After the End Ch. 05

Afterward, we lay together in peaceful silence.

"Julian..."

"Yeah?"

"Nothing, I just...wanted to say your name."

I kissed his head. "It's my favorite thing to hear you say."

It was quiet for a minute, then Avery spoke again, another shy confession. "My favorite is what you said the first night you came over. When you didn't leave."

I caressed him lovingly and whispered the ritual. "Go to sleep, Avery. I'll still be here."

"You promise?" he whispered back. There was more significance to the question now. Or maybe it held the same significance it always had, except now I understood it.

"I promise." And I intended to keep that promise for a very long time.

* * * * *

Avery:

I was supposed to be reviewing supply reports in the command center, but I wasn't really accomplishing much except for sneaking glances at Julian and then smothering my grins. The sight of his handsome, serious face gave me the same hit of emotion every time. He was with the council at the large, oval table in the corner, finalizing plans for this fall's builds. We'd worked on those plans together, but it was Julian's role to formally present them to our community's governors for approval.

He'd probably noticed what I was up to, but he stayed focused on his job. I'd sat here, at the smaller table with all the maps, while he'd been over there, lots of times. Everything felt different, though, now that I knew what I meant to him. Somehow, that tall, confident man with the effortlessly commanding presence and the perfectly trained muscles was also in love with me. I probably wasn't going to be able to think about anything else for a while.

A few days later, we moved out of his tent and into one of the new wooden residences we'd all helped construct. Each building was divided into single-room apartments, four per side, for the most efficient protection from cold and sun. Being in the permanent structure helped me adjust to the idea that my relationship with Julian was more permanent as well. It wasn't like we were married or anything, but Julian had said he wasn't going anywhere, and I certainly wasn't.

A couple of weeks after we moved in, I was laying naked on Julian's chest, kissing him slowly. There wasn't much to our new home, just the bed that had originally been Julian's, a few cartons against the walls where we kept our things, a bench with our boots underneath, and our lamp hanging on the wall. Plus the clothes we'd worn that day, tossed toward the bench, mostly landing on the freshly-hewn plank floor. After the tattered tarps I'd lived on the past few years, a real floor was a luxury.

Now that things were more settled between us, our busy sex life had resumed. However, neither of us had brought up the intense twenty-four hours when I'd let Julian do anything he wanted to me while withholding my orgasm. In my own mind, I frequently re-lived favorite moments from that day. It had been insanely hot, the way he'd teased my trigger spots and built my need to astronomical levels, then denied me release, then teased me even more while I was the horniest I'd ever been. He'd kept me on edge so much longer than I'd known was possible, until the sensation overload should have given me a seizure. And that was before the mind-melting orgasm.

Definitely a day and night and morning I could get off to forever, even if I were locked alone in a dungeon for the rest of my life. But remembering it was one thing. Actually doing it, giving Julian complete control of my body, every sensitive inch and every embarrassing reaction, had left me way more exposed than I liked to be. I'd let him turn me into an absolute fucking slut, and I couldn't even hide how much I loved it. Even after Julian convinced me he was planning on sticking around, he'd seemed to understand I wasn't ready to try anything like that again right away.

Tonight, I took my time enjoying Julian's mouth while he stroked my bare back. I'd never been with anyone so attentive, before him. Or maybe I'd never allowed anyone to touch me this way - knowingly, deliberately, crafting sensations layer by layer. We had no qualms about grabbing a quick and dirty fuck when the mood took us. But this, his broad chest beneath me, his strong palm smoothing over my body, his tongue sharing my mouth, my head simmering with memories and fantasies about what might happen next...this would be difficult to improve upon.

After a while, he started tracing my spine, fingertips following the trail of tiny bones slowly up and down the center of my back. His fingers traveled all the way into the curls at my neck, then back between my shoulder blades and ridges of muscle, almost to the sensitive spot at the top of my ass, but always stopping just ahead of it.

Sometimes it didn't seem fair how easily Julian could arouse me. Whatever he did - touching me or only suggesting it, giving me exactly what I wanted or everything but - just made me need him more. With every light stroke up, my nerves grew more alert, and the whole journey down, his fingertips held me in suspense while blood rushed into my cock. Would he brush the tip of my tailbone, striking sparks of need like steel against flint? Would he venture into my crack? Would he go all the way to violate the forbidden doorway of my asshole? Would he thrust a finger inside?

