Thus I was hugging her rather than groping her, lying sideways to her sideways, my leg between hers, dotting kisses on her forehead, jaw, ear.
"Why am I flipping out?" she bawled.
"It happens," I soothed.
"To you?"
"Nah."
"Well, why the hell not?"
I grinned. "I'm not a pussy."
She pinched my arm but didn't stop rubbing her face in my chest, getting snot and drool all over me. My arms tightened. This, this was what I loved. I'd happily go on this way, kissing and snuggling a sniveling Char, until I was cross-eyed.
Okay, I might as well get this out there. I've got a fucking cuddling fetish. I've been told I was a cuddler from the time I burst out of the womb. Winnow claims I must have been passed around to every female in the family my first week in existence.
It's possible. It's kinda not something you'd willingly share around, but there it is. I love holding a woman's softness, her heat, her smell against me. I can keep a hard-on for hours just nuzzling a babe.
Charis wasn't soft everywhere, but we fit together like puzzle pieces, her arm draped around me, her hand resting on my rear end, her leg hooked over me.
"We're so doing this for our next PvP game," I said, sucking on her earlobe.
"I don't even know what this is." She rubbed her nose on me. "What's happening here. This is stupid."
I wasn't sure what to tell her. I knew it wasn't anything like it had been with Aura. I knew it was exactly what I wanted. Anything else, my brain wasn't processing.
I kissed her ear. "Fuck if I know. We're hanging out together." I rubbed my cock, sticking out of its open fly, suggestively against her.
She gasped. "Did you dare to make a pun? At this very moment?"
"Oh, I dare," I said, voice deep. I kissed the frown lines between her eyebrows. "Correct me if I'm wrong, but you just experienced some genuinely apocalyptic orgasms, did you not, Sloane?"
"Huh."
"Are you blushing?" I turned her face. "Cool trick. I could actually hear you blushing. So … apocalypse?"
"Apocalypse," she said reluctantly. "And why the need to point out the patently obvious?"
I smiled, feeling awesomeness deep in my bones. "Because, sweetness, I'm sitting here like a dog with two dicks while you're having a cow. Why is that?"
"There-you calling me sweetness. That's what I'm having a cow about."
"What else should I call you?"
"Something normal. Buddy. Amigo. Homey."
I cracked up.
"I don't know. This whole thing is crazy. You and me. Everything's gone back assward."
"That is as it should be. Shit, you are so hot." My hand ran down her ass. Small, yes, but meaty and plump where she needed to be, and the skin. Everywhere on her body her skin was sleek and baby-soft. "You make me hard, Char. I want to do so many dirty things to you. Do you have any notion how badly I want you?"
"I'm getting there," she muttered. "You, uh, you don't have to hold back. Obviously I'm willing."
Motherfucker. She had to say it like that, casually. My heartbeat went out of control.
But now I had to know. "How much experience have you had with fucking?"
I felt her body jolt. "Some. A lot."
I kept silent, and she added, "With one guy."
"Dude from college?"
"Reggie, yes. We did the act every Friday for years."
Did the act? That was a strange way of putting it. Then her statement registered. Every Friday? As in, on a schedule?
Oh hell no.
I opened my mouth, but Charis's proud look stopped me. I guess she really had no idea how pathetic that sounded.
So I just said mildly, "His name was Reggie?"
"Is that a problem?"
"Nope." Then it hit me. She was practically a virgin. I was going to be her tutor.
"What's so funny?'
I let my smile widen. "You're not really older than me where it counts. One random guy. Pshaw."
"Long term, dumbass. And it was perfectly good sex."
"Oh, it was, was it? Perfectly good sex. Kind of like a perfectly good pair of socks, or a perfectly good refrigerator, or a per-"
"It counts. It does count!"
"Was it as good as being tossed to the land of O just now?" I probed her from behind as a pointed reminder.
"Tossed to the land of O?"
"You know, the land of apocalyptic orgasms."
"It was not that good, no."
