“Let go?” Her long nails gently scraped along my back and shoulders as I licked and sucked her amazing body.
“I’m afraid to let go. I’m afraid of who I’ll become,” I said between tasting her skin.
“I don’t know what makes you say that, but you don’t have to be afraid of that. Not with me. I’m here too now. I’ll always bring you back.”
I dropped my head to the space between her breasts. I held her close to me. How was she so damn intuitive? How did she always say so much just right? I trusted her. If she said I could lose control with her maybe I could…maybe I could allow myself to just relax a little.
“Although if this was any indication of what you are like when you lose control, I might not want to reel you in.” She laughed and yelped when I bit the area right above her ribcage, just below where the fullness started.
I growled and went lower, deciding in that moment to show her just what happened when I took what I wanted without thinking.
* * *
Suzie
I had no idea men were capable of so much giving and so little taking. I lay in Ford's arms for hours, completely dazed by what had just happened. He'd given me orgasms. Plural. Multiple. A LOT. All different ways and took nothing for himself. I offered too. But he seemed to be proving some sort of point to himself.
We were on our backs, holding hands. At some point, he joined me under the covers as the chill set in. He kept his pants on though. He made it very clear how important it was for him to keep his pants on. Something about lying in bed and holding hands and not having sex was the most intimate thing I’d ever done. I’d had sex when I was fourteen. I never got to experience innocent romance.
I really, really liked it.
“So. Tell me how engineering has anything to do with what you want to do?” I broke the silence to ask.
I could almost hear him frown in the darkness. I had no idea what time it was, but somewhere between ten p.m. and three am.
“Are you familiar with Maslow’s hierarchy of basic needs?”
“Remind me,” I teased.
“It’s this pyramid of items humans need to survive. The base is formed by the physical, the things we need to survive: shelter, water, food. Sex. And above that, there are safety needs and so on, so that at the very top there is self-actualization. This means that in order for anybody to have passion for education or desire to better themselves, they have to have their basic needs fulfilled, like a place to live, clothes on their back, food in their bellies.”
“Huh.” I thought of how run-down my trailer had gotten since Momma left. I was working too much to make ends meet and didn’t have the time or energy to care about having a flower box or fresh paint. I interrupted him after it was clear he’d only just started. “Ford, I know you know your stuff. You know you know your stuff, but you need to give me the elevator pitch. We need a quick, punchy line to help sell you.”
“You make it sound like a business transaction.”
“It is. That’s the world we live in. At the party, people will want to know what you are about, and I want to be able to give them the quick pitch.”
He groaned.
“No offense,” I squeezed his hand, “but you don’t want them to glaze over from boredom and look for the quickest exit.”
“That never happens.”
I waited a beat. “Sure. Never. Still, let’s think of one anyway. Pretend it’s the Winter Ball and you have thirty seconds or less to get my attention. In this scene, I’m an old, wealthy white guy whose time and money are way more important than anybody else's.” I sat up and clicked on the light next to the bed. When I turned back, I’ve lost Ford. I could be using the sexiest of engineering lingo and he’d not hear me. He stared at my chest, unblinking and fuzzy eyed. He leaned forward and sucked a nipple into his mouth.
“We are not off to a great start.” I gently shoved him away.
“I’m sorry. If all investors were you, I’d be screwed. I can’t talk to you. I can’t think straight around you.”
I laughed but pulled the sheet around my shoulders. “Okay, okay seriously. Sell me. Tell me how to understand so I can say it right if anybody talks to me.”
“I’m not good at this.”
I thought for a second. “Just explain it to me then. Why do you do what you do? Who are you trying to help?”
“The children.”
I blinked my surprise. “What?”
