When We Wake

She picked me up from the airport on a scorching Friday afternoon. My flight was delayed by a day returning from a work trip and when she offered for a second time to give me a lift from the airport, I'd accepted.

She threw her arms around me and I wrapped mine around her waist, burying my face into her neck as I squeezed just a little too tightly. I breathed her in and she smelled like summer and happiness and a little bit of longing. Cars passed all around us and people rushed past us at the end of their own trips, but none of that mattered when I held her in my arms and kissed her the kiss I'd been waiting for days for.

The ride back to the city was one that I'd taken plenty of times, but I can't recall a detail about anything that we passed that day because I was too caught up in the happiness of just being close to her. We talked while she drove and I ran my fingers over her legs as I looked at her and reveled in how fortunate I was to be with her. I watched the effect of my touch as my fingers ran across her pale skin, up under the edge of her shorts, touching the fabric of her panties. She had me in a perpetual state of wanting and I had to slow my hands, my mouth, my words from raging like a wildfire when I was near her because I wanted her, again and again, and always.

We hadn't known each other for very long then, but I'd felt that longing viscerally the moment that I laid eyes on her. It caught me off guard and I didn't know what to do with it at first because I remembered suddenly what it was like to want and it felt like suddenly catching ahold of a piece of a dream that you'd forgotten you had.

The first time that I met her, she'd come to the apartment that I was staying in with the friend that I was renting it from. I opened the door to greet Quinn expecting him to be alone, but when he stepped aside I saw her framed in the doorway with the midday sun shining behind her. He introduced me to her as his girlfriend Maeve as she glided into the apartment and melted into the couch, peeking up at us every now and then over her phone as we talked.

I can picture the angle of her legs as she sat there and remember how differently the room felt with the two of them in it.

Just a moment before it had been a quiet, sleepy place and now every time either of them moved I felt a rumble run through me like thunder rolling in from a distance on a hot August afternoon.

Quinn had lived there with his wife Fiona and now the lot of them lived together with one other person in an open home. They'd all shared time together in the apartment we were standing in and while they were all ever-present there, but I'd never felt it as acutely as I did just then. I felt for a moment like I was trespassing in Quinn's life; sleeping in his bed at night and then this immediate and intense attraction to Maeve.

I'd known Quinn for years and we'd shared enough between us that it was foolish to feel that way, but as it stood it would take some time of thinking about it (and seeing her with him again) before I asked for his blessing to see her. He stopped by to get the mail one day and as he walked down the steps to go, I pulled the trigger and asked if he would be ok with it, ready to respect his wishes if he said no. He came back up and gave me a hug and said yes, laying those fears to rest. Still, I thought about it for almost a week before I reached out to her.

I added her on Facebook and sent her a message, feeling like I was asking for a first date a second time after having asked Quinn's permission to do so. She responded a few hours later and by the end of the week, we met for dinner for the first time.

She met me at Quinn's old apartment and we took a car service from there to one of her favorite places, which was on the other side of town. When I opened the car door to let Maeve in, we noticed the beadwork that covered every inch of the interior and the driver's pride in it set a fun tone to the ride over. He drove erratically, looking back over his shoulder at us as he raced us toward our destination and complained about how no one in this state knows how to drive. All the chaos was somehow very amusing with Maeve beside me.

The sun was still high in the summer sky when we took our seat inside the restaurant: it still felt a little surreal to be there with her. Looking across the table at her I felt incredibly fortunate to be with her; I looked into her bright, shiny eyes and I felt like I could get lost in them for the rest of my life. When she smiled her warm smile her eyes smiled too and again she was almost too beautiful for me to look at.

The conversation over dinner took all kinds of twists and turns and the more I got to see of her, the more fascinated I was by her She's smart and thoughtful and caring, but there is a dirty side to her that's hard to see through her shine, but in those moments that she showed it to me, it made me want her even more.

She has a kind of innocent shine about her that she sometimes likes to smudge by saying fantastically filthy things. She can look at you with a sweet smile and tell you things that she wants you to do to her and even if you've never considered those things before, you want to do every single one of them to her, for her, with her.

We talked about sex parties and movies and what it was like growing up and every story brought me closer to the picture of who she was. The way that she looked at me made me want to kiss her and as we paid the bill, I hoped that when the moment came she would let me.

We took another car back to my apartment and I considered just how to ask her to come inside but when we arrived she climbed the steps to the door without a word. We sat on the couch and talked for a while before I asked her what she wanted to do. She smiled at me with and I knew what she would say before she said it, but I wanted to hear it.

"I was hoping you would tie me up?" she asked with hope in her eyes.

This is something that we'd talked about late at night at a party, the second time that I ever met her. She sat on the floor next to me, wearing knee-high white wool socks and I kept wanting to touch her legs as I buzzed from champagne and the hum of sex happening all around us. We were feet away from where people into the bathtub when she asked me what my thing was, what I was into.

"Rope," I said as she smiled at me. "Doing the tying, more specifically."

"You should bring some the next time we have a party. There is always a line for a good rope top" she said and I had the feeling then that I would get my chance with her and that night of our first date was when it presented itself.

I undressed her in the bedroom, taking in the sight of her soft slender body, noting the curve of her hips and the proportion of them to her tiny waist. Her tiny pink nipples were hard and her lips parted as I wrapped the rope around her wrists. I traced my fingers over her collar bones and breasts, down across her hips and between her legs where I could feel the slickness forming even through the fabric. Turning her around, I bent her over the bed and pulled her panties down slowly. My eyes ran over the curve of her ass, down to her legs, loving the way she looked as she flexed up on to her toes so that I could pull her panties the rest of the way off.

The little moans that she made as I ran my hand between her legs were beautiful, as were the gasps when I brought a hand down on her ass. I loved leaving my print on her pale skin while alternating between making her focus on the fingers sliding inside of her and the firm hand coming down on her ass. I waited until I saw her knees begin to go weak and I turned her around and pushed her up onto the bed, watching her as she slipped into that headspace where all you can do is wait for what comes next and want.

Kissing my way down her inner thighs I breathed in the smell of her skin and her sex. I teased her with the gentle trace of my mouth across the soft, fine hair that covered her pussy before pressing a kiss that sent a shudder through her body. I pressed deep into her as I lifted her up and buried my mouth into her, losing myself in the taste of her, in the smell of her, in the sounds she made as I ran my tongue over her again and again. She arched her back and pressed herself into me as she gushed into my mouth and then slowly collapsed down onto my bed, on his bed, on their bed. I kissed her, cradling her against me as she tasted herself on my lips.

That night she fell asleep curled up in my arms and we woke later in the night to fuck for the first time. We drifted in and out of a dreamlike state of touching and kissing and fucking all night long and in the in-between we slept soundly, tangled up in one another. In the morning, I was drunk on the taste of her and high on the smell of her and I wanted nothing more than to stay in bed with her all day. This is the first time that I realized she was an addiction and that I would have a hard time breaking myself of it if I could ever even see fit to try. When she finally had to leave I was already thinking of when I might be able to see her again; it was safe to say that she was already under my skin.

When she offered to pick me up from the airport, I hesitated at first. Not because I didn't want her to, but because I really did and I needed to consider what that meant.

'Be careful' I thought, but I didn't listen to myself.

'Go slow' I said to myself, but I didn't know how to with her.

When we got back to my apartment, I unloaded my bag from the trunk and she sheepishly said goodbye.

"Aren't you coming inside?" I asked.

"I didn't want to assume..." she replied, but we both knew exactly where we wanted to be.