by Lilian Darcy
She turned, on the point of giving a babbled apology.
You’ll have to go. I don’t do this. I really don’t.
But then she saw him standing there, hands deep in the pockets of that familiar red ski jacket, and she felt a rush of calm—if calm could come in a rush. He wasn’t lunging for her. He wasn’t leering with intent. He was simply taking a quiet look around. At her bookshelves. At her neat kitchen, where the expensive espresso coffee machine was her only visible indulgence.
“I can see why you live here on your own,” he said. “There’s not a whole lot of room for two.”
“It suits me. I’m on the slopes all day. Nice to have a warm rabbit burrow to come home to.”
“I guess. You don’t get lonely?”
“No, I like it. You?”
“Mostly in the past I’ve shared with a couple of guys. Ones who aren’t total pigs, but who also don’t have to vacuum the windowsills twice a day. Don’t know what I’ll do for accommodation here.”
“Those guys exist? Really?”
He laughed, then looked at her open bedroom door, through which he could see the double bed, covered in its indulgent piles of bright silk pillows and thick, puffy comforter. She hated sleeping in a warm room, and always turned the heating way down at night, but loved to snuggle under cozy covers.
Maybe not tonight. Tonight the comforter might have to go, and they would need the air warm....
He stopped looking at her apartment and looked at her instead. “Nice coffee machine.”
“Makes nice coffee.”
“Want to make some now?” he suggested.
“Sure. Want to help?”
She liked that he was as nervous as she was, that he wanted to ease into this, take some time. When she went into the kitchen, he came after her. “So what’s my job?”
“Choosing mugs. Top shelf, there. Or on the hooks.”
“You don’t trust me with the technical part?”
“It’s a one-person job.” Which she did with her back to him, while she heard him clinking the mugs.
“You have too many mugs for a kitchen this size, I would have thought,” he said.
“I like nice ones.” Pretty mugs, cute mugs, silly mugs, clever mugs. She knew she had too many. At least sixty, which was why she needed a whole shelf, and half a wall covered in hooks. Turning, she found he’d chosen two from a set she especially loved.
“These are great,” he said. “Book covers.”
“Penguin Classics paperbacks, the original cover designs. Don’t you love buying on the internet?”
“Why these?” In his hand, he rotated the purple-and-white of Virginia Woolf’s A Room of One’s Own. On the counter sat a green-and-white Agatha Christie, The Body in the Library.
“I have others. Pride and Prejudice. Great Expectations. And there are heaps in the series that I don’t have.”
“So you don’t need to read the books, you just buy the mugs.”
“No, I’ve read the books. I only bought the ones I’d read.”
“Is that a rule? You can’t drink from the mug unless you’ve read the book.”
She grinned. “Yep.” It wasn’t really a rule, as such, but it was a nice idea. “I’m very, very strict with my guests on that.”
“I’d better pick a different mug, then,” he said. “Hope I’m not out of luck. Really don’t want to have to drink from...” He examined a few more, ones that didn’t have book covers on them. “...a basket of kittens, or something with a china frog inside it, while you’re being all intellectual with Virginia Woolf. Aha, okay, good.” He’d found George Orwell’s 1984, in orange and white.
It ended the conversation, and the coffee wasn’t quite ready yet. Upstairs, somebody changed the music and the thumping acquired a different rhythm, just as loud, possibly Coldplay. Lee and Mac faced each other, waiting. He stepped closer. Very close. Well, it was a tiny kitchen. He reached out and touched the scarring on her shoulder. “We didn’t quite finish about your skin. Does it bother you if it’s touched?”
“Not anymore. It used to.”
He nodded, hand still resting lightly there. She waited for more, but apparently there wasn’t any. She liked that he’d said something, rather than pretending there weren’t any issues. And she liked that he’d kept it short and practical, both here and back at the bar, with no meaningless gushes of sympathy.
“This is good,” he said. “Don’t you think?”
He didn’t spell out what this was, but she thought she knew. The way they were talking, the ease in being close to each other. The way they could both handle the occasional silence. The fact that he’d found a mug he was permitted to drink from because he’d read the book—even though they’d both made up that rule on the spot.
“Mmm, it is,” she answered.
Something vibrated in the air between them and she stepped into it. They were so close now that their thighs were touching, and if she hadn’t arched her back a little, she would have been leaning against his chest.
She wanted to lean against his chest, but for people who’d only met four hours ago, they were taking this pretty slow. She didn’t want to rush a kiss or a close embrace. He touched her mouth with the pad of his thumb, then bent lower and tasted her, just the tiniest brush of a kiss on her mouth. “Nice,” he said softly. “We’re going to make this so nice.”
She liked that he’d chosen such a plain, simple word. He wasn’t promising to rock her world, baby. As a thank-you for his down-to-earth ego, she kissed him back. Longer this time. Sweeter. Then she broke away, just as he had done, so that they could assess what had happened up to this point.
He grinned, and it looked like relief, and she felt it, too.
