Say it again

*Continuation of The Relationship, first post in available comments.*

*While not critical to understanding the story, Part One provides helpful context as it provides the back story of the two of them and sets the tone for the fly on the wall experience you will enjoy below.*

***

“Say it again”, his whisper pierced the stillness of the hotel room.

“Say what?” Stella giggled, the coy edge of her seductive smile giving away how delighted she was to finally have something he wanted to hear.

But Levi was in no mood. He grabbed her wrists, tenderly, but intently. Looking just underneath her eyes in that sore, pleading way he doesn’t know that he doesn’t know how to fake. It caught Stella off guard. Could she be the first to have told him this?

Let’s go back to where it started. The parking lot of the Billings, Montana airport Hilton.

Levi’s corkscrew curls stretched to the middle of his shoulders. His hair was still wet, he wanted to look his best so Stella would have a parting final image of him as he dropped her off.

He wore her favorite jacket even though his wet hair was absolutely destroying the leather back. The “You know, you‘re irresistible in that thing” she tossed his way as they stepped out of his truck, was enough to make it worth it. His mom could probably get the water damage out, anyways.

Levi carried Stella’s bags from the car. Dragged them to the door. Stood awkwardly beside her, unwittingly blocking the sliding glass entryway for other guests.

Stella hoped he’d say what he said next.

“I should help you bring these up.” Levi announced. It was a carry-on rollerbag and a backpack. They both knew Stella didn’t need help.

Levi checked her in, felt so suave when he switched out his credit card for hers that he didn’t even have time to worry how he’d cover the unexpected $180 charge.

He took her backpack off her shoulders and slung it over his. Stella couldn’t help but notice he was so strong he could carry the roller bag with two fingers.

She was wrong. Levi was dying inside, worrying he’d fracture a bone in his hand. But he knew Stella was watching, so summoned every once of strength to try and remain casual about it, and avoid asking what she packed for her one week trip that weighed this much.

Every curve of Stella’s fit her denim jacket like a glove except her 44DDD’s, which bulged entirely out of her jacket and partially out of her shirt like twin avalanches.

It was all Levi could do to pull his gaze up to her face as they approached her room’s door.

“You can’t invite yourself in. She’s tired. She’s got an early flight.” He kept telling himself through a forced smile. “Please stay. Please stay. Please stay.” Stella begged Levi telepathically, lips frozen, eyebrows arched expectantly.

Her weeklong visit with him was over, she was returning to the city finish out her internship. Levi was staying behind. It would be months before they could hold each other again. Neither were physically or psychologically prepared.

Levi had gotten himself up here, so, Stella realized, she now held the baton. “It’s a long drive back, you better come in.” “Yes!” Levi responded, in more of a victory cry than agreement.

They traipsed inside. Levi set the bags down and hid his throbbing fingers in his pocket, rubbing them when she wasn’t looking.

Stella really did have early travel to contend with. She pulled her wavy flax-gold hair out of its pony tail and Levi resisted the pull his fingers from his pocket and run them through the blonde river.

Usually Levi was good with girls, great, flawless if he did say so himself. But since they’d slept together the first time… last night… it’s like he had no game.

“I can’t just say ‘we should fuck now’ can I?” Levi thought to himself, enjoying the performance of Stella bending over to unpack out of the corner of his eye. He knew it was for him. She didn’t need to unpack. She was flying home in nine hours. “Maybe I can. She always says she appreciates honesty.”

Stella didn’t kid herself. She didn’t have game before she gave her virginity to Levi. But she’d hoped once she did get her V-card punched, she’d magically transform into a sexual Goddess who moved intuitively and knew all the right things to say.

“Maybe I should just walk up to him and kiss him and grab his dick.” She thought. “But that’s not, like, romantic. He’ll probably just be really uncomfortable. Doesn’t he have to go, anyways? Why is he just standing there?” Stella resigned herself to the fact that she had not morphed into an intuitive deity of any sort.

“I’ll lie on the bed. That’s a signal. That’s totally a signal.” Levi thought. He took his shoes and socks off and laid on the bed. Stella totally missed the cue.

“Ugh, he’s tired. I knew it. He has a long drive ahead of him. Oh my God Stella, why do you have to only think about yourself? Give him space he’s going to think you’re clingy, you’re ruining everything.”

