Read Bad at Love Page 19


  Is this really happening?

  This is really happening.

  And that’s when I remember that I did shave. Whether it was just stupid luck or wishful thinking, thank god.

  Laz groans, his thumbs slowly dragging across the soft flesh of my inner thighs, spreading them further. “You’re beautiful.” His voice is ragged, hushed, low. I feel it in every part of me. I believe it.

  It’s enough that I relax. That I take it all in, relish the feel of his hands as they squeeze my skin, parting me.

  His head goes between my legs, his stubble scraping like sandpaper against my thighs. His mouth presses against my most sensitive parts.

  I gasp, then gasp louder as his tongue slowly snakes out and licks down the middle of me, swirling slowly over my clit with the cool, hard press of his tongue ring.

  Fuck. Fuck.

  Fuck!

  I’ve never had a guy go down on me before. I’ve never met someone who wanted to do it enough to bring it up and I obviously never would. So everything I’m feeling is only what I’ve dreamed of and…fuck. It’s the only word I have for this, this…This is better than what I imagined.

  Good lord, if this isn’t a prerequisite for fucking, it should be.

  His tongue is wet, warm, firm then soft, the ball of his tongue ring providing constant pressure as he’s licking me up and down.

  Like he’s lapping up the most decadent desert and wants to savor

  every

  last

  bit.

  And with each pass of his tongue, my body is shocked, again and again, firecrackers lighting up along each nerve until I’m ready to explode.

  Laz moans into me and that just sends me into overdrive. I grab his hair again, which I’ve decided is my favorite thing to do and my thighs gently squeeze the sides of his head, which is now my second favorite thing to do.

  He responds by deepening his moan, the vibrations rumbling through me, bringing me to the edge. All my nerves are wrapping tighter and tighter and tighter around themselves, ready to snap, dying to unravel.

  “I’m close,” I whisper. I tug at his hair, hard enough to bring up his head. “I’m close,” I tell him again.

  He frowns at me between my legs, his mouth wet from my desire. I’m hit with the fact that for whatever reason, this doesn’t seem odd or weird at all. Yes, it’s Laz but…

  This is the Laz that I always should have known.

  “This is the start of the evening of a thousand orgasms,” he says. “It’s not just a clever name. I’m going to make you come in my mouth and you’re going to come fucking hard.”

  I swallow hard. Good lord, his words…

  But I can be direct too.

  “I want to come with you inside me.”

  “Jesus,” he says harshly, more to himself. “You can’t say things like that Marina or I’m going to lose it.”

  “Come inside me,” I say again, finding courage, finding strength, fueled by this urgent need for intimacy, for Laz to have me as no other man has.

  “Sweet, sweet girl,” he whispers to me as he starts crawling over me, “you’re going to ruin me, aren’t you?”

  “Pretty sure you’ll ruin me first.”

  “I’ll go slow,” he says, running his hands up my sides until they cup my breasts. “Don’t worry about the sheets.”

  But that’s not at all what I meant. At all. My vibrators may not be as oversized as Laz is, but I have used them consistently and in many different ways. I’m pretty sure there will be none of the usual hymen-blasting signs of sex afterward. I mean, I’m a virgin but I’m not sixteen. I have a sex drive. I have fantasies. Needs. Wants. I’m more than ready.

  The real question is whether Laz will ruin me in the long run. We’ve already stepped over that fuzzy grey line that separated friends from lovers. I’ll go as far as to say that line was crossed when we went out on our first date. But after this, the biggest lines of all, I don’t think there is any going back.

  I’m not just about to have sex with Laz.

  I’m about to lose my virginity to him.

  Something that’s been shameful, a burden, like the opposite of a Scarlet letter. I’m not a whore but I’m too far gone on the other side. Too innocent, too good, too perfect. And deep down, too damaged and fucked up. It’s a complicated cross I’ve had to bear and unless you’re a twenty-nine-year-old virgin, then you don’t really know how heavy that cross is.

