“You sure you don’t want me to leave you alone with it?”
“I have other plans,” I say, but then I’m distracted when I notice the Galaga machine to the right, then a Donkey Kong.
“My God, you have your own arcade.”
He joins me by the games. “Would you be impressed if I told you I built them all myself?”
My eyes open wide. I can’t believe what he is saying. My brain is about to pop. “You built an arcade game?”
“You make it sound like I made a time machine out of a Delorean. It wasn’t that hard.”
“Wasn’t that hard?” I parrot back. “How do you make an arcade game?”
“I dusted off an old computer, found some source code from this non-profit development project that preserves old arcade games, tweaked it up a bit and then built the cabinet.”
“This is amazing. You have some serious skills,” I say.
“And you haven’t even seen me surf. I can ride some serious waves.”
“You can ride this wave,” I say suggestively. “You can make this wave.” I hop up on the Qbert, and sit on the console, my legs dangling in front of the machine. I glance down at my skirt, and he gets the hint.
“You on my Qbert machine might possibly blow my mind. But I’m willing to try.”
He runs his hands through my hair and kisses me hard, as if he needs to kiss me first for foreplay or something. But even a whisper of a kiss from him is all I need. Besides, I’ve been ready for this since the karaoke bar.
He moves to my neck, kissing me there, then pulls off my shirt, cupping my br**sts with my bra on. He unhooks it in seconds flat, and his tongue flicks over a nipple, then the other one and I lean my head back and say his name, and that sound moves him further down my body, as he kisses my belly, then pushes up my skirt. He’s gentle as he lifts my butt and wiggles off my underwear, careful to make sure I don’t bonk the joystick. Then he bends lower, kissing the inside of my thighs, softly, trailing his tongue from my knee all the way up, then darting over to the other leg.
I am electric and fiery from every touch of him, and I am dying to feel his mouth on me. I want to pull him between my thighs so he can taste me, lick me, press his lips against my warm wetness, and do all the things he said he wants to do.
“Chris,” I moan, since he’s teasing me, toying with me, making me want him more.
He nibbles lightly on my thigh, as his strong hands spread my legs wider. I accidentally bump the start button, and even though he hasn’t put a quarter in the game, the theme music from Qbert begins. I laugh, and so does he, but then my laugh turns into a long, low moan at the first flick of his tongue on me. He makes this sound too, like a rumble, as he tastes how ready I am for him. It’s like an altered state I’ve entered, and my whole body is crackling with heat. He is magnificent, his tongue divine as he traces delirious lines up and down my center that make me whimper.
My noises drive him, and each sound that tumbles from my lips makes him hungrier for me, and we become this perfect feedback loop of wanting, and giving, and taking as I grow wetter and hotter with every single touch. I am in heaven with him, I am in a white-hot dream. I grip the edge of the game console as he consumes me with his mouth, his tongue, his lips.
His mouth was tailor-made for me. He goes down on me like he’s kissing me and devouring me at the same time, somehow both soft and hungry in the fevered slide of his delicious lips against my very core, driving me wild.
Then his hands slink under my thighs and he lifts my legs onto his shoulders, draping them over his back. I feel so completely vulnerable with him, as if I am giving myself to him completely, but I’m not scared anymore, because he wants what I have to give. He wants me, all of me, only me, and that’s why I’m nearly panting as I say his name, and tell him how good it feels, because it does, it feels good, it feels great, it feels like everything is happening for the first time, and the best time, and that it won’t be the last time. It’ll be the start of something amazing with him.
Then he brings me there, and he shatters me with an orgasm that’s as endless as it is intense. I let go of the side of the game, and I grab his hair, his ridiculously soft hair that slides through my fingers, and I hold onto him as I come hard, with the kind of soundtrack that drives neighbors jealous.
Soon, when I can form words again, and when he’s standing and looking at me with those dreamy eyes that say everything I want, I kiss him, tasting myself on him, tasting what he just did to me. He loops his arms around me, and I lean my head on his chest. “That was out of this world. You know how to go down on a girl.”
He kisses my forehead. “I know how to go down on you because I want you. Because I can’t get enough of you.”
“You are the best boyfriend I’ve ever had.”
“Good. Let’s keep it that way.”
Those words feel a bit like a promise, and that promise feels a bit like falling in love.
Chapter Seventeen
The afterglow lasts through Sunday as I spend the afternoon strolling through my favorite boutiques in Noe Valley with Hayden and Erin.
Erin prowls through a rack, then shows me an adorable cream sweater with little pearl buttons and tiny baby blue embroidered birds. “It’s so kitschy cute I almost can’t stand it,” she says as she holds it against my chest. She looks at Hayden. “She should wear this on her next date, don’t you think?”
“Definitely.” Hayden nods her approval. Then taps her lips with her index finger, and furrows her brow. “But for what guy?”
“JP?” Erin asks, then shakes her head. “Nope. Chris. Wear this on your next date with Chris.”
Erin thrusts the sweater into my hands, and I know this is the moment. This is when I should tell them. I should let them know that the dates with Chris are real and that the sweater could truly be for me to wear with him. That the contest is over and I have a boyfriend rather than a husband. And I like it that way. No, I love it that way.
“So, um,” I start to say, then my voice becomes vapor.
And it hits me why. It’s not that I’m afraid of disappointing them. They care about me more than a contest. They’ll forgive me for lying about his age. They’ll probably even laugh about it, and about my worries over breaking an oath that was all fun and games. What they’ve truly wanted for me all along is to heal from heartbreak. That’s precisely what makes me clam up. Fear of heartbreak. Of getting hurt. Of being broken. Because there’s a part of me that knows as soon as I give voice to what’s happening with Chris, then I may very well have to tell them someday about it ending. It’s as if I am trying to hold it in my hands, like a fragile glass globe and keep it safe until it’s immune from heartache, until it’s safe from the breaking.