Love in Slow Motion

20. Reed

20 REED

I can smell the rain. It rolled in as we sat around the fire, forcing all of us inside and into our beds. It’s been an hour since we all grumbled and decided that we didn’t want to watch another movie and that there wasn’t much else to do for the day. We went our separate ways.

I watch the water hit the small window high on the wall, watch it run down in rivulets.

She’s not coming.

I’ve been laying here in the dark, my ears trained on any sound of movement in the house. But it’s been still and silent and now it’s pushing midnight. She’s not coming. She’s going to sleep upstairs with Chase because she thinks it’s a better idea than potentially finding herself in a compromising position with me again.

And maybe she’s not wrong. Maybe it’s batshit crazy to be making a move on my brother’s ex-wife while he’s in the same house, while everyone is watching all the time. It would be way smarter to wait until we’re back in the city, after she’s had some space.

That was the plan originally. I was counting down the days until I could knock on her door and try to wiggle my way back into her life. But then Chase showed up, and I saw an opportunity.

But I blew it. Even if I wasn’t the one to initiate that kiss, I certainly didn’t stop it. I couldn’t have if I had fucking wanted to. And God knows I didn’t.

I throw the covers off me and go out into the basement kitchen. I can’t fucking lay in bed anymore, thinking about her curled up next to Chase. I spent countless nights before the divorce trying not to think about everything Chase had that I wanted. I spent all those years trying to stop wanting her. Sleeping with other women and going on dates and joining dating apps. But it never worked.

Nothing will ever fucking work.

Because I’ve only ever been in love with one woman.

And she’s the one woman I can never have.

I open the fridge and find all the basics. Flour, butter, milk. I find a bag of chocolate chips stuffed in the back of the pantry. Who knows what they were purchased for. Probably for Lydia to make chocolate chip pancakes or something. Too bad.

Baking, working with my hands, it quiets my mind. It always has.

To help me focus, I stick my earbuds in and put on some quiet music.

This is how I’ve always been. It’s like my mind is going all the time, and the only way I can get it to turn off is if I’m doing something with my hands that doesn’t also require my brain. The whole time I was at Suffolk, I worked in the records room at the library, spending all day listening to crime podcasts and filing paperwork. It was amazing.

And then I discovered baking. By the time I started my last year at Suffolk, I was ready to go into business for myself, and six months before graduation, I found the building for Aeronaut. I’m not going to pretend like my mother’s money didn’t help me get where I needed to go, but I put my own blood, sweat, and tears into that place.

I can’t bring myself to tell her it’s gone. All because Oscar and his goddamn pill problem.

I lean down and open the stove, pulling out the first batch of cookies that I put in ten minutes ago. They’re perfect, soft all the way around with no crunch, just the way Quinn likes them. I turn to put them on the counter and jump.

Quinn is standing in the doorway to the staircase, watching me. My heart immediately starts to pound in my chest. I set the pan down and rip the earbuds out of my ears.

“What are you doing?” she asks quietly.

“Baking you cookies. Three dozen, to be exact. Once I started, I couldn’t stop.”

She comes over to the island, picking up one of the cookies that came out of the oven a while ago that’s already plated. It’s gotta be nearing two in the morning. Has she been awake this whole time like I have, just trying to decide what she was going to do about us ?

She takes a bite of the cookie and gets a very confusing wrinkle between her eyebrows. Did I fuck them up? I’ve probably made a thousand cookies in my lifetime, so I don’t know what I could have done wrong, unless I mistook some salt for the sugar.

But when she opens her mouth, it’s not to critique me on the cookies. “I owe you an apology.”

I lean on my palms on the kitchen island. “Please stop apologizing to me.”

“No, I just?—”

“Quinn.” My voice comes out much more stern than I intend for it to.

This seems to startle her enough to stop her arguments, but she doesn’t say anything, just holding the cookie between us, a bite taken out.

