She swallowed hard and moved in closer. I shivered as she reached out to trail her hands down my back and over my bum.
“Undress all of me,” I begged her.
“Well… if you really want me to… you’re going to have to be polite…”
“Charley…” I whined, and she laughed softly.
She slowly slid my cotton panties down and off me, her fingers against my skin raising goosebumps everywhere in passing.
“Can I… touch you?” she whispered.
“Stop asking permission,” I moaned in frustration. “Just take me already. I’m tired of waiting. I’m tired of being empty. I’m yours to do with as you like…”
I shifted my feet apart, opening myself, silently granting her access; she trailed her fingertip down over my belly and mons and I moaned softly as I felt her on me for the first time.
She slid her digit slowly along and around me, teasing slowly between my aching , soaked lips – brushing gently along the side of my clit to tease, just slightly, my entrance… then pulled it away.
I stared down into hers as she lifted her hand to her mouth and tasted me.
“Oh. Oh wow. I’m going to enjoy this,” she breathed. “You probably have no idea just how much.”
She shifted, shimmied, and I felt her skirt fall to the floor between us. Her panties followed.
She took my hand, turned, sat down on the edge of her disordered bed and pulled me down next to her. I was flushed, hot, heart racing from the twofold effect of nerves and need.
She kissed me once on the cheek, then on my lips, and then she put her hand between my breasts and pushed me firmly backwards; she shifted, lifted herself part onto me, her blonde curls tickling over me as she rested her weight on my body.
She shifted a knee, slowly moved it up; I spread myself for her, letting her put her thigh between mine. I gasped a breath, then a second, groaning as she began to kiss my throat and from there down to my aching breasts.
“Charley,” I moaned. “Oh, oh, that’s so good.”
She took my right nipple between her lips; she bit down gently and I writhed, panting.
“Can I touch you again?” she moaned.
“Yes…” I hissed, desperate for her to be inside me.
I arched, knotting my fingers into her hair as I felt her fumble at me. I groaned as she slowly pushed a finger deep into me. I clutched at her, dug my fingers into her as she began, achingly, to tease at first one then, soon enough, what felt like two fingers in and out of me.
Or maybe it was three; I couldn’t, didn’t care.
I couldn’t speak. Not really.
Nothing had ever felt this good.
Nothing in the world could have prepared me for the sensation of making love with her for the first time.
She was slow.
Achingly slow.
Languid, playful, unutterably frustrating…
She paused, frequently, to kiss me, to make sure I was comfortable, that I had her full and undivided attention. And, some part of me realised, to tease me more and to make it last as long as she was capable.
She drove me on; buoying me upwards on an flooding tide of exquisite tension and excruciating pleasure.
At some point I realised that she’d shifted again – she’d moved between my legs. She was staring intently down at my soaking pussy, her lip clenched gently between her perfect teeth.
Each withdrawal, each slow push into my body nudged me onwards; carried me that little bit further.
My throat was raw from the quick desperate gasps that were all I was able to take.
I could feel it coming.
Slowly my vision began to go vague.
I could feel my hands, my legs starting to writhe.
She eased me up.
Up.
Closer.
Closer…
And then without even a so much as an if-you-please, she began to drive her fingers hard and fast into me.
I cried out; my legs clamped together on her, my body writhing like some maddened creature, grunting, absolutely unable to control myself as I came, and possibly came again.
And then, nothing coherent – just the jumbled impressions of her arms around me, her lips scalding hot against mine, the warm globes of her perfect breasts sweat-slick against me.
She cradled me to her as I quivered, gasped, swore and who-knows-what.
“Don’t… let go…” I begged her when I could at last form sentences again.
“I couldn’t ever,” she whispered.
And she held me to her until I was human once more.
.:.
She put my cup of tea down in front of me, and bent over to briefly wrap her arms around me.
“Are you OK?”
I shifted slightly, rolled my shoulders, enjoying the way she draped herself on me as I slouched once more on one of her battered kitchen chairs. She’d wrapped a long woollen gown around me to keep me warm; I smiled as she snuck her hands under the folds to cup my breasts and tease my extremely sensitive nipples.
“Think so. Too endorphin drunk to decide either way. Mm. That’s nice. I like when you hold me like that.”
“Hah.”
