Chapter 7

“So you’re just going to stand there?”

Luke’s feet were riveted to the floor. His jaw was wired shut. Yet both had greater freedom of action than his mind.

Kathryn sighed, stretching and writhing sensually within the haphazard cocoon of the sheet, the hard points of her nipples threatening its sanctity while her exposed foot absentmindedly traced circles in the air.

Finally, he summoned up sufficient strength of will to speak. “Ka ... Kathryn! Oh my god, you’re really ... I thought you ... I though I’d ... I’m so sorry ... where did you ... what are you doing here?”

The corner of her mouth bent upward in an insouciant smirk. “So many questions, so few of them actually finished. But I’ll start with the last one. I’m in your bed, and if you were to guess I’m naked you’d be correct. If you concentrate really hard, I suspect you just might be able to figure out what I’m doing here.”

Before his penis could bridge the space between them all by itself — a feat it was exerting a mighty effort to achieve — he took a hesitant step forward. By the time he reached her, a trail of hastily discarded clothing formed an unsteady line from the kitchen to the side of the bed. He stared down at her, trying to will the sheet into invisibility, while her eyes wandered his nude form.

“You’re even more handsome than I imagined, Luke. And that’s a very impressive cock. Why don’t you...”

“I skipped lunch.”

She paused, clearly amused, before replying. “Are we playing some sort of kinky non sequitur game, or is this a debilitating verbal tic for which I need to be prepared?”

His face reddened, though less than the usual amount of blood was available for such tasks, as most of it was racing in a furious loop between his heart and his manhood. “No, I mean ... I just ... I haven’t been eating or sleeping very well. I might not be at my best.” Really, dude? That’s what you interrupted her to say?

Pursing her lips, she reached out and took his hand. The caress of her fingers was a gentle promise. “I suspect I can bring out your best, whether or not you’re weak with hunger and fatigue. Now, while I still have almost five percent of your attention, I want you to listen to me. When I move this sheet aside you’re going to start telling me about my body. Having lived with it since birth, I already know it quite well; save the detailed review until you can take your time and do it properly, in painstaking detail ... and more importantly, tactilely. You don’t need to seduce me, because you’ve already done that. You’re probably also going to want to showcase your very best foreplay. Leave that for later as well; I couldn’t possibly be wetter or more aroused than I am right now. I want one thing, and only one thing: you fucking the ever-loving hell out of me until one or both of us collapses from fluid loss. After that, we’re going to eat dinner naked, go back to bed, and keep screwing until we can’t move, after which I hope to fall asleep with you still inside me. Tomorrow, we’re going to wake up and have an extremely important and long-overdue talk about all of this. If it goes well, we’ll spend the rest of the day in bed doing absolutely every naughty thing we can think of to each other. But right now I need you inside me, especially because — and here I think I can speak for both of us — we have a rather excessive amount of raw lust to release before we can interact like normal people again. Do we have a deal, Lucas Bronson?”

Not really, because that little speech essentially guaranteed that I’m going to come before I’ve even completed my first thrust. He clenched his teeth, bit his tongue, strained to hold back his urgent need to climax, and nodded. “We have a deal, Kathryn Lloyd Maddox.”

Smiling, she pulled back the sheet. He gulped, trying without much success to swallow, for his throat was dry to the point of non-functionality at the awe-inspiring sight. Her legs were an open invitation, begging him to penetrate her weeping hole. A few pearls of semen leaked from the end of his shaft and fell to the floor. If I even make it to the first thrust, that is...

Nervously, clumsily, he climbed between her legs, but despite her demand Luke couldn’t help but pause on the precipice of rapture. His spear quivered just beyond the enveloping grasp of her swollen labia, but the initial inward plunge was proving more difficult than he ever could have predicted ... especially given how much and how often he’d dreamed about it.

We’re really going to do this. I’m actually going to have sex with Kathryn. This is...

“Didn’t I explain myself clearly enough, Luke?” She squirmed, eyes aflame with desire. “I need you inside me. Take me. Now!”

