by JD Hawkins
“Hey!” she says, reaching for her shake while I hold it back like a basketball. “You can’t be serious! I can’t drink a vanilla milkshake.”
“What happened to lil’ miss spontaneity?”
She crosses her arms and looks at Jake with a smile, then at the vanilla milkshake in front of her as if it’s a punishment. Dramatically, she picks it up and takes a sip.
“It tastes like vanilla.” She shrugs.
Jake says, “You mean it’s not a surprisingly full, dark, and rich flavor?”
“Fine,” I say, handing her strawberry back.
“No, that’s all right,” she says, holding the vanilla and then sucking the straw in a way that’s either subtly provocative, or makes me interpret it as such.
For a minute we settle into working on our drinks and soaking in the afternoon vibe of the place. I drink mine a little quickly, already planning to pull Mia away from here so we can get back to making the most of this opportunity.
“You know what,” Jake says suddenly, pointing a finger at Mia, “I get a good vibe from you.”
Mia looks blank for a moment, glancing at me, then replies, “Me?”
“Yeah. And it’s strange because I never get good vibes from Colin’s girlfriends.”
“Oh, we’re not… I’m not—” Mia replies quickly, but too meekly to stop Jake’s four-beers-deep train of thought.
“See, Colin’s problem is that it’s too easy for him, so the only way he can get his rocks off is if it’s a challenge. So he ends up going for—”
“Jake,” I say, but he’s ignoring me now, his focus entirely on Mia.
“—real hard-assed women. Game-players and troublemakers. Cruel women. He loves those. Ha! You shoulda met his last one—Jesus! She was—”
“Jake.”
“—the worst of the lot. The ‘blonde ballbreaker’ I used to call her. Looked like an SS officer except she wasn’t as nice!”
“Jake.”
Now he turns to look at me and finally sees the hardness in my expression.
“Um… Yeah… But anyway,” he stutters. “Just wanted to say that you seem nice.”
“Thanks,” Mia says, awkwardly toying with her straw and avoiding my gaze.
I down the last of the shake and toss the cup in a nearby trash can. “Anyway, we’d better get going. Good seein’ you, man.”
“Okay, yeah. Sure,” Jake says, picking his beer back up off the table.
“It was nice meeting you again,” Mia says.
“Likewise.”
“Hey,” I say to Mia, “I’ll meet you back at the car in a minute, all right?”
Mia nods, I smile easily at her, and then she heads back while I quickly round the table a little to get closer to Jake.
“The fuck are you doing, dude?”
He spread his hands, playing dumb. “What?”
“The ‘blonde ballbreaker’? ‘Colin’s taste in women’? She’s not my girlfriend.”
Jake looks at me for a moment, and I hope the realization of his mistake is setting in, but instead he just breaks into a laugh.
“You sure about that?”
“Yes, I’m fucking sure about that,” I growl.
Jake continues to laugh like I’ve got something on my face.
“You know the rule.”
“What rule?”
“If you’re outside with a girl when the sun is high you can’t call it a mistake anymore.”
“What the—how is… The fuck are you talking about?”
“I don’t make the rules, dude.”
“She’s not my girlfriend,” I assert once again. “We just…fucked last night.”
Jake smiles again when I say the word fucked. It comes out a little weakly, a little quieter than the other words. Something inside of me finding it difficult to say it as casually as I typically say it.
“I saw you,” Jake says, doubling down. “Arm around her shoulders, walking side by side, googly eyes and laughing when nobody’s said anything like you’re sharing private, telepathic jokes. That’s girlfriend shit, dude. Outside, when the sun is high, means—”
“The only fucking reason I’m outside is because you pulled me away to give you the key to the damned storage unit. Believe me, I regret it.”
I turn to leave but Jake gets one last laugh before I can walk away.
“Don’t be sore, dude. You made a good choice for once. She’s perfect for you!”