“Let’s forget about it, okay? You’re going through a hard time right now. I understand that.” I push the plate toward her, the sound of it scraping against the marble countertop settling into the gaps between my teeth. “Eat as many cookies as you want. I’ll sleep on the couch tonight if it’ll make you feel better.” It makes my stomach hurt to make the offer, but if that’s what she needs, then that’s what she needs.

She shakes her head. “I don’t want you to do that. Maybe I should just spend the rest of the week with Chase. I think we’ve found some kind of…I don’t know…middle ground.”

The pain in my stomach intensifies, my gut twisting. “For what it’s worth, I want you down here.”

Her eyes lift to mine. “You do?”

I can’t tell her it’s because having her near is the only thing that stops the pain in my chest that started five years ago, but I can tell her a little piece of the truth. “I know how I come off to you guys. I know I’m always on the outskirts of things, and it probably looks like I enjoy being there. But the truth is that I’m lonely. And having you here—a person who I care about and who I’m pretty sure cares about me—it helps.”

“I know the feeling,” she says, “and I do care about you.”

She cares about me. She doesn’t love me. For now, that’s enough.

I jerk awake when Quinn makes a noise I’ve never heard her make before. She’s not cuddled up to me like she was last night—probably because she’s not half-drunk now—and across the expanse of the bed, I see the sheen of sweat on her skin. As I watch, her mouth opens on a tiny sound, a gasp, and I immediately reach out for her.

“Quinn, wake up.”

She does, startling awake and turning her face toward mine immediately. She’s wearing an expression I can’t explain, her eyes wide and her mouth parted.

“Were you having a nightmare?” I ask her, feeling the racing of her pulse under my fingers where they’re wrapped around her wrist.

She stares at the ceiling, her chest rising and falling with her heavy breaths. And then she bites her lip and shakes her head. “No. It’s okay. Go back to sleep.”

She’s got to be kidding. “I’m not going back to sleep. Are you sick?”

She squeezes her eyes shut, and for a second, I think she’s going to cry. “No, I’m not sick, okay? It’s just really embarrassing.”

I sit up, moving closer to her. I’m worried now. Is there…some chance she could be pregnant? Is that what’s happening right now? Maybe she’s embarrassed that she and Chase were still sleeping together while he was cheating on her with another woman. Or maybe they had sex after she found out. People do that. Have sex with their exes. “You don’t have to feel embarrassed with me.”

I see the moment her embarrassment turns to resolve. Her jaw tightens, and she closes her eyes again like she can’t say what she needs to with them open. “I haven’t been fucked in months.”

My brain shorts out. It takes me far too long to make the connection between what she just said and what we were talking about before she said it. And then it all starts to fit together like puzzle pieces. She had a wet dream. She woke up horny. She was embarrassed. She and Chase definitely haven’t had sex recently.

I have to sit with all of that information. And when I finally put it all together, everything below the waistband of my pants goes tight. Quinn is in bed with me and she’s horny, and she’s telling me she’s horny, and even though I know it’s not the right time and not the right thing to do in this moment, I find myself spitting out a response anyway. “I could help you out.”

“What?” Her eyes go wide, and she pushes herself up so her back is against the intricately-carved headboard. “Why would you even— We’re friends, Reed.”

I shrug, trying to play this off like I am much more cool in this situation than I actually am. Everything in my head is going off like fireworks and meteor showers. “You’ve never had a friend offer you a helping hand?”

Her cheeks go pink, so pink that I can see it happen in the moonlight. She looks away from me, lets out a little sigh. “No. I’ve only been with Chase.”

Too much information is coming at me really quickly. “Really?”

“He was my first, and then we got married. No friends with helping hands.”

I inch closer to her. “People help out their friends because it’s a safe space. You choose someone you’re comfortable with. You let them help you with something you need. Like asking someone to help you move.” God, I sound like a complete moron.

A smile creeps up her face. “Are you comparing getting a hand job to someone helping you move?”

I sigh out a laugh. “Yeah, I guess I am. I’m sorry. I’m just trying to make you feel comfortable. You know…if you need something that I’m able to help you with.”

She looks down at the blanket, pulled up to her chest, like she’s trying to keep herself covered, even though she’s fully clothed. “Why would you want to do that for me?”

