Hail Mary

by Nicola Rendell

  “Fuck, that’s hot, isn’t it?” he says.

  “Look at us,” I whisper.

  He glances up at me, still working himself into me. “Fuck. Right? This is exactly how it’s supposed to be. Always.”

  He rises up on his knees between my legs and keeps working his cock into me. His free hand moves up my body to my breast, but he’s focused intensely on what’s going on between my legs. It’s then that I feel it, the first breeze in the hurricane, the first ripple in the water. I’m right on the edge.

  I take his hand in mine and he looks up. He says, “You okay?”

  “Yeah. I’m close.”

  “Don’t rush it. Promise you’ll just let it happen. We have all fucking night, and I want to see you come exactly like you are,” he says, pressing my clit gently with his shaft. “Promise?”

  I look down our bodies. I love the way his huge thighs look on each side of me, how that cock looks so raw and ready. “Promise.”

  He dips himself into my opening and then goes back to my clit. He keeps his eyes locked on mine, like he’s learning that new language he told me we’d find. He makes a slow, focused clockwise spiral with the tip of his cock, and that’s when the shudder begins.

  “Fuck yes, just like that,” he says, drawing it out of me a little more with every word.

  I feel that wobbling in my brain, that shiver up my spine, that tensing of my walls that means I’m even closer than I thought.

  “I’m really close, Jimmy,” I whisper. “I’m really…”

  “You gotta ask permission.”

  The way he talks is so, so sexy to me. It gets at some deep down part of me. “I’ve always wanted someone to say that,” I tell him, gripping his hand hard. “To decide for me.” The first wave is coming, that warm rush is coming up through me already.

  “Nobody ever has?”

  I shake my head, and my hair shifts against the pillow. I dig my nails into his thigh and drive my head back into the mattress. His free hand comes to my stomach, his fingers splayed wide at the curve of my waist and his thumb softly touching my belly.

  “You like that? You like me talking like that?”

  “Yeah. A lot.”

  “Good girl. So ask. Fucking ask my permission.”

  “What do you want…” I suck in a breath as he moves his head up and down along me. “…Me to say…?”

  “Whatever the fuck gets you there. That’s what I want to hear.”

  The room starts to tunnel in, just a little. The edges twinkling with gray. “Please, let me come…”

  Now he gets more urgent, really massaging my clit with his tip. My breath starts to go jagged, and I hang on to him for dear life.

  But he doesn’t give me permission right away. He works me up and up and up, until I’m at the top of that roller coaster and there’s no going back. I know I’m talking to him, but I don’t know what I’m saying.

  “Please,” I plead, trying so hard to do what he’s asking me to do. “Please…”

  Then, without even guiding himself inside me, he rams into me hard and fast. “Come. Right fucking now. On this cock.”

  I scream out, making something that sounds like a sob but is the very opposite.

  He pounds into me, drawing my orgasm out from the inside.

  And somewhere far away, as I’m tumbling down into the dark with him inside me, I hear him say, “Just make sure you remember that this is only the beginning, pussycat. Only the fucking beginning.”

  11

  Jimmy

  Her orgasm is so passionate, so unapologetic, so beautiful, that I lower myself back down onto her before she’s even all the way through. I need to be closer to her, face-to-face, and I go for good old-fashioned missionary. Nothing better. Good traditions, man. They die hard.

  “Yes, yes, yes, yes,” slips over into, “Jimmy, Jimmy, Jimmy,” and her vise grip on me loosens.

  But here’s the thing. I don’t even think it’s the squeezing that is making me want to blow my load right now. It’s her. It’s how beautiful she is. How sexy. How flaming hot. And that pussy?

  Perfect.

  And when I’m inside her, whether she knows it or not, she is totally the boss of me.

  I try to slow my breathing. I try to regulate my pace. None of it is working. I want to shoot my load in her so badly, it’s like a different part of my brain saying, Her. Now. Breed. Mate. Fuck. Devour.

  Holy shit.

