Chapter 374: Diana’s Invite

Her phone buzzed.

She pulled back from the kiss and looked at the screen and something in her expression shifted, the specific warmth she produced for one category of person arriving immediately.

She answered.

"Hi Mom."

Liam looked at the city below the Ferris wheel and let her have the moment.

He could hear her side only, her responses arriving at intervals while her mother talked on the other end.

"Mhm," she said. A pause. "Mhm." Another. "Welcome back."

Liam looked at the city.

Diana was back in the country.

He let the information sit and the memory arrived with it, the hotel, the room number, the specific quality of that afternoon, and a smile came to the corner of his mouth before he had decided on it.

"Yes I’m with Liam," Elsa said, glancing at him while she said it.

He looked at the park below.

"What?" Her voice shifted, the register of someone receiving unexpected information. "You want me to tell him—" A pause. "That you miss him?"

Liam turned his head slowly and looked at her.

She was looking at him with the phone at her ear and an expression that communicated she was also processing this in real time.

"Okay Mom," she said. "I’ll tell him. Love you too."

She ended the call.

He waited.

"Tell me what," he said.

She set her phone in her lap and looked at him. "My parents just got back into the country," she said. "My mom wants me to come see her. She said to bring you for dinner."

"I’d love dinner," he said. "It’s been a long time since I’ve seen your parents."

’A very specific kind of long time,’ he thought. ’With a very specific set of memories attached to it.’

She was already texting, her thumbs moving across the screen, and he looked at the city and kept the smile where it was, which was internal and entirely his business.

Her phone buzzed back.

She looked at it.

"She says she can’t wait to see us," Elsa said.

’Of course she does,’ he thought.

She put her phone away and looked at him and whatever she found in his expression made her narrow her eyes slightly in the way she narrowed them when she suspected something and had not yet decided whether to pursue it.

She did not pursue it.

"Let’s continue," she said.

She kissed him.

He kissed her back and his hand found her waist and Sergeant Ted sat on her other side maintaining his post with the committed professionalism of a bear that took his responsibilities seriously.

She pulled back from the kiss and looked at him from close range with the warmth of the evening and the Ferris wheel and all of it sitting in her expression.

Then she looked around at the car they were sitting in, the enclosed space of it, the city spread out below them through the windows, the park sounds coming from everywhere below.

She reached for his waistband.

He looked at her.

She looked back at him with the expression of someone who had made a decision and was not reconsidering it.

She freed him and wrapped her hand around him slowly, feeling the weight of him in her palm, and then she leaned down and took him in her mouth.

She started slow.

Her lips sealed around him, her tongue pressing flat against the underside, her head moving in the unhurried rhythm of someone who had decided on a pace and intended to keep it.

Her free hand rested on his thigh, pressing down slightly with each forward motion, and she worked steadily, her mouth warm and specific around him in the enclosed warmth of the car at the top of the Ferris wheel.

He put his hand on the back of her head.

She felt it and went slightly deeper, a sound arriving from her that was muffled and warm and present.

Her tongue moved differently on the upstroke, finding something specific at the point of him and returning to it each time, and each time she returned his hand at the back of her head registered it.

"Mm," she said, the word arriving around him, fully muffled and entirely deliberate.

She kept going.

Her pace building from the careful beginning, each stroke covering more distance than the one before, her sounds coming more continuously now, the specific sounds of someone paying full attention to what they were doing and finding the doing of it worthwhile.

His jaw tightened.

He looked down at her, at the floral dress and the way it sat on her from this angle, at her hair falling forward, at her mouth working with the focused patience she had brought to this from the first stroke.

She went deeper.

Held there.

The warmth of her at that depth produced a sound from him that arrived before he had decided on it, low and compressed, and she felt it and stayed exactly where she was for another moment before pulling back and going again.

"Elsa," he said.

She did not slow down.

He pressed his hand slightly. She went with it, deeper than before, a fuller sound coming from her as she held the depth, her hand at the base pressing flat against him, and the combination of the two was doing something specific to his ability to hold anything in reserve.

"I’m close," he said.

She pulled back.

She looked up at him with her lips swollen and her hair undone and her expression carrying the specific warmth of someone who had heard the information and had made a decision about it.

"Not yet," she said.

He looked at her.

She looked back at him.

Then she sat up and moved onto his lap, her knees finding the seat on either side of his hips, the floral dress riding up as she settled her weight, the fabric bunching at her thighs. She reached between them and positioned herself and looked at him from above.

He pushed in slowly.

"Oh," she said. Her eyes closed. "Oh god."

She stayed still for a moment at the full depth of it, both hands on his shoulders, her head slightly bowed, letting her body adjust to the position and the depth of him in it.