Focused like a laser on the point of their union — this was a moment he knew he’d commit to eternal memory — he drove his hips forward, impaling her to the root, yet with considerably more difficulty than that for which he’d been prepared. Despite her copious lubrication she was extremely snug, and her inner walls gripped his rod with a pressure that beggared belief. At first he thought she was clenching around him with her muscles, but when she truly bore down he realized that he’d been quite mistaken. How can she be so tight?

Suddenly, four things happened at once. Kathryn let out an inhuman scream, she wrapped her long legs around him so tightly that it was impossible for him to move, her nails dug into his back until they drew blood, and Luke ejaculated what felt like the entirety of his life essence deep inside her sex. It was the quickest and most thunderous climax he’d ever experienced. As soon as he began filling her with his thick cream, her pelvis bucked upward and her channel convulsed around his length, fusing with him at the pinnacle of ecstasy.

That’s never, ever happened to me before. Even the very first time I had sex, I at least managed to last a couple minutes. He kept pumping seed into her, and her scream grew rhythmic as her pussy rippled along his occupying shaft. Well, there’s only one thing to do: better.

As her orgasm abated, her enveloping legs loosened just enough for him to start sliding back and forth. She was, as she’d promised, unfathomably wet, yet her passage remained so narrow that every forceful thrust into her willing flesh was like a dozen strokes into another’s. Jesus, this feels amazing. I’m not sure how long I’m going to last this time, either.

Eyes closed, head buried in the pillows, she moaned with abandoned passion as he drove into her clutching channel. He could clearly feel the swollen bud of her clitoris, so prominent that it was squeezed tight against his invading rod, and even in his carnal delirium he realized what that anatomical quirk might portend for her ability to experience pleasure. His eyes devoured her as he moved; neither piece by piece nor with any particular ravenous intent, nor even studying her for signs and clues to the ways of her body, but instead soaking up every infinitesimal sensorial detail of their joining, still trying to assemble the shattered impossibility of this reality into the dream they were giving form.

“Luke,” she whispered, finally opening her eyes. Their stares locked. The pace and force of his thrusts increased. Grabbing the back of his neck, she pulled him into a kiss. In no time at all it was impossible to tell where his mouth ended and hers began; such was the urgent fury of their passion. Harder and harder he pounded her while she whimpered and gasped with pleasure. And then, his tongue entwining with hers, he unleashed another enormous flood of semen. She screamed into his mouth as her climax once again arrived in response to his.

Even as he willed the last few drops of it into her sex, he was moving again. The wet squelch of their union — a white-tinged froth of mingled fluids that was already making a mess of their loins and the sheets — was an obscene soundtrack accompanying their race to their next peak. Kathryn gave voice to a constant barrage of shrieks and grunts, the frenetic slap of flesh against flesh the ever-accelerating drumbeat that marked their rhythm, but despite the velocity of their rutting he was just sated enough to make it last this time. Luke savaged her eager cunt for close to a half hour while she repeatedly cried out in orgasm after orgasm, finally poured his third load into her drenched tunnel, and collapsed onto her body, gasping for air. For the moment, he was spent.

They took a few minutes to recapture their breath, drifting down from stratospheric heights, lips teasing without binding. His shaft burned from oversensitivity and hard duty within her snug furnace. Eventually, he leaned back, dazed by the vivid green of her eyes and the flushed perfection of her beauty, whispering, “Are you hungry?”

Her sultry smile offered more than one answer.

“What are you in the mood for?” he called from the kitchen, kneeling in front of the fridge and tallying at its contents, half-conscious and wondering if abandoning her erotic embrace, even temporarily, had been the wisest course of action. For the sake of culinary propriety he was wearing an apron, but it was all he was wearing.

“Meat! The succulent muscle of a wild animal, presented to me so that I might sink my teeth into its flesh and feed on its primitive power.”

Laughing uncontrollably, he asked, “Do you want to tear the flesh apart with your hands, too?”

“Can I?”

“We’ll see,” he chuckled. “Anything else?”

“Can you chop down a tree and build me a roaring bonfire, over which you shall spit roast this majestic beast while I dance around the flames like a naked pagan goddess?”

