Love in Slow Motion

25. Quinn

25 QUINN

I close Chase’s bedroom door behind me and go barefoot down the hall to the basement. I half-expect Reed to be in the kitchen like he was when I stumbled on him last night, but he isn’t and when I turn to the bedroom, a spear of golden light shining through the crack under the door, I’m suddenly unable to move.

Because I know I shouldn’t go in there. A layer of goosebumps has covered my skin, and my chest has gone all hot, like I’m sick with a fever. I know what will happen if I go in there. I know what I want to happen. I’ve had this feeling all day, this soreness under my skin, like if I don’t touch Reed, if I don’t get as close to him as I can while everyone’s backs are turned, I might just wither and die.

My need for him feels urgent . It’s felt urgent all day, made all the more urgent by his proximity. Always close, but not close enough to touch. Always in the room, but in the way a ghost is in the room, abstract and invisible. I didn’t know what it felt like to sit across a table from someone and have to pretend that you don’t care they’re there. Just another face.

I push forward, throwing open the bedroom door without knocking and closing it behind me, leaning up against it like I ran all the way here and need a breather.

Reed stands beside the bed, still dressed from the day, just like I am. It’s like the planet stops moving for a little while, like we lose our places on the surface of it.

My eyes meet his across the room, holding like our lives depend on it. He looks like a portrait someone would put on a wall, some post-modern thing, in his sweater in the middle of summer, the dark scruff on his jaw creating a sharp cut. His eyes watching me like he knows every thought that has ever gone through my head.

I push off the door, walk across the room, dig my hands into the short strands of his hair, and kiss him. He doesn’t need time to catch up. His hands cradle my jaw, his mouth opening over mine. When our tongues meet, he groans into my mouth, and I press myself fully to him, needing every inch of my skin to touch every inch of his.

This, here, this is the best I’ve felt in months. Maybe even years.

Just this. Not even the orgasm last night or what I know is coming as soon as we can convince ourselves to part long enough to take our clothes off. No, just the kiss. Just the feel of him holding me and kissing me so deep and so slow, like this is all he’s ever wanted. No hurry. No pressure.

Reed nudges me back toward the bed until I’ve toppled backward onto it, our mouths somehow never disconnecting. His hands grasp onto my thighs, sliding up under the hem of my dress, and I make a sound in the back of my throat, something horny and surprised and needy.

Reed rips his mouth from mine. “Hey, you okay?”

Part of me wishes I could stop everything right here. Just let this be enough. Reed on top of me, his strong grip holding me and his face in my hands. I don’t even know how to explain what I feel with him. Comfortable. Visible. Wanted. And just those things are enough for me not to care about anything else because when was the last time a man looked at me like this, like I’m something precious, something real?

Possibly not since that night in the hallway, when it was twenty-two-year-old Reed, with his hair wild and alcohol on his breath.

“I’m good,” I tell him. “I really want to do this with you.”

He lowers his head, close enough that I can feel his breath on my lips. “You have no idea.”

My breath stutters out of me at his words. It’s not like I couldn’t tell he was sexually attracted to me. He’s hard against my thigh, and last night, after he was done with me, he was sticking up in his pants like a flagpole. But Reed has always been a little more reckless than Chase. Is he reckless enough to sleep with his brother’s ex-wife just because she was around and available and in his bed?

His hand slides higher on my thigh until he tugs at the waistband of my underwear, and I shiver. I shove my hands up under the hem of his shirt, losing track of everything when I feel his muscled, hairy chest under my hands. “Take this off,” I say into his mouth, and he smiles.

When he goes up on his knees to rip his shirt over his head, I use the opportunity to unzip my dress and wiggle out of it. I settle back onto the blanket and look up at him. He’s still hovering over me on his knees, and I forget the English language when I see him.

I knew he had to have new tattoos, and I’d gotten a glimpse of them on the boat yesterday. But now I let my eyes hungrily take in all the new ink, a bird over his heart, something in French up the length of his ribs, a skeleton peeking out of the waistband of his jeans. And all of it dusted with a fine layer of dark hair.

