After Forever (21 page)

“It’s not a
quid pro quo
thing, Cade.” Getting cold, I stepped back into the stream of hot water, pulled him with me. “I just want to…help you. Give you something to help you hang on.”

“And now it’s your turn.” He pivoted me so my back was to the water, blocking most of it.

The water ran down my shoulders and back, some of it sluicing down my front. He went to his knees in front of me, and my heart ratcheted to a panicked thumping. He couldn’t do that. It would make my job, my one duty in this—keeping my heart my own—that much harder. But yet, I didn’t stop him as he kissed beneath my left boob, lifting it and licking away the water running over it, then sucked my nipple into his mouth. I sighed, feeling the tug in my loins. I stood still and told myself to breathe and just feel. Cade’s mouth moved across my chest to the other tit, and then his lips brought that nipple to attention and made it hard, and his tongue flicked it and I was already panting. His hands went to my hips as he began alternating boobs, kissing and licking first one and then the other. Palms slid down the outside of my thighs, to my knees, and then arced around to the inside, carved upward. I shifted my feet apart involuntarily. His fingers traced up my inner thighs, and then sliced up and over the mound of my pussy. I gasped, and he seemed to like the noise, because he rewarded me with a single finger sliding down the opening, and then wiggled it into my folds. I had to widen my stance just a little more. He still couldn’t even get a whole hand between my thighs yet, because I had thick, muscular thighs with ample flesh padding to boot, and I’d have to spread them apart pretty far before he could do more than finger me. Which he did, and well. His middle finger delved into me, and I bit my lip and whined in my throat as he swiped inside me, searching my walls and finding the perfect spot. Stroking me, curling his finger toward himself. Oh, god, that was good. And then his mouth descended and he sank down so his heels touched his ass, and his mouth kissed my thighs, my hips, and then he used both hands to press my legs apart. I complied, widening my stance until my feet were slightly more than shoulder-width apart. I was embarrassed by my stance for about six seconds. Right up until his lips touched my pussy and his tongue flicked into me.
 

I held onto his shoulders and tipped my head back, and lost myself in the physical sensation. I forced my brain into the Zen of enjoyment, similar to when I played cello. He licked, tongued, flicked, kissed, sucked. Fingering me all the while.
 

Holy shit, he was good. He made me weak-kneed and panting, and then he’d alter his technique, slow, almost stop, and I’d lose the edge and he’d start over again, slow and then faster, trying one thing and then another until I moaned or gasped or dipped at the knees or shoved my hips forward, and he’d do that harder and faster until I started to buck into his mouth, and then he’d stop again and do something else.
 

This was too good. It felt too fucking amazing. I almost expected him to stop and stand up and want to fuck, but he didn’t. He brought me to the edge several times, and then when he had me gyrating and gasping and tried to back away again, I shamelessly grabbed his head and held him there.

“No, goddammit!” I said, my voice harsh and demanding. “Don’t stop. Fuck…please…don’t stop.”

He complied, fingers inside me stroking me just right and his mouth attending to my clit, his other hand cupping my ass and holding me against his face. I couldn’t stop myself from pinching my own nipples between finger and thumb, and then I felt the lightning gathering, building, and he felt my movements grow desperate and needy and he went with it, faster and faster, until he reached a fervor that couldn’t be increased and he held it, licking and sucking and fingering until I was groaning and rocking on the edge of a climax that wouldn’t come.
 

I needed something he wasn’t doing. I gripped his wrist to hold it in place, pushed his face away and replaced his mouth with my own hand, pulled him up by his chin and shoved his face against my tits. He obeyed, and I circled myself like I liked it, like I needed it, and he stroked me deep inside like he had been, biting and tweaking my nipples until I hit the peak and felt myself break open, groaning in relief as a climax unequaled in delicious power and overwhelming waves of ecstasy washed over me.
 

When I couldn’t take the orgasm any longer, I pushed Cade’s fingers away and tugged him to his feet.

He seemed…troubled. “I’m sorry, I—”

I put my hand over his mouth. “Don’t. Thank you. You didn’t have to do that. But thank you.”

“But I couldn’t—”

“It was more than anyone else has ever done for me. So thank you.” I smirked at him. “Say, ‘You’re welcome.’”

“You’re welcome.” And then…he just walked out of the shower.
 

Right. Like I was going to let that just slide by. “Cade,” I called. He stopped, turned around, his cock at half-mast. “What about you?”