I smiled smugly. "So, just so we're clear, you're saying it was more fun getting off to my fingers than Reginald's pee-pee."
She smothered laughter. "Yeah. I wouldn't use 'fun' to describe what Reggie and I did. It was more … interesting and businesslike."
Businesslike sex? With Charis? Wild sex. Fun sex. Those I could see. But businesslike? I couldn't wrap my mind around it.
"Tell me more," I demanded. Then, at the idea of another man fucking Charis: "On second thought, never mind, I'm not ready to hear that just yet. Just tell me … these were the best orgasms of your life. True or false?"
She went into a fit of coughing. "True. Okay?"
"Okay then. We're on the same page. Finally. I am going to love getting you up to speed. Because you. Are. Unbelievable."
Her eyes shadowed. "I guess I have to ask, did you mean that in a good way, or-"
Her very real uncertainty made me tighten my arms. "Charis Sloane, if I tell you that you are amazing, that there is nothing I want to do more than open your legs and drill you for hours, that I am a hundred percent sure that fucking you will blow my mind, will you believe me? Or will you assume I'm just trying to make you feel better?"
Her eyes searched mine. "I'll believe you, Asher."
"Good. I'm sick of being told I'm full of shit. I've never seen anything hotter than you coming. It was pure sweetness, which is what you are, which is why I call you that, and I can't wait to do it again."
Her eyes widened. She seemed to brace herself. "Okay, you told me that. I can say this. I have wanted you, Asher. I've wanted you for a long time. A … really long time, actually."
With that breathtaking admission, that hand, the one on my butt, eased around, and Charis delicately touched my cock.
I'd been so intent on her, I'd almost lost track of our intimate entangling. With that one gesture, my body surged.
Yeah, I lost it, really lost it, like a punk kid in Stage One.
Now, I'd had a lot of women touch my cock.
A lot.
It's not even funny.
Touch, kiss, suck, pet … if anything, they went for it sooner than I was always comfortable with.
But this wasn't any woman.
This was Charis.
My programming looped.
Char wanted me, she'd just given herself to me with abandon, she was hesitantly wrapping her hand around my shaft, and how was this not my fucking lifelong dream again?
Pleasure engulfed my body; heaviness took my limbs. I pushed her onto her back, driving myself through her hand, butting the tip against her belly. "Harder. Oh, fuck, yes, please, squeeze me harder, girl."
Her hand tightened; my balls contracted dangerously. Now there was zero thinking happening. I grabbed her hips. With the dangerous surge that followed my pleasure-seeking thrust, a glimmer of sense awakened and I tried desperately to control the roiling need.
Had I really implored my best friend to squeeze my dick?
That wasn't the plan. Fucking her today wasn't the plan. What was I doing?
Stage Three, you bastard. Must control cock.
She ruined that plan.
"Asher, I want to touch you however I want. It's like a crazy need. But I feel like I should ask. Or I don't know, I don't know what I should do."
It took a split second to absorb.
Then I almost shot my load.
Oh, fuck, no. I would not come in Charis's hand like a snot-faced adolescent. I was supposed to show her I was the experienced one, not the immature jerk who cared about only one thing. Not gonna happen, especially not with Sloane.
Not. Gonna.
How many electrons in calcium? Two in the first shell …
"Go ahead and touch me any way you want," I managed. "Just be careful."
She froze. "Why? What could happen?"
I rolled onto my back, clutching my cock protectively in my tight fist. A wimp? Maybe.
"The problem is, I'm kind of on the edge here."
"Edge? You mean irritated, don't you? Crap, I was inappropriate. I knew I-"
"Fuck," I groaned, "are you messing with me now?"
"No! I don't understand! I just want to know a simple thing. May I touch you or may I not? Apparently there is a risk of which I am unaware, and before I do something really bad I sh-"
A laugh burst out of me. "The risk is that I'll lose control, Sloane. If you want to watch me lose control, sure, take that hand of yours and go right ahead and touch me."