by Mimi Strong
I'm embarrassed to admit this, but despite my calm outward demeanor, life had finally shaken me to the freakout point. Perhaps it was a delayed reaction to the break-in and dognapping, or being dumped by guys, or maybe it was just the weather. It was hot and humid, threatening to thunderstorm again, but just holding back.
Renee brought along the little guy she was a nanny for, five-year-old Stuart. True to his trouble-magnet reputation, Stuart had been there a maximum of ten minutes before he found the honey-flavored body powder in my bedroom drawer.
“What's this?” he said, sprinkling it on the living room floor. He'd snagged it while he was down the hall on an unsupervised bathroom visit.
“Foot powder,” I said.
Renee jumped to her feet and took the bottle away, apologizing profusely, even though I was laughing. It felt good to laugh.
Renee said, “Yesterday, he found the spare toy rocketship I keep in my purse.” She gave me three winks.
“You have a spare? I don't even have one … rocketship.”
Stuart eyed us suspiciously, his big eyes bright under his nest of of red curls. He had his pajamas on, and had brought his sleeping bag so he could crash at my place, but he showed no sign of slowing down. We put a video on the TV for him and continued our conversation, using euphemisms because of his young ears.
Renee said, “Are you nervous because you didn't tell your friend Shawn about your other friend, Zach?”
“A little. How do these long-distance things work? Is exclusivity the norm?”
“I think it's like Las Vegas. What happens there doesn't count.”
I splashed some more wine into my glass and put my feet up on the coffee table, next to Renee's feet. “And so each person's home town is Las Vegas?”
“Sure.” She accepted some wine and clinked her glass to mine for luck. After a sip, she said, “There's just one thing I don't understand. You're willing to be a long-distance friend to Shawn, but not to Zach?”
My insides turned a little sour from my blatant hypocrisy. “That's different. With Shawn, I always knew, from the day we met. Zach really caught me by surprise.”
Renee tucked her glossy, black hair behind her ear. “I think you really L-O-V-E-D Zach, and you're going to get sneezes from Shawn to get back at Zach.”
I laughed at how ludicrous that idea was.
“Nope,” I said. “Sorry, but you didn't learn as much in those psychology classes as you think.” I slouched down further into the couch. “I just wanna have some fun. It's summertime.”
Despite my big talk on Tuesday night, by the time Friday came around, I was sweat-through-the-antiperspirant nervous.
He showed up at seven, and when I opened my door, there he was, with flowers. He wasn't as tall as I remembered, and my memory of his face had shifted a bit. Was it Shawn? Or some guy coming to see someone else in the building?
I panicked, worrying about having a relative stranger staying with me, but then he knelt down and Princess yipped with excitement and jumped into his arms. He wasn't such a stranger after all.
He came in with his wheeled suitcase, and I showed him around the apartment, blabbering away about the paint color and the light hitting the pink walls in the morning.
He said, “You did a really good job painting.”
I nodded and accepted the compliment on behalf of the professional crew Zach had hired, though I felt like a dirtbag for omitting that detail.
When we got to my bedroom, he went straight for the quilt on my bed. Running his fingers over the patchwork surface, he said, “This is pretty. The stitching is so tiny and perfect. Did you do it?”
I laughed shyly. “I'm not that talented. My grandmother made it.”
“But you do sew, right?” He crossed over to my Pfaff Serger and examined some fabric lying next to the sewing machine.
“I designed a lot of things at school, but nowadays I just mend things and hem jeans.”
“You do hems?” His dark eyes twinkled. “I should have brought a bigger suitcase.”
“Any time! I'll hem anything you need. That machine was over a thousand dollars, so I'll only charge you … a hundred dollars per hem?”
He grinned. “Only if you do it topless.”
“You're bad,” I said, grinning.
I was at the doorway to the room, and he walked toward me. He paused when he got to me, and I thought he was going to kiss me, but he didn't. He gave me a sly grin and slipped out of the room right past me.