“She’s not getting it. I’ll take my belt off.” Levi thought.

“Ok he took his belt off, so he’s definitely going to nap. Last night was perfect you just need to run out the clock to not screw it up. Oh my God. Space, space, he needs space. Men like space.” Stella finally regained her composure enough to shut her internal monologue down.

“I’m gonna jump in the shower, k?” Levi’s heart dropped. “Oh, sure.” Stella stopped. “He sounds hurt. Why?” She thought. “Oh, oh my gosh” She thought. She gushed at gimp, smiling— “Thanks again for the help, you know, carrying everything!”

Levi tried to buck up “Last night went so well, don’t fuck it up now. She won’t be into you if she thinks you’re just after sex. Pull it together.”

Levi forced a smile “Yo, anytime.” He called in her direction as she disappeared into the bathroom. “Well that was a stupid fucking thing to say.” Levi admonished in his head.

He didn’t get it. Everything used to come so naturally with Stella. It was like talking to his best friend. It was like he was buzzed all the time. He was so confident and sure of himself. But ever since they had sex it’d been like they’d just met again. The power balance was off and somehow they were both the weaker one.

“I shouldn’t have come up here.” Levi thought. “I should I go. I ruined this. I— She’s naked in there.” Levi’s mind went quiet. He forgot everything, he forgot his own name. All he saw was the bathroom door was wide open.

“This is a definite signal. And it’s perfect because did I leave it open or was it an accident? He can’t know for sure. He can ignore it or he can accept it as an invitation. This is good.” Stella thought to herself as she turned the shower on and deliberately angled the door just open enough to be noticeable but not so much that it was obvious.

Levi didn’t think. Didn’t doubt. Didn’t breathe. Just drifted up and over to the doorframe. Stella didn’t know if he was there. Just hoped he’d come. She’d been undressing extra slowly, waiting to hear footsteps. She was just unhooking her bra when Levi appeared in the doorframe. She was facing away from him, but thought she sensed his presence.

Steam began to coat the plasticky bathroom walls. Stella breathed it into the deepest parts of her lungs as she fumbled with the claps of her tight black lace bra. It was the most uncomfortable bra she owned and she dreaded the idea of traveling in it but she wore it as a gamble incase Levi got her telepathic transmission and came up with her.

Levi dug his phone out of his pocket and texted his boss faster than he knew he could type “Not coming tomorrow”, then switched it to airplane mode and chucked it across the room.

He didn’t even blink. He just watched the straps loosen and fall to the shoulders of her voluptuous figure as the bra dropped the floor. He loved that bra. He wondered if she wore it knowing he loved it.

She’d wondered the same thing about the leather jacket. Both would ultimately decide it was a coincidence.

She took her time unbuttoning her jeans. Playing with herself. Levi watched the blurry silhouette in the foggy bathroom mirror. He had to lean in the doorframe as he realized what she was doing and his knees went weak beneath him. She had matching panties for this black bra. Why hadn’t he seen those before?

“Is he watching?” She wondered. “Four different stores to find these panties, he better be.” She heard his heavy breathing and her pulse hammered. “Is it cause he’s turned on or cause he needs to pee and he’s waiting for me to hurry up and finish?” She wondered.

She continued undressing as she pondered these questions. Slowly, deliberately, considerately. Levi could feel the beginnings of an erection. He was trying to decide what the next move was. His favorite and least favorite thing about her? Stella had already decided.

She realized as she stood there that this was her last chance to be close to her best friend, her partner in crime, her confidante, her man, for weeks and weeks. And that she couldn’t stomach the pain of getting out of that shower by herself.

She turned around suddenly and before Levi could even lift himself out of the door frame, Stella was excavating his body out from underneath his clothes.

As slowly and seductively as she removed her own layers, she went at Levi that quickly and carnally. She couldn’t wait. She needed him, all of him, right there and then. God help anything that dared to get between her flesh and his.

Before either knew it, his clothes were strewn around the hotel room and he was as bare, bewildered, and aroused as she was.

