Love in Slow Motion

30. Quinn

30 QUINN

I can’t remember the last time I curled my hair. It seems a little odd to be doing it now when I’m hoping that Reed is about to mess it all the way up, but I want to look like someone different, just for tonight. I stare at myself in the mirror. I’ve put on the lingerie that I’ll have to cover and hope I don’t accidentally wake Chase. If he sees that I’ve done my hair, he’ll know something is up.

Am I completely fucked for getting ready to spend the night with Reed when his brother, my ex-husband, is on the other side of this bathroom door?

Yes. Probably. Fuck. I don’t know.

All I know is that Madison told me to go after what I want. I may not know what I want to do with the rest of my life now that it’s just me in it, but I know I want to go downstairs and face my fears and ask Reed to do to me what I’ve always fantasized about.

I turn off the bathroom light before slowly opening the door. Chase is a pretty heavy sleeper, so I’m not worried necessarily, but I’m not about to lose out on everything now because I decided I no longer needed to be cautious. I watch him as I quickly cross the room, the moon beaming in through the curtainless window, painting him in blue light.

His eyes stay firmly closed as I open the door to the hallway, step out, and close the door behind me. I decided to go the robe route instead of having to struggle my way out of my clothes with the lingerie on under them. If I had a trench coat, I would have worn it. I creep down the hallway wearing not much more than a bathrobe and pray the mightiest prayer I can muster that nobody will come out of their rooms. It’s almost two in the morning. Isn’t that what the legends call the witching hour?

I get a thrill in my stomachknowing that I don’t have to knock when I get to the bedroom in the basement. Reed is expecting me, waiting for me, hoping to finish what we started in the hot tub. I just know it.

I can’t even believe we started anything in the hot tub. When I close the bedroom door behind me, the nerves threaten to choke me. This could backfire. Everything I feel about Reed— that he’s the kind of person who willbe okay with what I have planned—could be wrong. Sure, I’veknown him for a long time, but if I added up all the hours we’ve spent together in the last five years, could I even get a full day out of it?

“I thought you were never going to come,” he says from the bed. He’s lying there, the book he was reading a few days ago laying open on his stomach, tragically obstructing my view of his perfect body. What is the equivalent of lingerie for men? Tattoos? A blanket thrown over the pelvis? That look in his eye that’s telling me he’s waiting for me to disrobe?

“Should I leave?” I have to keep myself from smiling because I know exactly what he’s going to say.

“Is that a serious question?” He pushes the book off his chest and lets it fall beside the bed with a clatter. He comes to meet me by the door. “If you leave now,” he says, lowering his mouth until his lips are brushing my cheek, “I’ll never recover.”

I smile up at him, feeling like a teenager flirting for the first time. I can’t remember ever being so nervous before. “Sure, you will. You must have a harem back in Boston to comfort you.”

His hands reach for the tie of the robe. “Is that what you think? That I have a revolving door of women?” The tie comes undone, the cold air immediately sneaking inside the fabric.

“Don’t you?” His fingertips find my stomach, and I shiver.

He doesn’t answer, just reaches up to slip the robe off my shoulders, letting it slide to the floor. Somehow, I feel more naked in this lingerie than I did when I was actually naked in front of him last night. He steps back, letting his eyes move down my body, all the places where strings are wrapped around my skin.

He huffs out a breath. “I want to lick every single inch of your body.”

I bite my lip. I know that now is the time. If I’m going to do this, ask him for the thing I want, I have to do it now, before I lose my nerve and run right back upstairs. Before I find an excuse to ditch altogether and go back to Boston.

“Will you do something for me?”

His eyes lose a little bit of the heat that was brewing there. Who knows what he thinks I’m going to ask him at a time like this.

I take a deep breath, feeling like I’m about to plunge my head into a bucket of ice water. “Will you be rough with me?”

I watch him process my words, fighting not to look away from him, even though I want to hide. I want to bury my head in the sand and pretend I never did this. Instead, I wait to see what he’ll say, how he’ll react, what he’ll do. After a long moment, he takes a step toward me, forcing my back to hit the door, and I’m trapped.

“Why do you look so scared?” he asks, his voice low, dark. “Are you worried I’ll say no?”

So much worse than that. I’m afraid he’ll think I’m disgusting. My sex life with Chase was complicated at best. I put myself in a little box so that he wouldn’t think there was something wrong with me. And in two nights, Reed has made me want to break out of it. The problem was never that Chase didn’t want to do the things I did.

The problem was how he made me feel about wanting to do them in the first place.

“You can,” I finally bring myself to say. “Say no, I mean. If that’s not what?—”

He grabs my wrist in a tight hold. “You want to see what it does to me when you ask me to be rough with you?” He presses my palm to the front of his sweats, and I feel the thick, hard ridge of him behind the fabric. “Tell me what you want,” he growls against my mouth. There’s no more air left in the room, but I’m trying to find it, sucking in short breaths.

“I want it hard,” I say, my lips brushing his. “I want you to bruise me. And—” I cut myself off, some of my courage slithering away.

His hand comes around my throat, pressing just enough to hurt. “Say it.”

“I want you to call me names,” I choke out.

His hand leaves my throat, and he cages me in against the door with both arms. He lowers his mouth to my ear. “You want to be my little slut, is that what you’re saying?”

Something snaps inside me. I attach my mouth to his neck, sucking at the skin there at the same time that I start to shove his pants down. I’ve never wanted anyone more than I want him right now. If he doesn’t get inside me, I’m going to die. Every inch of my skin aches.

He pulls me away from the door, turns me toward the bed, and bends me over it, my face in the mattress and my ass in the air. I almost have the wherewithal to feel embarrassed, but I’m too turned on. I grip the covers in both hands, waiting patiently for what’s to come.