I took a good look at his butt while he walked away. His hips were as narrow and boyish as mine were curved and feminine. I'd had narrow hips like a boy, until puberty finally hit, and I'd gotten more than I'd ever wanted. Shawn's butt looked really good in his jeans—round, and just enough to grab onto.
After the “grand tour,” we sat in the living room and made small talk. He'd been busy over the last month, evicting a problem tenant from one of the small apartment buildings he owned. The legal work had been a nightmare, and the tenant destroyed an antique fireplace mantel on the way out.
I was surprised by what a long anecdote this was. The eviction story had probably doubled the total amount of discussion time we'd had to date.
I yawned a few times, finding his stories not quite as interesting as his body. He had all those muscles hiding under his shirt, and I wondered if the magic I'd experienced on my holiday would translate back to my home city.
We talked a bit about my problems at work, with me not knowing how long I was going to have a job, let alone whether or not I'd ever be promoted. He suggested I move somewhere else and gave me a flirty wink. I remembered the night we'd sung karaoke together, and how I'd gone down on him in the alley.
As we talked, the apartment seemed full of awkward silence. I stared at his longish, tousled brown hair and beautiful eyes—brown with hints of gold. He was twenty-one, only six years younger than me, but he was so much younger than Zach. If we'd grown up in the same town, I could have been his babysitter.
Our hands touched as we both reached to pet Princess, seated between us, at the same time.
“After you,” he said, gesturing for me to go ahead.
“No, I insist. I get to pet her all the time. You're only here temporarily.”
“I am.” He stared down at Princess, not meeting my gaze. “But I'm going to make the most of my time while I am here.” He glanced up, giving me a sexy look from under the fringe of his hair.
That look traveled down my spine and sent tingles all through my lower body. The awkwardness that had been between us was replaced by sexual tension. I licked my lips and shifted my position on the couch, uncrossing and re-crossing my legs.
I couldn't have imagined what he was thinking about, but I was thinking about our night together, and the shower we'd had, with him nudging his young, hard cock against my stomach as he kissed me under the hot water. I thought of myself being so wild and crazy that night, losing all my inhibitions and climbing atop him on that log on the beach, rocking back and forth until I came, right out in the open, in nature. Then I thought about later on, when he put whipped cream on my breasts and slowly licked it all off.
He slipped his hand under mine on Princess, then flipped it palm up so we were holding hands. He squeezed my hand and leaned in, across her.
I stared at his plump, soft lips, getting closer to me, and I leaned in to meet them. He tasted unfamiliar, like someone I didn't know, but he tasted good. He sucked on my lower lip, then slipped his tongue into my mouth.
We kept kissing, our hands shy at first, and then groping each other. Princess grew annoyed at her sleep being disturbed and jumped off the couch to go find her bed.
Soon, we were lying on the couch, me on my back with Shawn between my legs, his jeans rubbing against my jeans. Kissing him was different from what I remembered, because he was clean-shaven now, and he'd had a stubbly beard when we spent our first evening together. His smooth cheeks and face felt heavenly against my neck and face, even better than I'd re
membered.
As we kissed, he bumped his hardness against my inner thighs, his excitement evident.
My hands moved with minds of their own, pulling his T-shirt off over his head, messing up his hair even more. He slipped his hands under the waist of my shirt, and I shivered with pleasure as his fingers touched my skin. He pushed my blouse up and moved his body down on the couch, kissing my stomach and flicking his tongue around my navel.
Something was bothering me, though, and I couldn't relax.
I stopped him there, saying, “Listen, I need to tell you something.”
He stopped and relaxed next to me on the couch. “Period?”
“No, not that.” I squeezed his arm, enjoying the feeling of his thick bicep. “It's completely over now, but I was dating someone else for a bit.”
“Oh.” He ran his finger across the top of my jeans. “Was it Sharise?” He started to laugh.
“No! It was a guy. But I'm not seeing him anymore. And I wouldn't have, at all, except I thought you were with Sharise.”
He stuck his tongue out. “Nope. And now that she's been evicted, she's moving back to San Francisco.”
