Free Read: Excerpt from The Only Question That Matters by JL Peridot (@jlperidot) #freeread #freereadfriday

I have the permission of the author to post this free erotic extract.

He turns on the radio. The lights dim and we are bathed in a piano nocturne. He holds my face to his, greets me with a kiss, caressing my lips, ceceo softness reaching for my tongue and lingering, exploring; a conversation without words. With a hand at my neck, his other hand travels down my back and pulls me closer, tighter. He is hard again, or perhaps still hard from before. I’ve never found reading people as easy as others make it out to be. But I read him. And he reads me. I want him. I want to fuck him.

I push off the floor. He takes my weight—our weight—and pulls me over him as he collapses onto the bed. I prod my shoes off, first one side, then another, all the while urging his shirt from his graceful, thewy body. Our clothes are damp. We hurry them away.

When we are naked, I stop to take him in. His shoulders, his chest, the contours of his stomach—they are sinewy and strong, sculpted, perfect. His arms and legs look forged by a life of adventure, not writing alone in his room. I wonder if he lives the stories he writes. I wonder, will he write about us one day?

Then I realise he is watching me too. I blush, I think. I’m not sure. The room is not yet warm, but I am hot all over from his touch, his gaze. My posture closes. I don’t want to be modest now, but I can’t help myself. He rolls us over.

“Don’t be shy,” he teases, looking down at me. “I like what I see as well.”

How arrogant! I laugh out loud. It’s a burst of ungraceful noise, but the music continues and I don’t feel shy anymore. The bedspread is cool under my back; he burns above me. His hubris gives me confidence—this is a game, the good kind, just for fun. I won’t be trapped between the bed and his body. Not yet.

I push him upward. He falls back to his knees. I rise to meet him and kiss his lips, his soft and bristly chin, his neck. When I reach his collarbone, he shudders. He is ticklish. Ah, to manipulate his body with just a touch. His hands are at my shoulders, but he barely touches me.

I read him:

Don’t stop, he means to say. But he doesn’t say.

But I don’t stop. His skin tastes like salt and chlorine, an intoxicating flavour mixed with the aroma of his cologne and his scent. I would remember it. I would touch myself to it now, but my hands are busy. They are memorising the Adonis grooves descending from his hips while my tongue discovers each ridge, each pore, each strand of hair running down his lithe stomach.

He wants to touch me. I read him: he wants to touch me, but he’s afraid I’ll stop. This confident writer who says all the right things is now afraid of something as small as this.

But it’s not small, is it. It’s the all of everything. The drive for sex: it makes us selfish. He is selfish, the way he surrenders to my appetite. And I am selfish, the way all of me converges upon him, hands massaging his thighs, his balls, and guiding his firm cock to my mouth, working the tip, the halo, the shaft.

He moans. It’s an accoutrement to the music, a lyric in the indecent symphony we create. He isn’t shy, and his boldness pushes me onward. So I push him onward until his cock reaches the back of my throat, then deeper. I am indecent. I am indecent and I love it. I am on my hands and knees when I move his hands to my hair, my throat. He holds on and I wonder if he’s still afraid. I won’t stop, I want to say.

But of course, I don’t say. I run my own hands over his thighs, his knees, his balls, his ass, his hips, alternating to keep my balance on the mattress, because to lose him now would be devastating. I won’t stop. I am selfish, greedy for the full and velvet sensation of him sliding in and out of my mouth, hungry for the deep and strained sounds escaping him in the distance. He is vocal and his voice is from heaven. A hand on my ass grips the flesh and tickles my private places now exposed. A finger slips inside. I am wet for him, all for him.

And with my eyes closed, I am lost in this.

—

Sofia is en route to Planet Paradiso, ready to start a new life after her divorce. But when she accepts Alexei’s dinner invitation on her final evening, she realises she’s in for more than she bargained for. As the AMS Celestial Dream arrives at its destination, and their one-night stand draws to a close, Sofia must choose between newfound possibilities with Alexei and the freedom she so desperately craves.

The Only Question That Matters by JL Peridot is an emotional examination of healing and resilience through sex and love. Available now on Amazon UK and Amazon US.