watch Flynn at work. He’s so beautiful. I could live stream him again, so his fans can see him, but this time I want him all for myself. Instead, I unzip my jeans and slip my hand inside to touch myself.
I haven’t masturbated since my trauma. Not once.
But everything feels different now. I’m a sexual being. Flynn helped return that to me. So did the Black Velvet burlesque dancers.
I’m not afraid of the past swallowing me up any more. I can let it stay in the past. I stroke my fingers inside my panties to just feel my damp folds. As I touch they grow wetter. I think of the way Flynn fucked me against this couch this morning and wetness coats my fingers.
Flynn glances up. “Fuck.” He tosses the notebook and pencil on the coffee table and gets up. “Do you need some attention, Peaches?”
“Yes.” I draw out the syllable.
Oh my God. I’m flirty. It’s so fun.
He drops to his knees in front of me and palms my thighs. “May I taste?”
I shake my head, and he watches my face closely.
“No?”
“I’m already primed,” I tell him. It’s trueI don’t want his tongue between my legs. I want his cock.
He reaches for the waistband of my jeans and tugs them down and off my legs. His gaze falls hungrily on my panties. “Are you sure?”
I scramble to my feet and drop the panties then turn to kneel on the couch, holding the back of it and presenting my ass to Flynn. “Can we do it this way?”
His chuckle is dark. “We can do it any way you like, sweetheart.” He jogs to the bedroom. “I’ll be right back,” he calls as he goes. When he returns he drops a fistful of condoms on the coffee table and shucks his clothing.
He opens a condom and rolls it on. I don’t want to think about the fact that he probably buys in bulk or how many he’s already used this month.
It doesn’t matter. He’s with me right now. And I’m with him. And I wouldn’t want to be anywhere else.
It’s dumb to try protect myself against future hurt by refusing to enjoy the present. Why miss out? Because then I’ll have something to miss?
I’d rather have the memory of this than no memories with Flynn at all.
I wiggle my ass for him. “I think Adrian likes to spank Kat,” I say with a giggle. “Actually, I think it’s probably the other way around. She must like to be spanked.”
“Are you asking me to spank you, Nadia?”
Flynn is so smart.
“Maybe?”
His hand crashes down on my ass before I get embarrassed. It’s sharp and surprising but not unpleasant.
It doesn’t scare me or bring on bad memories. I was never spankedthat would’ve been far too playful for cigar man. He wasn’t playful. He liked the violence. Rape. He was more into choking and holding me down and forced sex.
Flynn rubs my offended cheek. “You okay?”
“I like it,” I gasp.
Flynn lets out a low curse and slaps my other cheek. “Yeah? That’s good because I like doing it.” He delivers two more slaps. “You look so sexy right now with my handprint on your ass.” He rubs again.
I moan my appreciation. I love the way he touches methe rough and the gentle.
He continues, warming my ass with slaps alternating with rubbing, then he slides his fingers between my legs. I separate my knees wider and arch up for him. He takes my hips and pushes them down a little lower to line the head of his cock up with my entrance. He’s tall enough to enter me standing up behind me. He slides in, and I suck in a breath and moan.
“You good, Nadia?” His voice is scratchy and rough, deepened with desire. I love that I have the power to turn him on this way. To make him come undone like he was last night.
“Yes.”
He slides his hand up my shirt to fondle my breast as he starts up with a slow rhythm in and out.
The spanking got me excited, and I already need more. “Faster, please,” I plead.
“You need more of this cock, beautiful girl? I will give it all to you.” He adjusts to put his hands on my waist, so he can plow in harder. It’s a good angle. I can take him deep, despite his length, and I love the way he fills me. His balls slap against my clit, giving me extra stimulation.
I warble my approval in eager tones.
“You like that, sweetheart?” He changes his grip to hold my nape. I freeze for a moment, a slice of panic running through me. The clanging of metal bashes in my head.
Flynn is instantly on me, soothing me. “No, no, no, baby. It’s just me. It’s you and me. You’re so safe here.” He folds his torso down over mine to wrap his arms around me and kiss my neck, my jaw, between my shoulder blades. He strokes my hair, murmuring comforting words.
As quickly as it came, the panic fades. “I’m okay,” I say. “Spasibo. It’s okay.”
Instead of avoiding the position that triggered me, Flynn returns to it. “It’s me, babe.” He holds my nape, but his thumb and fingers massage my muscles there. “May I hold you here?”
My heart pounds, but I say, “Yes.”
“You’re always in charge, sweetheart. You know that, right?” He presses in and out of me again. “You say stop, I stop. You say more, I give you more. Whatever you need. We’re in this together. I’m here for you.”
Tears well up in my eyesnot out of tragedy but because it feels so good. Because everything he says is so right. “I’m here for you, too,” I tell him. “Thank you…thank you, Flynn.”
He’s picked up speed again, his fingers tightening around my nape to hold me still as he pounds in harder.
I’m not scared at all. I want it. All of it. I want Flynn to find his pleasure with meand all I register now is pleasure.
“I love it,” I tell him. “I love it with you. I love it so much.”
“Christ, Nadia.” His fingers tighten more, and his moves grow erratic. “You’re so fucking perfect.” His breath rasps in and out roughly.
“I’m ready,” I tell him. “You can come. I want to come with you.”
“Oh God,” he mutters. He puts a snap into his hips that practically lifts my knees off the couch with each shove and my breath comes out in shrieks over and over again until he roars and slams in. “I’m coming!”
As if I didn’t know.
My body’s already in perfect harmony with his. My inner walls tighten and spasm around his cock, milking it, squeezing it. It’s got to be the best orgasm I’ve ever had. By far.
“Oh my God,” he repeats, his hands coasting up and down my back. “You’re so perfect, Nadia.” Even though he’s the one who did all the work, who made it work for me, he sounds grateful. Like I just gave him some huge gift.
I love you. I hear the Russian words in my head again but somehow don’t speak them this time.
As he eases out and goes to the bathroom to dispose of the condom, I realize it’s crazy that I’ve fallen in love so quickly, but I can’t deny it. I’m floating on a moonbeam with this guy. Everything about him feels perfect.
Everything except for our arrangement.
And his inability to commit to a relationship.