V Is for Veronica

If this is weird, that's because I was my own editor on this one. Forgive me. Part 9 after the new year!

Rakeem

"What did Janessa say?" she asks after a moment.

I pull my attention away from the crashing waves to Veronica bundled tight in my arms between my legs with a comforter wrapped around us both.

Surprisingly, a tremendous amount of last night involved catching up versus the sins of the flesh, but unsurprisingly, not about the elephant in the room. Speaking of surprises, it's surprising she even brought it up.

I bury my nose in her hair, smile, and breathe. It's 5 am. We should be sleeping, but we're sitting on the beach watching the sunrise.

I am easily distracted by literally everything about her.

Right now, for example, the way my face fits in the slope of her neck to her shoulder is occupying a lot of my focus. I test it out, running my lips along the curve. She gives me her neck with a tilt of her head; a soft sigh slips from between her perfect lips like smoke. Her softness. The peach fuzz. The way she fits my arms.

This can't end ever again.

"Key?" I hear the note of worry in her voice and I remember she asked me a question, and I'm just over here at church, worshipping.

"When she got in my face?" I clear my throat and clarify.

She laces her fingers with mine and my heart does jumping jacks.

Janessa said all kinds of shit, that's what Janessa said. But instead of saying that I say, "Why don't you tell me what

you

have to say?"

She works her throat and I can see how badly she doesn't want to talk about this. I falter, feeling guilty but I remember she brought it up.

I squeeze. My arms have been empty without her.

She draws her knees to her chin. I rest my chin on her shoulder and resist the urge to plant more kisses on those soft baby curls on the back of her neck. I've missed her so much.

The beach blanket she got for her birthday is still inside and instead we're on the full sized flat sheet she packed and a blanket from inside the house. She didn't want to get it dirty.

She has absolutely none of the new stuff with her, she didn't want to get any of it dirty. I told Rob this would happen, that all this shit is going to go carefully into her closet or a museum, but he wouldn't have any of it.

"I don't know where to start. Um, did you talk to Asa?" she clears her throat.

Asa...?

Oh, right. "Nah, I haven't had a proper conversation with that cat since the Christmas party, I think."

"When I introduced you?" She leans her head on my bicep.

I smile faintly. "You were explaining Asa's affinity for raising livestock and boasting about his musical endeavors."

She sighs, rubs her eyes and nods. "We fought about that later."

"Why?" I ask, surprised at the admission.

"He accused me of just wanting to show him off," she shakes her head. "I guess I was."

"What do you mean?"

She closes her eyes and shakes her head again. I lace my fingers with hers via the back of her hand and turn her palm face up. I trace the lines unique to her with my other hand until she shivers and brings my knuckles to her lips, kissing each one.

God, help me. I would sell my soul for her.

She sighs, worrying her lip.

"Showing Asa off," I prompt her.

She hesitates but pushes forward. "Okay, so, I have to back up. When I got with him I thought Asa was going to be different from other dudes—"

Hmm. I raise my chin.

"No, no, he was! He definitely was, but not in the way I expected. When we would argue or whatever it was never about the shit that I expected, you know?"

No, I have no idea but I don't interrupt.

"He and I..." here she takes a breath so big she could fill a hot air balloon. "He was...upset with me, but

not

because I wouldn't have sex with him—he never once got any type of way about that, he was totally chill about that."

The man's either a saint, amazing at masking, or 150% closeted until Jonny found him because I'ma say right now—

"He questioned my intentions in the relationship, like, said I loved the idea of him more than him himself? Does that make sense? Like, he wanted something deeper with me. I would call him perfect but he said I avoided any kind of talk with him about...see I don't know, because I told him about all my family stuff and about my day and shit, but like...my feelings? Does that make sense? Like, heart shit?"

I can tell by the sound of her last sentence she's making a face. I try not to laugh, the feeling of relief I feel when I hold her is palpable, and if I laugh I risk her shrieking like a banshee out of embarrassment and flying out of my arms.

"It does," I whisper and kiss her hair. I can't help myself.

I have so many questions, I have a whole interrogation's worth of questions but I hold back. She's finally talking. In a somewhat cryptic circular rambly stream of consciousness way, but it's happening.

"But Asa is Asa and he wanted to know why I wouldn't connect with him. He tried, Key," she looks down, and swallows hard playing with the rings on her fingers. "Like he tried so hard and I didn't know what to do with it. He was romantic and sweet and kind and I just..."

