Echoes 02

"Mmm. Oooh. Right there." The noises were not flat, but they were obviously, painfully practiced. A mediocre actor running lines because she'd committed to a role she wasn't all that interested in.

Chase just shook his head wonderingly. Why bother? Not a mystery he really need to pursue, though, and he was beginning to feel like a creep. He began backing away, but his usual luck struck once again, and before his head moved, Isabella opened her eyes and locked them right on his. There was absolutely no denying that she'd caught him.

She didn't explode, didn't say a word, even, and he got the hell out then. Deciding to turn in way, way early, Chase closed his own bedroom door behind him and sat on his mattress, frowning. Fuck. Gonna get some shit tomorrow. Outside, the faux fornicators kept going, not missing a beat.

__________

Saturday. A day off and no good reason to go out, so Chase slept in. Well, stayed in; he'd been awake for hours before he sacked up enough to face the music. Making his way to the kitchen, he practiced various looks; denial, innocence, cheeky playfulness. It wasn't until he saw Isabella in her robe, sipping her imported coffee, staring him down the moment he rounded the corner, that he knew what he was going to do.

"Have you ever had an orgasm?" Offense is the best defense, after all.

The sight of her choking on her latest sip was very gratifying.

"How the hell can you ask me that? Did you have one after you got your eyeful, Mister Peepy Peeperton?"

"Please. I'm not that hard up." Yet. "I just asked because, after all these years, and all your... liaisons, I'd think you know what you want enough to either kick a dud to the curb, or wrangle him into shape for a couple hours. Last night, you seemed like you couldn't be bothered with either, and it occurred to me that, just maybe, you really don't know what you're missing."

"I've had orgasms, you rude man." Isabella stared daggers at him. "Trust me. Last night, Roger did everything I needed him to. You heard me. It was fantastic."

Chase was silent for a good few seconds, the wheels turning. "Jesus, you're telling the truth." He let out a laugh, but choked it back quickly. No need to be an ass. "You actually think that what you did last night constituted good sex." He shook his head. "Wow. It's not often that the heavens open up with a revelation this big. This explains so, so much."

Isabella shot to her feet, eyes flashing dangerously. It was the most passionate he'd ever seen the woman. By a long shot. Luckily, or not, he knew just what form that passion would take, and he tried to steel himself. "You stand there, trying to humiliate me, and all the while you wear the horns of a cuckold." She raised her chin, somehow managing to both look up at him, and stare him down simultaneously. "How many of your precious orgasms do you think Elizabeth faked with you? Why else did she carry on with another man for months? I'm sure he--"

"Swing and a miss, Isabella." Chase was proud of himself; knowing her avenue of attack let him endure it. At least, it let him put on a convincing show of enduring it. "I know exactly what happened, and what Elizabeth did to me wasn't because of any... inadequacies." God, if only he truly believed that, but he'd spent the better part of a year now building defenses for self-preservation, and this was the time to test them. "What broke me was her losing faith. In me. In us." He cleared his throat. "And... believe it or not... my goal wasn't to humiliate you. I... I'm sorry about that." True enough. Pettiness was pointless. His own mother drilled that into him.

For a bare instant, when he use the words, broke and sorry, Chase saw a softening in the woman. Then it was gone, forcibly, and she went into full attack mode. "So, you're some kind of... sex expert then?" She threw up her hands, waving them sarcastically. "Chase... Sexpert Ventris, Master of Climaxes. Climaster General..."

"That is a whole lot of portmanteau at once, Issy..."

"Shut up!" Her chin was trembling by that point from released rage. "You're not even fucking thirty yet. What the hell can you possibly know? There is no way on earth that you are any good at it. One woman, ever... what can you have learned?"

Why did it sound like she was actually asking? "One woman that I love with all my heart and soul. One woman that I promised I would do anything for. One woman that I made sure would never have a reason to look anywhere else." Now Chase's back was up, and he began pacing and ranting, and thrusting a finger in Isabella's face. "I learned everything I could about how to pleasure her, just like she did for me, and I was damned good. I know it." His lip curled. "There was no faking for us."

Ok, sometimes pettiness was justified, and, in the next instant, Chase discovered that, astoundingly, it could also lead to worlds undreamt of.

"Is that right?" Isabella forced a laugh as false as her moans, then, without preamble, tore open her robe, tossed it to the side, and spread her arms wide. "Prove it, you bastard."

Oh good god. Chase had to admit, he didn't see this one coming. Standing unveiled before him, in all her naked, exquisite, masterwork-worthy glory, his furious mother-in-law was actually inviting him to do... something. Get her off, apparently. No, not inviting him, daring him, and that was what spurred him past his shock. Let's fucking do this.

Without a word, Chase slid himself behind Isabella, placing his lips next to her ear and looping his arms loosely around her; one across her stomach, and one across her shoulders, just above those perfect, age-defying breasts, but not touching them. The little hitch in her breathing told him that she was surprised by how he started. She must have expected him to start groping like a blind man in a boob-factory... if he even had the balls to do anything at all. Sorry Issy, but today is a day for subverted expectations for both of us.

With that gym-firmed ass pressed against his crotch, getting a hard-on was the easiest thing he'd ever done, and he didn't try to hide it. Instead, he pressed his turgid length right into the cleft, showing her how excited she made him. Giving her physical proof that she was a desirous creature. His lower hand began rubbing circles around her navel, only touching her toned, smooth skin with a couple of fingertips. Sure enough, a faint, nearly imperceptible twitch of her abdominal muscles let him know that things were starting well.

