The One Love Collection

by Lauren Blakely

  His name on my phone screen sends a flurry of shivers down my spine.

  Also, did you know that the French phrase "Se taper le cul par terre" means to laugh uproariously? You probably did. Funnily enough, Google Translate will tell you it means “ass banging on the floor.” I believe this gives new meaning to the phrase “laugh my ass off.” It’s also a great reminder of the value of language teachers.

  By the way, you’re so much hotter than Google Translate. That’s another benefit of you as a teacher. Though, come to think of it, if any of your students look at you the way I do, I might have to go caveman on them.

  My response is simple. I shoot him back a note saying: Is Google Translate hot???

  Then I ring him. It’s after ten, and I know Hayden is sound asleep. “So you have it bad for your teacher?” I say when he answers.

  He laughs, a rich, deep sound. But what he says next isn’t funny. It’s dirty and makes a pulse beat between my legs.

  Simon

  I close the door to my bedroom, ensuring privacy. Then, with the phone pressed close to my ear and my filthy imagination already firing on all cylinders, I answer her question.

  “I want to bend my teacher over the desk.”

  Her breath hitches. “Naughty student.”

  I sink down on my bed, picturing perfectly what I want to do to her. “Hike up your skirt. Pull down your panties.”

  “I like this image,” she says breathily. “Would you pin my wrists over my head then?”

  I groan appreciatively, loving the image she evokes. “You’d like that, wouldn’t you?”

  “I would.” Her voice is a purr, and I can see her now—on her couch, her hand drifting down her belly. And just like that, my dick refuses to be ignored.

  I skim a hand over my erection. “I’m going to file that piece of intel safely away and use it someday soon.”

  “I look forward to that someday.” She’s quiet for a moment, then her voice is soft. “You really thought about my dress today?”

  “This surprises you? Was there something unclear about the obscene levels of desire I have for you?”

  She laughs lightly. “No. But tell me. Was I wearing anything under the dress when you took it off?”

  I like where this is going even more, and I push my briefs down, wrapping a hand around my shaft. “Black lace panties. Matching bra. I stripped them off then kissed you all over, and you melted when I touched you.”

  “I do melt when you touch me.”

  “And now? Are you melting now?” I ask, because I’m fucking burning up all over as I touch myself.

  “I’m on fire.” She gasps, and the sound lingers so seductively.

  “Did you just touch yourself?”

  “Yes, and I’m picturing you.”

  All I can see right now is Abby, naked, her back arched, her hand moving faster between her legs. It’s the most arousing image my brain has ever had the good sense to create. “And what am I doing to you?”

  She doesn’t answer right away. Drawing a sexy breath, she says, “I’m unzipping your jeans.”

  I’m silent for a few seconds, adjusting to the new direction. I figured she’d detail a scenario of me burying my face between her legs, and hell, if that isn’t my favorite thing to get off to. But this is insanely hot, and my fist is already moving up and down my erection as she adds to her fantasy. “I want to do that to you. I want to get on my knees for you.”

  Oh, fuck. All the blood in my body goes straight to my dick. My breathing grows louder as she tells me how she wants to slide her hand into my boxers, push them down, then touch, stroke, and taste. Her voice and the pictures she paints send me into a tailspin, and I can’t get enough of her words. Then she adds, “I’ll lick and kiss, and then wrap my lips around you.”

  I’m close, so fucking close. My voice is husky, thick with lust as my fist flies faster. “I want to see that, Abby. I want to curl my fingers around your head and watch you do that to me.”

  “I’ll take you in all the way.” Her breath comes in harsh pants.

  “Fuck. I can’t get enough of you.”

  She moans. “I can’t get enough, either. I want all of you. I want to taste you in my mouth.”

  Then words are pointless as our noises become the only soundtrack. She cries out, and I recognize the pitch now, and how it means she’s tipping over the edge. The pleasure in me skyrockets. I picture her on the other side of the park, her fingers between her legs, sending herself soaring. That image blazes in front of me, and the tension in my body tightens, then snaps. My release is powerful, but over far too soon as I groan her name into the phone, and she does the same for me.

