I need to see her face. I turn Ella and position her on my lap as I fall to the bed. Her small hands land on my chest to steady herself. My hips thrust up and she’s far too weak to keep herself upright. She drapes her arms over my shoulders and holds on for dear life.
And she kisses me.
Her lips capture mine with a need that’s unexpected.
What that single kiss does to me is a shock I hadn’t anticipated. It strikes me how obvious it is that she was desperate for it. She tastes both sweet and sinful.
“Fuck,” I grunt into the crook of her neck as my orgasm tears out of me.
She holds me just as tightly as I hold her as she finds her release with mine.
As she’s lying lifeless on top of me, I kiss the crown of her head and whisper without thinking twice about it, “You don’t know what you do to me.”
Ella
“A wash and wave?” Kam comments. “And I like the all white,” he adds before I can respond. His four fingers do a half wave as he gestures toward my hands.
“The manicurist suggested it.” I peek down at my nails as the waiter arrives with a tall skinny glass of unsweetened tea. “Thank you,” I manage to get out in time for him to give a smile and nod.
The Fooleries has been remodeled since we were last here. Seated on the outside balcony, there’s a heat lamp already blazing in each of the corners. The balcony only has three small circular iron tables, fitted with a robin’s-egg-blue tablecloth. Everything else is white. The menus, napkins and single candle burning in the center of each table.
“You really like the white?” I question before popping one of the almonds from a small bowl of mixed nuts that was on the table into my mouth. Kam loves the walnuts, so I leave all of those pieces for him.
“Very in. Very chic … Angels and virgins wear white, but I’ve always thought it looks just as good on the sinful.”
Kam’s comment gets a laugh from me. “I wasn’t sure at first,” I say and shrug, lifting the glass up, “but I like it.” The last bit comes out raspy and my fingers press against my throat before I sip the cold beverage.
When I set the glass down and peer back at Kam, his expression is riddled with concern. “How are you feeling?”
An anxiousness sweeps through my body at the realization that the pain I felt was a reminder of what Zander did to me last night. More specifically, my cries and moans for him to fuck me harder, but for Kam, it’s a reminder of something entirely different.
“Fine,” I answer easily, reaching for the cloth napkin and laying it across my lap.
“Well, you look beautiful. You look—” His words falter and I’m not sure what he planned to say, but what comes out after an exhale is only a reiteration of his first statement. “Just beautiful.”
“It was Zander’s suggestion,” I confide in him in an attempt to usher the conversation away from wherever Kam’s carefully navigating. I know my throat, my voice even, has to be a reminder of what I did while at the center. “He said I should get my hair and nails done today. This morning he handed me a credit card, then told me he made appointments and that Silas would be driving me, so I should get my ass ready to go and be pampered.” I add for good measure, “And if I wasn’t ready on time, he’d spank me.”
Kam’s movements stop midway as he was picking up his napkin and the silverware clangs on the table. I can’t help but laugh.
“Well I’m glad one of us is smiling,” he chides.
“Oh please,” I admonish him in return, a genuine smile pulling up my spirits. “Since when did you become such a prude?”
Humor lights his eyes. He even smiles as he rearranges the cutlery and places the napkin across his lap as I have. “He’s controlling.”
“Like James was,” I reply without considering what I was saying until the comparison left me. Another wave of that anxiousness comes over me, but it quickly vanishes.
“And I told you to dump his ass too.” There’s a fondness, a nostalgia in Kam’s comment.
“I remember that,” I say and my smile falters only slightly. The rawness in my throat comes back but this time it carries a prick to the back of my eyes as well.
“I mean, obviously I was wrong about that one,” Kam says offhandedly and I realize we’re speaking about him. Talking about James in the past tense. I don’t have long to dwell on the thought. “He went from a good time,” Kam adds, lowering his voice at the insinuation, “to taking all your time.”