9. Foreplay

“So you wanna walk across the street and check out New York-New York?” Tony asked Lilah, lightly looping his arm around her shoulders as they left the restaurant.

Dinner had been incredibly pleasant. 

Lilah’s proposition had left them studying one another with a barely banked heat for an what felt like an eternity.  While he didn’t know exactly what had been spinning around in that mind of hers, the high color in her cheeks had him wagering that it was pretty similar to what was spinning around his. 

It had involved both the words dirty and filthy. 

“I know it seems to be kind of an extreme and sudden jump from last night to tonight,” she'd finally broke the silence, and shifted her focus to a point beyond his left shoulder. 

“Don’t.”  His gut had known exactly what she was going to say and he hadn't wanted her to.  “I know this three-sixty isn’t because you’re a pushover or agreeing to shoulder all the blame for where we are.  Nothing is further from the truth, and I’m as happy as you are to focus on the future instead of the past.”

Her eyes had found his again, but this time they'd been riddled with shadows.  “Eventually, we’ll have to revisit the past if we plan on gettin’ to the future.”

“I know,” he'd assured her solemnly.

“We’re on the same page, then.”  Lilah had slid her hand across the table to wrap around his with a warm squeeze, and conjured a smile to chase away the shadows in her eyes.   “Tell me about Las Vegas.  I assume you’ve been here more times than you can count.”

Tony had followed her lead with great relief, readily offering his personal take on Sin City.  During dinner, they'd come up with a short list of touristy things to do while they were in town.  He’d always wanted to see the Mob Museum, and she thought she might like to go to a show.  Lilah had also expressed interest in a simple walk-through of the different casinos, since they each possessed a different kind of grandiosity that had to be seen to be believed.

Hence, his current offer to take her to the casino across the street. 

“I’m torn,” she sighed.  “Yes, I want to see it.  If you go with me, I might even want to ride that rollercoaster that flies from the top of the buildin’ down through the casino.”

“So that’s a yes?”

“But I’m not sure I want to be that far from our room,” she continued, ignoring his interruption of her weighing pros and cons.  “I’m already startin’ to get a little squirmy, and you’ve barely touched me.”

An arrogant smirk creased Tony’s face. 

The other thing that he liked about her drinking was the way her tongue loosened.  She’d been known to blurt out more uncensored thoughts under the influence of alcohol than at any other time.  He knew precisely where he stood with her when she was a little tipsy. 

Of course, the reverse was true, too.  Whiskey, bourbon and Bluegrass – which actually sounded like the title of a bad country song – had relaxed him considerably.  Alcoholic relaxation typically resulted in far less interest in censoring his words, so who knew what the two of them were going to come up with?

Tony placed his lips close to her ear to softly share one of those uncensored thoughts.  “You say the word and I’ll fuck you anywhere you stand.”

“Great.  Now my panties are wet.”

He threw back his head with an animated laugh and decided that, if he destroyed her liver, they’d get her a transplant.  This Lilah was too good to keep wrapped up in sobriety. 

“Bluegrass, you’re one of a kind.”

She smiled, agreeably strolling along with him even when they followed the signs that guided them to New York-New York.  “You’ve called me that more tonight than you have in the last year.”

“Have I?” 

He knew very well he had, and couldn’t have stopped it from happening if he cared to.  Quite simply, that’s who she was tonight, and the old nickname rolled off his tongue without thought.

“Mhm.”  She leaned into him as they walked, her arm sliding around his waist.  “It’s the oddest thing.”

“What?”

“If I heard one of your friends spoutin’ somethin’ like what you just whispered in my ear, I would cringe and think them slimy and disgustin’.”

“One of my friends says somethin’ like that to you, he’ll get knocked on his ass.”

She swung her hip and bumped him in reprimand.  “Your friends have been nothin’ but polite to me.  The point was, the very thing that makes me squirmy comin’ from you is just nasty when somebody else says it.”

 “Nobody nastier than a Jersey boy,” he stated confidently.  “You just happen to have a tolerance for this one.”

