I grin. “A little surprise for you.”
I’m naked. I wasn’t wearing a stitch of undergarments under the dress, which felt like the most daring, exhilarating secret in the world.
He just looks at me, taking in my naked form. “So, so beautiful.”
My eyes prick. “You make me feel beautiful, Wes. I wish I could explain to you how that feels.”
He molds his hands to my shoulders, pulls me against himself. “I can see it in your eyes.” He kisses them, my eyes, tasting my tears. His thumb grazes my lips, and his mouth whispers against mine. “I love you, Jolene Park.”
I laugh around a sob. “God, Wes.”
“That’s not how you say ‘I love you too,’” he teases. “But I’ll take it.”
I laugh again. “I do, though. I love you.” I press my fingertips into his chest, rest my forehead on his chin, steady myself. “I know everyone probably thinks it’s stupid and crazy, but—”
“I don’t care about anyone else, Jo. The only thing that matters is you and me. You feel it, I feel it. ‘Once you’ve eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.’”
I snicker. “Did you just quote Sherlock Holmes at me, sir?”
“I did.”
“Is that your idea of foreplay?” I laugh and pull back to look up into his eyes.
“No,” he murmurs. “But this is.”
He drops to his knees, eyes locked on mine. His hands reach up to cup my butt, and his lips touch my belly just under my navel and then my thigh and the other, and I’m unashamedly eager for this. I bury my fingers in his hair and widen my stance and throw my head back and moan in delight and relief and desire as he kisses his way, slowly, teasingly, to my sex.
I gasp when his tongue flits and slithers against my clit, and I groan when he drags one finger down my seam. I hold his head and my knees quake when he tongues me, and they buckle when his fingers find my opening.
“Wes,” I whimper. “Please.”
He kisses and licks, and his fingers move, and my hips buck. “Already?” he whispers, with a laugh.
“Yeah,” I gasp. “I’ve been—oh god, oh god—I’ve been turned on all day.”
He takes me to the edge, playing my senses and my body like a virtuoso musician, and flings me into orgasm and keeps me there. Even when he has to hold me up, his mouth is relentless in its quest for my pleasure, wringing every shiver and shudder out of me.
And then he scoops me up in his arms and carries me, and I’m gasping and shuddering against his chest, and even though I’m breathless and a puddle of liquid bliss, I feel his body against mine and I’m driven to kiss, to taste. To touch.
He settles me on the bed and hovers over me, and his mouth tastes of me and I’m aroused by that, by my own musk on his lips. He kisses me, and I moan into his mouth and I clutch his manhood.
Stroke and caress him.
He breaks the kiss, resting his forehead against mine. “Jo…” There’s nothing else, just my name on his lips.
I release him, and meet his eyes, caress his hair and his ears and his jawline. Press against his shoulders, lifting my hips. “Again? Please?”
He laughs, a rough snarl of aroused amusement. “Greedy girl.”
“Yes, I am.”
He laughs again, but his mouth moves with slow hungry kisses to my breasts, and his fingers find my sex and touch me gently, softly, while his mouth moves over my breasts, one and the other, kissing and licking and suckling until my spine arches to crush my throbbing, hard nipples into his mouth, and his fingers delve slowly against my clit and I rise and I rise, and his lips are on my nipples and his tongue laves them and flicks them and my belly is a pool of boiling heat and the pressure is billowing through me and building and then when he slicks two fingers into my sex with a curling swipe and smears my essence over me, I explode. Gyrate against his fingers and then he’s kissing over my belly and my hip bones and then his lips fasten on my clit and his tongue replaces his fingers and those thick digits go into me and thrust and press and curl and massage.
I come, and I come.
I scream through it, letting the wild beauty of climax rip me open.
I lose myself.
He doesn’t relent even when my climax subsides, but his tongue and lips slow and kiss me with soft delicacy, and his fingers, three of them now, slide in and out, slow and shallow. And then I feel it yet again, another wave approaching.
