Almost Hitched

by Kylie Gilmore

  His other hand slid into her hair, tilting her head up. “It’s really important we keep up the experimental testing in the bedroom,” he said with a wicked smile.

  “I’m open to anything and everything with you,” she said eagerly.

  His gaze turned hot, his fingers tightening in her hair before his mouth claimed hers. Her brain shut down as wanton need took over. He kissed her breathless, his hands all over her; then he sat up, taking her with him, and yanked her shirt over her head. Her bra went flying. And then she was airborne, Ian carrying her to the bedroom for the first of many brilliant experimental explorations.

  Her boyfriend was a freaking genius.

  ~ ~ ~

  His girlfriend was a freaking genius.

  He knew this, yet he hadn’t thought about what that meant for him actually living with her. It had only been a week and, hell, she was hard to live with. His apartment was a disaster area. Not like he was Mr. Neat, but…she left Post-its with equations all over the place, he even found one on the eggs, and the butter had a weird symbol carved into it. The small bathroom mirror was regularly covered in lipsticked equations, making it impossible for him to get a good look at himself when shaving. Worse, and grosser, the shower wall was covered with odd scattered dots of his shaving cream. He wasn’t allowed to touch any of this stuff, as he’d discovered when he’d tried to rinse off the shower wall after three days of looking at weird pointy hard dots of shaving cream.

  “Ian! That was an important randomized scatter graph! I haven’t completed the math on it yet. I have to study it during my showers.”

  “Could we take a picture of it before it gets moldy and gross?”

  “I often have breakthroughs in the shower. I need them there.”

  He told himself she was a brilliant physicist and sometimes brilliant people had little quirks. But the following Monday that little quirk seemed more like a pathological deal-breaker. It was early morning, he was in a rush, as usual, but today was especially important because he had several job applicants to interview at the lab and needed to look like a competent boss. Problem was when he opened the medicine cabinet above the sink, no shaving cream. He immediately hunted the pathological equation-writer down. (Would it kill her to use pen and paper?)

  He found Kate in the living room on her laptop, already showered and dressed.

  “Where’s my shaving cream?” he demanded. He hadn’t shaved all weekend, and now he was at that scruffy stage between stubble and full-on beard. Not work appropriate.

  She blinked slowly and stared at him, uncomprehending. He’d learned when she was immersed in equations, it took a few moments for her to return to the real world.

  “I can’t find my shaving cream,” he said. “Do you have it?”

  She looked dreamily off in the distance.

  “Kate!”

  She snapped her head back to him. “Oh. I ran out of lipstick.”

  He marched back to the bathroom, ripped the shower curtain back, and saw the evidence. She must’ve finished the can, writing in symbols and numbers only Kate understood, on all three walls of the shower from top to bottom. He did some deep breathing. He couldn’t be late. His first interview appointment was at eight. He had exactly forty-five minutes to shave, shower, dress, and catch the train. He didn’t have time to run out to the store, and shaving with soap always left him with a zillion tiny cuts. He marched back to the living room, where Kate had returned to whatever equations were fascinating her.

  “Kate!”

  Her head snapped up, and she blinked at him. Her gaze trailed down his bare chest to his boxer briefs, where she remained riveted. His traitorous cock perked up involuntarily. Dammit. This was not the time.

  “This is important,” he said through his teeth. “I have to interview new hires today.”

  She slowly raised her gaze and met his eyes. “You’d better get ready, then.”

  “I need to shave, and there’s no more shaving cream.”

  She put her laptop down. “I’ll go to the store.”

  “There’s no time!” Besides, every time Kate ran an errand, she ended up walking for blocks and blocks, thinking. Half the time she forgot what she’d left the house for.

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “I didn’t know the can was so close to empty.”

  “It wasn’t close to empty until you sprayed it all over three walls!”

  She held up a finger. “Just a minute. I’ll ask my cell phone.” She went for her phone.