Sometimes, anyway.

“Mm.” 

The abbreviated answer made him suspect she had the same thought cross her mind, but maybe he was a little paranoid.  She might very well just be distracted, since she was looking every which way around them. 

They were about halfway across the catwalk connecting their hotel with New York-New York, and that placed them directly above the center of Las Vegas Boulevard.  Activity buzzed all around them – in front, behind, around, below.  It didn’t matter that it wasn’t the weekend, the Strip was hopping with drinking, sightseeing tourists. 

Lilah pulled to a stop, turning toward the north end of Las Vegas’s most famous street, and dragging Tony along with her. 

“Look at that Jersey.”  Her voice was filled with the same joy as M.J.’s when they'd brought Jinx home from the pound.  “All those colorful neon lights.  All those people down there havin’ a good time.  How can anybody keep from smilin’?”

He cinched his arm around her waist and squeezed.  “By dropping a couple grand in the casino.  Guaranteed smile killer.”

She peered up at him with a frown.  “Think you could keep from pissin’ on my parade for a minute or two?”

Lilah wasn’t mad at him, just ruffled, and he liked the way it looked on her.  Her nose and forehead wrinkled with pique while the wind had its way with her carefully styled hair, and her mouth…  It was perfectly puckered for kissing.

Unable to resist the temptation, Tony dipped his head and touched his lips to hers.  Lightly at first, until her soft sigh of acceptance found its way to him.  Then the arm around her waist tightened, while his other hand came up to cradle her neck.  That sigh had offered him the smallest possible invitation to slip his tongue inside her mouth, and he wasted no time in submitting his RSVP. 

As kisses went, it wasn’t particularly long, deep or passionate.  His tongue barely swept inside before it was back out and he was brushing her lips with a light follow-up kiss.  It hadn’t been his intention to have a hot and heavy make out session over the Strip.  Tony simply hadn’t stifled his impulse to kiss her - so she’d know he wanted to. 

The fact that her eyes were a little glazed afterward was just a bonus.

“How’s that foreplay workin’ for ya?” he murmured. 

Lilah’s knockout smile was upstaged by the heat burning the glaze from her eyes.  “Pretty damn good so far.”

He didn’t have any complaints himself.

“C’mon.  Let’s get outta the wind.”

She latched happily onto his arm, and they completed the trek that would take them inside the casino built to resemble New York City. 

The next couple of hours legitimately ranked among the best and worst of his life. 

Best, because he’d forgotten how much he could enjoy just being with her.  He was wickedly incorrigible in his behavior and she pretended to be mortified.  Truth was, he could see the pleasure in her eyes when he’d pat her ass, slip his hand between her legs or nip at her neck– and she wasn’t the only one pleased.  It had been so long since she’d appreciated that kind of attention from him, his ego had gotten anemic.  He was finding out that he needed this from her as much as she needed it from him. 

On the flip side, it registered as some of the worst hours of his life because he’d never been into delayed gratification, and his balls were turning painfully blue. 

“Jersey.”  They stood beside her most recent choice of slot machine, having deposited twenty dollars with no return.  He had assumed they were headed for the next one, but he quickly discovered that Lilah had a slightly different idea.  With a slow, lazy slide of her hand up the front of his shirt, she quietly announced, “It’s time.”

Hallelujah.

In an effort to show a little restraint, Tony didn’t immediately drag her from the casino floor and race for their room.  Still feeding the foreplay monster, he mischievously reached for his zipper as if ready to make good on his “right where you stand” promise.  He wasn’t able to get his hand close to his pants before Lilah intercepted and captured that hand inside hers. 

“I’m serious,” she whispered, pressing a soft kiss to his jaw.  “I want you.  Now.”

Oh, the power in those three words.  The evening of extended foreplay was about to draw to a close, and took with it any inclination he had to be teasing or playful.  The moment they’d slowly been inching their way toward had arrived, and Tony was serious as a judge when he stroked a thumb over her cheekbone to say, “Not as much as I want you.”

