Chapter 19

Chapter Nineteen

River

I LEAD CLARK INTO my apartment. It’s dark, but I don’t bother flicking on a light as we kick our shoes off. Tension thrums between us, yet I guide him inside like I’m merely going to show him which drawer I keep the tea in.

“It’s not big,” I say, “but I don’t have a roommate.”

“It’s nice,” Clark says. “Cozy.”

I fear that by day his assessment of the plants and blankets all over my living room would shift from “cozy” to “messy,” but right now neither of us are judging the laptop and tea mug left out on the coffee table. I keep towing Clark along, and he follows me past the kitchen, past the couch, and into the bedroom set off from the only other room in the apartment.

The darkness thickens, hushing the whole world. The lingering clamor of the bar fades away until there’s nothing left but our breaths as I face Clark in my bedroom, his hands cupped in mine.

“So, um…” he says.

I don’t let him speak, don’t let him doubt and question and second guess like I know he means to. With a tiny tug, I pull him to my mouth.

He relaxes the moment our lips meet. The words melt away as he sinks against me, unconsciously tilting his body closer. I slide my arms around his waist, pulling him the rest of the way to me so our chests press together. He grabs for my shoulders, like he needs to hold on, like he’d be too unsteady on his feet without me to cling to.

I cup his face when we part, not letting him fly away or go back to his anxious thoughts. I know I need to keep him moving or they’ll sneak in and encourage him to overthink his every action, but why waste time on doubt when it’s so painfully clear what we both want?

Instead, I guide him to the bed, sitting him down on the edge. I hold his gaze as I sink to my knees, pushing his legs apart so I can fit between them. He braces on his hands, watching like he hardly believes what’s right in front of him, but I harbor no such doubt. I’ve thought about this since the very first time, but it’s never seemed like the right moment to go for it. No longer. He’s here in my bed, and I know exactly what I want.

“River, um…”

I’ve indulged too long, gazing up at him from on my knees on the floor. I press on his thighs to surge up and kiss him, brief and bruising. When I thunk back down to my knees, I ride my hands up his thighs so I can pick at his pants. Clark doesn’t help, but he doesn’t stop me. He simply sits there watching me undo the button and pull down the zipper, like he’s watching a nature documentary and not his own life unfolding before his eyes.

“Lift your hips,” I say.

I could simply pull, but I want to see him want this. Longing hums through him like a current at the bottom of a deep, still lake, stirring up the sediment of his repressed desires. I simply need him to give me a sign.

He pauses for a second, and worry creeps into the back of my brain. Then he lifts his hips, letting me pull his pants and briefs down to his ankles. As much as I’d like to, I don’t look at his cock, rubbing my hands along his thighs as I meet his eyes through the dark.

“Thanks,” I say.

He huffs a laugh. “You’re the one who plans to do all the work.”

“It’s not work, Clark. I’ve wanted this for a long time.”

Something crosses his face, but the darkness is too deep, and he’s too tightly controlled, for me to figure out what it is.

“Well, I guess that’s fine then,” he says.

“Fine? Just fine?”

“What should it be?”

“Oh, Clark, I’m going to make this so much more than ‘fine’ for you.”

My restraint wavers. I grant myself that glimpse at long last, taking in his long, hard length from mere inches away. I slide a hand to his base, steadying him so I can dip my head toward him, but while I could take him right away, instead I hold myself back, licking along him. My tongue traces his shaft and circles his head, exploring the shape of him, and Clark sucks in a breath above me.

Oh, it’s going to be delicious picking him apart this way.

I could speed up, but I keep licking instead, taking my time learning him. I find a vein and follow it with my tongue. I wrap my lips around the head. I suck and kiss along one side until I reach my hand where I’m holding him. By the time I lick my way back up, pre-cum beads on his tip.

“What the fuck,” he murmurs breathlessly above me.

I smile to myself, giving myself one quick beat of self-satisfied pride, then, at last, I sink down him.

Clark groans as I close my lips around his head and slide down, taking him into my mouth until my own hand stops me. He rests heavy on my tongue, and I squeeze my lips around him before dragging my way back up. Another slow revolution tortures a moan out of him, and the bed creaks as he sinks back on his hands.

He breaks beneath my attention. Every time I sink down he groans; every time I squeeze my lips around him while riding back up the bed grumbles from how he shifts to contend with the sensations building inside him. I don’t need verbal confirmation. I can taste it. It’s hot and salty and musky in my mouth, and it washes away my fears that he might let himself reject what his body so clearly wants.

