Vanilla

  He gave me a sheepish grin and stroked a hand down my thigh. “I wasn’t expecting to get past second base tonight.”

  “Lame. Didn’t you think at some point you would? Aren’t you the one who said it would happen when it happened? We’ve been dating for weeks!” I let my forehead press his for a moment then kissed his mouth gently. “I am going to kill you.”

  “Do you...?”

  I sat up, trying to think if I did, but they’d always been Esteban’s responsibility. It had always given me a tingle to imagine him at the store, making his choice and facing the cashier, all the while with his cock half-hard because he was thinking of me. I wisely did not share this memory with Niall.

  “I don’t. Not with me anyway. I probably have some at home.”

  He gave me a solemn look. “Maybe I should kill you.”

  “No! Then we’d both be dead,” I said, “and that’s gross.”

  “I meant to. But somehow or another I kept never getting around to it. Shit.” He groaned and fell back against the couch.

  “See what happens when you let things happen as they’re meant to instead of having someone take charge?” I teased and leaned to brush my lips over his.

  Niall shifted underneath me. “Are you mad?”

  “I should say yes, just to teach you a lesson.”

  “Ugh, what kind of lesson is that?”

  I wiggled against him. “The kind where you learn when I tell you to do something like be better prepared, I expect you to do it.”

  “Ouch.”

  I laughed. “I take it you were not a Boy Scout.”

  “No. I hated camping.” He nipped at my throat, making me sigh.

  “Condoms are nonnegotiable without a clean bill of health,” I told him frankly. “I’ve had chlamydia twice, and that was enough. Never again.”

  He flinched. “Wow... I...”

  “I’m tested monthly,” I said.

  Niall was silent for a moment. “You’re very responsible.”

  “Well...yeah,” I said. “Duh. When it comes to my health, I don’t fuck around.”

  “I want to make love to you, Elise,” he said sort of formally and so sweetly it made me emotional.

  I drew a fingertip over his lower lip. “I want you to.”

  “So,” he said hopefully.

  “So,” I answered as I got off his lap and took his hand. “You know there are other things we can do without a condom.”

  Niall grinned. “I was hoping you’d say that.”

  He took me upstairs. I made myself at home on his bed with a show of testing the mattress. The pillows. When he leaned to kiss me again, I laughed and held him off with a hand on his chest. Then I scooted back on the bed to rest against the headboard and inched up my skirt. I ran a finger up the inside of my thigh.

  “We could play gin rummy,” I said conversationally. “Or chess. I’m great at chess. I bet I could beat you.”

  “I bet you could, too.” Niall moved closer to kiss me, his fingers following the path my own had made.

  I stopped him an inch from my panties with a hand on his wrist. He stopped kissing me. He tried to move his hand again, but I didn’t let him.

  “You don’t really want to play chess, do you?” he asked.

  “I really want you to think about the fact you invited me over here and started to get me all excited without having any condoms.” I kept my hand over his, though he was no longer trying to ease it upward. “There should be consequences for your actions.”

  I was serious. Stern. Esteban would’ve been properly downcast, ready to be disciplined. On the other hand, it was unlikely Esteban would not have remembered the rubbers.

  “Are you sure you wouldn’t rather think about me going down on you?” Niall, who was definitely not Esteban, asked.

  I smiled, charmed, and didn’t push the issue. “I would like to think about that.”

  “I could show you. Then you don’t have to imagine it.”

  Niall kissed my knee. Then a little higher, the inside of my thigh. His mouth brushed my panties. I gave a small, gasping laugh, my back arching. When he slipped his fingers under the edges of the cotton and tugged them down, baring me to him, I closed my eyes. My fingers gripped the sheet as my body tensed, waiting for him to kiss me there.

  I cried out when at last he did, with a slow, deliberate pressure on my clit that had my hips lifting. His hands slid beneath my ass, pressing me to his mouth. He sucked gently then used the flat of his tongue. One stroke, another, the pace steady and delicious and oh, fuck, so good.

