by Tara Sivec
“I’m happy to report that I have kissed my neighbor. Lots and lots of kissing my neighbor has been happening the last few weeks, which is why I haven’t had time to record any podcasts until now. But, here’s the thing. He told me he thinks I’m sexy. He said the words to me and I heard them, and they made me feel good. But I’m always the one who makes the first move. Which is great that he’s letting me have control and show him I can be confident and take what I want, and he definitely seems to be enjoying himself, and it turns out I’m not a bad kisser. I guess I just want to really believe I’m sexy. Believe it deep down in my bones. I don’t want to just act sexy; I want to be sexy. I want to be… ravished. Shoved up onto a kitchen counter, because he just had to touch me and didn’t care where it happened, as long as it did happen. I want no inhibitions and no time to think, just… do. I want the excitement of it all and the passion. I want, once and for all, to no longer care if people call me cute, because I have a guy who thinks I’m more, and I actually believe it.
“So, here goes.
“Penis, dick, cock, peen, schlong, pecker, prick, shaft, weenie, willy, wanker, woody, chubby, boner, ding-a-ling, one-eyed-snake, kielbasa, knob, manhood, member, tent pole, trouser snake, tube steak, unit, wang, tally whacker, joystick, dong, dork, disco stick.
“This is Heidi’s Discount Erotica, over and out!”
Chapter 24
“Are you sure you want to do this?” I ask Brent tentatively. “Once we cross this line, there’s no going back. This is serious business. This will change everything between us.”
“I’m sure. I’m committed, and I’m not changing my mind. This is what I want, so move your hands and let me get in there.”
With a sigh, I lift my hands from the mixing bowl on my kitchen counter as Brent starts scooping handfuls of things and dumping them in there.
“When I said you could put whatever you want in Nightmare Bars, it was kind of a joke,” I tell him, grimacing when he dumps an entire jar of maraschino cherries on top of the crushed pretzels, broken-up Hershey bars, shredded coconut, mini marshmallows, and crumbled potato chips.
“These are going to be amazing,” he muses, picking up the wooden spoon and going to town on the mixture that now resembles vomit. Or something you’d find in a baby’s diaper.
I’m momentarily distracted and can do nothing but mutter a low “Mmm” in response as I watch his biceps flex with each swirl of the spoon through the bowl. I have to grip tightly to the edge of the counter before I do something silly like wrap my hands around his muscles and say, “Oooooh, you’re so big and strong. I bet you could lift me up with no trouble at all!”
When Brent suggested we spend the day doing something else “Minnesotan” so he could learn more about where he now lives, I told him he needed to learn how to bake bars. Cookie bars are a staple around here. We take them to birthdays, weddings, funerals, and everything in between. I’ll admit my suggestion had ulterior motives. I pictured us getting in a flour fight, which would result in a lot of touching to get the flour off each other, then possibly some batter flinging, which would end in him licking it off me. Sadly, Brent is a very neat baker. He wipes down the counter after everything he touches and puts away canisters and ingredients as soon as he’s finished using them. He even washed off the wooden spoon in between mixing the dry and wet ingredients.
“Tell me why they’re called Nightmare Bars,” he instructs as he continues to stir, and I try to think of a sexy way to dip my hand in the bowl and toss some batter in the general direction of my boobs.
I’m wearing too many clothes; that’s the problem. I shouldn’t have put an apron on over my dress. It’s covering up the goods.
“When my uncle was little, he woke my grandma up from a nap to ask her what ingredients he needed to make her Seven Layer Bars,” I explain as he dumps the lumpy mixture of questionable color on top of the graham cracker crust we already spread on the bottom of a pan. “She was half asleep and just rattled off a bunch of things and then told him to put whatever he wanted in there. So he did. And shockingly, they turned out delicious. My family started calling them Nightmare Bars, because there’s no recipe; you just toss whatever you want in them, and they could turn out like a dream or they could be a complete nightmare.”
