With the light snuffed out, my other senses rise, hunting for her in the dark. The smell of her hair and her quick, shallow breaths. My sight adjusts until the heavy black curtain completely obscuring her fades to gray. Light from the outer room spills under the door, revealing just the shape, the outline of her, but still camouflaging details. I cup her cheek, taking a moment to appreciate the softness of her skin, the silky hair brushing my knuckles. I’m not an idiot. She wants the lights out because she’s self-conscious, but from my perspective, she has nothing to be ashamed of.
“I think you’re beautiful, Ban.”
“You do?” she asks, her voice hushed.
My words surprise me as much as they seem to surprise her, because I don’t say shit like that to girls. The prettiest ones usually seem to already know, which makes any admiration I’d express redundant. But Banner . . . she’s so beautiful, and I’m not sure she knows.
“I do.” I push the hair away from her face.
“Uh . . . thank you.” Her laugh isn’t much more than a breath. “The lights are out, so I’m not sure that compliment counts.”
“I know your face by heart. You have seven freckles here.” I swipe a finger over the straight bridge of her nose and drift down to caress her full lips and the tiny dent in her cheek her smile displays. “And a dimple right here.”
I explore the smooth skin of her nape, under a heavy fall of hair.
“Now I want to know your body, too,” I say softly. “Take off your clothes for me, Banner.”
After a sharply indrawn breath, she raises her arms. The rustle of her clothes—the sweatshirt, jeans, socks, shoes—being discarded whisper in the dark. I approximate her by touch, reaching for her arms and closing my fingers around the softness, the velvety skin. I lower my head and run my nose along her neck, discovering.
“You always smell so good.” I’ve wanted to tell her that since the first night we studied here.
“Pretty Pastel,” she replies, her laugh low, nervous.
“What?” I pause.
“The smell. It’s my dryer sheets. The scent is Pretty Pastel.”
“I like it.” I resume my exploration, running a palm over her shoulder, her collarbone until I find the soft, full weight of her breasts, testing them in my hands, cupping them, holding them, brushing the nipples with my thumbs until they pebble and her breaths come harshly.
“You like that?” I ask.
I see her head nod in the semi-darkness. “Yeah. It feels good.”
Her touch startles me in the best way, her hand finding my face, traveling over my mouth, eyes, and hair. I sense her approach, feel tiny pants of breath on my lips, and anticipation has me panting, too, shortens my breath and sharpens my senses. Her mouth seeks mine, eager and sweet when she kisses me. Her pleasure, her excitement matches, answers, fans mine.
I guide her back down to the couch, and with a hand at her shoulder, urge her to stretch out. I’d shave points off my GPA for a glimpse of her, but she doesn’t want that. I get it, so I settle for a taste.
At first I just rub my lips over her nipples, back and forth until they tighten and lift under my mouth, and then I wrap my lips around the tip, stretch open to encompass the full swell. Suck, lick, rub. Suck, lick, rub. Suck, lick, rub. I set a sensual rhythm that incites us both.
“Oh.” Every sound she makes is a mating call.
I walk my hands down her sides, over her waist, and roll the pads of my fingers through the short hairs sheltering her pussy. I find the nub crowning her slit and caress it, varying the pace from swift and urgent to agonizingly slow. Her restraint, her tenuous control is palpable, and I want to shatter it. I scoot to the other end of the couch and carefully slide one of her legs off the cushion, cracking her open. I fit my shoulders between her thighs and lower my head. For a moment, I just blow over her wet flesh, and while I’m breathing out, I’m breathing her in.
Sometimes a dish carries a scent so rich you taste it before it hits your tongue. Your olfactory sense preludes your taste buds. That’s Banner’s pussy, so sweet and musky it’s as much flavor as scent, and I taste her before even taking my first bite, my first sip. Before my tongue swipes through the soaked silky folds. I spread her, and for a few seconds content myself by simply rubbing my lips between hers, gathering her wetness and licking it away.
“Hěn hào chī,” I say softly, a wicked grin she can’t see to appreciate stamped on my face.
Very delicious.
“Oh my God.” A laugh swallows her gasp. Her knees jerk against my head, but I press them open wider, determined that she may have denied me sight, but I’ll taste; I’ll eat as much as I want. I feast between her legs, sloppily, roughly, famished. My face is wet, and my tongue aches by the time I’m done. She’s making these little sobbing sounds that have me so close to spilling all over her belly. Her hands rifle through my hair, scraping my scalp while she grinds her pussy in my face.
“Chinga,” she whispers.
