“Do you want to do this again?” I taunt huskily in her ear, nibbling her earlobe. I’m hungry. So hungry.
“I don’t just want to, I mean to.” Her whisper feathers into my ear as she slips her tongue in next.
My blood boils and simmers as she starts stroking me with her fist.
I exhale, fighting for control, and ease my hand back between her legs. I massage her clit with my thumb, rubbing in circles.
She shivers, groaning and grabbing my dick harder. I growl as I feel it jerk in response, too damn happy to see her. Throbbing to get those fingers of hers right on it—on me. Then her pussy. Then her mouth.
I push two fingers in and she groans against my jaw, an unintelligible sound leaving her as she thrusts her hips out for more. “God, Ian, that feels amazing.”
She’s loving it. Can’t get enough of it.
I’m loving it even more.
I’m impatient. I pull open her legs and dive between her thighs, sucking, licking, and tasting her.
I could pass out from how horny I feel. Sara glances down at me, at my damn size, my cock swollen to the limit as I suck her off.
“Flip around. I want you in my mouth.” She’s begging me, her voice cottony with lust.
I roll to my back and bring her up with me, her butt on my face, her pussy in my mouth. Sara bends down and next thing I know, she’s got my full length in her mouth.
“Fuck.” I groan. My hips swivel; I clench her ass in my hand and bury my tongue in deeper. “I want more of you. I want you screaming my name.” My voice is muffled by her lips, her ass. I don’t care. I’m saying it to myself. To whoever hears it. Even if she doesn’t.
I withdraw my tongue, then drive back with equal force, but faster. Her teeth clamp down on the base of my cock, and pleasure shoots up my spine as she drags them to the head.
I groan, driving my dick in deeper and harder into her mouth as she spurts in my mouth. I come too.
She can’t be still, and I like it.
“Ian.”
We freeze for a second, breathing hard in unison.
Then I flip her to her back, straighten her beneath me, and thrust inside. A surprised gasp leaves her. She doesn’t expect me to still be hard after coming in her mouth. Hell, neither do I.
I pull her hands up and set a pace, relentless as I drive into her, unleashing the hunger I’ve harbored, nurtured, for months.
I remembered how good she was, how good it was.
Hell, I didn’t remember shit.
Mind-blowing…
She comes all over me again, thrashing beneath me. I follow and let the waves take over.
Even a minute afterward, I’m off-kilter. I exhale, and look at her, stroking my fingers down her bare arms as I try to come back to myself.
She glistens with sweat, about as perfect as a Venetian painting. She looks satisfied and even sleepy, a damn kitten, that’s for sure. I remember Jake’s and my conversation back in LA and I wonder if she really is the kind of cat to claw and turn its back on you. Or if she’s the kind that curls closer, wanting more of the plate of milk you offered.
You’re offering nothing, not even milk. Just sex, because you’re legally not even available.
The heat in my veins cools down at that thought.
Last time I fucked her in room 1103, I pulled away. She seems to expect that. She seems to gasp in surprise when I bend and run a slow circle around the raw, reddened tip of her left breast. I suckle her, gently now, cupping the bottom of her breast with my hand. Then I do the same to the other, hearing her sigh, feeling her fingers ease around the back of my head.
I suck her for a while, then suck my way up her neck. I groan in her ear, “I can’t seem to get enough of you, kitten. Should we go at it all night?”
She slits her eyes as she looks at me, a greedy little smile appearing on her face as she licks her lips.
Sara
That’s it, I’m dead. He’s fucked me all night long, and now I’m dead. And it seems like I’m not such a bad human being, because I landed in heaven.
I don’t want to go home. I just want to drink in the feeling of this guy’s big, warm body tangled with mine and his delicious scent all over my skin. My sexually satisfied body spoons his as he relaxes against me. He asks what I’ve been doing since I left the concierge job, and listens when I tell him about Bryn’s new business. I’m surprised Ian hasn’t pulled the same stunt he pulled the last time, where he wanted me gone the instant after we came. This time, we actually slept for a few hours—something I’ve never done with a guy—before I woke up to feel his mouth doing wicked things between my thighs. Now I’m spooning his side and it’s sooo nice.