My God, he’s so beautiful.

Reed grins and bends over me, planting kisses along my jaw. “You’re pretty fucking gorgeous yourself,” he says in my ear, and I realize I said that last part out loud. To even the score, I settle my hand over the ridge of his cock through his pants and rub.

Reed gasps, immediately removing my hand and pinning it to the bed. “Not so fast,” he says, eyes meeting mine in the almost-dark. He’s golden in the light of the bedside lamp, and my brain tries to reconcile this moment with every other memory I have that’s tinted in that familiar gold light. This is not something I could have ever imagined, not something that even feels like it’s really happening.

Holding my hands in place against the mattress, Reed trails the back of his other hand down my chest, watching with clear satisfaction as my nipple puckers up under my lace bra. I sigh, and Reed’s eyes meet mine, like he’s taking in every one of my reactions. “You’re so soft,” he says, gently digging his fingers into my stomach and then my hip. It’s like he’s trying to memorize me.

“You’re so hard,” I whisper in retaliation, my eyes still on that bulge in his pants.

He laughs, his eyes full of light. “Yes, I am,” he says, his voice rough. He shifts, settling his body on top of mine, and the weight of him is so good that my eyes roll back in my head, falling closed. Sometimes I think it wasn’t the sex with Chase that I wanted, just the weight of him on top of me, the way he would press me into the mattress. It feels so good.

But when Reed rocks his hips against mine, I immediately take it back because his weight feels good, but his hard dick against my clit feels even better. I immediately start to move to his rhythm, knowing if he wanted to finish me off like this, it would still be enough. Anything he wanted to give me right now, when I feel raw and split open, would be a comfort.

“I want to be inside you.” He says the words against my throat before running his tongue along my skin. “Is that okay?”

“Yes. Yes, absolutely, yes. Please.”

He sits up at that, tugging the belt of his jeans open and then getting off the bed to step out of his pants. I watch, even as I reach behind me and remove my bra. Maybe it would be sexier to let him do it, but all I care about is being naked so that he can fuck me. I slip my underwear down my legs and look up just in time to see him to push his own underwear down, letting his dick spring free.

My mouth goes dry. Holy shit. I know it’s not right to compare, especially when you’re morbidly comparing brothers, but Reed’s dick is bigger than Chase’s, and it’s…more beautiful? Is that a thing with genitalia? Can dicks be beautiful? Because if they can, then Reed’s is. Long and uncut, the foreskin just barely covering the head because he’s so hard.

And all I can think is that I can’t believe Reed is about to put his dick in me. Reed, my friend. Reed, my brother-in-law. Reed, the first guy who ever looked my way when I was twenty and a virgin.

“You sure about this?” he says, and there might have been some chance that I could have said no about fifteen seconds ago, before I saw his dick and started imagining how good it would feel inside me. But we’ve definitely passed the point of no return now.

“I’m sure, if you are. I don’t want to talk you into anything you don’t want to do.”

One side of his mouth quirks up, and he gestures at his erection. “Do I look like I don’t want to do this?”

In any other situation, maybe his joke would be funny, but we’re in a whole other reality right now. “Physical consent is the not the same as emotional consent, Reed. Just because you’re hard doesn’t mean you want to go through with it.”

His smile fades, his head tilting to one side. It feels bizarre to be having this conversation at all, much less both completely naked. “Quinn, I want to fuck you. Do you want to fuck me?”

I nod enthusiastically.

“Should I wear a condom?”

Jesus, a condom didn’t even occur to me. I haven’t worn one since about two months into my relationship with Chase. But things are different now, aren’t they? I don’t have a condom, though. It’s not like I thought this was going to happen. Does he have a condom? Did he think he was going to be getting laid on this trip?

“I’m still on birth control,” I tell him, resisting the urge to cover myself while we discuss this. “But…”

He raises an eyebrow, waits for me to finish.