“I was asking about wine,” he managed through another sputtering burst of laughter. “And I’ve never used an axe in my life.”

“How disappointing. Something fabulous and appropriately animalistic that’s worthy of this carnivorous occasion, then. Aside from that, I don’t care. Well, no, that’s not true. Don’t make a salad. Nothing we’ve done or are about to do deserves the indignity of a salad.”

“Just let me put on some...”

“No! No clothes. Not until tomorrow. Actually, not until Thursday. Or, if tomorrow morning goes really well, Saturday.”

Gulp. “You remember how cold the cellar is, right?”

“Luke, if you experience fifty-five degrees of shrinkage I have ways to restore you to full health. I’ll let you wear shoes or slippers while you’re in the cellar, but that’s it.”

“I’ll look forward to your unique brand of physical therapy. Okay, hold on...”

A few minutes later he was eagerly handing over a glass of the 2000 Allemand Cornas Reynard while venison steaks (he’d been saving them for a special occasion, and this certainly qualified) sizzled in a cast iron pan and maitake mushrooms caramelized in another. Kathryn — gloriously (and still, to hims, unfathomably) naked — was sitting at the table, devouring him with her eyes and leaking their emissions into the towel she’d sensibly draped over her chair. As had already become their habit, he’d hidden the label before pouring the wine. Though he now had an even more visceral reason, listening to her analyze wines was something he still found intensely arousing.

“I understand we’re not supposed to say this sort of thing anymore, but this is the most masculine wine I’ve ever tasted. It smells like sweat, muscles, jawlines, and erections.”

He nearly dropped the tongs with which he was about to flip the steaks. “Kathryn!”

“Sorry,” she responded, with a shrug that indicated she was anything but. “Great sex replaces my higher brain functions with horniness. But this is really fabulous. There’s nothing I could possibly call fruit in here, but it really does taste like sweaty men having sex on top of a pile of freshly butchered meat. It has to be syrah or mourvèdre, right? I’m guessing Rhône syrah, and not young. It’s bloody as hell but it’s not too structured, so it’s not Hermitage. Graillot Crozes-Hermitage?”

She called it great sex! “Not quite, but close enough to impress. It’s Cornas. And yes, it most definitely is fabulous. Enjoy it while you can, though, because there’s not going to be much more.”

“Why? Did the winemaker retire?”

“Not quite yet, but it’s become a cult item at auctions. Absolutely everyone is after these wines, and the price is astronomical. I’ll be lucky to snag a few of each of his bottlings from now on, and you’re definitely going to pay for them.”

“I willingly pledge whatever position it takes,” she announced, playfully tugging on a nipple.

Oh god. “While that might actually help with your allocation, I should warn you that the Allemand rep in this state is a fat old man with wandering hands. You sure you’re that committed?”

“From each according to their ability...” she solemnly intoned while he made retching noises, not all of them faked.

As they ate, she stared at him with a hunger surpassing even that with which she’d devoured her meal. His own pace slowed, for the full intensity of her carnal avarice was disconcerting. He was still nursing the rest of his food when he realized she was slowly pleasuring herself, squirming in her chair while her eyes drilled into his.

“Uh, do you want me to...?”

“No. Finish first. In fact, pour me the rest of the wine; it’s too good to leave until tomorrow. I’m going to time it so I come while I have the very last sip in my mouth.”

“But...”

“Finish. I know I intend to.”

He groaned, gnawing another succulent morsel of venison and trying to ignore his raging desire to be back inside her.

The moment he was done, she drained the rest of her wine and threw her head back in ecstasy while he gaped, marveling at the beauty of her orgasm. On unsteady legs she stood, her expression feral and her need palpable, small rivulets of fluid trailing down her inner thighs. Even more clung to her fingers. Her eyes beseeched him back to the bed, a plea he didn’t waste any time acknowledging. Flinging him onto his back, she mounted him, enveloping his rock hard pole with her dripping pussy and slamming downward until her buttocks met his thighs. Grinding, rocking, rotating, pumping, she rode him with a vengeance, experiencing clusters of orgasms for every one of his. But she had a hidden hand in this inequality, for her internal muscle control was beyond anything he’d experienced; nearly every time he was on the brink of climax, she tightened her channel around his shaft until the urge passed.

