Not in Love
Chapter 22

RUE

When we returned upstairs, I had three messages on my phone.

Nyota, emailing the contact information for a real estate lawyer licensed in Texas and Indiana. Good news is, he came highly recommended. Sad news: his hourly rate might reflect that.

Tisha, informing me that she was going to Kline for a couple of hours to finish up something for “the anthropomorphized period cramp” (Matt), asking whether I wanted to join her. We could take a joint dump on his desk on our way out. LMK.

And Florence, who’d snapped a progress picture of a shawl she’d been knitting for me in beautiful shades of red—my favorite color.

“Everything okay?” Eli asked from behind me, and my first instinct was to hide my phone—which made me hate myself. Kline, my friends, my work—they were the part of my life I was proud of.

It was what I was doing with Eli that needed to be concealed.

“I have a story,” I said, still facing away from him. I felt pressure against my eyes, but I wasn’t worried. I’d stopped crying when I was a child.

“Go ahead.”

“I owe everything to Florence. My job. My scientific freedom. My financial stability. The fucking shawl that she’s knitting. And in return I’m here, in the bedroom of someone who’s been making her life impossible, having meals with him, because…”

Silence. “Why? Why are you here, Rue?”

My chest felt heavy. I turned around. “Because I’m selfish, and careless. Because I want to be.”

He nodded. Seemed to look around for a tale that could match mine. “I last spoke to my mother a few weeks before she died. My final words to her were that I hoped she wouldn’t be as shitty a mother to my sister as she’d been to me.”

We stood there, sodden with the weird catharsis that came from acknowledging the kinds of flaws and regrets and mistakes that lived in our bones.

He never ran, no matter how shameful. Neither did I.

“Okay, then,” I said, taking a step closer. “Let’s start.”

Eli took off his shirt. He was handsome in a rugged, interesting way, but what I liked about him was the story his body told. The broadness of his shoulders, the product of a childhood spent honing his body. Strong, long arms. A few scars here and there, where he must have taken hits and kept going. “Did you play defense?”

He smiled. “How did you know?”

“Lucky guess. Do we need a safe word, or something?”

“Why don’t we just…communicate, for now? I tell you what I’d like you to do, what I would like to do, and you can tell me no, or ask me to stop. Does that sound good?”

“It sounds better than screaming ‘broccoli’ because you’re pulling my hair too hard.”

He laughed. “That’s the spirit. Are you okay with me holding you down?” He stepped closer and gently pulled my hands from the back pockets of my jean shorts. Then he closed one hand around both my wrists with surprising ease, trapping them on my lower back. “Like this.”

Heat bloomed in my stomach. Blood rushed to my cheeks, but I nodded.

“If you change your mind, just ask me to let go.”

“I won’t.”

He scanned my face. “I’m serious. If you don’t like something I’m doing, you’ll tell me immediately.”

“I’m down for whatever.”

“Really? For whatever?”

I nodded.

“So I can press you into the mattress right now and fuck your ass without lube?” I froze. A now who’s up for anything? eyebrow rose on his forehead, and I had to stop myself from fidgeting in his grip. “Thought so,” he said softly. “Take off your clothes and lie face up on the bed, Rue. And if something bothers you, anything, tell me.”

I was naked in just a few moments, aware of Eli’s eyes trailing my every move. Stopped in front of the bed. “You can,” I said over my shoulder. “But I’ve never done it, so maybe not without lube.”

He stood completely still, but something behind his eyes stuttered, as if his brain was short-circuiting. By the time I lay down, he looked calm. His fingers traced the valley between my breasts, then played my rib cage like a piano. He was still wearing the gray sweatpants he’d put on for breakfast, the outline of his erection straining against the soft material.

“Would you like me to do something about that?” I asked. Wasn’t that the point? For me to service him in some way? The idea had me pressing my legs together in anticipation.

But he shook his head. “How about we start slow? Just relax.”

“So what do I do?”