She was, frankly, flattered, that he was already hard. She dropped to her knees right on the synthetic hotel carpet fibers and, lightly running her fingertips down his soft chest and strong legs, sucked him like a honeybee drinks nectar from a flower. Delicately, but with boundless enthusiasm.

Levi sank into transcendence. The synthetic carpets fibers might as well have been the finest Royal silk. The third floor of the Billings Airport Hilton, the summit of a Himalayan Mountain.

Stella was right there with him, lost in the infinite, but never more sure she was home. Something occurred to her midway through, though. She blurted out “I really do need to take a shower!”

Levi blinked a few times to return to reality and realized Stella was right. As great as this was, it would be a mood killer if she weren’t ready in time for her non-refundable plane home. Especially considering Levi was suddenly out this extra $180. He repressed that thought, if it became too real he’d lose his hard-on.

Stella slid her slender, cottony fingers through Levi’s gruff but gentle ones and guided him into the shower with her. It was an odd shape, longer than it was wide. Just the right size for their love.

Stella drew Levi into a kiss. The warm water didn’t faze them as it sputtered to a cone. Stella’s hair almost doubled in length as it got drenched. Levi thrust a fist through it and wrapped the other around her waste.

He couldn’t remember the last time any girl kissed him this deeply. He tried to take a mental snapshot of how it felt to have her pillow tits pressed against him all wet and slippery like this.

He experimented with some fingers. She played with his butt. Both felt the other carefully, waiting for a reaction. Seeing if the other tensed or loosened, yelped in discomfort or moaned with pleasure.

The water added a fun new element to their exploration. But it never entirely left Levi’s mind that Stella actually needed to shower before she would get on her plane. Without opening his eyes or pulling his lips apart from hers, he felt around for the shampoo. One hand helping her get clean, the other helping her be dirty.

He squoze some out and began to rub the goo through her hair. It felt incredible. These nerve endings of hers usually remained undistrubed.

She loved the care and attention he showed in massaging the shampoo into her hair. He loved how whenever he found a particularly pleasing spot, she’d press her hips against him. If she’d rubbed just a few seconds longer, it would’ve been game over.

Once her hair was clean,she did the same. She scratched Levi’s scalp exactly the way he’d spent weeks trying to show her just the right method for. Working out weeks worth of dust and paint and sweat and motor oil and gun powder and sleep and dreams of her in the process. She thinks he washes his hair every few days but he thinks what she doesn’t know won’t hurt her.

As she washed the last of the conditioner off, she chewed on his neck until he practically purred and eventually fell back into her arms.

Levi wondered how he didn’t think of showering together sooner. She loved being clean and thinking of him as being clean. He loved touching her all over and staring at her naked without having to think of things to say.

Soap. The Hilton soap frothed instantly, it was like a science experiment. Levi worked methodically down Stella’s body from her forehead to her neck, to her shoulder blades, to her breasts, to her nipples, to the the contours of her chest, her naval, her hips—she grabbed his hand.

“Hold on.” “Hold on? This is the most fun part.” Levi protested. She held him back an inch from the epicenter of her femininity. “You can touch it, just rinse your hands off first. Soap doesn’t go in there.”

“What the fuck?” Levi thought to himself. “That can’t be right. I need to google that as soon as she leaves.” He decided, completely disgusted. “You’re not subtle.” Stella chuckled, observing his repulsed
expression. “The vagina is self cleaning. It’s internal, it’s not like your parts. Soap just gets in the way. This is not an excuse for you to stop using soap. Got it?”

Levi just stared back at her, skeptically. “I don’t know what I expected of the Montana school system’s sex-ed curriculum, but more than this.” She laughed, splashing him.

“You think I don’t know about sex-ed? I’ll have you know I got an A++ in my high school anatomy class, the first ‘++’ ever given in my district.” Levi reached down. “You watch and learn, class is in session.”

He slid his fingers into her warm abyss. Squinting past the shower drops, pulled her apart with his left hand and started playing with his right.

“Alright class. This is the labia. This—“ He went on, tugging, rubbing, pinching, cracking jokes, making her groan and giggle all in one breath.

“Now, if I were just some guy, I’d find the clit with my fingers, ‘cause that’s AP level stuff boss. But since you’ve challenged my intellectual capacity, I’m going to go full PhD mode and find it with my mouth.”

