by Mimi Strong
Things progressed quickly from there, and when I felt his balls contract, pulling in to his body for orgasm, I pulled him out of my mouth so I could watch and keep stroking him. I'd felt a man's release countless times, but I'd rarely seen it, and I was fascinated and turned on by the sight of his skin moving around, his testicles pulling up.
His cock became impossibly hard, and it looked so good. My own body was responding, my nipples hard within my bra, my hips rocking. If I didn't have my panties on, I might have plunged him inside of me. As he came, his muscles tensed, from his jaw to his toes, and he breathed as though exerting himself.
I cupped around the head with one hand, and he splashed right into the palm of my hand. I was surprised by how long he kept coming, and I squeezed him a few more times, milking out the last bit, until he began to soften in my hand.
We lay naked in front of the fire for a while, sipping our brandy and cuddling.
“I missed you,” Zach said.
“I missed you too. I don't even know why I got so mad at you. I guess I was being stupid.”
He moved over to rest his back against the blanketed sectional and pulled me to sit with my back to him, between his legs.
“You're not stupid.” He kissed the top of my head and slung his arms across my chest, tickling my ribs with his fingertips.
I hadn't told him yet about my new job in New York, and the news threatened to burst out of me. Grinning, I said, “I'm moving to New York.”
He squeezed me. “You don't have to say that. We're taking it slow, remember?”
“We can take it as slow as you want … in New York.” I twisted around so I could look him in the eyes. “I've got a job there, and I'm moving, and if that alone doesn't freak you out, get this: I'm going to be your neighbor.”
He gave me a quizzical look.
“That's right.” I playfully punched him on the shoulder. “Apparently you know my boss, Delphinia. I'll be staying in the basement of her place. I'm coming to New York, and if that's too much for you, just let me know. Just say the word.”
“Say what word? You're talking so fast, and I don't understand what's happening.”
The two glasses of brandy and the warm fire had made my mouth run at its own pace, well ahead of my brain. I shrugged and laughed, trying to diminish what I'd said.
“Just teasing you.” I winked at him. “I am moving, though, and if you're there when I'm there, maybe we can hang out. In New York.”
“Hang out?”
“Or whatever.”
“Laura.” He gave me a very serious look. “New York can be really intense.”
“So can I.”
He stared up at the ceiling, and his serious look gave me a bad case of regret. Why was I saying all those crazy things? Why was I naked and vulnerable? Could it get any worse?
As he stared up silently, a feeling of nausea started to climb up my throat, making my mouth water.
“Well, I can't let you go there by yourself,” he said, turning down to give me a big grin. “I have so many places I want to take you. So many things to show you, and you'll have to meet my family of course. Oh! Christmas. You'll come to my parents' place for Christmas.”
“Of course!” I swung my arm in exaggerated, slightly sarcastic glee. “Yeah that's in, what, a little over a month? Sure … Christmas with your family. See, I'm getting the hang of this taking-it-slow business.”
“Mm hmm.” He nodded, his eyebrows up high and his eyes wide, showing the whites around his eyes.
I knew that look.
I'd seen that particular expression on Lars the days leading up to our wedding.
It was fear.
5: Laura's Kitchen Party
Princess and I were invited to stay the night in Zach's apartment. I tried to go home a couple of times, but he insisted that I stay.
He sat on the bathroom counter and watched me brush my teeth with his toothbrush.
Around the suds, I said, “You know, my apartment and my toothbrush is only a block away. I could just zip over and get an overnight bag packed.”
He snagged me with one of his bent legs and pulled me in tight. “We can't take the risk. You might bolt on me.”
He kissed me on the cheek. I leaned over to spit out the toothpaste in the sink and rinse my mouth, then I gave him a proper kiss.
“Minty,” he said into my lips. “Would go great with chocolate.” He kissed me again, then paused. “Or maybe with green tea? Or grape soda? No, that would be weird. Root beer?”