“God, Kathryn. How can you be so tight? And what you’re doing with your ... how do you...?”

“Shhhh, Luke. Questions tomorrow. Sex tonight.”

Even reaching for her undulating breasts drew a silent rebuke. And so he remained passive while she wrested every possible bit of pleasure from his painfully stiff cock, coming and coming and coming until he was dazed by the easy frequency of her peaks. Though their sexual calisthenics went on for hours, any sense of duration seemed irrelevant compared to the fact that they were doing this at all. By the fifth time she allowed him to climax — he delivered a tepid trickle into a hot, wet tunnel already overflowing with his seed — he was, once again, absolutely spent. And so, at least for the moment, was she. She collapsed on top of him, twitching as stray aftershocks gripped and released her body.

“We need to work on your stamina, but that was a very promising start. Will you be able to fall asleep with me on top of you like this?”

“If I can’t, I’ll keep it to myself. If I had my way, you wouldn’t ever move.”

She kissed him with simple, honest affection and then relaxed, nestling into him with every inch of her supple body. His manhood still throbbed in her channel and his erection showed tentative signs of renewed interest, but he knew with absolute surety that he was finished. Drained. Emptied.

The dreams into which he soon fell were restless and relentless, featuring increasingly lurid couplings interrupted by abrupt disappearances right in the midst of their pleasure. Over and over he searched for her, horny and desperate, yet always in vain.

Struggling through layers of lethargy and languor, he opened his eyes. Kathryn was already awake, her head held aloft by a crooked arm, one leg and her other arm draped across his body. Though a sensual curtain of luscious red hair bearing all the signs of a sex-filled night, she studied his face.

“How long have you been awake?” he murmured, a rising tide of disbelief and arousal filling him at the blissful confirmation that last night not only hadn’t been an illusion, but that she was still here, still naked, and still...

“Just shy of an hour. You were obviously having some interesting dreams.”

Indeed I was. “Was I talking in my sleep or something?”

With a soft laugh, she answered, “Not exactly. As far as I can tell, you barely moved all night. I know I didn’t, because when I woke up I was still on top of you, though unfortunately you were no longer inside me.”

“Then how could you guess about my dreams?”

“Let’s just say I have a fairly good idea what you were dreaming about.” Her eyes flicked down his body, and he realized that he was not only mostly erect, but that he felt the specific sort of ache that comes from extended engorgement. Any embarrassment was quickly forgotten as opportunity presented itself, and he reached for her.

She accepted a kiss, moving her lips against his with immense tenderness, but otherwise held him at bay. When they separated, it was as if she’d wrapped her professional, organized demeanor over the overtly passionate wanton of the night before.

“You can shower first. Alone, “ she emphasized. “I’ll take mine while you make coffee. After that,” she sighed, “we need to have that talk I mentioned.” She paused, considering. “Do you have a button-down shirt that I could wear? I forgot to bring a robe, and I think I should be at least somewhat dressed for this conversation.”

That sounds ominous.

The vibrant aromatics of freshly brewed Ethiopian Yirgacheffe were as relaxing as they were caffeinating, but nothing compared to the musical afterglow of a dream realized. And my god she looks sexy in that shirt. He’d always loved seeing his lovers wearing his clothes, but the unfathomably lovely Kathryn in one of his shirts — buttoned so infrequently that vast expenses of her exquisite flesh were still on display — was beyond anything he’d ever imagined.

“I suppose I didn’t quite think this through,” she acknowledged, glancing at her exposed cleavage, “and these aren’t exactly designed to fit in men’s shirts, anyway. Will you be okay, or do I need to go get a robe after all?”

“It doesn’t matter. I’ll be imagining the same thing either way.”

“So,” she began, her brief smile at his compliment fading, “I’m sure you have questions. So do I.”

Shaking his head, he shrugged. “I don’t have to have any if you’d rather I didn’t. Last night was...”