“Wait, that was Sharise that you evicted?”
“Now you can understand why it was such a battle.”
“Right.” I was still squeezing his arm in the exact same spot. “And there's another thing I should tell you. On Monday night, Sharise broke into my apartment and stole Princess. I found her at a motel and got Princess back.”
Shawn pulled back to stare at me. “Oh, Laura, I'm so sorry you had to go through that. What can I do? Should I talk to the police as a witness?”
“It's all over.” I pulled him back close to me on the sofa. “I think I scared her off. It says on her Facebook page that she's in San Francisco, so if you think she's there permanently, that's a good thing, right?”
“For both of us.” He took my hand in his and kissed my fingertips. “Now it's just us. Laura and Shawn.”
I squirmed with pleasure and smiled up at him. “And Princess.”
“And Princess. You should know that was the name she came with, from the dog rescue. Calling a dog Princess wasn't my idea.”
“Sure it wasn't.” I winked at him.
He gave me a pretend-scowl and shifted his body down on the sofa, positioning his torso between my legs.
Slowly, he unbuttoned my blouse and worked his way up to my breasts, kissing the whole way.
I giggled and said, “We need whipped cream.”
“I don't need anything,” he said, unfastening my bra. “Just you, Laura.”
I closed my eyes as he tongued my nipple. His mouth felt so good, sucking on me, especially his lips on the area around my nipple, where my breast was the most sensitive. He held my firm nipple between his teeth, sending pulses through my spine. He pulled my shirt all the way off and ran his hands all over my upper body as he kissed me on the mouth, chin, and neck.
I reached down between us, seeking that hard bulge in his jeans. I gave it a squeeze, then traced my fingertips along its shape. Like a rocketship, I thought.
He moaned and then pulled away. He stood and pulled me to my feet, then lifted me straight up.
His voice deepy and husky, he said, “Wrap your legs around me.”
I did, and he carried me down the hall to my bedroom. He pushed the door shut so we wouldn't be disturbed or looked upon by any doggy eyes.
I started to unbutton my jeans, but he said, “Let me.”
Trembling, I stood at the foot of my bed as he kissed me, starting at my mouth and moving down. He knelt before me, kissing the spot below my navel as he unfastened my jeans. He slid them off, leaving them around my ankles, then kissed my mound through my panties. He was kneeling now, and I had my hands on his shoulders to steady myself. He breathed air onto me, his mouth so hot on my sensitive zone.
He seemed to be in no rush, and slowly peeled down my underwear, kissing and licking and nibbling on the area around my hip bones. He dropped the panties down around my ankles, but wouldn't allow me to kick the clothes away. “Don't move,” he said.
We were only a few feet away from the bed, and I was confused about what was going to happen next, but then I just surrendered to the moment. So what if I was standing? I was open to new things. This would be like trying a new flavor of ice cream.
He put his hands on my ass and pulled my body to meet his mouth. He breathed on my pussy, making the area around my nub hot. His tongue slid into my folds, impossibly slick and soft. Delicately, like touching a flower's petals to your lips, he licked around my clit. His tongue circled and stroked. And then, it seemed like he found what he was looking for, and he bore down on my lovebutton, making it sing.
I rocked my hips, moving myself on his firm tongue. I squeezed his shoulders with my hands and arched my back, thrusting my hips forward as I rose up, up, and exploded. I stood up on my toes and he followed me with his mouth, licking gently as the spasms of orgasm rippled through my pussy.
When I came back down off my tiptoes, I was breathing heavily.
He pulled away and rested his cheek against my thigh, hugging me to him.
After a moment, I reached down and helped him to his feet. I stepped out of my crumpled jeans and led him a few steps back, to my bed. I pushed him onto his back and then unbuttoned his jeans.
I pulled off the jeans and crawled around him like a cat, rubbing my cheek against the erection still trapped inside his boxer shorts. I traced the outline of him through the cotton fabric, then put my mouth down on the head and blew hot air through the boxers. He seemed to stop breathing at times, his chest moving again only once I adjusted my position.
