“That feels really good,” I whispered softly.
The pressure intensified. He massaged the tense muscles in my neck and shoulders as the music pulsed through the room. The song ended and so did the pampered treatment I was receiving.
He walked over to shut off the equipment, and I stood. Picking up my bag, I looked over my shoulder and caught him checking out my ass. I smiled to myself and kept walking to the door. He trailed behind me. I could feel his eyes scanning my body.
Turning with my back to the door, I admitted, “I had a really great time today. It’s probably the longest date I’ve ever been on, but it didn’t feel like it. How did you make time fly?” I asked, cocking my head to the side as I stared up into his eyes as he stopped right in front of me.
“I’ve never taken anyone on a six-hour date before. If you would’ve been anyone else, the date would’ve ended at the museum. Or…”
“Or what?”
He licked his lips. “I really like you so this is a good place for the date to end.”
“What were you going to say though?”
He paused. “I was going to say that had it been someone else, it would’ve ended at the museum or it would’ve continued back at my place.” His voice dropped an octave as his hands settled flat against the door on either side of my head. “But you’re not someone I want to rush to get to know. I want to take my time.” He brought his face closer. “I want to unwrap you little by little like a gift.” The huskiness of his voice combined with the closeness of him vibrated through me.
“Is that right?” My voice was breathy as I slowly blinked up at him, holding his gaze.
Miles moved one of his hands and ran his fingertips down the length of my bare arm. My breathing hitched as the roughness of his fingertips and the gentleness of his touch combined. Everything from the waist down clench tightly.
Leaning forward, Miles brought his lips within an inch of mine. “I liked you just from our conversations, but seeing you, being around you, being close to you…made me want to have you as my muse.”
Deep in the pit of my belly, I felt untapped desire on the brink of exploding. I let out a small, wanton breath.
He tangled his hands into my hair, messing up my blowout, bringing my face so close that our lips were almost touching. His breath tickled my face as we inhaled and exhaled in time with one another.
With our eyes locked, I waited to see if he was going to make a move. He tugged my hair back causing our lips to meet momentarily. It was brief, but impactful. I was surprised by the action and by how good it felt. We both hesitated, sizing each other up before he did it again. A little noise escaped me, and he took that as permission to suck my bottom lip into his mouth, making me moan.
Miles pressed his body against mine, pinning me against the door. When the kiss deepened, he wrapped an arm around my waist and kept the other hand in my hair. He maneuvered our intertwined bodies to the leather couch. Turning, he dropped down and I landed hard on top of him. He grunted, before crashing his lips against mine again.
Adjusting my legs to straddle him, I slowly rocked back and forth across his lap. Rotating my hips seductively, I felt how hard he’d become which only turned me on more. I needed a release. My body craved it. My body craved him.
He groaned into my mouth and I was spurred on. His hands moved from my hips to my ass. Squeezing and kneading, he guided my body over his rock-hard cock. He kissed down my neck and chest before he bit my hard nipple. Running his teeth over the silken material of my romper, I moaned loudly.
“Mmmm…”
I felt the wet heat from his mouth so precisely that I had to bite my lip to keep from calling out. It was as if his mouth was directly on my nipple and every swipe of his tongue across the hardened peak had a direct line to every nerve ending in my body.
My panties were soaked.
Miles gripped my plump ass tighter and forced me down harder against his dick. He released my nipple and looked up at me as I rocked my hips against him. Our mouths were close, and our breathing was ragged as our clothes separated us from what felt like an explosive sexual experience. His eyes burned into mine, and his erratic breathing let me know he was desperate to feel my wetness.
I leaned down to kiss him and pulled away at the last second, teasing him. “So, you don’t want to take me home?”
He groaned. “You know I do.”
I hovered over his mouth and licked my lips. My tongue just barely touched his lip before I backed away again. “I don’t sleep with men on the first date, so I should get up,” I whispered.
“We don’t have to sleep together,” he grunted, thrusting his hips upward—hard. “Just kiss me.”
“Make me,” I countered softly. My voice was barely audible, but the guttural sound he made in the back of his throat let me know he heard me clearly.
Grabbing my hair, Miles forced my lips to his. I moaned into his mouth as his hands skated across my exposed back. His fingertips stroked me like an instrument he was dying to play. My mind couldn’t decide if it was more excited about the way his tongue played with mine or the way his fingers trembled with desire as he felt all over my body. I had no way of knowing where he’d touch next, and the unpredictability made me grind against him with more intensity.
“Dammit, Desiree—” He choked out before I smothered him with kisses again.
I moved faster as his cock was perfectly wedged against my clit. The way he was touching me and kissing me, I felt myself start climbing higher and higher. I started to imagine what it would feel like if he stripped me down and fucked me on the couch.
The thought alone was enough to get me to my peak.
I rocked into him, on him, and my head fell back. He used that opportunity to capture my protruding nipple through the thin fabric of my romper and bit down. The sting of euphoric pain rippled through my body as he held my hips and thrusted upward.
His moans combined with his actions were just what I needed before my body started to twitch as he pinched my other nipple.