  Ian started pacing. “Great. Ask your cell phone. Sure, it has all the answers.”

  Kate nodded, completely missing his sarcasm. She pressed the button on her cell and spoke slowly and clearly. “What are alternatives to shaving cream?”

  The phone replied back in a female robot voice. “Here are places on the web with alternatives to shaving cream.”

  Ian ground his teeth.

  Kate tapped a few times and rattled off several options, none of which he had. “Hand lotion, almond oil, apricot oil—”

  “I don’t have any of that shit! Forget it! I’ll look like a slob.”

  “Soap!” she said triumphantly. “You definitely have soap.”

  “It doesn’t work as well. I’ll end up with bloody cuts.”

  She looked down at her cell again. “Peanut butter.”

  “Yeah. I’d love to smell like peanut butter all day.” He let out a breath. “Fine, I’ll use soap. Who cares if I show up to work bleeding?”

  “I could shave for you.”

  “No, thanks.” She’d probably shave a mathematical symbol onto his face while she dreamed of equations. He’d be pi man.

  He huffed and marched back to the bathroom, did his best with the soap, and emerged with five scraps of toilet paper stuck to his neck and jaw to stop the bleeding. Then he took a quick shower and dressed in his nicest business casual outfit. He returned to the living room. “How do I look?”

  She lifted her head from her laptop and murmured, “Great. Have fun.”

  He wasn’t sure she’d even looked at him. Or that she understood interviewing new hires wasn’t “fun.” All she saw were freaking equations. “Bye.”

  “Bye, pookie!” she called.

  He clenched his jaw and kept walking toward the door. Apparently the marriage literature said couples with cute nicknames for each other had higher marital satisfaction. He couldn’t even…

  “I’ll be here when you get back,” she said, which was kind of sweet. “Unless I take a walk,” she added.

  “Bye,” he said tersely and marched out the door.

  When he returned home, after what turned out to be not such a bad day after all, Kate met him at the door, took his hand and led him back toward the bedroom. His day just got a whole lot better. But at the last second, she turned him toward the bathroom and flung open the door.

  “Ta-dah!” she exclaimed. “I’ve taken care of the problem.”

  There was a pyramid of shaving cream cans taking up all the open space. Must’ve been at least a hundred cans. Guess he wouldn’t be running out anytime soon.

  He slowly shook his head, bemused. He turned to find her eagerly waiting for his response. “You took care of the problem all right.”

  She beamed. “We’ll never have that fight again.”

  Only Kate. Life with her would never be boring. That was for sure. Then a thought occurred to him. “What do you use at your place when you have inspiration in the shower?”

  “I have a waterproof notebook and pen.”

  “Order a hundred of those for here.”

  “A hundred? That seems like a lot.”

  He gestured to the hundred shaving cream cans.

  “That’s a hundred and five. I had to go to six stores.” At his hard look, she quickly amended. “Great idea.”

  He pulled her close and kissed the top of her head. “Okay, Kate. Problem solved.”

  “One week successfully completed,” she chirped. “Three more to go.”

  “
Piece of cake,” he said and really tried to mean it.

  Chapter Ten

  Kate sat on the living room sofa, typing furiously on her laptop while Ian showered. Week two of the captivity experiment. Male and female chimps remain in love with frequent rigorous copulation (daily). Female has adapted to new surroundings, making use of resources at hand. Male shows signs of territoriality. Note: may be related to perceived lack of resources. Female working on determining which resources must be kept in plentiful supply. Shaving cream at the top of the list.

  She’d been forced to supplement her condensed experiment with detailed observations due to the male’s noncompliance with all aspects of the experiment. It was important as a scientist that she maintain some objective distance, as she’d told Ian, so she framed her observations as if she were watching two chimps she’d never met before. She considered for a moment if there were any other solutions to the territoriality problem.

  She typed again. Alternative solution—his and hers labels on perceived high-value items.

  “Kate!”