“But Chase gave me chlamydia. I’ve been treated, and I’m all clear, but if you’re worried?—”

“I’m not. If you say you’re good, I’m good too. I, uh, I don’t usually go without a condom, and I was tested not too long ago.”

There’s something about the way he says it that makes me realize that Reed knows my entire sexual history, and I don’t have the faintest clue about his. I never even asked him if he was seeing anyone. I’m sure he has a long list of women back in Boston who are waiting for him to return and booty call them.

“I don’t even have one with me,” I say.

“What do you want to bet Mom keeps them stocked in the bathrooms?”

I cover my face with my hands. “Oh, my God. I can’t think about Madison buying us condoms right now.”

Reed chuckles. The bed shifts, and when I pull my hands away from my face, it’s to find him crawling on top of me. He lowers himself, his hard cock brushing my stomach, and I’m halfway through a moan when he covers his mouth with mine. He kisses me slow, like we’re starting all the way at the beginning, even though we’re both naked and ready to go.

Without taking his mouth from mine, he reaches between us, lining himself up against my entrance and then pushing inside. I immediately pull my mouth away, gasping for breath. It feels so good I could die. I close my eyes, lost in the sensation of him pushing and pushing and pushing, until we both exhale when he fits all the way in.

“How’s that?” he says against my ear, and it’s the first time that it’s really occurred to me that if anyone hears us, we’re fucked. I didn’t lock the door, and I don’t know how quiet I’ve been or how much can be heard through the walls and ceiling. All I know is that when I’m down here, I can’t hear anything from above.

“It’s perfect,” I whisper back.

And then he pulls back and thrusts into me.

“Oh, fuck,” I breathe out against his neck. He has his face tucked into my shoulder, but I feel his lips curve against my skin in a smile.

He stays there, his arms wrapped tight around me, and then starts to thrust…hard.

My whole body seizes up. I wrap my arms around his shoulders and my legs around his hips, trying to get as close to him as I can. Every inch of my body is touching every inch of his, and when he starts to tilt his hips in a completely unfamiliar way, my eyes roll into the back of my head.

With every thrust, he’s rubbing all his weight against my clit and after a few minutes, I can’t remember my own name.

He goes up on his elbows, and I whimper a little, trying to pull him back down. I want him touching me completely. The contact feels so good. But he just presses his forehead to mine, his eyes boring into me. We’re silent, only the sound of our breathing loud in the room. I’ve got him in a vise grip, terrified that it’s going to end before I’m done.

This is where Chase always checked out. He wasn’t terrible at the foreplay, and he was good at getting me going. But about half the time, before I could make it across the finish line, he would be gone, having already made it where he needed to be.

“I need to come,” I say, holding Reed’s gaze. “Please make me come.” I was always too embarrassed to ask Chase for what I needed, but this is why Reed and I are here, right? This is about needs. About both of us getting what we can only get from each other in this house. So, I should ask. Because I didn’t go through all of this—fighting the morality of sleeping with my ex’s brother, sneaking away from his entire family upstairs, finally finding the courage to go for it—just to make it out of the arrangement with nary a single orgasm.

Reed huffs and then his hips pick up speed, his hands coming up to grip my hair. My eyes start to close, but Reed growls, “Look at me.”

His eyes are so dark they look black, and there’s something in them that I’ve never seen before. He’s looking at me like he plans to never look away. Like he would hold me here and make me stare into his eyes forever. Like he’s controlling me with his gaze, making it impossible for me to break it.

I can feel my orgasm rising. I can’t hold his gaze anymore. I physically cannot keep my eyes open as the sensation builds and builds and then starts to break. I throw my head back and open my mouth to scream, but Reed’s hand clamps over my lips, even as he continues to thrust and thrust and thrust.

I whimper and moan and cry out into his hand, my fingernails biting into the skin of his shoulders, until he uncovers my mouth, slams his lips down on mine, and moans while he bursts inside me.

In the aftermath, I’m dazed. My whole body is heavy, my brain like white static, and I realize that sex has never felt quite like that before.