“Why are we still standin’ here, then?”

She didn’t need to ask twice.  He flipped his wrist so that he was holding her hand, instead of the other way around, and navigated the most direct path from where they were to where they wanted to be.  Where he wanted to be.

“Jersey?”  The elevator doors had closed, somehow finding them alone on their trip to the fifteenth floor, and Lilah pressed into him until his back was against the car wall.  She then crept a hand down the front of his zipper and cupped him with an easy squeeze. 

Respond, dumbass.  Act like you have a little blood still circulating north of your belt.

“Hmm?”

She nuzzled into the crook of his neck, softly kissing the flesh there.  “What do you want tonight?  What can I be for you?”

What did he want?  Hell, he wanted tonight to be two weeks long, but more than that…

Tony pushed his hands into Lilah’s hair and tilted her head so that he could look at her.  She was beautiful when she wasn’t hiding herself away from the world, and what he wanted was her, like this, always. He couldn’t imagine anything that would satisfy him more. 

“Just be Bluegrass.”

She levered up on tiptoe and touched her lips to his with a quiet, “I think I can do that.”

The elevator doors glided apart with a chime, and they silently exited toward their room, arms around one another.  Tony released her and extracted his room key when they reached the right door.  A quick slide in and out had the lock released, and he held the door to usher her inside.

Turning away from her only long enough to hang out the “Do Not Disturb” sign, he spun back around to find Lilah watching him from beneath hooded lids. 

In an instant he recognized that she had closed herself off, leaving him unable to decipher what was going on in her head.  Whatever it was couldn’t be good, since he’d expected her to be climbing him like a jungle gym after her actions in the casino and the elevator, and she was just standing there.  He worried she was thinking too much, analyzing too much.  He worried that what they’d been building toward all night was going to end up being something vastly different.

“It’s kinda awkward, isn’t it?” she finally gave voice to her thoughts.  “Trying to be who we were instead of who we became.”

“No,” Tony responded with the shake shake of his head, stepping close to slip his arms around her. “I don’t think it’s awkward at all.”

He ducked down to take her lips before she could speak further.  His tongue drove inside her mouth, fully intending this kiss to be exactly what the one over the Strip hadn’t been – long, deep and passionate.  There had been a time when she had loved nothing more than to kiss him because she said it made her giddy.  Tony’s ego needed to know he could still do that.

It took a minute before she let herself stop over analyzing the status of their relationship and whether they were handling it the right way, but it did finally happen.  He actually felt her surrender the cerebral for the physical, and relaxed with the reassurance that she wouldn’t allow her thoughts to sabotage them.  When she moaned and lifted her arms to twine around his neck, Tony gave himself permission to stop thinking, too, and just feel.

The way she responded to his kiss was erotic as hell, giving his ego the stroke it had been looking for and adding a whole new level to her squirminess.   She shimmied against him like a professional belly dancer, her hips seductively rocking back and forth.  With each pass, the softness of her tummy pressed closer to his dick, while the softness of her breasts pillowed into his chest.  Every swish of her hips brought them incrementally closer, until she was reduced to a sexy bump and grind while she performed a different dance of erotica on his mouth.

“You’re still the best kisser I ever knew,” she purred against his mouth, breath cool in comparison to her kisses.  “Kissin’ comes second only to your other oral talents.”

Tony pushed his hands under the hem of her blouse, stripping it from her in a single smooth motion.  “That means we’re both gonna be happy to have my face buried in your pussy,” he rasped, fumbling for the button on her jeans.  A flick of his thumb and forefinger had it open and her zipper followed close behind.

“I never met a man as enthusiastic about doin’ that as you are.”  She bent to pull at her boots, then wriggled out of the jeans, kicking them to the side.

Tony had never been the guy who was squeamish or reserved about oral sex.  He definitely wasn’t one of those pansy-ass guys who went down on a woman out of a sense of obligation, opening her wide with his fingers to put only the tip of his tongue against her clit.  Those guys were afraid they might get a little taste in their mouth.

