Baby, Sitting

"So," he lifted his glass and took a small sip, tasting a hint of pear beneath the white wine, "What movie did you decide on?"

"I was thinking about The StrangersI."

"Seems appropriate."

"It kind of does, doesn't it?" Her lips curved up in a smile, "But first, tell me about yourself. Nobody else would, after you disappeared. There was all kinds of rumors about what happened to that Andresi boy," her voice held a slightly mocking quality--not towards him, but towards the other people in the town, "Truth be told, I think they kind of missed you. It got boring when you left."

"They missed me?"

"Okay, okay--" she held up her hands defensively, "Maybe I kind of missed you too. Just a little bit, though." She pinched a finger and a thumb together in front of her eye, "So tell me, what turned that little brown-haired tornado of destruction I remember into..." she hesitated, her eyes moving slowly down his body and then back up, "Whoever this upstanding young man is?"

"Horror movies," he said, his voice a little softer than he had intended. He saw a bit of confusion enter her eyes, "Fallujah in '04. Nasiriyah in '06 and '07."

"You're a soldier?" She asked, slightly surprised.

"Commanding Officer, Lieutenant-Colonel Conner Andresi, Princess Patricia's CLI, 4th Battalion." He gave the title with a bit of wry humor, "Reporting for duty."

"Oh--" her eyes took on a bit of interest, "You're, like, a soldier, soldier."

"I am, like," a grin tugged at the muscles of his cheek, "a soldier soldier."

"That's hot." The words seemed to just slip out of Bradley's mouth, and as soon as they did Conner saw an ever so slightly widening of her eyes. The hand that wasn't holding her wine glass rose, staying flat somewhere between her chest and her mouth, her fingertips just in front of her chin. She rushed onward, "I mean--! Not, like... Oh, what the hell. You know what I mean. You were in Iraq?"

"Three tours," he nodded.

"I'm sorry," her voice took on a slightly more serious tone. She wasn't apologizing for her earlier words, he knew--she was apologizing for his. For all of it. The entire experience. He nodded once more, showing her that he understood.

"I made it... home." At the slightly pause between the rest of the words and the final one, his eyes shifted from the kitchen around them to focus on hers.

Bradley's eyes went a bit wider once more. Not in embarrassment, this time. At the meaning behind those words; at how the slight refocusing of his stare told her that they had nothing to do with Canada, or Ontario, or even Kinmount. He saw her breasts rise slightly as she drew a deep breath and exhaled it through her lips. When she reached back to set her wine glass on the table, the round bottom met the marble with a slightly sharp clink.

"The movie--" he began.

"Not a fucking chance."

He had just enough time to set his own glass down on the counter to his left. And then she was in his arms. Her hands reached up, pulling his head down towards hers. Their mouths met. Conner felt himself moving backward, half by his own steps and half by the sudden weight of Bradley's body against the front of his. Their momentum carried them backward until he felt the dials of the stove pressing against his lower back.

To Conner, it felt as if Bradley was trying to put herself inside of his body. Her hands grabbed the sides of his head, the tips of her fingers catching at the dark threads of his swept-back hair. Her breasts pressed against the bottom of his chest, her hips meeting his from a slightly lower angle and holding them together. Her mouth opened against his, and he felt the slight shakiness of her breath as they kissed. By instinct, he slipped his tongue forward from his mouth into hers. He felt her own meet it, pushing back and sliding against its length. In his chest, his heart was beating hard--something he felt echoed in Bradley's body. It was the kind of make-out session usually reserved for high school seniors, or particularly drunk University students.

When he reached down and put his hands around her waist, he felt the smallest of moans travel up her neck and between the open space of their mouths. Audible only because they were pressed tight against one another. Moving slowly, he slid his hands around her waist; feeling her hips rock forward against his, and over the cheeks of her bum. He lifted her, ever so slightly, so that they were closer to the same height. Her bottom lip quivered as she exhaled, her breath hot against his mouth. Conner curled his fingers slightly, adding a bit of pressure against the soft curve of the woman's bum.

