I set it down on the table and pulled one end of the red ribbon, until the bow came undone and the box opened a little. Like it took a deep breath. There was the name of a bakery in Asheville embossed in gold on the front. Looked fancy. My fancy scale was skewed to the low side, and so this was the fanciest thing I’d ever seen.
There was a note folded on top.
Call me.
That was all it said.
I lifted the lid to find a large piece of yellow cake with white icing covered in coconut. It was oozing sugary, creamy liquid.
Smiling, I went to grab my phone.
As I had become accustomed, he answered on the first ring.
“You got it?” he asked.
“It’s beautiful. What is it?”
“Tres leches cake.”
“Your favorite thing for breakfast,” I sighed, touched so much that he’d gone to this effort.
“I couldn’t let you settle for that shitty experience. Try it.”
“I will. I just wanted to thank you—”
“Try it while you’re talking to me, Layla.”
I swallowed and blinked. This…this seemed oddly intimate.
A chill raced over my skin, and my nipples were hard. My mouth was salivating. It was a full-body response to this gift. To its implications. I was…utterly charmed.
Delighted.
Turned on.
By cake.
By Dylan.
I smiled and pulled one of my three forks out of the drawer.
The first bite made me moan. “Oh my God,” I sighed. “That’s…that’s amazing.”
“Tell me.”
“It’s so moist. And sweet. Really sweet. It’s kind of carmelly somehow and coconutty.”
“That’s how my mom made it. With the coconut.”
I took another bite, the sweetness gathering in the back of my throat. “Oh, God…Dylan. It’s so good.”
He was breathing hard. I was breathing hard.
I felt the emptiness inside of me. The place in my body where he would go if he were here. I wondered, suddenly, what else he would do if he were here.
“The frosting is whipped cream.” I put some on my finger and sucked it off.
“Do that again,” he said. “That sound.”
“I’m sucking the whipped cream off my finger.”
He groaned a little, in the back of his throat.
“It’s perfect,” I whispered. “It’s so perfect.”
“Take another bite,” he said.
I did. Moaning, because I knew somehow that was really what he wanted to hear.
“No more,” I said.
“What?”
“I want to save it. Stretch it out.”
“You’re the kind of kid who had her Halloween candy until Easter, aren’t you?”
“I didn’t get to trick-or-treat much,” I said, putting the box of cake in the fridge. My body was humming, from the sweetness of the cake.
The sweetness of him.
“But usually, I’m…greedy. I like all my treats at once.” The door closed with a small snick. “You don’t have to do these things, you know.”
“What things?”
“These…nice things.”
“I like to do these nice things.”
“I don’t know how to thank you,” I said, smiling a little. Enjoying playing coy. Because I knew how to thank him. I knew what he wanted. I wanted it too.
“Take off your clothes, Layla,” he breathed. “I’ll tell you how you can thank me.”
I went back into my bedroom and did every single thing he told me to do. I didn’t think, not for even a second, of saying no to him.
“You can do it, baby,” he breathed, when I was sobbing that I couldn’t take any more. I had three fingers in my * and my clit was on fire. He wouldn’t let me touch it. “I want you to do it.”
He wanted it, so I did too. I wanted it for myself, because it felt so sharp and real. Painful and so good at the same time. And I wanted it for him.
I wanted to please him.
So, inside my tight, aching body I slipped a fourth finger. I was stuffed, so full. Too full. My hand hurt, my arm ached. My body was shaking.
“Dylan,” I whimpered. “Please…”
“Now, you can touch your clit.”
I did. And the world exploded. My world exploded. It was dark and bright at the same time. And I didn’t recognize myself in it. I didn’t recognize my body, as if it had been fundamentally changed by this pleasure.
Changed by Dylan.
DYLAN