With each pass so close to those zones of pleasure, my cock surged. I pressed harder against his mouth and reached between his legs to find his own erection already full, just from kissing and stroking me.

It still surprised me that Julian desired me so much. Women had been attracted to me since I hit my late teens and started putting on muscle, but I understood that because I was different from them: taller, stronger, with a specialized piece of anatomy that could ravish them. I didn't provide any of those things to Julian, yet his physical response to me was consistently undeniable.

Aside from the flood of endorphins, it's what I like best about sex: the immediacy, the clear-cut evidence. Men, at least, can't lie about being turned on or off, or about reaching completion. Not like love, which is invisible, cheap to claim, costly to verify. Anyone can say three words. But there was only one possible meaning to Julian's swollen rod beneath my hand.

He took my shoulders and rolled us over so that he was on top, letting the lower half of his body pin me down. He stared at me for a moment, his blue eyes glittering in the low lamplight. He knew it excited me to lose control. He kissed me some more, driving his tongue deep into my mouth, then he pulled back.

"How badly do you want me right now?" he asked in that provocative tone he'd mastered.

"Bad," I replied promptly. I always wanted him, and when he touched me, my need multiplied.

He reached for my right nipple and began circling the smooth disk of my areola with a fingertip, then stroking flat across it. He'd learned our first night together how much that got to me, sending urgent messages into my brain and cock. I ground up against him in response to the tantalizing sensation.

"How about now?" Julian asked after a minute of electrifying me through that tiny node on my chest.

"Worse." I was panting a little already.

"Anyone would think I hadn't touched you since last week, rather than last night," he said with a smile.

"Can't help it." After six months, his ability to make me crave him was still growing. It actually seemed like the more he pleasured me, the worse I needed it.

His fingertip sped up, flicking back and forth, then returned to circling. "What do you think I should I do about that?"

Fuck, I didn't care as long as it involved those involuntary shudders of bliss that pumped cream from my balls. "Anything."

Hips still holding mine in place, Julian fit my nipple between two knuckles, not to hurt me, just to threaten it. "You know what I want?"

"What?" I gasped.

"I want you to give up your orgasm tonight," he told me in the authoritative, sensual voice that never failed to tap directly into my nervous system.

I stopped breathing, but my cock jumped.

"I'll keep playing with you," he went on, "until I come in your mouth. But you'll stay hard and aching."

Oh shit. The second he said it, my shaft turned to granite and my balls started swelling. I remembered exactly how frustrating it had been to be stimulated when I wasn't allowed release. Everything got extra sensitive, which made each touch doubly good, which only made the need for satisfaction more desperate. It was a vicious, delicious cycle.

"How does that sound?" Julian prompted, stroking my nipple some more.

An argument raged inside me between the need to come that grew worse with each pass of his fingertip, and the desire to surrender. I already didn't know if I could stand any more of Julian's delicate teasing without an orgasm, and there was no doubt he would make me far hornier than this, if I agreed. Yet there was something thrillingly erotic about letting him frustrate me. It was a high like nothing else I'd experienced, a pleasure that lasted longer and resonated deeper.

"Hot," I finally answered, breathing too quickly.

"Will you do it for me?" he asked in sultry tones. "Will you let me edge your cock and leave it throbbing?"

I moaned and got another stroke over my electrified nipple, then finally whispered, "Yes."

Julian's sapphire gaze pierced me with such heat that I almost regretted my answer. One more lustful kiss, then he rearranged us again. He lay on his back and positioned me on knees and elbows above him, backwards, so my mouth could reach his cock. With my legs wide to either side of his body, my balls hung just in front of his face, and my erection jutted out beneath my stomach. On his instructions, I began to fondle and taste him. At the same time, he got to work on his promise to make me ache.

First, of course, he went for the spot he had been avoiding, at the base of my spine. I never did understand why it made me so wild. Maybe because it wasn't quite anywhere - not my back, not my ass, not my crack - but it teased everywhere. It was highly effective foreplay, except tonight, foreplay was all I was getting. I swear just knowing I couldn't come got me halfway there.