"Bedroom, or--" he began, but was forced to stop once more as Bradley leaned backward, dropping most of her weight against his hands and forearms. Instinctively, he grabbed her a bit more tightly and lifted her.

She was a woman; full-bodied and healthy. Curving in all of the right ways. She had a woman's weight. Despite that, he lifted her easily. Her legs wrapped around his waist, crossing just behind his bum and hooking together at the ankle. As she settled, he adjusted his grip to hold her more comfortably. Their mouths still hadn't left one another. They didn't as he carried her across the kitchen, walking the half-dozen steps to the center island. Her mouth only parted as he set her down on the thick slab of granite.

He could feel her hands, tugging at the bottom of his shirt. Leaning back, he reached down and pulled it up his body and over his head. His only tattoo was the mark of Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry; a cursive golden 'VP' through a crown, surrounded by a red circle which was adorned by a second, more ornate crown, on the top curve. It had been inked into the top of his chest, just beneath his left collarbone. As Bradley's eyes fell on it, she raised a finger to trace the outline before leaning down to trace her lips along the path her finger had just taken.

As she kissed his chest, her hands reached down and began fumbling at the metal buckle of his belt. Her legs were open around his waist, calves hugging the curve of his thighs as he stood between them. Reaching down, he cupped her left breast in his hand and squeezed it gently through the top of her blouse. The action brough her face back up to his, her mouth reaching toward him. He closed the distance, tongue searching out hers.

His hand slipped away from her breast, moving with his other one around the back of her body. He let them move slowly, feeling the softness of her body beneath the tense, slightly scratchy lace of her blouse. As his hands came up, they caught on the straps around her shoulders. Using the edges of his thumbs, he slid them slowly over the curves of her shoulders and down over the top of her arms. Bradley sighed into his mouth, feeling the tension of her shirt easing away.

"Take me--" she breathed, "Right now. Right here on Olivia's counter." Her head tilted back as he brought his mouth to her neck. He pinched the bottom of her ear between his teeth before letting it roll out between his lips; eliciting a low moan from the seated woman.

But something held him. Something he couldn't find the words to tell Bradley. He wasn't a virgin--not exactly. Not by technical terms. So how could he tell her something like this? Two women in Iraq--one from Fallujah and one who a Canadian-born Iraqi who had travelled with their unit for the purpose of translation. One woman during his infantry days in the army, which had gone on for a couple of months during a training stay, but with whom each time had been only a brief, throw-away kind of sex. The sex of two people who knew that this deployment could be their last; sex which was born only of necessity, rather than passion. One woman in Coalhorse, the year after he'd come home. A woman he'd paid.

Nobody--important.

"Bradley, I haven't--"

"That's fine," she reached out and caught the back of his head with one hand, using it to pull herself up and press their mouths together in a quick, forceful kiss. "I don't care, Conner. I just want you." Her hips pushed forward against his. As she leaned back, he could clearly see the almost desperate shining of her desire in the pair of blue eyes that stared back at him, "I want you. Take me."

This time, the gentleness of their previous fumbling was forgotten. She pushed herself off the counter with a burst of laughter, like a dozen champagne flutes hitting the laminated floor and shattering all at once, as he grabbed her blouse and pulled it down. Shoulders moving back, she raised her hips for him to pull the pants down her legs. The slightly elastic material of the jeans came away easily, turning inside-out as he pulled them over her feet. He ignored her socks, reaching down and grabbing her away from the counter to bring her body against his once more.

[Bradley Chastain]

As Conner pulled the pants down her legs, she could still smell him hanging in the air around her. It wasn't just that their bodies were pressed together -- it was him. She didn't know how the boy that she had once spent her evenings babysitting had become the man who now stood in front of her. As he moved his hands up her now bare legs, covered only by a pair of running socks and the thin fabric of her underwear, she breathed in his scent. It was the smell of the road--of movement; light sweat mixing with that of decaying leaves, fresh-cut grass, and masculinity. The smell of it was intoxicating.

