Use Me Up

(deleted scene from an early draft of Sabbatical)

“Okay, I think we can call it a day,” Toni said in a soft voice full of awe.

They’d braved the worst heat of the summer to start planting flowers along the perimeter of her backyard. For the past few weeks, Mike had been skipping the gym to reserve all his energy for Toni and her seemingly endless list of home renovations. Anything to spend just a few hours in her presence.

“You sure? We only have a few more left,” he said, gesturing toward the trays of seedlings nestled in the shade. He was kneeling in the grass and turned to look up at her, standing over him with a smile on her face and one arm pressed against her forehead to shield her eyes from the sun.

He forced himself to look away and smooth his own gloved hand over the small twigs of seedlings he’d been carefully planting in neat rows.

“I think we did okay,” he said carefully.

“We’re not done,” Toni said quickly because she always had to be precise.

Mike sighed and turned to smile up at her. “We’re doing okay,” he said gently.

She sucked her bottom lip into her mouth, but her eyes squinted at the corners, betraying the smile she was clearly trying to hide. It was her turn to look away; he watched as her bright eyes surveyed her new backyard. A month ago, it’d been an eyesore, but now there was enough room for Paw to run around if he wanted to, which he didn’t. Apparently, now that the yard was clear, Toni’s cat just wanted to nap under the picnic table, sometimes watching over Mike and Toni while they worked. Mike knew she was proud of the work they’d done, but he didn’t take it in with Toni because he was too focused on her.

She wore an old pair of jean overalls and a sports bra underneath. There was a strip of sunscreen under her chin that hadn’t sunk into her skin yet. The knees on her pants were caked in dirt and her too-big gardening gloves were slipping off her hands, but she looked happy, and happiness suited Toni.

And making Toni happy suited Mike.

Her lip slipped free from her teeth after a while, and she finally let her smile fully bloom. “Yeah,” she agreed. “We are. Although I kinda miss the derelict lot vibes I had going out here.”

Mike rolled his eyes, pulling his gloves off. “No, you don’t.”

Toni laughed softly. “Okay, I don’t. I just can’t believe how much we’ve done in so little time. I bet this isn’t how you planned to spend your summer,” she teased.

“Not at all,” Mike agreed, “but I don’t have any regrets.” It might have been the sun, but even just looking at her made him feel like there was a volcano erupting in his gut.

Toni’s lips parted, and he watched, riveted, as her tongue moved over her bottom lip. “Yeah, me either,” she said in a voice that sounded like a hot, breathy moan.

He had to look away. Mike usually had an iron grip on his feelings when he was with Toni. For years, he’d managed to hide how he felt about her from everyone — except Alejandro. It hadn’t been easy to see anything else but her when she wore something lowcut or tight or short or anything. It hadn’t been easy to pretend like he felt nothing when her knee bumped his under a table or she lost her footing and reached for him rather than fall. In fact, it had been torture when Toni had leaned across him at a conference table to whisper to Marie, mashing her breasts against his forearm and filling his nose with the scent of her perfume, but he’d managed it.

He’d waited patiently for the day when he didn’t have to pretend anymore, but he wasn’t there yet. Sure, he knew very well how soft both her lips were and how good it felt to sink inside her after a long day of waiting for it. He knew how good it felt to have her wrap her shaking arms and legs around him, holding on for dear life as an orgasm ripped through her body, but wherever they’d found themselves this summer hadn’t provided clarity for what lay ahead.

And even though he hated to admit it, the only thing stopping him from asking her outright what they were was the fear that he wouldn’t like the answer he received.

He stood from the flower bed and shoved his gloves into his back pocket. When he looked back to Toni, he found her licking her lips, her gaze south of his chest.

“Hungry?” he asked with a smirk on his lips and in his voice.

Her gaze flew to his face, and she took a step back, the exact behavior that had him shivering in his work boots at even the prospect of asking her to think beyond this summer. “Uh, yeah. Yeah. Let’s get cleaned up, and I’ll order some takeout.”

She turned away and walked, stiff and confused, toward the patio.

Paw shrieked when she plucked him from under the table to carry him inside.

“I’m not hungry for takeout,” he mumbled under his breath.

“Huh?” she asked, turning around, clutching her cat to her chest.

“Nothing,” Mike called, jogging toward her. “I was just thinking of what to order.” He smiled through the pain of lying to her, and she smiled happily back in return.

“You said you hadn’t had Mediterranean in a while.”

“I did?” he asked with a lifted eyebrow.

“Yeah. Last Thursday, remember?”

He didn’t, but it mattered to him that Toni did. “Oh, yeah. Sounds good.”

The walked into Toni’s house together, their shoulders brushing together with every other step.

**

Mike walked out of the downstairs bathroom in a pair of gray sweatpants and a black tank top, enjoying the air conditioning on full blast for the first time in hours.