  My fingers dug into his hair. Niall made a small noise, and I opened my eyes. He wasn’t looking at me, his attention solely on what he was doing, and I was able to drink in the sight of him without him noticing.

  “God, you’re beautiful,” I said in a low, hoarse voice.

  He blinked and pulled away a little, his breath teasing me when he answered. “Me?”

  “Yes. Kissing me there.” I loosened my grip to stroke his hair then cup his cheek. “Feels so good. Keep going.”

  He moved up my body instead to kiss my mouth. His hand went between my legs, his first two fingers circling on my clit. Then dipping lower, inside me. His tongue stroked mine. He fucked deeper inside me, fingers curling while his thumb pressed my clit.

  The kiss got harder. So did his thrusting fingers. I wanted to get his belt unbuckled, to get my hands on him, but when I shifted, he nipped at my jaw and didn’t move to let me. He stepped up the pace until I was so distracted by it I moaned. I rocked with his touch, letting him tumble me into orgasm, hard and surprisingly fast.

  Gasping, my body still tensing, I blinked and looked at him. I put a hand over his to stop him from going on. “Wow.”

  He looked pleased. “Hmm.”

  I fell back onto the pillows as Niall slid his fingers out of me and propped himself on his elbow to look down at me. I stretched a little, rolling to face him. Offering my mouth for a kiss.

  “Yummy,” I whispered against his mouth.

  Niall ran a hand up my calf and hooked it behind my knee. “I’m so hard right now, I think my dick might break off.”

  “I don’t want your dick to fall off. That would be a real shame.”

  “I am kind of attached to it, even if it gets me into trouble sometimes.” Niall shook his head.

  I slid on top of him, my knees pressing his hips, to kiss his mouth. Still kissing, I rocked against him. “You are pretty hard. Let’s see what we can do about that.”

  When his mouth opened, I took his tongue. I slid my hands up his arms, taking his wrists to pin them above his head. Not thinking about it, simply moving and doing what felt natural.

  “That’s how you like it, huh?” Niall said into my ear.

  I ran my mouth along his throat then pressed his skin with my teeth before answering. “Yes. I do.”

  He rolled us both before I could stop him, so that he ended up between my legs. He kissed me hard, his hand going between us to work at his belt buckle. I helped him with the zipper. Then helped to shove his khakis over his hips, until there he was, kneeling in front of me with his cock tenting his briefs. He hooked his fingers in the waistband and eased them lower, lower, lower, until I sat up to help him with that, too.

  “Oh,” I said. “Oh, wow.”

  He stroked a hand down the length of his erection, which was fucking perfect. Amazing. Not so big I recoiled, not so small I was disappointed. I looked at him then slowly, deliberately, I opened my mouth and pointed inside it without a word.

  Niall burst into laughter. “Wow?”

  I did, too, after a second, but then reached for him, delighted by the way he stuttered into a small groan. “Bring that gorgeous thing over here and let me get a taste.”

  He hesitated then moved a little closer. My hand closed over his. Together, we stroked until he let go. I didn’t stop.

  I brushed my lips over the head as I stroked. I took him in slowly, an inch at a time, then slid out as slowly
while he made a low, guttural noise. When I looked up at him, he was looking down at me with that glaze-eyed stare that told me I was doing something right.

  Niall pulled his shirt off over his head and tossed it to the side. I hadn’t taken off my dress, but there’s a kink called CFNM, clothed female, naked man, and while I wouldn’t have said it was a fetish of mine, I definitely enjoyed the power play of remaining fully dressed with a bare-assed man in front of me.

  I also love sucking cock.

  With my own orgasm out of the way, I had no urgency to be anything but tantalizingly, teasingly slow. And since I’ve always enjoyed torturing with pleasure rather than pain, every single moan and groan I eased out of him was a treat for me. Every time he seemed close, I eased off, until at last he was making a series of low, mindless and pleading noises that I could no longer resist. I kept going until he exploded with a hoarse shout, and with a satisfied grin, I sat back to watch him coming down off the high.

  “Mmm,” I said. “Super yummy.”

