“Bedroom,” she told him.
“Just show me where,” Matt agreed in a husky voice.
Fortunately for them both, it was only a few steps away, just off the living room. Melissa led him there by the hand. When they got through the doorway, she was already undoing her own button and zipper. Matt reached over one shoulder to pull his shirt off over his head, and Melissa paused to watch, enamored of the simple gesture that was just so damned sexy.
No, he wasn’t rippling with muscles, or bronzed from the sun. Nor was his chest waxed smooth the way she’d said she preferred. Matt had curling golden hair spread out evenly across his pecs, and a delicious-looking treasure trail disappearing into his open waistband. His belly wasn’t tight with a six-pack, but suddenly all Melissa wanted to do was lick it. And maybe bite it, a little.
This was no slow seduction. She was sure neither of them could’ve stood waiting a minute longer than necessary to get naked. They stripped themselves and stood naked in front of each other—and for the first time with anyone, Melissa realized something.
“What?” Matt asked.
“I’m not embarrassed,” Melissa said, passing a hand over her breasts, belly, thighs. “About my body, I mean.”
“Why would you be? It’s fucking gorgeous.”
Melissa laughed, cupping her breasts again, the nipples still damp and tight from Matt’s mouth. “I mean, I’m not nervous being naked in front of you, Matt.”
“Good.” He kissed her again. His cock nudged her belly.
When he put his hands on her ass, kneading gently, Melissa shivered. “Bed.”
Matt looked over her shoulder, then at her. “Melissa. Are you sure? We don’t have to.”
“You must be the only guy who’s ever asked me if I was sure,” Melissa said with a lifted eyebrow. “That’s very, very sweet.”
“What can I say, I’m a sweet guy.” Matt laughed, then looked serious. “I mean, I want to do this. God, I think I might bust something if I don’t get inside you....”
Melissa drew in a gasp at that, so bold and blunt. So damned sexy. “I know.”
“I just want to make sure you’re okay with it. Because...this isn’t the experiment anymore.”
“I know that.” She shifted to press her belly against him, loving the thickness of his prick between them. This evidence of his desire. It made her knees weak.
Matt passed a hand down her hair and gathered it into a tail at the base of her neck, then twisted his fingers into it. “I never got the impression you were into one-nighters.”
“No. But this doesn’t feel like that. Does it?” This conversation would’ve been surreal with any other man she’d ever taken to bed, but somehow it fit with Matt. Analysis made sense.
“No. Definitely not.”
“Bed,” Melissa said again, more firmly. “I want this.”
And Matt gave it to her. He pushed her back on the bed with his kisses, covered her with his body. The sweet weight of him pushed her hips upward. When he moved a little ways off her, Melissa made a noise of protest that turned quickly into a moan when his fingers found the heat and slickness between her legs.
It felt as good as she’d imagined. Better, in fact. Matt’s fingers found her swollen clit and rubbed gently, then more firmly. His tongue stroked hers as his fingers dipped down into her pussy to fill her. He fucked into her gently with two fingers, his thumb pressing in gorgeous, perfect counterpoint on her clitoris, and Melissa shook with the pleasure.
“Good?” Matt murmured into her mouth.
“Very,” she whispered, and tilted her hips to give him more access. “Deeper.”
Again, he gave her what she wanted. Needed. Craved. They’d already had four days of foreplay, and Melissa had spent the entire day imagining what it would be like to have sex with Matt. She was so close to tipping into orgasm already from just this simple exploration of her body that she put her hand on his wrist and looked at him.
“You want me to slow down?” he asked.
“It’s so good already, that’s all.”
Matt shot her a super sexy grin. “Believe me, Melissa, I’m afraid I’m going to embarrass myself, here.”
She laughed. “Oh, Matt.”
“I’m serious.” He pressed a kiss to her throat, then her breasts, then slid down her body to draw a line with his tongue along her belly. He stopped at her hip, his fingers still stroking gently.
She looked down at him. “I promise to judge you on quality, not quantity, okay?”
He laughed and turned his face into her hip to bite it gently. “Good to know. So if I finish in like, half a minute, that’ll be okay?”
“It’s sort of...oh...” She breathed out on a wave of pleasure as his thumb rubbed her clit in small circles. Her thigh muscles leaped and her hips bucked the tiniest amount. “Flattering.”
“I want to taste you,” Matt said in a low voice.
“Oh, God, please do,” came Melissa’s answer as she opened herself to him further.
No anxiety, no fear, no embarrassment. Nothing she’d ever come to expect from a first time with someone. Matt slipped his fingers out of her and replaced them with his mouth and lips, his tongue, and Melissa shuddered to the very edge of orgasm almost at once.
He pushed his hand under her ass while he lapped at her clit, then used his tongue to provide the same steady pressure his thumb had been giving. Tension built, up and up. She shook with it, but Matt held her still.
Melissa looked down at his face buried between her thighs. Matt had his eyes closed. He made a long, low sound of pure desire, like she was the yummiest thing he’d ever tasted.
Melissa went over. White-hot waves of desire swept over her. Her clit pulsed under Matt’s talented tongue as she came, fingers clutching at the sheets, hips bucking. Her vision went hazy with the ecstasy.
