Winter Jacket: New Beginnings (7 page)

Leaning over, I licked up the frosting I’d wiped on Hunter’s skin. I sat up straight again and wiped at my mouth with the back of my hand. “Good choice on the cake, hun,” I approved with a sly smile.

“Uh huh.”

I dabbed a smaller dot of frosting behind Hunter’s right earlobe and proceeded to paint small dots down her neck and across her collarbone. I bit my bottom lip to keep my triumphant smile at bay. I knew Hunter was going to pay me back for this later. But for now, I was going to have my fun.

I swabbed my tongue across the length of Hunter’s jutting collarbone. I sucked on the flesh and bone long after the last remnants of sugar frosting were gone, leaving small red welts in my wake.

“I wanna suck you dry, baby,” I breathed across her skin.
I suckled my way up to her ear. My breath was warm and it tickled against the strands of hair close to Hunter’s neck and ear. I flicked my tongue out at her earlobe and drew the soft flesh into my mouth. When I gently bit down, I heard Hunter quietly moan.

“Wanna taste?” I whispered into her ear.

I gathered more purple frosting on two fingers and offered them to Hunter. She greedily sucked my fingers into her mouth and her tongue cleaned away the sugared topping.

“You can do that to me later,” I promised, eliciting another painful moan from Hunter.

I sat back up and collected more frosting. I ran my fingertips around Hunter’s tightening nipples, covering the sensitive nubs with more frosting. I sucked one nipple into my mouth and ran my tongue around it, getting it clean. I continued to work on her breasts even after I’d licked away all the frosting. My tongue flicked across a nipple and I gently bit down on it. Hunter whimpered quietly and her barely audible sigh turned into a throaty groan when I used my teeth to tug on the perky nub before releasing it.

I dabbed more of the frosting on Hunter’s flat stomach, just below her belly button. Leaning forward, I stopped, my face just an inch above her naked skin. Hunter’s stomach rose slightly as she breathed in. My tongue snaked out and touched her. I could feel her flesh slightly quiver as I began to lick up the frosting with long, steady strokes.

Not bothering to pause for more frosting, I licked hard along Hunter’s right hipbone. She moaned appropriately; her hips had always been one of her more sensitive spots, and I was certainly taking advantage.

Hunter’s breath now came in short, ragged bursts. Her body was sweaty to the touch even though she’d done little more than lay on my bed. I saw her flex her wrists, as if tempted to rip out of the scarves that held her back from participating. But as much as she might have wanted to turn the tables on me and have her own fun, she
knew how much I enjoyed this. Plus, I’d probably stop altogether if she destroyed my favorite scarves, and I knew that stopping wasn’t something Hunter wanted me to do anytime soon.

I slid down the length of her prone body and repositioned myself between her naked thighs.

“Almost out of frosting,” I stated with a hint of a pout on my lips. “Good thing I rationed though,” I mused aloud, “or we wouldn’t get to the really fun part.” I collected more of the sugary stuff and drew purple lines along the inside of Hunter’s thighs.

I ran my fingertips along the insides of
her thighs and smirked as my touch elicited small jumps and twitches. There was nothing like this rush of rendering my normally in-control girlfriend to such a state. But she wasn’t begging though, not yet.

I lowered my mouth to the tender part of
her inner thigh. I lightly bit down and I swabbed my tongue along the soft flesh, removing the cake frosting. I bit down harder and sucked. I could feel her tense beneath my ministrations. I nipped and kissed my way closer to her sex, but stopped just short.

I sat up again and collected the final frosting from the top of the cake. I brought my hand between Hunter’s thighs and slowly, softly, outlined the curves, dips, and folds of her sex. The sweet cake topping mixed with Hunter’s arousal.

“Not that you need to taste any sweeter, of course,” I remarked in a low, raspy tone.

Hunter nearly rocketed off the bed when my fingers finally came in contact with her most sensitive flesh. I spread the frosting across her shaven folds, thinly covering her naked pussy lips with the light purple cream. My tongue darted out and with light, quick licks, I cleaned away the frosting. With each flick of my tongue, Hunter’s body jolted as if being electrocuted.

I spread her pussy lips apart and slowly lapped at her inner lips, still refusing to touch her clit. I silently mused that I could spend the rest of the evening just like this – between Hunter’s spread thighs.

