There Had Been Snow

I followed her example and downed my beer in three gulps. I’d started this game so that we could reconnect. But the only connecting I wanted to do was definitely not a kind tried before.

“Alright woman,” I said, as lightheartedly as possible. “What’s my fate? And just remember, I’ve been very nice so far, so no funny stuff or it’ll come back to haunt you.” I said it teasingly, lifting the cloud of tension that had unappreciatively settled on our evening. Thankfully her CD had moved on to more upbeat music, so I wasn’t tempted to throw the damn thing out in the snow.

Chloe leaned forward, her lose white cotton shirt gaping at the neck, showing the tops of her breasts. The tension in the room had dissipated; the tension in my groin was backed with a vengeance. I grabbed the last beer left in the room and took another drink.

“Sex,” she said simply. “What’s your favorite part?”

That was quick.

“Favorite part of what?”

“Sex.”

“Foreplay? Or just sex in general?”

“Sex in general.”

There was a slight blush on her cheeks, but I couldn’t tell if it was from asking the question, or from how much she had drank. It didn’t’ matter much; she was still cute as hell when she blushed.

“Kissing,” I answered truthfully; kissing everywhere.

“Where?” she asked, as if she could read my mind. After all these years she very well could. He just hoped she couldn’t read everything because that pink on her cheeks would turn cherry if she knew what was in my head.

“Anywhere.”

“Specifics.” Her voice was breathless.

She was turned on.

Jesus.

This was not going to be the smartest thing I’d ever done, but I knew the moment the idea popped into my head, I was going to do it anyway.

“Come here,” I said. My own voice was gruff, almost ground out, definitely not the smooth baritone I’m used to hearing from myself.

She started. I watched the tension spread through her frame, and then watched her immediately force herself to relax. Chloe raised herself to her knees and crawled over towards me, sitting just to the side of my thighs. She didn’t say anything, just waited to see what I called her over for. Waiting to see if I would do what she thought I was going to. I was simply waiting to see if she’d let me.

“Straddle my legs,” I ordered, still waiting for her to call a halt. But after a couple of shaky breaths she did. She was wearing her usual boxers, red flannel with mistletoe all over them, and this is the first time I think I ever noticed the irony in the damn things.

But as I looked at her face, the face I’d known and cared about for so many years, I knew this was going to happen. Right now.

I leaned forward and brushed my lips against hers, just as I had done when we had finished dancing, just as I had done a thousand times before. This was the first time I ever noticed the catch in her breath.

“Here,” I whispered, just before I took her lips in what was most undoubtedly the most searing kiss of my life. My arms clamped around her waste, holding her to me. I could feel her breasts pressed against my chest and her hands in my hair, holding me to her. We were both in this together, I realized. Whatever happened, we were in it together, just like we always were.

I let my tongue slip into her mouth, dueling with her own. She tasted like beer and mint from her toothpaste, and I don’t think I’d tasted anything better in twenty-eight years.

My hands moved to her hips, pulling her down onto my erection, holding her there as I shifted my hips against her. The low moan that escaped her was intoxicating.

I slowly began pulling back from the kiss. Her hands tried to hold my head to her for a brief moment, but slowly relaxed and accepted that this would be it, that there would be nothing more. She was wrong, but he knew that’s what she expected. It wasn’t over. They were never going to be over. When my lips left hers I looked into her eyes. The blue that I had always been able to read. The blue that had always given her away. Tonight was no exception. She didn’t want to be over either.

I slowly moved towards her neck. Placing a nipping kiss at the pulse in her throat I whispered, “I like to kiss here,” just before I again attacked. I probably gave her a hickey in record time, but it was the least of my concerns. The gasping short moans that were escaping her pretty, swollen mouth were the only things I cared about. They were fuel to keep me going, living, and loving. They were the only light, the only thing registering in my brain. Nothing mattered but hearing those sounds.

My hands moved from around her waste as I continued making my way to her collarbone, and came to rest on the neckline of her shirt. It’s in my way, was the only thought I had as I ripped the damn thing down the front in one quick tear. Her shock registered, but that was it, there was no fear, no attempt to pull away, and even the shock was gone as fast as it had come.

I leaned back just enough to see her breasts, bared to my gaze for the first time ever. They were perfect. Playboy may not think so, but who gave a damn, they liked plastic. The overflowing handfuls she possessed were flawless.

Her hands came down from my neck long enough for me to push her ruined t-shirt to the floor behind her, but came right back up to hold my neck. I sent my hands on an exploration. The dip between her breasts, the feel of her nipples as they hardened under her excitement, the birthmark underneath her left breast.

I had wanted to play this game to learn more about her. To learn all the things about Chloe that I had yet to find out, and I was definitely doing that. I never knew her nipples were so dusky, a deep rose color. I never knew that she must go into the tanning beds nude, because there were no tan lines on her soft skin.

“I told you,” I said. “I like to kiss everywhere.” My thumb flicked across her nipple as I said this and I listened to her breath catch again. God I love that sound. So I did it again. And again.

“Chris!”

She was almost screaming now.