  I need to keep going. I know I can keep going. But that threshold is coming up fast. It’s time to bring out the big guns. The playbook. I imagine it in my head, a copy of this old-school Sports Illustrated thing I’ve got on the coffee table. She starts running her tongue around my ear and I have to grind my teeth. The book is Blood, Sweat, and Chalk. I imagine opening it up and flipping to a page.

  The Wildcat Speed Sweep. The simplest of plays, but ruthlessly efficient.

  “Oh my God, Jimmy. Jimmy, Jimmy…” Her breath comes out in hot gasps.

  What? Again? Holy shit. I pull back and look at her. Yes, again. Into her ear, I say, “Keep going. Don’t stop, beautiful. Give me everything.” I put both hands behind her, pinning her body with mine and gripping her by the ass as I drive harder and harder into her. From an unbalanced line to the right, the quarterback takes a shotgun snap.

  “Yeah, just like, oh shiiiiiiiit…” She drags her fingernails hard down my back, and up, and back down again, the tight, thin lines of pain following her fingers. I shut my eyes and bury my face in her hair.

  The QB can either fake the ball to the flanker…

  A huge groan comes out of me as she shifts her hips an inch and my vision starts to get hazy. I’m in the tunnel, but I’m not gone yet.

  “Are you going to come?” she says, turning to face me.

  I pump into her again. Am I? Holy fuck. No, no. C’mon, man. The flanker then runs the ball behind the blocking of the heavy side…

  “Not yet,” I groan into her ear. “Not fucking yet I’m not.”

  “Please. Please. Don’t let me go alone. Come with me.”

  “Oh shit, Mary.” I try to push it down.

  “Don’t stop,” she hisses, all dark and sexy. “Give it to me. Do it.”

  And she gives me a solid, ball-busting squeeze.

  Awwww, fuck it. Who am I kidding? She’s got me. By the fucking balls. “Can I come inside you?”

  She nods immediately. “Yes. We’re good. Don’t you dare pull out. Don’t you dare…”

  Hell.

  I had a whole bunch of shit I wanted to say, and all of it just got replaced by the hottest words any woman has ever said to me:

  Don’t you dare pull out.

  So that’s that.

  I can’t stop it. I can’t fight it. And I don’t want to. Now it’s me and her. My cock and her pussy. My cum shooting into that beautiful fucking body, on and on and on.

  12

  Mary

  I open my eyes and watch the snow falling outside. It’s chilly in here, so I pull up the covers. But I realize he isn’t next to me. I roll over and place my hand to the mattress where he was, where I can see the outline of his body in the sheets. Cold.

  My heart drops as I sit up. A one-night stand, that’s bad enough. But getting left first thing in the morning, that’s a whole different feeling entirely.

  Except I see he’s left the fireplace on, a pretty gas thing that looks almost real. And I smell coffee. Then I hear the little alarm at the front door, the sensor going beep-beep-beep.

  “I hope that’s you.” I pull the covers up further. I have no idea what I’ll say if a woman in a Merry Maids uniform comes around the corner. That was not how I imagined this morning going at all.

  But then his face appears in the hallway. “Morning.” He smiles. He kicks off his snowy boots and pulls off his hat, which is this sexy navy beanie. He’s in flannel pajama pants, and they’re caked with snow. In his hand is a waxy paper bag, like from a bakery, crinkled at the top from where he’s been gripp
ing it in his fist. That huge, sexy, gorgeous…

  He stares at me, looking at my face, my neck, my body, and gets this smile on his face, this absolutely cocky, fabulous smile. “What?”

  He clicks his tongue. “Nothing!”

  I eye him. Somehow, it’s like he’s up to something. Or knows something. Very suspicious, and super adorable. I’m not bothered. I’ll get it out of him. Yes, I will. “You went out in that?”

  He gives me this tough-guy chin flick. “Hell, yeah. Don’t worry, though, I always go out prepared.” He pulls down his flannel PJs to reveal a pair of thermal long johns underneath.

  “Eh?” He turns slightly and looks at me over his shoulder, then turns the other way, catwalk-style. “What do you think? Sexy, right?”

