The Learning Hours

by Sara Ney

  Shit, yes. Yes, oh fuck—fuck, I’m whacking off in front of a girl’s house like a complete goddamn pervert. My pace quickens out of desperation and fear of being discovered, but it feels so fucking good I can’t stop.

  Laurel

  The birthday cake sits dead center in the dining room, a round, red velvet confection covered in white cream cheese frosting. Twenty-one candles are sunk into the saccharine center, the lights in my small dining room dim. Normally, we use this waste of a space for piling our shit on the table, but tonight, the room is clean, paper and clutter stacked neatly on the sideboard our landlord kept with the house.

  Fussing with my dress, I button and unbutton the top twice, examining myself this way and that, smooth legs, cleavage, hair. My dress is flirty, black, and hardly appropriate for the cold weather we’ve been having, but we’re inside where it’s warm, and it’s sexy, so there is no way I’m changing out of it now.

  The doorbells rings; fluffing my hair in the mirror, I plump my cleavage. Swipe on more lip stain. Smooth down the pleats in my black, flouncy skirt.

  My breath hitches when I slowly drag open the door.

  Rhett stands on the porch holding a small bouquet of flowers. Black polo shirt and dark jeans, he fidgets a little under my scrutiny.

  “Jolies fleurs pour une jolie fille.” He hands them to me once I stop gaping and shove open the door. “Pretty flowers for a pretty girl.”

  I press my nose to the delicate pink buds. Inhale. “You’re not supposed to be bringing me gifts—this is your night.”

  “You are…stunning.” He steps into the entryway, pressing me against the door. Pressing a heated kiss on my gasping mouth. “Étourdissant.”

  “These are beautiful.” I exhale. “Thank you.”

  Usher him inside, turn the lock on the door. Pad barefoot into the room, dragging him along by the hand. The house is dim, save the flickering candles in the center of the dining room table. Twenty-one glowing wishes, dancing in the shadows.

  “Let me find a vase and some water for these.” I plant another kiss on his cheek. “Take off your shoes and get comfortable.”

  Better yet, take off your shirt, pants, and anything else you’ve got on while you’re getting undressed. Save us the time later. Ha ha.

  His shoes get set by the door as his sharp brown eyes scan the room. Take in our beige sectional and the framed grouping of roommate photographs on the wall above it.

  It’s a good kind of strange having him in my house; he’s huge, much bigger than Donovan, and an imposing figure, broad shoulders, and narrow waist.

  I watch him from the corner of my eye as I cut the ends of the flowers, run the stems under water, and place them in a large mason jar.

  So pretty.

  I join him in the dining room, where he stands staring down at the cake, a beacon in the darkened room.

  “Babe, there are no chairs in here.”

  Babe.

  “I know, I know,” I fuss. “But I thought it would be romantic to sit on top. You know that scene in the movie Sixteen Candles, where Jake Ryan finally gets Samantha in his house? And then they finally…”

  Well, actually, they do nothing, because the damn movie fades to black before they get to the good part before they start to make out or have hot, passionate, cake sex.

  Er…

  Or maybe not.

  Rhett bends at the waist, giving the underside of the table a cursory onceover before pressing on the surface, both palms splayed on the top. “I think it will hold us.”

  His slow hands skim my hips when he approaches from behind, trailing up the silky fabric of my skirt. Spanning across my waist, they haul me up and onto the table as if I were light as a feather.

  He crosses the room in three strides. Removes his socks, tossing them to the carpet. Sits on the edge of the table, pivoting his legs to the center. Crosses his legs.

  Flicks his hair.

  The cake blazes before us, candles down to within an inch, outdated chandelier above us at a dim glow.

  “Happy birthday,” I whisper. “And congratulations on today. I’m glad I was there.”

  Our eyes meet across the table. “Me too. Knowing you were there was…different.”

  Tempted by the sweet icing, I dip my finger in the frosting and lick it clean. “Different? How?”

  “Sensing your presence. I’ve never had someone I care about come watch me before besides my family.”

