by Lyra Marlowe
She smiled warmly. “Are you John?”
“John Krulak,” he answered. She offered her hand and he held it, not shaking it and not letting go. “Our table’s not ready yet. Can I get you a drink?”
Lucy nodded and he led her back to the bar. He had to let go of her hand then. She ordered herself a Scotch, neat. As if he needed another reason to like her.
“I’m really sorry about this,” she said sincerely. “I know Nolan roped you into this at the last minute. If you had other plans…”
“I didn’t,” John assured her quickly.
“I know how Nolan can be when he wants something.”
“Relentless,” Krulak agreed. “But believe me, I’m glad to be here. Really.” He meant to leave it at that, but he heard himself add, “You broke about six hearts when you sat down with me, you know. You’re the most beautiful woman here.”
Lucy smiled, flushed and looked down at her drink.
“I’m sorry,” John blurted. “I didn’t mean to say that. I mean, it’s true, but I… I’m not hitting on you, I know you’re Nolan’s friend, but it is true.”
Her smiled brightened. “I was just thinking the same thing about you. Not that you were beautiful, but that you’re Nolan’s partner and I shouldn’t…” She stopped and took a deep breath. “Well, now neither of us can talk.”
The hostess rescued them from their silence and led them to a table in the corner. By the time they were settled with menus, John had regained some of his composure. “The steaks are excellent here.” Then, alarmed, he asked, “You’re not a vegetarian, are you?”
“Oh hell no,” Lucy answered firmly. “I’m a drug rep. Being a meat eater is part of the job description. And also I don’t chant, believe in reincarnation or think that I’ve ever been abducted by aliens.” She looked at him sidelong. “You?”
“None of the above.” John laughed. “You’ve done this before.”
“The first-date tango? Oh yes. I like to get the weird stuff on the table right up front.”
“Thank you. You have no idea what a relief you are.” He wondered how take my old friend to dinner had somehow turned so quickly into a date, but he was glad. He loved how upfront and open she was. After the bar-crawl routine, she was like a breath of clear air. “I could tell you stories,” he said ruefully.
“Do it.”
“What?”
Lucy put her menu down. “Tell me your best date-from-hell story.”
John thought about it. Usually women wanted to hear his paramedic stories—tell me your best save, tell me your worst scene. One particularly creepy young woman had wanted to hear all the details of a car crash decapitation, in excruciating detail, during sex. He hesitated a few seconds, then told Lucy all about her. She listened, and she laughed, and she sympathized.
He liked talking to Lucy.
They ordered steaks. When the waiter had gone, he said, “All right, your turn.”
She pondered for a moment. “I dated a paramedic once.”
“Anybody I know?”
“No, up in Chicago. He was a nice guy, mostly. Except he had this kink.”
“Wait, let me guess,” John said. “He wanted to tell you all the gory details of his runs during sex.”
“Worse.” Lucy leaned closer and spoke softly. “He dressed up like Elvis.”
“In bed?”
“Yes.”
John laughed. “I think you win.”
“Actually, it would have been okay if he’d warned me,” Lucy mused. “But he went into the bathroom and came out in this white jumpsuit and black wig…” She shuddered. “I suppose the jungle bedroom decor should have tipped me off.”
“Probably. Maybe people should come with little cue cards or something. You know, like business cards, only with all your kinks on the back, so potential partners would know what they were getting into.”
Lucy nodded. “And a fake name and phone number on the front.”
“Right. Exactly.”
Their salads arrived, and John ordered a fresh round of drinks.
“What would yours say?” Lucy asked.
“What?”
“Your card. What would it say on the back?”
John glanced at the hovering waiter and then back at her, grinning. “You’re kind of a brat, aren’t you?”
“Yes. Didn’t Nolan warn you?”
“No.” The waiter finally retreated, and John changed the subject. “How long have you known Nolan?”
