Author's Note

This chapter contains graphic sexual content. If that's not your cup of tea, please skip it! Everybody else, you're welcome.

Also, just a warning that the next update will probably not be out quite so quickly as the previous chapters, and apologies for that. Thanks to all my readers and reviewers!

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Summer (Part 2)

We walked the mile and a half back home with our arms around each other, leaning against each other like we were in danger of falling over. We didn't talk, but we couldn't stop touching each other. I ran my hand up and down the smooth muscles of his back and shoulders, and his hand rested on the exposed small of my back, making little circles on my bare skin. We passed a few other people on our way, but the streets were mostly empty; nobody wanted to miss the food after the dance. Joel's hand slipped through the open back of the shirt and he ran the backs of his fingers up my side, brushing over my ribs and the side of my breast, which made me giggle and shiver at the same time.

He made a frustrated sound. "C'mon." He moved his hand down to my waist and used it to steer me into a darkened alley, where he pressed my shoulders back against the wall and crashed his lips down on mine, kissing me with a ferocity that bordered on desperation. The rough brick dug into my shoulderblades as he traced a line of kisses down my jaw, and I couldn't suppress a moan when I felt his teeth sink into my neck, his tongue moving in hot circles against the sensitive skin.

Joel pulled back and looked at me, his eyes dark with desire. "Jesus fuck, Ellie. You keep making noises like that, and I may not make it home."

I smiled back at him, breathing hard. "You better try, old man. I'm not going to let my first time be a quickie up against the wall."

He winced, and I kicked myself. I'd gone and called him old man again, I realized. But it turns out, that wasn't what bothered him. "Ellie, baby g—" he stopped himself from calling me baby girl, but only just. "Baby." That was better. A little less loaded, anyway. "I probably shouldn't...Are you sure you don't want your first time to be with someone...a little more your own age?" He stepped back from me, his frown drawing deep lines on his face.

Damn it. What now? Why was he pulling back from me again? I studied his face. The desire was obviously still there, so that was all right. And there was a longing in his eyes that made me ache. I understood that one too. We both needed this human connection. But there was also fear, and...was that shame? Was Joel ashamed that he wanted me?

"Joel," I said slowly, "do you love me?"

He closed his eyes and blew his breath out his nose. "You know I do Ellie. But I—"

"Then shut up and listen to me." I chose my words carefully. I had a feeling I only had one chance to get this right, and so much hung in the balance that I was almost shaking. "You may be old as fuck, but I want you, Joel. You. There is no other man on the fucking planet I would choose. You're my whole world. There is no one else for me. But if you don't feel the same way about me..."

He kissed me, hard, and my head thumped back against the wall. It made me see stars. "I'm gonna spank you for calling me old as fuck." The combination of humor and lust in his eyes made me shiver.

I bit his lip again and breathed into his mouth, "Fuck, yes."

There was no turning back now, and no more talking. We somehow managed to stumble back to our house and upstairs to Joel's bedroom. His hands were everywhere now, squeezing my shoulders, caressing my ass. His beard was silky against the skin of my neck when he kissed me there again, and I could feel his broad hands fumbling with the ties across the back of my shirt. One was knotted, and I felt him grunt in frustration against my neck.

"Just break it," I gasped.

His shoulder muscles bunched under my hands as he pulled, and then there was a ripping noise as the tie broke free. He stepped back and said, "Take it off for me."

Without a moment of hesitation, I lifted the shirt over my head and threw it across the room, standing there in front of him naked from the waist up while he raked me with his hot gaze. I found myself trying to cover up, not my breasts, but the scar on my right forearm, with my left hand.

He grabbed both of my hands and pulled them apart, turning my arm over to expose the bite scar. "Ellie, you're perfect." I gasped as he ran his tongue from my right shoulder to the inside of my elbow, and then over the white mess of scar tissue that comprised my bite wound. "This," he kissed the scar, "brought you to me. Don't feel like you have to hide it. Not from me. Okay?"

I nodded, unable to speak. He'd known. He'd known how much I hated that scar, and how self-conscious I was about it, and he had made it beautiful with just a few words. How did he do that? And then his mouth was on my nipple, and I couldn't spare any more of my brain to think about my scar because holy fuck, that felt good. I moaned again as I felt his teeth lightly scrape over the sensitive nerve endings. I felt a little woozy.

"You wanna disarm for me, darlin'?" I opened my eyes to see that slow smile curling across his face again. God, I would do anything to see that smile.

I laughed as I slid the revolver out of the waistband of my jeans and set it on his dresser. "For a while there I thought I was going to have to use this to get you into bed."