  “Oh, I was watching you all right—all the parts of you.” I wiggle my manicured brows. “Speaking of watching you, your mom was really bothered by the signs.”

  “What signs?”

  “The ones people bring to cheer you on. I didn’t think those were allowed at wrestling meets.”

  “I mean, they’re allowed, but most people don’t bring them. It’s not a sport like football where people are screamin’ in the stands.”

  “Well your mom wasn’t a fan. She was horrified. She kept asking how girls could proposition a guy like that. It was terrible…I felt so guilty.”

  “You’re nothin’ like those girls.”

  I groan out of frustration, run a hand through my long hair. Flip it over my bare shoulder. “I felt so guilty about the whole flyer thing, I almost told her.” Move in closer. “It was on the tip of my tongue.”

  His eyes get wide, the glint unmistakable. “Is that so?”

  “So close.”

  He leans forward a few inches. “Dodged that bullet then, didn’t we? She would have flipped the fuck out.”

  “Wendy? Uh, yeah. She was glaring daggers at those mat chasers.”

  Our noses touch. “She’s always been overprotective.”

  “I don’t blame her.” I will be, too, if I have sons.

  “Why?”

  I reach down, swipe a finger full of frosting, tongue swirls over it. Sucks. “Because you’re mine.”

  We lean into each other, over the blazing cake, lips unyielding. My tongue goes right into his mouth, dragging along his, our moans a delicious chorus.

  “You taste so fucking good,” he says, sucking the frosting off my bottom lip.

  I shiver. “So do you.”

  The candles, pretty as they are, are hot. Burning brightly beneath us, singeing the bodice of my dress. I pull back, grinning. “You better blow out your candles and make a wish before we burn this place down.”

  Rhett studies me intently, our eyes meet and hold. “I wish—”

  “No!” I chastise. “You don’t say it out loud or it won’t come true.”

  “It won’t?”

  “No.” Do guys know nothing? Ugh.

  “I wouldn’t be so sure about that.” His body bends, shoulders hunch so he’s within reach. He inhales a deep breath and blows and blows until all twenty-one candles are extinguished, gray smoke rising from the wicks.

  We watch as it dissipates into thin air.

  “Want some birthday cake?” I whisper.

  “Yeah.” He grins. “Is it as sweet as your cookies?”

  “Sweeter.”

  “Got a knife?”

  “No.”

  “Forks?”

  I shake my head. Mouth the word no.

  “No forks. No knife.” He feigns a search for cutlery. “No plates. How do you suggest we eat this?”

  “We’ll have to be creative. Are you creative, Rhett?”

  He rolls his eyes. “No.”

  I laugh at his honesty. Laugh at how darn cute he is, finger dipping into the top of his cake one more time. Break off a small chunk and raise it to his lips, feeding it to him.

  His mouth opens, takes the offering. Lips close around my fingers. Suck.

  Then.

  That index finger on his left hand takes its own leisurely jog through the glaze, filching an inch of decorative trim along the top. He drags that sweet finger along my collarbone, gaze so blazing it strips me bare. Fiery.

  I hold my breath, waiting.

  Moan when his tongue hits my frosting-soiled sk
in, licking an unhurried line along my clavicle, lapping it up.

  He takes another swipe at the cake, dragging his finger between the valley of my breasts. Busies his face between them, licking. Pushes up the undersides of my boobs, sucking the smooth globes above my neckline.

  I want to rip my dress off and cover myself with frosting so he spends the rest of the night with his mouth on my skin.

  “Take your shirt off,” I utter quietly, head still tipped back from his ministrations, and I don’t have to ask him twice; his shirt is ripped off within seconds, dragged up that shredded, firm body.

  I push the cake plate to one side of the table, out of my way. Scoot forward so I’m in front of him, fingers drifting to the waistband of his jeans, unbuttoning the fly below his belly button.

  Give a soft tug.

  He’s a quick study, and his ass rises so I can tow the denim down over his hips. Skim the pants down his thighs and onto the floor.

