"Oh." The look she gave me then was of dawning delight, like a kid who'd just been awarded her first prize from the gumball machine.
I could practically see her brain calculating her options. After a few moments, she took me literally. She shuffled in close and reached out to stroke between my fingers. The tantalizing contact of just her fingertips on my cock had me swearing under my breath.
"I take it you don't mind the idea," I gritted out.
She met my eyes. "I want you to lose control. That would be perfect."
Fuck me.
I expelled a breath, then cautiously released myself and spread my arms out to my sides, giving her access.
I won't say I wasn't excited. My cock bobbed like a pupil wanting teacher's attention. Call on me, call on me!
And she noticed. But since she muttered, "It's criminal how good looking you are," with her eyes far south of my face, I believe it was a good thing.
Somewhere I found the wherewithal to tease her. "I always knew you dug the way I looked, Sloane."
"Oh, I do. I'm probably the shallowest person in the world in that respect."
"Yeah, that's you," I joked. I was relaxed by our banter, but when she went and delicately stroked the length of my shaft with one fingernail, it was like the zing of a burning match.
"Ah! What just happened?"
I refused to believe she didn't know. I forced my spine back down on the mattress. "It's fine. You're good. Keep on."
She did it again, exactly as before, on the other side. Somehow I managed not to arch off the bed completely.
Now she was cupping my balls. I sucked breath in through my nostrils. "This all right?" she asked, this being a fairy-light circling of my glans.
"Yep," I managed. "You could go a little harder there."
Whether she meant to tease me or not, she was really into this exploring shit, but I knew I couldn't last much longer. How many electrons in the next shell? Twenty in all, making eighteen more with eight in 2S, then another eight, filling up three orbitals and two free …
Even as I gained a small degree of self-mastery, those fingers left my cock entirely to trail up the center of my abdomen and over my pecs and circle one of my nipples.
"You like this too?" she asked. "Around your nipple? That's pretty neat."
"Yeah, it's … awesome." Abruptly I was done with this passivity shit. I rolled to my side and cupped the gentle rise of her breast, swallowing it completely with my palm. And now I had to kiss her.
I pressed her down, my mouth taking hers. Our kiss was messy, crude, lascivious. Now we knew what we were doing, and were doing it together, our kiss was amazing, like a journey we were taking together. With our tongues swirling, her hand on me, my hand on her … it just got better and better.
She pulled away. "So how do I make you come?"
"By doing what you're doing."
"Tell me how," she gasped. "I'm fuzzy on the details. I need clear instructions, with examples."
This was classic Charis Sloane. Laughing at her a little, I gave her the graphic instructions she wanted, but honest to fuck, it was like handing a two-year-old a lethal weapon. She applied herself with the dedicated precision of a woman determined to earn Olympic gold at hand jobs. Her goal was to race to the finish line.
Mine was to make it to the finish line before I expired.
"Time out," I managed, and she went motionless.
"Crap. What if I can't do it?"
"Sorry, Sloane-the problem is not-how to make me come. It's how to-make this last more than two seconds." As I said the last part, I felt her hand pump from base of shaft to head, and she bit my nipple with her cute little teeth, and I was done for. "Ah, ah."
I managed to pull away right as I lost control.
On her coat.
A crazy part of me thought it would be more gallant than spending in her hands. I started having doubts about that when my body was racked by one of those rare, earth-blasted-to-smithereens orgasms, the kind that knocks you sideways, the kind that makes you swear all through it because it's so intense you get a foot cramp.
"Not typical!" I huffed out. "Results are-not typical."
Panting, sweating, my muscles lax at last, I turned my head and focused gradually on her stunned expression.
I flopped over and grabbed her hand to kiss it, thoroughly enjoying the shit-eating grin that slowly spread over her face.
"Something funny, babe?" I went for her breast, the right one, the one I hadn't touched yet, slurping it up. I lay there next to her, suckling her. My cock softening. Feeling fucking fantastic despite my epic fail.
Her coat, for chrissakes.
I chuckled, and after a second, she started giggling in a, dare I say it, girly way.
"You. This bed. It's drenched. My coat … my coat. Freaking hounds of hell, I still have my boots on. Do you? You do. You just … I just … and … "
"And? And? You got any other complaints?" I poked her in the precise spot to launch her into peels of laughter.
"No!"
"Good, because this is all down to you," I growled. "If you weren't so fucking sexy, your outerwear would be clean right now. You know it's your fault, right? For being the hottest thing since erections were invented? Right?" I sucked on her, smiling and still tickling her.
"Yes!" she screamed."Yes, yes, yes!"
CHAPTER 20
Two Years Ago-Probably Not
Charis: Do you believe the sun will rise tomorrow?
Asher: Uh, yes, yes, I do. And now I suppose you want me to ask the obvious question.
Charis: What is the obvious question?
Asher: Do you believe the sun will rise tomorrow? I warn you, Sloane, if you say no, I'm gonna have to kick your ass out of the Sane Society.
Charis: Well, let's just say I'm skeptical.
Asher: You're skeptical. Oh, wait. Is this some shit from your class on formal logic? To show it's not logical somehow?
Charis: Actually, it is logical to expect the sun to rise tomorrow. Just not deductively logical. The statement "The sun has risen every day so far and thus it will rise tomorrow" uses inductive reasoning.
Asher: How the fuck do you see the sun not rising tomorrow?
Charis: Seriously, do I even have to say? I can think of dozens of things that could stop the sun rising tomorrow.
Asher: Could. It's a possibility. Not a likely probability though.
Charis: Same difference.
Asher: Not at all the same. According to quantum mechanics, there's a theoretical chance that I will spontaneously turn into a dodo bird. I am not going to spontaneously turn into a dodo bird because the probability that it will happen is almost zero. Thus, the sun will rise tomorrow, yo.
Charis: Mmm, I guess.
Asher: The bigger question is, who the fuck cares?
Charis: I the fuck care! Even a small probability can be scary. I want to know that I'm doing the right thing. How can I know it's right if there's a chance it's not the right thing?
Asher: Like right in what sense?
Charis: In the sense of going for a doctorate … deciding to do one thing and not the other … deciding to say something or not to say something … you know. Don't you doubt? Don't you wonder if you're doing the right thing? Like, like with Aura for example. What if you aren't meant for each other? Or with, where are you now, your third patent. Don't you worry?
Asher: Rarely. You have to take it for granted that you're fucking up.
Charis: Fucking up? Really?
Asher: You'll always fuck up. I'm probably fucking up right this moment. The world, the universe is a fuckup. So who gives a shit? Just do the best thing you can and call it good.
Charis: It's not that easy. The best thing is hard to see sometimes. If you do A, then B will happen, with its resultant problems, but if you do C, then D will happen with its own entirely separate set of resultant problems. It's all a mess. I'd much rather believe in absolutes. They make things simple. A is absolutely the right thing to do. That's what I believe.
Asher: Good for you. Believe whatever you want.
Charis: I will, dammit. I do believe in absolutes. I do believe in absolutes.
Asher: So do I, Dorothy. There is absolutely a hundred percent probability that you're cute scrunching up your nose like that.
Asher
WHAT I FIGURED WE'D DO THEN was shower, head over to my place, grab a bite to eat, and fuck each other spineless for the next five days.
All right, maybe that was a touch overambitious. It's not that I'm incapable of going slowly in a relationship. I definitely am. Hey, last summer I went for three weeks without fucking when Aura went to visit relatives in Wales, right? If I endured that, I could endure not pushing Charis too far, too fast.