He chuckled. “But of course.”

“What?”

“You always need something to do.”

Did I? Yes. Ever since I was a child, having a goal was the best way to avoid thinking about whatever misery I was going through. How did he know, though?

“Because I’m the same way,” he whispered, leaning in for a kiss on my cheek. It felt menacingly intimate. “Why don’t we say that your job is not coming, since you speak English so well?” His hand shifted to my abdomen, then pressed lightly, his weight on my flesh delicious.

“I can’t come? Ever?”

“Not until I tell you. It doesn’t matter how close you are, you wait for my permission. Okay?”

“Doesn’t sound too hard. Not having orgasms with a man is something in which I have plenty of experience.”

He muttered something that sounded a lot like mouthy, and then bent down to kiss me in the way I’d become accustomed to, at once restrained and absolutely filthy.

So new for me, recognizing someone’s kiss fingerprint. Being familiar with Eli’s fresh, woodsy scent. “This is a recurring dream of mine,” he said against one of my nipples before biting it softly.

I sighed in pleasure. “What is?”

“You. Naked. Doing as you’re told.” His thumb pressed against my lower lip. “I’ve always liked being in charge, but with you it’s something else altogether. Because you’re so slippery, maybe. It’s a powerful fantasy, having the right to order you to stay put.” He sounded like he was working through a math problem. When our eyes met, his smile was self-effacing. “Let’s get started, shall we?”

He did what he always did: kiss my breasts, trace the edge of my hip bone, inhale the skin of my throat. It turned me on, but I couldn’t see the destination, and it made me restless.

Which amused him. “Relax.” He examined the white shadow of my appendectomy scar.

“But what should I—”

“I just told you.” His hand slid between my thighs. Teased them apart. “Relax.”

“Don’t you—” Air rushed out of my lungs when he parted me with his thumb. His breath hitched, too.

“You’re always soaked when I first touch you, Rue.” His thumb moved unhurriedly from my entrance to my clit, and then down again. I arched into his touch, heat radiating through my nerve endings. “I like to think that it’s my doing.”

“It’s my doing,” I bit back. Laughter rose from deep in his chest, making me even wetter.

“I might like your tits even more than your lips. And I definitely like your honesty even more than your tits. Believe me, that’s saying something.”

I’d expected him to go down on me, because he seemed to truly enjoy it, and because if the game was to push me to the edge as quickly as possible, it would have been the cost-effective way. But he took his time: he rubbed me leisurely, lightly, just the tip of his fingers over my cunt, and little by little I melted into his touch. I closed my eyes, lay back, and it could have been three or twenty minutes later when I noticed how close I was.

Trembling.

Gripping the sheets.

Chewing on my lower lip and arching into every stroke. sᴇaʀᴄh thᴇ FɪndNøvel.ɴet website on Gøøglᴇ to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.

The climb had been so gradual I’d barely noticed, and when I looked at Eli with a disbelieving expression, he smiled, almost sweetly, and eased the tip of his middle finger inside me. “You’re already right there, aren’t you? Clenching around my finger.”

“Because you—” I groaned. His calm was destabilizing. I was more worked up than I could remember being, and he was unaffected.

“You know I’m not going to let you come for a long, long while, don’t you?”

I squeezed my muscles around his thick finger and reveled in his sharp exhale. His cock was still hard, impossibly larger. “What about y-you?”

“Me?” He took his hand away, and I bit back a whimper. I watched him stroke himself from above his sweats, then take his cock out for a few more pumps. “I can come whenever and wherever I choose, Rue. Now. Later. Now and later. Isn’t that fun?”

I closed my eyes, trying to push his entertained tone out of my head, asking my body to wind down. This felt like a joke, a joke I wasn’t in on. All I wanted was—

“Let’s try again, okay?” His voice was soft and patient, and I instantly felt more at ease. But the way his palm spread my thighs was feral, and his mouth on my cunt reminded me that he was in control.

