Fragmented (23 page)

Raleigh rolled on top of me and dipped her head to place wet kisses against my exposed collarbone. Her lips were warm and soft, and I groaned at the delicious press of her body against mine. She raked her nails down the flat plane of my stomach. “I vote you never wear a shirt again. I had no idea you were hiding these abs.”

“Chicago winters are pretty cold though.” I sucked in a sharp breath when she focused her attentions on my abdomen. She kissed and licked my stomach, making me squirm beneath her ministrations.

“Don’t worry,” she murmured between kisses. “I’ll keep you warm.”

She continued to suck and lick across my stomach while my hand rounded the perfect swell of her backside. “Can you feel this?” I asked, gently squeezing the pert flesh.

“A little,” she confirmed. “Tingles.”

“You have the most perfect ass,” I complimented.

“I know,” she said, stopping to flash me a dimpled grin. “It’s too bad I sit on it all the time. I’d probably get a lot more dates if more people got to see it.”

I squeezed the delectable flesh again with both of my hands. “Their misfortune is my good luck.”

I gently wrestled her onto her back, and she didn’t protest the position change. Her dress buttoned down the front and a thin belt cinched the material at her waist. She unbuckled the belt and loosened it while my hands were busy with the buttons at the top of her dress. I peeled the front of her dress open like parting the petals of a flower. Underneath was a delicate white bra, whose lace swirled and spider-webbed across her breasts.

“Perfect ass
and
perfect breasts,” I commented, kissing the exposed flesh peeking just above the demi-cups of her bra. “How did I get so lucky?”

She arched her back when I slipped my hands beneath her to unfasten the clasp at the back of her bra. I should have spent more time appreciating the undergarment, but it was a barrier to what I really wanted.

Her breasts were terribly sensitive, and I stayed there for a long while. Her nipples were wet from my mouth, and when I softly blew on them, I watched the buds pucker and stiffen. I rotated my mouth from one breast to the other, using my fingers to pinch and pull at the nipple that wasn’t currently enveloped by my mouth. I continued to place firm, but soft kisses to her exposed breasts and abdomen, and she sighed approvingly at the contact. I was in no hurry, and despite the ragged gasps that fell from her parted mouth, Raleigh too seemed content for now to let me explore and continue to test the limits of her body.

I snuck my hand beneath the convenient skirt of her dress and raked my fingernails down her smooth thigh even though I knew she wouldn’t be able to feel it.
I
could feel it.

I wanted her naked, but she had other plans. She grabbed onto my leather belt and tugged up. I groaned as the seam of my jeans rubbed against my clit. Her hands expertly unfastened my belt and yanked it free from the loops of my jeans. The button on my jeans was popped open and the zipper was pulled down. Her hand snaked beneath the waistband of my underwear where she discovered just how much I wanted her.

I grabbed onto her wrist before she could explore further and make me lose all patience. “Slow, right?”

Her whimper told me she wanted to abandon her plan, but I ignored her wordless protest.

Half naked and in bed with Raleigh, I was still admittedly nervous about going further. I didn’t want to hurt her or do too much or not enough. It was like relearning the female figure with erogenous zones shuffled around. Half a semester of college anatomy hadn’t prepared me for this.

When I’d managed to free her from her dress and bra, I studied her skin like it was a roadmap of her history—the places she’d been and the things that had hurt her. The parts of her body that other people saw were blemish free, but as I peeled away the layers and exposed more of her soft, lush body, I found the places she tried to hide.

There was a particularly brutal scar on her lower back, just above and to the left of her tailbone. I traced my fingers over the ribbon of scar tissue. The skin beneath the pads of my fingers felt fragile, like tissue paper, like I could poke a hole through it if I pressed hard enough.

She told me that was where the initial surgeries had taken place. They’d had to remove a number of destroyed vertebrae and had replaced them with cadaver parts. They’d also withdrawn some of her own bone marrow and had injected it into the spacers so her body wouldn’t reject the foreign parts. She was my favorite anatomy lesson.

I stroked my fingers down her pert breasts and across her flat stomach. Her hazel eyes fluttered at the touch. I had done enough patient exploring for one night. I needed to taste her.

I held her by the soft, but firm flesh of her hips and dipped my tongue into her bellybutton. I swirled my tongue around experimentally in the shallow depression as a preview of what was to follow.

“It gets more and more sensitive the lower you go,”
she announced.

“I think that’s how it’s supposed to be,” I smirked into her skin.

“No, it’s more than that. It’s like all of the feeling in my legs got transferred into my pelvic area in addition to all the nerve endings already in there.”

“You sound like the luckiest girl in the world.” I licked a little lower and she yelped. “Is that okay?” I worried.

“Uh huh,” she whimpered. “But don’t be surprised if my head pops off when you take off my underwear.”

“I could always leave them on,” I proposed with mock innocence. I fiddled with the elastic waistband. “I mean, it’s such a pretty head. I wouldn’t want to ruin it.” I flicked my tongue over her clit, through her underwear.

“Jesus,” she grit out. She clenched her fists around the metal slats of my headboard and held on tight while I explored her with my mouth. I kissed and sucked and licked, testing her skin and getting a sense of what her body could handle.

I let out a groan of my own. “Can I stay down here forever?” I rubbed my nose against the front of her underwear and found her clit. She smelled delicious, like pussy and fresh laundry.

“O-okay,” she stuttered out. “That’s fine with me.” Her hands tightened around the metal rods and the bed creaked.