She cried out his name.
He followed her through it, easing off just right when the pressure would’ve been too much, but keeping his mouth teasing her through all the aftershocks. When she’d quieted, her breath still coming a little harsh in her throat but her body no longer twitching, Matt kissed her belly and moved up over her body to find her mouth.
“Wow,” Melissa murmured, boneless and sated.
Matt chuckled. “Good?”
“Mmm, yes.” She opened her eyes and rolled to face him. “Unbelievably.”
She thought he might be more insistent, then, about getting some for himself, but Matt just gathered her close and rolled them so he was on his back with Melissa supporting herself against his chest to look down at him. This gave her an excellent view of his erection, which beckoned the touch of her hand.
He hissed when she took him in her fist, a look almost of pain flitting across his face. “Fuck.”
Melissa, mindful of what he’d said, gave him a gentle, downward stroke, then slid her hand to cup his balls. “I’d like to repay the favor.”
“I’ll never last,” he warned her, but with a grin. “And Melissa...I’m not one to turn down a good blow job....”
“You’re sure it would be good, huh?” She stroked him upward, and Matt’s dick throbbed delightfully against her palm.
“Yeah. I know it would. But I know that I’d shoot off in about two sucks.”
“Hmm.” Melissa pretended to think about that. “That wouldn’t be much longer than it took me.”
They both laughed at that, though breathlessly.
“This feels good,” she told him as she let her fingers drift up and down his length. “I don’t mean the orgasm, though I have to tell you, Matt, it was spectacular.”
He buffed his fingernails against his chest. “Thank ya, thank ya.”
“Just...this. Altogether.”
He looked at her seriously, then drew her to his mouth for a kiss. “Yeah, it does.”
“I want to make love with you,” Melissa told him. “I don’t care if you come right away, I want you inside me.”
Matt groaned but grinned. “Qua
lity, not quantity. You promised.”
Melissa reached into her nightstand and pulled out a box of condoms she hadn’t had occasion to use in forever but was super grateful to have left in the drawer when she’d pulled out the rest to take along to the lab. She didn’t want to get up and go to her purse, all the way out in the living room. She held up one of the condoms, then another.
“Color preference?”
“None,” Matt said.
“Blue,” she said with a grin and tore open the package. She studied his erection carefully as she sheathed him in latex, her grin getting bigger at Matt’s frustrated groan. “There.”
She’d had first times that were more like gymnastics meets, her partner trying to impress her with how many positions he could bend her into, but this time Melissa simply threw a leg over Matt’s hips and straddled him. She reached between them to guide his cock inside her, settling all the way on it so slowly they both groaned at the same time.
He filled her up, all the way, delectable pressure against the back of her pubic bone making her clit start to tingle again. She made a murmuring noise of pleasure, then again when Matt put a hand between them to press his knuckle to her clit.
His eyes were bright, his lips parted and wet. “You like that?”
“Yes.” Melissa rocked her hips.
Just as she hadn’t been anxious about being naked in front of him, now she had no fears that she wouldn’t please him with the motions of her body. In fact, she didn’t think about it at all. She simply moved. What felt good, she did. When Matt groaned or shifted or thrust at the way she moved, Melissa did it again. And again.
Their bodies worked in perfect time. She moved up as he pulled out; she pushed down when he thrust into her. Slowly at first, then faster. With every thrust his hand pressed her clit with just the right amount of pressure.
“I want you to come again,” Matt said through slightly gritted teeth.
“I’m going to,” she breathed, and gave herself up to the pleasure.
It didn’t hit so hard this second time, instead creating slow ripples of ecstasy. Matt thrust deeper inside her. The pleasure built and burst. This time she didn’t cry out his name. This time, it slipped from her lips as easily and sweetly as the orgasm he was giving her.
This time, he said hers, too.
After, Melissa found herself tucked up against him as naturally and easily as if she belonged there. She lay on her side with Matt’s arm around her, his breath puffing every so often into her hair and the warmth of him lulling her into a sated doze.
“Melissa,” he said quietly after a few minutes.
“Yes?”
His arm tightened around her, just a little. “Do you think the experiment was a success?”
She smiled and turned to him. She kissed him. “Yes, Matt. I do.”
* * *
“Margaritas and hot wings on the way.” Matt tipped a bottle of Corona toward the view.
White sand. Blue water. Booze, just like his frat brothers had promised. And as for babes...
“Thanks, baby,” Melissa said, coming up behind him and wrapping her arms around his waist. She kissed his shoulder. “I’m starving.”
Well, he only needed one.
* * * * *
Everything Changes
Hello Kitty.
Alex Kennedy, thirty-five, single and devastatingly fucking handsome, looked in the mirror. Straightened his tie. Smoothed his shirt. He slicked a hand back over his hair and stared into his own eyes for so long he imagined, for just a moment, he saw something there.
A blink and another slide of his hand across his hair, and he looked at the bed again. They were only pajama bottoms, and they wouldn’t bite. But Genevieve could, and had, and he wouldn’t have put it past her to try again.
