by Nikky Kaye
I don’t believe that.
My heart pounded in my chest—beneath the lace cupping my breasts under my sweater. When I looked down, I saw the fluttering hem of the babydoll sticking out like a silky tutu over my hips. It was a secret kind of sexy feeling, one that gave me some extra confidence.
Then Ash took my hand again, lacing his long fingers with mine. The jittery feelings in my stomach coalesced and took flight, like a flock of starlings.
The doors opened, and I stumbled behind him to his apartment. He fumbled with the key, his other hand still wrapped around mine.
Once inside he leaned back against the door to shut it, while hauling me closer in the dark.
This was crazy. I was going to get hurt, and probably look stupid in the process. Yet with his arms around me, I didn’t seem to care.
“You know I won’t lie to you, right?”
I nodded. I trusted that. I trusted him.
“I want you,” he told me in a husky voice, his forehead resting against mine. “But I won’t do anything that you don’t want to do.” He peered at me in the dark like a big jungle cat.
My voice was shaky when I finally used it. “What do you want to do to me?”
“Everything. But I’ll start with simply worshipping the fuck out of you.”
I shivered at the promise of his words. Then I dropped my cardigan to the floor, and his hands met mine to help pull my short-sleeved sweater over my head.
My nipples pressed against the pink lace of the negligee, while in the shadows I heard him toe off his shoes. I bent over to take off my boots, and when I wobbled, his arm went around my middle to steady me.
I would need a lot of steadying shortly.
When I rose again, a few inches shorter now, he was just in a t-shirt and jeans, barefoot.
His hands skimmed up and down my bare arms, leaving trails of gooseflesh in their wake. Everywhere he touched felt hot and raw.
With trembling fingers, I went under the hem of the nightie to undo my jeans. Ash’s teeth flashed at me in the dark as he dropped his hands to his waist to do the same. He sighed in relief as he pulled his zipper down a little.
Then he stopped. Just stopped. And looked at me.
I refused to hunch over or succumb to the impulse to cover myself. It was time to let go of my inhibitions—or at least to put them on a long, long leash.
After several seconds of him just watching me, however, I became self-conscious. It startled me when he bent over and kissed me so gently it was like a butterfly had landed on my lips.
“Touch me,” he whispered.
My hands roamed over his body, feeling the ridges of his abdomen muscles and the hot, hard curves of his broad chest and shoulders. I was tentative at first, and he arched like I was tickling him. It didn’t take long for me to greedily sweep my palms over him like I was molding him out of clay.
“Jesus, I love that,” he moaned. “Love your hands on me.”
I kind of liked it, too.
When he bent to kiss me again, my hands were trapped against his chest. They curled into fists as his mouth moved across my cheek to my jaw, and down my neck.
“Oh.”
“More,” he grunted into my shoulder. “C’mon.”
He led me through the darkened apartment to his bedroom, where he turned on a lamp beside the bed.
I blinked. Somehow the illumination dispelled some of the dream-like quality of the moment.
This was real.
I wrapped my arms around myself, suddenly a little shy.
He sat on the edge of the bed. “Lizzie, come here.”
My legs moved automatically, until I stood before him. Carefully, silently, he pried my arms apart and placed them at my sides.
“Don’t hide from me,” he ordered.
A hysterical giggle bubbled up in my chest. Didn’t he know that I hid from everyone? That Miss Behave was just an act? Or was it?
I ached with arousal and anticipation, but I was still nervous. When would the worshipping begin?
“Oh baby, it started long before tonight.”
My body went up in flames. Had I said that out loud?
Ash’s hands slipped under the babydoll and he began peeling my jeans off. I stepped out of them, until I was left in just the negligee and a soaking wet g-string.
With a groan, he buried his face between my breasts, his breath hot on my skin. The rasp of his beard made me tingle all over. Made me wetter.
I played with his short hair, gasping slightly as his hands smoothed over my thighs and cupped my ass. I let out a little squeak as he squeezed and his fingers hooked into the g-string.