I pushed the narrow cotton swatch to the side and exposed her sex. I ran my fingers through the closely cropped curls that pointed down to her most intimate place. Her lips were soft and swollen, and when I placed a gentle kiss directly against her exposed bud, she jerked beneath me like a live wire had been connected to her body.

I ran the tip of my tongue in a straight line across her inner thigh where leg connects to pelvis. I hadn’t known what to expect—how responsive or sensitive she would be—but the noises and praises tumbling from her parted lips gave me a pretty good idea.

“Oh my God, Harper. Your tongue. Yes. Right there.” She slapped her palms against the mattress when I again flicked my tongue against her swollen nub. “Oh, shit.”

She was probably the most vocal partner I’d ever been with and the encouraging words spurred me on.

I licked between her folds, feasting on her arousal. I groaned at the taste of her, heavy on my tongue. She writhed and moaned louder when I sucked her clit into my mouth.

“I’m cumming,” she gasped. “Oh my fucking God, I’m cumming.” She clawed at my back and I sucked harder.

When her hands stilled on my back, I heard her deep exhale. “Well that was embarrassing.”

I dragged myself up to eye-level. I couldn’t contain my grin; it felt too large for my face. “What do you mean?”

“You got me off, and we both still have clothes on. If that isn’t some high school shit, I don’t know what is.”

“Hey, I’m particularly proud of what just happened. Don’t bruise my ego,” I chuckled. “It’s very delicate.”

“Come here.” She tugged at my shirt and pulled our bodies to press together.

Who was I to deny her what she wanted?

While I had exhibited an unreasonable amount of patience and restraint, Raleigh eagerly dug into my flesh, branding me with the strength of her fingers. Her palms skimmed along my ribcage to meet in the center of my back where she undid the hook-and-eye fastener of my bra. She snaked her hands beneath the underwire of my now loose bra and palmed the weight of my bare breasts in her palms.

Our mouths met again, clashing tongues and teeth.

“Can you … your clothes …” she said between breathy kisses.

“Off?” I guessed.

“Please.”

“So polite.” The rest of my clothes joined the mess on the floor.

I straddled her hips and ground down on her sex. “Fuck,” I gasped when my clit dragged across her body.

She tapped onto the backs of my thighs. “Up here,” she instructed.

“Up where?”

She licked her lips. “Up,” she said more forcefully.

“Ohh …
up
,” I echoed, suddenly realizing where she wanted me to be.

She clutched onto my upper thighs and pulled me down, licking the length of my slit. I rolled my hips, and she sucked my clit into her mouth. I held onto the top of the headboard while she flicked her tongue against my clit. My thighs trembled around her ears. “Oh God.”

Her tongue swirled circles around my clit. She hummed her approval, and the vibrations rattled across my most sensitive parts.

“Don’t stop. Fuck, don’t stop,” I chanted.

She tapped at my thighs, and I worried I’d been cutting off her air supply. “You stopped,” I said, looking down at her. “Are you okay?”

Her face was shiny with my arousal. “Perfect. But I want you to flip around.”

She didn’t have to ask twice or draw me a diagram of where she wanted me next. I flipped around and buried myself between her thighs again—my new favorite place—and she resumed licking my most sensitive places. I knew it wouldn’t be long. The combination of her taste coating my tongue and her fingers continuing to explore me below the waist had me racing towards my finish.

I buried my face between her splayed thighs and greedily lapped at her, needing to taste and feel more. I thrust my tongue inside of her sex and rubbed the pad of my thumb over her clit. I groaned loudly, not caring that my neighbors could probably hear us through the thin walls.

She spasmed beneath me, and I licked her harder. I held onto her upper thighs, pinning her to the mattress, and alternated between sucking on her clit and pushing my tongue in and out of her.

She moaned into my pussy and the vibrations rolled deliciously through me.

“Raleigh, I’m close,” I panted, coming up for air. “So close.”

The fingers on my thighs tightened and muffled moans were her response. My own selfish need won out, and I focused instead on her fingers and the way her tongue danced around my clit.

I threw my head back, arched my back, and closed my eyes as the first orgasm flooded over me. I moaned, riding her fingers and her face until the sensations dissipated.

I turned around on shaky legs and rested fully on top of her naked body, no longer worried about crushing her beneath my weight. A thin sheen of sweat had accumulated on her breastbone. I could feel the sticky sweat on my own body as well. I pressed my open mouth against her collarbone. I trailed my fingertips across her collarbone and the tops of her breasts where they appeared above the top of the bed sheets.

She closed her eyes and made an approving noise. “Thank you for this.”

“For what?”

“I’ve never felt so normal as when I’m lying in bed with you. I can almost forget that I can’t move my legs when we’re like this. So thank you.”

I grabbed her hand and kissed her knuckles. “When we’re together, my brain isn’t so busy. Rationally, it doesn’t make sense. I’ve never been comfortable in my own skin, except for when I’m with you.”

Worried that all of my touching might become tedious or suffocating, I stilled my hand and returned it to my side.

“No. Don’t stop touching me.”

I returned my hand to the top of her breasts and her eyelashes fluttered.

“It’s been so long since anyone’s touched me like this—not in an impersonal or clinical way—but in a way that says they want me.”

“I want you,” I rasped out thickly.

Her hazel eyes seemed to darken. “Then show me.”

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

Her fingers curled around the delicate porcelain handle of the coffee mug as she brought the warm beverage up to her lips. Her hair had lost some of its curl in the night and fell in messy, nearly tangled, waves around her face. She’d slept without removing her makeup, and her eyeliner had traveled since it was originally applied, smudged below her lower eyelids. Her attention was on the weekend paper, which I splurged to have delivered to my door Sunday mornings.