One Hot December

by Tiffany Reisz

  “I know that feeling.”

  “It’s just like that but inside my vagina.”

  Ian laughed. Flash was tough and she wasn’t easy to impress, but damn, she knew how to pay a guy a compliment.

  “You miss this.” He punctuated the sentence with a long deep thrust.

  “Every day,” she sighed. “Every day and every night.”

  Ian leaned forward and kissed her between her shoulder blades. He loved fucking her while she lay on her stomach not only because of how dominant he felt in the position but because how beautiful her back was. She had a full-back tattoo, ink from her shoulders to her hips in the form of the night sky with the moon, stars and the Orion constellation. It was a work of art, lovely in its simplicity, strange in its reversal of colors. On Flash’s back, the sky was her pale skin and the stars were black ink, not the other way around.

  “Ian...” she sighed as he kissed the back of her neck. He loved her short hair, loved how it gave him such easy access to her neck and earlobes. Her scent was addictive, her taste intoxicating. He was so aroused he ached from his thighs to his stomach. The tension was unbearable but he bore it because he wasn’t ready to let go of it yet. He was rock hard inside her and he could come any second. But still he held back, waiting, wanting to stay inside of her as long as he could. He rode her hard, his hands on her back to steady himself while he thrust into her. She was soaking wet. He could hear it, feel it... She was soaking his pillow. He’d sleep on that pillow tonight just to breathe the scent of her.

  “How do you want it?” he asked her.

  “You know how,” she said softly. He did and he was more than happy to oblige. When his hips were at the tightest, his cock so hard it hurt, he pulled out of her and rolled the condom off and tossed it. With his left hand holding her left hip, he stroked himself with his right hand. He pumped his hips into his own fingers, pushing and pushing, the tension building to the breaking point. And then finally...at last...he let it break.

  With a gasp, he came, semen spurting onto her back as waves of pleasure rolled through him, knocking the breath out of him. After the last spasm of release shot through him, he sat forward on his hands and knees, his head hanging between his arms as he caught his breath. When his vision cleared, he looked down and saw her beautiful back that he had marked.

  “I added to your decor,” he said between breaths.

  “Does my night sky look like the Milky Way now?”

  “You’re so gross,” he said, laughing.

  “You know you love it.”

  “I do. Flip over.”

  “I’ll get it all over your sheets.”

  “Do as you’re told,” he said, slapping her ass again. She obeyed at once, turning onto her back and lying flat underneath him. He dropped his head to suck her nipples again. She arched her breasts into his mouth and he sucked steadily as he sought her clitoris with his fingertips. It was easy to find, not only because she was so swollen but because she had a piercing there. He gently tugged the metal bar of her piercing and Flash flinched with pleasure, gasping his name. He rubbed the swollen knot of flesh in slow circles while licking her breasts. That knot throbbed and pulsed and he couldn’t stop himself from lowering his head between her thighs and lapping at it with his tongue. It only took seconds to get her there. Her hips rose off the bed and she came with a loud cry. Ian kissed his way up her body, lingering over her hips and stomach and breasts.

  “Are you done for?” he asked.

  She nodded.

  “Take a breather. You’ve earned it. I’ll keep playing.”

  She nodded again, the slightest smile on her lips. She loved letting him use her body. She’d told him that six months ago and the words Use my body and my holes any way you want, Ian still rang in his ears.

  He carefully straddled her stomach and sat on her hips. He took her breasts in his hands and massaged them, squeezed them, palmed them and lifted them while she lay there with her eyes closed, recovering.

  “You enjoyed that,” he said.

  “You know I did.”

  “What should I do to you now? So many options. I could fuck you again, eat you out, make you go down on me... I’m open to suggestions.”

  “You did promise me dinner and a beer yesterday,” she said. “I didn’t get my pub food or my beer and you just fucked me right through the dinner hour.”

  “Typical. Just typical,” he said with a sigh as he climbed off her and grabbed his jeans off the floor. As soon as she’d mentioned dinner, his stomach reminded him he hadn’t eaten in hours. “All you women think about is sex and food and beer. What about my needs, Flash?”

  “What are your needs?”

  “Beer and food,” he said. “So get your ass in gear.”

  “Yes, boss.” She climbed out of bed, wincing and smiling in that order. “You’re buying, right?”

  “I can answer that question with a question.” He paused to kiss her on the mouth because there was nothing sexier than kissing a beautiful naked woman who’d just crawled out of his bed.

  “What’s the question?”

  “Are you spreading for me again later?” he asked.

  She smiled.