Pulled it down.
Instinctively, I spread my legs apart.
Then he leaned back, lying on the bed propped up on his elbows, admiring me in the hot pink babydoll and a wet scrap of fabric around my knees.
“Fuck, that’s hot. You have no idea.” He shook his head.
Feeling more confident, I shimmied off the flimsy excuse for panties. As soon as it hit the floor, he sat up again and pulled his shirt off.
My mouth dried at the sight of his bare chest—all hard planes and rough edges. The tattoo over his chest was a swirling design that almost looked like graffiti, with an abstract heart in the center. I wanted to touch my tongue to it, but instead I traced it with my finger.
“Does it mean something?”
“Yes.” He hissed as his nipple pebbled in reaction to my touch. “Something sad.”
I paused. “I’m sorry.”
“Me, too.”
My cheeks heated. “But can I say something?”
He waited.
“It’s really, really sexy,” I confessed, outlining the heart. Hopefully he’d tell me the story another time. Another, non-naked time.
“Oooooh. I think Miss Behave has a secret thing for tats,” he teased.
I had a secret thing for him. My blush spread as he caught my wandering hand with his and pulled my fingers into his mouth.
A gasp escaped me at the erotic sensation of his hot mouth, the pressure of his tongue and the hard ridges near his palate. After a moment, he pulled my fingers out of his mouth and directed my hand down.
“Show me how you touch yourself.”
Oh my god. “I c-can’t.”
“Yes, you can.”
He leaned back again, opening the fly of his jeans and reaching into his boxer briefs. A pinched look flashed over his face as he took his hard cock in one hand. It was thick and long, swollen and dusky, moisture gleaming at the tip.
I swallowed.
It had been a long time since I’d been intimate with someone, since I took a man in my mouth. Even longer since I wanted to. And now, I was practically drooling at the idea of stretching my lips around him and sucking him hard.
He raised a dark eyebrow. “See?” he said, his hand moving up and down. “It’s not so hard.”
“That’s what she said.”
He froze then burst out laughing. I was still reeling from the sound of it in my ears when he pulled me down onto the bed beside him. I’d lost my mind, obviously. My brain was no longer connected to my mouth.
Embarrassed, I lay on my back with my arm over my eyes. It wasn’t until I felt his touch that I realized the nightie had bunched up around my waist.
“Ah!” I jerked my arm down, nearly elbowing him in the face.
Propped up on his side, he ducked my blow but continued drawing little circles up my bare thigh.
All the way up.
“See?” he said. “It’s easy to touch you—so easy. I could do it with my eyes closed.” His eyes squeezed shut to prove it.
“Ash—”
“Now you try.” He held my hand and dragged it over my mound. When our entwined fingers found me, his eyes flew open. “Someone’s wet,” he mused.
Someone was in over her head.
My back arched a little as we circled my clit. “Someone made me,” I gasped.
Casually, he lifted hi
s hand and licked his fingers. Licked me off his fingers. “God, I wish we’d bought a toy as well as that nightie. I want to see you fuck yourself.”
My pussy contracted at his words. At his tone. At him. I’d never felt so sexy in my whole life.
“I’d rather you fuck me,” I said, already missing his touch.
His eyes were as dark as the shadows when he leaned over me. “All you have to do is ask, Lizzie.”
I swallowed. “Please, Ash.”
“Please what?”
“Don’t tease me.”
His eyebrow lifted. “You’re lying on my bed, wearing that, touching yourself, and I’m the tease?”
“I’m waiting for you to take over,” I huffed, rolling my eyes.
“I thought we were a team. Working together and all.”
“But you’re the captain. Rah rah. Go team!”
He grinned and wriggled down the bed. When I looked down at his dark head and wolfish smile between my thighs, I inhaled sharply.
“You forgot, Lizzie. We’re not really a team. We’re competing for a job.” He nuzzled the inside of my thigh, breathing me in. “Who can give the best advice, remember?”
