Page 35 of Ghost of Ex-mas Past
He didn’t bother to turn any lights on, but the blinds in his room are open and the Christmas lights on the exterior of the house make it unusually bright.
“Hmm. Is it like a ‘should I grab a condom’ question or a ‘what is the meaning of life’ question?”
I feel his stomach bounce with a silent laugh. “It’s more of a question about this...” His hand snakes up my body and settles on my throat.
Oh.
I swallow and can feel the extra pressure from his grip.
“What do you want to know?” I whisper.
“Did you like this back when we were together before?”
“Maybe. I don’t know. You never held me like that.”
There’s a beat of silence while his thumb strokes the side of my neck. “Other men, though?”
“No.”
I can feel how pleased this makes him.
Neanderthal.
“Is it the feeling of being caught? Or do you like breath play?”
“I don’t know,” I admit. “I didn’t realize I liked it until yesterday.”
He kisses me, closed mouth against my lips, and then shifts to the side, propping his head up on his other hand while he looks down at me. The hand on my throat keeps stroking.
“I like that I’m learning new things about you.”
I tilt my head. “Tell me a new thing aboutyou.”
He’s quiet for a moment, thinking. “I like being bitten.”
I click my teeth, earning a laugh.
“Where?”
“My chest, my shoulder. Hickeys optional. Nail scratches too.”
He’s done that with other women, I realize. Of course he has; I wasn’t expecting that he was celibate.
I’m quiet for so long he continues without prompting. “I wish I’d told you back then.”
My head rears back in surprise—or at least as far back as it can go when I’m being lightly held against the bed. “You knew back then?”
“Well, I wanted to try it.”
I’m flabbergasted. And a little hurt. I’d had a list of things to try, and here was this kink that Charlie hadknownhe’d wanted to do.
“Why didn’t you ask me?”
His thumb strokes my neck. “I don’t know. Maybe I was embarrassed. I would have had to explain...” He clears his throat. “I would have had to talk about watching porn halfway across the country from you and about how I missed youandsex. I wasn’t—I wasn’t used to asking for things from you and I just thought I was the luckiest guy. I didn’t want to make things harder for either of us. How could I need anything more?”
I look up at Charlie, searching. So much has changed in the eight years since we were together, and while we were each other’s firsts in a lot of ways, our relationship wasn’t perfect. It was the relationship of two young people navigating growing up and apart.
I let that absorb and resolve to think about it more later. But for right now...
