“Hmm. He’s kind and giving, and he . . . well, I suppose I never feel like I say or do the wrong thing with him.”
He eyes me in amusement and links his fingers behind his head. “Why twenty-eight?”
We’re at this cute little bar a few blocks from Carma. We sit side by side at the counter. I’m on my third glass of white wine, and he’s drinking red.
“Seems like a good number.”
“I’m twenty-eight. Does this mean I need to keep an eye out for my wife?” He snickers the word.
“In my plan it does.” I laugh. “What’s your age?” I frown. “To meet the one.”
He grimaces.
“Really,” I press.
“I haven’t the mind for that.”
“Why?”
Silence.
“You don’t want kids?” I ask.
“I like kids, but I’m not sure I can be responsible for one.”
“Well, that’s where the wife comes in. You might want one if you’re going to have kids.”
“Haha.”
His smile relaxes then morphs into that boyish face of his for a moment. Until it’s suddenly gone. “I don’t know that I can love someone that deeply,” he says. He frowns as if remembering something, and he glances at his glass and strokes his thumb around the rim. “I’m not built that way.”
“Fine keep your bimbos. I don’t care.”
“I will.”
He laughs, his eyes lighting up again for the merest second before . . . they don’t. His brows draw together in an agonized expression. “I’ll just let her down,” he says, gritting his teeth and glaring down at his wineglass. “I’m never falling into that trap.”
“It’s not a trap.”
He shoots me a don’t-be-naïve look. “Trust me. It’s a trap.”
“You just want crazy sex, then.”
“Oh, I’ve had crazy sex. I’m good at that.”
“You like it better than normal sex?”
“Depends on who you’re doing it with. Crazy sex fills in for other things that I’m not exactly interested in just now.”
“I’ve only had sex three times. Though the first one absolutely doesn’t count, it was so awkward! He was grunting and done and I was left wondering, is this it?”
He peers into my face and lifts his hand as if to push my hair back, but I quickly do it myself and nervously—because I’m suddenly mortified I admitted it to him, but why am I unable to stop?—add, “I consulted with my friends and they said it so wasn’t it, so a few months later I went at it with a different guy. It was better, a little nicer. Not addictive though.”
He brushes the other side of my hair, the one I didn’t push back, and the touch frissons down my body like a lightning bolt. “And the third?” he asks gently.
“I don’t know.” I shrug, swallowing as I watch him shift in his seat to face me and cross his arms as if to keep them to himself. “It wasn’t awkward, but it was still missing something. I’ve always thought sex is the moment you know when, well, you’ve found someone. It’s always felt like that’s missing so far.”
“According to your plan you still have six more years to get to the meaningful sex. With your ignorant husband.”
“Ignorant? He’s not ignorant.”
“He’s ignorant of the fact that he’s going to be your husband.”
“Well, yes. For now.” I grin.
“So how do you like working at Carma?” He drains the last of his wine.
“Oh, I don’t work there. I just use the terrace.” I sip on mine.
“In a uniform?” He asks for a refill on his.
“Well, if I don’t wear it, I’d never get through security. The uniforms make me inconspicuous. Who knew what a black skirt and jacket could do?”
He watches me, and I lift my wine and drink. He loosens the top two buttons of his shirt and rolls his shirtsleeves to his elbows.
His sort of lazy, relaxed look makes my nipples bead.
I’m not sure if he’s equally affected by my nearness as I am by his, but I’m crackling like live wires under my skin.
When I hear a song I like start playing, “TiO” by Zayn, I head to the small free space where a couple is slow dancing and I start dancing on my own.
He leans back, and he looks so delicious, so calm and powerful, I’m weak.
His hair is a little disheveled and the shadow on his jaw a little darker as he sits with his back to the bar, facing me. He pulls out a cigarette. Watching me very predatorily and scanning the room to see who else is watching me.
I don’t think it’s legal for him to smoke in here—but he doesn’t seem bothered by that at all.
