Afterburn
By Gwen Masters

She sat quietly in the darkened room. He had left only a few minutes before, stepping outside to have a cigarette and wander with his thoughts. She sat up in the bed they had shared, still feeling the warmth of his body all over hers. Still feeling the thrill of his touch. She had almost forgotten what it felt like to make love with him. It all came back to her as if it had only been yesterday.

She lifted her hands and looked at them. They were the same, the same hands she had always seen, but they felt different now. They were filled with anticipation they hadn’t felt in months. They trembled just a little when she thought of the way his back felt under the sheen of sweat, the way he had moved her body with ease, as if she were nothing more than a feather to be teased and played with. The way the muscles in his arms had moved as she ran her fingertips over them. The way he had called her name.

Four times. The amazement sluiced through her and she pulled the quilt up to her chest, as if to hold it all inside. Four times before the strike of midnight came from the clock down the hall. Never before had she been so enjoyed. She felt suddenly shy and innocent, a feeling so out of place with the things they had done. The need for him welled up within her, urgent as the sexual tension before they had finally given in.

She found his shirt on the floor and wrapped herself in the cotton. His necklace was there on the bookcase. She picked it up, felt the weight of it in her hand. She wrapped it twice around her wrist and looked at it there. She ran her fingertips over the lapels of his shirt. She remembered unbuttoning it, one slow button at a time. She ran her hands through her hair and found the tangles. She smiled and padded down the hallway, feeling the ache already settling in between her thighs.

He was there in the backyard, looking up at the stars.

She watched as he took a long drag of a cigarette. She remembered that from years ago, that he only smoked after he made love. In a good week he would smoke half a pack. She watched as he flipped the butt with his fingers, sent it bouncing into the overgrowth near the trees. He exhaled the smoke and it hovered around him for a moment before it disappeared.

She stepped silently behind him and he chuckled when her arms wound around his waist. His body was harder than it had been all those years ago. He seemed taller.

“What are you doing out here? It’s too cold to be without a coat.”

“You can warm me up,” she murmured and he chuckled again.

“You’re insatiable. Still.”

“Hmmm.” She rested her forehead against his back. She slipped her hands under his jacket. He was wearing nothing under it. His breath caught when she gently raked her nails down his bare chest.

“I want you,” she whispered.

He turned in her arms and caught her face in his hands. He looked into her eyes right before his mouth came down on hers, making her moan almost instantly with the gentleness of the caress. He tasted like cigarette smoke but she found she didn’t mind, not at all. She reached down and unbuckled his belt. He quietly laughed into her mouth.

“Right here?” he breathed.

“The neighbors might have a problem with that.”

He grinned. “Fuck the neighbors.”

“Me first.”

He did laugh then, a good and deep one. The sound went right through her. His hand slid the shirt up over her bare hip. She slid her hand down and found him hard as a rock. Again.

“We need to get you inside. It’s too cold for you out here.”

The kitchen door closed behind her and then she was against it. The sound of the zipper seemed to echo in the room. The refrigerator beside them kicked on. He lifted her off the floor and slid her up the door, effortlessly.

Jesus, was he always this strong? she wondered.

Then he slid into her, finding home with one long thrust. She yanked the jacket off his shoulders so she could taste his skin. He thrust hard and she bit down, both of them hurting the other. The growl that ripped from him was a playful warning. She wrapped her legs around him and he thrust as deeply as he could, driving her a few inches up the door. 

She buried her face in his shoulder and bit down on the tender skin she found there.  He would be covered with her marks before they were through.

He suddenly pulled her away from the door. The books she had left on the kitchen table thumped to the floor as he pushed them away.  A glass of water tipped over, tumbled to the area rug below.  He laid her on the table and pulled her hips down to him, for better leverage.  She held onto the rectangular wood. She felt a fingernail break as she clenched the edge. 

He slid into her, slowly, watching her face all the while. 

“Who is insatiable?” she asked on a quiet breath.

“Love does that to a man,” he answered.

She stared at him for the space of ten heartbeats.  Then she smiled.

Within moments they were moving with a passionate need that hadn’t been present in the bedroom.  In the bed they had taken their time, moved with the speed of rediscovery, but the kitchen table demanded something else.  It was a coupling of clenching fists and bared teeth, vicious thrusts and hair caught around a demanding hand. 

