Taste

I was standing in the cramped office kitchenette, watching the electric kettle slowly work its way to a boil. It had just reached the stage where it was emitting a soft hiss and I had never understood where from, since there were no visible signs of boiling yet.

Beside it stood my teacup, tag dangling on its string. I rubbed my eyes; I really should go home. Deadline or no, I was no good to anyone when I was this tired.

Or so I would have thought.

"Emily?" At the sound of my name, I froze, heart waking up, racing.

When Alexander (never Alex) first appeared in the office a few years back, my eyes had slipped past him as if he weren't even there. Too young, perhaps. Too plain, too quiet, nothing for them to grab onto. I don't think I would have been able to pick him out of a crowd of five.

"Yes?" I remained frozen, waiting.

He was standing behind me in the small space. Fitting even two people here takes some effort and some overstepping of social boundaries. In this case, though, I didn't much care for those boundaries. I enjoyed being this close to him, close enough to feel his warm breath on my neck. To sense his soap-and-water-and-supermarket-deodorant smell. And the sweet, musky smell of his own body.

After he joined, I had been the one assigned to handle his onboarding and had come to understand that I mostly had it backwards. He wasn't too shy or too dumb or too uninteresting to speak. He was insightful and observant, only too smart to speak unless he had something to say. When he did it was with clarity, purpose and humor.

Now, however, he did it with neither. "I er..." He only ever got actually shy around me, which was adorable and also how I knew he was probably a little in love with me too. So far nothing had come of it. "I er..." The blood pounding in my ears almost drowned out the sound of him swallowing. A moment of silence hung heavy between us, and I dared not disrupt it.

When he finally spoke, it was in a steady, rapid-fire nasal voice unlike anything I had heard from him before. "Emily I want to touch you." He swallowed again, voice still frail and high-pitched. "Only if you want to of course."

I opened my mouth, found that no sound would come out. He took my silence for rejection. "Please... Please forget I asked!" I heard him shift awkwardly in the cramped space, then turn to leave.

Finally able to emit speech, I called over my shoulder. "No!" His shoulders sagged, making his lanky figure appear suddenly compact. "I mean yes!" He turned around. His attentive gray eyes stared right into mine, then darted away. "I..." My throat was closing up again. I turned back to the kettle, took one deep breath. Found my voice. "I would like that." I took another deep breath. "I would like that a lot."

I felt more than heard him move closer. His breath was once again warm on my neck. "Please let me know if I'm doing something wrong here." Then his lips brushed against my skin, sending a shiver through my body. I tilted my head, put my hand in his soft hair and pulled him close. I heard him take a deep breath, draw in my scent. He was growing hard and it turned me on.

His hands brushed against my stomach, pulling my shirt up just enough to rest against my skin. I twitched at the sudden cold. "Sorry, did I..." He started to pull away, but I grabbed him, held his hands against me.

At first, his kisses were tentative, hesitant. Then my neck was wet, warm, tingling with their touch. Taking my hands from his, I started undoing my belt. As it came loose with a metallic noise I felt his breath catch, his kissing stop.

My fingers closed around the bones of his wrist, pulling his hand from my belly into my pants. I let his palm, now warm, brush my pubes then held it firm.

The moment hung suspended in time. I felt his lips against my neck, his hands on my mound and belly. I felt myself getting wetter, my body electric with the anticipation, my heart racing. Pressed against my back, I could feel his beat just as heavily.

I gasped at the stab of pleasure, much too intense as his finger brushed against my clit, seemingly by accident as he searched his way inside. As his movements grew confident and deliberate, I closed my eyes, let the sensations wash over me, lost myself to the touch of his fingers and his lips. His teeth nibbling my ear.

His hand stopped moving. "Emily I..." I opened my eyes. "I want to..." I made a frustrated noise, instinctively grasped his wrist again, urging him to continue, but he didn't move. I felt him swallow and again his voice was unsure. "Would you let me taste you?"

I released his hands, turned around and quickly pulled down my jeans and underwear, letting them gather on my shoes. The counter was cold against my butt as I leaned back, naked from the waist down. I was almost certain nobody else was around, but the possibility still added to the tension; my whole body was tingling, my muscles tense in anticipation.

Then he got on his knees. Just the sight of him looking up at me, my own desire reflected in his eyes, was making me wetter.

He took his time, working up confidence. Lips and tongue working their way up my thighs, kissing my stomach. Teeth gently biting my skin. Nails gently dragging along my legs. His warm breath on my pussy, there for just a moment only to move away as I closed my eyes in anticipation. My whole body was tingling, the smell of my own wetness growing intense.

In the end, I could not restrain myself. With one hand I grabbed his head, hair tickling my fingers. With the other I parted my folds. He gave me a crooked smile as if to show that this was the reaction he had been waiting for.

I closed my eyes and pushed his face into my pussy and tension left me in a deep sigh as I felt the warmth of his tongue, meeting my clit in a sting of heat, then burrowing inside.

Behind me the kettle had reached its bubbly phase, warm steam rising into my hair. Below I felt his tongue; warm, smooth and everywhere.

I opened my eyes at the sound of his voice "I love the way you taste." He took me from his mouth only long enough to speak, a thin strand connecting me to his lip, then he was inside again. Grabbing his wrist I pulled one hand inside my sweater, felt his soft palm against my waist, belly, ribs, then pressed it hard against my breast.

As I felt his fingers close, I lost all sense of space and time. I was awash in the steady rhythm of his tongue, his delicate hand squeezing my breast, his touch on my nipples. Waves of pleasure first rolled then crashed over me, punctuated by intense, dizzying stabs as he sucked my clit. His fingers entered me again, searching. My head was hot, dizzy, stars appearing behind my closed eyelids. My thighs were cramping, my stomach heating up. My hands were grabbing fistfuls of his hair at random, as if to pull him inside me.

Then his fingers found what they were searching for. I felt my groin contract, heard myself cry out, as if from a distance as I came in his mouth. I was dizzy. Unable to tell up from down, grasped the counter for support and then I just stood, breathing heavily as the kettle finished its work, switched off with a triumphant click then went to sleep.

I took one look down at this smiling face and gave him a smile back. He looked very proud of himself as he sat cross-legged, licking his fingers. Then I closed my eyes and let myself sink into pleasured tiredness.

Consciousness was still returning, the aftershocks still subsiding, the world still spinning into place, when I smelled his breath, warm on my face. I instinctively parted my lips and then his tongue was in my mouth, tasting of his saliva, of bitter tea and of me.