She had thought that he was skinny, when she'd first seen him standing on the road. Not uncomfortably skinny; skinny in the way that men went when they'd been working hard for years. Hard across the chest and stomach, with arms like corded rope. But when she was inside of those arms, she forgot about that sensation completely. When they were held against her, Conner's arms felt nearly as thick as her legs. His hands, perfectly in proportion to them, felt enormous as they closed over the cheeks of her bum.

As he looked down at her, he said nothing. All she heard was the depth of his exhalation; a sound that seemed to come less from his stomach or his chest than it did from between his legs.

Bradley, I haven't-- she couldn't understand what it was about those three words that she understood. Something about the quality of those words that she recognized inside of her own body. There had been men before Conner, of course; a boy in her grade during the final year of high school, a man who delivered mail and worked part-time in construction, a second-grade science teacher, and one of her fellow editors at the publishing house. There had been a few more, in there. One-night stands that she'd picked up herself during a night of loneliness, or desire, or out of a sense of obligation when one of her friends had set her up.

But she'd never had anybody affect her like this. As she wrapped herself around the shirtless man in front of her and fought with the buckle of his belt, it felt as if her hands and her body were moving through liquid honey. It wasn't just the light that slanted in through the windows and the glass door of the porch-facing kitchen. It was a feeling slowness; of being suspended in time while the man's hands were holding her.

Nobody--important.

Between her legs, she could feel her own wetness working its way through the front of her underwear. At the edges of the fabric, the lace stuck to her skin. When he pushed her back--not with any force whatsoever, but just placing a hand against her chest and using it to guide her back down the flat face of the counter--she felt her heartbeat racing under his palm. His hand slid down the front of her body, catching on one of her nipples before sliding smoothly down the slight curve of her stomach and holding there, just below her belly button.

What she hadn't been expecting was for him to bend down over her body, the bottom of his stomach pressed to the edge of the counter between her legs; the brush of his lips against her pelvis. Bradley moaned as Conner's teeth caught the waistband of her underwear; the whisper of their edge tracing lines down her skin as he brought them down her legs using only his mouth. It suddenly occurred to Bradley that her breathing had become an erratic panting sound; something that she'd heard from herself before, but never without her own choice to make it.

I want you, her own words came back to her. It was true. She had never wanted anybody as badly as she wanted Conner. Strange, that it should be him. Strange that even though everything about the man had changed, she could still sense a part of the boy that she had grown up with--the boy who had left... No, the boy who had been taken away.

"Conner..." she exhaled his name, feeling her breath catch on the final letter.

She had time for nothing else, because as soon as the name came out of her mouth, his came down between her legs. Not against her vagina, but against the inside curve of her thigh. In the fog of her anticipation, the high-strung humming of her nerves, it took Bradley a moment to realize the difference. She arched on the counter, mouth opening to draw in the air. Pushed up by her shoulders, her breasts rose into the air above her. As if it were a signal, she felt Conner's hands come up and wrap around them; the tingling in her nipples becoming so sharp that it was almost painful as his fingers caught each one between their lengths. He pinched them gently, before rolling his thumbs up the bottom of her breasts and over them.

Bradley felt herself breathing faster. Small quivers ran from the bottom of her feet up and into the seat of her hips as Conner's mouth drew a slow path upward. Into the small crease between her vulva and the top of her thighs. A small catch in her breathing accompanied the man's first foray between her legs--his tongue tracing a low path from the bottom of her labia to the top.

"Fast," his tongue parted her labia with its movement, "or slow?" As it moved back down, following the same wet track, its movement was almost torturously languid.

"Fast," she breathed--everything already felt slow. Like the clock of the world had broken; the second-hand ticking back and forth in place. Like two figures trapped in a honey-jar.

And fast it was. Pulling his hands down her breasts, he gripped the outside of either of her thighs and pulled her against him. Bradley cried out as the man's mouth closed over her pussy, his tongue pushing through the wet folds and into the spread of warmth behind it. What might have been a real cry of pleasure came out instead as a series of choked-off whimpers. His tongue rolled inside of her, reaching inside and then easing upward.

