Reel (Hollywood Renaissance 1)

“Are you sure?” My breath comes out heavy, stunted between our lips.

She stands, tugging at buttons until the panels of her sundress fall away, revealing a transparent bra and panties, sprigged with lace flowers. With her smoldering eyes snaring mine, she reaches behind her to unfasten the bra. My mouth goes dry at the sight of her breasts, the areolae a dark halo crowning their fullness. She skims her fingers over her stomach, teases the silk at her hips, and slides the underwear over the legs of a dancer. They slip down her calves and pool around her bare feet. She stands waiting at the edge of the bed.

“How do you want me, Canon?” she asks, her words an open invitation to fantasy.

My eyes rove greedily over the expanse of satiny skin. The taut muscles of her stomach and the slope of her shoulders; the elegant line of her collarbone. Her breasts are ripe and round and tipped with nipples like blackberries.

I notice her scar immediately. I’ve seen it so many times since the transplant. It sprouts from her belly button and grows around her back like a vine. I sit up and trace it with reverent fingers, awed that this smooth strip of raised skin is the reminder of how I could lose her. Evidence of how she was saved.

There was a time when she would have shied away from my touch, from my eyes, but we’re well past that. True intimacy, laced with trust, curls around us like tendrils of smoke.

I pull her to the bed and press her naked shoulders into the down of our comforter, permitting my fingers to trace her lips, the delicate construction of her face. I lavish kisses behind her ears, opening my mouth over her throat, worshiping her breasts, drawing her nipples between my lips, first one and then the other. My name tumbles from her lips, carried on heaving breaths and ragged sighs. She grips behind my neck to keep me against her, her hands and hold imperative. My appetite for her is a barely checked thing on a straining leash.

I want to make slow love to her, sweet and stretched out like taffy. A dish peppered with we’ve-got-all-night kisses. But we can’t convince our hands, our lips, or tongues that there is time. The urgency of banked passion blows across the flame, and we are clothed in fire. Naked skin hot to the touch. Our hearts are talking drums through our chests, saying all the words when desperation steals our voices.

I bracket my knees on either side of her thighs, and she is naked beneath me. I push one knee up and then the other until her legs are open and she is wet and exposed. Breasts, thighs, pussy—she is a table set for me, and I dip my head to lick her from top to bottom. She jerks, her breath catching and her hands gripping the sheets. I spread her lips and suck on her clit like a cherry, delving my tongue inside until her desire flows and I’m drowning in her essence.

“I’m coming,” she says, her back bowing, her knees collapsing, pressing into my head. Her hands claw my hair, urging me deeper into the cleft of her body.

It is all I’ve wanted, but been afraid to have in case I couldn’t control it. There’s still a part of me that wants her to set the pace—control it until we are sure of her body’s limits.

I lie down, positioning her on top of me, her knees spread over mine.

“I know why you’re doing this.” She grins, her eyes dilated and her lips kiss-puffy. “And I’ll let you get away with it this first time, but next time no holding back.”

“I promise you’ll have no complaints.”

“Hard as I just came, I already have nothing to complain about.” She takes me in her hand, the firm grip riding up and down my stiffened cock. Seeing the most vulnerable part of me in her small hand affects me deeply.

Only that’s not right. The most vulnerable part of me is my heart, and it is in her hands as surely as my cock is. She holds it just as tightly, her eyes caressing my face as surely as her hands run over my body. The long seconds of our eyes locked, seeing each other, conjures an inescapable intimacy. A spell we can’t break that lures her body to mine. She takes me inside, the hot, tight oneness suspending my heartbeats.

She starts to move. At first, it’s a tight undulation of her hips, rolling over me in measured motion. It’s unbearably erotic, the way I feel her all around me like a vise. I thrust up, needing to take some control, and I plunge so deep she goes still, contracting her muscles around me, dragging me past pleasure to delirium. She plants her palm on my chest for leverage, raises her body and lets it fall, lets it rock, each time tightening the rope that binds me to her. Her breasts bounce and her eyes glaze over as she tips her head back, baring her throat and torso to me.