As we said good-bye to everyone, he took my hand, which was also lost on no one, and steered me in the direction of his truck.
“Today was fun,” I said, leaning into his arm. His hand was warm in mine, his fingers laced solidly through mine, his thumb tracing the inside of my palm. I knew these tracings. They were the same ones he drew on my back, or on my front, or on my thighs, or on my bum, before and after he loved on me. For someone who didn’t let a lot of people in, he seemed to love to touch and to be touched. I sighed contentedly, tucking my other hand into his arm, nuzzling his flannel shirt. He smelled clean and sweet, with a touch of barn and clover.
“Fun?” he asked. “You’ve been to the market before—every week, like clockwork.” He looked down, his eyes teasing.
“Damn straight. I had to get my Brie.”
He grinned, not buying it for a second. “Only the Brie, huh?”
“Certainly not for the conversation,” I replied, earning a swat on the butt.
“Thank God you did. Watching you walk away, and getting to see that sweet ass every week—mmm, woman, the thoughts you gave me.”
“Tell me,” I said, looking up at him.
“Tell you what?”
“What you thought about me, before we met.”
“You mean before you scared my cows and then attacked me in Leo’s barn?”
“Yes. Before the luckiest day of your life, what did you think of me when you saw me, stumbling and stammering each Saturday?” I stopped in the street, turning into him as throngs of people pushed past us like water breaking over a boulder.
“Well, you know I loved your ass,” he began.
I rolled my eyes. “It’s a great ass, a sweet ass, a beautifully perfect, great, big ass—this we know.” I slapped at his chest. “But did you think anything else?”
“I wondered what made you so nervous.”
“Maybe I was just the nervous type. Ever think of that?” I teased.
“No way. I watched you sail through the market each week like you fucking owned the place. You only got nervous when you got to my line.”
“Wait, what?”
“You don’t think I noticed you before you got in my line, Pinup?” he asked, sweeping a piece of hair back from my face. “Each week you’d come in from the east, buy your coffee, stop at a few other booths, and then you’d come see me. And you’d strut through the place like a peacock, tits up and out, secret smile on your face, knowing exactly what you looked like and enjoying the shit out of the attention.”
My mouth was hanging open.
“And then you’d come see me, and the swagger was gone, and you’d roll on those gorgeous ankles a little, and it was like you’d disappear. And I always wondered why.”
“Because you’re so beautiful,” I answered, slipping under that spell I always felt with him. I wasn’t tongue-tied anymore, but there was still something kind of magical about him that would never go away.
“You’re beautiful,” he countered—and just like that, his lips were on mine. Slow and sweet, he kissed me like we were in a meadow all alone, not a care in the world. When in truth, we were surrounded by hundreds of people on a crowded city street in Manhattan. People with shopping bags banging into my shins, tourists with camera phones pointed up crashed into us as they tried to capture their New York City experience. And people from the neighborhood, just out to enjoy their Saturday, were grumbling for us to get a room, take it inside.
But it didn’t matter. Because when that man kissed me, it was magic. And I was 100 percent under his spell. When he finally pulled his mouth away from mine, I could see how hungry he was.
“How far is your place?”
“If we drive your truck, we’ll spend an hour looking for a parking space.”
“If we do it your way?”
“We’ll be home in ten minutes.”
He bent down and nipped my neck. “Ten minutes, then.”
I got him there in eight.
As soon as I closed the front door he pressed me up against it, holding me there with the strength of his body as he kissed me fast and furious. He bared my breasts quickly, ripping my shirt and scattering buttons. With his mouth closing around one nipple and his left hand teasing the other, his right hand unsnapped my jeans, tugged down the zipper, and shoved inside.
I’d been turned on all day and cried out at his touch, gasping when his fingers found me, stroking and petting, his thumb rubbing my clit and working two fingers inside me, already soaked. My back arched, trying to get closer to him, my hips riding his fingers.
Panting and chanting, I came hard and fast, my legs trapped inside my jeans, unable to do anything but ride the orgasm, totally at his mercy.
Before the first one ended, he was already chasing a second. Kneeling in front of me, he slipped my heels from my feet, pausing to admire the four inches of red leather Prada I’d been prancing around in all day.
“You wore these to tease me today, didn’t you? Don’t lie,” he chided, tugging my jeans over my hips, watching my breasts bounce, having been liberated from my white lace bra only moments earlier.
“I wore these for me. I love these shoes, and I love what happens to me when I wear them.”
“And what is that?” he asked, pulling my jeans off and sliding his hands up the inside of my thighs.
“When I wear shoes like this, I get fucked,” I whispered, trailing my fingers over my breasts, the tips still sensitive from his mouth and his teeth.
“And how do you like to get fucked?” he asked, slipping his hands underneath the bands on my hips, pulling my panties down along my legs, nuzzling the outline of where they had just been.
“Hard,” I moaned, as he kissed the soft mound just above my clit—his favorite pillow, he’d once told me. “And filthy.”
His lips found mine, spearing me with his tongue, licking and sucking, burying his face as my back arched once more. Lifting his head, he circled my clit with his tongue, still so sensitive but so receptive to everything he was doing. He knew my body like his own. “Tall ceilings.”