We’re both pretty quiet on the drive back, not exchanging a word even as we take the elevator up to my apartment. I don’t even notice how sheepish she seems because of how Jake’s set my own thoughts twisting.
What a fucking idiot, saying that in front of her. Annoying prick. All those years as a wingman and he still makes such a rookie mistake. He’s got to lay off the alcohol. I shouldn’t have even brought him the key back. What an asshole.
He’s fucking right, though—she is perfect for me.
I open the door for her and she walks into my apartment. I close the door slowly, feeling a warm peace now that we’re back here. Together alone. She turns to me, standing in the center of the living room, wringing her hands a little, a frown tainting her delicate face.
“Maybe I should just grab my things and go,” she says.
“Why would you do that?”
“I dunno… I’m starting to think—”
“Don’t think,” I say, moving toward her until I’m close enough to put my hands around her waist. She looks up at me, her face almost pained with a desire that I know she probably feels guilty for. Weakness obliterating common sense.
I bring a hand to her face, pushing her hair aside, stroking her cheek. She pushes against my palm, eyes closing as if to block out everything but my touch. I think of a thousand things to say: That I’d break if she left right now. That I’d give her everything. That it’s easier to imagine her staying forever than leaving right now. That there’s a kind of peace I feel when I’m with her, the kind of thing I’ve never felt with anyone else.
But I don’t say any of it because it’s all too much, and I know the rules of the game. I know that we both still need to keep this pretense up.
Except something about the pretense has changed now.
Before I can say something I’ll regret. Before she says something she can’t take back. Before this moment becomes too tender to be called simple lust, I grab her waist and lift her.
“Oh!” she yelps, legs going around my waist to cling to me, arms around my neck. I grin playfully as I swing her around, giggling from the sudden break in tension, and walk her into the bedroom. She grabs a fistful of my hair, and when she gathers her balance enough to look at me our lips pull together, tongue-first. Wet and sloppy, licking lips and sucking tongue until she pulls away with a smacking sound and her lips form a smile.
“You taste like vanilla,” I say.
She licks her lips. “You taste like strawberry.”
“Goes well together.”
“Mm-hmm,” she murmurs, diving in for another kiss.
But before she can, I toss her backwards onto the bed. She squeals again, bouncing to stillness on the mattress, hair splaying, hand to her chest, another excited giggle. Her chest rises and falls more quickly beneath the thin fabric of the linen shirt as she watches me.
I take one shoe from her foot and toss it aside, then the other. Slowly, patiently, almost like a ceremony, squeezing her feet, stroking her soles, tickling a little until her toes curl and she starts arching her back with the shivering sensation.
“I’m not letting you go anywhere,” I say as I move over her.
I settle beside her, sideways on my elbow, head level with her waist. She reaches out and buries a hand in my hair again, clenching and unclenching it. I put a hand under the shirt and stroke her soft stomach.
“Good,” she murmurs, voice emerging from deep in her diaphragm, reverberating with her growing heat. “‘Cause I’m starting to like vanilla.”
I lift her shirt and lean down to ki
ss her abdomen. She bucks a little, like a leashed animal under my mouth, and I work the fly of her jeans while I brush lips and stubble across her navel. She’s so soft I could drink her. So sensitive even my breath makes her shiver.
She writhes on the bed, squirming into the already-messy sheets, humming like an instrument, the sound of her compelling me more than music. I get back up to slide off her jeans and the sight of her legs drives me to a whole new level of wild.
I look up and see her eyes closed, an expression of relaxed pleasure on her face. Down on my side again, I take my time gently tracing fingers along the muscles of her legs. Tickling the back of her knees until she squeezes her thighs together, grabbing a fistful of bedsheet to keep herself steady. Her stomach still exposed, too tantalizing to ignore. I draw my tongue down almost to her panties, and then surprise her with a sudden bite of that soft flesh.
“Ow!” she yaps happily, before settling back into those gasps of building delight.