He shrugged. “That was about you.”

I shut the water off, stepped out. I didn’t bother drying off. “Tell me what you want.” His face told me he wanted things I couldn’t give, so I clarified. “Tell me what you want me to do to you.”

He seemed at a loss. “I don’t…I don’t know. Just…you.” His eyes raked over me. “Just make me come. However you want.”

He was thinking too hard, something told me. I sidled up to him, wrapped my fist around his length and pushed him backward, out of the bathroom and into the bedroom until he fell against the bed, sat down. I slid my fingers down his length. He closed his eyes, and I put my mouth around him. His head fell back, and I took him out of my mouth, curled my palm over the top, cupping the broad head and squeezing. With my other hand I cradled his sack, gently massaging, found his taint with my middle finger and pressed in, squeezing my fist down his cock, and then loosened my grip so that I was barely touching him and moved my fingers around him in a swift rhythm. As soon as he began moving in time with my hand, I slowed, gripped him firmly again, and sucked him into my mouth. He was gasping now, and his hips were gyrating, so I bobbed my head for him, taking him deeper and deeper every time I went down. He started moaning. I watched him, watched his face take on an expression of pleasure, and then he opened his eyes and met mine. He watched me take his cock into my mouth, holding the base and working it in short fast strokes.
 

“I’m gonna…god, I’m coming…” he croaked in warning.

I kept my eyes on his as I took him to the edge of my throat, working the thick base of his cock with my fist, cupping his sack and pressing hard onto his taint. He gripped the blanket on the bed, clearly forcing his hips still as he came. He groaned, cursed, and shot into my mouth, hot and wet and musky. I kept working him, felt another spasm wrack him, and took that, too.

He opened his eyes and stared down at me. When I knew he was done, I backed away and stood up, sat on the edge of the bed beside him.
 

“Better?” I asked. He nodded, but I sensed an additional weight of troubled guilt in his expression. “What, Cade? What’s the point of all this if we’re not honest with each other?”

He sighed. “I feel like we’re…de-evolving. Devolving.”

Ah. Another heavy, searching conversation. Fun. “How about we put this off for just a second. Get dressed. Pour us drinks.”

We both put on a minimum of clothing. Just shorts for him, and a T-shirt for me. He uncapped each of us a beer, and we sat down on the couch, close but not touching.

“Now,” I said, “explain what that means. How are we devolving? You mean you and me, or humans as a species, or what?”

“Us. You and me. I just mean that this started out as something we couldn’t avoid. Couldn’t stop. It wasn’t about mere attraction. I mean, I’m a guy, okay? And you’re hot. Not to put too fine a point on it, you’re Ever’s twin sister, so obviously I’d be…attracted. But it wasn’t just that. Look, you go through life, you see all kinds of hot and attractive people. This is a topic of dissension for most couples, because guys see a hot girl, and they look. Maybe more than look. Maybe they think about what they’d like to do to that girl. Maybe they picture her naked, or wonder what having sex with her would be like. I’d say that’s fairly natural. It doesn’t mean you have any intention of doing anything about it, right? It’s the scumbag cheaters and moral-less sluts who can’t control that impulse, who have no filter that tells them, ‘No, I shouldn’t go around trying to actually fuck that person that I’m attracted to, since I’m in a relationship.’”

“I’m following you, but I’m not seeing the relevance to you and me. What we’re doing with each other, I really don’t want to think it makes you a scumbag and me a slut—”

He waved his hand to cut me off. “No. No. That’s not what I meant. I’m getting to how it relates to you and me. That kind of stuff happens. I have that filter, okay. I could…I could walk down the street with Ever and see a hot chick, and not actually
desire
her, not have any ideas of
doing
anything with her. It would never enter my mind. I’d at most think, ‘Hmm, that chick is pretty hot.’ It wasn’t like that with you. It wasn’t like I sat around while I was with Ever—” He cut himself off, choked out a sigh that was almost a sob. “I’m still with her, right? I don’t know. That’s the real question in my life, isn’t it? Anyway. When Ever was—before the accident, I mean, when you and Ever and I hung out, I saw the fact that you were hot, saw the fact that I found you attractive. But that was it. So it wasn’t like as soon as I realized Ever was in a coma I thought, ‘Well, fuck, here’s my chance.’”

“I know that, Cade.”