“Food ordered. Body clean. Cat fed. Good day,” Toni called as she bounced down the stairs.

He turned toward the sound of her voice. Her bare legs appeared first. He slowed his steps as her knees came into view, the hem of her negligee swishing around her thighs. A lump formed in his throat and another in his pants.

His gaze was focused on her skin — it looked soft, softer than he could imagine — as he tried to make his voice sound normal. “You planning a new career as a poet?”

On the bottom step, she turned on the ball of her foot, and he just managed to get his eyes on her face in time.

“Thinking about it,” she laughed. “I think I could make it.”

She bounced to a stop in front of him. He only kept his eyes on her face through sheer force of will. “I bet you do.”

“Wanna watch a movie while we wait?” she asked excitedly.

He shook his head and moved past her. “No. Fuck no. I’m not watching Alien Spider Attack ever.”

“Alien Spider Attack 2,” Toni said. “The first one’s trash, but they came back with a vengeance.” She was following excitedly at his heels as he stalked into the living room.

“No.”

“I thought you liked me,” she teased.

He rolled his eyes. “Not that much.”

She laughed him off. He wondered if it was because she knew he was lying. “Come on, it’s only seventy-three minutes.”

“Why do you know that? Never mind, you know that because you’ve probably bullied other people into watching that shitty movie.”

“It’s not shitty,” she cried, but then corrected herself. “Okay, I mean, some parts—”

“Nope,” he said, plopping onto the couch.

She fell onto the couch and pulled her legs up to sit on her heels. She leaned into his side. “Come on, I think you’ll like it.”

He smirked at her. “You really expect me to believe that?”

She shrugged. “I can hope.”

“You can. Forever.” He laughed.

“What if we did a swap?”

He raised his eyebrows. “Swapped…what?”

She rolled her eyes. “Dirty,” she whispered, her gaze falling to his mouth briefly. “I just meant, you watch Alien Spider Attack 2 and I’ll watch a movie you like.”

He scoffed. “I’m good.”

“Come on,” she whined, leaning forward to press all her weight into his arm. He could tell the difference in the softness of her breasts and her stomach. The lump in his pants was growing. Mike was losing control of himself. “There has to be something you want.”

It was the sun. It had drained his power reserves, making it impossible to resist shooting his shot when she was giving him an opening as sweet as this.

He turned to face her but leaned his head on the wall behind the couch. It brought their mouths closer, but not too close to overwhelm either of them. Yet.

“I want you to sit on my face,” he said in a voice so rough his throat hurt.

Toni’s mouth fell open in surprise, and the faintest groan escaped her lips. These were the kind of moments he’d been dreaming about for so long; the ones he didn’t want to end.

A gentle silence settled between them, and Mike let it linger for as long as Toni wanted. He’d never be in a rush with her. Besides, the quiet was always his favorite; those moments when words couldn’t get in the way of what he was feeling. Heated, silent seconds when he didn’t have to hate himself for lying to her about the depth of what he was feeling. The quiet was the easiest.

“You can’t be serious,” she breathed eventually. But she said those words while her gaze was locked on his mouth.

He inched his body closer. “You sure about that?” he rasped.

She let out a dry laugh, but she didn’t answer.

He inched closer, and this time he lifted the back of his head from the wall. Now their mouths were closer. Close enough he could taste her minty toothpaste on the air between them. Close enough that if he asked her to kiss him, their lips would have to touch just to make the request.

Toni kept him on his toes. He never knew what she might throw at him from one minute to the next. He’d always loved that about her. So, Mike studied her face while she considered his proposition.

“Are you serious?” she whispered.

Mike couldn’t figure out what the note of wonder in her voice meant, so he answered honestly and hoped for the best. “I’ve always been serious about you, Antonia.” Her gasp was so sexy it made his stomach clench. “So that’s my offer. If you want me to watch Alien Spider Invasion 4, then sit on my face.”

She rolled her eyes at his purposeful mangling of the film title before she leaned forward, closing the centimeters of space between their lips. “Deal,” she whispered straight into his mouth.

The next few moments were painfully ordinary.

They kissed — soft, slow, but hungry — moaning into one another’s mouths. He traced the careful curves of her body through the silky material of her negligee. She was naked underneath, and he groaned as he filled his palms with her ass cheeks. She licked the groan from his tongue.

“I wanna taste you,” he whispered against her lips. She smiled, standing from the couch, keeping their mouths locked until they had to part.

Mike laid back on the couch excitedly like he was presenting himself on a platter for her.

Because he was.

She reached for the hem of her negligee, and he shook his head. “Leave it on.”

A shiver moved through her body, almost hiding her nervous nod. Toni steadied herself with a hand on his crotch, and he groaned aloud. “Fuck.”