“I'm not an ice cream flavor.”
“Oh, but you are.”
I rolled my eyes.
He jumped off the counter, ran off, then came back a minute later with a pint of ice cream from Butter Spoons.
The label had the flavor name, plus a little slogan, and it read:
Laura's Kitchen Party. The only rule is you have to tidy up after the party.
I laughed and clapped my hands over my mouth. “Oh, no you didn't!”
“Oh, yes, I did.” He pulled off the lid to reveal a creamy brown ice cream with a swirling of pink. “We took out the smoky bacon, to make it vegetarian, and added a raspberry swirl to the salted caramel.”
He set the ice cream on the counter and started running a bath in the large tub.
I said, “I'll taste it in a minute after the toothpaste flavor clears away.”
He stripped off his clothes and climbed into the still-filling tub. “I wanted to call it Kitchen Sex, but the marketing director vetoed that. We have to keep the menu board friendly for families.”
“Nobody's ever named anything after me. I feel … sorta famous or something.”
He swirled his hand in the tub water. “Come get in this tub.”
I played coy, twirling my hair. “I dunno. I don't like going to bed with wet hair, and it's getting late.”
He raised his dark eyebrows and fixed me with that icy-cool blue-eyed gaze of his. “You have two choices. Get in here with your clothes on, possibly kicking and screaming, or take off that ridiculous sweater and get in.”
I gasped. “Ridiculous sweater? I'll have you know this is very fashionable. It's ironically ugly.”
After our fun by the fire, the apartment was too warm, so we'd turned off the fire and cracked a few windows. I rapidly cooled off and had gotten fully dressed, including the sweater I'd been wearing on the dog walk.
It was still November, but I'd wanted to layer up against the chilly wind, and had grabbed the warmest-looking thing in my closet, a joke gift from my little sister. The sweater was mostly red, with green Christmas trees, festooned with glitzy beads as decorations.
He said, “Ironic? It is ironic that a pretty girl would wear such an ugly sweater.”
I peeled the sweater off slowly.
“Better already,” he said.
I turned on the tap at the sink, filled a glass with cold water, and tossed it on his naked chest.
Lying in the tub, he howled and clutched his hands over his chest like I was killing him, which brought both of the dogs barking and upset into the bathroom.
After everyone got calmed down again, and he apologized for making fun of my sweater, I kicked the dogs out and finished my striptease.
“This tub could be bigger,” I said, squeezing in opposite him, my knees together, careful to not kick him in his exposed area with my feet.
He tapped his chest. “Turn around and get in here with your back on me.”
“Really?” I didn't think we'd fit that way, but we did.
I lay my head back against his shoulder and he rubbed his cheek against mine. I felt the deep vibrations in his chest as he said, “This is perfect.”
He ran his long-fingered hands up and down my torso and over my breasts. He had beautiful hands, not too hairy, but with a few dark hairs trailing down across the tops from his forearms. I played with the water, smoothing the hairs flat and then changing their direction.
Something nudged against the small of my back.
His hands moved up and down again, with one resting gently between my legs and the other one caressing and massaging my breasts, one at a time. I closed my eyes and enjoyed the moment, from the warm, fragrant water around me, to the touch of Zach, so tender and loving.
I caught one of his hands and stuck his thumb in my mouth. I sucked his thumb, hard. This made the burgeoning erection at the small of my back become too big to ignore.
He pulled me up a little, adjusting his cock so it lay sandwiched between our bodies, and he moved both of his hands to rest between my legs.
He kissed my earlobe, then said, “May I touch you here?”
“Of course.”
“I remember you said you're sensitive. Why don't you guide my hand and show me what feels good?”
I was embarrassed to have to talk to him about it, but with all the heat from the tub water, I couldn't tell if I was blushing or not, and at least I didn't have to look him in the eyes.