She has a tension about her and she takes so long that I almost ask a question but then she continues.

"It's just—All the others were just in such a rush it was hard to...I don't know. Have sex, I mean. With guys?"

"Are you asking me or telling me?" I raise my eyebrows. The morning is already warming up and so am I. I shed the blanket and lean back on my hands. "I wasn't there so I don't know."

"Yeah, no, I'm—shut up, Key!" She slaps my inner thigh and I grin. I want to bite her.

Focus, Rakeem.

"Girls are just easier. They're easier to trust, they befriend you first, you don't have to rush into it," she spills.

She pulls her hair up into a top knot as she talks. I do my best not to get distracted by the constellation of freckles on her shoulders and the way she hums between her words. The butterfly on her shoulder blade. Even the little scab on her bicep where she's obviously laid waste to a bug bite captures my attention.

She idly scratches around it.

"And then, things just fall into place, you know, and women are pretty too, so pretty," she sighs. "But it's not like that with guys. You can't be friends with a guy. It's not just this expectation that sex is going to come but like that's the goal. I'm not making any sense, am I? I hate feelings," she shifts her position. I can usually understand Viviese but I'm struggling here.

"I'm trying to keep up, baby," I hide a smile. "You find it harder to connect with dudes than chicks? Because of pressure about sex?"

"Yeah because—okay wow, that's succinct," she frowns, turning to look at me. She sticks out her bottom lip and I try to grab it.

"Key!" She slaps my hand.

She turns her full body around now, mirroring my position draping her bare legs over my hips. My gaze wanders between her legs, the space now open and inviting, her jean cutoffs riding high in the crease of her thigh.

I wet my lips. That's for me. I feel a stirring below and my eyes jump to her face before I make a complete fool of myself.

She's looking up at the clouds. Of course she is. I bet she sees shapes in them, like how I see shapes of her when my eyes close.

"That's what makes you so different; you're my friend," she whispers to the sky.

Shit.

Right in the heart, it hits me. I feel physical pain. Everything aches. For real? For

real

?

I must have made a sound or done something because she abruptly looks at me with an expression I can only describe as panic.

"No! I mean your interest in me isn't sexual first it's—Key," she gasps and grasps my shirt. "Fuck! I didn't mean— I can't explain it, how do I—"

Suddenly, she slides the rest of the way forward until she's straddling my lap, her body flush with mine and her mouth, my God— her mouth claims mine, wiping me of any thoughts beyond my immense desire to be full of her.

I drop from my palms to my elbows at the pressure of her body, at the insistence of her lips. Whatever "stirred" before is shaken now and my hips surge up against hers.

She grinds against my lap and I kiss her harder.

"Key, please," she breaks and gasps. "You were my friend first. You let me do it in my own time. I'm not afraid this time."

I stop, "Afraid?" I lay back with one hand behind my head so I can touch her, so I can run my fingers along her lush thighs.

She grabs my hand and flattens it over her heart in that way she has.

"Please just listen, please," she rushes out and she's on the verge of tears. "Because now I

can't

stop telling you. I need you to know.. I need you to know that I have always been...broken, okay? I always get cold feet with dudes, I panic. Just feeling them hard against me makes me want to run...I panic."

Her eyes are wide and scared and she clutches my hand tighter. I feel a flash of guilt because I am hard as hell and with the way she's straddling me, kneeling over me—she definitely knows. And I can feel her heat.

"It's okay, I'm listening, I'm here, babygirl."

She nods and takes a shaky breath. "I would fool around some, sure, hand job—but then I would get spooked because they'd want to do more and...and...I don't know! I'd ghost, or run away, or I don't know, I don't know."

She glances at me furtively, but I just brush the hair out of her eyes. She relaxes and sags.

"I almost got there with Asa. He never ever pushed, he didn't even seem to suggest it beyond the first few times I backed out. Our fights weren't about sex," she laughs, but I hear the emotion clog her throat. "They were because I avoided hanging out with him or talking to him about anything real. I didn't...I wouldn't...FUCK. Fuck."

She covers her face and chokes back a sob. "I was icing him out, Key, and it got so bad at one point, I would only hang out with him when other people were around, no matter how much he asked, and eventually...he just stopped asking for me. And now he's fucking happier without me."