His muscles clenched as she massaged his erection, stroking him through his sweatpants. Mike closed his eyes and shuddered, enjoying the feeling of her touch, but only for a few moments. If he didn’t intervene, Toni would take over this moment and have him in her mouth and moaning her name in a heartbeat. That would be a great turn of events under normal circumstances, but Mike didn’t want tonight to be normal; he wanted it to be memorable.

“Not yet,” he panted, covering her hand with his.

She couldn’t stroke him, but she did squeeze his shaft because if there was anything Mike knew about Toni, it was that she just had to get the last word in.

Or the last squeeze.

They looked at one another over the length of Mike’s body. “That wasn’t the deal,” he said. “If you want me to watch your movie, then get up here and give me what I need.” It was an unfortunate slip of the tongue. He wanted her on his face. He wanted her to know that he wanted her, but he didn’t want her to know that he needed her. Not yet.

He moved his free hand to the back of her leg, caressing the skin behind her knee softly before he caressed her upper thigh.

Her skin was just as smooth as he knew it would be, but hot, like they were still standing under the midday sun. And she was trembling under his touch.

She nodded absently, and together, they got her moving over him.

One knee dug into the couch cushion by his right ear, and he kissed the inside of it as the other followed suit. He kissed a path under the hem of her lingerie, breathing deep to smell her soap, her lotion, her pussy.

His hands caressed the backs of her thighs, and he pulled at her legs, positioning her pussy directly over his face.

“I…I’ve never done this before,” Toni finally admitted.

He smiled into the cavern of her legs before kissing down another thigh.

Mike was too overwhelmed to talk her through this. Thankfully, Toni liked to talk when she was nervous.

“Do I…? How should I…” Mike lifted his eyes to her face. She licked her lips but didn’t look away. “Do you really want me to sit on your face?”

Mike started to pull her lingerie up her legs and bunched the fabric at her waist with one fist. He smiled against her skin. “You have no idea.” He massaged her ass with his free hand, his fingers dipping between her legs.

She lowered her weight onto his face in degrees, and he didn’t rush her. He couldn’t have even if he wanted to. It would be a betrayal of all those years he’d waited to rush through a single moment with her. Besides, for every bundle of seconds they waited, her body loosened under his touch — hips circling above him, pussy moving closer to his mouth by degrees, the scent filling his nostrils and the promise of her taste keeping his heart pumping from one beat to the next.

Her ass settled on his chin and her pussy on his mouth and the taste of her flooded his tongue He licked her pussy and she moaned loudly. Somewhere in the back of his mind he registered Paw’s aggrieved meow, but that was it.

His lips circled her clit, and he hollowed his cheeks sucking on it while the tip of his tongue teased her sensitive ball of nerves. Toni was always so responsive, but this was on another level. Somehow, sitting above him, thighs splayed, his lips parted by the pressure of her sex seemed to overwhelm her. She touched her stomach and pulled the straps of her gown over her shoulders to bare her breasts. Mike started teasing her wet lips as she rolled her nipples between her fingers. He watched her try to stifle her cries, so he sucked her clit harder until she was bold enough to cry out.

When one orgasm rippled through her, he held her up by a firm grip on her waist.

He jutted his chin forward to tease her opening with hard pressure until she was holding onto the back of the couch with one hand, hiccupping from the depth of her pleasure.

And when the second orgasm hit her like a Mack truck, he maneuvered his hand between her legs from the back to slip two fingers inside her.

His dick was aching, but he didn’t care. He could stay like this forever if she wanted, happily letting her water his beard with her arousal. And if she forced the issue, he’d hold up his end of the bargain watching her shitty movie, all the while plotting something else to trade so they could experience this again.

He could feel her next orgasm coming and started to lap at her clit at the same pace as he fucked her with his fingers. She was shaking on top of him, every inch of her bare skin covered in sweat.

But then her doorbell interrupted.

It caught them both off guard, and Toni was out of his hold before he could stop her.

Her legs were weak, and she stumbled. He reached for her, but she fell away from his grasp.

“That’s d-dinner,” Toni stammered. “I-I should get that.”

Mike was panting. His mouth, chin, and neck were wet. He could smell and taste Toni with every breath. He wasn’t done yet.

And neither was she, based on the way her pupils were blown and her hard nipples seemed to point right at him. But Toni was stubborn and hell bent on making everything — even using his mouth — harder than it needed to be.

It took her two tries to stand, and when she did, her eyes took him in, hungrier than before. Mike was just about to reach for her when the doorbell rang again.

Toni turned quickly away and pulled up her nightgown with shaking hands.

Mike watched her until she disappeared into the foyer and then fell back on the couch. He ran his wet palm over his beard while he licked Toni’s wetness from his lips, listening as she recovered their dinner.

“Come back,” Mike called as soon as he heard the door close.

She only hesitated for a second before the sound of her bare feet echoed on the tile as she rushed back to him.

It was a start.