Pull Me Close: The Panic Series

by Sidney Halston

  She inches closer and takes my hand. “I’m sorry you went through that. Must’ve been hard. But it seems like you have it all together now.”

  I laugh a humorless laugh. “I don’t have anything together. I’m doing the best I can, day to day. But we get by.”

  “At least you have your brother, right?” she says.

  She’s right. “Yeah. I guess things could be worse.”

  “So that’s the reason why you were so weird about the whole drug thing that first night. That’s why you have issues with drugs, I guess.”

  I exhale loudly. “No.” May as well get it all out. “That’s all thanks to Naomi. My ex-girlfriend. Fiancée, actually.”

  She flinches. Of all the things I’ve told her, that’s what gets her to react? For some reason that small glimpse of jealousy makes me feel ten feet tall.

  “I dated Naomi for a year. She was my first long-term relationship. In retrospect, I proposed too soon.”

  “How’d you two meet?”

  “At Panic.” I think back on that day. Naomi was a force. Short blond hair—so blond it looked almost white. She was always the life of the party. The girl who stood on tables and danced seductively and without apprehension. When she looked at me with those blue eyes, it felt like no one else was around. We couldn’t get enough of each other. But Naomi always wanted something. Nothing I gave her was ever enough. I’m not one to be pushed around by anyone, including pussy. I mean, yeah, I’m a man and Naomi was hot, but you can find a hot piece of ass anywhere, and that’s not the reason I was with her. I liked her. I thought I loved her, actually. “I never liked her drinking or her recreational drug use. She promised she’d stop, that she wouldn’t do it anymore. I suspected she was taking money from my wallet every now and again, but I wasn’t completely certain. And when I was at work and I thought she was at home sleeping, sometimes I’d find her in the VIP area getting shitfaced. The day the club got raided, my first thought was getting to Matt and Naomi. When I saw Matt being handcuffed at the other end of the club, I ran all over, avoiding the cops, looking for Naomi. You can imagine my surprise to find her snorting meth with my good friend Roger in one of the back rooms.”

  “Oh my God.” Her eyes are huge.

  “Yep. And they were naked. I didn’t even get mad enough to kick his ass. I realized immediately what trash she really was. And karma’s a bitch, because she was arrested too. She was out in a few days, charged with possession. She never called to apologize or to see whether I was out of jail, and neither did Roger.”

  “You make it sound like you weren’t mad at the time. But you sound mad now, and you were so angry and disgusted when you found me at the club.”

  “I’m mad. Fucking furious. I wasn’t terribly mad at the time because, like I said, she was trash and I felt sorry for her and I had my own shit to deal with. She was an attention-seeking bitch. But when she got out of jail, she cleaned out our joint account and skipped town. That fucking pissed me off. I needed that money to pay for the shitload of legal fees I had coming my way, and a lot of our funds were seized and frozen after the arrest. Thank God that David stuck by us. He paid for mine and Matt’s bail and legal fees. Everything’s been settled since and we paid David back, but he was like a brother to me during those months.”

  “David sounds like a great guy.”

  “He is. He lives in France with Geo, and they’re getting married soon. They’ll be down here again in a few weeks.”

  Katherine is quiet for a few moments, idly running her fingers through my beard. I’ve learned that she thinks before she speaks. She doesn’t blurt out the first thing that comes into her mind. She listens, processes, and then comments. I can see she’s thinking, so I give her some time. Meanwhile, my palm plays with her skin and my mind wanders to all the things I want to do to her body.

  At last she says quietly, “Nico, are you over her?”

  “Naomi?” I ask, and she nods. “Yes. Absolutely,” I say with complete certainty. “I’m just pissed about the money. Couldn’t give a shit about her. She’s fucking crazy.”

  She draws back a fraction of an inch—not much, but I see it.

  Oh, shit. I shouldn’t have said that last thing, I think. Out loud I add, “Plus, I’m very much into this other woman who’s smart, funny, sweet, and has the longest fucking hair I’ve ever seen.”

  She smiles brightly at me, but then says, “I’m fairly certain I’m crazier than your ex.”