“Please.”

The word came out like a strangled prayer.

Our eyes locked, and I wordlessly cocked an eyebrow.

“I need you, Elle,” Hunter panted. She strained against the scarves twisted around her wrists. “I need you inside me.”

I removed my mouth from Hunter’s sex. I swiped the back of my hand across my mouth, wiping away bits of frosting and arousal.

“Well,” I mused, “if you insist.”

Hunter groaned and pulled at her restraints again, causing the bed to groan and protest. “God damn it, Elle,” she cursed. “I just want to cum!”

Hunter was always so patient, so polite, and I loved seeing her like this. But I’d made her wait long enough, I reasoned.

I sat up on my knees between Hunter’s thighs. I pressed down lightly on her abdomen with my left hand, keeping her in place. My right hand traveled the distance from
her knee, up her inner thigh, and hovered just inches from her desperate sex. I pressed two fingers against her slit.

I bit my lower lip.
Her arousal coated the tips of my fingers. Every time I felt her like this I honestly wondered why every woman wasn’t gay; I was addicted to this feeling. She rolled her hips and my fingers slid harder against her.

“Oh
God,” she whimpered. “Please. Keep going.”

I could feel
her struggling to make more friction and force my fingers inside her. I kept her pinned to the mattress, however, and continued my control. I shallowly dipped two fingertips inside her, just up to the first knuckle. Hunter’s sex was swollen, warm, and wet around me, begging for more, but I resisted the primal urge to completely penetrate her.

“More. Please, m
ore,” Hunter pled, her eyes screwed shut. She sounded like she was going to die if I didn’t fuck her soon.

I flipped
her legs over my shoulders, and my slender fingers easily slid deep inside her.

“Fucking Christ,” she swore as I bottomed out.
Her heels dug into my lower back.

“Is this what you wanted?” I grunted between thrusts. I pistoned two fingers in and out of Hunter’s clenching sex in short, rapid bursts.

I reached up with my free hand and twisted and tugged at Hunter’s pert nipples. She yelled out into the room, her lips unable to form words. Her eyes closed tightly and her back arched off the bed as the first long-awaited orgasm washed over her.

The room was silent be
yond Hunter’s heavy breathing. After a moment, I pulled my digits free from her tightened sex.

“Good?” I asked smugly, already knowing the answer.

“Ah, fuck,” she managed to pant in response.

I smiled and snuggled against her warm and sticky body.

“So as far as birthdays go,” Hunter asked, still breathing hard, “how does this one rate?”

I flicked my eyes towards the alarm clock on the bedside table and grinned mischievously. “It’s not done yet.”

+++++

CHAPTER
Four

My right nostril was stuffed and my left nostril kept leaking. My body ached all over like when Hunter dragged me on a run with her. It hurt to swallow and I’d become an unattractive mouth breather. In short, I was miserable.
I grabbed another blanket and layered it on top of me. It was no use. No matter how many blankets I piled on top of myself, I was still cold.

Like clockwork, during the
second week of every new semester, I got sick. All of those students’ germs finally caught up with me. I rarely got sick any other time of the year, but when I did, I fell apart. It was just a cold, but try telling my body that.

I hated being sick. It made me feel weak. I hated anything that prevented me from doing whatever I wanted, when I wanted. My brain could have been urging me to go run a marathon, but so long as my body was in this state, I would onl
y resent this sickness. It wasn’t as if I could even run a 5K, let alone a marathon, but I loathed the simple fact that my body was uncooperative.

Hunter bounded down the stairs, a vision in pastels and cottons. How anyone made hospital scrubs look sex
y was beyond my understanding. She always looked so put together, crisp and polished, but I think I liked her best in sweatpants and a tank top. It was like I got to see a side of her that no one else was privy to, like she felt comfortable enough around me to let her guard down. I wished I could do the same for her. I stood from the couch to greet her.

“Are you sure you don’t want me to call in today?” she asked, grabbing a granola bar from the pantry. “It’s not a big deal.
It’s not like they actually pay me for my time.”

“No, no,” I said, my voice more nasally than usual. “
You should go to the hospital today.”

“It’s my job to take care of sick people, Ellio,” she
reminded me.