He snorted. "I bet you coulda taken me."

"You know I can." I was still smiling, but I let my words take on a heated double meaning.

Joel's eyes smoldered back at me, and he drew his shirt over his head in one fluid movement, exposing his broad chest. I shivered. His body was crisscrossed with old scars, physical evidence of the price he'd paid for surviving twenty-five years after the world went to shit. An old gunshot wound made a silver circle on his left bicep, and his chest was marked with more slash wounds than I could count. The place where he'd been impaled still showed up dark purple against the hard muscles of his abdomen.

"Oh..." My eyes filled with tears, and I found myself flying across the room and holding on to him as tightly as I could. His life had been so fucking hard, and it wasn't fair. My hands touched him everywhere, roaming over the flat planes of his stomach, his ribs, the hard expanse of his chest, running my fingers through the crisp graying hair there. I wanted to feel every scar. Every wound that had shaped him into the man I loved so much had a story, and I wanted to learn every one.

"My girl," he breathed into my hair. I kissed his chest. My head only came up to his chin, so it was easy for me to trace each of the scars on his chest with my tongue, and I knelt to kiss the puncture wound on his abdomen. In this position, my face was level with the hard bulge in his jeans, but when I reached out for the button on his pants, he leaned down and raised me up again. "Not yet." He kissed me then, his tongue pushing long, lazy strokes into my mouth as I slid mine into his. Jesus, what his tongue was doing to me. I almost cried out when he stopped again and stepped back.

"Take off your jeans. Let me see you, Ellie," he said.

Okay, this is it, I thought. Funny, I'd been more nervous about him seeing my scar than my breasts, but I was really nervous about being completely naked in front of him. I swallowed and looked down, trying to hide my anxiety, but Joel was there, tipping my face up to look at him again.

"You're perfect," he said again. "Don't be afraid."

I couldn't speak past the lump in my throat, so I just nodded and unbuttoned my jeans. I pulled the zipper down and skimmed jeans and underwear down over my hips in what I hoped was something reminiscent of the fluid movement Joel had used when he took his shirt off. Don't get tangled around my ankles, I prayed silently. I stepped out of the pants, slipping out of my shoes and socks at the same time. Not bad.

Joel was looking at me like he wanted to eat me alive. "Christ." His eyes raked over me from head to toe. "Do you have any idea..." his hoarse voice cracked, and he swallowed. A new look of fear crept into his eyes, and for just a second he looked young and lost.

"Please tell me what you're thinking." The anxiety in my voice snapped his eyes back to my face, and he smiled sheepishly.

He reached for me and held me so tightly I could barely breathe. "Just didn't know...I didn't know I could want anything so much."

Oh. That's all right, then. He laid me gently back onto his bed and said "Don't move."

He left the room, and I heard him rummaging around in the bathroom. It was like that point in the romantic comedies when the guy goes looking desperately for a condom, and can't find one, so he decides to do it anyway. But surely that couldn't be what Joel was doing. Every condom I'd ever seen was too old and dry to be any use. We used to shoot them at each other like rubber bands back in the Zone. Joel and I would just use the pull out method, like everybody else, right?

Joel was back, and he knelt at the foot of the bed. I felt a cold washcloth on my right shin. I would have kicked him in the face from the shock if he hadn't had a good grip on my ankle. "You didn't tell me you were hurt. Let me clean you up, baby." I felt the sting of alcohol on my scraped knee and shivered at Joel's gentle touch.

"You should have seen the other guys," I said.

I felt the puff of Joel's breath on my thigh as he laughed. "Believe me, I did. Remind me to always stay on your good side." He finished tying gauze around my knee and kissed it. "There."

He kissed my other knee, and then moved higher, kissing my right thigh, and then my left, making slow circles with his tongue on my skin. I forgot all about my scraped knee, especially when I felt his face hovering above the curly hair between my thighs. His hands slowly pushed my knees apart so that they fell to the bed on either side of him, and I felt myself exposed to his gaze.

"Ellie." I could feel his breath on the slick flesh between my thighs. I was biting my lip, but I still cried out when he parted the lips of my sex with his big fingers and I felt his mouth on the tiny sensitive nub there. Oh, fuck. I'd read about this, but reading was one thing and actually experiencing it was another. I couldn't believe how hot and wet his tongue was on me. I'd thought his beard would scratch my sensitive skin, but no, it just heightened all the other sensations he was causing. I felt a gathering pressure and heat down low, below the pit of my stomach, and I realized an orgasm was building up, but it was like no orgasm I'd ever given myself with my own fingers. I couldn't believe how quickly the pressure grew inside me as he worked my clit. And then I felt him slip one finger inside me, and I bucked my hips against his mouth, no longer able to control my own body. I was screaming his name when my orgasm crashed over me, leaving me shaking and crying in its wake.