  “Might be, baby, but you’re my kind of crazy.” I lean toward her and kiss her softly on the mouth. “So tell me something about you. You have a sister. I remember that’s why you were in my club.”

  “Half sister, yes. Her fiancé, Frank, travels a lot for his job, and she goes with him most of the time, so I rarely see her. If she’s in town she’ll come over for dinner. She knows I like to cook, so it’s not hard to convince her to come to my place instead of going out to a restaurant.”

  “When’s the wedding?”

  Her shoulders slump. “End of the year. I have to get myself together. There’s no way I can miss it.”

  “You’ll get there.”

  “Thanks for the vote of confidence, but I’m not so sure. I couldn’t even make it to my first doctor’s appointment.”

  “But you went all the way to the front of your building today. You’ve been to my club now twice. I know you’ll go to the wedding. I hope I can be your plus-one.”

  “I’d love that, Nico.”

  Then I get an idea. “I’ll make you a deal. I’ll let you keep cooking for me, and you let me try and help you.”

  She laughs. “And how exactly am I benefiting from this?”

  “You get to see me.”

  She shakes her head. “I don’t know, Nico.”

  “Come on, what’s the worst that can happen? We’ll take it slow.”

  “You want me to be honest?”

  “Always.”

  “I don’t know if I want you to see me that way. At my worst.”

  “What’s your idea of your worst? That you cry, that you pass out?”

  “Yeah, and maybe throw up all over you.”

  I laugh, but I look deeply into her eyes. I want her to understand that I want her to get better not just for me but for herself. She deserves to get out of this apartment and live a normal life. “I don’t think that’s your worst. I think your worst is when you just sit here and accept that you can’t leave. Or yesterday, when I asked you to dinner and you hesitated because you were afraid of leaving this apartment. Throwing up and passing out? That’s probably your best, because at least you tried.”

  “Damn,” she whispers.

  “And I like you, Katherine. And you like me, and I think we both want to see where this thing goes. But I don’t want to date a woman who just sits around and gives up. My woman would try. She’d also do triathlons and dance in the rain.” I reach out and rest my hands on her shoulders. “Plus, I’m adding one more thing to our deal.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Eventually kissing won’t be enough. Not for you. Not for me.” It’s barely enough now. “I’m good at sex, Katherine. I’m not being cocky, I’m being honest. I want to make you feel good. I want to take my time and play with every single inch of that body of yours over and over again. My tongue,” I say, kissing right under her ear, “has magical powers. You’re going to want to see and feel that.” She nods as if she’s ready right there and then. “It’s been a while for you, hasn’t it, sweet Katherine?”

  “Yes.” Her voice is a little hoarse. I’m making her nervous, but in a good way. “Too long.”

  “And you want me as much I want you? You want to see if I’m just being arrogant or if it’s true, don’t you?”

  She nods again.

  “So this is the other condition,” I say. “I’ll only have sex with you in my apartment. All those things I want to do to your body, I’ll only do them on my bed. The first time, at least.”

  She sags against me,
which makes me laugh. But then her hands slowly move down my chest and come to rest pressed right up against my bulge. “Oh, baby, that’s not a good idea. Not at all,” I groan as she begins to rub.

  “Why don’t we do all those things right here?” she suggests, waggling her eyebrows.

  I grip her wrist and, even though it kills me to do it, pull her hand away from my crotch. “I’m serious about this.” I kiss her knuckles and step away.

  But the gauntlet has been dropped, and I can tell by the fire in her eyes that she’s going to try.

  Nine

  Palpitation

  Katherine

  “What are you doing here?” I say as I open the door the next morning, still half asleep. Nico has a box of donuts and a huge cup of coffee in his hands. I don’t know if the coffee is for me, but I don’t care. I take it out of his hand. “You got this for me, right?”

  “You know it,” he says as he closes the door behind him. I run to the bathroom and brush my teeth very quickly and look in the mirror.

  I know I look disheveled this early in the morning, my hair tied up in a messy knot, but at least I now have minty breath. If he expected to find me all dolled up, he is sorely mistaken.

  He sets the box of donuts down and hands me one as he shoves an entire one in his mouth. “You don’t eat very healthy,” I note.

