Chapter 2: Morning After
Hugo woke to the quiet, a softness that seemed woven from the lingering scent of her hair on his pillow. Morning light, thin and pale, slanted through the gap in his curtains and painted her in strokes of honey and porcelain. Britney was asleep, a strand of black silk across her parted lips. She lay on her back, the blanket fallen to her waist, her body a map of delicate shadows and plains. Her small, pink-tipped breasts rose and fell with a slow, hypnotic rhythm. The smooth dip of her stomach, the faint line of dark hair leading down. He was painfully, immediately hard, the memory of the night before a visceral current under his skin. As if sensing his wakefulness, her eyelashes fluttered.
Her big eyes opened, still hazy with sleep, and found his. A slow, private smile curved her lips. "Bonjour," she whispered, her voice gravelly.
"Good morning," he murmured, his accent thicker in the drowsy quiet.
She shifted, turning onto her side to face him, and the sheet slid fully away. The morning light adored her. She stretched one arm, her fingers brushing his cheek, then tracing the line of his jaw. Her touch was feather-light, exploratory. She leaned in and kissed him, a slow, deep morning kiss that tasted of sleep and shared secrets. He could feel the heat of her body, the press of a nipple against his arm. He groaned into her mouth.
Her finger left his lips, trailed a wet path down his throat, his chest, the tense plane of his stomach. She touched his dick under the bedsheet, her eyes never leaving his. She brushed the sheet away and he sprang free, thick and already flushed. "Fuck," he breathed, the word a puff of air.
"Mm," she agreed, a spark of mischief in her eyes. She slid down the bed, her hair a dark curtain pooling on his stomach. She looked up at him once more, then lowered her head.
Her tongue was a hot, wet point of contact first, licking a slow stripe from base to tip. He jerked, his fists clenching the sheets. She took him into her mouth, all at once, and the heat was so profound, so consuming, he saw a white flash behind his eyelids. Her lips stretched tight around his girth, her head beginning to bob with a rhythmic, practiced hunger. She sucked hard, hollowing her cheeks, her tongue swirling around the sensitive head with each retreat. One of her hands cupped his balls, rolling them gently, while the other braced against his thigh.
"Britney… I…" he stammered, the words dissolving into a choked gasp.
She hummed around him, the vibration travelling straight to his spine. The wet, slick sounds of her mouth on him filled the small room, obscene and beautiful. Her pace increased, her fist joining her mouth, pumping the base of his shaft in time with her sucking. His hips lifted off the mattress, driving deeper into the tight, wet heaven of her throat. He could feel the tight coiling in his gut, the inevitable, rushing release.
"Oh god, I'm gonna…" he warned, his voice strangled.
She pulled off with a soft, wet pop, her hand working him furiously, her eyes locked on his face. "Come," she commanded, her voice husky. Her stroke was relentless, her thumb smearing the fluid leaking from his tip. He bucked, a sharp cry tearing from his throat as his orgasm hit him. It pulsed out in thick, white stripes, spattering across his stomach, his chest, some landing on the crumpled bedsheet she gripped beside him. His body convulsed, shuddering with the aftershocks as she milked him through the last of it.
She sat back on her heels, wiping the back of her hand across her glistening lips. A satisfied, almost feline smile played on her face. "That," she said, climbing back up to kiss his shoulder, "was thank you for last night."
He could only manage a breathless laugh, his body humming, spent.
She glanced at the cheap digital clock on his nightstand. "Shit. I have to run. I'm meeting my accountant downtown. In, like, an hour." She swung her legs out of bed, the elegant line of her back, the curve of her ass, a fresh torture. "Do you mind if I take a shower?" "I don't have time to go back home". He ended her over a fresh clean towel and she padded, gloriously naked, to the bathroom. He heard the shower hiss to life.
He lay there, adrift on a sea of endorphins, listening to the domestic sound of water running. When she emerged, her skin was flushed pink from the heat, droplets of water clinging to her collarbones and the ends of her hair. She had a towel wrapped around her torso, tucked snugly above her breasts.
As she walked past the bed, searching for her scattered clothes, he reached out. His hand closed around her wrist. It was damp and warm. She looked down, startled, then smiled.
"One minute," he murmured, pulling her gently.