Reed settles his weight on top of me, his bare chest against my mostly bare back. His hips fit right against my ass, the length of him pressing into me. “You better stay quiet,” he says in my ear. “I don’t need everyone in this house knowing what a filthy slut you are.”

I’m trembling. My mouth hangs open as I try to breathe. I feel like I’ve been tipped into some other universe, some place where this is allowed to happen between Reed and me. There are so many reasons why it shouldn’t, but at this moment, I don’t care about any of them. I want this so bad that my fingers are prickling, I have goosebumps along my arms, and I’m bucking against the mattress. He licks me, all the way from the base of my spine to the back of my neck.

I have become a wanton animal. I guess that’s what happens when you let someone out of their cage.

“Is this what you wanted, Quinn?” Reed shifts, and I realize he’s pushing his pants down. The weight of his cock slaps against my back, and I lose all grasp on reality. All I am is blood and bone and need. “Is this what you need?” He pulls aside the G-string and what little lace covers me and then dips two fingers into me. “Already wet as fuck.”

I surpassed wet long ago. I am dripping.

He wraps a hand in my hair and uses it to tilt my face to the side. Pressing his forehead to mine, he says in a small voice, “Okay?”

I can’t find words, but I nod. I need this more than I need food or air or a beating heart.

He slams into me, and I bite my lip so hard to keep from screaming that I taste blood. I claw at the sheets as he stands at the edge of the bed, my hips in his hands, and drills into me mercilessly.

Yes. This is what I wanted. This is what I couldn’t ask Chase for. This is what I have never imagined I would get to have. It’s not something I could bring myself to ask a stranger for. But with Reed…

He uses the hand wrapped in my hair to yank my head back so far that I’m staring at the ceiling as he pounds into me. I reach between my legs, desperate for orgasm, but Reed shoves my hand away, pinning it behind my back.

“Not yet,” he says, letting go of my hair, and then somehow manages to pick up speed. I bury my face in the covers, terrified that I’m going to let out wild animal sounds and someone will come running. At this point, do I care? Let Chase see what Reed does to me. Let him see how Reed makes me feel. How free I am with him.

I’ve reached a point of pleasure that I didn’t know existed, where I’m dangling from the edge but can’t go over. My nerves are screaming at me, my whole body at the point of going numb from sensory overload. I’m silent now, nothing coming out of me, not even gasps. All I can do is hold my breath and feel, feel him moving in and out of me, feel his hand wrapping around my hair again. Feel the power of him over and behind me.

“You like to be fucked, don’t you?” Reed says. He’s pulled my head so far back that he can speak directly into my ear. The pain feels incredible, like a salve to a wound. “All that gentleness I showed you, and you wanted to be fucked like a whore.”

Everything inside me squeezes tight, and I know all he would have to do is swipe one finger over my clit, and I would be gone. “Please,” I finally find the breath to whisper.

“Please? Please, what? Ask me nicely.”

I sob, something like joy and pleasure and defeat. He has complete control over me. “Please, make me come.”

“You think you can be quiet?”

I try to nod, but his hold on my hair is too tight. “Yes.”

“You sure?”

I want to smile at the way that he slips just a little bit back into the Reed I’ve aways known. You sure you don’t want another piece of pie? You sure you don’t want the best seat in the house? You sure you can spend a week pretending to be someone you’re not?

The answer to that last one is yes. I can pretend to be something I’m not because I get to be this as soon as everyone goes to bed.

“Yes,” I gasp out. “I’ll be quiet. I promise.”

Out of the corner of my eye, I see him smile. He lets go of my arms, freeing me to fall forward onto the bed, and then he reaches between my legs, puts his fingers right over my clit, and rubs in a tight circle.

The whole universe dissolves. I put both hands over my mouth and slam my face into the mattress to keep from screaming. The world goes black and then white and then all that’s left is my limbs shaking so hard it’s like I have hypothermia.

When my ears stop ringing, and I’m able to focus again, it’s to find Reed on the bed beside me, gasping for air like he just ran a marathon. His dick is still mostly hard, wet from me and laying heavy against his belly. He looks up at me where I’ve pushed up onto my hands and knees.

And then I start crying.

It all wells up inside me, like holding a balloon closed with your fingers and then letting all the air out at once. I collapse onto the bed, crying into my hands.

“Hey,” Reed’s voice comes from beside me. The bed shifts, and he’s pulling my hands away from my face so that I have to look at him. “Hey, did I hurt you? Did I go too far?”

I shake my head, but I can’t speak yet, my throat constricted. He pulls me onto his chest, and I turn my wet face into it, making his skin as wet as mine.

When I can finally get a breath of fresh air, I say, “No. It was so good. It was so, so good. I’m sorry. I’m being so stupid.”

He puts a finger under my chin and lifts it so that I have to look at him. He doesn’t ask why I’m crying, but I can see the question there in his eyes. If he didn’t hurt me, then why am I freaking out?

“I never could do this with Chase. What we just had was…” More intimate , I think, but I can’t bring myself to say it. “I always knew this is what I wanted but I didn't feel like I could ask. I always thought that if I asked, he would laugh at me. Or think I was disgusting.”

“You're not disgusting.”

“You don't think I'm fucked up?”

His eyebrow furrows, his mouth pulling into a line. “Of course not. I'll give you whatever you want. Whatever you need.”

Something about the way he says it doesn’t feel comforting. Like he would give it to me even if he didn’t want to. That’s not what I want. I want to experience this with someone who wants to experience it with me. Asking him this is almost as hard as asking for the act in the first place. “Did you like it?”

His mouth pulls slowly into a smile. “Fuck, yes. I like you being my little fuck toy.”

My whole body convulses, something compulsive and uncontrollable.

He grins fully at me. “Is that your way of telling me you want some more?”