Before Stella could say a word, Levi had disappeared underneath her. Controlling her like a puppet. She writhed and shrieked as he worked his magic. Finding the right spot, chasing it no matter where it went. Levi had only just stopped trying to recreate what he saw online and just have fun with oral. He still had no idea just how wildly it had improved his technique.

Stella was so relieved he was having as much fun as she was.

For the first time since last night, they finally felt like themselves again. Things were coming easily. They were comfortable. Natural. She was getting close. She said so.

She tried to mask her disappointment as she did. She was hoping they’d have penetrative sex again before she left town.

Losing her virginity was a once in a lifetime experience, Levi had made sure of it — so she felt greedy for even thinking this — but she wanted something to compare it to.

Plus, she was already planning future sex in her head. And she needed to learn more about Levi in the sack before she could paint a clear picture of what she needed to work on and where they needed to go.

Meanwhile, down on the wet porcelain, Levi was thinking “I‘m gonna go for it. If she isn’t feeling it she’ll say so, right?”

He stood up “Hey, Stel, how about we—“ “God, yes” Stella exclaimed, grabbing one ass cheek in each hand and drawing him into her.

Her breath catches in her throat as he plunged into her. The baton was passed back. He took it from there.

The shower stream pummeled her back, and Levi pummeled her front. He’d been envisioning a dozen different scenarios where he got a chance to put it in her again. He’d been going over last time, imaging what he’d do differently.

He dragged his fingers through her wet hair, her kissed her intensely, more present than last time. More tongue. More intimacy. More fire. The water wouldn’t be the only thing that was hot and wet. He’d make sure Stella knew what it felt like to make love to a real red blooded man.

Stella had wrongs to right as well. She wanted to dirty talk better. She worried she didn’t say anything he’d been waiting to hear last time. But now, with her and Levi shooting up to the climax like a physics defying amusement park ride, her mind was blank.

Then, just as the two were becoming one, she thought of something. “Fuck! Fuck, fuck, fuck, stop, stop.” Levi felt like he’d been stabbed in the spleen. Stop? No, why, no, he was thirty second away. He couldn’t pressure her though. He couldn’t risk making her feel badly. He shouldn’t have gone so fast, maybe he’d hurt her. Oh come the fuck on though, even ten more seconds probably would’ve been enough.

“Condom!” Stella rasped. Tripping out the glass shower door. “Condom. Condom. No babies.” She opened her makeup bag looking for the spare she’d optimistically placed there in middle school.

Levi knew how organized Stella’s bags were, so understood if he waited for her to find hers, the plane would take off before he’d get to orgasm.

He forced his brain to focus on one movement at a time while commanding his soldier to stay battle-hardened.

He turned a light on, found his pants halfway across the room, dug his wallet out, and frantically shook the contents onto the floor— all his cards, cash, the thumbnail photo of Jesus his grandma made him carry — which almost killed his erection. He turned it over as quick as he could.

He sifted through the bills and coins and found the condom his biological father had given him when he was 10 and asked if he could go over to play hopscotch with the neighbor girl. And he threw that in the trash.

Then he saw the condom his step-dad had placed in there, no questions asked, the night of senior home-coming. And he crossed his heart in thanks it was there, and before he knew it, he was back with Stella.

They moved in sync, no longer two confused people, but two intertwined souls with one intuitive body.

The climax was electric and simultaneous. When it happened, they both held each other tighter while every muscle loosened. They looked up, not meaning to catch each other’s eyes, but unable to look away.

They held each other for a minute or two under the flowing water. Stella, again reminded of their height difference since the missing stopped, as Levi no longer had to hunch to get to her mouth.

She laid her head on his chest and he stroked her back and stared into the distance, trying to piece together every decision he’d ever made that led to that exact moment, so he could replicate it at the earliest opportunity.

Stella reached back and turned the water off. Levi held her hand extra tight as she stepped out, to be sure she wouldn’t slip. He wrapped a towel around her shoulders. She wrapped a towel around his waist.

Engaging in the activity of showering together had given them each a deeper, more intimidate knowledge of one another’s physicality. They wouldn’t realize it for days and days, not until they’d both played the scene out in their minds about a hundred times each.