"I'm late," she laughed, but let herself be drawn. He sat up, his fingers finding the tucked edge of the towel and pulling it loose. It fell to the floor in a damp heap. She stood before him, fully revealed again, water beaded on her skin.
He kissed her stomach, his hands on her hips, guiding her back onto the bed. He pushed her down, gently, until she was on her back. He knelt between her legs, parting them with his shoulders. The scent of her, clean soap and something fundamentally her, filled his senses. She was already wet, her pink folds glistening. He didn't hesitate. He leaned in and buried his face in her.
His tongue was flat and firm, a long, slow lick from her entrance to the tight, swollen bud of her clit. She gasped, her hands flying to his hair, not pushing him away but holding him there. He circled her clit, teasing, then fastened his mouth around it, sucking gently. Her thighs tensed, bracketing his head, her heels digging into the small of his back. "Oh, Hugo… yes, right there… just like that."
He fucked her with his tongue, delving deep, drinking her in. Her hips began to move against his mouth, a clumsy, desperate rhythm. He slid two fingers inside her, curling them, finding the rough spot that made her cry out. He worked her with his mouth and his hand, her moans growing louder, more ragged. Her fingers tightened in his hair, pulling almost to the point of pain.
"Don't stop, please, please don't stop," she begged, her voice a broken chant.
He felt her inner muscles clench around his fingers, a fluttering pulse that turned into a fierce, rhythmic grip. Her whole body arched off the bed, a silent scream on her lips, before she collapsed back onto the mattress with a long, shuddering sigh. He lapped gently at her, slowing, easing her down.
Before she could fully catch her breath, he moved. He turned her onto her stomach. She went willingly, pliant in her afterglow. He positioned himself behind her, his cock, hard again and slick with her arousal, nudging at her entrance. He placed a hand on the small of her back, pressing down gently. She understood, flattening herself against the mattress, her face turned to the side on his pillow.
He entered her in one slow, deep push. The tight, wet heat engulfed him, so much more intense from this angle. She was tight, and he felt every ridge, every contour. He groaned, a sound ripped from deep in his chest. "You feel… incredible."
He set a pace that was deep and slow, each thrust a full, claiming penetration. He loved the sound of the wet slap of skin on skin, her muted cries crushed into the pillow. He gripped her hips, his fingers digging into the soft flesh, pulling her back onto him with every drive. He could see where they were joined, the sleek, glistening length of him disappearing into her over and over.
"Slow" she whimpered, her voice muffled. "Fuck… so big, so deep."
He leaned over her, covering her body with his, one hand sliding under her to find her clit again, rubbing firm circles as he pistoned into her. Her breath came in sharp, shattered gasps. The second orgasm took her quickly, a tense, quivering clenching around him that spurred his own. He drove into her one last, brutal time, burying himself to the hilt as he came, a hot, pulsing release that seemed to drain his very soul. He collapsed on top of her, his weight pressing her into the mattress, both of them slick with sweat and spent.
Minutes passed, marked only by their slowing breaths. Finally, with a soft sound, he withdrew. She slid out from under him and got up without a word, picking up her towel to dry herself quickly before gathering her clothes. She dressed with her back to him—the black lace underwear, the simple thighs, the long green sweater dress. She finger-combed her hair at his small mirror.
When she turned, she was Britney from the museum again, polished, put-together. Except for the faint flush still high on her cheeks and the dark, knowing look in her eyes.
"I am definitely an hour late now," she said, slinging her bag over her shoulder. She walked to the bed, leaned down, and kissed him, slow and deep. As she pulled away, she whispered, her lips brushing his ear, "Do you think my accountant would know how much of a slut you turned me into last night?"
Then she was gone, the click of the apartment door a final, definitive period.
The silence that followed was immense. Hugo fell back onto the sheets, which smelled of sex and her perfume and his own sweat. Exhaustion, profound and heavy, pulled him under almost immediately. His sleep was thin and fevered.
He dreamed of her mouth, of the supple curve of her spine as he turned her over, of the raw, open sound she made when he filled her. He dreamed of her on her knees in the dim gallery, her fingers smudged with ink, looking at him with those sparkly eyes. The dreams were vivid, visceral, a rerun of sensation that left him half-aroused and aching even in sleep. He woke some time later, the afternoon sun now in a different slant, alone in the rumpled wreckage of his bed. He stared at the ceiling, a strange emptiness opening up inside him, wide and waiting. Did it even happened?