He had become obsessed with that taste from the first time he’d been invited between a woman’s legs, and Lilah was sweeter than most.  He loved nothing more than having his face buried deep in her pussy.  He would eat, lick and suck until she came apart at the seams and coated his tongue with the flavor of her orgasm. 

Then he’d start all over again.

Just thinking about it made his jeans unbearably tight, and he shucked out of them while he still could, dropping his boxers and shirt on top of them in the floor. 

“Get on the bed and spread your legs.  I need to eat you.”

Her tongue darted out, licking her lips for a quick instant before obeying him.

“Panties,” He took deliberate steps to the edge of the mattress and pointed to the blush pink scrap of laciness that she still wore.  It matched the bra that helped showcase her impressive cleavage tonight, but the bra wasn’t in his way.  The panties were.  “If you wanna wear ‘em again, you better take ‘em off.”

Tony had no idea what she’d done at that spa, but he had a feeling she’d taken advantage of everything they had to offer. Even knowing it was impossible, he’d swear to God she was thinner and firmer than she’d been that morning, and, when she kicked the endangered panties to the side, he discovered another service she’d received. 

Her pussy was as bare and slick as a baby’s butt, except for a tiny triangle of fluff.  It wasn't much bigger than a silver dollar and nestled between the top of her cleft and the little Fate tattoo.

“Well, hello there,” he rumbled appreciatively, reaching to slide a finger between smooth lips, then plunging inside for a single stroke.  It was no wonder her panties had been wet.  There was no buffer of curls between them and her arousal.  “That must’ve hurt like a bitch.”

“Mm.”  She was scooted back against the pillows, and spread wide with invitation.  “Kiss it better.”

Tony planted a knee in the mattress and happily crawled toward the Promised Land. 

Dipping his head low without touching her, he inhaled deeply of the musk that was unique to his wife.  He loved the anticipation of that first taste.  As many times as he’d done this, he should be used to it by now, but it was the same every time.  No matter how delectable his memory promised it to be, reality was always infinitely better.

He anchored her tightly by locking his arms around her thighs as he used his shoulders to spread them wider, and that gave him complete access to...everything.  Her heels bumped against his shoulder blades as he jockeyed for better position, but the touch barely registered.  There was no hiding from him now, and he unabashedly buffed his mouth back and forth over the newly bare skin, taking a moment to savor the novelty of her naked lips against his.

That satiny softness gliding over his face was nothing short of bewitching and, given half a chance, he could spend hours doing nothing but this.  If there wasn’t something even more enticing on the horizon, whose lure was too great to resist.    

Tony led with his nose and abruptly dove deep into her wet heat, his lusty groan all but consumed by the fragrant flesh.  Incited, he burrowed deeper, slowly shaking his head in an effort to simultaneously devour her and bathe himself in her scent. 

“Oh, God, Jersey!  Jesus Christ!” 

Her cries only made him more ravenous.

Using the flat of his tongue, he sought to thoroughly mop each millimeter of sensitive flesh.  Her hips bucked lightly with appreciation, and he slathered her again, following up with a light nip to her clit.  It had her rearing again, and he took advantage of the motion to plunge deeper.  He tried his damnedest to become asphyxiated by the aphrodisiac she persistently force-fed him until she was shamelessly humping his face. 

Another nip to her clit was a gentle reprimand to remind her who was in charge.

She settled a bit, but stroked restless hands through his hair as she mewled with carnal greed.   He took his own sweet time, relishing the erotic soundtrack as he scraped his facial hair gently down the inside of her thigh.  Her knees inched together in an effort to bring him front and center again, but he muscled them away and continue his leisurely journey.  Whisker burn would eventually redden the fine flesh, but for now it was lily white as he scrubbed back up the opposite leg and returned to her deprived pussy.   

Target in sight, he angled his head to the side, very slowly and deliberately assaulting the rigid bump that throbbed its need against the tip of his tongue.  He skirted the edges, teasing her with the promise of more, but never quite delivering.  The provocative torment had her writhing in such a way that he was once again forced to anchor her firmly to the bed.