  Kate reluctantly lifted her gaze from the laptop and observed the male chimp pacing in a display of frustration, tension, and possible alpha dominance (he was naked except for a towel around his waist and impressive in his masculinity—tall, broad-shouldered, defined biceps, dark inverted triangle of chest hair leading to his usual bulge).

  “Eyes up here!” he demanded.

  She blinked, met his eyes, and waited for a clearer message. He was fresh from the shower. That usually relaxed him. So why the hostile stance? Jaw tight, hands on hips, feet wide apart.

  She looked off in the distance, pondering this puzzle. The shower walls were clean now. She’d scrubbed them down last night when she’d finally hit upon the equation she needed to make the scatter graph fit with her theory. Hmm…there certainly wasn’t any lack of resources in the bathroom. She was an early riser and took inventory before her own shower this morning of anything that he might perceive to be of high value. Sure, she was out of lipstick, but that shouldn’t be a territorial thing for him.

  “Kate!”

  Her gaze snapped to his. “What?”

  “Why do I have zero boxer briefs?” the male chimp inquired in a hostile tone. Ah. Possible wardrobe malfunction. She knew both the solution and the cause.

  She quickly started typing in her observation. The laptop snapped closed suddenly. She looked up to find the male, nostrils flaring, glaring down at her. She stood, preferring not to let the alpha display get out of hand. Mmm, he smelled so good.

  She went up on tiptoe and kissed his clean-shaven cheek just to breathe him in—fresh clean soap, woodsy with a hint of citrus from his cologne, and pure sexy man.

  He grabbed her by the upper arms and looked directly in her eyes. “Kate, what did you do with my boxer briefs?”

  “They’re gone.”

  “Gone? Gone?” His voice rose both in pitch and volume on a repeated word. She’d have to make note of that later.

  “Yes.”

  “Why are they gone?”

  “To make room for your boxers. Oh! They’re still in the bag in the closet—”

  “Why did you switch me from boxer briefs to boxers without telling me?” he asked in a surprisingly reasonable tone considering the earlier posturing. He even let go of her arms and gave her a little space.

  She pursed her lips, unsure which question was more important. The switch? Or not telling him?

  He leaned close and growled in full alpha display, “You have three seconds before all your panties are gone. And I won’t be putting anything in their place.”

  “Ian!”

  “Commando, Kate. That’s right. One.”

  “I can’t possibly go commando all the time! Some of my clothes might chafe—”

  “Two.”

  “Your panties were in a bunch! You were so tense about your things. I don’t even know which things you’ll share and which I’m not supposed to touch!” Territoriality extends to underwear.

  “Is that supposed to be a joke?”

  “No,” she answered slowly. “It was a metaphor. Your panties, I mean, you’re the male, so your underwear was in a bunch. You’ve been so tense with me.”

  His lips were playing at a smile that made her wary. “I’m the male.” For some reason he was focusing on the wrong thing.

  “You’re supposed to see now that you need to relax about your things,” she pointed out helpfully.

  His large hand wrapped around the back of her neck and pulled her close. His gaze dropped to her mouth, and her pulse skittered. “You must be the female.”

  “That’s, uh—” she swallowed at the hot look in his eyes “—not the point.”

  His head dipped low, his words a hot whisper against her ear. “You’re tense too.” His hand dropped from her neck, both hands coming to rest on her hips.

  “If I’m tense, it’s only because you—oh!”

  The male’s dexterity proved impressive. He stripped her shorts and panties in one quick move. She gaped at him. He held her purple panties by one finger. “Say goodbye to these!”

  She grabbed for them, but he tossed them toward the foyer; then he grabbed her, lowering them both to the sofa, her under him in a classic dominance play. He slid his fingers into her hair, holding her in his grip as his other hand stroked down her throat. Heat rushed through her.

  His eyes locked on hers for one breathless moment. “You taught me a good lesson, Kate. Now I can teach you a good lesson too.”

  Her heart hammered in anticipation. “But I wasn’t tense about my things.”