Lucy sipped her drink. The look in her eyes said she knew why he’d changed the subject, but she let it go. “Since before kindergarten. We grew up next door to each other. I think we were probably six or seven before we knew we weren’t brother and sister.”
“Hmmm.” Since John knew they’d later ended up in bed together, it was an interesting statement. But he didn’t know if she knew that he knew. “Has he always been so stubborn?”
“Yes. Always. When Nolan was six his dad bought him a two-wheel bike, and he was determined to learn to ride it that day. He was out there for eleven hours. My mom timed him. Eleven hours. He couldn’t even walk, his legs were so shaky. But he learned to ride that damn bike in one day.”
John smiled. He knew his partner. He could see it all too well in his mind. “We were out on a run this time…” he began.
They talked through dinner, first trading stories about Nolan, then about themselves. She was a good talker, intelligent and witty, and she was a good listener. They talked through dessert and coffee. Eventually, the conversation turned back to Nolan. “How did his parents take it when they found out he was gay?”
“They didn’t,” Lucy answered simply.
“They don’t know?” John was surprised. His partner had always been completely open about his sexual orientation. But then, he was hundreds of miles from his home town.
“His father died the summer before Nolan started college, before he came out. He told his mother, but she just doesn’t believe it. She’s not upset or angry, she just refuses to believe it’s anything but a stage.”
“Even after he lived with Kevin all those years?”
Lucy snarled. “That asshole. I never liked him.”
“Nolan did.”
“I know. And I smiled and was pleasant every time I saw him. But I always knew he was an asshole. And by the way, thank you for taking care of Nolan when they split. He told me you really went all out to be there for him.”
John blushed. “I tried, but I don’t think I was really much help.”
“You were there. That’s the best help there is for a broken heart.”
Krulak stared at the candle in the center of the table. In a weird way, his heart had broken too, for his friend’s grief. He wished he could have done more. He wished there were bandages for broken hearts. Nolan was such a good man, a giving man, and to have Kevin cheat on him like that…
He felt the heat rising in his cheeks again, this time in anger. He shook his head. Lucy would not understand. John barely understood himself.
He changed the subject again. “So his mom thinks he’s going to wake up one morning and decide he really likes girls?”
Lucy nodded, graciously allowing him to steer the conversation away from the painful topics. “She thinks he’ll end up with me. Of course, she also thinks I’m still a virgin.”
With a little jolt, John realized that he’d been so involved in having an actual conversation with the woman that he’d forgotten to flirt with her. But her last statement seemed like an open invitation. “You mean you’re not?” he teased with wide-eyed shock.
She bit her lower lip and shook her head solemnly. “But sometimes I pretend to be.”
John grinned. She was flirting with him. He liked it. He doubted it would go anywhere—in his mind, she still had PROPERTY OF NOLAN stamped on her forehead—but it was pleasant anyhow. The evening had turned out so much better than he’d expected, and he didn’t want it to be over.
Lucy folded her napkin beside her p
late. “I know you worked all day, I should let you get home.”
“I don’t want to go home,” he answered quickly. “Let’s go dancing.”
*
The club was called Old School and it was just up the street. The crowd on a weeknight was small. John and Lucy settled at a table next to the dance floor, ordered a round of Scotch and hit the floor. They generally played oldies and classics, but the first song was something new, tencho rap with a skull-shattering bass line.
“This sucks,” Lucy pronounced. “Be right back.”
She crossed the floor and climbed the iron spiral staircase to the DJ’s nest. She had, John reflected as he watched her, exceptional legs. Swimmer’s legs, probably, trim and strong without being bulky. For one moment he imagined those legs wrapped around his waist, holding him deep inside while he…
He felt a stirring in his groin and made himself stop thinking in that direction. He drifted back to their table and took a long pull on his drink. Nolan’s oldest friend, he told himself firmly. Don’t forget it.
When he looked back, Lucy was leaning against the control board, chatting with the DJ. She was smiling. He was nodding and gazing openly at her breasts. They reached some agreement. The DJ reached for a new disc, and Lucy came back down the steps.