She raised a hand to arrest his declaration. “Luke, you can skip the postgame analysis. We both know it was good. But we have a lot to talk about, and we have to do it now.”

“Why now?”

“Because this is as purely physical as we’re ever going to be.” His penis leapt at the implied promise of future activity. “This,” she gestured back and forth between them, “is only going to get more complicated the longer we keep doing it. There are things that we need to say to, and hear from, each other before the urge to just bang our issues into submission becomes too strong to resist. I also need you to understand that it’s possible last night was indeed our last night, though I want to be very clear that I don’t wish for that outcome any more than you do,” she added, remaining stoic in response to his stricken expression. “Everything depends on this conversation.” Gentling her tone, she joked, “But, you know, no pressure.”

The lump in his throat and the pounding of his heart threatened to render him catatonic. “I don’t understand.”

“I know. That’s my fault. Listen: I know I’ve said this before, but I need you to be completely honest with me. About everything, no matter how difficult the subject. If I say something you don’t like, tell me ... even if you think it might hurt your chances for a repeat performance. Actually, especially if you think it might. If I feel like you’re lying to me, trying to manipulate the situation to your sexual benefit, or even just hiding something you really feel because you think it might be hurtful, this isn’t going to work. The same, by the way, applies to me. I’m going to have to say things I don’t want to. Quite a few, actually. If you feel like I’m concealing something, call me out. Do you promise?”

“I guess this is why people prefer meaningless hookups.” It was a lame attempt to defuse the growing tension, and though he caught a brief twinkle in her eye, he knew he needed to be serious. “Well, like I said: I’m tired of those anyway. Yes, I promise to do my best to be honest, whether or not it seems unwise. But you might need to give me until the end of the conversation, in case I say something I want to take back.”

“That’s fair,” she concurred, nodding over a sip of coffee. “Let’s start with a rather important matter of trust. Last night we didn’t use any protection. I’m disease-free, and as you remember I can’t get knocked up, but you didn’t hesitate. I’m hoping that means I’ve nothing to worry about.”

It only took him a moment’s reminiscence to reassure himself of the truth. “The last time I had sex, we’d both gotten tested and were given clean bills of health. I haven’t done more than a little kissing and light fondling with anyone else since then. But you’re right, I was way too caught up in the moment and definitely should’ve been more careful.”

“The last time ... was it someone you’re seeing?” Is that jealousy in her voice? But her expression was completely relaxed, and he realized that her question was no more than a simple request for information.

“Only in the sense I told you about the other day. Elizabeth ... Liz ... and I get together when we can. We just work together, physically, and she trusts me to respect her boundaries. But it’s strictly casual, and strictly sexual.” He managed a small grin. “No Netflix, all chill.”

“What’s she like?”

She really wants to know? Why? “Well, I don’t like putting it this way because it makes her sound bad. Still, in another era I suppose many would’ve labeled her a nymphomaniac, and even now I think that’s the word she’d choose. I specialize in wine, she specializes in sex. She’s wired differently than anybody I’ve ever known.” And there we are. Right off the bat, I risk cutting myself off by implying someone I’m having sex with is a slut.

“She sounds delightful. Would that we all had such freedom, and lucky you. But if she’s such a sex machine, why has it remained casual between the two of you?”

Oh, I get it. She’s leading up to a conversation about one particular relationship that’s not going to be easy for either of us. “Liz isn’t great with feelings, and especially not with talking about them. She’d have bailed on this conversation by the time she got out of the shower. For her, forced discussions about feelings are like being boiled in oil, and relationships are anathema. She’s had exactly one boyfriend and one girlfriend, both were way back in junior high, and she’s absolutely certain she doesn’t want another of either. She even thinks polyamory is too formal and restrictive, though she acknowledges it’s probably in her future as more and more of her available partners pair off.”

“Was her sexuality what attracted you to her?”

He shook his head. “Not at first, no, though of course it’s impossible to ignore now. She’s very attractive and quite clever. Being around her is a great deal of fun even when sex isn’t on the agenda, though the truth is it’s always on the agenda. But I had no clue she was like that until she came home with me after the shortest date I think I’ve ever had. She probably owns more outrageously sexy or revealing clothing than some lingerie or fetish stores, but it’s all roleplaying; in her everyday life she dresses and acts like anyone else. It’s only once she’s decided that she’s going to have sex with you — and according to her, that happens in the first fifteen minutes or not at all — that you’re allowed to see the real Liz.”