“What?” I panted, confusion clouding through the delicious things he was doing.
“You’ve got tall ceilings,” he told my skin, his hands sliding up the backs of my legs to grab my ass, pushing me harder into his face.
“Ten feet. They don’t make them like this . . . oh Christ . . . anymore,” I managed with a groan as he lifted his face once more. “Stop doing that! Get back down there.”
“Hold on to my shoulders,” he said, and before I knew what was happening, I was airborne. Oscar lifted me straight up into the air, pushed me up against the door once more, and wrapped my legs around his shoulders. Now, eye level with his favorite pillow, he grinned.
“Hold on to something,” he instructed.
My head was practically bumping the ceiling. As I scrambled to get my fingers latched on to the thick crown molding, he held me in place and fucked me with his tongue until I was shaking.
While I was seeing stars, he gave the insides of each of my thighs a bite, then slid me down his body, took us both to the floor, setting me on top of him, legs astride.
“Get my zipper, would you?” he asked, lying back with his arms tucked behind his head, a giant grin on his face.
“As you wish, Caveman,” I replied gleefully, unzipping and bringing him forth. He groaned as I stroked him, marveling once more at how perfect he was, how perfect he felt in my hands. I still felt a little dizzy, but he was so very hard and so very ready, and I really did deserve another . . .
I lifted up, positioned him at the center of the world, and sat down, hard. We both gasped, me from feeling him stretch me inside, so big, so thick, so exactly right. I lifted my hips just a little, squeezing him from inside as he hissed and I got to watch his eyes close in bliss.
He bit down on his li
p, his hands squeezing my hips, urging me to move, to do something, anything. But still, I waited.
I wanted to move. He wanted me to move. And I waited. I waited until I was almost panting, almost out of breath from sheer want and need. And then I threw my head back and began to ride.
I rode him long and hard, exactly the way I wanted to. My hair had come unpinned, and it spread out all around me, hanging down long in the back, and I could feel it tickling my backside. Could he feel it? Could he feel it as it danced along his thighs, as I gave myself over to everything I was feeling, to that moment where everything boiled down to feeling him deep inside?
His hands were everywhere. On my hips, encouraging deep thrusts. On my breasts, rolling my nipples, cupping and kneading and mmm, pinching. On my ass, slapping and squeezing and grabbing handfuls of me, pushing me faster and faster, higher and higher.
His eyes wandered over my naked skin, thrilling to the sight of my breasts bouncing and my hands running lightly over my body.
And he smiled as I rode him. He told me how beautiful I was, how gorgeous I was, how good I tasted, and he used dirty, filthy words like those fucking tits and come all over my cock and that sweet cunt.
And when his thrusts came faster and harder, he guided my hands down to where we were joined and told me to touch myself, to make myself come just I had that morning, with my fingers imagining his cock.
And when I came, he came. Just like that.
“We missed dinner.”
“How’s that?”
I bumped my hips, causing him to lift his head from my tush. “We missed dinner—I had a reservation at Mateo’s.”
He looked at his watch. “How late are they open? We could run right now.” He laid his head back down, not motivated to move anywhere anytime soon.
I smiled at the sight of him, his head on one cheek and his hand rubbing the other. He really did love my bum. “You can’t just waltz into Mateo’s; their reservation list is a mile long. I made this weeks ago.”
“Weeks ago? We didn’t know each other weeks ago.”
“True, but I still made the reservation. It’s new, incredibly popular, and everyone is dying to eat there.”
He nibbled on my thigh. “So you were going to go to this place tonight even if I didn’t come into the city?”
“As you said, I didn’t know you weeks ago. Now that I do— Ow!” He’d bitten down a little too hard.
“Sorry,” he murmured, kissing the spot softly. “Doesn’t matter, take me somewhere else.”
“Where do you want to go?”
“Somewhere that tells me something about you.”
“Something about me, hmm?” I thought for a moment. “Oooh, dumpling crawl!”
I was up and off the floor in five seconds flat, leaving him naked and repeating the words dumpling crawl while I hauled ass to my bedroom to change into something warm. “Come on, get dressed!”
Moments later we were outside on the stoop waiting for the cab, and he was still trying to figure this out.
“I’ve heard of a pub crawl—anything like that?”
“It’s exactly the same, except it’s dumplings.”
“We’re crawling for dumplings?”
“Yes.”
“As in, chicken and?”
“As in dim sum.”
“What?”
“Oh just get your ass in the cab.” I pushed him into the waiting car and told the driver, “Canal and Eldridge.”
Seated in the back of the cab, Oscar glared at me. “You’re bossy.”
“And you love it. All cavemen secretly like to be told what to do now and then. And after these dumplings, you’ll do anything I say.”
“You sure are building up these dumplings.”
“By the end of the night, you will swear you have had the tastiest thing ever in your mouth. And that’s saying something, considering where your mouth was an hour ago.”
He snorted as the cabdriver tried to make eye contact with me through the mirror, and I stared him down.
