I found myself on my feet.
I did not have to take this lying down.
I didn’t have to accept it at all. He was lying. There was no emergency at the bar. Archie never stayed late. Ever. For two years I’d watched him clock out and walk out on the dot, unless, literally, the backup bartender had broken her leg and there was no one for the next shift.
I doubted anybody had broken a leg.
I was standing at the fridge door, pulling out heavy cream, without realizing what my hands were doing.
I wanted him, dammit. I felt the need for him tighten in my belly. I wanted to feel his mouth on my breasts. At that thought they crinkled at the tips. Reaching for the chocolate chips made my nipples rub in my bra and I almost fainted with a sudden rush of pleasure and longing. I went ahead and bent over a chair, letting the rush pass, and then I pulled orange liqueur off my top shelf. Then a bag of powdered sugar.
Come to me, I thought, picturing Archie at Cheaters in his white shirtsleeves, the dark column of his throat, his eyes glinting like the bottles behind him in the light behind the bar. Come to me.
I dumped the chips in a bowl with a splash of cream and tossed them in the nuke for thirty seconds. Round and round they went, the chocolate going shiny as I watched. I wanted to smear melted chocolate on his shoulder and take a bite. I wanted to put some in my navel and feel him lick it out. That thought almost drove me to my knees.
At thirty seconds I pulled the chips out and stirred them. Still lumpy. I added another tiny splash of cream, and nuked them another fifteen seconds. My breath was coming short now.
My cell rang. Archie again. “Look, I’m sorry if I—”
“No problem,” I said breathlessly. “Gotta go now.”
“Wait,” he said, but I hung up and took the chips out of the microwave.
Melted. Nice. I stirred them a few strokes to get the last lumps out, then splashed in orange liqueur to cool the mixture. It turned even glossier and darker. The smell was like a drug. I wanted to put my finger in and suck it off slowly, thinking of Archie, but I didn’t.
I wasn’t gonna taste this. This was for Archie. My chocolate love potion.
On shaky legs, I stood at my counter and beat cream with powdered sugar until it was stiff. The cream went fluffy amazingly fast. Maybe I was as super-strong as I felt, as I thought of dipping Archie in it and licking him clean, or maybe thinking like that made me forget the clock. But in no time the cream was whipped, and I could fold it into the cooled chocolate, turning it light and fluffy and sinfully aromatic.
The phone rang. Archie. “I’ll get away when I can,” he began, and I said, “I know. I can’t talk right now” and hung up. My heart was hammering in my ears.
I went to the pantry. I had nothing for a crust. Who needs a crust? It’s chocolate mousse. Nobody likes crumbs on the sheets anyway.
I looked longingly at the big bowl of chocolate mousse. Then, quickly, before it could have its way with me, I thrust the whole bowl, spoon and all, into the fridge.
I shut the door.
Whew.
I leaned on the counter, exhausted with not having an orgasm.
Oh, hell.
I hit the shower, leaving the phone to ring on the kitchen counter. In the shower, I found a dab of chocolate mousse on my shoulder and licked it off. The flavor exploded on my tongue. To my complete amazement, I had an orgasm there and then, standing in the steam and the rushing hot water, a sharp zing that flew over my body and left me clean and limp.
My mind cleared as if I’d wiped it with a sponge. I felt released from the intensity of wanting Archie.
I turned my back on the kitchen, and the fridge full of chocolate mousse, and crawled into bed with wet hair. I was still in afterglow when sleep claimed me.
For the first time in a very, very long time, I felt guilty for lying to a woman. Baz and I lay in our Barcaloungers, playing an old version of Mario. I couldn’t stop myself from voicing my feelings, though I knew Baz would be scornful.
“She’s just a kid.” I temporized. “Maybe the spell will work without a hair sample.”
“Kid yourself,” Baz said. Yellow Mario blasted off on his motorcycle and leaped a wall onto the road.
“She was probably really busy,” I said under my breath.
My Red Mario gunned it after him.
We played ferociously for five minutes. I picked up the phone with one hand and speed dialed her, watching the screen.