“Stop teasin’,” she begged.  “Put your face in there and make me cum!”

Since she asked so nicely, he decided to show mercy.  With a lone fortifying breath, he ruthlessly sucked in her clit and all the surrounding flesh.  His tongue swirled, lapped and laved as he gorged himself on the succulent delicacy spread before him.

“Yes, please.  Oh, fuck! Nobody can do that like you!”

“Goddamn right,” he growled, drinking in the flood that his lewd kisses had prompted.  She smelled and tasted like the best sex he’d ever had, but he delved lower in search of a more elusive flavor, channeling his tongue inside her.  That was where the good stuff was.  When she’d had enough, then too much, she would give him the sweet, sticky cream that was hidden deep inside. 

That’s what he wanted, but he couldn’t make himself stay there and wait for it.  He had to slide his tongue from bottom to top, then suck her plump lips inside his, then nibble her clit.  He gobbled her up, down, around – deep, shallow and everywhere in between while blissfully suffocating in the fragrance he’d been known to dream about.

“I’m gonna-  Ohhhh!  Oh Godddddd!”

He met her thrusts, held her close and wouldn’t let her escape him, even when she pushed at his shoulders. He was after that exotic cream.  He’d earned it, and he wanted it.  All of it.

“Too much, too much,” she whimpered, still pushing at him, but with less determination. Her body was spent from the force of her climax and went slowly lax beneath him.

Satisfied that she’d given all she had to give, Tony released his stronghold grip and slowly slithered up her length until he loomed over her.  Only inches separated their faces.

“Now comes the dirty part,” he warned softly, his head slowly descending.  Lilah had always been hesitant about kissing him when his lips were still shiny with her taste, but tonight he wanted to share it with her.  “Kiss me, Bluegrass.  See why I crave your sweet cunt.”

“I-“

“Kiss me,” he breathed as their mouths came in contact.  Lilah didn’t try and pull away, but she didn’t do more than allow their lips to be pressed together.  “Let me in.”

It was only a sliver, but that’s all the acquiescence he needed.  Tony filled her with his tongue, devouring her mouth much as he had her pussy.  He scoured his lips over hers, marking them the same whisker burn as her inner thighs until there was no distinguishing his taste from hers.  

“Well?”

She smiled softly and swiped a thumb along the edge of his bottom lip.  “I’ve never appreciated that particular ‘c’ word, but comin’ from a nasty Jersey boy with such a talented tongue, I’m gonna take it as the highest compliment.”

“As it was intended, but I’m talking about the toe you just stuck in the filthy dirty pool.”

“Mmm.”  Her fingers combed lazily through the dense forest of hair on his chest.  “I am very, very, VERY happy that you’re partial to offerin’ oral pleasure, but there’s no fear of me becomin’ a lesbian.”

“Thank God for that, since I like you suckin’ my dick,” he chuckled.  “But not tonight.  I can’t wait any longer."

Tony reached off the edge of the bed for the nightstand drawer, where he’d stashed a supply of rubbers today.  He quickly plucked one up and tore it open, wasting no time in suiting up.  They’d already had one lapse in birth control this week, and considering both kids – all three – had come from a one-time slip, he wasn’t taking any more chances.

He turned back to find her intently watching him.  Soft, sultry eyes surveyed his progress, and he noted that her legs were still parted, awaiting his return.  The physical proof of her desire was unmistakable, but he wanted to hear it.

“Tell me.”

“Tell you what?” she asked.  “That I want you?  I do.  That I dream about this even when I’m too tired to do it?  I do.  That I’ve never once thought of sex with another man since you made me yours?  I haven’t.  Maybe all that makes me a fool, but it’s true.”

It wasn’t what he’d been expecting, and Tony had no response that would suffice.  All he could do was plunge deep, connecting their bodies in a way he wished their minds still did.  All he could do was push to try and replace old pain with new pleasure. He kissed her. He whispered things that he didn’t understand himself. 

He lost himself in the woman he’d presumed lost.