Whew! So far, not a disaster. Let’s cautiously keep going and see if we can make it stay that way. Or even get better.
“Coffee’s ready,” she said.
“Better pour it, then.” He slid Virginia Woolf and George Orwell closer. Lee preheated the cups with hot water, steamed the milk, started the flow of rich, dark liquid through the spigot and into each mug.
And then they didn’t sit down. They just stood there in the kitchen, drinking the coffee with their backsides pressed against the edge of the counter and an arm around each other. “It’s really good coffee,” he said.
“I know. I have to ration myself. This’ll keep me awake half the night, drinking it so late.”
“Which is good, in my opinion. Kind of like the idea of you awake.”
“It does tend to enhance the experience.”
A little later, when the coffee was nearly gone, he told her, “You have foam on your top lip.”
“Oh.” She reached up and brushed it off.
“You know you weren’t supposed to do that, right? I was supposed to kiss it off.”
“In fact, I didn’t really have foam there at all.”
“No, you did. But you took care of it. Sadly.”
“You don’t need an excuse to kiss me, do you?”
“Valid point.” He put down his empty mug, took hers and put that down, also, peeled himself away from the edge of the counter and folded her in his arms.
They must have kissed for...oh, hours. They kissed until she was boneless, until her vision blurred, until she was practically a puddle on the floor, soft all over, throbbing.
She’d never known such kissing. So warm and strong and lazy. So hot and deep and luscious and perfect. So much an experience with her whole body. He made it totally clear that he was in no rush, and neither was she. Maybe no one had invented anything beyond kissing. Maybe kissing was the whole point, the be-all and end-all, the pinnacle.
Or maybe it wasn’t.
Finally, he took his mouth away long enough to say lazily, “Think they’ve quietened do
wn, upstairs.”
She listened, beyond the slow thump of her heart and the giddiness in her brain. The music was turned off. There was no more laughing and yelling. She could hear a couple sets of footsteps going back and forth, and the occasional sound of a low-pitched voice. “I thought they might go on later than this. What’s the time?” She heard the creakiness in her own voice.
Mac peered over her shoulder at the microwave clock. “Midnight. Well, twenty after.” He sounded creaky, too. Rusty, as if too much kissing had clamped up their vocal cords.
She groped for rational thought. “I guess it’s Christmas tomorrow. There are some kids visiting who are still Santa age. Parents probably wanted to get the gifts under the tree, before they’re awakened at the crack of dawn. I noticed they’d corralled off the room with the big tree, and weren’t using it for the party. They’re saving that for their gift opening, tomorrow.”
“It’s Christmas today,” he corrected.
“After midnight. You’re right.”
“So...Merry Everything!” He smiled at her.
“Merry what?”
“Christmas itself is not the top thing in my mind, right now. So I’m leaving it open. Hoping there’s some merry other stuff about to happen pretty soon.”
“Well, Merry Everything back at you, then.”
“Pretty merry so far.” He pressed his cheek against hers, then turned his head a little so that he was kissing her again. “You have the best mouth....” he whispered. “The best body.”
“You’re not bad, either,” she whispered back.
“So that’s how we’re going to play it? I tell you you’re the best, and you tell me I’m not bad?”
“It’s not a competition,” she said lightly.
“And yet I really like to win.” His breath heated her ear.
“So do I.”
“I’m taking your top off....”
“Not if I take it off first.”
“You do like to win. But you won’t win this.” He peeled the red-and-green Christmas garment upward in one swift movement, taking her by surprise. When he ran his hands deliberately over the generous curves of her already acutely sensitized breasts on the way, she gasped and forgot about fighting back. How could anything feel this good?
He reached around to the back of her bra and turned his slight clumsiness with the hooks into a caress, thumbing the knobs of her spine with silky touches. The hooks stayed stubborn. “I am going to win the bra!” Lee said, because she knew the quirks of this one and had beaten them before.
Seconds later, the straps slid down her shoulders and her breasts fell into his waiting hands. “Mmm, so good,” he said. He cupped and stroked her, then bent to taste, and electric need ran instantly to her core.
There was something hugely erotic about being topless while he was still fully dressed, and they explored that for a long time, until finally she grew impatient and dealt with his black T-shirt almost as swiftly as he’d dealt with her red-and-green. His bare chest was silky and hot when she pressed her swollen breasts against him, and she couldn’t stifle the moan that surfaced from deep within her.
“Bed?” he said.
“Yes.”
They went through to it, stripping jeans and underwear and shoes on the way. There was no light on in the room, but it spilled through from the table lamps in her small living area in a soft shaft of gold. She liked the light, liked its softness, too. They could see each other, but not too clearly. They could see enough to discover that they were both smiling, not enough to see if the smiles faltered.
Because, you know, this couldn’t help but feel a little scary.
“Now...” he murmured, and she stepped into the heat of his body space once more.