“You’re pathetic,” Baz grunted.
Red Mario hit a steel wall and stopped, juddering.
Three rings, no answer. Then her answering machine cut in.
Baz glanced over at me. “How many times have you done her?”
“None, goddammit.”
“Bull.”
“I kissed her. That’s it.”
“And you never used the old mojo on her?”
“A little,” I said defensively. I slung some green shells after him. “She made me prove I was a sex demon.”
“Uh-huh. She made you.” Yellow Mario zipped through the loop, slaloming neatly around my green shells. “You want her.”
I did. The ache in my body was almost folding me in half.
“This is why we can’t keep doing the same woman,” Baz said.
I gunned Red Mario up beside Yellow Mario and slapped him with my bike, clean off the road. “Shut up.”
“It’s our age,” Baz said as if I hadn’t spoken. “Mojo transfer.”
I glared at the course unrolling in front of Red Mario, furious with him for bringing it up. “Shut the fuck up.”
“That’s what happened last time,” he said, boring into my vulnerable spot and bringing the ache in my groin up into my heart suddenly. “We’ve been doing this so long, it rubs off.”
“Bullshit,” I said breathlessly. I could feel Chloe in my arms as if I was in her bed. Smooth, warm, long-limbed, hungry for me. I was raging hungry for her.
I remembered being hungry like this, what, forty or fifty years ago. Damn Baz for bringing it up.
“You think she’s gonna hate me. Like last time.” I heard flames crackling in my memory, saw another brunette glaring at me, shouting, turning away. “Okay, fine, I said I wasn’t going over there.”
“It’s not that simple,” Baz said. Yellow Mario tossed a banana behind him and pulled farther ahead. “She’s had you how many times?”
“None, goddammit,” I snarled, dodging his banana.
“How many orgasms did she have when you ‘just kissed her’?” he said relentlessly.
“A few. Half a dozen maybe.” I heard her say “eleven” and saw her shining eyes. I shut my eyes. I heard Red Mario hit a wall.
“Busted,” Baz said quietly.
The ache in my body grabbed me by the heart and by the dick at the same moment and squeezed.
Everything went black.
I woke up to the sound of crashing in the kitchen. “What the fuck?” I heard a man’s voice say, and I sat up in bed, my heart pounding.
“What the heck?” I said under my breath.
The crashing and clanking continued. Dumb burglar, I thought, pulling the Mace out of the bedside drawer.
Swearing from the kitchen. Familiar voice. I must have slept just a few minutes, I thought, and crept to the chair where I’d tossed my shorts. My heart was in my mouth.
The man in the kitchen fell over a wooden chair and broke it, with more loud swearing.
I threw my dirty T-shirt on over my shorts and crept to the bedroom door just as light flooded the kitchen.
I blinked and drew back to protect my eyes. Then I peeked.
Archie stood there, his hand on the light switch, staring around my kitchen in amazement. He was naked.
It takes a lot to freak the shit out of me, but this did it. Chloe stood there with her pretty mouth hanging open, her legs looking a mile long in a pair of jogging shorts the size of a bottle cap. Her hands were clenched at the stomach of a faded marathon tee shirt spat
tered with specks of white and—was that chocolate? She goggled. “Archie!”
This hadn’t happened to me in twelve hundred years.
Buck naked. Horny. Someplace I…well, someplace I wanted to be, but I’d been thinking more of arriving on my own terms.
It was my own fault. Eleven orgasms. Last time it had only taken six or seven, I forget.
The important thing was not to let her know she’d done it.
“Hey, babe,” I said weakly. “Just thought I’d drop in.”
I’d really stuck my foot in it this time. I’d tampered with her affections. Now she could summon me whenever she got the yen, and I’d be at her beck and call until she figured out she was a nice girl and had no business associating with a sex demon, and then she’d hate me. Unless Aphrodite got to her. Then I’d have to kill myself. I shoved all those thoughts away.
She dimpled. “You’re here to pick up that hair sample?”