“I’ve never felt anything like that before. Ever. I think you broke me. Um… just for interest’s sake, how many fingers did you have in me by the end of that?”
“Only two.”
“Oh. It… was nice.”
“Good. I’m glad. God, you are delicious,” she breathed. “And holy hell do you get wet.”
“Charley!” I laughed, somewhat mortified.
“What? It’s the truth!”
“You’re making me blush.”
“It just makes you prettier, if that’s even possible.”
I turned my head and tucked myself in against her, cheeks aching from the stupid grin that simply wouldn’t go away.
“I can’t believe it’s taken me so long to realise that this is what I wanted all along. That you… were what I wanted.”
“As you said, it’s not really all that much time… if we ignore the missing years.”
“I wish I could give us those back,” I sighed.
“I know. So do I. But I have you now. It makes up for all of it.”
She kissed the top of my head.
“So…” she said softly.
“Mm?”
“Want anything nice for dinner?”
“Just more of you. Another slice of your delicious, delicious cake.”
She snorted. “Now that’s a dish I don’t mind serving you. On a platter, so to speak.”
“Good, because I think I might already be addicted. Though you shouldn’t expect me to move just yet; I don’t think I can.”
“Mm.”
I leaned back against her, listening to the faint thump of my heart. The cranberry ache – banished briefly by post-orgasmic lethargy – came back, like a pair of hands slowly cupping my heart.
I didn’t want to be without this; I couldn’t bear the thought of not having her in my each and every day.
There was nothing waiting for me at home but an empty flat full of the dusty mementos of a lonely little girl.
I wanted something more. I wanted my happy-ever-after.
I took a breath, plucked up the courage to ask the Question.
“Charley?” I breathed.
“Yeah?”
“How are we going to do… this?”
“I guess we’ll have to get intimate with the bus timetable…” she said. “So… weekends, I guess. Which is going to suck because I don’t want this to end, ever. I don’t want to have to say goodbye to you ever again.”
And just like that I discovered how easy it was to make up my mind.
“Charley…”
“Yes, love?”
“I… need a change. I need something new, somewhere new. I’ll move here if… if you want me to…”
Her hand twitched on my shoulder.
She pulled back slightly, lifted my chin so I’d look at her. Then, seemingly unsatisfied with that, she threw her bare leg over my lap and straddled me; gloriously naked, hair in disarray, eyes dark in the muted light her ceiling lights cast through their patterned fabric shades.
“Oh Ari,” she breathed. She fumbled my hand into hers, played with my fingers in her old, old way. “Not that I don’t appreciate it, I do, really… but… love, you can’t make that sort of life-altering decision off the back of a single orgasm. Not even one of mine…”
“My life is where you are,” I said.
She fell silent, staring down at me.
“You altered everything about it long ago. There’s no wiggle room for me. I don’t want to be beyond the reach of you ever again. I’ll find a place up here when I can. When… when you’re sure you still want me.”
I watched the slow, glinting tear track down her cheek, felt her bite down hard on the sob, heard the little almost-pained whimper…
“That will never change,” she managed at last, in a tight little voice. “Never in a month of Sundays. East of the sun, west of the moon, I will always want you and you alone. Always, Ari. Always, only you.”
“OK.” I whispered.
She latched her arms behind my back and clung to me, just breathing.
“Charley?”
“Yes.”
I kissed her neck once, then tucked my face in against her.
“Make love like that to me again,” I whispered.
So she did.
.:.
It was August and I was twenty seven.
The sun dropped slowly below the horizon.
I curled my toes over in the warm, white sand and listened to the gentle ripple of the waves.
She sighed out a breath, and shifted her head slightly on my shoulder.
I smiled as she curled her fingers over mine; the silver of our engagement rings flashing red in the final few rays of day.
“Not long left now,” she said softly; I could hear her smile.
“Do you remember drawing that picture for me when we were nine?” I asked, as the memory suddenly came back to me.
“No. What picture?”
“It was the first time we met. At the end of the week, when I was leaving – you pushed a picture of two girls holding hands under a bright yellow sun into my hands. I often think about it. I wish I’d kept it but the years claimed it somewhere along the line.”
She laughed. “How romantic. It must have been love.”
“Mm. I always did like that song. Not really appropriate message-wise…”