It was like being pinned underwater, Bradley thought. Shallow water, perhaps, but water that made her helpless as the waves rolled over top of her. The first time his top lip grazed her clit, it was all she could do not to thrash on the granite counter top. The determined movements of his tongue, the hot whisper of his breath against her most sensitive area, the slightly bristly touch of his beards shadow against the inside of her thighs.

So badly had she wanted this, it only took about two minutes for him to--whether by intention or accident--hit the perfect place. Bradley felt a strange wrenching sensation; like somebody had reached their hand up through her body and pulled the entire thing downward. The world seemed to tilt slightly, and it took her a moment to realize that this was partially because she had leaned forward, away from the counter. That her legs clenched tightly around Conner's head and shoulders, her back curved as she reached down to grab his hair with her hands.

"Conner! Fuck--Conner!" She was forced to release his hair as she came; the fist releasing its grip inside of her in the same moment that she did. Falling backward, she barely felt the smooth counter behind her.

The waves no longer held her down. She gasped for breath between them as they washed over her body, buoying her slightly as they carried her against the man's mouth.

The sensation was overwhelming, and Bradley only managed to recover her thoughts enough to realize that Conner was reaching down. One hand slid under her back, the other supporting her shoulders as he helped her to her feet. Even when she found them, his hands remained around her body. They roamed slowly over her skin, feeling each inch of her as their mouths came together. They disappeared only for a moment, and she felt his belt buckle come undone between them; followed by the softer click of his pant button.

By instinct, she went to her knees in front of the man as his pants came down. Conner stepped out of the grey pool of fabric, kicking it away across the kitchen. His belt scraped quietly on the polished stone. Before she had a chance to return his gesture from earlier, his hands reached down and grabbed her. A hand went underneath each arm, bringing her back to her feet.

"You," the single word exhaled hard between his lips--this was another thing that she understood.

Grabbing the man's wrist, she pulled him away from the island and over to the lower counter beside the sink. She turned as she reached it, leaning her upper body front-first down against the smooth surface. Behind her, she felt Conner step forward. Felt the touch of his left hand against the small of her back, his other one--she pictured--holding the base of his penis steady.

The heat, when he brought the head of his cock between her legs and up to touch the entrance of her pussy, was unbelievable. Almost unendurable. Bradley's entire body burned, the stance of her legs widening slightly as she waited for him to enter her fully. When he did, she felt the air driven out of her body. It made a strange sound as it blew over the metal lip of the sink. His hand was a steady pressure against her back. As he pushed inside of her for the first time, his other hand reached up and took hold of her hair.

The first touch of it was gentle, but when she raised her neck and angled her head backward in a gesture of consent and desire, he took a more firm hold of it. Behind her, his slow thrusting took on a steady rhythm. Each one pushed her slightly harder against the counter.

"Ah!" The cry came from her open mouth; her slightly stretched neck, her chest pressed flat to the counter. Each breath was timed, unconsciously, to the man's thrusting movements, "Ah--ah--"

"Okay, beautiful?" His voice came from behind her.

"Harder," her own voice, in answer, held a breathless pleading sound.

He gave her what she asked for. Over her head, Bradley swore she could hear the sound of the stacked plates rattling faintly. Inside of her, the plunging rhythm of the man's cock was all-encompassing. Only distantly did Bradley feel the man's hands pulling her backward, the one against her back sliding into the space made between her hips and the counter. He fucked her the way that she would have expected--a strange dichotomy, like he was two men at once. One was young and tightly-wound as a steel spring; the slightest edge of unpredictability to the violence of his movements. The other was older; quieter, steadier, the fucking of a man who had gone through things that needed to be released from his body--and she was the release he had chosen.

Even those thoughts were forgotten as the man's hand between her legs took on a slightly cupped shape. It pressed against the mound of her vulva, just above where the thrusting of his cock entered her. His fingers teased the folds of her skin aside, the tip of his middle finger finding her clit. He didn't rub them, only using the movement of her own body to stimulate her; the rocking of each thrust.

"Fuck!" She rocked her hips back against his as she came. One hand pressed flat to the counter, the other reached out desperately--searching blindingly for something to hold. She found the tap of the sink, wrapping her fingers around it and using it for support as she thrust herself backward in a frantic, rising pattern.