He pulled her head back and bit down on one nipple.  Hard.  Then harder.  She squealed and arched up to him, feeling him impale her more deeply than he had before.

“Just like that,” he groaned against her skin.

“God, you feel better than you used to…”

He laughed and the whisper of his breath made her shiver.  He thrust hard, and she suddenly remembered that he had once been afraid of hurting her.  Obviously he wasn’t afraid anymore.  She reached down, felt his belly slam against her hand, then slipped her fingertips down farther.  Wetness coated him every time he slid out.  When he pulled out, she groaned in protest. 

“Stroke me,” he demanded.  “Make me come.”

It was what she wanted. Her own lube was slippery under her fingers but he leaned his weight toward her, giving just enough leverage.  She watched, her rapt attention on the head of his cock, on the tremble of his thighs against her knees.  She wanted to see it.  She watched the little hole get wider as she stroked downward, smaller as she stroked up.  She wondered which would feel better when he came. So she asked him.

“Slide all the way down,” he whispered.  “Pull hard.  That’s it.  No…harder…yes.”

“Yes?”

“Yes…”

He came hard and she watched every second.  The slickness landed on her belly, her thigh, the neatly trimmed patch of hair.  She marveled at the jerk of every pump, the way it seemed to sluice through him like an inverted waterfall.  Only at the last did she watch his face.  Pleasure that was almost pain etched his features and she wondered if she looked like that when she came. 

He opened his eyes.  Then he knelt down before her and began to clean her body with his tongue.  She was astounded and jerked away from him at first.  His eyes met hers. 

“You didn’t do that before,” she protested. 

“No, I didn’t,” he agreed.

“You said you didn’t like it?”

“I changed my mind,” he said, then continued his merry way down her body, down her thigh, back up to the center of her, where he licked and sucked while thoughts swirled through her head.  Where had he learned to do that?  Why did she care?  She was the one who had put him out all those years ago, after all.  The fact that he left was beside the point.  She was the one who had cheated on him with his best friend.  The moment he slammed the door hard enough to knock their picture off the wall was the moment she realized the mistake she had made.

He had been with someone else since then. Well, wasn’t this anger within her nothing but a double standard. Hypocrite, she chided herself, but the images would not go away.

She pushed him away and curled onto her side on the kitchen table.  He caressed her legs for a moment, then stood up and kissed her hip.  Then her side.  Then the fall of a tear, catching it before it hit her nose and made it tickle. 

“She didn’t mean anything,” he said.

“How long did it last?” she wondered out loud, not sure she wanted to know. He stood up and slid his jeans up.  The sound of the zipper was hesitant and she knew.  She looked into his eyes and he didn’t flinch when she asked.  “Where does she think you are?”

“Baltimore.  Business trip.”

Her head suddenly reeled with the reality of it. “You planned this?”

He didn’t bother to answer.  He pulled on her hand.  Her legs didn’t want to hold her, but she fought her way through it to follow him to the bedroom.  The bed was still warm under her back and she was in a state of disbelief, but not deep enough to ignore that his tongue was playing between her legs again and she was letting it happen.

“Her name is Stacey,” he whispered from between her thighs.  “She is a schoolteacher, she never drinks, she hates my car and she never wants children.”  Then his tongue was playing over her clit and she arched up to him.  Her knees trembled.  He pushed them apart.  “She is wild in bed but she isn’t good in bed. There is a difference.”

“What am I?” She moaned as his finger slipped inside.

“You’re just good.  Period,” he said.

Within moments she was on her hands and knees, he was fucking her with abandon, and she thrust back at him with all the anger she had inside her, until there was none left.  Her pussy burned.  She touched herself, strummed her clit until she came, and when he toppled over the edge it was her name he said.  Nothing like Stacey.  Hers.

“I love you,” she breathed, when she could speak.

The moment of silence was like a long, thin, cutting wire.  He fumbled beside the bed and then she heard the snick of his lighter, saw the ember of his cigarette.  “I can be back by Friday,” he said on the exhale, and suddenly it was as if he had never left.

Copyright 2005, Gwen Masters. All Rights Reserved.