Funny Feelings (70)

A garbled string of colorful expletives unspools from my lips, mixed in with the chant of his name as the orgasm tears through me, one thigh trembling against his temple while the other slips down his sweaty shoulder.

He plants a kiss below my belly button, my hands finding their way through his hair, to his jaw when he kisses between my ribs, to his neck when he plants a last one at the base of my throat. I laugh a satisfied, giddy sound and pull his face to mine, kiss him with long, drugging kisses until I know my legs are steady enough to slide onto. My fists clench in his shirt and pull. “Need this off.” Part away only long enough for him to pull it over his head and kick off his shoes.

I use the little moment of surprise to switch places and push him against the dresser before I dip to my knees.

The corners of his lips stretch up as my palms do the same along his legs, fingertips slipping under the hem of his shorts before I pull them back out and reach up to the waist band, biting my lip, anxious to hear his sounds and see his expressions.

I want my calm, stoic Meyer thoroughly undone and unhinged. Want to torture him and soothe him in the same breath.

My knuckles slide against the warm skin at his hips, pressing into a vein along the V of his torso, before he snatches my wrists and pulls them away.

When I look at him in (slightly annoyed) confusion, I expect to see a teasing smile again. Instead he looks sheepish, struggles around a swallow. I default to light humor.

“Listen, I’m sure it’s not as weird as you think it is.” I offer.

“What?” He asks, brows flicking down.

“Whatever’s going on with your dick that has you shy. It could be S-shaped and have a tooth for all I care and I’ll work with it.”

It works. He barks out a laugh, abs flexing gloriously before he drops my wrists and slides a thumb along my jaw.

“Can I?” I ask. He nods.

“Fee.” He grits. “I won’t last long. It’s been a long, long time.”

“Perfect, because I’m getting hungry and would like you to take me to breakfast soon.” And I pull down his pants.

There’s absolutely nothing weird.

I’m just… very happy for me. It feels good to be happy for myself.

But, something catches my eye, right there along his upper thigh.

“A tattoo?” I smile. “You’re certainly packing surprises aren’t you?”

But then I realize what I’m looking at.

An umbrella. Watercolor splatters in the ink, bright flowers raining from its canopy.

“Meyer—”

“It’s the tattoo you gave Hazel the first time we met. That little temporary one? I only had a picture of it on my phone, so I don’t know if it’s exact or not. I got it in… Vegas. I got it for you.” He swipes his thumb across my bottom lip. “Fee, I was so fucking lonely before you found us.”

I plant my lips against it and close my eyes, gather my nerves before I stand and kiss him, not knowing how to express everything, no words for these feelings fizzing their way from my chest into my throat. So I show him, instead. Pull him with me, walking backwards in the direction of the bed.

“You already know that I’m on birth control. It’s been well over a year and I’ve been tested. I’m clean.” I say.

He laughs shakily. “Fee, it’s been about four, at least, for me.”

“Four months?”

“Four years.”

My mouth pops open before I think to shut it, not wanting to embarrass him, but he catches it and laughs.

I appreciate that, again. The fact that we can stand here naked in front of one another, keyed up and turned on, and still laugh with each other.

“Why the fuck do you think I work out so much? Had to work off the tension somehow. It got worse when this pain in the ass, beautiful, funny red head came traipsing into my life.”

And then he corrals me to the bed with his big body. Digs his knee into the mattress and crawls over me as I slide up the bed on my elbows, his smiling eyes never leaving mine. He drapes my hair around his forearm, letting it fan out around my head when I lay down fully.

He settles between my legs, eyes roaming over me tenderly even has he trembles.

“Fee,” he says, a hollow whisper. “I meant it. I don’t think I can last long.” A gust of a laugh.

I dance my fingertips along the skin pulsing at his throat. “Good. Because I don’t plan on this being the last time I get you naked, Meyer Harrigan.”

Because you’re mine. And I’m yours. Yours, yours, yours, I think.

He lines himself up with me and I start to shake, too, despite my efforts to stay collected. I was hoping one of us could keep it together, hoping for it to be me for a change.

He works himself into me, and my breath escapes. His eyes stutter closed and he groans. I’m impossibly full of him, of desire and happiness and this swelling in my chest. Love. He moves, and it’s just a perfect degree above too much. I sigh in nirvana.

I’m reduced to sensations, loops of them with no beginning or end. The sight of the flush in his skin and the haze in his eyes, the vein in his forehead that grows prominent in concentration.

The taste of the skin on his thick wrist. The one planted just above my shoulder that I hook my hand around and kiss when my head falls to the side mindlessly on a moan.

The sound of his gruff voice as it touches against me everywhere. When he tells me I’m beautiful, tells me it’s better than he dreamed. I tell him the same, that I’m so happy that umbrella broke that day.