He lights up.
He wants me, I know that now, and as I smile at him and swirl my hips and move to the music, all I want him to see is the woman he wants tonight.
I love the playful sensuality in his eyes—like he’s relaxed and nothing else exists but the drink in his hand, this bar . . . and me. Definitely me. Dancing and looking at him. Because there, right under the playful sensuality, is a heat I’ve never seen before.
A heat that makes me hotter than the sun.
He takes a drag, the tip glowing bright pink as I head back to the bar. When I reach him, he offers it to me. I can’t take it, it feels too intimate now. I shake my head, and he only studies me as I drop to my seat, a little breathless.
He turns his high-backed stool a bit to face me, a silence between us as he smokes his cigarette and seems to take in my features, one by one.
I watch him take a hit.
“I think about kissing you,” I hear myself say.
He exhales the smoke through a line between his lips and pushes the cigarette down on the ashtray and peers into my face, moving the curtain of my hair aside. “How do you kiss me?” he asks.
“I put my hands in your hair and . . . go up on my tiptoes and press my mouth against yours.”
“No tongue?”
“I . . .”
I raise my head.
I’m used to guys looking at me. They stare when I walk down the sidewalk, when I’m on the dance floor, when I’m at Starbucks. I suppose I’m pretty, though I’ve always tried to downplay it by wearing minimal makeup and simple hairstyles like a bun, my hair loose, or a ponytail or a braid. I haven’t gotten my hair professionally styled my whole life. I have good, manageable hair. Long legs, a slim form, perky breasts and an ass that’s where it’s supposed to be, thanks to yoga and running and squats. I’m natural, and I like it like that. But compared to the women I saw with him at the club, I feel plain and uninteresting.
And yet I know that, as plain and different as I am from those women, my Hot Smoker Guy wants me.
He has a hard-on.
He wants me, and he has no idea what I’m about to do.
Oblivious to the fact that I plan to strip him to his bones tonight, he smiles when the bartender asks if we’d like another and sips the last of his wine, chatting with him for a second, then sliding a credit card over the counter, facedown.
“Think I should take you home,” he says.
His eyes meet mine. He’s the hottest man I’ve ever seen. Down to earth and very centered for a mail guy. I think of the basket of condoms at my place. And especially of the tingle between my thighs. I’ve never felt it like this before. I need to suppress the urge to squirm under his appreciative hazel eyes, really.
“That would be nice.” I walk without glancing back, my heartbeat pounding faster and harder as I step outside. I’m trembling, but I don’t want to spend another night wanting and waiting. I mean to take what I want from him.
“We can just take a cab,” I say.
He clicks something on his phone and says, “I got it.”
“Uber? Oh.”
A car arrives almost instantly, and I climb in the back. My heart is galloping in my chest all the way to my apartment building. I have never done something like what I’m about to do. I want to feel the freedom of making my own c
hoices, of being grown up, feeling grown up, doing something that I want—really, really want—without worrying about the consequences.
“Would you walk me up?” I clutch his fingers and look at him.
He follows me into the building and up the elevator, my pulse fluttering madly at his nearness. I open my apartment door and bravely reach out to pull his hand and tug him inside.
I let go when he steps inside and shuts the door, and I turn to find his eyes on me, gleaming in the shadows.
I step forward and press my breasts against his chest. He grabs my hips and pins me in place with his firm grip, studying me with hot eyes. “What are you doing?” He drags the back of a finger down my cheek. “For someone afraid of heights, you like living on the edge.” He grabs my hair and pulls my head back, his eyes fierce.
I slip my fingers into his hair. “Don’t you want this?”
He lowers his head, and I go up on my toes and raise myself to meet his kiss. His lips capture mine, our tongues moving slowly to meet. It’s like two lightning bolts crashing. His tongue flicks inside, and the touch sends shivers of desire through me.
We start to kiss more deeply, more wildly.
God. I’m being kissed from the inside out. His hunger only feeds mine.