  Actually, yes. Very. They do positively spectacular things for him, revealing every curve and every little detail of that unreal bulge. His thighs and ass are so muscular, so touchable, I actually find myself clenching the sheet as I look at them. I squint and see on the waistband, KIRKLAND. Costco brand. This guy. “Get back in bed already, will you?” I fling back the covers on his side. “I need your long-johned self in here to warm me up.”

  With the bakery bag in his hand, he springs for the bed—more for me than his empty side—and I squeal as he lands. The bedframe groans and, again, the headboard hits the wall. “I’m going to put felt back there. Or maybe one of those rubber bumper things.”

  “Because…” I tease.

  “Because not tonight, maybe not tomorrow, but eventually, I’m going to bang you and this bed straight through this wall,” he says, sinking into a kiss. His mouth is cool on my tongue, and minty fresh. His skin is cold against mine. I pull him close and wrap my legs around him again. He inhales against my cheek and moans, or maybe that was me. I reach up and pull the covers over our heads and he laughs into the kiss before letting go.

  “These are for you.” He puts the paper bag beside me in the quilt tent we’ve made. It’s warm against my skin. I uncrinkle the top of the bag and look inside.

  Fresh, hot, beautiful donuts. Two of them. He takes one out and holds it out for me. I sink my teeth into it, and as I do, my eyes flutter closed.

  The glaze is sweet, the dough perfect. I moan involuntarily and realize my fresh donut moan is pretty much exactly like my Jimmy moan.

  His eyes move over my face as he takes a bite of the donut too. Then he brings his thumb to my lip. I feel a crumble of glaze on my skin and try to lick it away. Doesn’t work, apparently, because he dampens his finger in his mouth and does it for me. “Fuck, you’re beautiful.”

  It’s sweet of him to say, but I feel like I need to brush my teeth, and I have no idea at all what’s going on with my hair. But the way he’s looking at me, I feel beautiful. I do. So beautiful. He puts the bag aside and takes me solidly in his arms, rolling us over so I’m on top. My tangle of hair spills down onto his chest.

  “Dug your car out.” He smiles up at me, watching, tracing the edge of my collarbone with his finger.

  “Already?”

  “And,” he adds, stretching out a little more so I can see every sexy inch of his abs, “I stole your keys and drove it back here. Who says chivalry is dead?”

  “Not me.” I drag my fingertips down his pecs and onto his rib cage.

  He nods, kind of crumpling his chin to get a good look at me. “I figured, you know, since it’s a weekday…”

  “Oh my God,” I hang on to his chest. “What time is it?”

  “Almost eight,” he says, in this dirty, sexy way that tells me he’s got plans. Lots of plans, and they have nothing whatsoever to do with the outside world.

  “Shit.” I kick my way out from under the covers and jam the second half of the donut into my mouth. “I’ve got work. I’ve got to run.” I scramble for my stuff, which he’s folded up neatly and put on the chair by the bed. I grab my panties first and yank them up my thighs. Before they’re even on properly, I’ve got my jeans in hand and am shimmying into them.

  He sits up with his legs parted and his elbows on his thighs. His hair is kind of a mess. He’s pretty much the sexiest creature on the planet. “Am I going to see you again?” he asks.

  I freeze with my fingers in my belt loops, at my knees, still with my mouth half-full. “If you want to.”

  He makes a swipe for me with his big arm and snags me, dragging me onto the bed. “I’m not even going to justify that with an answer. The real question is: How late are you?”

  “Can you be quick?” I say, gripping the Incomparable V muscles tightly.

  “You’re a heartless woman.”

  I dig my hands into him. This is business. I hate being late. Absolutely hate it. But I think I’d hate leaving right now even more. “Seriously. I’ve got two minutes.”

  “Fuck yes, I can be quick. I can run forty yards in six seconds. Two minutes is an eternity.” He pulls down his long johns, and I kick off my jeans.

  He’s hard already and doesn’t even have to guide himself inside me. As he enters me, he lifts my chin with his finger to face him. “And yeah, I want to see you again. As soon as fucking possible. I should warn you, though…”

  My eyes start to roll back in my head as he begins to find his rhythm. “Warn me about what?”

