Take My Breath Away by Ali Ryecart
Chapter Twenty-Four
PERRY
By the time we get back to the cottage the light’s beginning to fade, the blue of earlier giving way to pinks and purples.
We’ve not said much on the way back. On the hill we needed to concentrate on our footing, steering clear of rabbit holes, roots and lumps of hard granite pushing through the soil, yet even through Love’s Harbour’s quaint little streets, we’d still been silent. I’d glanced at James a few times, my gaze not settling, but nothing about him gave a clue as to his thoughts over what had happened.
We leave our jackets and boots in the tiny utility room and make our way to the kitchen. My first reaction is to put on the kettle, because maybe I need a cup of British rocket fuel, otherwise known as tea, to pluck up the nerve to say something, anything, to break the quiet.
“Come here.”
James leans against the counter running down one side of the kitchen, feet crossed at the ankles, arms crossed over his chest, head tilted to the side. He’s looking at me, smiling his invitation. Putting down the kettle, I go to him, obeying the quiet command, because I can’t not.
“I shouldn’t have kissed you,” he says, unwrapping his arms and trailing his finger over my cheek. I push into him, my response as instinctive as breathing.
“I’m glad you did.”
He doesn’t say anything as he gazes at me, his eyes unreadable. All I can hear is the steady tick of the wall clock and the unsteady beat of my heart.
“Are you? Honestly?”
His smile softens, becomes almost shy, another side to this man which he keeps hidden away. It gives me the courage to step forward, so close I can feel the heat of his body, breathe in his scent of citrus cologne, blended with the tang of clean sweat and the irresistible aroma of our combined arousal. I wrap my arms around his neck, easing his head down, pressing my body into his.
“Yes, and I want you to do it again.”
The kiss is long and deep, edged with a hungry desperation. Wet, hot, sloppy, noisy, our sighs and groans fill the space around us. James slips his hands beneath the waistband of the heavy tracksuit bottoms I’m wearing and I gasp as he clasps me tight, fingers clamped hard to my hips.
I thrust into him, both of us rubbing and rutting, our steel-hard cocks dragging against each other’s, all our sighs and groans turning to desperate moans. We’re racing towards an edge it’s impossible to veer away from, but I know with a clarity that’s blinding that I want to plunge in headfirst. All those complications, they’ve faded and disappeared because this, here and now, is what I crave more than anything in the world.
“Is this what you want? Truly and honestly, is it?”
He’s letting me decide what will happen next. He’s giving me the power to say yes or no when so many others have taken what they want from me without a second thought. If I step back, he’ll accept my decision.
I don’t want to step back.
“It is. It’s what I’ve always wanted. I think you’re who I’ve always wanted.”
“Even when I teased you?”
“Especially when you teased me.”
His laugher gathers strength and pace, exploding from him as he throws back his head, filling the kitchen, the whole cottage, with its richness.
“Oh, Perry, Perry, Perry,” he says, the laughter dying on his lips and from his eyes, as his smile turns wicked and his eyes darken. “I’m going to show you what it’s really like to be teased.”
James grabs my hand, pulling me through the kitchen, and up the stairs towards the bedroom.
* * *
In the bedroom, his room and the one that is now ours, James smiles into my eyes as he pushes away my fringe that’s flopped over my brow.
“You’re nervous, and you’ve no need to be. Not of me.”
I am, he’s right about that, and I don’t want to be, but—
“Of course I am,” I blurt. “Because this only happens in films and books, where you end up with the person you’ve always, erm, always had a…” I groan, and let my head fall forward from the weight of my embarrassment.
James tilts my head up. His face is split in two by a wide grin, but his eyes are soft.
“You mean a crush? You’ve had a crush? On me?”
“Maybe,” I mumble. “All that teasing…” I sigh as he kisses me, as soft as silk.
His hands slip to my hips, where they come to rest, his touch light but anchoring as he trails a line of kisses down my neck. My sigh turns to a whimper, and I arch into him.
With one hand, he tugs at the drawstring of my tracksuit bottoms.
“Think these might need to come off. What do you think?”