She was so responsive. Running my fingers over the top of her breasts I could watch the Goosebumps follow in my wake. Cupping her breasts, massaging the mounds, I could watch them disappear, and see the flush of heat and excitement fill her skin. I’d always prided myself on being a considerate lover. I had always tried to make sure my partner had enjoyed whatever we’d done. But I couldn’t remember a single person whose responses meant nearly as much as Chloe’s did.

I pulled her knees up, catching her feet behind my waste, and leaning forward, had her on her back with myself on top of her before I think she realized what was going on. But she didn’t stop me. She didn’t push me off. She simply moaned as I lowered my weight on top of her. Her hands were on my back trying to pull my shirt off, and I was happy to oblige. Lifting up just long enough to throw it over my head, but that was as much as she was getting.

If she thought that I was going to forget one integral part of this evening she was sorely mistaken. I knew what she wanted, and damn if I wasn’t going to be the one to give it to her. Damn if I would let some Tom Dick or Harry ever have the chance of fulfilling this before I could. I grasped her wrists and stretched them over her head, holding both of the slender things in one of my large hands I brought the other hand down to continue my explorations of her breasts.

I licked her nipple, blowing lightly at the moisture left behind. She moaned and I looked up. She was watching my every move. Those baby blues were staring directly at me, and I loved it. I loved that she would always know who it was that gave her this. I stretched her arms up a little more taut so that her hands came in contact with the foot of the couch. “Hold on,” I ordered, “And don’t let go.” She nodded a little so I knew she understood and did what I told, giving me free reign with both hands.

Her breasts were pulled tight and her stomach stretched flat. Her back was arched just enough to make her breasts look like an offering. One I couldn’t nor wouldn’t refuse. I ran the flat of my hand down her side and around her back, grabbing her rear and pulling her flush against me as my lips took her offering in a whirl wind. I could feel the heat of her against my stomach, and the hair on my chest abrading the soft skin of her stomach.

She smelled clean. She didn’t use scented body wash, or perfume, it was just her. And it was all I needed. All I wanted. She was all I wanted.

As my mouth absorbed Chloe’s taste and response, my hands grasped the waste of those mockingly cute boxers and began their decent down her legs. Legs that were much more shapely than I had ever given consideration to before. Legs that I had seen revealed in bathing suits and shorts for the better part of a decade and had never noticed just quite how tan they were. Just quite how toned or attractive they were.

It wasn’t until the shorts were gone and I had settled myself between those gorgeous legs that I felt what was missing. My little Chloe hadn’t put anything on underneath those flighty little clothes earlier. My Chloe. Mine. I like that. But regardless of my new possessiveness I was still thinking about the motives she had by not wearing anything under her clothes. I know her well enough to know she would never plan a seduction like this. But I also know her enough to know it was possible that she had hoped for it. She was always one to plan everything thoroughly. To think everything through. She would never lay herself out like this for me if she hadn’t thought about it before.

“You wanted this didn’t you?” I asked. I had to. I had to know if I had been missing something. I had to know I wasn’t going to miss any more.

This time when I looked at her face her eyes were shut, trying to keep me from seeing whatever was there. I rubbed my thumb across her brow and whispered for her to open her eyes. She obeyed me, slowly, and the tears shining in her eyes were enough to make my gut clench.

“You’ve wanted this a long time haven’t you?” I asked quietly. She didn’t close her eyes, but she didn’t answer, so I continued to press. I had to hear her say it. I had to know it. “Answer me Chloe.”

Her breath came in short gasps and I was amazed she hadn’t tried to lower her arms, not that I’d let her, but I was still amazed she hadn’t tried.

“Yes.”

It was barely a whisper, barely an admission, but I heard it. “How long?”

Her voice was coming on choked sobs, she was trying to still fight the tears, but I knew the damn would break soon. I could feel the quacking of her chest against mine.

“Since senior year.”

I raised my brows slightly. That long? Well damn. “We got a lot to catch up on then don’t we?” I said it slowly as I lowered my head to hers, taking her mouth in what had to be the most achingly slow kiss of my life. I nipped at her lips, soothing them with my tongue as I went along. I gave her everything I had, and took everything she let me.

It seemed like hours that I kissed her, loved her, with no more than my hands and mouth. I lost count of how many times I brought her to the peek only to deny her and start back over again. When finally I entered her, I watched her eyes go smoky, her back arch and heard her scream as if it was from a distant plain. Being sheathed inside this woman was like nothing I had ever felt before in my life. The contractions of her orgasm milked at me, pulling me deeper inside her, deeper than I’d ever been in any woman. And as I began moving on her, rotating my hips just enough to give friction, but never pulling myself from her wet heat, I pulled her arms down around me and held onto her for all I was worth. Kissing her, holding her, being inside her, I couldn’t tell where one of us ended and the other began. I never wanted to know. I wanted her to be a part of me for the rest of our lives. I didn’t want to let go. I never would.

*

There had been snow. So much snow. And as Chris and I talked about the future, about what would happen when the snow melted, I realized that for all my praying that it would never stop, for all my wanting that we would be caught in a never ending blizzard, it didn’t matter. The snow will melt, the roads will clear, and when we finally drive out of here I will have gotten every wish I’d ever made. I had him. And I would never let go.