It’s a different kind of lust I’m feeling as I peel her underwear down her legs and toss them aside. The sound of her moans, the sight of her thighs tensing, the smell of her moistening pussy—it makes me want to push her further. I want her louder, harder, wetter. I want to give her something so good she’ll never forget it. Never forget me.
She grabs my hair again and pulls me to her but her arms are weakened by the yearning in her own body. I lift her knee and push it aside as I lower my lips from her navel to her pussy, parting her lips so I can blow softly over her clit. Slow and cool even though she’s pulling my hair like she’s on the edge of a cliff, until her inner thigh is vibrating with tension, until she can barely finish her moans for her stuttering breath.
“Colin…”
She says my name in a voice so desperate it’s almost not her own. Something about my name on her lips makes my head spin. I flick her with my tongue softly and her body freezes before melting even deeper. She does the same when I roll my tongue around her clit and suck with soft lips. A kiss that turns her moans into squeals, her sighs short and quick.
“Oh…Colin…Colin…”
I flatten my tongue and draw it from the bottom of her wetness to the top. Her back arching like a bow before collapsing back onto the bed with a drawn-out squeal. She tastes like raw passion. Like hot-blooded flesh, like a woman burning with feverish needs. I already feel addicted to the taste of her, drunk from it, thirsty for it. I clutch her perfect ass cheeks steady as I draw long broad patterns into her with my tongue, until her abs tense with every lick and her thighs tighten around my face with every tongue-curl. Until her sighs are growing crescendos that only end when she runs out of breath, until she’s arching her back and undulating her hips in a slow, primal rhythm.
“Colin… Fuck…”
Her fists are pulling at my hair so hard it hurts now, her ass bucking in my grip. Like last night, she wants to take control, and I decide to give it to her.
I grab her waist and pull my head away, but before she can protest I roll so my back’s on the bed and pull her pussy over my face, letting her ride it like she’s been aching to. Her sexy thighs on either side of my head, I gorge on her as she rolls her pussy over my tongue. My eyes on her tits as she throws her head back and wails at the ceiling, winding herself over me, pressing and pulling herself against my ravenous mouth. Working herself up until her moans go up a whole octave. I undo the fly of my pants frantically. Seeing her like this is getting me so hard it’s starting to hurt, and I could come just tasting her, and if she says my name one more time…
“Colin!”
In one swift movement I push her away from me and onto her back. My pants and boxers still around my waist, I guide my cock inside of her as she grabs two more fistfuls of bedsheet and tilts her head back into the mattress. Her pussy’s so wet I slide in easily, and once again we fit together perfectly, harmoniously, inevitably.
This time I grab her hair, using my other hand to tear the shirt open, buttons popping, and gently suck and bite her breast as I fuck her. She was close to coming before, and now she’s over the edge, orgasm crashing through her in gushing waves and manic screams. The wet warmth around my cock squeezing the last ability to resist out of me, so that I explode inside of her, our heat, our flesh, our fluids mixing and swirling into catharsis.
She sighs her last bit of strength away. I feel every muscle in her body untense and loosen beneath me. A mild, dreamy smile and then the look of absolute serenity spreads to the rest of her face. She opens her eyes and I’m right there above her.
Smiling angelically, she puts a hand to my cheek, and the weirdest thing is that I don’t feel any of the usual relief. No tiredness, or desire to go to the bathroom and clean up. I’ve just had sex and instead of the typical cold rush of clarity, all I want to do is stay close to her.
I kiss her gently. When I pull away she says, “You wrecked my shirt.”
I look down at her exposed breast, half the shirt flailing without its buttons.
“Your shirt?”
“I’m keeping it,” she says. “I like how it feels. And I like how you feel.”
I let out a mild chuckle, then go in for another kiss.
16
Mia
I feel like Cinderella when I look at the clock and realize that it’s nine in the evening. I’m half dazed, wholly content, and physically spent. It feels like waking from a good dream.