“I can’t wait until the day I’m inside you,” he growled, sending me over the edge.
My body tightened and shook. I came.
Unable to contain myself, I kissed him hard and passionately. I’d gotten so lost in the kiss and the knock at the door was faint, but I thought I’d heard it.
I opened my eyes mid kiss and then pulled away slightly. “Did you hear that?”
“The sound of my heart beating for you?”
The corny line worked, and I rolled my eyes with a huge grin. “No, the door. It sounded like—”
The door swung open and I hopped off Miles’s lap. He put his hands in his lap, covering his erection.
“Oh!” Dahlia exclaimed, looking between us. “I’m so sorry!”
“We’ll be right out, Dahlia,” Miles barked, still winded. “Thank you!”
She backed out without a word and we sat in silence.
“I should go,” I said, standing to my feet.
“Where are you going?” Miles asked, adjusting himself and rising to his feet. He stood right in front of me.
“Home,” I answered, fixing my romper and pulling the material that had gathered in my ass from where I was being groped and fondled.
“I’m sorry about Dahlia. I should’ve locked the door or should’ve made sure we didn’t get carried away.”
“We both got carried away,” I replied, kissing him against his lips. “It’s fine. I just know that I need to go home now. Things were getting very, very hot.”
He brushed his hand up and down my bare arm. “I meant what I said earlier. You’re special.”
I wrapped my arms around him. “Thank you for today. It was great.” I gave him a look. “Every minute of it.”
He allowed me to walk past him before following me to the door. “Well, I hope we can do it again sometime soon.” He opened the door to the studio and then slipped his hand onto the small of my back. “I’d love to spend time with you again.�
��
“Well, then you should definitely call me and ask me out again,” I flirted as we walked down the hallway. We waved goodbye to an embarrassed looking Dahlia.
“Oh, believe me, I will definitely do that.” Miles ran his hand up and down my back as we walked. He looked at me and gave me a sexy smile. “I was planning our second date in my head while we were at the museum. I was just hoping I’d charm you enough to make it happen.”
I kissed him chastely on his cheek. “I look forward to seeing what you came up with.”
We reached my car and he shook his head as he opened the door. “I’m not used to feeling like this...” He caressed my face with the back of his hand once I was in the car and buckled up. “Usually I’m the one that leaves them wanting more and not the other way around.”
“I guess there’s a first time for everything.” I winked as I closed my car door.
Chapter 12
“You deleted it for real?” Nichelle asked on the other end of the line. I had her on speakerphone while I dressed up the popcorn. “When? I thought you were kidding at Anika’s dinner party! Dyani is going to be devastated.”
“Yes, ma’am. I’m no longer one of world’s one million users,” I imitated the commercial that I’d seen earlier that day. “I didn’t delete it that night. I was in the middle of an interesting conversation with a guy named William.”
“What was his name on the site?”
I laughed. “Big Willy Style.”
“Well you should’ve known right then and there nothing good was going to come of it, but continue.”
“I know!” Amusement tickled my voice as I drizzled white and milk chocolate over the popped popcorn. “We’d talked and everything seemed cool. He’s educated, funny, and extremely handsome… so I gave him my number on Friday and—”
“Did you give him your number because you had such great dates with Charles and Miles, and you needed another distraction to not fall too quickly?”
Sometimes having best friends who know you better than you know yourself is annoying as fuck.
“Maybe…” I stretched the word out. “And Charles and I haven’t been on an official date, date. We’ve just hung out. Whatever Nichelle.”
She made kissy noises in the background, and I growled in return.
“Anyway,” I segued firmly. “I wanted to give William my number to bring my total of prospects back up to three.”
“Have you still not talked to Brian?”
“No and my last attempt at trying to talk to him was last Friday.”
“A week ago?!”
“Yeah. I called him, it rang once, and went to voicemail.”
“Wait one fucking minute… did he block you?”
I sighed as I covered the popcorn with wax paper. “It looks that way, but it doesn’t make any sense.”
“He was the one who initiated everything!” Her outrage made her voice carry throughout the apartment. “He did not really block you!”
“I haven’t called a second time to check, but it would seem that way. He stopped calling, he stopped messaging, and he never called back from when I called him so…” I shrugged even though she couldn’t see me. “I’m pretty sure that means that I’m being ignored.”
“This motherfucker ghosted you. Ghosted you?! You!” She exclaimed as if she were the one on the receiving end of Brian’s bullshit. “He has some nerve!”
My eyebrows furrowed. “Ghosted?”
“One of the girls at work was telling me about this guy ghosting her. It’s basically when they just ignore you instead of being an adult and saying how they feel.”
“Remember when that was just universally known as phasing someone out?” I sighed.
“Yes, but with the phase out, it’s mutual. Two people decide they aren’t really feeling it anymore and they both stop contacting the other. If someone is ghosting you, they will lead you to believe they’re interested, even plan the next date, and then just disappear. There’s no warning.”