His voice is low with a hint of gravel, and my cock which in its nervousness at this turn of events has softened to half-mast, fills and thickens and twitches its agreement. I nod, hard and fast, like this is my first time. My shaky fingers tussle with the tie, all it should be is a quick tug for them to fall to the floor, but I’m making a hash of it. I can’t even get undressed, and my cheeks burn because he must think I’m a young and clueless fool.
James eases my fingers away, and a second later, my tracksuit bottoms lay in a heap at my feet. He unbuttons the shirt I’m wearing, slowly, until it falls open. Pushing it from my shoulders, it too slides to the floor.
He steps away from me, and it’s impossible to see the expression on his face as the room’s in shadow. My heart hitches, and the fear along with the crushing, suffocating disappointment grabs hold of me that he’s changed his mind, that this isn’t a good idea, that I’m too jittery, too clumsy, too—
“Perry, there’s no need to be nervous. Not with me. But, if this suddenly feels like too much, or you’re unsure—”
“No. I mean, I am sure, but yeah, I am nervous.” Nervous I’ll disappoint you, that I’ll fall short of the kind of men a man like you would be used to.
“I’ll settle them for you. Let me take care of you.”
Take care of me…
No man has ever done that before, and the thought is intoxicating. My cock, which has had another attack of nerves of its own, has again found its courage as it presses hard against the restraints of my boxer briefs. I strip off the rest of my clothes and with James’ promise ringing in my ears, I stand naked before him.
“Christ, you’re beautiful.” James’ voice is little more than a croak.
He’s trying to put me at my ease, I know that’s what it is, because I’m not the word he’s just called me. I know I’m not. Nobody has ever called me that, but for now, here, in this room that is stripes of hard shadow and soft fading light shining through the partially closed wooden blinds, I’m ready to believe.
“Get into bed,” he says, his voice rough and edged with need.
He strips off quickly, discarding the layers of body hugging Lycra that leave me all but drooling everytime I see him in them, and he climbs in with me. I can feel his heat, hear his breath, smell the tang of not just his but my arousal too. Again, my nerves take over because the two of us like this, in bed together, me and James… I’ve dreamed about it, wanted it, even stroked myself into sweaty climaxes over it, but never, ever thought… All I can do is lie here, as jittery and clueless as I was when it was my first time.
The room’s warm, or maybe it’s me, and the light as air duvet slips to the floor as James pushes it away.
“I’m sorry,” I croak.
“Sorry for what?”
“For being so—so awkward and stiff—”
He laughs. “I like you being stiff. Stiff is good.” He looks at my cock, lying against my belly, which does a little twitch under his gaze.
“You’re not awkward, just a little nervy, but believe me when I say you’ve no need to be. Like I said, I want to take care of you, but I want to do that how you want it. Which means we can just kiss, touch, explore each other. We can do whatever you want Perry, no more, no less.”
The kiss he places on my lips is affirmation of his words. I sigh and chase his kiss with my own, as his fingers, so soft, deft, and sure, trail from my face, to my neck, and over my chest, brushing across my nipples, which fizz with electricity. He’s read me right, the way he so often seems to. This is what I want, the sensuality of touch, of caress after caress. I want him, us, to take time.
James’ kisses follow the meander of his fingers over my heated, tingling skin. His kisses and tiny licks and nips tremble on the edge of pain.
“Oh God,” I gasp, as his mouth covers one of my nipples.
He chuckles, the sound low, deep, and dark, shooting vibrations through my body, making my cock dance and my back arch upwards. Every part of me shudders and shakes as he sucks hard, teasing one nub and then the next into a long stretch before sucking it back into the wet heat of his mouth.
The bedroom’s hot, the air filled with the sound of sucking and desperate breathy groans, my groans, as I scrub my fingers through his hair and gasp for more.
The whimpering sound that can only come from me fills the room as James’ lips leave behind my throbbing nipples as they wander, taking their time to move towards the pulsing heat between my legs.
I spread myself wide, demanding, wanton, craving his mouth on me.
“Beautiful Perry. So fucking beautiful,” James whispers, the heat of his breath washing over my throbbing, heavy, aching cock.
Beautiful. That word again, filling my cock as it fills my heart.
I groan as he takes me in his hand, his palm encircling my shaft, and I push up into his fist, not a leisurely push and slide, but jerky and impatient. Slow and leisurely, taking our time, has morphed into a desperate hunger that’s demanding to be fed.