His mouth, his hands, the heat of him, the scent of him, the feel of him, the taste of him. Sensation stimulation overload, and the slow buzz of the wine turns into a full-on high from a drug called Hot Smoker Guy.
No guy has ever kissed me like this, or made me feel this way.
He tears his mouth free and a gasp of protest leaves me.
His breathing is heavy, his pupils deliciously dilated.
“If I had any decency at all, I’d leave right now.”
I shake my head. “Because we work together? We’re not even in the same department.” I rub my hands over his chest and his whole body tightens. “I want to be a woman. I want to be the woman that the man I want wants back. Don’t you want me?”
“You know the answer to that,” he says in a gravelly voice.
He’s hard as steel against his slacks and my mouth waters. Emboldened by the feel of his erection against my stomach, I go up and start raining kisses on his jaw. “Then please. Look, I don’t know the first thing about you, but I feel like I know you. Are you married?”
“God, no, I thought we cleared that up.”
“I’m not either. You’re not gay, judging by . . .”
“What department are you in?”
“What does it matter? Are you pulling a Mike Harris on me? Please don’t pull a Mike Harris on me.”
His eyes shine tenderly on my face, and he slides his fingers around my nape and holds my hair.
My throat closes as I look into his eyes. “I’ve always believed you regret the things you don’t do more than the things you do.”
“I’m actually a member of that same club.” But he still seems hesitant, a battle in his eyes.
“Well, see! And we’re both single, we’re both consenting adults . . .”
He presses his thumb to my lips to quiet me.
My breath catches when the look in his eyes registers.
He places his fingers on my cheek and rubs them sinuously down my face. My breathing becomes erratic as he slides lower. I hear the rustle of fabric as he caresses his hand down the side of my clothes.
My hand steals into his hair and I set my lips on his ultra-sexy mouth, softly, and the second my lips touch his, I realize that he was waiting for my lips, for my kiss again. The moment our lips touch, he immediately turns what was my kiss into his kiss. Again.
He pulls my leg up by the knee and nestles his erection against me.
I press closer. “Oh god.”
He holds my face in one hand. He opens my lips wide and his tongue flashes, irreverent and unapologetic and tasting of wine, into my mouth. “You taste so sweet.” He tastes me deeper, as if he wants more, and holds me even closer. “You’re so sweet,” he says in an even huskier voice, his every thrust stoking the fire burning between my legs, every flick of his tongue hardening my nipples.
His kiss is warm, wet. He pops open the top button of my shirt and turns his head, lowers it and kisses the upper swell of one of my breasts, squished against him. He licks it and groans and squeezes me tight.
We embrace as we kiss, his hands on my back now, his fingers spread. I feel everything, front to front, his frame swallowing mine in a cocoon of muscles, strength and warmth.
He edges back in the darkness, and pulls me down on the couch and draws me over his lap to straddle him.
It’s dark. The only sounds that of wet kissing and whispers. Raw and hoarse. I’m straddling him, his hands jammed beneath my skirt and under my panties. One hand cupping my butt, his thumb caressing the fissure.
Breathing and panting as we keep kissing.
“This okay …” he asks me. “How drunk are you?”
“I’m not drunk. Just buzzed.” I cup his jaw and rock against him. “You?”
“I’m wasted.” He runs his hand over my butt. “I’m so wasted.” He licks my lips.
We’re kissing again.
I stop, gasping. Our eyes meet and there’s a question in his. His pupils are dilated, his eyelids heavy. “I don’t remember if I shaved my legs this morning. I’ve been so focused on work—” I begin.
“I don’t care.” He runs his hands over my curves.
“Can I . . . can I just go get my razor very quick?”
He nods.
“Do you want me to shave down there?”
“Excuse me?”
“My friends say some guys prefer . . .”
“No. I want you as you are.”
“Every cluster of freckles too?”
“I want those most of all.”
He’s pacing when I come out.