She’d written his full name across the front of the card. She was the only person who’d ever insisted on it. Alexander. The Great, she sometimes added with that low, throaty laugh. Usually when she had his cock in her fist. She’d said it the last time she jerked him off while some dude they’d picked up at a club got between her legs and ate her until she came.
The gift had been waiting for him when he got home from the meeting, which had been short and to the point. Global Communicom was buying him out, utterly, and taking over the transportation business he’d built here in Singapore. So sorry, Alex old chap, but there’s no room for you on the executive board, not even in a consultant’s position. Take the money, please, and get the fuck out. Alex wasn’t stupid enough to think it had nothing to do with the fact he’d been fucking Reginald Bell’s wife on and off for the past six months. Which was probably why she’d left him this present, he thought with another glance at the bed and its perfectly made-up sheets, the comforter pulled smooth over the top. She must have used her key to get in while he was out.
He looked again at his reflection. Transcom had meant everything to him, had been built with sweat and blood. He’d left behind his entire life to come here and start it up, and in less than ten years had made himself a millionaire. Take the check, he thought. And get out, fuck you very much, have a nice day.
Alex tugged one end and the smooth, slippery ribbon twisted around his fingers as it came loose from the floppy bow. The pants were cotton, black, with hot-pink Hello Kitty faces all over. Women’s pajama pants, but the elastic waist would be big enough to fit him, easily. She knew him well enough not to misjudge something as simple as a size. He should be considering himself lucky she hadn’t sent him a pair of ladies’ frilly panties instead.
He tried to think if she’d ever left him a note before, but couldn’t remember. Text messages, sure. Dozens of them, usually filthy just like her mouth and just like she loved him to be. Well, not loved. Genevieve Bell didn’t love anything but herself. Even her pets had been chosen for their use as accessories and investment rather than anything as base as an emotional connection.
How many swipes of her tongue had licked this flap closed? He tore the paper, thinking of her mouth. She’d have laughed if she knew. Maybe she did. She knew a lot about people, even the ones who tried like hell not to let her see anything important. Especially those people.
Him.
The front of the card was blank but for a small black square in one corner, a stylized gift. Inside: Happy Birthday. That was all. Two words, no summons or command. Not even a signature. He’d walked out on her, but it was Genevieve who’d cut him loose.
That was worth a thank-you, if nothing else was, but because he was the asshole she’d called him more than once, Alex didn’t call her to give it. He looked around his flat at all the pretty things he didn’t care if he never saw again.
He had enough money to go anywhere and do anything he wanted, but in the end there was only one thing to do. One place to go. One person to call.
“Jamie,” he said when the man on the other side of the world answered his phone. “Guess what? I’m coming home.”
* * *
The woman in the kitchen stood with a bowl in her hands, her face crunched in concentration. In profile her features were not as soft as they’d been in her wedding picture, but her hair hung halfway down her back in a mess of red-brown curls a man could get lost in. Alex watched her from the doorway, thinking what a lucky bastard Jamie had always been. Looked like the luck had held out.
“Hello, Anne.”
She screamed and dropped her spoon. He tensed to duck, but she didn’t throw anything at him. She set the bowl on the counter with a clang. There was more to say, an introduction to make, but looking at her wide, startled eyes and her mouth, half-open, Alex couldn’t seem to find one.
It lasted a long time, that first moment. He got to see the color of her eyes and watch the rise and fall of her shoulders as she caught her breath. He’d known she was pretty from her photos, as if he couldn’t have guessed just from the fact his best friend had married her. But the woman in front of him was more than an alignment of features, a curve of ass and tit and belly. Th
is was the woman who’d married Jamie. She could’ve had three eyes and an ass the size of Arizona, and Alex would’ve wanted a piece of her.
The silence drew out. Just before it got awkward, he made a show looking over the rims of his sunglasses around the kitchen and back at her. “Hi. Anne.”
“Alex? Wow. I’m sorry, I wasn’t expecting you.”
He was the big bad wolf when he took off his sunglasses, all the better to see her with. Released from the shadows made by the dark lenses, her face sprung into high relief. Every freckle, every line, every curve. She had smooth, straight eyebrows no entirely straight guy would have noticed. Not that Alex gave a damn. He hadn’t been entirely straight since the eighth grade.
“Yeah, sorry about that. I rang Jamie’s cell and he said to head on over. He said he’d call you. I guess he didn’t.”
“He didn’t.” She laughed and ducked her head, wariness in her gaze.
What had Jamie told her about him? More importantly, what had he kept a secret?
“Bastard.” The kitchen hadn’t changed much since the days when he and Jamie would bike their way over to hang out with Jamie’s grandparents and swim in Lake Erie, which edged the property. He made himself at home as Anne watched him with an expression he doubted she knew looked so cautious. Women liked smiles. It put them at ease. He gave her one of his best. “Something smells good.”
She was baking bread and making brownies, and from the too-casual way she described it, he knew it was more for Mrs. Kinney’s benefit than anything Anne herself wanted to do. Jamie’s mom had stopped making Alex nervous a long time ago, but that’s because he’d stopped giving a fuck what she thought. Then again, he hadn’t married her son.