Joel kissed his way back up my shuddering body, finishing with a satisfied smack on my lips. I tasted myself on him. It wasn't so bad.

"Wow," I said finally, when my breathing was under control. It was all I could say.

He laughed beside me. "Now that," he said, "was fucking perfect."

I started to laugh, and once I started I couldn't stop.

"You all right, there, darlin'?" Joel said, his teeth white against his lips. "You know, you're awful cute when you giggle."

"Oh, my god, I can't believe that just fucking happened!" I yelled at the top of my lungs, still giggling. "Makes me want to..." I gasped. Joel's hand was trailing lazily from my sternum to my pelvis, and I shuddered when he brushed the tuft of hair at the top of my sex. "Oh..."

"Makes you want to what, baby?" He was propped on one elbow next to me, watching my face intently.

"Kiss you," I whispered. And I did. I reached out and pulled his head down to mine and kissed him with a wild abandon that soon had us both out of breath again.

I felt Joel's muscles bunch as he rolled over on top of me, and then he was a hard wall of muscle holding me down, his erection digging into my abdomen, and I knew I should be enjoying it, but...I couldn't breathe. The smell of smoke and blood was all around me and I couldn't breathe. I pushed against the arms holding me down, but he was too strong for me to move. I couldn't get away and I couldn't breathe.

Before I understood what was happening, Joel was gone, and I was gasping and shaking, sitting up on the side of the bed. The mattress creaked when he sat down next to me.

"S-s-s-sorry." I couldn't stop shaking.

Joel grabbed my hand and kissed it. "Don't apologize, Ellie. I should've realized. I wish to god I'd killed that fucking bastard before he ever touched you."

I looked at him in surprised dismay. "How did you know that's what—"

"You said his name." Joel's face was grim.

Well, fuck. It wasn't enough for David to haunt my nightmares, but he was going to give me a panic attack and ruin my first night with Joel? No. No fucking way. Fuck you, David. I clenched my hands into fists to stop them from shaking and leaned over to kiss Joel again.

He didn't kiss me back. "Ellie. I don't think—"

I kissed him as aggressively as I could, forcing my tongue into his mouth. This time he put his hands on my shoulders to hold me still. "Ellie! Cut it out. You don't have to—"

I lunged for his face again, but he had pressed his lips into a thin line. "God damn it, Joel," I said, beating my fist against his chest hard enough to hurt. "I need...I just need..." Tears were streaming down my face. "I need you to...I need you, Joel. Please." I needed him to help me dispel David's memory, of being trapped by someone so much stronger than myself, but I couldn't form words coherent enough to ask.

Miraculously, Joel understood. His hand made long, slow strokes up and down my back until my breathing calmed, and then I felt his lips on my neck, so softly I wondered if I was imagining it at first. His tongue followed, tracing a path up to my jaw, and then he was kissing me again, dipping his tongue into my mouth like he was tasting me, his every movement calm and unhurried.

"Ellie," he pulled me up onto his lap and breathed into my ear, "we'll go as slow as you need to, and anything makes you uncomfortable, you just tell me and I'll stop, okay? You're in control here."

I looked down at his seamed face and felt like my heart would burst. It was exactly what I needed to hear. I nodded and kissed him again deeply, turning up the heat until I felt his erection bulging against my thigh again.

"You're wearing too many clothes," I panted, biting his earlobe. I stood and pulled him up with me, so I could run my hands down his long torso to the button on his jeans. This time he didn't stop me as I popped the button free and unzipped his fly as slowly as possible, teasing him as long as I could. I tugged his pants down, and he groaned as his cock sprang free from its confinement.

I sat back on my heels and stared. I'd seen plenty of porno magazines, and while Joel's equipment wasn't exactly on those dimensions, it was big enough that I was suddenly very worried about the biological mechanics involved in what was coming.

"Fuck, Joel," I said finally. "How does..."

Joel had been watching my face this whole time, and his eyes crinkled up at the corners with a smile. "Don't worry, sweet pea. I ain't never had any complaints." He raised me to my feet.

I swallowed my anxiety. I'd read that the first time might hurt, that I would bleed, but I was so turned on I didn't care. Somehow or other, I was going to get that monster inside me.

"Come here." Joel took my hand and pulled me toward him as he sat back down on the bed. He pulled me down until I was straddling him, my knees on either side of his thighs, and I could feel the whole hard burning length of him pressed up against me. I moaned as I rocked my hips against him and felt him slide across my slick flesh. Joel captured my lips again and looked into my eyes. He sounded a little out of breath as he said, "Remember, you are in control here. You understand?"

