Naked

  “Olivia! How are you?” Father Matthew blinked behind his thick glasses. His hair stood up all over his head and he looked as if he should be in bed.

  “Fine, Father, how are you? Got a cold?” The box in my hand felt as if it might catch on fire any second. I gave myself a mental slap to the forehead for thinking I didn’t need a shower before making the ten-minute trip to the store.

  Behind me, Alex snorted laughter. He’d been fooling around just a moment before, comparing the brands and trying to do a price per orgasm comparison. I didn’t dare look at him.

  Father Matthew blinked, his voice like a foghorn. “Oh, yes, a pretty bad one. I won’t shake your hand.”

  He looked over my shoulder at Alex and then back at me, clearly expecting an introduction.

  “Um, Father Matthew, this is my…friend, Alex Kennedy.”

  “Nice to meet you, Father. I won’t shake your hand, either.”

  The priest laughed, then sneezed and fumbled in the pocket of his heavy coat for a handkerchief. He honked into it and sighed. “Nice to meet you, Alex. I should get going. I want to go home and get into bed.”

  “Sounds like a great idea,” Alex said, and if stepping on his foot wouldn’t have been so obvious, I’d have stomped him into silence.

  As it was, I put on a fake, bright smile and kept the condoms tucked close to my side. “Sorry you don’t feel well, Father. Get better soon.”

  “Oh, thank you. And, Olivia, you know you’re always welcome to come back to Mass.” Father Matthew grinned and his gaze dropped momentarily to the box in my hand before he flicked his gaze to Alex. “Both of you could come. Are you Catholic, Alex?”

  “Yes, Father, as a matter of fact.”

  Surprised, I turned to look at Alex, who’d put on a choirboy smile.

  “With a name like that, I was pretty sure you were. Come to Mass,” Father Matthew said. “We’d be happy to see you there. Happy New Year!”

  He didn’t push it more than that or wait for an answer I knew would probably be a lie, anyway. I liked him for that. I’d liked him when I went to church, too. It was the rest of it I didn’t care for.

  As Father Matthew ambled off toward the pharmacy, Alex pulled me against him so he could nuzzle my ear.

  “Wow, I haven’t had a close call like that since I was in high school.”

  I laughed and turned to poke him in the chest. “What happened in high school?”

  “I was in the drugstore buying rubbers when my mother showed up in the next aisle. She wasn’t buying rubbers, thank God. Epsom salts.” He shuddered, then imitated a woman’s voice. “‘A.J., what are you doing here?’”

  “What did you tell her?”

  “I said I was buying bubble gum.”

  “And she believed you?” I laughed.

  He shrugged. “She didn’t ask any questions. That’s all I cared about.”

  I studied the box in my hand, then tossed it into the basket he held. “Let’s get out of here before the rabbi shows up. Do we need anything else?”

  Alex grinned. He hooked another box of condoms off the rack and tossed it in. Then a bottle of silicone lube. The big one. I raised a brow.

  “Let’s hit aisle four,” he said.

  “What’s in aisle four?”

  “Snacks,” he said matter-of-factly.

  “You think we’ll need…snacks?” I had to try hard to keep a straight face.

  “I think you’re going to need to keep your strength up,” he told me with another smile that shot a bolt of liquid excitement right between my thighs. “Definitely.”

  He waited until we were back in his car before he asked me about the priest. “Do you go to church a lot?”

  This was a conversation that would take a lot longer than ten minutes. “Not really,” I said anyway.

  “Huh.”

  I looked at him. “Huh, what? Do you go to church? Or were you telling Father Matthew a lie about being Catholic?”

  He laughed. “No, I wasn’t lying. If you call being born a Catholic, raised a Catholic and confirmed a Catholic being Catholic.”

  “But you’re not, now?”

  He shrugged. “I’m not anything now.”

  “Huh,” I said.

  Alex glanced at me, his mouth still curved in a smile. “What did you tell me before? It’s complicated. But really, Olivia, it doesn’t matter to me what you are.”

  I watched the fields turn to houses. In another minute he made the turn down the alley and into the lot behind my building. I picked at a piece of lint on my gloves. “I don’t know what I am.”