Our eyes meet and hold. He starts crossing the distance between us and I start walking and we meet halfway. He lifts me up by the ass and takes my mouth with his. His fingers bite into my ass cheeks and grind me to his erection.
“Do you have condoms?” I ask. “I’ve got—”
“I got it.” He crushes my mouth again and three seconds later, I’m on my bed and he’s on top of me, his lips tasting the skin on my neck.
He strokes his hand down the center of my chest. “Close your eyes and let me in.”
I close my eyes and arch up.
He kisses my ear, his breath hot. Haggard. “Say you can handle what I’m about to do to you.” His hand strokes a line down my torso, between my breasts, over my belly button. “Once I’m in, I’m owning every freckle I find. Just don’t let me in here.” He brushes his hand over my breast, over my heart.
I arch as his touch trails beneath my belly button.
“Do you like what you feel?” he asks.
I can’t talk. He’s cupping my sex beneath my skirt, the only thing separating me from him are my panties.
“Open your eyes.”
I do.
“Do you like what you see?” he asks.
I swallow and touch his face. “Is this really happening?”
His lips curl a little. “That I’m going to sweep your hair off your shoulder and sweep you off your feet?” He pushes my hair off my shoulder and kisses me there.
I shiver.
He moves his hand to lift my skirt slowly up my thighs. “I’m about to turn up the heat now.”
I can’t breathe. “I’m scared.”
“Don’t be scared.”
I grab his face between both my hands and bob my head up and down frantically, scared beyond reason. “I want you so much.”
“I want you too.” He lifts me up by the arms so that the back of my head rests on my pillow, and he licks at my neck, nibbling gently. “Touch me,” he says.
I run my hands over his chest. He unzips my skirt and yanks it down my legs, and my panties follow. “Do you want me here?” He touches my wet folds and inserts one finger inside me.
Again, my
head bobs frantically up and down.
He smiles slowly.
“And here.” He rubs my clit with his thumb and moves his middle finger inside me.
I grab his shoulders and bite a piece of his shirt, gasping against the cotton.
“You’re very beautiful. I hope every man who’s ever been where I am now has told you,” he rasps.
Um, no . . .
He bites on my neck a little, and then on my stomach, dips his tongue into my belly button until I’m about to come, then drags his mouth back up to lave and suck my nipples. “And these are the prettiest little freckles I’ve ever seen.”
I flush. I can’t imagine how many “freckles” he’s seen.
“Roll over.”
“I . . .” I’m trembling, but I obey. My emotions skid and whirl.
I feel his hands trailing down my back, as if he wants to find every flaw and spot and mark on my body. I feel him lean over and start to nibble on my ass, and he steals a hand between my cheeks to stroke my folds again.
I fist the sheets at my sides. My eyes are blurry, my breath is too fast to even really oxygenate me, I can’t hear well because of the pounding of my heart and I can’t smell anything past him. My senses have been reduced to feeling and to him.
Suddenly, he rolls over to his back, sits up and yanks off his shirt, pulls off his slacks, and lies back down—fully naked and holy . . .
God.
HOLY GOD.
I’m gaping at his cut body, his tanned skin, his huge . . . Oh god.
His lips curve as he says, “Come get it.”
One breath,
Two breaths,
Three breaths,
And my lungs still feel empty of air.
He’s got the biggest, hardest, longest, thickest erection I’ve ever seen.
He clenches his jaw and sweeps my hair aside, watching me. His eyes glow like fire in the night and he slides his hand around my waist and slowly drags me to his lap.
“Take me in,” he urges.
He catches me by the ass and lifts me, my legs straddling him as our lips smash and he lowers me over him.
I gasp when he fills me.
I adjust over him.
My eyes hold his, cling to his, widening as I take him inside me—long, hard, pulsing with life. He won’t take his eyes off me. They’re heavy and male, and looking at me as if I’m some living masterpiece. There’s not enough air in the world to fill my lungs right now. He’s breathing just as hard, trailing his hands up to caress my breasts.