I waved a dismissive hand and held back a sneeze. “I’ll be fine.
I’m just going to hang out on the couch and nap.”

“
You?
Nap? You must
really
feel sick.”

I could only make a pained noise in agreement.
All I wanted was to be taken care of, but I was too stubborn and too proud to ask for that. I hated letting anyone, let alone Hunter, see me like this. I wasn’t on top of my game. My body was giving up on me and my traveling headache was making it even worse. A sudden cough attack overtook me and I coughed so hard and violently that I doubled over.

“Ellio.” Hunter’s voice dripped with sympathy and concern
.

I waved a hand at
her. “Save yourself,” I said between the racking coughs.

She hesitated even more
. I stood erect finally after the coughing subsided. I wiped the tears from my eyes. “You’re going to be late. And if you’re late, and it’s the reason they don’t hire you after graduation, I’ll never forgive myself.”

That seemed to be the magic
combination of words because she picked her backpack up. “Call me if you need anything.” She stared at me admonishingly. “I mean it.”

I held up my hand in solemn oath, but I dared not speak in case it brought on another coughing attack.

When Hunter left, I threw myself down on the couch with an exaggerated groan. This was going to be a long day. Luckily, I had no place to be, because between the naps and the cold medicine, my brain was in a hazy fog. If my head hadn’t been physically attached to my neck, I would have feared it would float away with nothing to tether it to this plane.

I faintly heard the
doorbell. I ignored it though, knowing the only people who showed up during the day were solicitors. If it was someone I knew, they’d call my phone.

As
if on cue, my cell phone rang. When I saw my mother’s phone number flash across the screen, an uneasy feeling that I couldn’t accredit to my head-cold settled in my stomach.

“Hey,”
I said as way of greeting when I answered the phone.

“Where are you?”
my mom asked, eschewing any kind of civilized hello. I wondered if this was a belated birthday call. I hadn’t heard from anyone in my family, not that I was surprised or disappointed.

“On my couch? Where are you?” I asked carefully.

“At your front door.”

Even though my body ached, I
threw off my blankets and bolted from the couch to the front foyer. I unlocked and yanked open the door to see my mother standing on my front porch. She had a wine bottle in one hand and wheeled luggage in the other.

“You look like crap,
” she said.

You know that old adage – a face only a mother c
ould love? That wasn’t my mom. I didn’t say anything about her own appearance. Her hair was different than I remembered: longer and blonder. She looked a little pinched in the face, too. I hadn’t seen her in years. We talked, but not religiously, on the phone.

“I’ve got a cold.”
Normally I thought I looked okay. I wasn’t a fashion model or anything, but I stayed in shape and dressed professionally and age-appropriately. “My new boss is a homophobe, I keep getting older no matter how much I try to stop it, and my book proposal was rejected by a trade press.” I listed off everything that had been weighing on my mind lately. “You didn’t catch me on my best day.”

My mother made a clucking noise
, almost sounding amused at my list of complaints. “Sounds like someone needs a vacation.”

My mother was a professiona
l vacation-taker. It wasn’t her actual job to go on vacation, but every time I talked to her she seemed to be someplace exotic rather than in my hometown. She took more vacations than anyone I knew. It was silly, but it was one of the things that bugged me the most about her.

“More like I’ll be kissing my spare time goodbye since I’ll be spending every free moment making massive revisions
to my book proposal,” I bitterly countered.

She breezed past me, into the front foyer, and slipped out of her jacket to hang it
on a hook in the entranceway. “Well, at least you had time to answer your phone. I can’t believe you were going to make me wait out there.”

I sighed and shut the door.

My mom made her way to my kitchen and began opening and closing the cabinets looking for God-knows-what. She’d never been to my house before, yet she was acting like she lived here.

I shuffled after her and leaned against the kitchen island. “Mom, what are you doing here?” I was in no condition to entertain, let alone be polite.

“Oh, call it a Mother’s Intuition,” she said in a sing-song voice. “I sensed that you needed me.” She patted me on the cheek. “Go get comfy on the couch, dear. I’ll make soup.”

+++++

“Ellio?” Hunter called out. I hadn’t heard the key in the lock over the volume of the television and my mom’s tinkering in the kitchen. “I stopped by the Vietnamese place and got you that soup you like.” Troian had long ago turned me on to pho to cure everything from a hangover to the common cold.