I take him harder and deeper, but at first I keep bumping up against the frustrating hindrance of my own hand. I remove it, bracing on his thighs so I can bob my head all the way up and down him. He tickles the back of my throat as I plunge, and it wrenches free a moan that seems to crawl out from deep down in his chest.

Fingers twine through my hair. There’s plenty of it for Clark to grab, and he does, tangling his hand in the blue strands. When I spear down him, his grip tightens briefly, an involuntary flexing of his fingers that betrays his mounting desire.

Yes, yes, yes! my brain screams. He’s cracking beneath me, the facade he wears day after day crumbling like sand. I grant him no reprieve, throwing myself at him, taking as much of him as I can, pushing my gag reflex to the limit in order to get him down my throat.

“Fuck, River,” he gasps. “Careful.”

I’m well past caution. I finally have him, and I’m not letting him leave until he breaks.

I respond by continuing, and Clark’s hand seizes at my hair. His desperation prickles along my scalp when he pulls at me as though he’s gripping the reins of a bucking horse. I push myself as deep as I can go, then swallow around him, letting myself feel him filling up my mouth, my throat, my damn sinuses. I’m so deep down him I can only breathe him , and it’s the sweetest breath of my entire life.

“Oh shit,” he gasps.

His hips stutter at me in jerky hitches. I bob, but it won’t be long now. Every plunge could be the last, and the anticipation leaves me hard and trembling. I slam my way down him, pushing and pushing so he can’t escape this edge, he can’t escape his own body and this moment we inhabit together. I demand his presence, his total, focused presence in the here and now. Nothing exists outside my apartment, outside my room, outside us with our hands clawing at each other and bodies pressed close together. Whatever tempts him to look away, whatever distraction attempts to creep up on him, I obliterate it with my mouth and tongue and lips, and finally his groan spikes into a cry of perfect pleasure.

“ Shiiiiit, ” he moans.

Then he’s shooting down my throat, so deep down my throat I don’t even taste it before I’m swallowing it all down. His hips splutter. His hand yanks at my hair. Waves of pleasure beat through him and into my waiting mouth before he releases me and flops backward on the bed.

I allow myself to slide slowly off his cock as it softens in my mouth, sucking him one final time on the way out. He groans, but when I sit back on my heels he’s still splayed out on my bed, breaths billowing in his chest.

I climb onto the bed, meaning to lie with him, to touch him as he comes down, but Clark jerks up and shoves me onto my back. In a flash, I’m the one prone while he tugs my pants open and fishes my cock free.

“Clark, it’s okay,” I say.

He shakes his head, already gripping my cock. I’m rock hard, but it’s obvious this is all still a lot for him, so I wasn’t planning to push it if he wasn’t ready for that. He doesn’t offer explanations or excuses, however. All I get is that shake of his head before he’s fitting me into his mouth and sinking down to where his hand steadies me.

I give in, lying back and closing my eyes to sink into the sensation of his mouth around me. He mirrors much of what I did to him, as though this is something he’s forgotten and he needs the blueprint of my actions to guide him. A laugh tickles my throat, but it gets tangled in a moan as he plunges down me harder and faster.

I embrace the moment, accepting his attention, his enthusiasm, his desire to make me feel good at a time when his own body must be buzzing and languid. I receive the gift of his urge to please, encouraging him with moans. Before long, he has me at the edge, his mouth coaxing me to the brink.

“Clark,” I warn, but he refuses, just as I did, and keeps going until I blow.

It’s great, but the moment afterward when I flop onto the bed and he drapes himself on my chest is somehow even better. Clark doesn’t ask or doubt this time. When we’re both depleted and exhausted, he simply crawls up to me and snuggles against my side, his head on my chest and arm around my waist. I place a cautious arm around his back, and he allows me to hold him, to drag my fingers lazily along his back, to tilt my head down to rest my nose against the top of his head.

Then I take an even bigger risk.

“Would you stay tonight?” I ask.

I don’t ask if he wants to stay, but if he will stay, if he’s willing, if he will give me this last gift in a night full of miraculous gifts. I brace for the answer, barely breathing when he tenses atop me. Maybe this will be the final straw. Maybe I’ve finally asked too much of him. He gave me a date. He gave me this night in my bedroom. Demanding more is foolish and greedy, but I can’t stop myself from wanting all of it, everything he might offer, everything we could be.

“Okay,” he says after so long my heart stops beating. “Sure.”

Sure.