  With his mouth mostly full, he says, “Not true.” He grabs the coffee out of my hand, takes a sip to wash down the donut he inhaled, and then hands it back to me. “I eat paella.”

  I chuckle, knowing that apart from my cooking, all his other meals are of the processed fast-food variety.

  I push him down and hand him another donut. “Eggs and bacon,” I say from the kitchen.

  “You’re going to make eggs and bacon?” he moans. “God, woman. You’re a fucking dream.”

  I begin to rummage through my fridge. “Damn, I don’t have bacon.”

  He startles me when he takes my wrist. “That’s actually kind of perfect.”

  I look at him with puzzlement. Maybe it’s the early hour, but I’m not processing what he’s saying. “What? You don’t like bacon?”

  “I fucking love bacon. Almost as much as I like watching you cook in just that shirt.”

  I look down. I’m wearing a loose shirt and shorts, but the shirt is longer than the shorts so it looks like I’m just in a shirt. “I have shorts under,” I tell him, lifting the hem of the shirt to show him.

  “Don’t ruin the fantasy,” he says with a smirk. “What I was going to say is that I’m here to start on our little arrangement.”

  “Already? We just talked about it last night!” I begin to sweat.

  “Exactly.”

  “I thought you’d give me some time,” I say, taking a step back. He is leaning against the counter, his arms crossed over his chest. “A few days, a few weeks, maybe?”

  His eyes are roaming my body. “I can’t wait a few weeks to be inside you, Katherine.” His deep, husky voice makes me all kinds of excited. “Plus, I’m not giving you time to overthink things. Go get dressed.”

  “Where are we going?” My voice is quavery.

  “To get bacon.”

  “You didn’t know I was out of bacon until a minute ago.”

  “I came by to go for a walk around the block, get you out of the house. But this is even better. There’s a market only two blocks away.” He takes a predatory step toward me, and my mind starts going all fuzzy. “I need to kiss those lips first.”

  “Okay.”

  He takes my face in his hands and pulls me to him. He tastes like donuts and coffee and something all Nico. It’s funny how I’ve never really thought of myself as a sexual being. I mean, I have needs and I met them on my own when I needed to. The trusty vibrator in my nightstand always does the trick. But usually I have too many things running around in my cluttered mind, and sex isn’t one of them.

  In fact, even when I’m trying to get myself off, it’s not easy because I’m too preoccupied with a thousand unimportant things to concentrate on the task that’s literally at hand. But when I’m around Nico, there’s a low sexual charge always in the background, and his tongue is the catalyst that sets me on fire. Maybe it’s all that pent-up sexual need, or maybe it’s just him, but I can’t seem to get close enough.

  He lifts me onto the table. “Nico,” I whimper into his mouth. I should be embarrassed by how needy I sound, but I can’t seem to care. With his arm he blindly swipes away whatever is on the table; things go flying to the floor, and right now I don’t care.

  He pushes me down on the table and pulls down my shorts and underwear. Then he grips my thighs so high on my leg that his thumb brushes against the lips of my pussy, and he spreads me open. He looks feral, just looking at my most intimate part, and the more he looks the wetter I get. Again, I should be embarrassed by this, but I’m past the point of caring. I need some sort of relief.

  “I bet that pretty little cunt needs my tongue as much as my tongue needs that pretty little cunt.” I’m not sure whether to slap him for being vulgar or push his face into my pussy. “God, look how much you want it.” He’s not even talking to me now; his eyes are zoned in on my dripping core. He leans in and blows right on my clit, his beard rubbing against my thigh. I almost roll right off the table at that.

  I’ve had sex before. Not a lot, but enough. I’m also obviously not as experienced as this man, who seems to be more in tune with my vagina than I am. He leans in, and I’m sure he’s going to put his mouth exactly where I need it most, but he doesn’t. He moves up, hovering close to my face. “You’re beautiful, Katherine.”

  Then he pushes two fingers into me, his eyes fixed on mine. “Don’t fucking close your eyes.”