I grumbled and groaned. “I feel like I’m too old to be new to this new-age dating game. I should either be a pro in these streets—”
“That doesn’t mean what you think it means…”
“—Or out of the league altogether. Shut up!” I laughed, hearing what she said after I finished my sentence. “All I’m saying is that me being behind on this new idea of texting being the only form of communication, this new idea of dating being the same thing as sitting at someone’s house watching a movie, this new idea of if I met you on a dating site, I’m down to fuck you on the first date… well actually, trying to fuck on the first date isn’t new, but the mindset that everyone on a dating site is looking for a hookup. But you get what I’m saying… this whole dating game feels so new and technology based and I’m just not accustomed to it. Case in point, how did I not see that I was being ghosted? I really just thought he got tested and he came back with an STD.”
Nichelle gasped. “Oh! That could be it, too! I didn’t even consider that, but maybe he found out he had something and didn’t want to have that conversation with you, so he just moved on to the next woman.”
“Exactly. I’m just going to look at it like a blessing. Besides, after my second dates, I just whittled my list down and deleted the app. I’m good with who I’m seeing now.”
“Okay, I need to make sure I’m up to date. Who are your top picks? Please don’t tell me Big Willy Style made the cut.” Nichelle looked at me, but her hands were pressed together in prayer.
“No, no, no. William is currently blocked from contacting me. He was so cool and chill when we were talking on SOS and then once he got my number, the very first text message he sent me said ‘when are you going to come see me?’”
“Are you kidding?”
“No, I’m not.” I rolled my eyes remembering how shocked I was that his first message was so basic. “He seemed like an upstanding guy so I ignored that text, hoping it was just a lapse in judgment. The rest of the conversation was okay. We talked on the phone the next day because he said he wanted to get to know me better, and that conversation resulted in him telling me that he didn’t like the fact that I was going on a date that night. I told him I was sorry he didn’t like it, but I’m single and I’ll date whomever I choose to date. And he said that I was the only girl he was talking to.”
“And you two just exchanged numbers the day before?”
“Yeah, so there was no way in hell he thought we were exclusively dating. And beyond that, I just didn’t believe him.”
“Right? Dudes are forever saying that they are only talking to one woman and then come to find out, you’re one of ten.”
“Exactly!” I agreed loudly, throwing up my arm. “And in the off chance that it was true, he was still on SOS so he was still actively searching.”
“That’s a good point.”
I plopped down on the couch. “So, I told him that, and he dismissed it and said that men and women are different.”
“Oh, dear God, he didn’t.” Nichelle lowered her voice to match mine.
“Yes, he did. And he said that casually dating more than one man at a time made me seem slutty.”
“Shut your mouth!” Nichelle gasped.
“Honest to God. He said that me dating like a man wasn’t going to land me a good one. I told him that he may be right seeing as how I ended up giving him my phone number. He said my attitude was likely the reason why I’m still single. And I told him that I could say the same about him. He said I was a bitch. I said he was too. He said he was just trying to fuck me anyway and sent me a picture of his dick. And I said not with that itty-bitty thing.” I made a noise. “Looking like a thumb.”
Nichelle’s laugh was so loud and so infectious that I couldn’t help but laugh along with her.
“That was the best laugh of my life. I’m going to miss these SOS stories. But more importantly, I’m glad you found some real ones in the murky pool of applicants that is dating after thirty.”
&n
bsp; “Amen to that, sister!”
“Oh, you never told me who made the cut! You just told me why William didn’t.” Nichelle started laughing again. “You said a thumb!”
When we stopped laughing again, I told her the truth. “So, I really like Charles and Miles. Charles is amazing, and he gets me in a way that is unlike anything I’ve ever experienced. In the short amount of time we’ve known each other, I can truly say that we have developed a deep connection and an incredible friendship.”
“Charles is the one who isn’t looking for a relationship, right?”
I sighed. She knew exactly who Charles was and what he said he wasn’t looking for. She didn’t have to remind me.
“Yes,” I mumbled. “Anyway, Charles and I have a connection.”
“Okay. And I love that, and I also love that he’s a firefighter because that’s hot. Literally.” She sounded amused with herself. “But realistically, has he expressed interest outside of friendship?”
I had a mental flash back to our second and third dates—well, neither was technically a date, because we didn’t call it that. We didn’t call it anything. It just happened. Our second date was an impromptu lunch on Monday where he had insisted on paying. There wasn’t anything romantic about it. It was just two friends having a really good time together. But our third date felt a little different.
We were on the phone talking about local musical artists and realized we both liked Bronte, who had been touring up and down the East Coast that year. He mentioned that there was going to be an impromptu performance at The Music Place so we decided that we should go together. We didn’t say as friends, but it wasn’t like he asked me on a date either. It just happened. After the show, we got food at a late-night diner and then he walked me to my door. We both had to work in the morning so we called it a night around one o’clock.
But there was another moment.
As we said goodbye, we hugged and I felt the air shift around us for the millionth time that night. But unlike earlier in the night, there were no distractions. The music of the band didn’t start up again, the waitress at the dinner didn’t refill our drinks, the cars behind us didn’t blow the horn. We were alone, without any distractions, and our arms were around each other in what started as a friendly hug goodbye.
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