With me being down on my forearms, my ass was slightly lifted into the air, an embarrassingly debauched position. My face heated as I realized Julian was probably staring right at my asshole while he made it tingle. His fingertip brushed the sensitive top of my cleft over and over, while I tried in vain to stay calm.

He dipped into my crevice, and I squirmed when he stroked between my cheeks without reaching my hole. Julian had a way of making the most forgotten, insignificant parts of my body feel dramatically important. His fingers were so close to where I wanted them and yet so far away.

I felt a shock when he finally made contact with my tiny back portal, but he only rubbed for a moment before skirting away up my crack, to linger again at the top. I sucked him with force, trying to distract him. It didn't work. He kept tracing my exposed private region, teasing over my hole and perineum, but always returning to the tantalizing spot that was too much and not nearly enough.

Another round of rubbing against my clenching ring, and I gulped a breath. "When - when can I come?" I'd been going for casual, but I sounded desperate anyway.

"In the morning. And I'll leave you alone during the night. Unless you don't want me to," he added, a smile in his voice, and I cringed remembering the way I'd woken him up last time to ask for more denial.

He moved to my balls for a while, pulling them taut with one hand and brushing fingertips lightly down the back with the other. God, it teased - lovely ripples of sensation that spread up my cock like a phantom touch. I was completely failing at keeping my need from escalating to critical. Especially when he leaned up to add swipes with his tongue. I gripped his leg and tried to focus on my blow job.

I worked his cock with my mouth, going slowly the way he had told me, so he could enjoy my tongue on his tool for as long as he wanted to torment me. I played with his balls as well, and I took it as a victory every time I managed to make him moan instead of the other way around.

Julian pulled my hips closer, and I jumped when he kissed the very top of my leg, where my hamstring curved to become my inner thigh. Just when I'd relaxed into the wet caress, his teeth nipped the tender flesh of my groin and nearly sent me through the roof. So he did it again.

All kinds of pre-come pulsed from my cock as his mouth and fingers crawled nearby. The longer he ignored it, the more it ached. Why did this have to turn me on so fucking much, the way Julian provoked me on purpose, inflaming me with lust and leaving me to burn? It was the exact opposite of helpful that I got off on it, when not getting off was the entire point.

On the other hand, each throb of need was almost like a miniature orgasm, driven on and on by Julian's teasing. It wasn't necessarily something I wanted to end.

And on the other hand, I could still get off to it later. Over and over.

"You forgetting about something, Avery?"

Oh right. I was supposed to be blowing him. I wrapped my hand around his shaft again and tongued a neglected drop of fluid from his slit, then fit my lips over his glans.

"Love watching you drip onto my chest while I drip down your throat," Julian commented.

I groaned and shivered and took him out again. "You can't say shit like that and expect me not to come."

"Yes I can." Sexy, smug bastard.

With me upside down across him and his legs slightly spread while I licked him, I found my thoughts wandering further, beneath his balls, to the small opening I knew was there, even though I wasn't allowed to see it. Julian had told me about being raped when he was a young teenager, and because of that, to this day he hadn't attempted consensual anal stimulation.

I would never push him for something he didn't want, but lately, surprising as it was, I found myself wishing I weren't prohibited from giving him so much of the pleasure he gave me. Like right now, if I could slide his legs a little further apart and slip a finger down to find his hole while I sucked the head of his cock...even if I just fondled the outside and didn't penetrate him, I knew how good it would feel. Physically, anyway.

Crazy sex god though he was, Julian was essentially still a virgin when it came to his ass, and it made me hot to imagine that at some point he might be able to trust me with it. He'd seemed nowhere near ready to experiment, when he'd disclosed his trauma originally, so I kept my fantasies to myself.

Distracted by thoughts of his ass, I hadn't really paid attention to Julian's left arm hooking around my leg. Idly, his fingers stroked the inner surface of my thigh, creeping around to the front, until suddenly he pressed a spot that sent a jolt through my nerves. I held my breath and tried not to tense up. I was really sensitive right there, the joint where my leg met my torso, and if Julian saw me reacting, he'd go for blood.