  And now it’s almost all over. Once I give that to Laz, he’ll be imprinted in me in more ways than one. In some ways, I should have just fucked someone else a long time ago, because the first time I slept with Laz was going to be heavy anyway.

  But that moment is long gone. And now I’m giving myself to him, a man I’m in love with, a man I hope will carry my heart with his for as long as he can.

  If things fall apart after this…

  “You okay?” Laz asks above me, a lock of dark hair falling across his forehead. His arms are propped up on either side of my head, his hips pressed against my thighs, his legs parting my legs. His cock is hard as concrete, pressing down against me.

  “I’m okay,” I manage to say, giving him a small smile.

  “If I’m hurting you…”

  “If I don’t like it, I’ll make you stop.” I pause. “Condom?”

  Please don’t make me pull out Jane’s.

  “Right,” he says, sounding sheepish.

  He gets off of me and picks up his pants from the floor and immediately I feel bereft at his absence. I also feel silly because there I am pretty much fully clothed on the bed while he’s buck naked, his firm, gorgeous ass facing mine. I want to bite it so bad.

  While his back is turned, I pull my dress over my head and now I’m completely naked. At least the position is flattering. And flattening.

  He turns around and stops in his tracks once he sees me. I swear I see his cock move, get even harder. I fight the urge to run my hands down between my legs and touch myself, even though I’m sure he wouldn’t mind. Maybe another night.

  What if there isn’t another night? that nagging voice pops up in my head. What if this is it?

  But that voice can shut the fuck up right now.

  “You’re something to write about,” he whispers, voice choked in awe. “Look at you. Look at how absolutely perfect you are.”

  I give him a shaky smile. “You’d write a poem about me?”

  A quiet intensity comes over his eyes. “I’ve written countless poems about you. But I don’t share them. They’re all in one tattered notebook at home.”

  I blink. Oh my god. There’s a secret Marina book?

  “They’re not even in your published book?”

  He gives his head a tiny shake. “No,” he says softly. “Those words are about us, for us. They’re too intimate for anyone else.”

  My heart is doing that thing again, swelling like a balloon, threatening to burst.

  All this time…

  Laz tears the foil packet in his hands, the sound bringing me back to what’s about to happen and I watch with big eyes as he takes the condom and slips it on with the kind of precision I don’t want to know about. It goes over his piercings with ease.

  His piercings. I guess that’s something I should think about.

  “Do I, uh, need lube for those?” I say to him as he comes over to the bed.

  “Those?” he asks, brows raised.

  “Your piercings. On your dick.”

  He grins. “Oh. No. You don’t have any idea how wet you are, do you?” And at that he brings a hand between my legs and with his eyes locked on mine, slowly inserts a finger.

  “You’re soaked. “

  Now two fingers. Then three fingers. I gasp as I tense up, clenching around him. But it isn’t painful in the slightest. Of course I’d have to multiply three by, like, seven, to substitute his cock.

  He moves over me, grabbing the base of his cock and pressing it softly against my entrance. “If it’s too much, I’ll fix
you up. How about that?”

  I nod but he doesn’t push inside. Not yet.

  He runs his hands, palms flat, up the sides of my waist, sliding over my breasts, his thumbs expertly brushing over my nipples.

  “Look at you,” he whispers, pinching my sensitive skin until I moan. “I wish you could see yourself as I see you. See how unbelievable you are. Every single inch of you is pure poetry.”

  He drags his lips over my breasts, his tongue flicking and teasing and tasting. “I want to write you with my tongue.”

  It swirls around my nipple as he sucks it into his mouth.

  “Sonnets.”

  His lips trail up, hot, wet, warm, to my collarbone.

  “Stanzas.”

  To my neck.

  “Lyrics.”

  He can write me anyway he wants.

  But I’m getting impatient.

  My hips buck up toward him, his cock hard and long and thick and so, so close.