Slowly, I took his hand and placed two of his fingertips together, on either side of my clit. Thanks to the sex toys I'd purchased back in the summer, I was more confident about how to touch that area. It all felt different, though, with someone else's fingers.
To my surprise, his wet fingers felt incredible. As he rubbed his two fingers in gentle circles, I sighed—a very long sigh.
His touch set off those tingles around my opening—tingles that seemed stronger than ever, perhaps because my body was so loose and relaxed in the tub.
I was just starting to think that maybe I might come, when the door pushed open. Duke came padding in, his toenails ticking on the tile floor. We both laughed, embarrassed to be caught in the act by Duke, who gave us a knowing and disapproving look. He then stood up on his back legs and began drinking bathwater from the tub, his big, pink tongue splashing us.
I had clenched my legs together the moment the door pushed open, and Zach moved his hands up to cover my breasts, forming a sort of Zach-bra for modesty.
“So romantic,” I said, laughing.
“All we need is ...” As if on command, Princess came trotting in and she tried to see what Duke was doing, but was too short to get her face into the tub. “All right. Bath time's over,” Zach said. “Everybody, it's time for bed.”
He pulled the plug and we got out and toweled off. The pint of ice cream had softened up, but was still more than edible, so I took it with me down to the bedroom.
In the bedroom, we shut the door and latched it so the dogs would leave us alone.
We climbed into bed, where we shared the ice cream. The raspberry went nicely with the salted caramel, but I wasn't a very impartial judge—not about a flavor name inspired by sex that Zach and I'd had on my kitchen island.
After the ice cream, we kissed some more and enjoyed our freshly-bathed skin together. His bed was only queen-sized, and I kept feeling like we were going to roll off the side, and at one point, I nearly did.
He kissed me all over, and went he entered me, he was on top, looking right into my eyes.
I moaned as his head pushed in and out between my folds, rubbing against my tingling opening. He looked so serious, but as I smiled and moaned, he smiled too.
I parted my legs, inviting him deeper, and he plunged in, filling me.
My eyes rolled up and my eyelids closed. I had one sex toy back home that felt good inside, but it was nothing compared to Zach, who was hot flesh, living and breathing and hungry for me. He kissed me, breathing into my mouth, our breath becoming one and my mind going dark and wordless.
He sped up, rocking hard into me, and my breathing got shallower, my pleasure rising and rising, drowning out any thoughts.
When he came, I wrapped my legs around him, locking him tight against me.
Moaning desperately, I rolled us over, pinning him beneath me. I ground down, rocking on his still-hard cock, and I came.
“Oh, Zach!” I said. He pulsed inside me, sending another shuddering wave all the way to the ends of my body. “Oh!”
He rubbed his hands over my buttocks and relaxed underneath me. My whole body tensed, straightened, then relaxed, and I dropped my face into the space next to his neck. We rolled to the side, he reached down to hold the base of the condom, and he withdrew. I went to continue rolling, onto my back, and landed on my butt on the floor. At least there was a rug to break my fall.
Zach, being the gentleman, waited to make sure I was okay and nothing was broken before he started to laugh at me.
“Karma for the cold water,” he said.
“But that was karma for you making fun of my sweater.”
“Throw out that sweater and I'll buy you ten more.”
I crawled back into the bed next to him, rubbing my bruised buttock. “Careful what you promise, I may hold you to it.”
He flashed me that grin and those boyish dimples, looking too young to have silver hairs at his temples. He disappeared to the washroom to clean up and make sure the dogs were settled, with Princess feeling at home in a strange place, then came back to me.
He turned off the lamps, and as we lay in the dark, I listened to the sound of the traffic outside, surprised and yet not surprised that it was exactly the same as the traffic at my apartment, only a block away. I wondered what life would be like in New York, and if I'd ever be able to sleep.
“I think I knew,” he said in the darkness.
I turned to look at him, but saw only the faint outline of his profile in the dark.
He continued, “I think that on some level, maybe subconsciously, I knew that you didn't realize I was only here temporarily.”