  “Take your dress off,” he utters quietly, the timbre and tone of his voice giving me goose bumps. Rhett watches me with hooded eyes; they’re at half-mast, lust-filled. Full of yearning and desire when the cold metal zipper of my dress whirs down its track.

  Rhett braces himself up by the arms, watching me, following my movements like a starving man waiting for his next meal. I follow the lines of his body, the way he positions himself on the table, starting at his calves, working my way up his legs as he sits cross-legged on the table top. Over the bulge in his boxers, across his defined, washboard abs. His rock-hard pecs. Those incredible unyielding shoulders.

  Flared nostrils. Serious expression.

  My mouth waters a little at the sight of him sitting next to a cake, knowing what is inevitably going to be done with it.

  I shimmy the black dress up my ribcage; it moves like velvet over my skin, as slowly as I can tease, until the cool air from the dining room hits the naked flesh of my stomach. I shiver when I’m before him in nothing but my sheer panties—a thong, black and barely there.

  Crawling across the table toward him, I straddle his lap so we’re facing one another, my breasts brushing his chest. We both moan. Rhett’s giant bear paw hands grapple for my ass, pulling me in while I tip to the side, whisking two fingers into the cake.

  Smear frosting on my boobs and arch my back so he can lick it off. He squeezes my ass as he sucks my nipples clean with his flattened tongue. Tastes my necks. Licks my jaw.

  Slowly his mouth moves over my bare flesh, the heat from his breath and the texture of his tongue creating premature waves of pleasure down below. It has my hips rotating in his lap, lining up my slit over his underwear, teeth dragging along my bottom lip from the pleasure.

  “What do you like better?” I ask. “Cookies or cake?”

  Rhett buries his nose in my cleavage, nuzzling, hands splayed on my back. “I’m always going to choose the cookies.”

  “What if I try to change your mind?”

  “You can try.”

  I climb down off his lap. Dip my finger in the buttery white frosting, run it along his inner thigh. Lean down and lick it, lapping it up, brazen. Spread more on the head of his dick, bending to suck it off. Draw in the tip over and over until he’s moaning, large hand brushing my hair out of the way so he can watch.

  “Fuck…shit.” His eyes are glassed over and distant, teeth raking his bottom lip. “Fuck you’re sexy. God, don’t stop.”

  I don’t stop, not when his fingers find their way into my hair, tugging.

  I gloat in the satisfaction—the power. The ability to drive him wild and make him beg. To bring this huge, powerful boy to his weakest point. Make him vulnerable.

  “Laurel.” He pants, gasping. “Oh sshhit—baby, l-let me…I have to be inside you.”

  Baby. Inside you.

  Whatever you want, I’m tempted to say.

  Whether he knows it or not, I’m completely in love with this guy. Head over heels, instalove, enamored—whatever you want to call it. I wipe icing on his abs, lapping it up as I crawl up his gorgeous torso.

  Swipe a little on the corner of his mouth, our tongues rolling for a taste of the sweet sugar. He remains in a sitting position when I climb into his lap, align myself, and sink down onto his burgeoning erection.

  Groans.

  Moans.

  Swiveling hips and labored thrusts upward, I’m perilously close to banging my head on the chandelier above the table as I ride him, up and down, head listed back, his nose buried in the crux of my neck.

  Those hands hold me tight, grasping my hips, pulling me onto him, deep as he’s ever been. Rhett’s strangled moans in my hair send my eyes rolling to the back of my head. Intoxicating.

  The table groans under our weight, under the thrusting and grinding from our loud, fervent lovemaking and impassioned kisses.

  My body is not my own.

  My soul?

  His.

  Rhett’s expression is so raw, so real and exquisitely pained as he comes, it almost has me saying the words out loud.

  Laurel

  “We should probably talk about the fact that we didn’t use a condom this weekend.”

  We’re in the library on campus, alone in the back corner; I chose it because it’s secluded, dimly lit, and private—the perfect spot for me to mention our slipup. Although when I say it like that, it sounds so trivial when in fact, it’s not.