I realized I was in wrestling stance, crouched and ready to grapple. I stood up, nonchalantly reaching for the shirt cuffs I wasn’t wearing. “That’s right.”
I had the boner of the century.
She noticed it. Her eyes got wider.
I got harder. I harrumphed and stepped closer, right up against her chocolate-fragrant shirt.
“That’s what you get for thinking too much about me.” I flipped the tip of her nose with my finger. “I notice things like that.”
“And then you—show up?” she squeaked. “Like this?”
“If I remember to take my clothes off.” I shrugged.
Lie, lie, lie. If she ever figures out she did it, I’m doomed.
I moved the finger to her shirt over her breast, wiped off a spot, and put the finger in my mouth. “Mmm. Chocolate. Cream. Sugar. And…orange. Grand Marnier?”
“Cointreau,” she said faintly. She stared into my eyes as if she was dreaming about ice cream and afraid to wake up.
“Not a Boshy liqueur?” I stepped closer, sliding my hands around her waist. This would lead to further indiscretion on my part. I had already resigned myself to that.
All right, I didn’t have much self-control. I was a sex demon.
I gathered her buns, big buns on a tall girl, big enough that my big Greek hands could grab plenty and there was plenty left. My heart was pounding halfway out of my chest. I snuggled a little closer.
Our eyes met.
Naked, I was half an inch shorter than she was. For some reason this turned me on so crazy, I thought I’d pop.
She glanced at my mouth. Her tongue touched her lower lip.
“You gonna give me that hair sample?”
Her Bambi eyes dilated. I knew she wasn’t thinking about how I’d got here, not now anyway. She swallowed. Then she slowly snuggled closer, until our bodies were glued together from sternum to ankle.
“Fight you for it,” she murmured against my mouth.
He was so, so hot. I mean his torso scorched my fingers, and his hands ran over me like licking flames. Just like the time in his bedroom at the lair, I felt exhilarated and dizzy and drunk on his kisses, and seriously heavy-metal guitar music was ripping in and out of my lungs as I gasped against his mouth. He grabbed me by the butt and hoisted, and I felt both my feet lift off the floor at once, and we glided backward out of the kitchen. I am not a light weight. Yet I seemed to be floating in his arms.
“Where’s your bedroom?” he muttered into my mouth.
“Second door,” I gasped. Was he carrying me? Were we flying, or floating, or what? I was too busy grabbing him everywhere, so hungry to feel every inch of Archie, Archie, Archie. He squeezed my butt, and my world turned over and my eyes closed.
Next thing I knew, I was on my back in bed, and Archie knelt over me like a god, all muscle and smooth lines and angles, pulling the jogging shorts off me. As he turned to toss them away, he froze.
“Whoa.” He looked around my room at the matching pink plaid curtains, pink plaid bedspread, and pink plaid chair cozy, the pink plush bears and pink puppy dogs and pink sock monkeys, the pink lampshades…I might have overdone it there. “Majorly pink bedroom.”
“Territory marking. I had eight brothers.”
I reached for him, and he smiled. Smug. As if this was all his idea.
I rose up, my arms out, my hands hungry to touch him again. His eyes widened. For one crystal moment I was aware that I was floating clean off the bed, rising to meet him, and I was finally going to know Archie.
In the biblical sense.
Kind of.
Things got fuzzy after that. He met me halfway and we tumbled midair in slo-mo around the bedroom, bumping gently into the walls and ceiling, tangled up in each other. He shocked me with that super-potent, all-tongue thing, the way he had in his room last week. This time I caught it and slung it back at him. As I shuddered all over with the impact of it, I felt him shudder. I laughed out loud.
He was inside me, I was almost positive. You’d think I would be sure about something like that. Lightning cracked along my nerves, the rock music in my chest got louder, and I felt a series of shocks to my pussy that were deep and slow and bright and crazy.
The special effects were getting kind of ridiculous. I laughed again.
The zinging through my bones stopped abruptly.
He lifted his mouth off mine, and we fell to the bed with a squeak of springs and a thump that squished my breath out.
I realized he was glaring at me. His hands were on my shoulders at the moment.
