Page 51 of A Ballad of Phantoms and Hope
She writhes beneath me, breathy cries and moans slipping from her mouth. I can tell she wants more and is impatient for it.
A dark chuckle rises from my throat and I raise my head to look at her, finding desperate eyes staring back at me. I lean back up to kiss her and she makes a small, weakened sound as I press my erection against her core.
Her hands slip beneath my shirt and duck into the hem of my pants.
I grin against her lips. “You want more?” She nods, drunk with lust.
She unbuttons my pants and yanks them down. A dry laugh escapes me, and I bury my face in her hair, finding her ear and biting the cartilage gently. She breathes heavily as she frees my dick, quickly wrapping her hand around my girth and eliciting a low groan that rolls from my lips.
“Oh, fuck,” I say weakly as she starts pumping me. Her soft fingers pull me all the way to the tip and work me down back to the base in a slow rhythm.
I look down at her, biting her lower lip. Her eyes drip with lust, greedy and wanting me to touch her. Who am I to deny her?
My lips crash down to hers and our bodies move fiercely together, starved from all the moments we’d resisted before. I run my hand down her stomach and lift her dress. She whimpers eagerly and I can’t help but grin against her lips.
“Patience, Ophelia,” I say, hushed and languid. Her thighs are warm and she bucks her hips as I squeeze her flesh, inching closer to her core and stopping just before I reach her panties. “Have I told you how beautiful you are, or have I only been saying it over and over in my head?” I ask, breathless.
She nips at my lower lip and that sends a surge of heat through my dick.
“You must’ve been saying it in your head,” she replies, smiling and burying her face into the crook of my neck. “Tell me.”
She releases her firm hold on my cock and guides it to her stomach. I groan at the soft sensation of her skin against my tip, lowering my body to the blankets and rolling to my back. She follows the momentum and straddles me, sitting perfectly on my dick—nothing but her thin panties between us.
I look up at her through hooded eyes, high off the ecstasy that builds between us.
She sets her hands on my chest and starts grinding on top of me. I buck my hips involuntarily and fist the sheets. She looks down at me like a goddess, expectantly.
“I can’t take my eyes off of you, not even for a moment.” It takes a great deal of control to keep my words and tone even as she continues to dry hump me, but I keep my voice steady. I want her to know how much I truly cherish her. “I knew it the moment I laid eyes on you in the theater. Your somber dance and the weight of the world you carried so effortlessly. Your beauty is the kind the world hushes around, to stare in silence and listen.”
Her movements slow until she stills. Her hands slide up my chest until she falls to her elbows, braced on either side of my head.
“You say the most beautiful things,” she says softly. Our noses are barely touching as she stares down into my soul. “Hopeless romantic or tragic poet?” Her lips kick up in a lovely smile and I laugh, wrapping my arms around her.
“Hopeless romantic.”
She nods knowingly. “That’s what I pinned you for.” Then she kisses me and we roll in the blankets. She lies on her side as I do mine. I push her underwear to the side and find the evidence of her arousal. A groan rolls from my throat as I stroke her clit;her reaction is instant, arching into our fervent kisses more and moaning as she fists my cock again.
We remain in tandem, breathing heavily as our release builds. She strokes me faster and slower until I can no longer see clearly, and I grunt as I come in her hand. She slows and works the tip until my hips stop jerking.
I can tell she’s close too, her teeth bury into her lower lip and she gasps as I push a finger inside her. Our lips meet again and I rub her clit until she’s quivering in my arms. I don’t stop until she cries out with her release and I know she’s satiated.
She looks me over one last time before smiling and tucking her head into the crook of my neck. I smile, too, wrapping my arms around her and pressing a kiss atop her head.
“Dream of me,” she whispers drowsily. A warmth spreads into my heart as we lie together, two phantoms on a train and falling into orbit with each other. Do our dreams matter? I hope so.
“I always do.”
Ophelia stretches her arms over her head as we finally get off the last train in New York.
I’m hesitant and linger on the last step. I’ve never been this far in the world, not ever. The East Coast was always a dream of mine, even just to visit. Boston comes to mind, with the two people who mean the most to me somewhere in the forest of buildings and cement. I wonder if they think of me. I try not to linger on the missed anniversary. It’s not fair to be upset over it. It’s only natural for them to move on, after all.
Ophelia notices my pause and smiles, offering me her hand.
“Come on, we can create new makeshift beds elsewhere if we need to.” Her voice is light and airy, lifting the corner of my lips and making me forget the woes that tug at my heart.
“What, like two traveling vagabonds? We can stay wherever we wish, you know. We should stay somewhere nice,” I say with amusement. She raises her chin and walks proudly through the platform. It’s bustling with people, all wearing blank expressions and bleak-colored clothing. They don’t notice us of course. The brick pillars of the platform are larger than I thought possible. It’s like stepping into an entirely new world. My expression must give away my awe because Ophelia laughs beside me.
“Pretty amazing, isn’t it?” she says with a light flickering across her eyes.