  My body is still buzzing a minute later after I clean up. “So if resisting phone sex is one of the feats of strength, we just failed miserably.”

  “We sure did.”

  “And I don’t regret it at all.”

  “Nor do I,” she says, and then we talk for another hour, and it has nothing to do with sex.

  We talk about our least favorite vegetables, and our most favorite fruit, and we agree that cottage cheese is the devil, and wonder how Brussels sprouts somehow tricked everyone into believing it was a cool food.

  She tells me she wants to take a trapeze lesson someday, but that I still have to teach her pool, and I tell her I’d love to, especially since she’s helped me so much with French. I learn she volunteers for a local literacy program, and I tell her about my plans to run a 10K for a children’s hospital charity at the end of this summer.

  “I hate running with a passion, but I’ll cheer you on,” she says.

  “I’d like that.”

  When I say goodbye, it feels like that might happen, and that she’d be there at the finish line, waiting for me.

  18

  Abby

  The next day, Hayden decides she wants to learn French just like her dad. As we traipse around the city, I teach her the words for swing, and store, and chocolate-chip cookie.

  As the evening draws near, we catch the subway to the Village, making our way to the restaurant on Christopher Street where Simon is meeting Nick’s twin brother about an estimate. Simon asked me to hand off Hayden here since he has plans tonight to take her to a movie in nearby Chelsea.

  The funny thing is, when he told me, I nearly asked if I could join them. I found myself wanting to go to the movies with the two of them, grab a bag of kettle corn, and accidentally brush fingers with Simon as we reached for a handful at the same time.

  My stomach pirouettes at the possibility. I grip Hayden’s little hand tighter, focusing on her, not her father.

  It’s not easy.

  It’s really hard.

  But I award myself another gold medal, this time in the One City Block Walk Without Thinking of Simon.

  When we reach the restaurant site, I push open the door, and Hayden flies inside and throws her arms around her dad. “Daddy! My lesson was so fun! Abby is teaching me French too! Bonjour!”

  “Bonsoir, ma chérie,” he says as he scoops her up in his arms, and my heart soars as he speaks to her in French. “I think that’s great, sweet pea. Will you tell me more the second I’m done?”

  Hayden nods and gives him a big kiss on the cheek, then snuggles closer. Skyrocket is the more apropos verb now, because my damn heart launches itself into the stratosphere when he turns and looks at me.

  The breath flees my chest.

  His eyes sparkle like he has a secret. Like we have a secret. And we do. How we feel about each other. Even with all this space between us, and all the people here, I swear I’m the only one he sees.

  “Hey Abby,” he says, and I hear something new in his voice. Something stronger, and softer, too. Like I’m the person—besides his little princess—that he most wants to see at the end of his day.

  “Hi,” I say, and in that one word, and how it falls from my lips, he has to know it’s the same way for me.

  As I head to the door, I feel his eyes on me the whole time.
That’s where I want them. I want him to be looking at me, longing for me, falling for me.

  Because I’m in so deep with him.

  Simon

  That night, our language lesson is on the phone as she helps me prep for the dinner this weekend. She teaches me how to ask important questions about wine. I ask her if wine makes her frisky.

  “Don’t you already know? I had a few glasses before I jumped you at the zebra movie.”

  “Ah, I wasn’t sure if it was me, or the stripes, or the wine.”

  “All three,” she says, then instructs me on how to compliment the chef on the food.

  I repeat her words, and then I compliment her on how she tastes better than dessert.

  “Oh stop,” she says shyly, and I can hear the blush in her voice. “And next time it’s my turn with you.”

  Can’t argue with that. Especially since she wants a next time. Maybe we’re not resisting each other. Maybe it’s just semantics when we say phone sex isn’t the same as ripping each other’s clothes off.