“It started out between you and me, as…just needing
some
thing. Something good, when everything’s bad. Something comforting. And somehow it ended up translating into sex. I don’t—I don’t know why. I really don’t. I’ve tried so hard to figure that out.”

“Why is understanding it so important to you?” I asked.

“Because maybe if I understand it, I can stop it.”

“Is it that bad?” I couldn’t help taking it personally. I knew better. But my ability to think and act rationally was vanishing, or was already gone.

He frowned at me. “Jesus, Eden. Don’t pin that shit on me.” He got up and got two more beers, handed me one. “It’s good, Eden. You need that affirmation? It’s always really,
really
good. And that’s part of the problem. I don’t know what it was that started this between us, why, but now I’m starting to feel like it’s something I can’t control. More so than ever. I could never control it, I guess, but now I feel like I’m losing myself to it. To you. Like the only thing that makes any sense in my life anymore is…when you and I are having sex. And that’s…”

“Fucked up,” I supplied.

He slid down on the couch, groaning a long, dispirited sigh. “Yeah. Really, really fucked up.” His voice dropped to a whisper so small I had to strain to hear him. “I’m not even sure about Ever anymore. If…if what we had was real. I’m—doubting…everything.”

“God, Cade. That’s the last thing I ever wanted—”

“I know! I know, Eden. Please know that in no way, no smallest way, do I blame any of this on you. There’s no
blame
to be placed. It’s just…if I could so easily forget her, and sink into this with you, then…did I ever even love her?”

“You did, Cade. You
do
.”

“Then how did this happen? How did I get so…sucked into this?” He groaned again and scrubbed his face. “God, that came out wrong. Or it didn’t, but I think you have to understand something. You’re an amazing person, Eden. You’re gorgeous. You’re fucking…
insanely
talented. You’ve got a rocking body. You do. I know you doubt it, have issues or whatever, but…look. Yeah, you have curves. But underneath those curves, you’re hard as a rock. And that’s a sexy-as-fuck combination.” He seemed to be forcing this out of himself. “I know our relationship hasn’t exactly lent itself to me…I don’t know, building you up, I guess. I should be. I should be making you feel good about yourself. I haven’t been, and I’m sorry.”

I had to breathe hard and fast and look away to keep from breaking down. “Cade, stop. You’re not…we’re not—in a relationship. You don’t owe me that. And the fact that you think that, that you’re telling me, it means more than you’ll ever know.” Not crying. Not crying. “No one’s ever—ever said that. Ever—ever even cared enough to—to—
fuck
. Sorry.” I was crying, and it wasn’t the heartbroken kind of sobbing that can be almost attractive. No, this was self-pity crying, croaking, snotty, ugly crying.
 

He pulled me against him. “And that’s a fucking crime. You deserve better. You deserve so much better than what I’m giving you. That’s part of my problem. What this whole conversation is about. That?” He waved at the bathroom, indicating our most recent encounter. “That wasn’t okay. I meant to just…make you feel good, because I realized I’d been selfish. Just—taking what I wanted like—like some rutting beast. And you deserve better. You deserve better than going down on me as a returned favor or something.”

I had to think hard about what I wanted to say. “Are you…feeling like you’re…I don’t know. Degrading me somehow?”

He shrugged; it was a small and miserable gesture. “Yeah. Kind of.”

I sat up, pivoted, and sat cross-legged facing him, pulling a throw pillow onto my lap. “Cade. It wasn’t degrading. I didn’t feel that way. You gave me something, and I wanted to give it back.”

“Okay, and that makes me feel a bit less shitty, but it doesn’t answer my more central question: Is that what this has become between us? Sexual favors given and returned?”

I shrugged. “Maybe. In a way, yeah, I suppose so. But does that change things? Does it make what we’re doing any better or worse?”

“I don’t know. I don’t know anything, Eden. I’m a mess. I’m confused, scared, worried. So many things.”

“I am, too. I don’t mean I’m okay with what we’re doing. I feel mixed up about it, too. But it does provide me with some kind of…comfort. Distraction. Pleasure, when being without my sister is…it’s fucking hell. Being in this limbo is hell. And when I’m with you, I can forget, if only for a little bit.” I swallowed hard, pulling an admission from the buried hole of my heart. “I don’t…I don’t want to stop, Cade. And yeah, I feel…sometimes I feel like that makes me slutty. But it’s the truth. It’s just true. I don’t want to stop. Not yet. It’s selfish. It’s horrible. But there it is.”