Levi ran the towel up and down each of Stella’s smooth legs. She squeezed the excess water out of his hair and teased him like a giddy schoolgirl, meticulously drying his inner thighs. Giving his testicles a brief but all encompassing massage before she declared him dry.

They had already drawn the curtains and turned off the lights in the bedroom, so when Levi switched the bathroom light off behind them, they were alone in the blackness.

They instinctually went to opposite sides of the bed and peeled the covers back. They snuggled into the sheets and Levi rolled Stella close. Her milk and honey skin was slick and elastic to the touch, even after his towelling.

Despite the pitch dark they could see each other perfectly, yet nothing else. Levi’s chiseled jaw, Stella’s bedroom eyes. They saw each other as though for the first time. Still adjusting to being not just partners, but lovers.

The last day and a half, they’d never felt more adult, but never more unable to hide their immaturity. The paradox overwhelmed them. They communicated with words unspoken and beyond their years.

Stella had only just been discovering over the last day and a half that touch was her love language. In the universe of the bed, with their locked door and black out shades, Stella got to know Levi on a new level.

She explored every inch of him. Feeling not just his arms, but the individual muscles in his biceps. Stroking not just his face, but the gradient of where he presses hardest when he shaves.

Levi soaked it all in. He’d never felt so cared for. So seen. He’d never thought less of his previous relationships or more of himself.

He was beginning to realize that despite the dozens, potentially hundreds, of naked women he’d ogled on his phone, he had never really seen a woman. This was the first time. It was dark and she was covered with a sheet, but it didn’t matter.

He pressed up against her and nibbled her ear. Smelled her hair. Somehow he was inside her again. He wasn’t as hard as before. Self doubt flashed through his mind. He hadn’t been planning being in her. She squeezed his shoulder. “Let’s just… be for a minute. Just like this.” She suggested. He obliged. He didn’t need to thrust. This wasn’t about sex for him. This was about intimacy for both of them.

An inch away from one another, he breathed her air into his lungs and vice versa until she pulled her hips away, but nothing else. He got a jolt of pleasure that prodded him to ask for more, but he repressed the urge, understanding that practicing restraint now that she trusted him would unlock a world of pleasure unlike anything he’d ever known once they got back to campus.

Besides, he was tired. He never expected sex would drain him just as much mentally as it did physically. Wasn’t he supposed to be at the prime of his life?

Levi stared up at the ceiling, thinking a lot of things at once. Thinking about things he hadn’t thought about in years. Contrasting. Times he’d felt so alone. Times he’d been hurt. Times he’d never imagine there existed a person who could accept him the way Stella made him feel accepted.

Suddenly, he felt a wave of emotion so harsh and deep it knocked the wind out of him. Stella could feel the air change. She looked over at him and knew there was nothing she could say. It was a storm that had to pass at its own pace.

She knew Levi had constructed an image of himself as a solver, a giver, needing nothing from anyone. She knew that image was important to him. But sometimes she got tired of waiting for Levi be ok with getting what he wanted.

Levi knew Stella understood the extent of his emotional damage in theory, but she had yet to see much of it in practice. Whenever he felt badly in her presence, he not only had to deal with the origin of the feelings, but the nervous anticipation of how Stella would receive them.

She laid his head on her shoulder so she could wrap her arm around him and brush his hair back as it slid down his forehead. She clasped his hand with hers.

She felt his tears splash into the crook of her arm but pretended, for his sake, she didn’t. She knew the root of some of his pain, and knew he wasn’t ready for her to know anything more. She wasn’t sure if he even knew much more with certainty.

Levi had only ever cried in front of one other girl. Addy Mitchell, when he was 12 and found out he’d failed his English test. Both because he’d studied so hard, and because he knew what was coming at home when he got found out. Addy moved her desk away from his.

He never forgot how bad that stung. That hurt worse than what he got for failing.

Every time Levi was open with Stella, part of him braced for her to turn away from him. She never did. And she didn’t start now. He knew she knew he was crying, but she didn’t flinch. She didn’t ignore him. But she didn’t leave him. She just let him work through it. Wait… was she crying too?