Letting out the barest stream of breath across her ear, he squeezed her tightly, but briefly, and then lifted his hand off her upper chest and lightly thumbed her earlobe, whispering to her. "Inches. Little. By. Little." Her head tilted ever-so-slightly towards his hand, though he knew it was nothing but reflex. For now, at least. He put the lobe between his teeth then, giving it a painless little nibble, and moved his index finger to her mouth, where he ran it across her lips. Isabella parted them, a minute crack and nothing more, and he felt her breath on his finger for a second before moving on.

He ran the middle finger of his upper hand down her spine, from the neck to the small of her back, slowly and precisely, and when it ended, he pressed his knuckles into her skin, holding them there insistently, though comfortably. He felt the shudder this time, and knew she did too. That was when he stopped his other fingers in their circumnavigation of her bellybutton and slid them down so his palm was cupping her vulva. Only cupping, nothing more.

"More. Further. Getting closer." Another whisper, then his fingers retraced their journey back up her spine, and, once back between her shoulder blades, they slid around the side, under her trembling arm and across her ribcage, until they completed their covetous summiting of Isabella's sculpted breasts. Finally.

Still, Chase held himself back, only contenting himself, and tantalizing her, with circling one nipple in the same way he'd circled her navel; skirting the edges but never hitting home. The taste of what he gave her before, in the lesser erogenous zone of her belly, had primed her for what he did in the greater up above, and now a whimper issued from her fully-parted lips. That was the moment he was waiting for, and he immediately pressed his teeth into the nape of her neck. Not biting, no. Damage, pain, these were not the intent in the slightest. It was a sign of dominance. Of ownership, even if for a mere handful of minutes. It was a signal for her to try to let go.

Isabella moaned now, and she could no longer keep herself a passive player in their act. She ground herself backwards into his throbbing cock, even as she reached up and grasped the back of his head, lacing her fingers through his hair and gripping tight. Below, her other hand slapped down over his and she began to squeeze it, wordlessly urging him to move on from his teasing cupping of her enflamed sex.

"Close. So, so close." Chase planted a kiss, lingering and loving, on Isabella's neck, then pinched her nipple with anything but love. Then, even as she tried to process the twin sensations above, he curled his fingers below, finally giving her what he made sure she'd been yearning for and plunging them into her, pressing in that oh-so-special place while his thumb did its work on that miraculous little nub outside.

"Fuuuucccckkkk." The drawn out, wheezy expletive that escaped her lips was pure music, but Chase knew he was treading on dangerous ground. They were at the crux, now. In an ideal situation, he and his lover would be, or would already have been, talking about what would happen. Testing and exploring to figure out exactly what worked. No two people, anywhere, were exactly alike. Nerve endings didn't follow a road map, G-spot location was multiple choice, and the biggest sex organ of all, the brain, was a fucking mess of neuroses in the healthiest of humans. With Isabella, it was a goddamn crap shoot.

Still, he powered on. He had a point to prove. I gotta show her... only reason I'm doing this... "Almost there, sweet girl." His whisper now was lower. Huskier. He kissed her neck again, then ran his tongue along its curve, tasting the light sheen of sweat on her skin. His was filled with the flowery scent of her freshly-washed hair. It made his head swim. "You're doing so good..."

Both hands increased their tempo as their bodies began swaying together; her hips rocking back while his yielded, only for him to press forward again, squeezing her pelvis between his cock and his hand. Above, he was massaging that perfect, firm, pale globe as he plied her nipple ceaselessly, below... oh below...

"Oh!" The word came out like she'd been told something surprising. He imagined that her dark eyes were pretty freakin' wide right then. "Ohhhhh goddddd." The guttural moan positively rattled from the depths of her lungs as her whole body underwent convulsions. Isabella ground her crotch into his hand with a desperate, atavistic need, and both of her own were in his hair now, gripping it painfully, sweetly, as she rode out what Chase was sure was the first actual climax of her entire life. The coda on that symphony was when his ice queen mother-in-law absolutely drenched the fingers that had finally broken her lifelong shell.

He knew he would never be able to articulate why he did what he did next, but, in that crystalline, perfect moment, Chase abandoned the playground of her quivering breast and cupped her chin, turning her face towards his. Isabella didn't even hesitate; her lips feasted on his with barely a nanosecond passing. If her tongue was mapping the inside of his mouth, then her moans were echolocation, and the pair, without any kind of signal given, turned fully to each other, arms entwined about each other's bodies, making out like teenagers in love. It was amazing... until it wasn't.

"Bizzy..." Chase, having come up for air for a second, uttered the name before he could stop himself. Isabella pulled back like she'd been slapped, stepping away from him and putting a good five feet of distance between them.

She just stood there then, wordless, ebon hair mussed, ivory skin flushed, and champion lungs sucking air like she'd finished a marathon, while her eyes--those chiseled shards of onyx--stayed watching him. Trying to regain control.

Chase reached out a hand. "I... Issy... I didn't mean to..."

With an inarticulate groan, Isabella turned on her heel and sprinted for her room, not even bothering to snatch up her discarded robe. Chase felt the door slamming like a physical thing.

It was long minutes before he gathered himself together and made his way to his own hidey-hole, shaking his head the entire time. What the fuck was I thinking? He had no idea, and knew that he probably never would. Right then, all he could do was change the pants Isabella's scrumptious derrière had caused him to make a mess of, then get the hell out of the house.

Chase had no idea what his life was going to look like going forward, but he knew one thing for certain; things had changed. There was no going back to placidly marking time until destiny slapped him upside the head. Right here, right now, he was already feeling his cheek swell. Shooting a look at Isabella's room as he passed, the place as quiet as a tomb, a panoply of thoughts vied for dominance. The one that rose to the fore, though, surprised even him.

I hope she's okay.