  He leaned down and clamped his teeth on the side of her neck, a move that her body knew well from previous animal fuckings. Hot and wet and throbbing, her breath shuddered out.

  He released her neck and growled in her ear. “As long as I’m wearing boxers, you’ll be wearing nothing.”

  “I can’t—”

  His eyes were hot on hers. “You will. And it’ll make it so much easier to take you wherever and whenever I want.”

  She was breathless, hot all over, her breasts tingling, her body aching. “Yes, take me.”

  “Fuck, Kate, you say all the right things.” He lifted off her just long enough to rip the towel off him and took her mouth in a hard claim of possession.

  The female surrendered to pleasure immediately.

  A few moments later, Ian lifted off her, pulled her up and took off her shirt and bra, which gave her brain time to start working again. She should make her chimps-in-love observations about sex too. That would really round out the picture.

  “I have a great idea,” she announced.

  The male grunted. He lifted her to straddle his lap, where he was now seated on the sofa. “Keep talking,” he murmured before arranging her so she was on her knees on either side of his legs. She hung onto his shoulders.

  “I want you to be an animal,” she said. “Fast, hard, and rough. As primal as a male can be.”

  “All the right things,” he murmured before his mouth closed over her nipple and sucked hard. Electric pleasure shot through her. Her back arched, and his arm banded around her waist, holding her tight. Her nails dug into his shoulders. It felt so unbelievably good, a straight line of pleasure to her throbbing sex. She wanted to grind down on him, but it was impossible with the hold he had on her.

  “I’ll be an animal too!” she gasped.

  He lifted his head. “Yeah, you will.”

  He moved to her other breast, sucking hard. She held his head to her, the incredible pleasure bringing her up, up, up to that peak she craved. Suddenly he released her, grabbed her ass, and stood with her plastered to his front, arms and legs around him like a chimp. He took her to the wall, her bare back hitting the cold surface, a sharp contrast to the heat at her front.

  “Hard,” he growled, lifting her and pushing inside just a little, making her crazed.

  “Yes. And rough and—”

  He thrust deep, her body filling
suddenly and fully, the shock and pleasure so intense she gasped. He lifted her again, halfway up, and her body trembled in anticipation. “Let me hear what primal sounds like,” he urged and thrust deep again.

  She let out a primal cry she’d never known she had in her. He swore and lifted her again, reaching between them to stroke her sweet spot, making her shudder around him. Then she could do nothing but pant as Ian took her like an animal, hard and fast and rough, her primal cries harsh, keening, desperately needy. The pressure was unbearable. She needed her release; her nails scratched down his back. “Fuck,” he muttered before his mouth crashed over hers, swallowing her cries as he drove into her over and over. She clung to him, her insides tightening even as he pushed her open with each thrust. Her climax spiked sharp and hot, bringing shockwaves of pleasure. He held her tighter, his hands on her ass, still thrusting through her release. Her breath came in short gasps, her body climbing again, building to another peak.

  “I’m close again,” she cried.

  He grunted, lifted her hips at an angle and thrust deep. She broke violently, taking him with her, his groan loud and long against her neck.

  A moment passed with nothing but the sound of their panting. Animal. So animal.

  He rested his forehead against hers and finally spoke. “You keep surprising me.”

  She found herself smiling. “You keep satisfying me.”

  He laughed. “So are you going to replace the boxer briefs you threw out? I assume you threw them out. You never do anything half-assed.” At her quick nod, he went on, “Or do you plan on going commando the rest of the month while I wear old-man boxers?”

  “They’re not old man,” she huffed. “They’re a useful metaphorical reminder.”

  He arched a brow. “I’m liking commando for you more and more. That’s a damn useful reminder.”

  She pursed her lips. “There is no way I’m giving up my underwear. Do you know how hard it is to find panties that are both comfortable and sexy?”

  He set her back on the floor and held her by the hips. Her legs felt quivery. How strange. She’d have to make a note of that animal side effect.