When the mixture is spread out evenly on top of the crust, I put it in the oven and set the timer, untying my apron, pulling it over my head, and tossing it on the counter.
I still can’t believe I’m standing in my kitchen, baking with a man. And not just any man, the man who I already know is quickly turning into a dream, and definitely not a nightmare. The last few weeks with him have been fun and easy, and it feels like we’ve known each other forever. It’s nice being with a man I didn’t grow up with, who doesn’t already know everything about me, and without our families being lifelong friends. It’s not embarrassing to bring up crazy stories about my childhood, like the time my dad took me ice fishing and I got so bored I stuck my tongue to a metal pole outside his fishing house to see if it would stick. If I told that story to another guy who grew up around here, he’d just roll his eyes and shake his head at me, because everyone around here knows that of course your tongue will stick to a metal pole in the middle of winter in Minnesota, and that’s not funny at all. But Brent thought it was funny. He made me tell him every single detail of how I stood there with my tongue attached to a pole, trying to scream for my dad, who kept yelling back to me from inside the fish house, “Keep it down, Heidi! You’ll scare all the fish away!”
“I need to ask you a question, and you have to promise not to make fun of me,” Brent states as he finishes rinsing out the mixing bowl in my sink.
Is he going to ask me if he can touch my boobs? Oh, I hope he asks me if he can touch my boobs. Touch them! They’re all yours!
When he turns around and leans against the sink as he dries off his hands, I decide to make it easy on him and move to stand right in front of him. With my hands on my hips and my chest pushed out, I know I look like a superhero getting ready for battle, but whatever works. Maybe he’ll be so mesmerized by them he won’t even ask and he’ll just reach right out and grab them.
“I promise I won’t make fun of you,” I say.
“This is embarrassing,” he mumbles, running one of his hands through his hair as he tosses the towel to the counter next to the sink.
My boobs are making him nervous. Oh, maybe this is why he hasn’t made a move on me yet. He’s got boob nerves! Nope. He’s got tit nerves. Yeah, that’s the good stuff. Tits.
“There’s nothing to be embarrassed about. You know what—you don’t even have to ask. Just go for it. Just reach right out and grab ahold of what you want,” I suggest, taking a step closer so he doesn’t even have to lean forward.
Boy, I should really get a gold star for being so helpful.
“Okay, I’m just gonna do it. I’m just gonna go for it,” he says with a nod, pushing off the counter to stand up straight, the motion causing his chest to brush against mine.
Oh, that’s nice. Do it! Do it already. Go for it!
“Heidi Larson, I don’t want you dating anyone else but me,” he blurts out.
“What the shit?” I mutter as my hands slowly drop from my hips.
He looks a little surprised that I just cursed, but I don’t know how to take it back now. I thought he was going to make a move on me, and instead he’s asking me to go steady. My boobs are sad, but it’s the sweetest thing I’ve ever heard. He was nervous to ask me, and here I am standing in front of him with nothing but dirty thoughts on the brain. I need to fix this, fast.
“I mean, that’s the shit!” I shout a little too loudly. “Oh jeez, I don’t know why I can’t stop saying shit.”
Brent laughs, sliding his arms around my waist and pulling me against him. I wrap my arms around his shoulders and smile up at him, pushing up on my toes to give him a kiss.
“So, does that mean you want to go steady with me?” he asks with a wag of
his eyebrows.
“Will I get to wear your class ring and letterman jacket and make all the girls in town jealous?”
“I have a hoodie that smells like me you can have. Will that work?”
Only if I can sleep in it with nothing on underneath, with you sleeping naked next to me, I think to myself.
“Oh, you betcha!” I chirp.
We stand here in my kitchen wrapped in each other’s arms, and I think this is it. This is the moment when he’ll just swipe everything off the counter and toss me up there. I won’t even care if he breaks some stuff. Stuff can be replaced. This moment of counter sexy times cannot.
His hands grip tightly to the back of my dress like he’s trying to hold himself back, and I want to scream at him that he doesn’t need to hold back. I am fully on board for whatever dirty thought is on his mind.