“What’d you say?” I demand, lifting my head.
A silence follows before she answers.
“Nothing,” she replies hastily. “It’s nothing.”
“It’s Spanish?” I persist. “What does it mean?”
“Jared,” she groans. “Don’t.”
“Tell me or I leave you just like this.”
It’s an empty threat because leaving her “just like this” means leaving me “just like this,” and there’s no way this ends any way other than me inside her.
“What’s chinga mean, Ban?”
“It means . . .” There’s resignation and reluctance in her sigh. “Fuck. It means fuck, okay?”
“Ahhh, like fuck,” I say, lowering my head and closing my mouth over her clit again. “That feels good?”
“Oh, God,” she pants. “Yeah.”
“Like fuck . . .” I drag my tongue from her asshole to the top of her slit “. . . Don’t stop?”
“Please,” she begs, her fingers twisting in my hair. “Please, don’t stop.”
I fumble around on the floor until I find my jeans and reach into the pocket for my wallet. This, I’ve done in the dark. I could put on a condom in a coma.
The narrowness of the sofa makes it awkward, so I sit on the couch, find her in the dark, and tug her to her knees. And the same way I felt her pleasure, I feel her freeze and then pull back, away.
“Uh, no.” She clears her throat. “You get on top.”
Whatever. On top. Underneath. On the side. In is all I care about right now. Back on my knees at the end of the couch, I bring her legs over my shoulders. I touch her again, and she’s still dripping wet, slick, hot. I poise myself at her entrance, and though we can’t see each other, I look to where I know her eyes should be, and I sense her looking where mine should be. And even in the dark, I think we see each other. There’s an intimacy to the darkness. I see less of her, but I somehow feel this more deeply. Every smell, every sound, every texture becomes a clue to her pleasure. I plunge in, and we both gasp. She clamps around me. Is she a virgin? I didn’t even think to ask. I should have.
“You okay, Ban? You’ve . . . uh, done this before, right?”
“Yes, it’s just . . . just been awhile. Is everything okay?”
Okay? Is nirvana okay? Is utopia okay? Because that is what Banner’s tight-fisted pussy feels like around my hungry cock. Like someone tossed paradise and heaven into a blender to make this moment.
“Yeah, it’s good,” I say.
Understatement. No need to reveal her pussy sent me into an existential crisis.
I withdraw only for a second and to the very tip, but it feels like torture until I push back in. She surrounds me. The smell of her invading my nostrils, the taste of her lingering on my tongue, the feel of her gripping not just my cock but my whole body.
Banner Morales has a hold on me.
“Chinga,” I whisper in her ear with my next thrust.
“God, Jared.” She tightens around me.
“Chinga,” I say again, plunging in as far as her body will allow. I want to reach the bottom, to mark and claim her from the inside out.
“Sí, sí,” she pants, her English disintegrating. “Por favor.”
The sound of her begging in her first language, knowing we’ve stripped away not just the layers of lumpy sweatshirt and baggy pants but the layers we hide behind and use to protect ourselves have evaporated, undoes me. Her body contracts around me, and I empty into her with a roar that reiterates what I told her earlier tonight. Darwin. Maslow. Who cares. In the end, we are just animals. Primitives driven by urges we barely understand but, with the right person, find ourselves slave to.
Banner’s the right person.
I don’t care if her internship is on the Moon, there’s no way this was the last time. We’ll do it again, the sooner the better. And I guarantee the next time I have her, there will be light.
5
Banner
Aftershock.
How the earth tremors following a seismic disruption. A result of great upheaval at the core.
That so perfectly describes what I’m feeling. A disruption. I’m not sure if it started at my core or shook me to it.
But I know at the epicenter lies Jared Foster.
We’re facing each other on the narrow couch, my bare leg slotted between his and my head tucked under his chin. He strokes my back, my hair, my shoulders. He can’t seem to stop touching me, and for a few moments, I don’t care about my lumps or dimples or rolls. It just feels good to be touched this way—with passion and care. Byron was the last guy I shared any kind of intimacy with, and every touch was a lie. There’s always been a frankness, an honesty between Jared and me. It translates to physical intimacy, and I want to hold onto it as long as my logical brain will allow. I want to stop asking why me and just enjoy him, us together.
He smells like yesterday’s bodywash and clean sweat. And . . . him. Whatever “he” is naturally, I detect it under everything else. For whatever reason, I have a temporary brain lapse and dart my tongue out to taste the shallow well at the base of his throat. Salty and smooth. Maybe he won’t notice that bit of stalkerism.