I craned my neck from my seat on the couch to see her enter, one hand holding a backpack, the other the Vietnamese takeout bag. I was too buried under layers of blankets and afghans and a
House Hunter’s
marathon to hop up to greet her. Plus, Sylvia was sleeping on my legs, pinning me to the couch. I knew better than to get up and disturb what was no doubt her seventh nap of the day. When she’d originally curled up on my lap I’d been touched, thinking she must have sensed I wasn’t feeling well. But the more I thought on it, she probably just wanted to steal my body heat. Or my breath.

Hunter froze when she spotted a
stranger in my kitchen. “Um, hello.”

After a brief struggle I was finally able to shed the layers of blankets and hop next to my girlfriend. “Hunter,” I said as way of introduction, “this is my mom, Vivian Graft. Mom, this is my girlfriend, Hunter.”

“Nice to meet you,” Hunter routinely offered.

My mom held up hands covered in sticky cookie dough and gave her a little wave. After the homemade chicken
and dumpling soup, she’d launched into making my grandma’s chocolate chip cookies. There was something definitely strange going on. My mom had never been any kind of domestic goddess.

“Get comfortable, girls,” she announced. “The first batch of these cookies will be ready in about 15 minut
es and I’ll need some testers.”

I obeyed my mother’s command and pulled Hunter into the living room where she
sat next to me on the couch.

“How are you feeling?”
She kept her voice low as if she didn’t want my mom to overhear.

I b
uried my face in her shoulder. “Not so good,” I muffled. I breathed in her clean, sweet scent.

When I pulled away, she felt my foreh
ead with the back of her hand. “Have you taken anything today?” she frowned.

“
Not unless you count
You’ve Got Mail
.” Sometimes the only cure is a Nora Ephron movie marathon.

“
You like that movie?”

“She doesn’
t just
like
that movie,” my mom cut in from the kitchen. “She
loves
it.”

Hunter raised her eyebrows. “
You
love
it, huh?”

I pulled the af
ghan up and closer to my chin. “Don’t judge,” I whined. “It makes me feel better.”

I didn’
t bother telling her about the time I watched the movie while running on the treadmill. I’d started crying at the end of the movie when Meg Ryan’s face crumples when she realizes it’s been Tom Hanks the entire time. I wasn’t much of a runner to begin with, and crying while trying to run proved impossible. I’d been a sobbing, gasping mess.

“Isn’
t it about emotional dishonesty though?” she pointed out. “Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan are having an affair over email.”

The blanket went even higher until it nearly covered my eyes. It was probably telling and not very flattering that cheating was the central premise of the one movie that never failed to make me feel better.

Hunter kept stealing glances at my mother in the kitchen who was currently humming rather loudly. She had officially become the 900-pound gorilla in the room. I knew Hunter wanted to ask why she was here, but I also knew she was far too polite to blurt out the question when my mom was within earshot.

She stood, stiffly, and walked in the direction of the second-floor staircase. I stared after her, confused.

“Baby, why don’t you come upstairs?” she practically purred. She ran her fingers along the wooden banister and even in my cold-foggy state, I imagined them caressing my body. “There’s something up there that’s even better than cookies.”

For the second time that day, all blankets were tossed to the side and I moved faster than my cold normally would allow.

My bedroom door hadn’t yet closed before the question was out: “Why is your mom here?” Hunter demanded. She put her hands on her hips.

I held up my hands
in defense. This wasn’t at all what I’d been promised. I wanted to protest the false advertising. My grandma’s cookies were about to come hot out of the oven downstairs, after all. “I have no idea,” I said truthfully. “She showed up on my doorstep not long after you left this morning.”

“Without warning you first?”
Her voice was so sharp, it practically cut me.

I nodded.

“Who does that?”

“My mom, apparently. Didn’t you get my text?” Even in my cold medicine-induced fog, I’d still been mindful to text Hunter a warning about my unexpected houseguest.

Her anger faltered, but only momentarily. “I forgot my phone here this morning.” Hunter was a rarity in the Millennial Generation. She didn’t participate in social media and she still used a flip-phone. I was more technologically savvy than her, and that was saying a lot.