Eighteen

TUESDAY MORNING, I woke up, as I often do, with my cock nestled snuggly between Lissa’s ass cheeks. As soon as she realized I was awake, she lifted a leg slightly and guided me into her. This time, however, she straightened her right leg and rolled toward me slightly, pulling me up on her. The net result was that I was bent over her left hip as I stroked in and out of her. I straddled her right leg and my lips had easy access to hers. The stimulation was intense for me and I could feel Lissa’s fingers still at work between her legs. She looked deeply into my eyes as we pushed ourselves together.

“I love you,” I whispered.

“Oh yes, darling.” A moment later, “I’m twenty-seven years old.”

“I know that, my love. What difference does age make?”

“But in three years I’ll be thirty.”

“Yes, and I’ll be twenty-three. I’ll have almost caught up with you.” We laughed. Then Lissa became serious again as she pressed against me more firmly. I was trying to hold back my orgasm—trying to find out what she wanted in order to push her over the edge with me.

“I know we aren’t ready yet, darling, but before ... I turn thirty ... oh! ... I want you ... to ... put a baby in me.”

Holy shit! We’d talked about kids sometime in the future and whether Lissa would want any more. I thought she’d decided two were enough. Now she was telling me she wanted to be pregnant in three years. A baby with Lissa? Yeah! My balls contracted and I began pumping sperm into her over and over as she opened her mouth and gasped.

It was the second time since Opens that I didn’t make it to my anatomy class at seven-thirty.

I walked out of Doc’s 2D class holding Kate’s hand. As usual, we went to the cafeteria before I had to meet Rio to go over our final Critical Reading essays and then to the club for team practice. The quarter would end a week from Wednesday, but most of the team had agreed to stay through the weekend for the Holiday Tournament at a club in Mountlake Terrace. We were all determined to do better at this one than we had in Bellingham. I had half an hour with Kate before I had to leave campus and she had to go to her lab.

“How are you holding together?” she asked.

“I’m too busy to think right now, but Lissa is really lonely. We both miss Melody, but after five days with you, we miss you, too.”

“I miss you. I love you,” Kate said. “I want to be with you.”

“Then come and stay with us.”

“Um ... not yet. Not quite. You’re really too busy?”

“I didn’t get home after my anatomy review last night until 9:30 and Lissa was already in bed. She’d been crying.”

“Can you handle team practice tonight without Lissa?” she asked.

“I guess I could. Why?”

“It might be time for a Kitty Kidnapping,” she grinned.

“You evil little kitten,” I laughed. “I think you might be right. I really want to paint something that I’ve been putting off.”

“Don’t expect her at practice then.”

“I love you, my kitten,” I said as I wrapped her in my arms. “You fill a hole in my soul.”

Kate looked at me like I’d just spoken in a foreign language. I was about to try to explain myself when she crushed her lips against mine. The kiss she gave me was more passionate and intense than any I could remember and I wondered what had come over her. It lit a fire in me and burned away any questions that clouded my thinking.

She jumped up, grabbed her portfolio, and rushed off to her lab without another word. It’s a good thing because I was seriously considering breaking several school rules.

“This is brilliant, Rio!” I said. We were reviewing each other’s final papers during our study session. “It’s way above our class. I love it.”

“Thank you, but you are supposed to be editing. Nothing is perfect. If I don’t see red marks on every page of that manuscript, I’m going to think you don’t care,” she answered. With that, I saw her mark yet another problem spot on my paper. I started over in my reading. Yeah. That was an awkward sentence. Homonym misspelling. I set my red pen to the paper. If she was going to quote me in her paper, she had to get the quote right.

After nearly two hours, we had to stop. I had to get to practice, especially if Lissa wasn’t showing up. I handed Rio her paper and she looked at the red ink I’d scribbled on each page with pride.

“It will be so much better after I make these corrections!” she said. “Thank you!” She launched herself at me and caught me by surprise when her lips met mine and her tongue slipped between them. This was my third heart-stoppingly incredible kiss of the day. “I knew you cared,” she said as she handed my paper back. “Have a great practice.”

Great practice? Hell, I’ll be lucky if I can even walk straight. What got into her?

“Okay, we’re going to play contact cutthroat,” I told the team. I’d explained that Lissa was called away and wouldn’t make it this evening. “Bree, that means you’ll have to fill in on the court so there are six of us. We’ll be rotating one player every ten minutes. This isn’t about the score; it’s about keeping contact and working with your partner.”

In normal cutthroat, it’s two players against the server. As the serve changes, the two defenders change as well. Only the server can score. Lissa and I came up with the variation as a training exercise. Whoever the two defenders were had to maintain contact with each other as they played the server. That meant that they had to learn to read each other. If the ball was coming to the right, they both had to move toward it or they’d lose contact and the server would get the point.

The first round it was Tonya, Franklin, and me on one court with Whitney, Brent, and Bree on the other. Ten minutes later, Tonya and Brent switched. It was cool and bizarre to play contact cutthroat with two other guys, both whom had learned to work with each other as a team. It was hard to get a serve past them.

Ten rounds are needed to work the possible combinations. Lissa and I had worked out a chart when we came up with the idea. It lets each player pair with each of the other players against each of the remaining players. It often means hot sweaty bodies falling over each other by the end of two hours. The last round, I was joined by Whitney and Bree. Both of these girls decided that contact needed to be a little closer than just stretching a hand out to their partner. It made no difference if they partnered with me or with each other, the touch was at the hip with at least one person’s arm around the other. When my timer rang again, we were falling over laughing.

I stepped into the studio at about nine that night. I knew Lissa and Kate were in each other’s arms. Melody and I talked just before practice and she would be asleep by now since it was midnight in Boston. I sent an “I love you” text to Kate and Lissa, but didn’t expect a response.

I pulled on one of my new paint smocks and went through my playlists trying to find something appropriate. I remembered music in the background and decided to just let Beethoven guide me, starting with the first symphony. I sketched out the painting at life size and started with my acrylics.

Seven hours and nine symphonies later, I stood staring at Ralph.

I closed my eyes and stepped back further to see if I had really captured what I wanted or if only I would be able to see it. I opened them. Yes. It was there. His flayed body was evident—layers of skin, muscle, and bone exposed. Looking at the piece up close, that’s what you could see. From a distance, the young man’s face rested in sweet repose.

I sat in the recliner I purchased Sunday, set an alarm, and went to sleep in companionable silence with the man’s spirit.

I got up about two hours later and headed for the athletic pavilion where I could grab a quick shower before class. We’d designated Amanda as our official presenter and she did a stellar job. Justin had done most of the slide preparation and Bree had written much of the script. Of course, I’d done the illustrations and everyone was suitably wowed by the result. Doctor Dennis’s praise was slightly muted, apparently in deference to the presentations that were still to come, but after class he congratulated us and collected our individual conclusions.

“You have set a high standard for yourselves,” Dennis said. “I assume you are all continuing with Human Physiology next term. I’ll expect work as good as this each time.”

“Sir?” Justin asked. The guy was smart as a whip, but quiet. I was surprised to hear his voice. “Can we keep the same team next term?”

“I should spread your talents to other students,” Dennis replied. “On the other hand, you seem to have a good dynamic that I’d hate to break up. Let me read your conclusions then I’ll decide on the composition of next term’s team. Don’t forget the final on Monday.”