“Now I’ve done it.” He thought, pulling himself out of his introspective moment. He dabbed at her tears with his thumb.
“I’m fine Stel, don’t cry. It’s not you—“

“No, I know” she cut in, brushing more strands of his hair back. “I’m not sad. These are happy tears. I know yours weren’t but I knew they didn’t have to do with me.” “Oh. I’m just that good, huh?” Levi said, shifting off her arm and to the side of her, grinning. “You are, but not how you think, player” She jabbed, jokingly shoving him to the side. “I just never thought I’d have something like this without having to settle. In a big way. Personality wise or physically. But you’re here.” Her voice trailed off.

Levi stared at her intently, even though she didn’t look back. “Mmhmm. And I’ll be here as long as you want me.” Levi said, cautiously, hoping he’d mustered a commensurate response. “Good.” Stella said “I want you here until 4am, because then I’ve got to go to the airport.”

They lay in the darkness, staring up at the popcorn ceiling, fingertips interlaced, hands trembling. Both anxious what one was thinking of the other.

Their souls were getting cold. They pulled into one another.

Stella said something she meant to think. “I love *you*, Levi.”

“What?” Levi exclaimed.

He propped himself up on an elbow and turned, wide eyed, to face Stella directly.

Stella shifted away from him and curled up. The last thing she hoped to hear in response was “what”.

She’d have preferred he pretended he didn’t hear her than say that. Levi didn’t mean what she thought. He was just in shock. Pure, joyous, inebriated shock. “I… woah. I love you too Stella. A lot. More than I can just say and have you know what I mean.”

His mind was blank. He had no problem telling Stella he loved her. He meant it. It just felt weird to say because in a way they’d been saying it to each other all night. Loudly, discreetly, in a million different special ways.

But even though he’d now had a toe curling, rib-sticking orgasm, those four words sent an unparalleled shiver through his body. Like a kid on Christmas morning or a nympho at the playboy mansion. It was as motivating and gratifying as a crowd of 10,000 screaming his praise.

“Say it again”, his whisper pierced the stillness of the hotel room.

“Say what?” Stella giggled, the coy edge of her seductive smile giving away how delighted she was to finally have something he wanted to hear.

But Levi was in no mood. He grabbed her wrists, tenderly, but intently. Looking just underneath her eyes in that sore, pleading way he doesn’t know that he doesn’t know how to fake. It caught Stella off guard. Could she be the first to have told him this?

Only Levi knew the significant of this moment. It’s not what she said, it’s how she said it.

Plenty of people had said the magic words to Levi. But very few had meant it. As great as it is to hear it when it’s genuine, it hurts that much more to hear it when it isn’t.

Often when girls say that, they put the emphasis on “love”. Because they’re thinking much more about how they’re feeling than about who they’re feeling it towards. But Stella put the emphasis on “you”.

There was so much subtext. But the boldest to Levi read as “You’re the one. I chose you.”

She was potentially the first person to say it and mean it who knew all the worst and most secret things about him.

She knows he cheats at card games. She knows he cuts his nails in bed. She knows he watches violent porn. She knows sometimes he eats Doritos while he’s falling asleep. She knows he helped his best friend rig the class elections. She knows he took someone’s SATs for them. She knows he was abused. She knows he asked his mom to pick out his clothes for him until sophomore year.

She knows things that scare, disappoint, or otherwise upset him so much that he has yet to fully accept them about himself. And still she… could it really be true?

“Please.” He repeated, less a question than a confirmation to what he knew she was thinking.

She instilled every ounce of sincerity her consciousness contained. Levi could have it. There’s no one she’d rather give it to. She repeated it a few more times. Surprising even herself with the richness and intensity of the statement as it spilled from her lips. Each time he heard it, a different wound was healed.

With legs draped over legs, arms pulled around hips, hair knotted in hair, lips practically touching, everything exposed, they surrendered to one another. Floating in ethereal bliss, the tension relieved, the doubts shed, nothing remaining but her lips and his ears.

“Say it again.”

“I love *you*, Levi.”

“Say it again.”

“I love *you*, Levi.”

“Again?”

“I love *you*, Levi.”

“Again.”

“I love *you*, Levi.”
“I love *you*, Levi.”
“I. Love. *You*…”

Source: reddit.com/r/sexystories/comments/do6scs/say_it_again