Drowning on Dry Land: an erotic short story Read online

  “Hi,” he said.

  One word, so simple but weighted with so much meaning. It pleased her to see that he looked hesitant. Eager, but uncertain. Bette had brought a bottle of champagne, chilling on ice, and had opened it before he got there. She lifted the flute toward him without taking a step.

  “Drink?” she asked him, already pouring.

  “Sure. Is this…a celebration?” He took the champagne flute from her.

  Their fingers touched.

  This man had once been able to get her nipples hard with no more than a look and a few murmured words. The brush of his skin on hers, even after all this time, sent an electric ripple through her. Bette didn’t bother to hide it. There was no point in pretending, not for his sake. If he believed anything had changed between them, it was only because he’d been lying to himself. Of course, he’d always been good at that.

  Bette smiled. “I just like champagne.”

  He looked around the room as he sipped, then at her. He set the glass down on the desk. “So. Here we are.”

  “Yes,” she said. “Here we are.”

  “I was surprised you asked me to meet you here. I didn’t think you’d want to see me.”

  “I didn’t,” Bette told him and took another sip.

  His smile faded. He was tentative again. She liked it, keeping him on edge the way he’d kept her so many times.

  “…Oh. So then why did you agree to meet me here?”

  “Because I didn’t want to regret not taking the chance.” She put down her own glass and moved toward him. “Because I sometimes wake up with the taste of you still lingering in my mouth. Because I miss you with a fathomless and abiding ache that is marrow deep inside me.”

  She had never been the one to kiss him first. In that, she’d always waited the way she had so often with everything else. Bette was done waiting when it came to him. She stepped up to him, pushing up on her toes to get at his mouth. Her fingers curled in the front of his shirt to pull him close to her.

  There was an unsteady moment where she thought he was going to push her away, but it lasted only a second or so before he groaned into her kiss. His hands moved over her body. One slid up to twist in her hair and pull it in the way he knew would make her boneless and greedy with desire.

  That hadn’t changed.

  “I missed you, too,” he said into her ear as his fingers inched up the hem of her skirt, seeking the tops of her stockings.

  Bette pulled away from the heat of his mouth on her throat. “Of course you did.”

  It wasn’t what she’d have said, before. He looked surprised. His fingertips found the bare expanse of her thighs, sliding higher to the lace of her panties. He stopped before he touched her there.

  It was awkward, this position, unless they were both moving. He kept still. His gaze searched hers.

  “You,” he said, “are so beautiful.”

  He’d never said such a thing to her before. Hearing him actually say it aloud set her back a step. She almost faltered. Fled, before he could break her again. But it was too late, because he was kissing her and he tasted the same as he always had, of sweetness and fire and desire and the flavor filled up all her senses until her head spun.

  “I don’t need you to tell me that, but you can go ahead and say it again,” Bette said. She’d taken that step back, but the desk was behind her and she had no more room to move.

  He moved between her legs, nudging them open with his knee. His eyes blazed. His smile grew a little wicked in that charming way. “You. Are. So. Beautiful.”

  “I know,” she whispered against his lips when he kissed her.

  Chapter 9

  The fifth time he kissed her was in a parking lot, summer heat shimmering the air around them, his mouth chilled from icy water. “Touch me,” he told her, and she did. Of course she did.

  The sixth time he kissed her was in a hotel hallway, two knuckles deep inside her, when he said “we could do this forever,” but instead she watched him walk away.

  The seventh time he kissed her was in a dream of long hallways and red doors, and a fox, running. She opened all the doors in the corridor before she found him. It was only a dream, but she had it more than once.

  Chapter 10

  Bette didn’t wait for him to pull her toward the bed. She walked there on her own, tugging open the tie at the waist of her dress and letting it open all the way up the front. She turned at the foot of the bed with a smile and shrugged off the material to let it fall onto the floor. She kicked the dress aside and put a hand on her hip. She wore a pair of silky purple panties and a matching demi-cup bra. Black thigh-high stockings, but no garter belt — those were sexy but complicated, and she wanted easy access with maximum impact. She waited for him to say something, but to her smug delight, she seemed to have knocked the words right out of him. Was there any greater satisfaction than facing a former lover after so long a time and seeing him made speechless at the sight? Bette didn’t think so, not in that moment, anyway.

  When he came closer to her, though, she put out a hand flat on his chest, her arm stiff to keep him from touching her. “Not yet.”

  He paused, still reaching. His fingertips skimmed her bare skin. “No?”

  “No.”

  At her tone, he stopped. Brow furrowed. “What’s up?”

  “Earn it,” Bette told him.

  He frowned. “So it’s going to be like that?”

  “Yes,” she breathed and curled her fingers in the front of his shirt, bending her arm to at last allow him to move up next to her. She turned her face from his kiss, though, giving her neck instead. “It’s going to be like that.”

  “What do I have to do to earn it?” His mouth brushed the spot just below her ear, making her shiver. His tongue flickered. “Something like this?”

  At the nip of his teeth, her nipples peaked to an aching hardness that begged for his touch. Bette turned to press her ass against his groin and swept her hair to the side so he could feast further on her neck. His hands slid over her belly, one teasing downward to stroke a fingertip between her legs before he moved them both up to cup her tits.

  “Like this?” he continued, freeing her breasts from the confines of the bra and tweaking her pebble-hard nipples. One of his hands moved over her belly again, between her legs, this time beneath the lacy edge of her panties to her bare, hot flesh. He stroked her, both his hands moving in sync.

  Bette arched, letting her head fall back to his shoulder. She pushed her ass harder against his cock, thick and hard through his khakis. She ground against him, rocking her hips to let the hand between her legs shift and slide. She’d meant to tease him longer. Maybe even make him beg, but oh, fuck, this…this was too good not to give in to.

  The clitoris was the devil’s doorbell, and Bette was more than ready to answer its ring.

  “I missed you,” he said into her ear. His fingers circled her clit, then down to dip inside her slickness. Up again, pressing and stroking while the other tugged first one, then the other nipple in perfect, aching rhythm. “I couldn’t stop thinking about you. It didn’t matter where I was, or what I was doing, no matter how long it had been since we were together, somehow it always came back to you.”

  She hated him for saying that, almost as much as for telling her she was beautiful. “Shut up.”

  His hiss of surprise turned her to face him.

  “I don’t believe a word that comes out of your fucking mouth,” Bette told him, even as she kissed him. Even as their tongues stroked and tangled and she let him bruise her lips from the force of his desire. With his fingers still fucking into her, his other hand now digging into her hair, she said, “So shut up and fuck me. That’s all this is. Nothing else.”

  She pushed him back a step, fiercely enough to make him stumble. Both of them breathing hard, they squared off. When he reached for her again, she knocked his hand aside.

  “Take off your clothes.” Bette stepped backwards, finding the chair by the window. She