He cupped her backside, tracing its curve down to her thighs, his touch light and slow, and she closed her eyes and stood motionless for several long moments, giving herself completely to the male scent of his skin, mingled with coffee and spice and beer, giving herself to the touch of her naked body against his, the sound of his breathing, the warm press of his mouth on her neck and shoulder and the slopes of her breasts.
It was beautiful. That was the only way to describe it. Funny and heartfelt and beautiful. The way they fell onto the bed together, the way he propped himself on his elbows above her and showed her just how ready he was for this.
“Tell me what you want,” he said softly.
“Nothing too fancy,” she replied, trying to tease.
He took her seriously. “No?” He whispered kisses at the corners of her mouth as he spoke. “Not?”
“Why? You?”
What do you like, Mac?
“Not that fancy, either. Gotta leave room for improvement.”
“We can start out pretty strong, even with nothing fancy.”
“We can.”
They grinned at each other in the low light. People called it “vanilla sex,” and didn’t mean that in a good way, but vanilla was a pretty popular flavor, after all. The feel of his weight poised over her, the hard heat of his body cradled in her opened thighs, the way she could hold him, wrap her arms all the way around and feel the strong, muscular cage of his chest. It was all so good, and it didn’t need to be inventive.
They didn’t need props or role play or gymnastics. Not tonight, anyhow. Not this first time.
Because she knew instinctively that it was going to be the first, not the only, and he seemed to know it, too.
He rolled her so that she was on top, and she arched upward to let him find her breasts again, with his hands and his mouth. He lavished them with hungry attention, cupping and stroking, covering her hardened nipples with his hot mouth. He lavished her with attention everywhere, in places she’d never thought of before. The creases between her arms and her body, the small of her back.
When he entered her, she was slick and swollen and ready, and the feel of him sliding against her had her whimpering and crying out so fast. It came out of nowhere. It came out of all those minutes and minutes of kissing.
But then he pulled back and swore, and it went away. “What did we forget?”
She understood, and swore, too. “I have some...”
“Good, because I don’t.”
“...as long as they’re not expired.”
“Hope they’re not.” He added after a moment, “And yet I’m sort of glad there’s a chance they might be.”
“Huh?” She was trying to reach for her bedside table drawer, but he wasn’t letting her. He was pulling her back against him, trying to pillow her head against his shoulder. “You’re glad they might be past their use-by date?”
“Yes, because I’m glad you... Well...” He hesitated, sounding gruff. “Hope you don’t mind this, maybe it sounds too old-fashioned. I’m glad it doesn’t happen like this for you all that often, I mean. Is that okay to say?”
“Of course, if it’s the truth.”
“We’re all about plain sex and honesty?”
“Sounds good so far.”
“Does,” he agreed, still gruff.
“So is it okay for me to say I’m glad you don’t carry them in your jacket wherever you go?”
“Haven’t needed any for...probably six months.” He thought a moment. “No, longer.”
“Good to know.” They lay there for a moment. “Although this whole discussion does seem like it might have killed the mood.”
“Not letting anything kill the mood,” he said.
“No?”
“I mean it! Find those suckers!”
She did. They were right in the bottom of her messy drawer, and they hadn’t expired. There was still a whole week left on the clock.
“See?” he said when she told him.
“See what?”
“See how
this was meant to happen?”
“Why, yes, now that you mention it, I do....”
So it didn’t kill the mood, it simply changed it, and somehow they went from all that incredibly serious kissing in the kitchen, into a pillow fight kind of feeling. Getting the sheets and comforter into a tangle, pushing half the pillows onto the floor, laughing and chasing each other all over the bed until they were both breathless.
Until once again he was poised on top of her, looking down into her face with those dark eyes, his erection safely sheathed this time. She looked up at him, stroked the wave of thick dark brown hair away from his forehead, traced the lines of his parted lips with her fingertips and watched as he lowered himself and slid in, came back to the rhythm and push that had brought her so close so fast, before.
They never looked away. She hadn’t known that it could be so intense, watching each other. Or so intimate. She gripped his back, wrapped her legs around him, as if their locked-together gaze was a taut thread that would break if she didn’t hold on to him as hard as she could. In his face she could read the building of his release, and even at that moment they didn’t break eye contact.
He pressed his lips tight together, closed his eyes for a fraction of a second—dark lashes sweeping down, then up—and the wave of his climax broke against her body while she panted for breath, then cried out and moaned against the sudden crush of his mouth on hers.
Neither of them spoke for a long while after they were still. She lay there with his body still flung over hers, her limbs encircling him, his softening heat still filling her. After a little while, he eased aside as if he could tell the moment he began to feel too heavy on her.
He touched her lightly and almost methodically, as if to check that everything was still there and whole, cupping each breast in turn, making patterns with his touch along her sides, down to her hips, running the flat of his hand over her stomach, resting his palm against the mound that felt so swollen and sensitized.
“Four seasons in one day, weren’t we, do you think?” he said softly. “Like the weather in the mountains.”
“We were, a bit,” she agreed. “Which season is this?” She stretched and wriggled against him.