If he’d been standing there, John thought ruefully, he could have looked right up her dress.
She joined him at the table and downed her Scotch in one shot. The rap faded and the opening beats of Bob Seger’s Her Strut began. The small crowd applauded. Lucy took John’s hand and dragged him back out on the floor.
John was usually a little—okay, a lot—self-conscious about his dancing. But the minute he saw her move, he knew nobody was going to be watching him. She gave herself to the music, shaking, grinding, circling him. Was she coming on to him? The stirring between his legs refused to subside. Maybe he was imagining things. A girl could dance, couldn’t she, without it being an invitation?
Seger faded. John sighed. Maybe he could sit down now, catch his breath, get his hormones under control. But Seger was replaced by ZZ Top’s Legs, and he knew they weren’t going anywhere.
His arousal grew, watching her move, and she seemed to be dancing closer, brushing against him more often. You’re imagining things, he told himself. She moved in, brushed against his thigh.
Then, for one beat, she pressed against his groin.
Nolan’s friend, Nolan’s friend, Nolan’s friend, he chanted desperately to himself. The chanting had no effect.
ZZ Top faded away, replaced next by You Can Leave Your Hat On. John couldn’t remember who recorded it. He could barely remember his own name. Lucy put her hands on his shoulders, drew herself close to his body, and John’s hands closed on her waist. He tried to maintain a little distance, to keep her from actually rubbing against his bulge, but she was having none of that. She pressed against him, her eyes meeting his, locking on, as her breasts mashed against his chest, her nipples hard as tiny bullets.
On the next beat, she moved her feet between his, bringing her pelvis firmly against his erection.
Still dancing, she gyrated against him without breaking contact.
John closed his eyes and groaned. She brought her face next to his, her breath hot in his ear. He knew it was idiotic, but he still thought there was some chance he was misinterpreting. “I’m sorry,” he said softly, pulling her even closer. “It’s just that you’re so…”
Lucy turned her head and kissed him square on the mouth. Her tongue parted his teeth, and then it was everywhere, exploring, demanding, and he opened his mouth wider, trying to get her farther inside, letting her devour him while he invaded the sweet, Scotch-flavored heat of her mouth.
His erection was now undeniably full-blown, trapped between their writhing bodies. John groaned again, lifting his mouth from hers. The last rational fragment of his mind was screaming, Nolan’sfriendNolan’sfriendNolan’sfriend, but the rest of him was on fire everywhere their bodies met.
She ran her tongue along the outer edge of his ear, then took the lobe between her teeth and bit it, gently but sharply. Carefully, John pulled away so he could look at her. Her eyes were bright, dancing, her lips parted, a little swollen from the earlier kiss. There was no longer any question. Shoulders to toes, their bodies pressed together.
But.
“Nolan,” John managed to gasp.
A little laughter flashed past her eyes. “Maybe next time,” she answered lightly. “He said it was okay.”
“He what?”
“Do you have a condom?”
Bless the scouts, John thought, feeling his mouth fall open. He could only nod.
Lucy took the open mouth as an invitation and kissed him again. This time her tongue was quicker, lighter, and John felt his knees go weak.
“Come with me,” Lucy whispered. John wanted to tell her that he wasn’t sure he could walk, but she had already turned, drawing him behind her so that his erection was hidden against her shapely butt as they made their way across the dance floor.
She led him under the DJ’s nest, back to a door marked “Employees Only”, and through it to a starkly lit hallway.
There were several doors marked rest rooms, employee lounge, emergency exit. This last door had the standard panic bar and a big yellow warning—EMERGENCY EXIT ONLY. ALARM WILL SOUND.
“Umm, Lucy,” John ventured when he realized she was headed for the exit door, “the alarm?”
She turned and placed her hand on the crotch of his pants, her fingers spread wide to cup his whole erection. “It feels like an emergency to me.” She backed into the door and pushed it open, leading John after her, quite literally, by the balls.