He brushed softly along my ticklish skin. I bit down hard on my lip and locked my muscles in place.

"It's not you who's madly ticklish here, is it?" Julian asked with fake curiosity.

I stifled a giggle as he probed with his fingertips, gentle but insistent, right where it tickled the worst.

"Must have been someone else," he went on in the same tone. But he kept up the devilish prodding and stroking against my vulnerable groin until I couldn't stand it any longer. I tried to twist away from his hand, but his secure grip on my thigh stopped me from going anywhere.

"Julian!" I yelped. Helpless laughter spilled out as he started tickling me in earnest.

He laughed too, not letting me dislodge his hand despite my frantic squirming. "What's wrong? This a sensitive spot?"

Fuck, was it ever! And his taunting was amplifying the effect on my overexcited nerves. I reached back to block him, but it was hard to get much leverage from this angle, with his broad chest between my legs. He didn't let up. He kept tickling with targeted jabs and twitching fingertips, all around the top of my leg where I couldn't protect myself.

Before long the explosive signals had incapacitated my system, and I was thrashing my way off Julian and out of reach of his conniving fingers. I lay across the bed, trying to recover, and he smirked at me.

"I'm sorry," he said, looking anything but sorry. "It's too tempting when you lose it that easily."

I made a half-hearted attempt to look victimized but didn't manage to keep the smile off my face.

"Come back up here. I won't do it again."

"You won't tickle me again?"

"Well, I'm not promising that," he replied, grinning wickedly. "Come on," he coaxed when I hesitated. "I still owe you a denial."

He was impossible to resist, even when he was threatening the worst kind of erotic torment. Maybe especially then. I crawled back over and kissed him for a minute. When I released his lips, he looked deeply into my eyes, and I knew he knew exactly the effect he had on me.

Turning around to hide my blush, I climbed back into position. This time, it was more difficult to spread myself open in front of him. My flesh was still buzzing from his tickling, and offering it to him again was making my neglected cock even harder.

He didn't touch me for a minute, so I resumed work on his orgasm. My lips suctioned tightly around the flared edges of the glans while I pulled up and down his shaft, and he hummed in approval.

There was a brief brush along the crease of my groin. I gasped and dug my fingers into Julian's leg. Damn, that tickled, now that he'd gotten me so worked up. Another touch there, and I fought not to dive off him again. He laughed.

"Maybe someday, you'll let me tie you up while I play with you," he said suggestively.

An image flashed into my mind - me spread-eagled across the bed, all my limbs bound, completely unprotected from Julian's hands and mouth - and I thought my cock might catch fire. No doubt Julian noticed the spasm and extra surge of pre-come. I didn't know how I could possibly handle being that powerless, but something told me that sooner or later I'd find out. Julian had a way of making me want things I shouldn't.

I felt him place a fingertip gently against my asshole, and I relaxed, waiting for the satisfying stretch of invasion, but nothing happened. His finger just sat there, barely touching my dirtiest place. Somehow, that quickly became unbearable. I writhed and pushed back to impale myself, but he moved as well.

"Uh uh, Avery," he chastised, and I knew what he wanted.

"Oh, please," I panted, forcing myself to stillness, while his finger stayed barely connected to my back door. "Julian, do something. At least rub it."

"No."

Why was it so fucking hot to have his stupid fingertip right there? I tried to steady my breathing so I didn't start hyperventilating.

"God, I love teasing you." Julian kept his finger resting on my pucker. "You are so damn sexy when you're spread open like this, holding still for me while I make you want things you can't have."

I whimpered. Hearing how much he enjoyed me was gratifying, but it only made the yearning in my ass worse. Not to mention in my cock and balls.

After what seemed like an eternity, his touch disappeared, and I heard him open the bottle of lube. Suddenly, his finger pushed all the way up my ass in one stroke. I groaned at the sharp intrusion, but it just made me needier. He traced lightly over my prostate, hinting at the pleasure buried there, then started a rhythmic massage, adding a second finger when I had adjusted to one. I was in heaven. Except for my cock, which he left burning in hell.