“I’m acting as her PA, and I sometimes model for her online catalogue. It’s only temporary until I get a big break, but she needs all the help she can get to launch her business and I like having something to offer.”
He scrutinizes me in silence, his hands linked behind his head. “What’s this business called?”
“House of Sass.” I grin, stroking a finger along his chest, down the line of hair that leads to my happy place.
“Your idea?” he asks, brows raised.
“No.” I laugh. I prop up to my elbow. “But I like it.”
He reaches out, stroking his thumb along my bare arm. My body tingles. God, I’ve never had sex this mind-blowing in my life. I’ve never craved a guy the way I crave this one.
“I’m getting us coffee before round two.” I grin sheepishly and rise from the bed, stealing the sheets away from him and leaving him with only the duvet. “How long are you staying in New York?”
He lifts his brows.
“So I can make time to see you again.” I smirk. “Get a little more out of you.”
He shifts forward in bed, his expression darkening.
“I can’t offer you more than this.”
I stare. “I know,” I whisper. Do I?
“Do you really, Sara?” He watches me.
“Yes. I mean, you never called. But I know you wanted to.” I wink. “You just showed me in numerous ways how very much you wanted a redo of our night at 1103.” I smirk again and turn back for the coffee.
“I’m in the middle of a divorce.”
I freeze, my fingers clutching the sheet so tight my knuckles turn white. My eyes fly back to his dark ones, and though his are narrowed, mine are wide and round. My vision blurs. I can barely breathe.
I look at my Dirty Workaholic, his mussed-up hair. Mouth reddened by me. Hell, he’s got claw marks of mine on his biceps and shoulders. And he’s… taken?
“What? You’re married?”
I drop the sheets, my body going lax with fear and horror. Because am I this girl? Am I the girl who sleeps with other women’s men? Oh my God!
He kicks the duvet off and starts to stand. “Only technically. Not in any way that counts. Not for a year and a ha—”
“You’re fucking married?” I repeat, storming forward.
I make out to punch him somehow, but he catches my wrist and halts me, his voice a warning. “Sara.”
I turn away, so hurt I feel an instant sting in my eyes.
He squeezes my wrist, gently, tugging my face back to his. “I’m sorry,” he says, his voice low, rough, and apologetic as he turns me around. His eyes glimmer with regret and frustration. His forehead hovers over mine as he tugs me closer. “Actually, I’m not sorry,” he says, searching my eyes as if hoping to find that I am not sorry, too. “I’m not sorry about that night at the Four Seasons. And I’m not sorry about tonight, either.” He takes my chin and rubs my lower lip with his thumb when it starts trembling with panic.
I remember how elusive Ian was when we met. How he didn’t “do this,” he’d said. I admire that he didn’t make any false promises. I still like him. But I’m scared.
“What am I doing here?” I ask, suddenly pushing at his chest. Mad at him. At myself. At this whole situation.
“Fuck,” he swears behind me as I sta
rt getting dressed.
“I can’t do this.” I shake my head. “I don’t have torrid affairs with married men.”
“I’m not married—not in any way that counts.”
“Wow. I’m such a stupid… ugh. Now it all makes sense. Why I never, why you never…” I look at him, and he looks distraught. His jaw clenched tight, his eyes gleaming in frustration, hands fisted at his sides.
I don’t know why, but I just stare at him. Ian. He has a name now. And why does that just make it worse? He’s the guy I’ve dreamed of for forever, it feels. I wanted to know more of him, everything about him. But I’m not sure what the hell has happened that ended up with me here, drinking in my last glimpse of him, because my parents are going through a divorce, and I don’t want to be the woman on the sidelines.
“I’m sorry I never reached out. I can’t offer you more. I didn’t want to give you false expectations.”