No alarm sounded.
That lone corner of John’s mind that had not been overrun by testosterone said, John, pay attention. No alarm. She knew there’d be no alarm.
They were in an alley. Lucy didn’t look around but turned left, toward the back of the building.
She led him past the Dumpster and around the corner to an even darker walkway at the back of the club, stopping directly under the fire escape.
John, the rational corner of his mind insisted, she knows where she’s going, she’s scouted this alley, she’s planned all of this, John. Pay attention, she’s some kind of psycho and she’s got you by the—
Shut up, the hormones roared back. Nolan would have told us if his friend was psychotic.
If he knew.
Lucy put her back to the wall and drew John to her, kissed him again. Both of her hands roamed hungrily over the crotch of his pants.
It occurred to John, belatedly, that she meant to have him right here. He looked up and down the little passageway. It was dark enough, secluded, but he had a vivid, horrible flash of Captain Waldron’s face when he heard John had been arrested for—
“Give me the condom,” Lucy said. She pushed him back a step and bent down.
“Here?” John said. “Lucy, I can’t.” He was already fumbling for his wallet, his body completely ignoring his common sense. “If we get caught…”
He located the condom, put his wallet away, realized that she had bent over to step out of her panties. She straightened, took his hands and drew him close again, kissed him, murmured into his mouth, “Your choice.” She placed his left hand between her legs, then took a step out so that his palm was abruptly full of feverish, wet pussy. “But I’m going to go off in about one minute, with or without you.” She kissed him again, grinding against his hand. The tip of his middle finger slipped inside her and she grabbed him with her inner muscles.
Lucy whimpered with pleasure.
“With me,” John managed to breathe, “oh God, with me.”
Her hands moved swiftly to his pants, belt, button, zipper, briefs—always wear clean underwear, his mother had said, in case your best friend’s best friend wants to bang you in an alley—and then his cock was free, curving up toward her, the cool night air almost more stimulation than he could stand. God, he fel
t like glass, if she pinged him just once he would…
She cupped him softly in one hand, stroking very gently. Her hands were warm, barely damp with sweat, and her fingers were firm and certain. In his hand she squirmed, refusing to release his finger, pushing against him to drive it deeper still.
He heard a snap and realized that she had opened the condom package with her free hand. Then both hands were on his cock, unrolling the condom and stroking at the same time, bringing him right to the brink of his control.
Abruptly, she released him. She reached over her head and grabbed the last step of the fire escape with both hands, then pulled herself up, finally releasing his finger. John took half a step closer and grabbed her by the hips, guided her as she lowered herself directly onto his cock. She took his full length in a single stroke, then pulled herself back up until only the tip remained inside her. John thought he would scream when she descended a second time. He shifted his grip, one arm across her back, the other firmly around her waist, and jerked her away from the fire escape. Her arms tightened around his neck to help support her weight, and then her legs came up, her thighs squeezing John’s hip bones, but most of her weight still went into driving him to the very hilt inside her.
It felt as if his whole body was erect. John fought for control, tried to hold back his climax just one more stroke, just one more. Lucy levered herself up and down on his stiff cock, riding him, and he pressed her against the wall, shuddered hard as he pounded against her, one more stroke, one more stroke, on fire now, no way to hold back…
Her arms tightened frantically around his neck and she screamed through clenched teeth. All her muscles tightened in a hard spasm around John’s crystal-hard erection. He drew back and thrust one last time against her orgasm, and then he was over the edge, coming and coming while she milked him dry.
His knees went then and he fell against her, pinned her to the wall with his body, still impaled. Her head fell against his shoulder, and her arms relaxed their grip.
Reality reasserted itself, but slowly. The blood took its own sweet time getting back to John’s brain, and so it was a full minute before he became aware of their surroundings—fully dressed, in an alley, and still buried to his balls in his best friend’s best friend.