Lauren Blakely - Every Second With You

I bite my lip when he first licks me so I don’t scream out in pleasure.

“Mmm,” he murmurs as he kisses all my wetness, his soft lips greedily devouring me, like I’m the key to his survival. He slides his tongue across my sex as his lips consume me. I grip the headboard, digging my fingers around the wood as electricity shoots through me like a hot buzz running through my skin, spinning in my veins, turning my entire body into nothing but the deep, hungry ache for release. I won’t last long, not with his moans and groans as he laps me up, plundering me with his tongue so eagerly, like he’s coveting my pleasure.

Soon, I start to rock into him, to buck against his mouth. He grips my hips harder, grinding me deeper and faster into his mouth until I am awash in a hot charge that starts tight in my belly then pulses throughout my entire body, coating me in nothing but ecstasy and heat, all the way to my fingertips.

Everything is a blur as I shout his name, the orgasm rocketing through me, leaving no inch of my body untouched with its pure and beautiful bliss. I exhale hard, panting still, my legs shaking.

Then, as I slow my movements, I’m hit with the most fantastic aftershocks that radiate throughout me.

Soon, I shift off of him, collapsing on the bed.

“Holy hell,” I say, still dizzy and glowing from coming so hard on him. “You have a magic mouth.”

“I guess that was good for you, too,” he says, with a sly smile.

“Yeah. Slightly,” I say, and then I glance down at the sleeping dog. “Guess he doesn’t mind our noises, either.”

“I knew he was my kind of wingman,” he says.

I laugh. “So, what was your verdict?”

He switches to his side, brushing his lips ever so faintly against my ear. “You taste like the one thing I will never have enough of.”

A shiver runs through me with his words. They make me feel both loved and sexy. “Let’s do it in our position,” I say, and I move to my side, too. I reach down between his legs, grasp him in my hand, and bury him inside of me. I move with him, savoring his sounds, his breath, his ragged pants when he tells me he’s so close.

“Come in me,” I whisper, watching his face strain and twist with pleasure as I bring him over the edge.

Later, as we lie together, it occurs to me that San Diego is already winning. That the happiest days of my life were here when I was younger, and that so far, California is a bit like paradise.

Harley

The sky stretches with endless blue, the shade so pure and perfect it seems unreal. The sun inches its way overhead, and the waves crash into the sand, the powerful Pacific Ocean pushing and pulling at the sandy shore with its mighty force.

“I told you so,” I say to Trey the next morning. “I told you you’d want shorts.”

He holds up his hands in surrender as he throws another tennis ball to the dog. Trey’s jeans are cuffed up, but the cuffs are soaked. He wears a T-shirt, but without board shorts he looks out of place on the beach and, frankly, a bit silly.

“You look like an interloper. Like a city boy. You’re embarrassing me,” I say, as I kick sand onto his feet playfully, the grains sliding through my naked toes. I love the feel of the sand on my bare feet, the breeze on my arms, and the salty bite of the waves in my nostrils.

The Sheriff returns to Trey, trotting by his side and making big puppy-dog eyes at him as we cut across the beach toward the house. Already, the dog has adopted Trey, or maybe it’s the other way around. I never knew my guy had that side of him—the dog-person side. Then again, he never knew he did, either.

“I’ve never had a pet,” he’d told me this morning when he woke up, laughing as The Sheriff licked his face, the dog’s way of asking for breakfast. “But this dog kind of rocks.”

We reach the deck of the house; Robert and Debbie are drinking their morning coffee outside.

“He needs shorts,” I tell Robert.

“The Sheriff? That’s crazy. He only wears clothes at night, when he puts on his PJs. He goes full monty during the day.”

I laugh and point my thumb to Trey. “Him.”

“You telling me I need to take your boyfriend shopping?”

I nod. “Pretty please.”

Robert shakes his head, but he’s already giving in. He turns to Trey, and claps him on the shoulder. “Now son, I’m giving up my man card to take you shopping, but she’s right. I’m thoroughly embarrassed by your lack of appropriate beach attire. Surprised, too, that TSA didn’t confiscate your bags at the airport yesterday. We usually don’t let anyone into San Diego with jeans on,” Robert says, pointing to his own cargo shorts.

They leave, and I join Debbie on the deck. The dog follows, parking himself in a perfect sit next to me, and looking expectantly at Debbie with the ball in his mouth.