  We lay quietly for a few minutes after that, entwined. He put his head on my chest, a hand on my belly. I toyed with his hair.

  We kissed a little bit after that. Nothing out of control. Slow and sweet and sexy and deliciously frustrating.

  I sat up finally with a heavy sigh. “I should go. Work in the morning, and I didn’t bring anything with me.”

  “I have a toothbrush you can borrow.”

  I reached to tweak his belly, but he held me off easily with one hand. “I need more than a toothbrush. Contrary to what Beyoncé says, I do not wake up like this.”

  “Like what?” Niall said, deadpan. “Breathtakingly beautiful?”

  His words stopped me solid, not because I didn’t believe he meant them. But because I believed he did. Overcome but trying to hide it, I leaned to kiss him again.

  He nodded then smiled. His hands on my hips, he eased me closer. “I’ll call you tomorrow, okay?”

  Neither of us moved.

  I was going to tell him I’d changed my mind, that I’d stay, when finally, Niall took a step back from me. Our hands still linked, our arms stretched between us until the distance was too great and we had to let go.

  “I’ll see you,” I said.

  “Wait a minute. Not just yet. You stay right there. Just like that.” He gestured at me, an up-and-down sweep, though I had no idea what he was talking about. “The light behind you, turning everything sheer and golden. I want to remember you just like that.”

  His words, dipping low and a little raspy, flooded me with heat. I wanted to cover myself; I wanted him to see all of me. My nipples hardened, and there was no hiding them. I couldn’t move. I could only wait while Niall’s gaze swept over me. All over.

  “I want to remember you like this,” he told me again.

  Then he walked me to the front door, kissing me solidly before closing the door behind him, and trembling, I had to sit for a minute behind the wheel before I could get myself together enough to drive. At the sound of my car, I saw him twitch the curtain. I was glad for the darkness that hid me from him just then.

  I wanted him to remember me all sheer and golden, too.

  31

  William didn’t have to go to religious school anymore. His mother had tried to insist he continue on through Confirmation, but William had adamantly refused. I thought Susan felt guilty about what had happened at the brunch, and probably about lots of other things, which may be part of the reason she’d agreed. Still, Wednesday afternoons had become something of a tradition for us, and Alex never minded if I left a little early, so I’d picked the kid up from home and drove him to The Lucky Rabbit for a burger, fries and shake.

  “Any big plans for the year? It’s your last year of middle school. Are you going to tear it up or what?” I asked over the platter of junk food.

  William shrugged. “I don’t think so. I’ll just be hanging with my friends.”

  I dipped a fry in ketchup. “Where do you hang out?”

  “The park mostly.” He shrugged.

  “What are you, a pack of hooligans?” I teased and earned a roll of his eyes. We ate in silence for a minute or so before I added, casually, “So, how are things at home?”

  I hadn’t seen or heard from my sister-in-law since the confrontation after the brunch. I’d called my brother a few times, but he’d been busy. Or at least said he was busy. And I was being a shitty sister and letting him avoid me because I didn’t want to get involved with his marital issues. It was cowardly, and I knew it, but I hadn’t yet been able to convince myself that telling him was the best choice.

  There was William, see. William, whom I’d held mere hours after his birth, the fourth person to ever hold him. Mom, Dad, nurse and Auntie Elise. I’d rocked him to sleep and helped to potty train him and taught him to read before he went to kindergarten.

  I loved this kid like my own, and I did not want to be the one to blow up his family.

  “They’re okay,” William said, seemingly without any hidden fretting. He was too busy digging into his Hollywood burger.

  “Are you glad to be all finished with the Bar Mitzvah?”

  He gave me a look so much like the ones I’d been used to getting from his dad that I was torn between laughing out loud and nostalgically getting choked up. I settled for taking a long slurp of my milk shake. We ate in companionable silence after that, occasionally breaking it to point out something funny in the parking lot, like the teen boy and girl who were having some kind of dramatic fight in almost total silence, or the little kid in the backseat of a car who gave William the finger, making us both burst into laughter.

  “You would never have done that,” I told him. “You were a perfect kid.”

