Page 88 of Secondhand Soul

“So this is my new favorite cocktail,” I purr, sinking my mouth around him and bobbing as he rolls us around, settling my splayed puss over his lips and resuming his deliberate attempts to turn me into a babbling mess.

I’m going to get even.

As I work to relax my jaw, I slip down more and more, until he’s hitting the back of my throat. Closing my eyes, I let him slide in, deep-throating him as I stroke his sensitive sack, rolling my fingertips over his firm balls, using my fingertips to make his skin prickle as I trace loving lines along his inner thighs, lost in tasting him, pleasing him, and being pleased by him.

My fingertips trail over the tight entrance between his cheeks, and his breath hitches, coming out in a long, low moan. I do it again, and the surprised note vanishes from his voice. He likes that.

I shudder to think of all the ways this body was used and abused, conditioned and trained to kill. Never to receive affection and pleasure. Mine was trained, conditioned in thousands of little ways, to provide pleasure and accept ill treatment, and eventually, that birthed a killer.

What mangled mirror images we are, I think, drifting into the haze of bliss his mouth delivers and the concentration of reciprocation. I massage more firmly as I suck, letting Lazarus know there’s no part of him I don’t love, wouldn’t pleasure.

“Victoria... They make those toys for guys, too, right?”

I giggle around him (which sounds ridiculous and not at all pretty), and we both have to stop what we’re doing to laugh. “Yes, baby. We’ll go shopping online and find all the pretties and gadgets. Same rules apply. You can have anything you want, as long as I get to help.”

“I just want your mouth and your pussy forever.”

“Oh, good. Those come free with the girlfriend-wife package,” I tease, and slurp my mouth around him again, dragging my teeth lightly over the surface of his skin.

That’s the last thing either of us says for quite some time, too busy being lost in each other, the taste and closeness of each other.

“I’m so close, Vic,” Lazarus moans as I’m gyrating on his chin, clit rubbing just right as he slips two thick fingers in my pussy, one in my ass.

“Then you should—ohhh,” I stop to let my climax overtake me.

Whatever I was about to ask him to do happens naturally. His tip pulses in my mouth, and his cum fills my mouth and overflows onto his thigh and down my chin.

“Jesus, we’re a mess,” I groan, rolling off of him, my body feeling like the happiest pile of mush ever.

“And we need to get cleaned up again.” Lazarus slowly drags himself up, then scoops me up, too. Kisses my forehead. Nose. Cheeks. Messy lips. “Even though I like you messy.”

“I like you messy, too. We’re so messed up.”

“Nothing soap and time won’t fix,” he whispers, and carries me back to the shower. “Nothing we can’t fix, baby.”

I cling to him. We’re home now. We’re together now. So I believe it.

By God, I will make that true.

“That’s right, Laz. Nothing we can’t fix.”

Chapter Twenty-Three: Family

“Okay. Charades or cards? Or board games? Honey, why don’t you get out the board games?”

Rhea lounges over Manny’s lap, pale white face on his shoulder as her long legs kick over his recliner-sized knees. “Because I ate too much to move,” she laughs.

“I’d like to point out that I don’t know how to play any board games—or charades,” Lazarus points out, raising a bottle of Santa’s Special, a cinnamon-spiced beer.

I laugh and hug my sweater to me. It’s warm and soft, a dark, deep blue. Rhea picked it. She said it matched my eyes. She kissed my forehead when she slipped it to me, and she and Manny both cried over the baby stuff.

Even though I currently can’t move and I’m afraid I’m about to let out a belch that might break a window, this has been the best Christmas of my life. The morning started with long, slow, loving sex and ended with apple pancakes in Manny and Rhea’s kitchen. Then, there were presents, lunch, and Christmas movies. There was a dinner that threatened to rupture my stomach because I couldn’t stop passing my plate for more helpings.

There was mistletoe, and a silent, secret moment when Lazarus pulled something out of his pocket. A copper heart on a chain.

“Where? When?” I whispered when he slipped it around my neck.

“Around one in the morning, when you were asleep. It’s made from copper wire, and the chain is one of Rhea’s that she asked me to solder months ago. It was in my toolbox. I’ll buy you something better soon.”