  Alex turned off the car and twisted in his seat to face me. “Well, that’s okay, too.”

  He kissed me when we got in the back door. It was the same place he’d kissed me the night before, still as cold, just brighter in the daylight. Alex was warm, though. Mouth and hands. The bags crushed between us.

  “I have to go upstairs first. I want to take a shower,” I said.

  His eyes flashed in the light from the windows facing the street. “Do you want me to come up?”

  Did I?

  I faltered at the question, thinking of spending another few hours on his futon in the middle of his living room with the full light of day doing nothing to hide anything I might want hidden. My bedroom had dim, soft and romantic lighting and a nice comfy bed. It was also my bedroom, and I’d never had a lover in it. Somehow, that seemed to make all of this suddenly more intimate. More important.

  “No?” he asked.

  He was perceptive, scarily so. Why did he seem to see every thought I ever had, while I could only guess at his? I shook my head.

  “It’s not no, it’s just…I won’t take long. I’ll come back down. Okay?” A kiss was supposed to soften the words, but I couldn’t tell if it had or if he was just that good at faking. I thought maybe the latter.

  “I’ll leave the door unlocked.”

  I nodded and left the bags with him. In my apartment I closed my eyes, but could see only his face, the way he looked when he came. Deep, gray eyes, unreadable. His smile.

  I lifted my arm and ran my nose along it from the elbow to my wrist. I could smell him on me. Taste him on my lips. My heart skipped, my thighs squeezed together involuntarily, and I actually made a sound of longing.

  I wanted Alex. It didn’t matter about anything else. My reasons. His. I’d meant what I told him about not wanting to regret, but now I understood I hadn’t quite meant that, exactly.

  I was sure I would regret this, sometime.

  I simply didn’t care.

  He’d left the door open, just as he’d promised. I knocked, anyway, before I swung it open. I peeked around it, suddenly nervous and not knowing what I’d see. Naked Alex, waiting for me? I could only hope.

  He wasn’t naked, but his wet hair showed he’d showered, too. I’d put on a pair of jeans and an oversize button-down shirt over a cute camisole top. He wore jeans, too, and a pink button-down shirt with a very frayed hem. He hadn’t tucked it in or even buttoned it all the way, and I got to see quite a bit of flesh as he turned from the counter, where he’d been setting out a bowl of pretzels.

  “You’re going to feed me again?”

  “Strength, Olivia. I told you.”

  My mouth and throat went dry. It’s one thing to know how to be a modern woman, full of confidence in her sexuality and totally okay with the casual fuck. It’s another to actually be that woman.

  “We should talk about something first, though,” he said seriously, before I could reply.

  “Uh-oh.” I shook my head and took a step backward. “That doesn’t sound good.”

  He didn’t let me escape. He took my hand and led me to the futon, where the sheets and blankets and pillows were all tidied. We both sat. He didn’t let go of my hand. He turned it over in his and traced the lines on my palm until I shivered. Then he looked at me.

  “We don’t have to do this.”

  It was the last thing I’d expected to hear. I almost
yanked my hand from his. “If you don’t want to—”

  “I want to. I want to,” he assured me, pulling me closer. “Believe me, Olivia. I do.”

  I scanned his face, which looked sincere and open, though those mingled expressions did nothing to help me figure him out. “So why did you say that?”

  “Because…” He cleared his throat and shifted. I could see his bare chest inside the pink shirt. I could smell him.

  He smelled good. I leaned closer, just a little. “What?”

  “I haven’t been with a woman in…well, a while.” He said it as if it was a relief to get it out, all in a rush.

  A woman, he’d said. It could have been a lie, but he’d made the distinction. If he’d said “anyone” I’d have turned around and walked away. That’s what I told myself, anyway. That if he’d lied to me just then I’d have left.

  “Me, neither,” I said lightly.

  His eyes searched mine and he smiled half a beat after I spoke. “You’re funny.”

  “Sometimes.”

  His thumb traced a random pattern on my palm. “I just wanted you to know.”

  “Thank you.” Our knees bumped. I toyed with one of the two buttons holding his shirt closed. When it came undone, I took care of the other and spread open his shirt to get a better look.