  He laughed at that, but looked pleased.

  “I’m so proud of you, William,” I told him abruptly. “I don’t know if I told you that, but I am.”

  He looked pleased, but also embarrassed. “For what?”

  “For being a great all-around kid. For kicking ass at your Bar Mitzvah. For just generally being someone I’m glad to know.” I punched him lightly in the arm.

  I dropped him off at home afterward. When he used the outdoor keypad to let himself into the garage, however, I saw that neither of his parents were home yet. Frowning, I waved at him from my car and then called out the window, “Hey!”

  William turned. At thirteen he was definitely old enough to be left by himself, but the question was, did he really want to be? He turned to face me, looking surprised.

  “Come here.”

  Dutifully, he came back to the car and leaned in the driver’s side window. “Yeah?”

  “What time do your mom and dad get home?”

  His shrug and uncomfortable expression gave me more answers than I’d asked for. I sighed, tallying the chores I had waiting for me at home. Screw it, laundry could wait.

  “Let’s go to the movies,” I said.

  “Now?”

  “Yes. Now. We can go see that new giant robot movie.” I grinned.

  William looked uncertain. “But you already took me out to dinner. And it’s a school night.”

  “Get in the car, kid,” I told him. “I want to see a movie, and you don’t really want to sit around at home by yourself, do you?”

  “No. I guess not.” He came around the car again and slid into the passenger seat, good kid that he was, buckling his seat belt without being asked. “Can I see if some of my friends want to come along? They’re not old enough to get in without a parent.”

  I waved a magnanimous hand. “Sure. If they can meet us there, I’ll be happy to chaperone.”

  “You’re the best,” William enthused, and bent to his phone to start typing and making plans.

  I didn’t know about being the best, but I adored that kid, and while I wasn’t about to track down Susan to find out where the hell she was, in case it was someplace I didn’t want to know about, I also didn’t want him to be at home by himself until who knew when. I typed in a qui
ck text to my brother to let him know where his son was, and got back a vague thanks, working late. That wasn’t terribly unusual, since Evan had to do server maintenance at least a couple times a month, which meant odd, late hours. Still, just because their son was technically old enough not to need a babysitter, that didn’t mean that his parents should just fuck off doing whatever.

  My phone buzzed with a message just as we pulled into the parking lot of the theater. Seeing it was from Niall, I waved William on ahead and told him to get in line. With a happy, giddy grin, I read Niall’s message.

  What are you up to?

  Getting ready to see the new giant robot movie, I typed. What are you doing?

  Wishing I was seeing the new giant robot movie.

  I didn’t think twice about it. Come see it with me. I’ll save you a seat, movie starts in half an hour.

  As soon as I sent it, I wished I hadn’t. George had never been spontaneous that way. Oh, sure, he’d call or text and expect me to drop whatever I was doing to accommodate him, but anything I wanted him to do had to be planned in advance. Hell, he’d nearly needed forms filled out in triplicate with a full itinerary if I wanted him to meet me halfway between us for an impromptu midweek dinner; and even then he only said yes just often enough that the next time, when he said no, I was twice as disappointed.

  I shouldn’t have asked Niall to come with me, I told myself, preparing for his answer to come back with a “no.” I got no answer at all, and I shook my head as I got out of the car, reminding myself not to let it bother me.

  “Want popcorn?” I asked William, who grinned. I handed him a twenty-dollar bill and waved him ahead. “Get me some Junior Mints and a Coke.”

  Junk food procured, we made our way to the theater, one of the bigger ones in the multiplex. Almost full, too. Well, that’s what you get for being late, I heard my mother say, and laughed to myself. Inside, William spotted a group of his friends who had an extra seat with them.

  “Go ahead,” I told him. “I’ll sit up here. It’s cool.”

  “You sure?”

  “Definitely.” I took one of the few empty seats. The row on the floor between the stadium seating sections had seats in groups of two with spaces between for wheelchairs, and I found one two-seat section empty. I settled in, checking my phone and forcing myself not to be disappointed when I found Niall still hadn’t answered me.