  Rhett’s entire demeanor changes, body ramrod straight, pen suspended above his paper, mouth drawn into a firm line.

  “Is it somethin’ we need to talk about? Are you…”

  “Don’t freak, I’m on birth control—you know, the pill—but we never talked about it before you, you know…went bareback, and we should have.”

  “I’m sorry.” He plows a hand through his hair, frustrated. Blushing. “I wasn’t thinkin’.”

  “This isn’t on just you; it’s on both of us. Now that we’re talking about it, I wanted to, um…” The blinking cursor on my laptop blinks back at me, winking from the stalled Word document. “I think we can agree that we’re exclusive?”

  I prattle on, unable to control my mouth or my emotions. “I want you to feel me—and I thought since we’re adults, we should have an honest talk about it.”

  He’s staring at me, color still high on his cheeks.

  “We’re both safe, I assume? I haven’t had sex with anyone in months, and he and I were a thing.”

  Though when I suspected Thad cheated on me, I went and got tested, despite his always wearing a condom. He’d never really trusted anyone not to trap him into a relationship with a pregnancy—not with him getting ready for the NFL Combine his senior year.

  Still, I was tested, with clean results.

  “I’m not dating anyone else and don’t plan to.” Rhett doesn’t reply, so I prompt him. “Do you?”

  He finally responds with a smirk. “The fact that you’re even askin’ makes me wonder about you sometimes, Laurel,” he jokes.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Take a look around; there’s no line at my door.”

  My brow creases. “Aren’t you still getting random text messages?”

  “Well, I mean, yeah, but it doesn’t mean anything.”

  “How many?”

  “I don’t know, a few a day?”

  A few a day? How did I not know this? My face gets hot at the thought of random, slutty girls messaging him. Girls who would willingly blow him off or let him screw them.

  “There’s nothing stopping you from responding to them, is there? I have to trust you.”

  “None of them actually want to fuck me, Laurel, and if they do, they’re the type of girl that will fuck anyone.”

  “How do you know?”

  He actually looks impatient. “I just do.”

  “Come on,” I push. “They can’t all be easy. I bet a few of them are actually respectable, upstanding citizens.”

  His brown eyes roll toward the ceiling. “I still would have no interest in screwing any of
them.”

  “Would you mind showing me?”

  I’m dying of curiosity and it’s the first time I’ve asked to see his phone. Consider it personal, but I want to prove a point—he has girls bombarding him with offers of sex, so why bother with me?

  I never want to sound jealous, or possessive, but here we are. I am—have been this entire time, if I’m being honest with myself, just not recognizing the signs.

  “You can see it.”

  He hands over his phone, messenger window open.

  My keen blue eyes scan the screen.

  Face flushes, hot.

  Message after message appears on the small display, scrolling past as I move my thumb, each of them an unknown contact.

  “I thought you said it was only a few.”

  There are hundreds. My finger swipes and swipes, sending each text flying past, one lewd phrase after the next. Photos. Memes.

  He leans over, pointing to the screen by way of explanation. “These go back a few weeks. I only get like ten a day now.”

  “Just ten a day? Lovely,” I deadpan.

  “You seem upset.”

  “I’m not upset.” I’m something else entirely.

  I’m jealous—so jealous I wish I’d never brought up the subject or asked to see the stupid phone.

  “Girls are throwing themselves at you.”

  “So?”

  “So?”

  “That’s how we met, why do you care?”

  “Because.” I huff, exasperated. “That’s how we met.”

  “I delete most of them.” He studies my face. “Laurel, you sound…I don’t know, jealous or somethin’.”

  “That’s because I am!”

  The poor thing looks so puzzled. So adorably clueless. “Why?”

  “Are you being serious right now?”

  “Are you?”

  I flinch. I loathe sounding like one of those insecure, clingy girls I cannot stand to be around. All because he refuses to admit that he likes me. Hasn’t told me how he feels. More importantly, he hasn’t admitted to himself how I feel about him.