  His laugh became a hiss when I circled a finger around one of his nipples. He buried his hands in my hair when I kissed his mouth. I moved onto his lap, straddling, cupping his face to hold his mouth to mine. We kissed that way for a while until I had to break for a breath.

  I felt his erection under me and rocked forward on it. My clit rubbed the seam of my jeans as my crotch pressed his belly. I wore no bra beneath the camisole and my nipples rubbed the soft fabric. I wanted them to rub his bare skin.

  He’d let go of my hair to grip my ass and pull me harder against him. He licked his mouth, then dipped his head to find my throat. My collarbone. His tongue left a wet path as he moved lower to the curves of my breasts.

  He looked up at me. “Can we take this off?”

  My shirt, he meant. “Only if you take yours off, too.”

  “Take it off me.”

  Such a sexy voice, all rough and ragged, but smooth as well. I slid the shirt over his shoulders, down his arms. It bound his hands behind him for a moment when it caught on his wrists, and I didn’t push it farther right away.

  “I can’t use my hands like this,” he murmured into my mouth.

  My fingers had been inching the fabric down, but I stopped. “Maybe I like it that way.”

  It was only talk. I’d never tied up a man, or been tied up myself. The semi-sex Patrick and I’d had was certainly, in retrospect, not normal, but it was absolutely vanilla.

  Alex tipped his head to look into my eyes. “Oh, yeah?”

  I paused, straddling his lap, my arms around him and him unable to move his hands. “Do you like it that way…?”

  “I like it any way I can get it.”

  I didn’t take the shirt off his wrists. I kissed him a little harder, thinking about this. My breasts rubbed his bare chest with the thin camisole between us, and when I broke the kiss he was breathing hard.

  This wasn’t really the time to get into the game of “did you ever.” But there’s nothing sexier than knowing you’re turning someone on, and with his cock so hard I could feel it throb through two layers of denim, Alex was definitely turned on. I tugged at the shirt, but didn’t pull it off.

  “What do you like about it?”

  He blinked, then swiped his tongue along his lower lip, narrowing his eyes in thought. “Sometimes you just want to give it all up, you know?”

  My voice cracked a little when I answered. “Give what up?”

  “Control,” Alex whispered, and closed his eyes.

  He breathed out. I breathed in. He opened his eyes.

  “Then again, sometimes you don’t.” He tugged the shirt off the rest of the way and grabbed my hips. He rolled us until he was on top of me, between my legs, his cock pressing me just right and his belly smooth and hard and hot on my skin where my shirt had pulled up. He cuffed my wrists, pulled my arms slowly over my head and pinned them there with one hand while the other went to the snap of my jeans.

  “I could get away.” Any fierceness I’d intended was ruined by my voice shaking with each word.

  “You could,” he said. “But you don’t want to.”

  I did not, and so I didn’t move when he opened my jeans and slid a hand inside. Over my panties, lace this time, chosen for effect more than comfort. He rubbed my clit and my hips moved.

  One-handed, he managed to get my jeans down to my thighs. I couldn’t help him, not with my hands pinned above my head, so I don’t know how he managed to get them down farther than that. He used a foot, finally, pushing at the denim crotch until the jeans tangled around my ankles.

  “Dammit,” he said in a low voice.

  I laughed, arching my back as his mouth found my belly. “So much for that.”

  He shoved the jeans off the rest of the way, nuzzled my skin and moved up my body to lean over me and stare into my face. His grip on my wrists loosened. “Put your hands together, palm to palm. Lock your fingers.”

  His hair had fallen forward, making him look rakish and impossibly sexy. He hadn’t shaved and the subtle glint of stubble had me shivering, thinking of how it would feel on my belly when he kissed me again. I did as he said.

  His breath soughed out as he looked at my clasped hands. “Fuck. That’s…fuck, Olivia.”

  I arched again, offering my body to him without words, wondering just what he’d do. And what I would do when he did it.

  “Don’t let go,” he cautioned, his voice dark and deep. “I want to see how long you can last.”