My eyes sting a little, but I blink back the tears. “I had no expectations. Or actually, I had plenty, but you fulfilled all of them exceedingly well.” I smile and finish dressing, hating how emotional I’m getting. This isn’t me.
“Goodbye, Ian,” I whisper, fetching my purse.
“Sara.”
I quickly grab my bag and head out, praying that he doesn’t come after me. He didn’t after the first time we had sex, so I’m sure this time it will be no different.
I’m probably just his way of getting over another woman.
I’m trembling on the ride back to Nolita, feeling him on my skin. On my taste buds. In my sex. In my stupid heart. No matter how much of a cynic busy city life makes a girl, I guess there’s always that tiny little romantic inside of us that survives.
Well, survived. Past tense. Courtesy of Ian Ford, who just confirmed what everyone knows. If it’s too good to be true, it probably is.
Hot. Hardworking. Interested. And available?
Oh yeah, I was dreaming for sure.
I find Bryn awake when I arrive at our Nolita apartment, and I don’t even know what to do with myself, I’m so confused and restless.
“What happened? Did the whole city get lost last night?” Bryn rants, pacing the living room when I shut the door behind me. She looks at me expectantly, and I can read the question in her eyes clearly.
She wants to know if I found my one-night-stand guy. I jump into the shortest explanation I can, because I can’t bear to talk about this out loud.
“We got a hotel room. We fucked, okay? End of story. He’s gone again.”
I can’t bear to give her the details, but Ian is definitely gone from my life now. Unless I’m a masochist, which I suppose is a possibility. But nope. Not today. I’m fixing my life, remember?
“Sara!” Bryn says in excitement as I stomp determinedly to my room. She sounds hyped about me having found him. “You have his name now: Ian Ford.”
“Yes. And I couldn’t resist him, but it’s done with.”
Trying my best to push him out of my mind, I stop at the threshold of my room and regard Bryn more closely. She’s dressed for clubbing, or at least a fancy dinner, and yet there are circles under her eyes as if she either didn’t go or spent all night there. “What happened to you?” A frown pinches my forehead, and something about this feels odd. Didn’t she have a date last night?
“I got… I got stood up.” Her smile fades and she almost chokes on the words. “God, I can’t believe he stood me up.” Bryn is distraught, more than I’ve ever seen her affected by anything before. “Something is wrong. I can feel it.” She whispers her concern and clutches her stomach.
“You’re just paranoid. He’ll call,” I softly assure her. I know that a guy doesn’t pursue a girl the way Christos has pursued Bryn just to drop off the face of the earth in a second.
Or do they?
Fuck all of this. Why does love and romance need to be so damn complicated? I walk into my room and slide back in bed only to punch my pillow into submission, the only thing that apparently goes my way.
The next day, things don’t improve. Bryn heads off to see Christos while I head to work, and when she comes to the office, her eyes are red and she won’t talk to me for about half an hour. No matter how much I demand she tell me what happened.
She tries to focus on work and to check the latest designs, but when I say, gently, “Bryn. Talk to me,” she whirls around, clutches me tight, and bawls her eyes out. “We broke up.”
Fifteen minutes later, after she’s had a good cry, we’re both in her office, sitting morosely at the edge of the desk.
“How are you?” she says as she tries to turn her concern toward me. “When I saw the way you two looked at each other in Central Park, I just knew you’d found your guy.”
“Found. Past tense. I’m not keeping him. I can’t.” I sigh and try to arrange the design folders scattered on Bryn’s desk.
She reaches out to take my hand and stop me. “While we were waiting for him, Mrs. Ford started telling me all about her grandson and how he was going through an ugly divorce. She basically implied his ex is a total bitch. He gave her his place on West End Avenue.”
“No wonder he stays at the hotel.” I squeeze her hand, then continue fixing the papers before I store them in her drawer and rub my temples.
“She dotes on him,” Bryn says.
She’s not the only one. But I can’t let myself know him. He didn’t even say that he wanted more from me. Though he looked frustrated when I left, I can’t be sure if he wants me for me or he just wants someone to take out his frustrations on.