I immediately wonder where the time went, and then the empty pizza boxes, the episode of Real Housewives on the TV, the smell of sex and sweat and his cologne, the tossed clothes from when we fucked on the couch (or maybe that time against the window), the soccer ball by the bathroom door that he taught me some tricks with, the half-full tub of Haagen-Dazs that he licked off my front, and most of all his bare chest that I’m lying on as we rest on the couch…
It all comes back to me, except now I know it’s nine p.m., and that I’ve got to head home soon if I’m going to make it in to work tomorrow, and I’m suddenly not so sure about any of what we’ve just spent the entire day doing.
I push myself up from him and pull the half-buttoned shirt a little closer around me.
“I should get going,” I say, already starting the treasure hunt around his apartment for the rest of my clothes.
“You sure?” he says, sitting up on the couch. “It’s not that late.”
“Yeah.”
I focus on getting my clothes together, partly because I don’t want to extend this awkward moment, and partly because I can’t bear to look at him now and have to deal with…well. Everything.
I find my tank and take the shirt off to put it on, half thinking about leaving the shirt there, but deciding to just put it over my top in the end. Jeans… Sneakers… I’ll have to ditch the bra.
By the time Colin’s gotten up from the couch, wearing nothing but sweatpants, I’m at the door checking that my bag has everything in it.
“I have an early shift tomorrow,” I say without looking at him. “But I’ll have to get in before seven to do the paperwork I didn’t do today and Mondays are always—”
I make the mistake of looking up at him, and this time it’s not his perfect abs or big arms that makes me nervous, but the look in his eye like something is twisting him up inside.
After what feels like an age I say, “So…you know…like we said: the second I walk through this door…right?”
Colin breathes heavily and swings his arms as he looks away. Eventually he turns his eyes back on me.
“Yeah…” he says, nodding. “That’s the plan.”
“Okay. Cool.” I force a smile, then turn and open his door. I get it an inch open and then see his sinewy forearm over my shoulder, hand against the door as he shoves it shut.
“But let’s be honest,” he breathes, his mouth near my ear, “it’s a shit plan.”
“Colin,” I plead, turning around to face him, my back against the door, his body up close to mine, arm still over my shoulder holding the door shut. “We c
an’t do this again.”
“Be realistic, Mia. We can’t not do this again—even if we tried our best.” He brushes the back of his hand against my cheek. “It’s too good.”
He’s right, it is too good—but at the same time, I can’t let it happen. “Good enough to lose our jobs? Good enough for you to forget everything that happened to you at your last place? This whole thing, it’s not just complicated, it’s…dangerous.”
This close to him—so close I can hear every slow breath he takes—I notice the slight squaring in his eye, the small dimple beneath the stubble.
“You’re right…” he says.
He steps away from me, removing his hand from the door, giving me space to leave. I half turn toward the door and then stop.
“We were just doing what felt nice, Colin. I think I can deal with that. As long as we draw a line under it. We can be friends.”
“Friends.” Colin nods reluctantly once more, saying nothing, but raising his hand and drawing an imaginary line with an imaginary pen.
I take a deep breath, open the door, and leave.
It felt nice… I repeat the words I said in my mind like a mantra, to force me not to think of anything else. It just felt nice…that’s all…
I sleep for barely three hours, tossing in bed, my body and mind buzzing with a physical angst that’s part guilt, part worry, and part absence. Several times I get up and turn the light on to write my thoughts down, hoping that in the writing I’ll somehow find a way through them, decode them, make some sense of them. But I only get those few hours of sleep when I eventually give in, and allow myself to think of him, of what we did, and touch myself as I allow the memories to take over…
“Are you all right, Doctor Taylor?” Jackie asks when she sees me rushing by.
I stop and turn to her, flipping back the hair that’s fallen out of its ponytail.
“Yeah. Why?” I ask, sounding guilty.
“Oh girl,” she says, peering at me like she forgot her glasses. “You really were sick yesterday, weren’t you? You sure you’re okay to come back to work? It’s not like you can’t afford another sick day.”