My hand went to his head. “Right now my advice to you is to make me come.” My voice was rising in pitch, shaky with excitement. I was ready, so ready.
“Okay, you win.”
Ash leaned forward and licked me in one long stroke.
“Ahhh!” Something deep in my belly spasmed. I clutched his head, my own tossing from side to side.
Another swipe of his tongue, then another, and I was done for. It was like an electric shock arcing through my body. I fell over the edge with an embarrassing display of guttural, wordless cries and gushing moisture.
As I lay there, panting and lightheaded, he slid off the bed and shoved his jeans and boxers down. Once they were off, he stomped over them to get to his night table and plucked a condom from the drawer.
Nestled between my thighs once more, he braced himself over me. “I want you to do that again, only this time on my cock.”
I nodded. I wanted that, too.
A muscle in his jaw flexed as he guided himself into me. About an inch in, as I was feeling the burn, he raised his worried gaze to me.
“Please tell you’re not a virgin.”
“I’m not, but—aaahhh!”
My words were cut off as he thrust forward in one swift, possessive stroke.
The sharp sting brought tears to my eyes, damn it. I punched him in the back, my lower body throbbing. “But it’s been a long time!”
His eyes nearly crossed as he grimaced. “Jesus fuck, you’re tight.” He trembled with the effort of keeping himself still, letting me adjust. “I thought you had a vibrator.”
“I told you,” I said through clenched teeth, “it needs new batteries. Plus, you narcissistic bastard, you’re bigger!”
He grinned down at me with apologetic pride before withdrawing slightly. I squirmed beneath him uncomfortably, but my legs still wrapped around him and I tilted my pelvis toward him. My body was beginning to mold around his as he pushed forward.
Again.
We both groaned.
“I want you to know that this is not indicative of my normal performance,” he warned me, “but this isn’t going to take long. You’re so insanely tight.”
My pussy throbbed around him. Yow. “Go ahead.”
He frowned. “I wanted you to come again.”
“I had my turn.” And it was pretty unlikely to happen again, now. I was too damn aware of the way he was filling me. But I didn’t want to tell him that.
“No, it should be at least a two to one ratio, Lizzie. You get two orgasms for every one of mine. Three, if possible.”
The Ash Principle. I must have missed that day in math class.
“Don’t take it personally; it’s okay.”
“Fuck that.”
With surprising dexterity, he rolled us over so I was straddling him. The babydoll I was still wearing floated over his belly, curtaining off where we were joined. In this position he nudged deeper inside me, making me wince a little.
Shit, I think he’s touching my cervix, I thought. Only my doctor was supposed to touch my cervix, right?
He reached up to pull my breasts out of the lace cups of the nightgown. He squeezed them gently in his hands, my nipples hard against his palms.
Without even knowing it, I rocked back and forth on him, the discomfort slowly making way for something else—a brittle tension, like an old rubber band being stretched. How far would it go before snapping?
His fingers now digging into my hips, he helped me grind back and forth on top of him, making sure my clit was targeted on each approach. Surprisingly, the pressure began to build in me again, my body rebelling as my walls began to flutter around him.
“Ash, I—”
“I know, baby. It’s okay. Two to one, remember?”
Heat crawled up my face, my heart in my throat, as one more shift of my hips set off an explosion of pleasure inside me.
“Oh god, oh god, I can’t…”
Coming that hard while I was so full and he was so deep… the sensations wracking my body danced along the border between pain and ecstasy.
“Fuck!” he shouted, the muscles in his face tightening as he growled through his release. He clutched me so tightly I feared I might bruise, and his abdomen rippled as he reflexively crunched up toward me.
After an intense moment, he flopped back down on his back, panting and staring at the ceiling.
I collapsed on him, boneless, my face burrowing into his neck.
We were both speechless.
12
Ash
“Who’s a lucky little bitch? Huh? Who’s a lucky girl?”