It was agony. Or the best thing I’d ever felt. After what felt like hours, I still couldn’t make up my mind. All I knew was that Eli spared no quarter, and brought me up and up and up with his mouth and his fingers and sometimes with his deep, filthy voice, and then, when I felt like I was going to explode from the tension dilating inside me, he stepped away and left me bereft. Once, I almost came, and he punished me with a soft bite at the edge of my cunt that had me shivering, ready to promise him anything for one more second of contact. I was willing to get myself off with my own fingers. To hump his leg. To be his fucking servant—and then he decided that I was fidgeting too much, and did what he’d promised: he restrained me, both my wrists in his hand, and pinned my arms to my stomach. Opening my legs wider, arching into his mouth and his touch, were the only possible ways to prolong contact with him. And that’s what I did, holding back my pleas until I had no choice but to beg.

“Please.”

“Please, what? What do you need, Rue?”

“I can’t. Please, please, please, make me come. Or let me make myself come. Please.”

He clucked his tongue against my clit, not quite hard enough. I was going to die. “I thought you were an expert. I thought it was easy for you, not coming.”

“You have to—please. You have to.”

“Is this too much, Rue? Would you like me to just finish you off?” He kissed my belly button, jarringly chaste after the places his mouth had been for the past hour. “Broccoli, Rue?”

I let out hysterical laughter. “No. Not broccoli,” I panted, not sure where the answer came from. Sheer stubbornness. That underlying suspicion that this was doing as much for him as it was for me. There was power that came from giving him something he so clearly wanted. I was miserable and soaring like never before. “I can take it.”

“Are you sure?” His long finger arched inside me. He really did know how to use his hands. Bastard. “You’re really tight right now. Are you sure you can give me a few more minutes?”

I wasn’t, but I nodded vehemently. Overcompensating.

“I’ve wanted to do this to you since I saw you at that hotel bar. I went home afterward and lay in this bed and thought about how serious you were, how self-possessed and solemn, and I imagined how nicely you’d come apart.” He bit softly at the top of my pelvic bone. “I’m fifteen again, Rue. You wouldn’t believe it, how much I jerk off, thinking of you.”

I was unglued. He was ungluing me. “How much longer?”

“You’ve done so well, baby. It’s your first time, and you’ve made me so happy.” He rewarded me with another open-mouthed kiss, and pride burst inside me at his words. “Can you give me five more minutes? Five more, and then I’ll let you come.”

His tone was patronizing. Insulting, really, but it wound me up even harder, cramming more pleasure inside me. “Okay.”

“That’s my girl. And then you can come however many times you want.”

Just once was going to be enough. It was going to rip me apart and wreck me forever. “Okay.”

“But I’m not going to make it easy.” I opened my eyes and met his. Dread mixed with the heat in my belly. I hate you, I thought, loving every second, every touch, every fragment of this. “One last sprint, Rue. Five more minutes, but I get to…”

He didn’t say what, but his tongue licked up my slit again—this time with purpose.

I gasped and arched almost completely off the bed.

“Don’t come,” he reminded me, and I nodded blindly, kept nodding as he told me to remember my promise. “Be good, Rue,” he repeated, but the flat of his tongue was pressing against my clit and I couldn’t—just couldn’t.

My legs began shaking, then my arms, and the tingling pressure in my abdomen exploded into shock waves that crashed through my body.

I couldn’t help it, so I screamed, sure that this was the most severe, unyielding pleasure anyone had ever felt at once. Too big for my body and too intense for this world. I was grateful for Eli’s hands holding me, keeping me tethered to something as my vision narrowed, as everything but the splendor of it receded.

Then, once every sensation in the galaxy had cycled through my body, I fell limply on the bed and realized what I’d done.

“Shit.” I sat up. Eli’s grip must have loosened, because I could easily free my hands. It hadn’t been five minutes. It hadn’t been one minute. “I’m sorry.”

He shook his head, watching my still-trembling body with a transfixed expression.