  But even so, we’ve managed a hands-off week. And more than that, we’re proving something vitally important—how much more there is to us than mere attraction.

  As the night rolls to its end, I remind her that it’s my turn to teach her. “Turns out Hayden has a birthday party for two hours tomorrow night. Any chance I can take you out to a pool hall and teach you to play, like I promised?”

  “As long as you do that thing where you line up behind me and show me how to make the shot.”

  And that’s precisely what I do the next night. She leans forward on the table, lining up her shot, peering at the orange ball as she pulls back the wooden stick.

  “Like this?” she asks over her shoulder.

  “Just like that.”

  I crowd in behind her, pressing my body against her, positioning the cue between her fingers. She murmurs, and I nip her shoulder blade. My mind is awash in dirty images courtesy of this position, and my God, how I want her like this, bent over, her arms braced on the green felt. My dick throbs in my jeans, and I know she can feel my erection against her ass. Her wonderful, lush ass. I push against her, and her breath shudders.

  “And then you pull it back like this,” I say, showing her as I move the cue.

  She leans her head back into me, and I draw in a deep, intoxicating inhalation of her hair. Her coconut scent floods my nostrils and kicks my arousal into overdrive.

  “Is this us not ripping each other’s clothes off?” she asks, her voice full of heat and fire.

  “Yes. Because, sadly, you’re still fully dressed. Which seems to be an affront to all my baser instincts.”

  “I like those instincts,” she murmurs.

  Setting the stick on the table, she spins around. She’s pinned between the pool table and me. Journey plays overhead, and other games continue around us. Right now, I don’t give a crap who’s here. Not as she loops her arms around my neck.

  “I do want to tear off your clothes,” she whispers, then drags one hand down the buttons of my white shirt. She plays with the top button, slipping it open.

  “Are you actually going to take my clothes off here at a pool hall?” I ask skeptically.

  But she ignores the question as she gasps. “Oh my God, I didn’t know you had a tattoo.”

  “Only because you’ve never gotten my clothes off before.”

  She slides open another button and rubs her fingers over the ink—a large Celtic circular piece on my pec. “What does it mean?”

  “Trust. Trust yourself.”

  She lifts her face and looks at me. “When did you have it done?”

  “When I finished college. It was a reminder to trust my instincts with work and career. But it came to mean other things.”

  “Like trust your instincts with Miriam?”

  Hearing her name isn’t a punch in the kidney anymore. It doesn’t hurt. That pain is long gone. “I had to rely on my gut. That it was time to go and end the marriage.”

  “Do you ever regret it ending?”

  I shake my head. “No. We were wrong for each other. And I’m not someone who believes you stay together for the kid. My daughter is better off with us apart. I had to trust myself to know that.”

  She nods her understanding, then tilts her head to the side. “And do you trust yourself with me?”

  I chuckle lightly. “Sometimes I do. Sometimes I don’t.”

  “When don’t you?”

  “Right now.” I dip my head to her neck, growling in her ear. “When I want to get the hell out of here and make the most of the thirty minutes we have left, even though we promised to keep our hands to ourselves.”

  “What if I don’t use my hands then?” she asks, her tone flirty.

  I wrench back to look at her. “Don’t use your hands?”

  She runs her finger across her bottom lip. “What if I just use my mouth? Would you trust yourself to enjoy it? Would you trust me to make it good for you? Would you trust us to know it’s what we both want?”

  My head spins, and I’m dizzy with lust. “What am I going to do with you?”

  Abby

  He doesn’t take long to devise an answer. The man knows how to get stuff done. He’s a dealmaker, a problem solver, and he simply calls a car service he says he knows from his Wall Street days and orders a vehicle, stat. I don’t ask why he doesn’t use Uber, because ten minutes later the answer is obvious when we climb into a long sleek car.

  With a partition.

  God bless the old school car service solution.

  “Just drive,” he tells the man in the black cap.

  Simon presses the button for the divider, and in seconds we’re alone on the leather seat. Quickly, I unzip his pants and take his erection in my hand.