“Why would I want to put my head between your legs and lick you until you come?”

She shivers, and pride spears through my chest. That kiss yesterday might have been some weird instinctual thing, but she’s definitely attracted to me. “Yes,” she whispers, so quietly that I barely hear her.

“Because we may be friends and you may be my sister-in-law, but that doesn’t mean I don’t think you’re sexy as fuck.” I might be coming on too strong. I’m saying a lot of things that I wouldn’t normally say to a girl until we were already naked and getting ready to go at it. But based on the flush she’s wearing that’s so prominent I can even see it in the dark, I don’t think she’s bothered.

Her eyes trail down to my lips, and her fists tighten in the blanket she has around her. I want her to say yes. I want her to let me do this for her. Even if that’s all it is, a chance to make her feel better when she’s been without for so long.

“Tell me you’ve never thought about it.”

She licks her lips. She’s not going to say it. And the knowledge that she has thought about it sends fire through my blood. I’m so hard that if she pulled the blanket back right now, she would find a steel pipe in my pants.

For a long moment, there’s nothing but the sound of our breathing.

And then she sinks a little into the bed before reaching for my hand. I give it to her, not entirely sure what she’s going to do with it. She guides my hand under the blanket, down across her belly and straight into the waistband of her shorts. Her eyes hold mine as she leaves my hand there, her own retreating, even as I start to rub against the fabric of her underwear.

The wet fabric.

I bite back a groan. We have to be quiet, which is truly unfair. If this is the only time I ever get to do something like this with her, I want to hear all her sounds. Memorize them to play in my head over and over for the rest of my life.

Fuck. I was ruined before, but now I know I’ll never be able to touch another woman without comparing it to this moment. Quinn has always been the baseline, and she always will be.

When I reposition, finding my way under the band of her underwear and down onto her bare wetness, her mouth falls open and her eyes glaze over. I shiver, sliding my fingers up and down her slippery flesh. I’m not even doing it to make her feel good. I just want to feel her, touch every part of her that she’ll let me, know every single inch of her body.

When I find her clit, feel it hard under my fingers, I draw circles around it, watching intently at the way her eyes fall closed and her head falls back with a thunk against the headboard.

“Is this what you wanted?” I whisper to her.

She nods without opening her eyes.

“Do you want my hand or my mouth?” I want to give her a choice, but I also want to beg her to let me use my mouth. I want to taste her. I’ve imagined it so many times, stroked myself with my eyes closed thinking about her legs thrown over my shoulders, her moans muffled by her thighs against my ears.

Her eyes open and meet mine. I can feel her hesitation in the way her body pauses its trembling, the way she stops rocking against my fingers. “Your mouth,” she finally says. “Is that okay?”

Is that okay? I can’t get the blanket thrown off her fast enough. I slide her shorts and her underwear down her legs, and it isn’t until her knees come together, blocking me, that it occurs to me that she might be nervous about me seeing her naked. I’ve seen her in a bikini and in her pajamas, of course, but we’ve never been in any state of undress around each other.

I meet her eye. “Are you sure you want to do this?”

She bites her lip and nods, slowly letting her legs fall open. I have to hold in a groan, but I can’t stop the way my breath starts to thunder out of my lungs at the sight of her. Her long, shapely legs, leading up to the most beautiful pussy I’ve ever seen. And I know I’m pretty damn biased. I feel like I’m in a dream, looking down at Quinn with her legs open for me.

With my eyes on her to make sure she’s okay, I move onto my stomach between her legs, pressing kisses up the inside of her thigh in an attempt to make her feel calmer. It’s a big thing, asking someone to do something like this for you, especially when you don’t know that that person has been fantasizing about doing this very thing for the last five years.

When I slide my tongue up the center of her, she gasps and covers her mouth with her hand.

“You’re perfect,” I whisper, but I don’t know if she hears me. All I know is the taste of her and the way her legs are trembling on either side of my head. I open my mouth over her clit, suck at her slowly and deliberately, taking my time.