“Wes, ohmygod, Wes.” I lift my hips to meet the wave, and his tongue circles me to bring it closer and I’m lit afire yet again.
I spasm, tightening around his fingers and grinding against his mouth.
Now, when the orgasm finally relinquishes me from its grip, I pull him up. He kisses his way back up my body. He settles over me. Gazes at me.
He’s hard between my thighs, and desire for him is a raging inferno, stoked to the wildest fury by the onslaught of orgasms he’s just given me. I reach between us and grasp him. I’m still shuddering with aftershocks, but need is already quaking through me anew.
“Make love to me now, Wes,” I breathe.
“Do we need—”
I shake my head, cut him off. “No.”
He doesn’t press it further. Just gazes down at me. Holds my eyes. His hand brushes against mine as he fits it between our bodies; I’m stroking him slowly, caressing his length with eager hands. He touches my opening. I feel him. Lift my hips and move closer to him. Breathe in slowly. I thought I’d be nervous when this moment came, but I’m not. There’s only need.
Together, we guide him to me.
When the moment comes, I take over. Fit the broad, plump head of him to my seam. Oh, oh god. Fingers and tongue and lips did not prepare me for this. I hold his eyes and focus on feeling. On sensation. On us. He shifts his weight forward, and his whole body is tense. He’s vibrating with need, with desire, with love. But he’s letting me guide us. Holding utterly still, moving as I need him to move. His arms are thick pillars of muscle beside my face; I clutch one, and I bite my lip as I wriggle my hips to take a hint more of him. He lets out a hoarse hiss of breath. Jaw drops.
His forehead touches mine. I lift my lips to his. Kiss him. Taste myself on his mouth and lick his lips and tangle our tongues and move to accept more of him. I ache with the thickness of him within me. Now that he’s inside me, I feel…I don’t know. A million things.
I ache.
There’s a burn of fullness, a sting.
Our gazes are locked and he moves against me, and I feel his belly sliding against mine and there’s a brief sharp pain. He withdraws without fully pulling out of me, and some instinct drives me to touch myself. The thrilling pulse of arousal rises in me, and he replaces my fingers with his, and it’s better, his touch is so much better. He kisses me and touches me, and I’m full of him, and the pain is less, and as his touch brings me higher, my body responds and clings to him and I feel desire seep through me and I feel renewed need wash over me. Now, the feel of him inside me isn’t foreign or alien or an intrusion, but a welcome and wild filling.
I need…
I need more.
I lift my hips to press against him, and oh god, that feels good, to feel him push deeper, and there’s an ache again as he moves deep into me, but his touch and my ascent to climax makes that ache delicious.
“Wes!” I whimper.
“Okay?” he asks, his voice tight.
I nod. Cup his head in one hand and a hard taut cheek of his butt in the other. “This is beautiful.”
“Does it hurt?”
I shake my head. “Not anymore.”
He lets out a sigh. “I was worried I was hurting you.”
I pull him closer, and he groans, pushes into me. “Not anymore. Now it just feels…” I trail off as I lift to meet his thrust, and ecstasy surges through me. “Oh god, Wes. So good. It feels so good, now.”
We’re moving in concert, now. He drives into me and I surge to meet him; he groans and I answ
er with a cry, a whimper. He growls my name and I whisper his.
He is still touching me, slow circles of his fingers against me. I don’t need that anymore. His presence is enough. I’m there. His arousal within me presses against me now in such a way as to drive me to wildness, and I take his hand and tangle our fingers, he presses our joined hands to the pillow above my head.
He’s driving into me with slow intensity. “Jo, god, my god, my Jo.”
I cry out as he fills me and fills me, and I’m complete with him, utterly glutted on everything that is Wes, my Westley, and my legs clamp around his buttocks and my thighs grip his waist and I thrust and grind against him and I’m crying, tears wetting my cheeks as I cry his name and scream breathless wordless and wild.
His lips kiss my cheek and his tongue touches my eyelids and I realize he’s literally kissing away my tears.