Finally, I decided he'd been made to wait long enough, longer than he'd tortured me, and I rolled down his boxers and let him kick them off. I straddled his muscular legs and kissed him, starting with his plump, kissable lips and moving to his neck. His neck smelled faintly of aftershave and tasted salty and clean. His pulse throbbed under my lips. I moved my lips and tongue down his muscular chest and stomach, until I bumped my chin into the head of his cock. He certainly was a big boy, and I opened wide to put him in my mouth.
After a few minutes, he said, “Mm, that's so nice, but I want to feel you on top of me.”
I popped him out of my mouth and climbed up. Before we started kissing again, I opened the drawer of my bedside table and pulled out a packet. Shawn wordlessly took it from me and put it on himself.
I slid down so we were aligned for kissing, with the head rubbing between my legs, parting my lips and massaging my entrance.
Shawn bit my lip as he pushed me firmly down onto his cock. I inhaled sharply as he entered, the nerves around my walls firing up. He groaned with pleasure as I rode down on him, sinking him fully into me. I moved, pivoting on the tops of my knees, feeling him deep inside me, my inner lips hugging him.
He closed his eyes and smiled, his face looking beautiful and angelic.
After a time, all the while with him seeming on the precipice of coming, he requested a position change. I shifted down to the end of the king-sized bed, on my knees, with him standing behind me. My bed was taller than the usual bed, up on risers so I had more storage space underneath, so I spread my knees wide to bring myself down to the right height. As he slowly entered me, I relaxed my upper body, sprawling forward on the bed.
He checked that I was comfortable, and I was.
Gripping my hips, he moved in and out. All the while checking that I was okay, he started moving more and more firmly, until his body was slapping against mine, his balls making contact, and my breasts rocking back and forth.
He came, and I was happy for him that he did, but I could have kept going. I'd really enjoyed that position, with him standing.
He disappeared to the bathroom, and when he came back, he spooned up against me from behind, under the sheets.
As he nuzzled my neck, he said, “Maybe I don't have to sleep on the couch after all.”
“Oh, Shaw
n.” I grabbed his arm and wrapped it around me. “If you insist on sleeping on the couch, then I'll have to sleep on it too.”
He hugged and squeezed me, then threw one leg over me, giving me a possessive whole-body hug.
I closed my eyes and enjoyed the feeling. His breathing changed within a few minutes. He was asleep. It was not even ten o'clock, and he was crashed right out.
I carefully extracted myself, threw on my warmer, terry-cloth robe, and went to the living room to send Renee a text message report.
Within seconds, she phoned me, breathlessly demanding details.
I felt a little naughty, kissing and telling, but Renee was my best friend.
We talked for a while, and then after we ended our call, I spent some time organizing things in the kitchen and doing some dusting, mindful of the time. Princess kept going to the door, staring at the leash, and giving me the don't-you-know-what-time-it-is look.
I knew exactly what time it was, and who else walked the neighborhood at ten. That was why all week I'd been taking her out at eleven. Zach and Duke had probably already left for New York, but I wanted to be careful.
I couldn't trust myself.
That night Lars had helped me get Princess back, I'd nearly fallen into his arms and taken him back. I hadn't, but part of me had wanted to. He smelled familiar, and being such a dick at times meant there were other times he was an absolute sweetie-pie, to balance out. At least with Lars, I knew what I'd be getting. Thankfully his dick nature had reared its head and I'd kicked him out before things got gooey.
With Shawn, I also knew what I'd be getting—a fun time with a sweet guy who didn't live in the same city as me.
And for the time-being, that was perfect.
I woke up at seven because Shawn was stirring next to me. The early morning sun was streaming into my bedroom, and there he was, this gorgeous young man, curled up on my white sheets.
I pulled down the sheet so I could get a look at his chest, which was hair-free. I ran my hands over his pectoral muscles and he squirmed and smiled in his sleepy state, his eyes still closed.