Page 12 of The Twelve-Hour Rule
This isn’t careful or practiced. It’s messy, unplanned, the kind of closeness that feels like a decision and a mistake at the same time. And still, I keep moving toward him.
It’s just one night,I tell myself.One night, one person, and people do this all the time, really. I’m not asking him to marry me or anything.
But it doesn’t feel like something people do all the time. This here, this exact moment, feels rare, like catching sunlight under water.
Ben kneels on the bed next to me, his hand moving to the back of my neck as he kisses my bare shoulder. Slowly, he drags my dress down, and I whimper in return. I feel his smile on my skin, and he says my name once—quietly, like a promise.
After that, it’s all a blur of movements and clothes coming off, our hands on the other’s skin, and I don’t have a moment to stop and think.
He pushes my shoulder so that I lay flat in the middle of the bed and he starts kissing down my body, licking one nipple, then the other, and softly blowing air after. My whole body tightens, but the heat keeps growing, burning from the inside out.
“Fuck, you’re so hot,” he says as he trails down to my pussy, kissing every few seconds as he moves along. “I can’t believe you actually paid any attention to me at all.”
I laugh, because how could I not? He’s attractive, and charming, and even though I was reluctant at first, he definitely won me over with his curiosity and attention. He hums, pleased that he made me laugh, and the vibration drags another whimper out of me.
He stops to look at me, fingers curled under the waistband of my underwear, like he needs one moreyesbefore he can continue. I nod, holding his eyes, and his crooked smile makes yet another appearance but this time, it’s a little wicked. Like he’s decided exactly what he’s going to do to me and I haven’t caught up.
After a moment, his tongue is on my clit, hot and wet and wonderful. I haven’t felt this in months, maybe years at this point. Quite frankly, I can’t recall the last time I had an orgasm with someone who’s not myself, but this feels different.
Like he’s hungry just for me and ready to worship for hours.
The stroke of his tongue against my clit makes my back arch from the bed, and he pushes me down with his big hand, placing it on my lower belly to keep me from moving. The only thing I can do is moan and squirm, and after a moment of this, my hand finds his hair to move him just the way I like it. His eyes flicker up to me and crinkle at the corners, as if this is the exact thing he was hoping would happen.
Ben takes his time, licking slow and steady, up and down and swirling around my clit. I’m shaking, and I don’t know if it’s the A/C or the impending orgasm that has me this way, but after a few more movements with his tongue, my legs clamp around his head and I’m moaning loudly.
“Holy shit,” he says, looking at my pussy with such intensity that my first instinct is to cover myself up.
“What?” I reply, trying to understand what’s happening. I feel boneless and relaxed, and my eyes are drifting closed despite the monumental effort I’m using to keep them open.
“Did you just…” He blinks at me, pupils blown, and I can’t help but look down his body, skin white and covered in tattoos. There’s enough space in between them to make it look like he’s been collecting them for years, like there’s meaning behind every single one. His cock is leaking pre-cum, and I feel a blush rise up my chest and all the way to the tips of my ears. “Did you squirt?”
“Oh my god,” I say, pushing away from him and moving towards the headboard. Earth, swallow me whole. This was a mistake, and I need to grab my things and run, except that this is my room and how do I kick him out after what he just did to me? “I’m sorry, I?—”
“Sol.”
“Oh my god, I’ll just… This is so embarass?—”
“This is the hottest thing that’s ever happened to me,” he says, stalking in my direction. If it weren’t for the fact that his dick is still hard, I wouldn’t believe him. He opens my legs forcefully and bends down, his mouth tracing a slow, deliberate path up to my clit. My body trembles, and everything feels extra sensitive and his words… “Fuck, you taste incredible.”
I blink at him and he smiles. “That’s never hap?—”
“Well,” he says, another swirl of his tongue on my clit. “I’mhonored.”
He kisses my mouth and I taste myself on him—it’s strange and intimate and electric all at once. Like a part of me I’d kept hidden is finally being seen, and instead of shame, all I feel is heat. The kind that’s less about lust and more about letting go, about finally being comfortable in my own skin after years of pretending I was.
When he pulls back, he slides one fingertip slowly down my bicep, tracing the small set of flowers inked there. “These mean something,” he says quietly.
“They do,” I manage, my voice still unsteady. His fingertip is moving over the haphazard three-flower arrangement, the second tattoo I ever got after my sister had her first daughter and I wanted something to immortalize our family growing. The eldest daughter of an eldest daughter also having an eldest daughter. I wonder how he noticed that these pieces on me have significance, instead of being random ones simply drawn on my skin forever because I like them. “It’s for my sister, my mom and my oldest niece.”
He nods, thumb brushing one of the petals. “That’s beautiful.”
I tilt my head, my fingers finding his forearm, following the lines of black that wrap around his skin, delicate leaves following an intentional pattern. “What about yours?”
A slow smile. “Little trinkets I’ve picked up along the way,” he says. “Pieces of different versions of me. The things I couldn’t bring with me, I kept this way instead.”
He hums and continues moving his eyes down my body, like he’s memorizing every drawing that covers my skin. I have a little constellation on my hip that I got post-separation, something that symbolizes freedom. My ex-husband hated my tattoos, but this man here is looking at me like I’m the most precious thing that’s ever graced his presence.
“You’re so far out of my league,” he says, kissing my neck, then moving to my jaw and the corner of my mouth. It’s a small and delicate move, but my body hums with electricity in response.
