Hold Me Close

good and new (i love you?!)

A wild cry rings through the apartment. It bounces off the walls and hits the ceiling, running free until a second chases it. And then a third. Her hand cradles the back of my head, pushing me further into the wetness between her thighs, and I only make one more stroke of my tongue before I am trapped underneath strong legs, heels digging hard into my bare back.

Alexia's hips lift off the mattress, lost in pleasure as I pant against her, the heat of my breath doing more than I had intended it to. She cries a final time, weaker now, before she relaxes, and then I am being urged upwards by a hand to the nape of my neck, fingers tapping me as if to recall my lips to hers.

I kiss her slowly, but find that is not what she wants at all. She bites down on my bottom lip, hands sliding down my body to rest on my taught thighs, coaxing my legs apart on top of her. I settle on her stomach, pressed into place by a commanding grip and a quiet plea to give her a break. Sweat drips from her brow as I cup her cheeks, relinquishing the control I've had over the past hour, allowing myself to surrender to the fingers working their way inside of me and the moans that sit at the tip of my tongue.

I open my mouth, empty without Alexia's warm tongue pressing against mine, ready to whimper filthily into her ear. To hear her groan, to see how her eyes darken as she watches me grind down on her fingers, falling apart in her lap.

I open my mouth and do not anticipate my surprisingly intact ability to form a sentence.

And I start to tell her that I... That I...

"Fuck, that has to be Talia."

My head falls onto her shoulder as she removes her fingers, a dissatisfied huff leaving my parted lips instead. "What?" I murmur in exhaustion, hardly registering how she gently pushes me off her and scrambles to find her phone in the mess of clothes on the floor. And then I shiver because there is no longer a burning body underneath mine. I see Alexia attack her buzzing device as though it holds the secrets to the universe, fingers wiped clean on the sheets. "What? Talia's calling?"

She nods once, and then softens at the hurt in my voice. "She only calls me when something bad happens." Dejected, I sprawl out, knowing I have lost the battle. Alexia stares at my naked body, phone still buzzing in her hand, eyes darkening at the sight as my own hand falls between my thighs to lazily finish myself off. She clears her throat, blushing a deep red. "I'm going to the other room."

There isn't much to say after that, because she is caught up in Talia's whirlwind yet again and I lose my brand-new girlfriend to the distance between Barcelona and Manchester.

"You told her," I state the next day, relaxing at hers because Esmee has abandoned me for a younger teammate and I have a session with a personal trainer in about half an hour. Alexia looks up from her iPad, frowning at me for distracting her from the footage she is analysing. I unfurl myself from my foetal position on the sofa, beckoning her to lie down next to me.

"You're going to make me a bad footballer," she says as she moves her things to the coffee table with faux reluctance, getting comfortable beside me as she presses play on the footage.

"Taking out the competition," I reply with a smile. She kisses my neck; a brushed little thing. "Don't avoid the question."

"You didn't ask me a question."

Alexia shuffles about for a moment until her pen hits the notepad paper with its familiar ferociousness. It is only when I hear the nib dig into the poor lines of the book that I decide she really doesn't want to talk about her conversation with Talia yesterday. It was important enough for me to end up in my own bed last night, despite her insistence that I could fall asleep at hers if I wanted to. "Fine. Did you tell Talia that you asked me to be your girlfriend?"