Suddenly I feel the hickey on my neck. My hot Dirty Workaholic’s hands somehow lingering over me.
“Enough about Ian,” I whisper, reaching out to take her hand. “Want to take work home instead of being here so close to…” I don’t even want to mention his name.
Bryn’s eyes water again. “It’s really over.” She pushes the heels of her palms to her eyes for a second before dropping them. “I walked into his office, asking why he stood me up last night without a fucking word, and he broke up with me. His ex is pregnant.”
“Bah! I could just…” I shake my head, too shocked to say anything else.
Sara
“You’ll get through this, Mom,” I insist as I talk to her on the phone that evening. “It’s not because of you. It was that fucking strumpet.”
An image of Ian fucking Ford making love to me with his hot mouth and blazing dark eyes takes over my mind, and I shake it off with a vengeance. “Tell me what you’re doing for yourself,” I insist.
Because I know my mom. My childhood was spent eating her homemade meals, and with my mom braiding my hair when I did my homework. She lives for her family. Being an only daughter, she nearly broke when I rented an apartment in New York. All she had was Dad—and making a warm and welcoming home for him.
Now, even that is gone.
“What do you mean?” Mom asks, as if the concept is alien to her.
“Are you seeing your friends for canasta once a week instead of once every leap year? Taking daily walks with Lico instead of having someone else do it?”
“I am. I’m walking Lico two times a day.”
“That’s good! Mom, that’s great. I’m proud of you. Do things that make you happy. Dad will regret it someday, and you’ll be so happy you won’t want him back. Ever.”
“It’s just that…” She pauses. “How could he, Sara? How could he? I did everything right. I did everything—”
“I don’t know, Mom,” I whisper. “Maybe he was too comfortable. He never feared losing you. Maybe… these things just happen. My roomie just broke up with a guy she’s been dating, and the guy was crazy about her. Some asshole ex—” I cut myself off. Some asshole ex turned out to be pregnant, I think. Bryn and Christos broke up last night. Christos didn’t even make it to their date. And me? Well. I’m seriously losing faith in the universe.
And once again, I wonder if love really works out for anyone.
I’m feeling more
than a little blue by the time I hang up with my mom. It’s not just Mom who worries me. It’s Bryn, too.
Christos was the boy of her childhood who got away, and suddenly they were together again and falling in love. Now, she’s walking around in silence, sometimes staring off into space. Last night she cried all night after the breakup. In the office, when she becomes distracted, I notice the way she tries to snap out of it and focus on work—but it still hurts and frustrates me not to know what to do for her. For my mom. Even for myself, to be honest.
Because I can’t help but wonder what happened to Ian Ford and his marriage that made it fall apart. A part of me hates not knowing. A part of me wishes it were over and done with so I could find out if we really have something worth pursuing.
The next day I meet with Jensen, a good friend I met through Bryn who’s helping us with the upcoming House of Sass launch. He’s a graphic design artist with a fabulous basement flat in Gramercy Park that even provides that elusive key to the gated neighborhood park. He’s got a longtime boyfriend now, a thriving business, and the confidence to show for it. Makes me wonder if the bad luck we girls are experiencing romance-wise is only affecting the women of the world.
“So. The job. You happy?” he asks as we walk down Irving Place to his neighborhood coffee shop.
It takes me a moment to catch on to what he’s saying. “It’s good. I enjoy working with Bryn. Sorry. You caught me at a moment.”
“A good moment?"
I feel my cheeks flush. “Nah. I just… I’ve been a bit in a cloud since last night.” I wave it off, shaking my head.
“What? You’re not happy?”
“Yes, with the job; it’s just that today I’m a bit… spacey.”
I pause outside the coffee shop while Jensen orders our usual coffees. Then he strides outside, hands me my cup, and leads me to a small round table.
“Okay. Spill it, woman,” he says.
“I found out my one-night stand’s name. More than that, I found out he’s the grandson of one of my and Bryn’s customers. We spent the night at a hotel.”