I explode around him, and I yank my hand out of his and touch myself to incite the climax, to fuel it, to send it hotter. I feel myself clamp around his erection and he groans and thrusts deep, his belly against mine and his hips on mine and he’s seated so deep that I can take no more of him and I’m coming around him and stars burst behind my tight-shut eyes and I scream and I scream and curl up against him and my fingernails rake down his back and my other fingers are a blur against my clit and then I clutch his butt in both hands and claw my fingers into the muscle there and pull.
“Wes!” I cry. “Wes, Wes, please, oh god, please, don’t stop. Love me, Wes.”
He surges against me and I’m spasming around his thick manhood and I feel him pulse. “I do, Jo, I love you—” His forehead drops to my breastbone and his skin sweat-slick and he’s crushing into me. “Jo, my Jo, my Jolene…I’m coming, Jo. I’m coming, oh god, oh god, Jo.”
He drives into me, and I’m still clenching spasmodically around him with my own climax and I’m crying and gasping—when I feel him release, I groan with him. He floods me.
Fills me.
We move together into the last throes of love, sweat commingling, breath united, kissing lips and catching breath and clutching hands and bumping hips against hips, and he moves in me still and I love knowing the feel of him inside me, and I love knowing I’ve given him this, that he’s given me this.
Finally, we slow our movements.
He rolls, still nestled within me, and clutches me to his chest; we’re on our sides, body to body, and still tangled and united.
I listen to his heartbeat with tears of joy and happiness dampening my cheeks.
“Thank you, Wes,” I whisper.
He swallows hard. “For what, Jo?”
I rub his chest, find his stubbled jaw. “For making my life complete.”
“It’s the other way around,” he whispers.
It’s a long, beautiful, magical night.
We make love endlessly.
The fire dies in the fireplaces. Stars wheel beyond the windows.
Finally, exhaustion takes over.
We’ve taken a shower together, which began as a quest to get clean, resulted in more lovemaking, and ended, eventually, in us actually washing each other.
Now, clean and warm, I cling to his neck and his thigh is over mine, and his hand rests on my butt and I smell his clean skin and feel his breath and our pulses are synched.
I am loved.
Come what may, I will always have this one magical day.
You Were Meant For Me
Westley
Michael and Magnus take us back across the fields and along the shoreline, back to the airfield.
Jolene glows.
Her smile is bright and endless and infectious.
I loved her before…
Now?
She is…within me. All of me. Such a short time, I’ve known her. In a book, it would be Insta-love. Ridiculous. Fantastical nonsense. But…time is relative, right? The time I’ve spent with Jolene Park has been…compressed and concentrated. Every moment has been replete with meaning and intensity. We’ve thrown ourselves into this with no regard for the consequences, no thought for the impossibility of falling in love with someone you’ve just met.
Reality be damned.
I love her.
The helicopter carries us back to LA, and the limo is there to greet us, with bagels and coffee for breakfast.
She’s wearing her dress again. I love the way that dress makes her smile brighter, and the way it brings out the wild green of her eyes and makes her cream skin even more beautiful.
We go to the sound stage, instead of home.
She holds my hand as we find the crew preparing, and the director flipping through his notebook full of scribbled ideas, and the crew just off set.
Eyes are on us, but she just looks around in wonder—we’re filming “You Were Meant For Me.”
I get her a chair near the director and introduce them, and then I’m whisked off to costume and hair and makeup, and I go over my lines and murmur the song under my breath.
I get back to the stage, and Shania and Jolene are talking. I rehearse my blocking a few times, and then Adam calls for quiet on the set and Shania and I take our places.
I have to put yesterday out of my mind. Channel the character, the story. It’s all there, and I take last night and the love and the wonder, and use it.
Only, Shania drops a step—cut, from the top.
I forget the lyrics—cut.
We both miss our turn and bump into each other.
Again and again.
Half of the takes, I barely make it through the opening of the song and into the dance number.