She covers her face hide her tears but I pull her hands away and she collapses on my chest. The feel of her against my skin is medicine. I kiss her head and stroke her back.

I'm going to hell for being happy about this. When enough time passes that I'm sure she has nothing further to add, I hazard a chance to speak.

"You're okay, boo," I murmur.

She says some kind of shit into my chest.

I have no clue what the hell she's saying but it sounds moist. I disturb our cocoon to grab the bandana from my back pocket and I offer it to her. She stares at me.

"For your boogers," I explain. She starts to laugh, but she's so soggy with emotion, she pings me in the face with who knows what, which makes her immediately panic and start wiping my face with uncomfortable force.

Giggles, bonafide giggles, rise up in my chest like bubbles as she attacks my face with apologies, shrieking, and, of course, the bandana. As I grab her wrists to stop the assault, my giggles explode.

"Stop, ma, stop, it's okay," I rasp, turning my face from hers to avoid her onslaught amidst my laughter.

"You don't understand, I have to turn back time OR die right now there's no third option!" she howls and it just takes me out. She's finna wipe my damn face off my head.

"Baby, baby," I wheeze. "It's okay, it's okay!"

"It's NOT okay and absolutely never will be AGAIN, RAKEEM!"

I rock my hips up hard beneath her and she flails to keep her balance, successfully distracted.

"KEY!"

I tuck my hands behind my head and smile. She peers down at me and smiles back. For a moment, she's the girl I kissed on the rooftop all those years ago; young, shy, silly, and clever. Always beautiful. Always sincere.

"This is what I mean," she says softly. "We've never had a label, so there isn't pressure. You've just been my friend and

please

don't get twisted about the word friend."

For the record, girls are not easier. Not even a little bit.

"I'm sorry, Key," she gazes into my face, eyelashes dark with her tears. I wipe them from her face gently. She kisses my fingertips. I brush my thumb against her lips and she kisses that too. The feather light flutters she places on my palm send a torrent of electricity along my spine and I shudder. She takes the fleshy part between my thumb and index finger between her teeth.

Fuck.

"Wait," I rasp before I lose myself all too easily. "Help me understand. What does this have to do with Janessa?"

"What did she tell you?" she whispers against my palm. In spite of myself, I press my erection up against her and she undulates on top of me with a soft sigh.

"It's only ever been me," I breathe out with a whoosh.

She turns a deep scarlet. "I have slept with women."

I sit up on my forearms. I don't know that I actually believed it. Like I didn't and then I did, but now face to face? I study her features, trying to make sense of this.

"Come on, you're saying you've had pussy galore—"

"I wouldn't say that exactly, Mr. Bond, but sure—"

"But no dick."

"You're making it weird."

"

I'm

making it weird?"

"It's going to your head," she huffs.

I rock my hips up against her again, hard. "Absolutely. Both of them."

She laughs, still red faced, but I am in absolute awe of her. Time slows between us when those beautiful brown eyes land on mine, and I suck in a breath. Planting a hand on either side of my head, she touches the tip of her nose to mine.

"Seriously?" I whisper.

Her breath fans across my lips as she says, "Only you." The heat between us spikes, and we do what we're always drawn to do.

The tip of her tongue sweeps along the seam of my lips and I lose all reason. I sweep my palms over her breasts and feel her nipples pucker through her bathing suit top when she pushes her chest into my hands. She reaches behind herself and pulls the strings from around her neck baring her breasts and her hard dark nipples.

She's going to end me.

I can't hold it in. I roll her on her back and I'm yanking down her jean shorts one handed as I kiss her. My head is foggy with need. With the need to reaffirm everything I just heard, like somehow this will cast it in stone.

She's always been mine in some way. It's so stupid but that's what it feels like.

I push up to my knees, and she follows me up, kissing my throat and pushing down my boxers. I discard them in the sandy pile of our clothes, hook her up by the thighs forcing her back down.

I push her thighs against her, pinning her knees to her chest, and shove myself inside her. I'm ridiculous, but my lizard brain insists I have to do this, I have to fuck her like I'm signing a contract.

Vivi throws her arm over her mouth to muffle her sudden outburst then wraps her arms around her legs to pull them even tighter against her chest. I fuck her deep and hard and fast, and she's biting her forearm mewling and writhing.