I rolled my eyes at Mike, who was crooning to his wife’s pocket Chihuahua. Somehow our coffee meet-up resulted in to-go cups and the dog park.
Mike’s caterpillar eyebrows rose up and down as he pursed his lips and rubbed the tiny dog’s head. She yipped and trembled with excitement in his arms. I was a little worried she would pee on him.
It reminded me of Lizzie.
I shook my head as I sank onto a bench. “You look absolutely fucking ridiculous, man.” I took a small sip of my coffee, which was finally starting to cool down enough not to burn my mouth. “Is this how you’re going to be with a kid?”
He sat down beside me, his smile broad as he clipped a retractable leash to the lucky bitch’s collar and set her down on the ground. “Fuck, no. I’m having a boy.”
“You know that already? You just told me she was pregnant.” Mike was so excited to tell me when we met up that I think most of Starbucks heard the announcement as well. A few people even clapped.
“It’s a boy. I can just feel it.”
“Dude, it’s the size of a—fuck, what size is it?” My column didn’t get a lot of pregnancy questions. Well, other than a few from guys who didn’t want to end up in a “who’s the daddy?” episode of Maury.
“I looked it up. It’s a plum. Next up is a peach.”
I frowned, taking a bigger sip of my coffee. “Why is it always fruit?”
“Beats me.” Mike sucked on his iced latte.
“Well, congratulations. I’d ask if you were happy, but seeing as you’re grinning like a demented clown…”
“Yeah, well, you’ve got a weird smile on your face today, too, buddy.” He loosened the flexi-lead as the dog sniffed around the perimeter of the bench.
I did? Lizzie came into my mind for the tenth time that day, and my lips automatically curved. Shit, I did.
“You get laid last night?”
I shrugged. “I don’t kiss and tell.”
“Bullshit. You always tell me about your conquests. I live vicariously through you, remember? Maxie, no! Drop it!”
Bending over, I grabbed the half-eaten granola bar from the dog’s mouth and took the opportunity to walk away to the nearest garbage can. Mike was right—I had go
tten laid the night before. And the night before that.
In fact, Lizzie and I had been spending more and more time together in the past few weeks. It was surprisingly easy to be with her, and not just in bed. The previous weekend, we’d discovered a mutual love of Harry Potter fanfic and ended up debating over which house we would each be sorted into, hypothetically speaking.
Give me a break. She had Hufflepuff written all over her.
When she didn’t believe me, I wrote Hufflepuff on her clit with my tongue until she agreed, shouting “Yes! Yes! Yes!”
I was still grinning at the memory when I sat down on the bench again. Maxie danced around my shoes.
“Yep, you’re getting laid,” Mike said. “Who is she?”
“Just someone I work with.” My coffee was almost finished, so I couldn’t hide behind it for much longer.
He hooted. “You fucked Miss Behave? You did, didn’t you? So, was she a virgin after all? Or is she secretly into some kinky stuff?”
“Somewhere in between.”
I looked away, playing with my empty coffee cup. While he was right—I normally told him about the women I dated—I found myself not wanting to share much about Lizzie. That reticence made me pause.
Why was I keeping it to myself? Was I ashamed of her? Was I embarrassed?
“Hmmm.” Mike stood. “Let’s go to the off-leash area. Maxie needs to get her ass kicked by some bigger dogs for a while.”
I followed him, and we watched a parade of dogs run around sniffing each other’s butts. It was like watching some kind of canine speed dating.
“Do you really live vicariously through me?” I asked my friend. That seemed kind of… sad and pathetic, honestly. Was that what happened when you settled down and got married?
Mike shrugged, his gaze fixed on the dog.
“Do you ever wish you were single again? I mean, really?”
He turned to me. “Not if it meant dating again,” he said honestly. “I don’t know how you do it. It’s a fucking minefield these days. That Ashleigh chick sounded pretty normal, all things considered.”