  “You said no hands,” he says on a moan.

  “I lied. Do you care?”

  He grins. “No.”

  “Good. Then I’m going to the zucchini festival right now.”

  He cracks up. But then his laughter is swallowed by his groan as I dip my head between his legs. I swirl my tongue over the tip of his erection, and he moans when I make contact. I do, too. The taste of him is heady—masculine and sexy, a little salty, and all addictive. I flick my tongue across him, then down the shaft, and he thrusts up into me.

  He groans my name, and I want to play with him, toy with him, but instead I decide to blow his mind. I wrap my lips around him, and then I take him deep. He’s hard and thick, and so fucking aroused. I swear he’s throbbing in my mouth. He grips my head, tugging me closer.

  There’s a roughness to him at times. He never hurts me, but it’s a good roughness, like he knows sex is better if we’re not delicate. He knows it’s okay to grab my hair and yank hard, and my God, I hope he knows he won’t have to go easy on me when he makes love to me just because he’s so much bigger.

  When. Not if.

  Because I know it’ll happen. We are a fait accompli, and I don’t say that because I’m treating him like the most delicious lollipop. I say it because neither one of us can get enough of the other.

  This week was about proving we could pull this off. That we could work without jumping each other. We passed, successfully, keeping it chaste in the home.

  We’re not at home now, and we’re free, so I draw him deep, stretching my lips over him. I’m wildly aroused by going down on him. I love how he tastes, how he feels, and how much he wants me.

  “Abby,” he groans. His voice is laced with heat and desire. “I want to come in your mouth.”

  I let go with a wet pop to arch an eyebrow and say, “Like there’s any place else you’d come?”

  I dive back down, and he’s closer, thrusting hard, pushing into me and digging his fingers roughly into my hair and against my skull. Breathing is hard, but I’m up to the task, sucking him deep. As he rocks into my mouth and curls his hands around my head, he issues a guttural moan, then a warning. “Coming. Now.”

  I don’t need the warning, and I
love how he loses control for me. I savor the taste of his release sliding down my throat.

  When I finally break away, the clock mocks me. He needs to get home.

  I tell him as much, and that even though I wish the night wasn’t ending, I had the best time with him. He smiles like a happy, woozy man as he pulls me closer and kisses my head. “My sweet, sexy Abby. You know I can’t resist you.”

  My smile widens. “I know. And you taste so much better than zucchini.”

  19

  Simon

  In her white knickers and a fencing jacket a size too big, Hayden adopts the en garde stance and waggles her sword.

  I lean forward, my palms on my knees, watching intently. Abby brought Hayden here to the fencing club, and I left work to meet them. She’s no fencing prodigy. But she’s doing her darnedest to keep up in her first lesson.

  After Hayden stabs the instructor in the breastbone, he cheers her on. She turns to me, her young eyes lit up and seeking approval.

  “Great job,” Abby calls out, then waves to my girl.

  “Keep it up,” I second, then Hayden returns her focus to the lesson.

  “She’s having a great time,” Abby says, bumping her shoulder against mine.

  “She is. Think she’ll want another lesson?”

  Abby shrugs lightly. “Who knows? She likes to try new things, and that’s good.”

  “I can see her testing every sport once. Every instrument once. She’ll want to do rock climbing, then piano, then ice skating.”

  Abby holds up an index finger. “Karate next, and after that it’ll be ballet, then saxophone. She’ll have to try singing too.”

  “Let’s not forget gymnastics and origami. She’ll probably start an origami club in kindergarten.”

  “That sounds exactly like her.”

  I turn to face her completely, and my heart sputters. Abby’s smile is wide and pretty, and we’re sitting together talking about my kid, and we’re both just getting, totally getting, how Hayden ticks. I can’t think of anyplace I’d rather be, or any conversation I’d rather have. This woman has burrowed her way into my heart, simply by being herself. I don’t honestly know if I can let her go.