“What?” I said.
“What’s so funny?” He sounded offended. “Am I wasting my time here?”
“Not at all.” I giggled. “It’s like my screen saver on my iPod.” Now he looked offended, and I rushed on, “All colors exploding and stuff.”
He frowned. “Oookay. Do you have any requests?”
“Let me touch you? I’ve been looking at you hands-off for two years.”
He shrugged. I had the feeling he really didn’t care, and that bothered me. I let my fingernails rake him a little as I explored his chest, his back, his lovely biceps, his butt muscles, the taper of his thighs to his rather elegant knees, prettier than my knees, dammit.
He tolerated this. It was annoying, actually. I wondered if he could be body-shy, which made no sense.
“Am I boring you?” I said after I’d put three minutes into feeling his knees and butt.
“Of course not,” he said, and reached for me. Without in any way coercing, he let me feel his strength, manhandling me with those big hands, and if I hadn’t been kind of irked I would have melted instantly.
Instead, I wondered what he was hiding.
He pulled back from biting me on the nape of the neck and looked into my eyes. “Too fast?”
“A little,” I conceded.
He started to haul me closer to him, and I put my hand on his cheek. “Slower?” I said.
He stilled. Carefully, I snuggled up to him, body to body, and kissed him on the lips.
“We don’t have to do this, you know,” I said, though parts of me were screaming for penetration. “I don’t want this to be a chore for you.”
He drew back, offended again. “Do I act like I think it’s a chore?”
I let my arms drop. I said louder, “Well, I don’t know. You want to touch me, but you don’t want me to touch you.”
“It’s not that I don’t want you to—”
“You tolerate it. You put up with it.”
He took my hand between his. His hands were piping hot. His voice went low. “Chloe, I exist to serve.”
“Well, how come, when I touch you, you act like you can’t wait for me to stop?”
Suddenly I was almost in tears. Between hurt, and feeling upset that I’d upset him, and wanting to come now dammit, I was falling apart fast.
“Oh, Chloe,” he said, and wrapped me in his arms. I could feel his boner like a red-hot poker between us. A tight place inside my chest softened. I was afraid to move, and that annoyed me all over
again, but I let him boss things.
Was that it? Was that part of his sex demon thing, that he always had to be dominant?
Before I could ask, he heaved a huge sigh. “It’s part of the way I have to live my life. Why I don’t ‘date.’” He turned his head against my hair and kissed it, stroking my head.
I didn’t get it. “How can you go on giving sex to women over and over and over, for what, twenty-three hundred years, and not get bored? Can you even feel anything yourself?” I pulled back, giving him a horrified look. “Is that part of working for hell? You’re allowed to give pleasure but you don’t get to feel any?”
“Don’t be silly. They don’t give a rat’s ass if I have pleasure or not.” He saw me opening my mouth and interrupted. “And yes, I feel pleasure. I’m a slacker, Chloe. I exist to have fun, too.” He took both my hands in his this time. “Don’t worry about me. I’m having fun, and I’m not bored.”
“So why won’t you let me pleasure you?”
“I’m fine. Really,” he said with bossy finality.
Well, nuts to that.
“Don’t even try to tell me it’s because I’m special,” I warned.
“Every woman is special.”
“Because this time is the first time for us?” I said, groping in the unfamiliar forest of his sex life.
“Because this time is sex,” he said in a “duh” voice. “I’m a guy, remember? Guys don’t get bored with sex.”
I squinted. “A virgin every time, eh?”
“That’s right,” he said. He must have seen the look on my face. “Look,” he said desperately, “You’re not boring.” A glance at his erection confirmed that. “I just…it’s better to give than to receive, you know?”
“So?” I said. “You get the good part and I don’t?”
“Now who’s telling me I’m boring?”
I realized we were wasting precious time here. Who knew if he would get mad enough to zap out of my bedroom the way he’d zapped into my kitchen?
He noticed me looking at his cock. With a wiggle of his hips, he set it swaying.
In a moment of weakness, I said, sounding pathetic even to myself, “Are you going to put that thing in me?”
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