I nodded. "Oh, god..." He slid against me again, and I shook at the sensation. If I didn't feel him inside me soon, I was going to go crazy.

Raising myself up to get a better angle, I felt Joel's fingers parting the outer lips of my sex as I gripped him by the base and placed the tip of his cock at the boiling hot entrance of my cunt.

Joel held himself completely still, his muscles quivering with tension, as I pressed myself down on him. "Oh..." The tight ring of muscle at my entrance twitched and burned as the head of his cock slipped inside me. It hurt, but then Joel's thumb was rubbing my clit and everything relaxed enough for the pleasure to outweigh the pain. I bit my lip and slid down farther, expecting him to meet some resistance inside me, but there was nothing, nothing but the sensation of stretching and the wonderful growing sensation of fullness. I could feel his blood pulsing inside me. I slid further down, watching Joel's face the entire time as his shaft disappeared into me, until I felt my pelvis touch his. He closed his eyes and groaned when he felt himself bottom out in me.

"Ellie..."

"Oh, fuck. Joel." He kissed me, giving the twitching muscles of my cunt time to adjust, and then I gasped into his mouth because he was moving inside me, gently rocking his hips so that the hard shaft of his cock was sliding in and out, creating the most incredible sensation of wet friction and heat I'd ever felt. Each time my clit ground against his pelvic bone my pleasure built, and I moved my hips with him, throwing my head back in bliss.

"Ellie," he moaned. "Your pussy is so…" He thrust himself hard up against me. "Fucking…" Another hard thrust, deeper this time. "Tight…" This last thrust hit something tender and sensitive deep inside me, my cervix maybe, and I squealed in breathless pain. I raised my hips up so he couldn't go quite so deep and set a fast, shallow pace that let me grind my clit against him.

A sheen of sweat glistened on Joel's chest and my breath was coming in heaving gasps. The pleasure between my legs was building more and more as Joel fucked me at this pace. When he lowered his mouth to my nipple and suckled it while I rode him, it sent me right over the edge. "Ohhhhh, fucking...oh, my god! Joel!" I hollered while the muscles of my cunt spasmed around Joel's cock. I pushed myself down on him as deep as he would go.

My head was still spinning when I heard Joel say, "Ellie, baby, I can't...I need to stop or..."

I shook my head. "Don't stop...don't stop." I never wanted him to stop.

"Ellie, I don't..." I slammed my hips into his and he groaned.

And then he was thrusting up into me with all the strength in his powerful body, his head buried in my neck, his harsh breath hot against my skin. His fingers dug into the cheeks of my ass, pulling me down against him, and I raked my fingernails across the muscles of his shoulders. He was hitting my cervix again, but I didn't care. I could feel another orgasm building up inside me and I ground against him as hard as I could, sweat dripping from my chin. "Don't stop, don't fucking stop, Joel...I'm...I'm going to..." I moaned incoherently when my third orgasm of the night turned all my muscles to jelly.

The muscles of my cunt were still squeezing Joel's cock and my breath was still sobbing from my chest when I heard him utter a moan so deep and guttural that I felt it vibrating in my bones. He jacknifed his hips into mine and I felt his cock pulsing and twitching as it pumped his semen deep inside me.

We panted and clung to each other, our bodies slick with sweat. I rested my forehead against his. "Fuck me," I said finally.

Joel's body shook with laughter. "Just did, darlin'."

I snorted and climbed off of him as his softening cock slid out of me. We collapsed side by side on the bed. I felt utterly spent.

He rolled over onto his back and I laid my head on his shoulder, the same way we'd slept most nights for the past five years. It was somehow different when we were both naked.

Joel was tense and quiet, and I knew something was bothering him. I knew what it was, too.

I played with his chest hair. "I probably should have let you pull out, huh?" I said.

His arm tightened around me. "Probably." There was a tightness in his voice, too.

"Well," I said brightly, "Don't have to worry about it. I got my period a few days ago, so the timing's pretty good. For that sort of thing."

We lay there in silence, neither of us voicing what we were both thinking: Neither of us wanted me to get pregnant. We'd have to be more careful next time.

Wanting to lighten the mood, I laughed and said, "Holy shit, why didn't we do that years ago? Think of all the fucking we've missed out on!"

Joel's shoulders relaxed and he laughed and kissed my forehead. "Gimme some time to recover. I'll try and make up for lost time."

You know, for an old dude, it didn't take at all as long for him to recover as I thought it would.