The timer on my oven chooses that exact moment to go off, because of course it does.
“Nightmare Bars are done!” Brent cheers a little too excitedly, letting go of me and quickly scrambling over to the oven.
With a sigh of defeat, I watch him put on a pink, frilly oven mitt and remove the pan from the oven. After letting them cool for a few minutes, I cut them into squares and we each dig in. Surprisingly, Brent’s Nightmare Bar creation tastes much better than it looks, and we both eat half the pan before he looks at the clock hanging on the wall in my living room.
“I better go. I’ve got an early morning tomorrow for work. We’re still on for dinner with your friends tomorrow night, right?”
I walk him to my door, trying to not let any disappointment show. It’s fine. I’m not sad. He’s a sweet man and he wants to take things slow. There’s nothing wrong with that. Just because I’ve suddenly become sexually liberated doesn’t mean we have to jump each other so soon. He doesn’t want either one of us to date other people, he’s making future plans with me that include meeting my friends, and he even mentioned wanting to meet my parents yesterday. He can bake, he cleans up after himself, he opens doors and pulls out chairs for me, he makes me laugh, he gets me all hot and bothered when we kiss, and he’s sweet, and thoughtful, and kind. And who cares if he doesn’t make any first moves? This is a good thing.
Brent gives me a kiss on the cheek, and I stand in the doorway, watching him walk over to his house, waiting to close the door until he’s inside. Slumping my back against it, I tug my cell phone out of the pocket of my dress and pull up Aubrey’s contact information, bringing it up to my ear as it rings, and I slide down the door onto my butt.
“I don’t think Brent wants to have sex with me,” I say in greeting when she answers my call.
“Well, hello to you too. What do you mean he doesn’t want to have sex with you? Didn’t you tell me you guys have been making out like porn stars the last few weeks?”
I sigh, pulling my knees up to me and tugging the skirt of my dress over them.
“Okay, so, he probably, maybe wants to have sex with me. I’ve felt the evidence of his sexual desire a few times. I don’t know. I think I’m just feeling sorry for myself. Why am I doing this? He’s so perfect in every other way. I think I’ve read too many of those damn books lately. I want him to be like one of those alpha males. All growly and serious and breaking fine china just to have me.”
Aubrey lets out her own sigh on the other end of the line as I let my head thump back against the door with the phone pressed to my ear.
“You need to remember, the guys I write about—and most authors write about—they’re fictional, to an extent. We take what we know and we elaborate on it. We make it hotter. We make it more exciting. Life isn’t perfect, and neither are relationships. People see my gorgeous, famous husband and then read my books and think, ‘Wow, they clearly have non-stop sex that is always hot and their relationship must be flawless.’ I’m not going to write about how he farts in his sleep, and his idea of dirty talk is telling me it’s okay to turn the sound off on the football game while we have a quickie on the couch. I write my books that way, because it’s a fantasy. It’s a way to escape, and dream, and imagine. Life is pretty boring if you don’t have dreams, but you can’t get so lost in the hoping and dreaming that you completely miss what’s right in front of you,” Aubrey explains. “You said so yourself; he’s perfect. And you are one of the strongest women I’ve ever met. Don’t let him not making a move on you ruin how far you’ve come. March your ass over to his house and ask him what the hell is up. Communicate. Say it with me, Heidi. Talk. To. Him.”
She’s right. She’s absolutely right, and I’m an idiot. All these stupid signals I’ve been trying to send him and mentally screaming at him is childish. I’m a grown woman, and I need to be able to speak my mind, especially with the guy I’m dating, or this will never work.
“You’re right. I’m gonna do it,” I tell her, pushing up from the floor. “I’m going to go over there and just come right out and ask him if he wants me.”
“That’s my girl!” Aubrey cheers. “Go get ’em, tiger.”
Ending the call, I toss the phone on the small side table by my front door, fling it open, and march across my yard, stomping up Brent’s porch steps with determination. I bang my fist on the wood, giving myself a little pep talk as I wait for him to answer.