  A little alarmed, I stopped moving. “How long I can last before what?”

  His smile soothed me. “Before you have to touch me.”

  Then without another word, Alex moved down my body to center his mouth over my lace-covered clit. He kissed me there. I jerked but kept my hands together. His low laugh blew damp heat over me, and I opened my legs for him.

  He hooked a finger in my panties and slid them down, his mouth following. Kiss after kiss, first on my belly, then my thigh, then my knee. Both ankles. Up again on the other leg, until he’d centered himself again.

  I stayed very, very still. It took an eternity for him to put his mouth to me again, and when he did my fingers slipped apart. Only for a second. I clutched them tight together.

  “I know you like to win.” He spoke against my skin. His tongue found my clit and circled there, and I felt his finger stroke me. “Don’t you?”

  “This isn’t Dance Dance…” My words slid into a groan at the pleasure of his mouth.

  He murmured laughter against me, and it felt so good I pushed myself against his tongue. His finger slid inside me, and that felt good, too. They call it eating out, but Alex didn’t just eat me. He savored me.

  He licked and stroked me until I trembled with climax, and then he eased off. The futon dipped as he knelt upright. I hadn’t realized I’d closed my eyes until he stopped, and then they flew open.

  He wasn’t smiling when he unhooked his jeans and pushed them down to free his cock. He got out of them and knelt again, one knee between my legs and the other at my side. He stroked himself slowly, eyes narrowed in concentration.

  My internal muscles clenched, my clit throbbing. Every muscle in my body had tensed, ready to tip over into orgasm, and now I hovered on the edge of pleasure. It would take only one more kiss, a touch, and I was sure I’d come.

  He didn’t touch me. He kept stroking himself, his face serious. He bit down on his lip and then let his head tip back. His hips pushed forward, thrusting his cock into his fist.

  He made a pretty picture. Even with an orgasm tightening my body I had to frame him in my head. Snap, click.

  His eyes opened and he looked down at me. I’d made a noise, sort of a growl. When h
e smiled I wanted to curse him out, except he looked so delicious I couldn’t.

  “I’m so fucking hard,” he said, deliberately stroking. “I want to be inside you, Olivia.”

  My fingers slipped apart, just a little. I moved them from over my head to rest on my forehead, just over my eyes, though I could still see him. I wanted to see him. “You are so not being fair.”

  His laugh became a groan. “Fuck, this feels so good…but you’d feel better.”

  My clit throbbed again. Climax had not eased off; I was still so close I thought I could probably finish just by squeezing my thighs together. My cunt ached, empty.

  “You’re so wet,” he said. “I’d slide so far in…and then out….”

  He cracked open one eye, judging my response. I’d have laughed if I’d been able, but I couldn’t find the breath. All of it was taken up with trying not to unlink my hands.

  “Fuck it,” I said after a second, and sat up, reaching for him. “You win.”

  I pulled him on top of me and we kissed wildly. His hands slid up my body to help me off with my clothes. Bared to him, I breathed out. Everything in me strained for release.

  He sat up long enough to grab a condom from the box; smart man, he’d put it under the cushions. Foil tore. He didn’t play any more games. Alex rolled the condom down over his cock and then moved back over my body. His mouth found mine. He covered me, one hand pressing the futon next to my shoulder and the other…oh, the other, fuck, guiding himself inside me.

  He pushed into me slowly and stopped when I grumbled a small protest. He slid a hand beneath the back of my neck, fingers diving into my hair, and brought my mouth to his. Openmouthed, he kissed me and then stopped, breathing hard.

  I blinked him into focus, his face so close I could count his lashes. Inside me his cock throbbed, and I shifted. My clit pulsed, but he didn’t move. I shook, not on purpose, but unable to stop my body from finding its way.

  He pressed deeper into me. Then just as slowly withdrew a shallow inch. It wasn’t enough. I lifted my hips and clutched his ass to move him.

  He sank into me, then pulled out. Thrust. Our teeth clashed in a hard kiss, but I didn’t care about bruises. It felt so good nothing else mattered; it all fell away. We fucked hard and fast, and when I came I closed my eyes on starbursts of color like fireworks.