“It’ll cool the rocks.” He didn’t elaborate much as he walked back to the nightstand.
“Okay. Well, are you going to turn the TV on or something while we do this?”
“No.” The rummaging behind me had me glancing over my shoulder. He had poured some sort of oil that smelled like peppermint onto his hands and was rubbing them together, slowly, methodically, rhythmically.
I was doomed.
“Head down and relax,” he murmured. “This is to get some of your stress out. You can’t do that with the television on.”
“TV always makes me relax.”
“Sure, but it doesn’t make you work through whatever issues you’re having.”
Suddenly both of his big hands were on my back, rubbing warm oil into it, and all I could respond with was a hiss. Dante’s skin on mine was like gasoline to fire. I sparked and blew up every time. My whole body tightened under him. My nipples, my pussy, my ass, everything. I would be surprised if he couldn’t feel my skin going taunt.
“They aren’t issues,” I grit out. “They are real life concerns. You’re not who you said you were. After all these years… Does my family know?”
“You think they all know and kept it only from you?” he inquired.
“You know, I’m the older sister—even if it’s only by three minutes—but everyone still treats me like…”
“Like a baby and their prized possession?” He chuckled. “Because you are that. You’ve made all of them proud.”
“Not sure why. I’m an adult, not a baby, and we all have good jobs.”
“You’re the one who didn’t do much wrong.”
“True. I worked hard to become a nurse.”
He hummed, and I felt it right down to my toes. “I know. You always tried hard at school.”
His hands slowly dragged all the way up my back, fingers feeling each vertebra and pushing into the divots of my spine like he knew exactly which points needed his pressure. I moaned when he got to my neck, and I didn’t know whether to relax into his kneading or jerk off the bed. My body warred with itself, desiring more but knowing I couldn’t give much of anything.
“I should have tried harder,” I said, “and we both know it.” The fact that I hadn’t become a doctor was always a point of contention with my parents, and I’m sure my mother shared it with Dante’s mom.
They didn’t know, though, that I had just been trying to stay afloat. Getting good grades had been harder than ever before. I’d been drowning in self-loathing, and my therapist kept saying I had to give myself time to heal, to relax, and to be less than perfect.
“Try harder for who?” he pried as he kneaded at a knot. “You seem happy being a nurse. What good is a job if you’re not happy?”
Dante always tapped into the journey of being human and made it sound so simple. “Maybe I like being a nurse and maybe I like the idea of climbing to the top and being a doctor. I just wasn’t sure I was good enough to do it,” I confessed. It was something I never said out loud but the words tumbled out like I’d been holding them in for a long time.
“You can be whatever you want, Lilah.”
He said it with enough conviction that my throat clogged before I replied, “Sometimes, I wish we’d continued to talk through my college years.”
“Are you admitting that your issues with me stopped you from reaching out?” He asked the question barely above a whisper, and I contemplated acting like I hadn’t heard him.
Instead, I opted for lying. “I don’t have issues with you, Dante.”
“Is that so?” He pushed his thumb into a tight spot on my neck and then rolled a stone into it.
“Jesus!” I tensed under the pressure and tried to move away from him touching that spot. He didn’t let up. Instead, his body pushed harder into mine, making it so I couldn’t wiggle away.
“Relax,” he commanded, the rock still pushing into that area, but I tried to listen to him and let out a breath. As I did, he dug in harder, and I hissed at feeling my muscles being worked out of a knot they’d probably been in for months. I practically orgasmed from the feeling. Somehow, it was painful pleasure; the line you walk between agony and pure bliss.
“Dante, that feelsamazing,” I moaned as he continued working. “I should be embarrassed by the sounds you’re pulling out of me.”
He rolled the stone over me again, and I gasped and wheezed. This time, his hands were lower on my back, and I knew I couldn’t ignore what I was starting to feel. My pussy had been wet from the start, and now I knew for a fact I would end up orgasming and making a fool of myself if we kept this up. I knew it was wrong, that he didn’t want me that way, but my body still reacted to him like we’d slept together, like it was desperate for him, and like I’d masturbated to thoughts of him more than once.