“I—shit. I know I wasn’t supposed to—I’m sorry—”

“Stop apologizing,” he ordered distractedly. Instead he moved on top of me, blanketing my body, one arm on each side of my head. He stared at me like I was a beautiful, exotic flower that had the power to kill him with a pollen drop.

“I didn’t mean to—”

“You are so fucking hot.” He leaned down and kissed me, almost violently. “You don’t understand what you do to me. Because I don’t understand what you do to me.”

“It wasn’t five minutes. I…”

He exhaled against my cheek. “Rue, don’t you get it? It’s the whole damn point, to see you lose it. Why do you think I do this? To see you go wild.” He was hard, grinding against my belly through his sweats. His muscles trembled with impatience, and his breath was all over the place. He seemed as far gone as I’d felt just a minute earlier.

“Are you going to—I don’t know, punish me? Spank me?”

He laughed. “I’d rather fuck you.” His muscles flexed as he lifted himself up. I felt the mattress shift, then heard rustling noises as a drawer slid open. When I could see his face again, he was holding a condom in his hand. “Okay?” he asked.

We’d discussed this. Was I really up to it?

Yes. Yes, because I had no doubt that Eli would stop if I needed him to.

I nodded.

“Good girl.” He kissed me again, firmly this time.

“Because I’m letting you do it?” I asked against his lips.

“No. Because you thought about it before saying yes.”

He rolled the condom on, his cock almost obscene covered in latex, and then slathered it in lube. I doubted he’d need it, but appreciated the consideration. It had been a couple of years for me, and when he laid on top of me, I almost expected it would be like my first time, a pinching discomfort requiring some adjustment.

Something large and blunt prodded against my opening, and as he pushed in, I felt an impression of intense fullness. Then, abruptly, with his cock no more than one or two inches inside me, Eli halted. His arms caged my shoulders, and he muttered something that resembled unbelievable, and then something like thank fuck we’re doing this with a condom. His forehead sank into the pillow, right next to my head.

“Goddamn,” he muttered.

“You okay?” I asked. My hand traveled up and down the divot of his spine, brushing the planes of muscles on either side. They twitched under sweaty skin.

“Fuuuck.” The word was muffled by the pillow. “Give me a second. Be a good girl and don’t move.”

I didn’t move. But he felt so large and foreign inside me, I needed to test the stretch and the limits of him, find out where he ended and I began. So I clenched around him, and that was all it took.

“Fuck, sweetheart, you can’t—”

One of his hands slammed down between our bodies, and when I glanced down, I realized that only the tip of his cock was inside me—and that he was cupping the base in a mix of desperation and self-defense. In vain. Eli was already shuddering, eyes screwed shut and face twisted with pleasure as he made unrestrained noises and came inside me.

And came, and came, and came.

He was in the throes of something that seemed to transcend pleasure, and I watched every moment of it, spellbound, until every last drop of sensation was milked from him. And when it was finally over, when Eli managed to collect himself and open his eyes, I couldn’t untangle what I found on his face.

“Fuck,” he said, shifting up, hands cupping my face, and he looked—for some reason he looked absolutely ruined. Devastated. I wasn’t sure what possessed me to do it, but he looked like he needed it, and I turned my head and pressed a soft, reassuring kiss into his shaky palm.

It seemed to ignite something in Eli, because his mouth found mine with a kiss. And then another. And then even more, so many that I lost count. After a few minutes he softened and slipped out of me, and murmured something against my lips about not wanting the condom to leak, but managed to get rid of it with little fuss. Then he dragged me onto his chest, locked his arms around me, and kept on kissing me, kissing me, kissing me. Like he didn’t know that the sex was over, like he wanted to prolong it. And I didn’t mind. Not for now. Not for a while.

I had no idea how long we stayed like that. I only knew that the kiss became many, all languid and never-ending, and that the light in the room grew dimmer and the shadows longer, and that we would have continued—if only the doorbell hadn’t rung.

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