But James doesn’t want to feed me yet as once more he gives me that dark chuckle.
“We’ll get there, but not on the motorway. We’re taking the scenic route.”
“You bast—ahhh!”
His tongue laves across my engorged and straining cockhead, knocking all words and sense from me.
Kisses, sucks, long wide licks from the base to the tip, again and again and again. With his other hand, he rolls and massages my balls and I jerk and cry out as he swipes a finger across my perineum, hurtling me towards the edge, pulling me back with a firm grip on the base of my cock.
“Not yet, baby, not yet. Scenic route, remember,” he says, his voice muffled as he pushes his face into my groin, and breathes in deep.
I thrust my hips forward.
“Don’t want any more side roads, so get on the fucking motorway now. And no stopping at services stations.”
Between my legs, his shoulders shake as laughter bubbles out of him, and in the moonlight and shadows, I join in.
“Greedy, demanding boy.”
He knocks the laughter from me as he buries my cock deep in his mouth.
“Jesus fucking Christ.” The words explode out of me.
He’s taken me not just onto the motorway, but into the fast lane.
Sucking hard and fast, his tongue dances over the head of my cock and around the rim. The wet slap of his mouth on me mixes with my cries, gasps and garbled words demanding more, harder, faster. The head of my cock nudges against the soft covered hardness of the back of his throat, and his answering hum is an electrical overload shooting through every nerve and lighting a fire in my blood. My hands find his fast-bobbing head, urging him on, as my hips jerk and judder upwards to meet him. A sweep of a fingertip on the rim of my hole, and my breath hitches hard as heat explodes deep in my belly. I squeeze my eyes shut as my orgasm rockets through me.
“James, I’m…” I cry out. My hands are weak and uncoordinated as I push at his head, trying to warn him, but it’s too late as I hurtle over the precipice James has brought me to, shooting my release into his hot mouth.
My hands fall away as every bone in my body dissolves to mush.
I can hear nothing other than the thunder of my heart and see nothing other than the dying lights dancing in the blackness behind my clenched shut eyes. The bed shifts, knocking some semblance of sense into my numb brain. I drag my eyes open, and blink up into James’ smiling face. He’s switched on the lamp, bathing the room in a soft amber glow.
With gentle fingers he sweeps away my hair, sticky with sweat, away from my brow, and traces his fingers down my face with a gentleness that causes my heart to clench. I can’t speak because of the hard lump filling my throat. He shouldn’t be doing this, touching me with a soft tenderness that makes my heart flutter. He should be moving away because we’ve finished, we’ve got over the line, so there’s no more reason or need for touch. It’s what every other man I’ve been to bed with has done.
But James isn’t every other man.
“Oh, Perry,” he says on a sigh. He kisses me long, slow, and tender, and I melt into him because I just can’t not, as I taste both him and me, warm and wet on my tongue. He breaks the kiss and rolls onto his back and sighs again as he crosses his arms behind his back and stares up at the ceiling.
I’m wracked with indecision. This is the bedroom he chose. I don’t know whether I’m to stay here with him or go to my room. I steal a glance at him, still lying still and staring up at the ceiling and giving no clue, and I begin to shift off the bed.
“What are you doing?” His head whips around, and his eyes blaze into mine.
“I, erm, thought that maybe now we’ve… well, you know… that you might want your space and—”
“You think I want you to go? Is that what you think?”
Yes, because that’s how it’s always been… But I don’t say that, because there’s anger like a storm on the horizon in his eyes and in his tight, taut words.
He looks away from me, as though he needs a second to gather himself. He says something, low and under his breath, but I know it’s to himself and not to me. When he looks at me again, he’s reined that anger in, but it’s still straining at the leash. When he speaks, his words are careful and measured.
“No Perry, I don’t want you to creep off next door. What I want is for you to get back into bed and for you to be here when I wake up in the morning. If that’s what you want too. Is it?”
He looks at me, a shadow of apprehension on his face as he waits for me to give the only answer I can give.
“Yes, it is.”
The words feel huge, monumental in a way I’m too dazed to examine right now. As James holds me tight, and runs his fingers through my hair, I settle into him, feeling the steady rise and fall of his chest against mine.
Closing my eyes, and hardly able to comprehend what has happened, I drift into the dark depths of sleep.