“She and I have that in common, then.” Luke’s erection returned, and though she couldn’t see it through the table, her lips formed a tight smile at the visible tension in his shoulders. “Down, boy.”

Luke grimaced, remembering how many times she (and his conscience) had said the same thing over the last few days. “Are you seeing anyone else? By you young folks’ definition of ‘seeing,’ I mean.” The gentle tease in her voice was immediately apparent, for despite his initial assumptions she was quite a bit closer to his age than she was to Bill’s.

“The occasional one- or several-night stand. A few other semi-regulars here and there, but not recently, and none of them as often as Liz. It’s been a while since I’ve been in anything I could call a relationship, and even that was ... complicated. As I told you before, it’s nice to have a reasonable assurance that an evening is going to end in bed, but the downside is that the bed feels even more empty the nights it holds only one.” The sadness in her expression at the obvious but unspoken parallel was all too clear. “Though I suppose I should add that I’ve recently learned I’m in a long term, committed, but sexless relationship with a lesbian.”

That finally extracted an involuntary laugh from the armor of her stoicism. “You are indeed. Though I wouldn’t be so sure about the sexless part.” There she goes again. Did Wendy tell her what happened after the boat trip? “Anyway, thank you. Aside from matters of health and safety, I assume you’ve guessed why I’m interrogating you about your partners.”

Properly respectful words didn’t immediately come to mind, so he settled for nodding, refilling his cup while she cradled hers between long fingers.

“I can think of at least three questions you’re dying to have answered. Go ahead and ask them.”

He didn’t really want to have this conversation, but she was right: there was no way to avoid it. Best to confront it here and now. No way out but through. “Is this ... am I ... are we...?”

“Your wording is almost as eloquent as my thoughts on the matter. You’re trying to figure out what to call what we’re doing. I promise I’ll answer, but I want to come back to it. Ask the next one.”

Taking a chance, he countered, “I’m supposed to call you out over this sort of thing, right?”

She nodded. “Yes, and you’re right to. But I’m just reordering my answers. That one will make more sense when you’ve heard the others.”

Straight through the heart, then. “Do you think Bill knows, or at least suspects, that we might do something like this? Or worse, that we are doing this?”

Her silence lingered for a surprisingly long time before she replied. “My answer to that question may surprise you. I’m not positive he knows, no, but that may just be wishful thinking on my part. After all, he’s one of the most brilliant and incisive legal minds I’ve ever met, and he knows me as well as anyone ever has. Better, perhaps. The notion that,” she waved her hand in the air, “this can possibly remain a secret is almost ludicrous on its face, yet that’s going to be my choice anyway, and I hope you’ll support me. Anything else involves deliberately causing him pain, and I won’t do that if I don’t have to.”

Staring into her coffee as if it might reveal some previously hidden revelation, she went on. “You already know enough to understand the major sources of my discontent. There are other issues, but they’re all ancillary and pale in comparison to the big ones. I don’t particularly want to talk about them in more detail, because I don’t think my marriage can be a healthy or productive conversation between the two of us, but if you really need me to, I will. I don’t promise they won’t come up from time to time ... especially as what happened last week is inextricably linked to that discontent.” Her eyes brimmed with tears. “I need you to know something: I’ve never cheated on anyone. Ever. And I don’t want to cheat on Bill. But the life I lead, the way I am, the things I need and want and feel ... I’ve feared from the moment I fell in love with him that I might, one day.” He didn’t entirely understand her answer, but when she looked up at him, earnest and vulnerable, his doubts melted away. “I know that leaves a lot unexplained, but despite the fact that we just had sex I’m not yet ready to reveal everything there is to know about me. You’re not ready for it, either. That said, and to get back to your first question, I don’t think of what we’ve done ... and, if all goes well, what we’re going to do ... as cheating.”