  “Come inside me,” I whisper to him, holding the back of his neck that’s already damp from sweat. “I need you.”

  He moans into my neck. It sounds like a symphony.

  “I like hearing that.”

  I run my hands down over the muscles in his firm back, marveling at them, that I can touch him like this, that this is what we’re doing.

  It no longer feels odd or strange. It feels like this is what we were made to do, to be with each other just like this.

  My hands stop at his ass and I grab hold, shrugging him into me.

  “Fuck,” he swears. “Okay.”

  He adjusts himself slightly, reaches down between my legs to position himself.

  Slowly pushes in.

  The pressure is intense.

  I breathe in deep through my nose, treating it like a panic attack, because if I hold my breath, if I don’t relax, if I get too tense, this is going to hurt like hell.

  “You okay?” he whispers and when I meet his eyes, they’re wet with awe.

  I nod. “Keep going.”

  His nostrils flare as he pushes in further and I will my body to expand, to take him all in. I bite my lip in pain, expecting it to get worse before it gets better. But with myself being so wet and the slow, laborious way he’s working his way in, I accept the pain. It starts to dissolve into pleasure.

  “Jesus,” he whispers hoarsely. “You’re so tight.”

  “I know,” I tell him, smiling up at him.

  I also thought this would be weird, the prolonged eye contact, the intimacy. But it’s not at all. It’s as easy and natural as breathing.

  Then he’s all the way in and I’ve never felt so full in my life, like he’s filling all my empty, hollow places with starshine and fire.

  “Fuck,” he groans. “Your cunt feels better than it tastes.”

  “You have a dirty mouth,” I say breathlessly.

  “You have no idea,” he says roughly, his lips capturing mine in a deliriously slow kiss that matches the deliriously slow way he’s thrusting into me.

  Everything feels like bliss, the pain now melting into something that makes me wild and thrilled. I dig my hands into his back, my nails leaving marks and our kiss gets messier, teeth, lips, tongue, mouths completely missing each other.

  I’m starving for him, starving for years, going mad.

  I had no idea it could be like this.

  But I have a feeling it’s not like this for everyone.

  It’s like this because it’s me and it’s Laz.

  His pace begins to quicken.

  Hips start slamming into me.

  His ass bunches and flexes under my grip.

  His cock slides in and out of me with ease.

  But it’s not effortless.

  Laz is working as he thrusts inside of me, sweat dripping off his brow from his own exertion, grunting hoarsely with every deep shove. The headboard slams against the wall. The bed moves. Everything shakes. There must be an energy being created from the two of us together, like sunspots and solar flares. I’m surprised the power isn’t flickering.

  And then his hand slips between my legs and he slows just enough to expertly slide his fingers over my clit.

  Oh.

  Oh.

  I had no idea I was this close to coming until he gave me a helping hand and…

  Fuck…

  “Laz,” I moan but it sounds more like a whimper, like he needs to put me out of this sweet sweet misery.

  “I want you to come,” he hisses, his fingers razing my clit until I’m almost bursting at the seams. “Open your eyes.”

  They fly open and I’m looking up at him in wild awe, stark determination on his brow, a side of Laz I’ve never seen, a side I want to keep seeing forever. I want him undone, I want to render him powerless, I want to see what I can do to him, how much ecstasy I can bring him.

  I’ve also never needed to come so badly in my life before. I’m shaking, so crazed by lust and want and raw, raw need that I’m scaring myself.

  Then the explosion comes for me, like a wave that builds and builds and you know you have no time to run and even if you tried, it would still take you down.

  He holds his hand against me with confidence, with possession, and then I’m weightless. The world around me explodes and I’m the burning, bursting energy at the center, the big bang.

  This…

  This…

  This…

  Gone.

  “Laz,” I cry out, my voice strained, my words garbled. “Oh god, oh god.”

  This wave is taking me out but I’m not just trembling, shaking, quivering. I’m drowning in feelings, a million of them pouring over me at once until I can’t breathe.