She takes the ball and tosses it far away in the sand, and the dog is off like a shot.

“Why’d you name him The Sheriff?”

“When we adopted him we had cats, and he was always trying to herd them, and round them up, like they were his posse or something. So we called him The Sheriff.”

“I like that name.”

“Thank you. Would you like some coffee? Tea, or lemonade?”

It’s only ten in the morning, but lemonade sounds delicious. “Lemonade, please.”

She heads into the house and returns quickly with two tall glasses. She takes a sip, sets the glass down, and presses her palms against the white wooden deck railing, gazing out at the water.

“I bet it never gets old, this view,” I say, drinking in the gorgeous sky and the sun that bakes my skin slowly, luxuriously.

“Never does. Every day it feels new again,” she says, and then she turns to me. “So, how’s it going with the two of you? How is he with being a dad soon?”

I’m momentarily startled by the directness of her question. She reminds me a bit of Joanne; going for bluntness. It’s such a change from what I’ve been used to my whole life over.

“He had a hard time at first, but he’s changed a lot in the last few months. Sometimes, he’s too sweet for words.”

“That’s how it should be. And you’re very serious about each other.” It’s half a question, and half a pronouncement.

“Very serious.”

“I can tell,” she says, her blue eyes holding mine. “The way he looks at you. How he talks to you. And you, with him. You have this connection that goes beyond most people. One that runs so deep it’s almost like a secret language. I think that’s what it’s like with true love. With soul mates. You just have it.”

“You can tell with us?”

She nods, and taps her heart. “Oh yeah. I can tell. I have a soul mate detector.”

“We are soul mates. I’m sure of it. What about you and Robert? Is that what you have?”

“Absolutely,” she says as The Sheriff trots up to the porch, dropping the ball with a loud thunk then staring at Debbie. She grabs the ball, and tosses it back out to the sand.

As The Sheriff tears away, I spy a seagull careening towards the sand in hot pursuit of a french fry. The seagull lands and grabs his carbohydrate prey, gulping it down.

I turn back to Debbie, shielding my eyes from the sun with my hand. There’s something I want to know, and she doesn’t mince words so I go for it. “My parents didn’t have that, did they?”

“No,” she says with a sigh. “They didn’t. They tried hard. But they didn’t.”

“Will you tell me about them? Is it okay to ask?”

“Of course it’s fine to ask, and of course I’ll tell you. I figured you’d want to know. Let’s sit,” she says, gesturing to a pair of white wooden chairs with a small table between them

“What were they like together?”

Debbie tilts her head, considering my question as a breeze gently rattles the wind chimes that hang above the screen door. The pretty tinkling sound fades away and she turns to me. “They were like this.” She makes her hands into fists and bumps the knuckles together. “They were metal against metal. They were both brilliant. John is a very smart man, and Barb fell hard for that. She loved his brain, and she loved the way he could hold his own with her. She was taken with him, and he very much was with her, as far as I could tell. He was a political advisor, and they met when she was on an internship for a paper out here. I don’t even want to say they fell in love; it was more like they crashed into something volatile. Each other, maybe. Because they argued all the time. It was as if they were always locked in a debate. We’d have dinner with them, and they were always looking for some mistake in the other.”

“That sounds sad,” I say and my chest hurts for my parents.

The Sheriff arrives again and deposits the ball. Debbie reaches for it and fires it off. The dog’s black furry legs blur through the sand.

“But sadly, John is like that.”

“Really?”

“He’s not a happy man. Oh, on the surface, he’s the life of the party, but deep down, he’s not a happy soul. I love him, he’s my son, and I’d do anything for him. I could beat myself up and say I’m a bad mom and it’s all because of me, but I don’t know why he is the way he is. I just know he’s like that.”

“Is that why you don’t talk to him much?”

“I don’t talk to him much because he went his own way. He’s been living in Europe for years now. He made choices that I didn’t agree with, and while I love him, I don’t love his choices, and he knows that.”

The pit in my chest deepens, threatens to tunnel its way through me. Yet I need to ask. I open my mouth, and it’s almost painful to say the words; they taste like tinfoil against my tongue. “My mom told me something. I want to know if it’s true. She said he was a sex addict, and in therapy when I spent that summer with you. Is he an addict?”