You can do this, Heidi. You have no problem telling thousands of strangers every intimate detail about your life. Brent isn’t a stranger. You know him. You like him. And you want him to touch your butt. You just have to tell him to touch your damn butt already.
The door flies open when I’m still in the middle of my pep talk, throwing me a little off, but I quickly recover as Brent stands there in the doorway. He’s got earbuds in his ears, attached to his cell phone that’s in his hand, and his hair is sticking up all over the place like he was running his hands through it a million times. I feel a little bad that I interrupted whatever he was doing, but there’s no time for sympathy now. I’ve got a butt that needs touching!
“Listen, Brent. I need to know if—”
All of a sudden, Brent grabs my hand and yanks me toward him, cutting me off as my body slams up against his. He jerks the earbuds out of his ears with one pull of the wire hanging down beneath his chin and then tosses everything to the side where I hear his phone land on the hardwood floor with a very loud clunk that doesn’t sound very good.
Before I can get my bearings, one of his hands wraps around the back of my neck, his other arm bands around my waist, gripping me tightly to him, and his lips are crashing down against mine.
My mouth opens on a gasp of surprise, and he takes that opportunity to slide his tongue right in there and kiss me harder than he ever has before. There are sounds coming out of me I’ve never made in my life as he easily turns us, and my back is suddenly slamming into the wall behind me. I hear a picture frame rattle next to me on the wall, and I let out a squeak of shocked pleasure into his mouth.
It’s not broken dishes, but a smashed phone screen is just as good.
His tongue is swirling around mine in the most amazing way, each swipe probing deeper and deeper until I’m gripping the front of his shirt so tightly in my fists I’m surprised it doesn’t rip. Now I understand the meaning in romance books when a woman says she’s drowning in a man’s kiss. I feel like I can’t catch my breath, and I will happily go under and die right now if this is how I go. Right when I think it can’t possibly get any better than this, it happens.
Brent’s touching my butt! Brent’s touching my butt!
His hands grip my butt firmly, and he lifts me up against him, pressing me harder into the wall to anchor me in place. My legs wrap around his waist as he pushes himself between my thighs, and my arms fly around his shoulders to hold on tight.
B is for boner!
G is for grinding!
T is for tonguing! And thrusting! And oh my God, tits!
He completely devours me with his mouth while his hand comes up between our bodies and cups my breast in his palm, rubbing and massaging, while
his hips are still swiveling and pushing between my legs, hitting just the right spot over and over again. My thighs tighten around his waist, and my hips respond to every move he makes, grinding and thrusting against him just as fast and hard. This moment is even better than anything I could have possibly imagined. Everything he’s doing to me feels so good, and I never want it to end.
With each thrust of my hips, rubbing myself against Brent, I hear him let out a low growl in the back of his throat, and it’s like a lit match to dynamite. Brent being the lit match, and the dynamite being my nether regions.
I can’t believe this is what I’ve been missing out on all these years, dating nothing but complete duds. Oh, I’m so glad Brent isn’t a dud! Brent is a dude! A hot, sweet, sexy dude with a growly alpha male lurking underneath all that sweetness.
Brent suddenly unwraps his hand from its hold on the back of my neck to smack his palm against the wall next to my head. His tongue starts plunging into my mouth with the same rhythm as the lower half of his body rubbing against me and…
Ohhh! Ohhh my! O is for orgasm! Sweet Lord almighty, O is for orgasm!
Maybe I should be embarrassed by how quickly the pleasure explodes out of me, but I’m not. No guy has ever successfully done this to me before, no matter how hard they fumbled around or awkwardly jerked against me, and this is years in the making, let me tell you. There is no fumbling and there is no awkwardness. Brent knows exactly what he’s doing right now, and what he’s doing is giving me an orgasm against the wall next to his front door. I’m moaning my pleasure so loudly into his mouth that I should actually be more embarrassed the neighbors might hear.