Mateo’s would have been really nice: elegant and chic, incredible food and wine, likely even romantic. But with Oscar in my city for the first time, I realized a dumpling crawl through Chinatown was exactly right. It was a nice night; not so cold that we’d freeze walking through the streets, but chilly enough that I could break out my new Burberry. Once altered for my size, the claret-colored cashmere Chesterfield coat, with the single-breasted detail, was a lovely way to handle the chilly night in style.
Plus, the gorgeous man on my arm made the only shivers running up and down my spine purely sexual in nature. And now that we were in Chinatown, out and about with everyone else who’d had the same idea, I was glad we did this instead of dining at some expensive restaurant.
Normally I’m a big fan of the expensive and the fancy, but I loved me a dumpling. The cheaper the better, and I knew every nook and cranny in Chinatown.
“This place looks . . . wow,” Oscar said, shaking his head as we approached the first stop, Lucky Dumpling. Most of the stores were already shuttered for the night, but the lights and the line were humming at Lucky. “I wouldn’t have picked this place. It looks like—”
“A hole in the wall?” I steered him around a display of “Chanel” umbrellas. “It literally is. And you don’t ever want to see the alley.”
“So we’re here because . . . ?”
“Because of that.” I sighed as a couple passed by us, the guy balancing four containers of dumplings while the girl shoveled them into both of their mouths.
He looked skeptical, but when we got closer and saw how long the line was, he became more intrigued. And when I finally popped that first pork dumpling into his mouth, salty and crackly on the outside from the hot wok, soft and chewy on the inside, the first thing he asked was, “Did we get enough?”
Four dumplings for one dollar. We got enough.
We spent the evening crisscrossing the streets of Chinatown, popping in and out of noodle houses and dim sum palaces, cheap and cheaper, better and best. We sat at crowded tables with other diners, traded stories about where they’d been and where we should try next. He ate piles of handmade noodles at Lam Zhou, ate mountains of shrimp-and-chive dumplings at Tasty, and had a religious experience with a pork bun at Nice Green Bo. He tried soup dumplings for the first time, biting into the hot little pocket and sucking out the hot broth, dipping the rest in vinegar and pronouncing it the best thing he’d ever tasted.
Which was followed up quickly by a searing kiss and assuring me that it was just a figure of speech and that I was still the best thing he ever tasted.
Until the firecracker shrimp showed up.
Chinatown gained another convert that night, and we finally headed back to my place at midnight, full of amazing food and cheap beer, having spent less than fifty bucks between us.
Cheapest date in Manhattan.
“I think I’m overstuffed, and not in a good way,” I whined as we went up the steps. “I’ve got a food baby.” I rubbed my belly in soothing circles. “I wonder if you can do Lamaze breathing for too many dumplings.”
Oscar was also stuffed. I’d warned him to stop after that last bowl of noodles, but he’d ordered a second. Big guy, big appetite. But everyone had a limit, and we’d both officially passed ours. “I wonder if that breathing works on guys as well,” he groaned, patting his still-perfectly-flat belly.
“It couldn’t hurt.” I turned the key in my lock. “You want coffee?”
“I can’t ingest another ounce,” he said, helping me with my coat and hanging it up, and then his. “I’m glad I’ve got the kids taking care of the cows tomorrow morning. I’m in no shape to drive back tonight.”
“Good, then I get you all night to myself.” I tucked myself into his arms and let him hold me for a moment, swaying a little back and forth just insid
e my door. I was suddenly struck by the hominess of it, the comfort of having someone’s arms waiting there for you when you got home, with a quiet hello and an on-demand snuggle.
I snuggled deeper as he ran his hands up and down my back, soothing and sweet. I could hear his heart beating through his clothing. Thud thud. Thud thud. Thud thud.
“I’m officially old,” I said softly.
“How’s that?”
“I’ve got this beautiful man in my apartment, and all I want to do is hug him and fall asleep. We’re officially old people.”
“Speak for yourself, Pinup. I could be up for some banging.”
I snorted, lifting my head to see his tired face grinning down at me. “Up for some banging? You must write poetry when you’re not making cheese.”
He slowly moved his hips back and forth a few times, in the most pitiful way possible. “Okay, I give. Too many dumplings. Sleep now, bang later.”
“Poetry, I tell you. Sheer poetry,” I teased as we walked toward the bedroom, scooping up his duffel bag on the way.
“I’ll give you poetry,” he said as we moved through the apartment, turning off lights as went. “Roses are red—”
“Oh man.”
“Hush, I’m creating a masterpiece here,” he said, tucking his chin into my shoulder as we walked. His breath was warm against my ear, tickling pleasantly. “Roses are red, violets are blue. I’m too tired to bang, but that’s okay because she is, too.”
“Bra-vo.” I clapped.
“Quiet, there’s a second part. Roses are red, violets are blue . . .” We were in the bedroom by now, and with his hands on my hips he turned me around, his arms snaking around my body, pulling me snugly against him. Dropping a kiss on the tip of my nose, he continued. “. . . I made her come seven times before we went out to eat dumplings, so there’s that—and something that rhymes with blue.”
I smiled. “I can’t really argue with that.”
“You shouldn’t argue, it’s a poem.”