The Brightest Stars

“How was the store? Do you need help carrying bags in?” he asked.

“It was good, I—”

He cut me off before I could finish. “Why are you still dressed?” he whined, though I was pantless.

Having this man want me gave me a high I never could have dreamed of. I’d never felt like this before. Not once. I knew what a cliché it was, and I didn’t care. All I cared about was right in front of me, moving closer.

Kael lifted himself up on his elbow, leaning over me, positioning himself to gaze down at me. The angles of his face continued to surprise me, as if each time he looked at me from a different viewpoint I saw a new side of him. The way he took me in … he swallowed hard, wanting to devour me. It was a small movement, almost imperceptible, and yet an act so intense I had to close my eyes to keep from falling.

I could feel the heat of his face moving closer to mine, his lips moving closer to mine. His fingers were warm when he inched my shirt up above my belly button, up my torso, until I shimmied enough for him to pull it over my head. I felt cool air on my skin, but the goose bumps, the electricity coursing through my body came from Kael.

“I missed your mouth.” He spoke slowly, each word betraying his want, each breath revealing his need. He touched his fingertips to my lips, tracing them. I licked them, running my tongue under his soft skin, over his hard nails. I nipped him playfully and he reacted first by licking his lips, then biting them. He was trying to slow himself down. I could hear it in his breath, see it in his face. He wanted me.

“Kael,” I said, taking big gulps of air. “This moment. Now—”

“The words, your words—” Kael’s voice was raspy, his dark eyes smoky. “The way they taste.” He bent down to kiss them. “They taste even better than they sound.” He pulled away and then dipped down to kiss me again.

It was more than a kiss. It was a touch and a kiss, and something that I couldn’t begin to explain and it pulsed through my body as pure arousal. He slid his tongue between my lips, separating them to have more of me.

My body had come alive. I was closest to the purest human form when under his spell. When he was touching me, I could feel my mind opening up. Vast spaces were cleared, every move he made pushed aside the chaos inside my head, put me at ease.

“Every part of you,” he kissed my jawline, making my eyes close, “tastes so good.”

He was so hard. I could feel him pressing against me, my body reacting to him before my mind could. I reached between us to touch him, but he grabbed my wrist, pinning it above my head.

“In a hurry?” Kael dipped his head down again, this time sucking at the flesh spilling over my bra. I shuddered.

“I’ve been thinking about your tits all day. How they would feel in my hands.” He reached up and covered my entire breast with his large hand. My eyes rolled back in my head and I swear I could feel myself moving in and out of consciousness. He sucked at me until I felt the sweet sting of the blood breaking over my skin. He was marking me. Branding me. Making me his.

I ached between my thighs.

“How they taste.” He bit me gently, dipping his tongue beneath the lacey cup of my bra.

“I missed you,” I managed to say through the moans slipping from my lips. He was sucking at my nipple now, biting gently. The pain mixed with pleasure sent a tantalizing surge through my entire body.

“Oh, I missed you so much.”

“I want …” I gasped. I was no longer capable of breathing.

“What, Karina? What do you want?” he asked. He was teasing me. Taunting me.

I swallowed sand, my mouth was so dry. All of the wetness had moved elsewhere on my body. Never in my life had I known why people liked sex so much, why sex made them do crazy things. Yet, if Kael asked me to rob a bank with him right at that moment, while he gently sucked and pulled at my nipple, I would have happily said yes. Not being with him. Not feeling his hands on mine, his mouth on me … that would be the real crime.

“More, Kael. I need more—” I had barely gotten the last word out before his hand pushed under my body and he lifted me, carefully flipping our bodies so that I was on top of him. I could feel the pool of arousal soaking through my panties as he throbbed against me, pressing against my pulsing sex.

I wanted to tell him to fuck me. I didn’t care if it hurt. I wanted him to plow into me. To take me until there was nothing left to take. I wanted to slide my panties off and lower my body onto his.

Like he was reading my mind, his fingers went from digging into my hips, to slipping inside my panties. I moaned, my head dropping in relief, then thrown back in arousal. I was throbbing from him at the core of my body.

Kael’s thick finger teased me, tracing up and down, all over the sticky wetness, but not where I needed him the most. He knew just where to touch, I could tell by the way he handled my body, the confident way he talked me through it. I moved my hips, sliding myself up so his finger slid against my clit. I groaned and suddenly two fingers were inside my panties, spreading me open. I felt a small pinch and then a wave of extreme pleasure.

“I want to lick you, suck on you, taste you, tease you.” Each word was breathed, rather than spoken. His eyes were blazing now. Another pinch.

“Fuck.” I moved my hips again, rubbing his cock against my aching core. It was the switchboard for my body and Kael was testing all the circuits. He took his fingers from my flesh and brought them to his mouth, tasting me. I looked down at him, feeling like a goddess, feeding a starving man. He sucked at his finger, eyes closing.

“Come here,” he said, his hands gripping my waist. He lifted me up, bringing me to his mouth.

“I—Are you—” I started to ask questions but his tongue gave the answer as it licked circles on my body. I wanted to pull away, to tell him … to apologize for not shaving all the way. All of my insecurities bubbled to the surface, battling with the pain of pleasure building inside of my body.

I don’t know how it was possible, but for once, the pleasure won the war inside my head, and I thought only of Kael’s hands on the top of my thighs, just below my waist. The way he held me in place, over his tongue. When my body started to shake above him and inaudible words fell from my lips, he used his finger to help his magical tongue and I came so hard that I collapsed on his warm, solid body.

He held me, his arms wrapped tightly around my back, pressing my body to his. While my body danced and glowed in post orgasm bliss, I wondered if other boys knew the female body the way Kael did and it made me start thinking about the girls Kael had touched before, kissed, and made moan his name as they came.

“You’re so beautiful when you come,” he said into my ear, tracing his fingers down my back.

I wanted to punish myself, remind myself that this is all most likely too good to be true, but the way he lifted my face with bot

h his hands on my cheeks, and kissed me, made me forget about all the doubts swirling inside of me. He had that power, it both terrified and electrified me.

MY SHIFT THE NEXT MORNING was so long that I could barely keep my eyes open. It was toward the end of Stewart’s treatment and she was telling me about her upcoming move to Hawaii. It was a big deal for her—the promotion she’d been angling for had finally come through. Stewart was talking a mile a minute about her partner, about how optimistic she was about moving her small business to Hawaii. She designed these cute floral dresses and sold them online and in a few local boutiques, so her business was portable. Actually, she’d most likely do better in a beach town than here near the border of Georgia and Alabama, almost five hours away from the coast.

I was a little distracted while Stewart was talking. Every time I moved, I felt Kael coursing through my body. Twelve hours after that explosive moment and I could still remember every moment and every touch. I had barely landed back on earth.

“She’s going to set up one of those little shops right on the beach. She’s convinced she’s made for beach life,” Stewart winced as I applied my harshest pressure. She was always full of knots, but she could handle the pain better than most.

I laughed a little while she continued talking. Her head was in the cradle and her voice was muffled a bit, but that’s something you get used to. “I reminded her that we’re going to be living by the post, since we can’t live on post,” she said. The military needed to catch up with the times. It blew my mind that she could serve her country the same way as a straight woman, but she couldn’t tap into the same benefits for her family that a straight soldier could. Seemed like don’t ask, don’t tell was replaced by don’t care, won’t pay.

Kael once told me that he knew a gay woman who was on her deathbed in Germany from war related injuries and the Army never called her partner. Just her homophobic parents who left her to die alone. They hid behind regulation to get away with their horrendous negligence.