  Tears rush to my eyes and I grab onto the tight, sweaty planes of his back as I’m liquefied beneath him. I hold him like I’ll never let him go, I’ll never let go because I’m not sure I’ll exist if I do. I’m just stardust now.

  “Fuck, Marina,” he grunts roughly and then his head goes back, his throat exposed, neck muscles corded as he pushes in deeper, deeper. The sounds coming out of his mouth as he shudders into me will be forever burned in my heart. The feel of him, the look of him, feral and somehow now tamed.

  His pumps slow, the sweat pouring off of him, both of us breathing hard, my heart a drum in my ear.

  I can’t believe…I can’t believe…

  My brain can’t even come back to my body yet, it’s still in orbit somewhere.

  “You are so gorgeous when you come,” he murmurs to me, kissing my neck. “Just as I thought you’d be.” He pulls back and looks deep into my eyes. “Wild and free and full of light. I want to be a part of that light in your eyes. I want to be the cause of it.”

  I can only stare at him, my chest heaving, my heart still racing, because I don’t have the words to express what I’m feeling, what just happened. A tear runs from the corner of my eye and I hope he doesn’t notice but of course he does. He brushes his thumb over it and gives me a kind smile.

  “I hope that’s not from pain.”

  “No,” I tell him. “I don’t know what that’s from. It was all…it’s all…”

  “I know,” he says, kissing my forehead. “I felt it too.”

  My chest glows.

  “Next time,” I say, feeling shy all of a sudden. “Maybe, uh, don’t wear the condom.”

  His brow shoots up. “Really?”

  “If you’re clean, of course. It’s just I’m on the pill, always have been for other things, and I…I want to know what it’s like when you come inside me. I want to feel you, feel all of you.”

  He nods. “I’m clean. I always use protection. And I get checked.” He reaches down and holding the base of his cock before slowly pulling out. “But I will tell you, things will get messier without one.”

  “I like messy,” I tell him. “Mess me up, all night long.”

  He laughs softly, getting up to toss the condom in the garbage. “I’ve created a monster.”

  Then he comes back to bed, pulls back th
e covers so we both get inside. I think I want more. I also think my body might need some time to recover.

  But then Laz holds me close to him, nuzzles his mouth into my neck and I know what I really need is what I have right now.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Laz

  “Stripped”

  I wake up with sunlight in my eyes. I pause, my brain foggy from sleep, wondering how the light in my room is reaching me at this angle.

  Then I remember I’m not at home.

  I’m in New York.

  In a hotel room.

  And Marina is…

  I slowly turn over in the bed and look beside me. Marina is lying on her side, her cheek on the pillow, blonde hair spilling around her like a halo. Her eyes are open but drowsy, focused on me, a tiny smile on her lips.

  “Hey,” she says softly.

  Fuck me.

  For a moment I thought that maybe this had been a dream. That there was no way one of my deepest fantasies could have come true.

  But here she is.

  Here she is.

  Looking like an angel.

  I can hardly believe it.

  We had sex last night.

  Her first time.

  My first time with her.

  It was…I have no words.

  This isn’t even writer’s block.

  Being so deep inside of her, feeling and tasting every inch, watching her gorgeous face as she came, hard, squeezing me into a new atmosphere—it’s indescribable what she was doing to me. I don’t think I’m talented enough to even try.

  It was the best sex I’ve ever had.

  It was more than just two bodies reaching for a climax together.

  It was more than just getting off.

  It was about the two of us, together, finally. All these years, all these desires, coming to a head, a connection taken to another level, one I didn’t even anticipate.

  It was bloody spiritual is what it was and believe me, I am not a praying man. But I will make this woman my religion if she lets me. I will worship at her altar for another glimpse at the heaven I saw last night.

  “Hi,” I say back to her, still so dumbfounded.

  The sight of Marina on my bed is a hit to the gut.