My cock is flooded with her wet heat and I groan; she moans rhymically, steadily rising in pitch as I fuck her apart.

When I pull out, my cock is sloppy with her arousal.

I slide back into her, slower this time. I rest my forehead against hers as I work myself completely flush against her hips. We hold there, with me as deep inside her as possible, stretching her, filling her, the backs of her thighs slick with sweat and trembling with tension against my chest. I feel her clench around me and I shudder.

Sweat beads on her forehead and her cheeks like dew, and her eyelashes flutter like a hummingbird's wings. Short breaths come from between her lips, swollen and red from the grit of my stubble.

I'm trapped in this moment with her.

"Key," she breathes, and clenches around me hard, bearing down. I almost pass out from the sensation and a strangled groan escapes me. She pushes hard against me and it triggers me back into action.

I rear back and slam into her, feeling my dick hit her cervix and she screams into her arm, muffling herself and trapping her reaction between us. She grabs a towel to cover her face but I rip it off because I can't stand not looking at her.

She clamps her hands over her mouth instead. She can't stay still.

I kneel, grip her hips and thighs tight and begin a slow methodical sledgehammer rhythm—deliberate, steady and hard. Her tits bounce hard with every hit and I take a nipple in my mouth. Her eyes roll back and her mouth forms a perfect O.

Every time I bottom out I see stars. Every time I bottom out, she muffles a shriek. I start to pick up my pace. I know I'm not lasting long when her yelps transform into an extended deep and low hum from her chest. She bears down, strangling my cock with her cunt.

When I see her brush her nails against her fat nipples—for whatever reason, that's the line. I need to cum.

I push her thighs apart, holding the backs of her knees to her shoulders, testing her flexibility to the max by folding her in half. I pull her nipple in my mouth hard and tug on the other. She gasps loud and sharp and grunts as I take her like some kind of fucking animal until the tiny whimper that escapes her from my tongue on her tits pushes me over the edge.

I groan around a mouthful of her breast, and fill her to overflowing. I let go and roll my head back and just like every time I fuck her, I picture the rest of my life with her. I picture her heavy with pregnancy, I picture her in a white dress, I picture a house, I picture kids.

I picture her old and still shrieking hysterically when she's surprised and her silly faces. I picture her sleeping face when I wake, her chiding and scolding, her swatting me away from her, her pulling me back in and I don't realize that I'm emotional until a droplet splatters on the soft skin between her breasts.

I touch my face. It's wet. I look at her eyes, and the crease between her brows as she searches my face. Carefully, so fucking carefully, I pull out, hissing,violent shivers dancing along my spine.

She drops her legs with a groan holding a hand to her pussy and stretches her hips. I lower my face to hers. I'm rewarded with her sweet gaze, her gorgeous smile, and a soft kiss.

I am fucking hopelessly in love with her.

I slide down her body watching her face to finish cleaning up. She lets me between her legs...

Until she realizes what I'm finna do.

"No!" she squeaks and tries to clamp her thighs shut but I won't let her.

"You can't put your face there!" she hisses and wriggles but I've got her by the hips and I'm grinning.

"Key!" she hisses again.

"That's me, so unlock," I kiss her knees, and that gets a breathless laugh. I suckle her inner thigh in exchange for a whispered moan. As I near the swell at the top of her thigh, she writhes again. I've never done this before—eating my cum out of someone. I'm not sure what to expect, but I'm weirdly excited to have a first with her.

"Key! I need to shower, and you came and —-hhnngg," she garbles, the end of her sentence getting tangled in her teeth when I press my mouth against her and taste my sins.

The mixture of our flavors is heady; salty and tangy and unique and while jarring at first, the knowledge that this taste is exclusively ours is enough to make it wholly intoxicating.

Despite all appearances I rarely, if ever, go without a condom. Not even with Audra.

Veronica drives me to the brink of madness.

"Keyyy," she slurs softly as I drag my tongue up her slit to the hard little nub standing at attention. I bathe her pussy with my tongue, cleaning my mess carefully as thoroughly as possible.

Short little licks, long ones, teasing ones.

Her thighs have slackened, her resistance exchanged for a gentle roll of her hips. She's propped up on her elbows, head back, looking like a goddess. I snake my tongue inside her and she quivers with a sigh. I drink from her and lap up to her clit, kissing it and massaging it with my tongue, in little licks and long ones doing my best to draw this out.