  “That when I see something I want.” He kisses my ear. “I always get it. Always.”

  “And what, that’s me?” I say, giving him a little squeeze.

  He pulls the covers up over us. “That’s right, beautiful. That’s you. So you and your Kegels better get ready to be swept right the hell off your feet. Starting with dinner tonight.”

  13

  Mary

  I white-knuckle it home at roughly one mile an hour, following directly behind a snow plow driver in a big red truck with a Bears sticker on the back window. It’s like I’m floating. I can still feel the warmth of his hands on me. The things he did, the way he did them, and the way he talks.

  I’m going to need some more of that Jimmy Falconi as soon as possible.

  In fact, I’m so lost in thinking about him, I almost miss the Wrangler’s big moment. I glance down at the odometer, and that’s when I see it: 199,999, on its way to the magic number.

  “We’ve done it, honey,” I say, smacking the dash. “Time for a commemorative photo.”

  I look side to side and see a desolate Mobil station with snow snakes blowing around the pumps. I pull into the little driveway and get my phone ready, positioned between my fingers, slipping a little in my mittens. We aren’t there, though. Not quite yet. This moment is a big one, and I’m not about to get on Halsted and miss it because I gun it through a yellow light. So very slowly, I go around and around the pumps, watching the six revolving counters start to tip to six new digits. Inside the convenience store, a friendly looking old Sikh man watches me with his mouth open. I make another loop past the diesel pump, and wave. I make another, and he waves, but tentatively, sort of holding his hand in the air. And then, right there by the snow-covered ice machine, it happens.

  The big rollover to 200,000.

  I snap the photo.

  “Yaaaay!”

  The man inside the convenience store raises his thumb and forefinger in a circle, the universal symbol for everything okay?

  I give him the big thumbs up and drop my phone, about to head for the exit. Except then I see him.

  And suddenly, nothing is okay.

  He is in a gray topcoat, and I can see he’s wearing a dark gray pinstripe suit underneath. He’s rubbing his hands together, coming around to the side of his Lexus SUV. My ex.

  I’m not afraid of much, but I am petrified of that man.

  His name is Eric Cavanaugh, and he’s a stockbroker at the Chicago Board of Trade. He swipes his card and punches something into the keypad, but it’s ice cold out here, and there’s no keypad on the planet that would work properly in this weather. In a millisecond, I watch that old, petrifying anger flare up as he smacks the side of the pump with the flat of his h
and in a way so disproportionately vicious for the situation it brings everything back all at once.

  I slink down in my seat, as low as I can, and turn my head down and away to hide. I steady myself. I walk back from twenty in my head, but it doesn’t help. I think of my peaceful place. Doesn’t work. I stare at my keychain, trying to get out of my thoughts. But I’m in it. The fear is taking over. He’s already started roaring at the pump, same as he used to roar at me. Yelling bloody drunken murder outside bars and in our apartment. The look in his eye, that unstable, insecure look of a man who’s confident on the outside but a boiling catastrophe inside. Like an overheated chocolate lava cake: it looks beautiful on the outside, but is just waiting to send you to the emergency room. One year ago, I donated his engagement ring to the Cook County Sewers and Water department, courtesy of a high-efficiency toilet and a very, very liberating flush. But the fear? It’s still there.

  I haven’t seen him since I left him. I haven’t Facebook stalked him or driven by our old apartment. When I left him, I left him, every string cut. I actually thought he might have moved because not even once have I seen him in Lincoln Park. I peek up above the wheel. He’d have died to know I got a tattoo. He would have shaken his head and said, “What a shame.” Been embarrassed by the nose piercing, too. Horrified by the boxing in general, I know that for sure. “Maybe you’re a dyke,” he once said to me after three whiskeys and half a bottle of wine. Anger like that, it’s both born and bred.

  I peer through the gap between the steering wheel and the horn, only to see him storming toward the convenience store where the poor clerk is about to get his day blown to smithereens. I’m just glad he’s got a bulletproof panel between him and Eric, and a direct line to 911. Because God knows, he’s going to need it.