  “Dinner’s on you,” she said.

  6

  FLASH TOOK A last swallow of her stout and put the beer glass down on the table with a definitive thunk.

  “I’m done,” she said.

  “After two?” Ian shook his head in playful disgust.

  “You want me to spread for you later, two is my limit. I need to be awake for that.”

  He shrugged. “You don’t need to be awake for it. Technically.”

  Flash laughed so hard she snorted, which made her laugh even harder. The way Ian had said “technically” had hit her funny bone. She would blame the beer. Yeah, probably the beer. He handed her a napkin since she was clearly in danger of something weird coming out of her nose and she muttered a nasal “Thank you” as she pulled herself together.

  “That was a horrible thing to say, wasn’t it?” he said, grinning and clearly proud of himself for making her snort-laugh. “Please don’t tell HR I said that.”

  “Never.”

  “I had a girlfriend once tell me during sex, ‘If I fall asleep you can keep going. I don’t mind.’ We broke up shortly after that. You okay?”

  “Fine. Sorry,” she said, putting the beer glass far away from her reach. “Had a little dork moment there.”

  “Don’t be sorry,” Ian said, smiling. “It’s good to see you being a dork. I didn’t know you had it in you.”

  “Of course I have it in me.”

  “You’re so much cooler than I am, it’s depressing,” he said.

  She rolled her eyes and sat back in their booth at the pub. They’d both eaten so much greasy pub food there was a very good chance that the next round of sex would need to be delayed an hour or two. Sex was like swimming, Ian had said. You have to wait at least twenty minutes after eating before you get back in the pool—or the pussy—as the case may be.

  “How am I cool?” she demanded. “And in what way am I cooler than you? You have money, a ski chalet, and you’re, you know, acceptable looking.”

  “Acceptable? Thank you. My cock has never been harder in its life.”

  “You’re welcome. Now answer the question.”

  Ian looked at her over the top of his pint glass. He was an IPA man, which she could respect, although she found IPAs too hoppy for her taste.

  “You have tattoos of sexy women on your biceps like a fucking sailor. And you have the punk hair. And you drive the little punk truck. And you’re a welder. Not just an artist welder, but like an actual welder. That’s cool.”

  “I think you’re confusing ‘cool’ with ‘poor.’ The truck was the only truck I could afford. I weld for a living—or did—because it was the only job I could find that paid better than minimum wage. I have short hair because it’s less likely to get caught in my helmet. As for the tattoos...well, okay, those are co
ol. You got me there.”

  “They are. I used to want to get tattooed but Dad would have killed me. By the time I was old enough to do it without Dad flipping his shit, I’d grown out of the desire to have one.”

  “Your body is perfect. It doesn’t need ink.”

  “Your body is perfect. Why did you get ink?”

  “I wanted it.” She shrugged. “No other reason. Love Bettie Page. Love Rosie the Riveter. They’re my wing-women. Rosie reminds me to work hard. Bettie reminds me to play hard. They were badass before women were allowed to be badass. And that’s badass.”

  “Cute team—Bettie and Veronica.”

  “That’s who I was named after.”

  “Are you serious? You’re named for the girl in the Archie comics?”

  She rolled her eyes and nodded. “Better Veronica than Betty, right? No offense,” she said to her Bettie Page bicep tattoo. “I’m talking about a different Betty. Who were you named after?”

  “Ian Fleming.”

  “The guy who wrote the James Bond books?”

  “He’s Dad’s favorite author. It could have been worse. He almost did name me James Bond Asher. That would have been a lot to live up to.”

  “Your dad doesn’t strike me as a James Bond kind of guy.”

  “He’s not,” Ian said. “He’s the opposite of James Bond. No risks. No danger. No seducing beautiful women. He never even remarried after my mother died. He’s dated some, but not much. He’s more interested in my personal life than having one of his own. I let him set me up on three blind dates over the past six months. That was probably a mistake but I had a certain red-haired welder I was trying to get over. Didn’t work. One date each. No second date. Dad was more disappointed it didn’t work out than I was.”

  “Who were these women?”

  “Just women he knew. Daughters of friends.”

  “Fancy daughters of rich friends?”

  Ian shrugged.

  “Ian?”

  “Yeah, kind of,” he said. “One was a professor, one was a doctor, one was a lawyer.”

  “Quite a triumvirate you had there.”

  “They were nice,” Ian said noncommittally. “They were pretty, too, and fun. I couldn’t stop thinking about you the entire time I was with them. No second dates.”

  “A professor, a doctor and a lawyer. And I didn’t even go to college.”