I clutch her thighs in my hand, trying to convince myself this is real, until she lets out a squeak, and I realize that I’ve grabbed her too hard. I look up to apologize, but she rips her hand away from her mouth.

“Please, don’t stop. Oh God, please. I’m so close.”

My heart deflates. She’s close. She’s going to come and then there’s no excuse to keep going. The whole point of this was to get her off. As soon as she’s done, I’ll have to stop touching her, stop tasting her, stop feeling the luxurious silk of her on my tongue.

So when she starts to gasp, starts to pant, I pull away, watching her drop and come back from the edge.

“Reed,” she hisses. “Why did you stop?”

I don’t say anything. I’m not about to tell her that I’m trying to draw it out. That I’m trying to keep it from being over so that I can eat her all night. I go back to sucking, using my fingers to stroke the flesh on either side of my tongue until her back is bowing off the bed. I rip my mouth away again.

Her hands fist in the covers, and I smile, listening to her breath puff in and out of her. I know I’m not going to be able to draw it out much longer. She’s going to reach the point of no return, and I would hate for her to come without my tongue on her. I suck hard on her clit and then stop to lap at it, until she’s rocking against my mouth, trying to find her release. I feel her muscles seize up under my hands and push her a little harder.

She must think I’m going to pull away again because she fists her hands in my hair to hold me in place, even though I have every intention of sucking on her until she sees stars. When she grips me harder and starts panting like she’s suffocating, I look up at her. But I can’t see her face. God, I would give anything to see the face she makes when she comes.

But feeling her cunt tremble under my lips will have to be enough. Her toes curl underneath her, and her hips pitch up desperately. I taste it when she finishes, feel the wetness of her on my tongue as I keep lapping at her. I need to memorize this taste, the texture of her, the quiver of her skin.

“Oh, God, you have to stop,” she says, now pulling at my hair instead of using it to hold me in place. “I’m too sensitive.”

I don’t want to stop. I’m like a child eating Halloween candy until they have a stomach ache. I want to lick her until I’ve starved to death.

“Reed,” she whispers, and I force myself to pull away, but now my eyes are caught on the place between her legs. Now that it’s red and swollen and dripping. That’s fucking art.

She immediately closes her legs, and then her eyes meet mine, and pride bursts in my chest. She looks like someone who just fell to pieces. Her hair is wild, her bottom lip swollen, her cheeks pink. I’ve dreamed of seeing her this way, of being the one to make her look this way.

Her eyes drop to the front of my pants. I don’t have to look down to know I’ve become a spectacle. I’ve never been this hard in my life. I don’t have an ounce of blood left anywhere else in my body, and I’m fine with it.

She bites that already swollen lip. “Let me help you.”

I sigh, realizing I’m having just as hard a time catching my breath as she is. “I'm good. This was just for you.”

A crease appears between her eyebrows. “But…friends and helping hands and all that.”

I smile at her. Am I going to regret this later when I can’t get this raging boner to go away? Probably. But making her come was more satisfactory than anything I’ve ever felt in my life, and in this moment, that’s all I want. I want her to know she’s safe with me, that she can ask me for this without me expecting something in return. I just…want her to feel good.

“I promise, I’m good.” Even if a certain part of my anatomy would beg to differ. I collapse onto the bed beside her, pulling the blanket up over both of us. It’s wild to look at her now, knowing that I ate her out without ever having kissed her in the process. I want to kiss her now, but I don’t want to scare her.

“Reed?”

“Mmm?”

“Thank you.”

I turn my head and meet her eye. She’s gripping the sheet around her, and I realize she never took her shirt off. I take a second to mourn that fact. If I never get to see this woman without her clothes again, I’ll regret not seeing what I assume are absolutely perfect breasts. “Anytime, Quinn. I'm always here if you need it. I know what it's like, needing it and having to go looking for strangers.”

Her mouth twists uncomfortably. “I don't think sex with strangers is my thing “

“I get that. It's not for everyone. That’s what friends are for.”

She laughs, throwing her arm over her eyes. “I think you have a slightly skewed image of friendship, Reed.”