My mouth went dry and my pulse pounded as I surged with adrenaline. I remembered the anger, being hurt because I felt like he'd lied. And now he was admitting it.
“Do you think people do that?” he asked. “Do you think we sabotage potentially amazing relationships because we're afraid?”
“Afraid of what?”
He was still on his back, but he turned his head so he wasn't even facing me. “Afraid of the truth. That we'll never be as good as the person someone imagines we are.”
“That's a little … dark.”
“Maybe it's the Russian part of me. We are kind of a bleak people.”
I sat up, resting my back against the padded headboard. “Should I go home? If you're feeling freaked out by my being here, that's understandable.”
He rolled over to me and hugged my leg. “Don't go. Don't ever go. I'm not afraid anymore.”
I stroked his soft, silky dark hair. “Good.”
We settled in under the covers.
He said, “I'm sorry. Sorry that I didn't tell you before about my home in New York.” He hugged me and kissed my shoulder. “We're going to have so much fun there together. There's so much to do, and I think I'll be happier there with you by my side.”
“Me too,” I said, but I still worried. What had he meant about being afraid of the truth? Did he have some dark secret he was keeping from me, or was it just the usual human insecurities?
I didn't get to sleep until nearly four in the morning, and when I did fall asleep, I kept having nightmares about getting evicted, and wandering the streets of New York with my suitcases.
6: New York, New York
I did not have to wander the streets of New York with my suitcases. Lucky me, I piggybacked on Delphinia's move, and had my things sent with the same company doing her move.
The movers actually came to my apartment near the end of November and packed up all my things for me, wrapping my dishes in bubble wrap and placing them in these special environmentally-friendly reusable shipping boxes they used. The whole thing was incredibly civilized.
I was there just to supervise, and when they packed up the two pink mugs Zach and I had bought on our first date, I smiled and looked forward to unpacking them with him on the other side.
I walked through the apartment to say goodbye to each room. Renee and her boyfriend woul
d be moving in for the first of December, and I'd still see the place, but it wouldn't be mine anymore. They'd been renting a nice house nearby, but the owner was tearing it down to build a new one. The timing couldn't have been better, as my lease wasn't yet up, but I was able to sub-lease to Renee no problem.
I had a teary goodbye with Renee when I handed over the keys. We'd been friends since high school and had moved to Columbus together. She would have been my maid of honor, if the wedding to Lars had happened. My heart was heavy, my thoughts clouded with doubt. How could this be the right move if it hurt so bad? I felt like I was moving away from my parents all over again. I managed to keep smiling through the tears, because of my excitement about New York.
Delphinia and her husband left Columbus a few days before me, and I stayed back for two days at Zach's apartment, living out of a suitcase, then he flew over with me.
New York was noisier than I remembered from my only visit, and being there felt like being inside a factory—a factory that was making more New Yorkers. People spewed out of doors and cars and subway entrances.
Zach was eager to show me all the sights and sounds of New York, though after about an hour, I'd had enough of everything, especially the smells. I'd catch a whiff of something enticing, a possible food smell, and then it would turn to garbage or excrement, and I'd try to stop breathing, but you can't stop breathing for long. Princess took the city in stride, without fear, but I worried for her and ended up packing her under my arm for most of our first excursion.
I'd been to the Big Apple once before, and had hit a lot of the tourist places, like Times Square, so the thing I was actually the most excited about seeing was Zach's place.
He lived in Greenwich Village, which was my new neighborhood as well. The area was perfect for someone coming from Columbus—no high-rises, just quiet, tree-lined streets, and gorgeous old townhouses. Zach's townhouse had a green door with the number 104, and three doors down was Delphinia and her husband's new door, 107, bright red. The door to my small unit, on the bottom of Delphinia's place, was a dark gray, painted to blend with the building and disappear. I didn't even rate my own number, but was designated 107B, B as in Basement.