Or, if we do, one of us goofs a step or a turn.
After half the day and twenty-some takes, Adam calls a break.
The crew scatters, and Adam pulls me aside. “We need to talk, Westley.”
I nod, and catch Jo’s eyes. She smiles, waves at me. I had Jen bring her ukulele and meet us at the sound stage with it, in case Jo got bored and needed something to do—there are a thousand quiet corners where she could sit and play and sing, or read on her phone.
Adam and I confer outside for a few minutes, going over the scene and basically Adam politely telling me to get my shit together.
We head back in, and I’m mentally going over my blocking, going over the steps, the holds, the turns. Not paying attention.
Adam grabs my arm and squeezes, hard. I stop, look up, and tune into the world around me.
Jolene is on the set, alone. I don’t know if she’s noticed the single spotlight some enterprising, thoughtful lighting tech has trained on her. She’s on the edge of the smoke machine, ukulele in hand, fingering the melody to “You Were Meant For Me” and singing the song.
The whole crew and cast are clustered just off set, out of the pool of light bathing her.
Everyone is recording this.
Her eyes are closed, brow furrowed as she focuses on the melody, the words, the emotions.
“…But I'm content
The angels must have sent you
And they meant you just for me…”
Good lord, what a scene. No one speaks, nor even dares breathe, or rustle, or cough. There’s something sacred happening here.
You can feel it in the air, feel the weight of this moment on your soul.
She stands up and plays the melody, lost in the moment, lost in the music, and she does a step, a turn. She even knows the steps to the song? I can almost see her, alone in her room, watching this movie a thousand times, imaging herself as Debbie Reynolds, dancing with Gene Kelly in her mind.
My feet carry me, and I take the instrument from her, set it aside, and sweep her into the dance. Her eyes find mine, and the music is in our eyes, in the sparks flying between our gazes.
The steps, the number, the stage, the lights, the crew, the cameras—there’s none of it.
Just…us. Dancing.
Then there is music—slowly rising, imperceptible, from off-stage somewhere. Jolene smiles up at me, hand on my waist and the other in m
ine. It’s not the original choreography anymore, just improvised waltzing, step-two-three, turn and step back and in…
The music fades and we fall still, gazes locked.
And I can’t help but kiss her.
When we part, there’s applause.
Jolene starts, looking around in shock. “Have they been…”
I nod. “Yeah.”
She covers her mouth. “The whole time?”
Adam takes her hands from me, turns her to face him. “Young lady, that was…heavenly. I’ve never witnessed anything like that in my life.”
She blinks. “The stage was empty. I’ve…I’ve seen the movie so many times, and to be on this stage?” She blinks again. “I didn’t know anyone was watching. I hope I didn’t—”
He’s emotional. “It was magic, my dear. Just…pure magic.” He rubs his hands together, then his face. Shakes his head. “It’s the kind of Hollywood magic you can’t create on purpose. Thank god we got it on film.”
I notice then that the main cameras were running; the ADs are rewatching the footage on the monitor. They’ve got their hands over their mouths. I see some of the crew dabbing their eyes.
Jolene sees all this. Her breath catches, and she looks to me.
“You’re amazing,” I tell her, with a shrug.
Fingers fly on phones, and I know this is going to hit the media like a firestorm.
She sees this too. “They’re posting it online, aren’t they?”
I nod. “I can ask them to take it down, if you want, or not post it.”
She glances at Adam. “It’ll help the movie, though, won’t it?”
He grins. “Better than all the publicity we’ve done so far put together, honey.”
“It’s you and me in the public, isn’t it?” she asks me.
I nod.
She walks into my arms, and I envelop her in a hug. “I didn’t mean to…I didn’t know anyone was watching.”
“I know,” I murmur. “That’s what makes it so magical.”
“I just got carried away. It’s one of my favorite musicals.”
“You don’t have to apologize,” I say, laughing. “No one is mad. Everyone is…in awe, I guess.” I gesture at Shania. “That should be you.”