  “I don’t care,” Ian said.

  “Where did you go to college?” she asked.

  “Flash, it doesn’t matter. I don’t care about where you or I went to school.”

  “I know where you went to college,” Flash said. “Starts with an H and ends with an arvard.”

  “So?”

  “Your father is very proud of his Harvard-educated son.”

  “He is.”

  “He’s not going to like us going out, is he?”

  “He won’t care. Now that you’re not an employee anymore, I mean.”

  “You sure about that?”

  “I’m thirty-six, Flash.”

  “You’re also his only child and you’re going to inherit the whole Asher empire, right? You don’t think your father is going to have a problem with you and me?”

  “Dad wants the best for me. If dating you is the best for me, then he’s going to be happy.”

  “We’re dating now?”

  “I’d like you to be my girlfriend. I wanted it six months ago. I want it now. You don’t have to tell me an answer now. I’m only asking you to think about it.”

  “I’ll think about it.”

  She squeezed his hand and smiled. It felt good to do this, to hold hands across a table in public where anyone could see them. Not that anyone was paying them any attention. At work Ian was money, suits, clean-cut—the boss-man—while she lived in her dirty work clothes, her welding helmet and made eighteen bucks an hour. Worlds apart...but not here, not now. He wore jeans and a T-shirt. She wore jeans and a T-shirt. His hair was all sexy and disheveled from his gray knit winter hat and hers was equally disheveled from being bounced around his bed. They looked like the sort of people who’d hang out in a pub on Mount Hood. They looked like a couple. She liked it. She liked him. She’d been in love with him for a long time. Nice to finally like him a little bit, too.

  The waitress came by and cleared off their plates and refilled their water glasses. Ian ordered the Oregon blackberry cobbler for two, and told the waitress “thank you” and “no rush.” Flash had waitressed to pay for her art classes when she was eighteen and nineteen and ever since she’d judged people based on their behavior toward waitstaff. Ian passed that test.

  “You ordered dessert?” she asked. “After all that food?”

  “Haven’t eaten since breakfast. You’re going to help me, right?”

  “I’ll try but no promises. Why did I eat all those fries?”

  “Because they serve Portland ketchup here.”

  She pointed at him. “That’s right. It was either eat the fries or drink that stuff straight from the bottle.”

  “I knew you’d like this place. It’s the sole reason why I moved up here. The snow and forest and skiing and all that boring shit had nothing to do with it. Just the food.”

  “You’re a wise man, Ian Asher.”

  His eyes widened.

  “What?” she asked.

  “Sorry. Still can’t get used to you being nice to me. It’s jarring.”

  She winced and sighed. “Yeah, I was pretty rough on you. You deserved it but still...maybe I overdid it a little.”

  “It’s fine,” he said. He picked up his napkin and started shredding it. A nervous habit? She liked that she could make him a little nervous even after the snort-laughing incident. “But I have to ask...you’re really quitting because you want the new job, right? You aren’t quitting because of what happened between us?”

  “I’m quitting because I want the new job,” Flash said. “Here’s the thing...that menorah I made for you—it’s the first time I’ve sculpted anything in months. I’ve been tired from work, distracted, depressed, discouraged, angry... I didn’t have the emotional or physical energy to do any sculpting. It’s a horrible feeling to be cut off from the one thing that makes me feel like a real human being.”

  “I’m sorry you’ve been in such a bad place.”

  “It’s not your fault.”

  “It isn’t?”

  “Well...not entirely your fault. I’d be lying if I said the breakup wasn’t part of why I’ve been in a bad place. But there’s a lot more to it. I’ve had an installation up at the Morrison Gallery in Portland for six months and I haven’t sold a single piece. Not one. It’s not like I do the sculpting for the money. That’s not the point. The point is that when someone buys your art, it’s validation. You draw a picture for your parents and they put it on the fridge because that’s what parents do. Doesn’t matter if it’s the drawing of your house and your trees looks like cat barf, Little Junior drew it so it goes on the fridge. But when a stranger, a total stranger, plunks down ten thousand dollars on a sculpture you made, it’s better than anything. It’s better than sex.”

  “Better than sex?”

  She nodded. “A lot of people on this planet get laid. Not that many people on this planet can sell their works of art for ten thousand dollars or more.”

  “That’s true. I just got laid and I can’t sculpt to save my life.”

  “It’s my life’s work, being a sculptor,” she said. “Having your entire life’s work validated...it’s the single most important thing to me. Art is my religion.”

  “I’m not an artist but I kind of understand wanting that. One