Then she started moving.

Her hips rolling forward and back in the slow deliberate circles of someone who had found their angle and was staying on it, each stroke reaching the same depth, her sounds arriving softly with the rhythm.

"Mm," she said. "Oh."

He put his hands on her waist and felt every movement she made above him, the warmth of her and the specific tightness of the position, her body working steadily.

"Oh," she said. "Oh Liam."

Ta. Ta. Ta. Ta.

He drove up to meet her from below and she made a sharp sound and both hands pressed harder into his shoulders.

"Oh god," she said. "Oh. Right there."

He stayed right there.

Her pace built further, the rolling circles becoming more direct, more purposeful, her boobs moving with each stroke inside the floral dress, the fabric shifting with the rhythm, and her sounds climbed with the pace, each one arriving before she could manage it.

He moved his hands from her waist up her sides slowly, spreading his palms across her chest through the fabric of the dress, feeling the full warm weight of her boobs in his hands, pressing in, his thumbs finding her nipples through the fabric.

"Oh," she said, the contact producing a specific response immediately, her hips driving down harder. "Oh. Oh that’s."

He pressed his thumbs slightly firmer.

She made a sound that had no structure to it and her pace broke apart and reassembled itself faster, less controlled, her whole body now committed to what it was chasing rather than the rhythm she had been maintaining.

"Oh," she said. "Oh Liam. Oh god."

Papap. Papap. Papap.

He drove up into each downstroke from below, his thumbs still on her nipples through the fabric, his hands still pressing the weight of her boobs against his palms, the combination of everything landing on her simultaneously.

"Oh," she said. "Oh. Oh I’m going to."

He pressed harder with both thumbs and drove up.

She came.

Her hands gripped his shoulders with everything she had, her whole body locking, her hips pressing down and holding at the deepest point, a long sound leaving her into the enclosed space of the car at the top of the Ferris wheel that she made absolutely no attempt to contain.

Her hips worked through every wave of it, short grinding motions at the depth, her body taking all of it until the last wave moved through her and she went still on his lap with her forehead dropped against his.

He kept moving.

"Oh," she said immediately, the sensitivity of everything making each continuing stroke register differently. "Oh god. Oh. Still?"

"Still," he said.

"Oh," she said. The word arriving in the tone of someone who had no remaining objections to anything.

He moved his hands from her chest to her hips and gripped properly and started driving up into her from below with the pace he had been building toward since she first took him in her mouth, sustained and deliberate, her sounds coming with each stroke.

"Oh," she said. "Oh. Oh god."

Ta. Ta. Ta. Ta. Ta.

She started moving again on top of him, her hips finding his rhythm and working with it rather than against it, her hands back on his shoulders, her whole body engaged.

"Oh," she said. "Oh. Oh Liam."

Papap. Papap. Papap.

He felt his own building and drove up harder, her sounds climbing with the increased pace, the car warm and entirely theirs at the top of the wheel.

"Oh," she said. "Oh god. Oh."

He came, a rough sound leaving him through his jaw, his hands gripping her hips hard, everything releasing in long deep pulses while she pressed down against him through all of it, her hips still moving in slow circles at the depth until the last pulse passed.

He stayed there.

Both of them breathing.

Outside the Ferris wheel had reached the bottom of its rotation and had stopped, waiting for them to get out, and neither of them had noticed when that happened.

She lifted her head from his shoulder and looked at him.

He looked at her.

Her hair was completely undone. Her dress had made several adjustments to its relationship with its original position. She had the expression of someone who had thoroughly used the time available to them.

He looked at Sergeant Ted sitting beside them on the seat.

Still facing forward. Still on watch. Not a word.

She followed his eyes to the bear and laughed, the sudden real one, and pressed her face against his neck for a moment.

"We should go," she said into his neck.

"We should," he said.

"My mom is expecting us," she said.

"I know," he said.

She sat up and looked at him and then at the state of the car and then at herself and then at Sergeant Ted.

"Ted saw everything," she said.

"Ted is a professional," Liam said. "He won’t say anything."

She looked at the bear seriously for a moment.

"Good," she said.

She climbed off him and straightened her dress and found her hair and did something with it that moved it from chaos toward something functional, and he sorted himself out and looked at the Ferris wheel operator through the window who was standing beside the ride with the specific expression of someone who had been waiting longer than the standard unloading time and had developed a theory about why.

Liam opened the door.

Cool evening air came in around them.

He got out and held his hand out for her and she took it and stepped out with Sergeant Ted under her other arm and they walked toward the exit of the park in the evening light with the city ahead of them and Diana’s dinner somewhere in it.