  “Oh God, Nico!” I yell as he moves his fingers in and out of me. When I’m about to lose all control he moves down my body, kissing down my chest, my stomach, focusing on my belly button for a minute as he continues to move down until he clamps his mouth on my clit and I swear to God, swear to God, he sucks the life right out of me in a fast, unexpected, mind-numbing orgasm that causes my entire body to tremble and my heart to palpitate. I think I’m about to pass out from pure bliss. After the tremors subside he continues to lick and suck my now super-sensitive clit. I want to tell him to stop, but I can’t, and somehow my hands push him closer to me, not away, so I’m obviously not sending him any sort of signal to stop.

  “Fuck!” he groans into me, still not releasing me. “You’re fucking delicious.” I’ve never had multiple orgasms, but just as I’m thinking this might happen, he stops, lifts me off the table, and tosses me onto the bed. I bounce once, and as I try to get my bearings, he grabs my legs, flips me over, lifts my ass high in the air, and roughly pushes my face onto the mattress. Who knew I’d love being manhandled? is my only thought as he spreads my ass cheeks and continues to lick my pussy from this angle, and because I’m now super-sensitive, it’s a completely different experience. Maybe it’s my ass in the air, his fingers digging into my skin, my face against my comforter, his tongue piercing into me, or that soft beard against my most sensitive parts, but this time my orgasm is so intense it’s almost painful.

  I melt into my bed, unable to move. He kisses up my ass cheeks, up my spine, and behind my neck. “I knew you’d be delicious,” he says into my ear before pushing off the bed and going to the bathroom. He walks out a minute later towel-drying his beard, and then he combs it with a small comb he takes from his pocket. I still haven’t moved.

  “Ready to go?” he asks.

  “Huh?”

  He smacks my ass, and I jump up. “Get dressed. Time to go.”

  I rub my ass and scowl at him as I get dressed. “What about you?” I say, looking at his uncomfortable-looking bulge. “We can stay here. I can take care of that.” I begin to move my hands up and down his shorts, but he takes my wrists and pushes me slightly away. “No,” he says through gritted teeth. “In my house. You can only do that in my house. You owe me a few orgasms,
Katherine, so I’m hoping we make some progress on getting out of the apartment today.”

  I deflate. What we just did was spectacular, and it leads me to believe that if his sex skills are anywhere as good as his oral skills, I may never leave his bed. I also realize that there are a lot of facets to this man: the sweet man who brings me coffee, the demanding man who tells me what to do with a scowl, the sexy man who makes me come over and over, the dickish man who wants me to leave my house. He’s only been inside my apartment for half an hour and I’ve seen at least four very different sides of him. It’s a lot to process.

  Getting a bearing on what he’s planning and what we just did, I stand up and compose myself. “You’re a cock tease,” I hiss.

  “Me?” He laughs and adjusts his pants with a pained look in his face. “You just came twice on my face. My cock is actually throbbing. All you have to do is get in my bed. I think the cock tease here is you, sweet Katherine,” he says, kissing my nose.

  I go into the bathroom. When I come out, I grab a pair of jeans and a T-shirt and change. Then I look at myself in the mirror and switch out the T-shirt for another one. After that I start applying some makeup. “Enough,” he says sternly. “You’re stalling. I’m not going to let you work yourself into a panic.”

  He takes my hand, grabs my keys, and puts them into his pocket. He leads me toward the door, but I can’t move past it.

  Cupping my face with his hands, he presses his forehead against mine. “Here’s where we’re just going to roll with it,” he says, and closes his eyes. I do the same. He takes two deep breaths, and again I copy him. “You’re afraid. That’s okay. But it’s not going to stop you.” He laces his fingers with mine and pulls me gently through the doorway.

  Nico

  I still have the taste of her on my tongue. It was mind-blowing, the way she let me take total control of her body. I’ve come to understand that her terrors come from situations that make her feel as if she doesn’t have control, yet here I am fantasizing about tying her up and fucking her until there’s no room for fears and anxieties, only pleasure. I know I could make it so good for her if she just shuts her mind off and is in the moment. I know for a fact she’s not thinking about her anxiety when she’s in the throes of an orgasm—which is why I want to wait. I want her completely present when we have sex, not worrying about other things. Sex is just the vehicle I’m using to try to get her to feel better. I know it’s not a cure.