“I’m listening.” What the hell is she playing at?
“Tonight we’re going to talk about your project. I’m still willing to be your assistant. But first I need something from you.”
Is she going to ask for a raise? Does she want a credit on the book?
“I want you to take me upstairs and do whatever it is you’re dying to do to me. Are we clear?”
Now she ’s speaking my language. She’s bold, but she has no idea what she just let herself in for.
“Crystal clear,” I say, standing up so fast that my chair falls behind me. Within seconds I have tossed her over my shoulder and I’m heading upstairs, taking them two at a time.
Chapter Thirteen- Maya –
Conrad tosses me onto the bed like I ’m lighter than air. “ Don ’t move,” he says, starting to unbutton his shirt. When he’s done he drops it to the floor. His body is better than I had imagined it would be, and I had imagined a lot. His abs are as good as his shoulders are as good as his arms are as good as his jawline are as good as his traps. When he unbuckles his pants I have to disobey. “Let me,” I say, moving despite his commands. I’ve got my fingers in the waistband of his shorts and now I’ve got them off of him.
If I was a worshipping type of girl, this cock might be the kind of thing that would get me to go to church. Hell, if it feels as good as it looks, I might convert here on the spot. I take him in my hand and he ’s so hard. He’s so ready. But he slaps my hand away. “Turn around,” he says.
I do what he says and position myself on all fours. He pulls up my skirt and yanks down my panties. He leaves a trail of kisses down my back, over my ass, and reaches beneath me, filling his hands with my breasts. He unzips my blouse and undoes my bra in seconds. He puts his fingers in his mouth and wets the tips, which he then uses to play with my nipples. I ’m pushing backward with my ass, trying to find a touch of his cock, but he moves, enjoying my search.
There is a sharp sound and mild sting when he slaps my ass.
“Do it again,” I say, moaning .
He spanks me again, a little harder.
“Oh my God,” I say. “Please. Conrad, please, I need it.”
He clamps his hand down on the back of my neck. The other hand grabs my ass and moves me into position. His cocks slaps against my ass and the thought of it in his massive hand makes me quiver. Just when I start to beg him again he rubs against my wetness with the tip of it. He puts it in an inch, then two, then withdraws. When I open my mouth to talk he reaches up and puts his thumb in it. I taste it against my tongue, suck hard, and he thrusts himself inside of me. I nearly explode with a sensation so strong that it hardly registers as pleasure. I ’m lost, knowing only that my waist in his hands, his cock is slamming into me, and I can hear myself making noises that I’ve never heard.
He reaches around and starts toying with my clit. I push myself back against him. I can ’t touch him enough. I can’t feel him enough. But I also feel buried inside of him. He leans forward and presses his chest lightly into my back. His hands slam down into the mattress outside of mine. He begins to thrust faster, harder, and he’s growling in my ear.
“ Don ’t ever stop,” I say.
“I wouldn’t know how,” he says, licking my earlobe lightly. I come as hard as I ever have, and I’m terrified that I’ll never have this experience again. Maybe if I close my legs around him tightly enough he’ll never be able to get away. Then I come again and I feel him pulsing inside me, but I’m not ready for him to stop. It takes all of my willpower to crawl forward a couple of feet. The feeling of him withdrawing is agony, but I know what he needs now. It won’t be long.
Conrad -
When she pulls away I’m so frenzied that I nearly chase her down. But she returns to me within seconds. She puts her hands on my chest and pushes until I’m lying on my back. She runs her tongue the length of my cock, then climbs on and straddles me. I cup her ass in my hands and she begins to rock.
I sit up and put a hand in her hair. I pull her head back and put one of her nipples in my mouth, sucking gently, then not so gently. Her moans grow louder, then start to become screams. I spank her lightly, then not so lightly. I put my hands under her ass and lift her, guiding her up and down my shaft. She puts her arms around my neck, completely surrendering. Her hips drive against me over and over. I kiss her neck pull her down harder. She ’s taking it all and my only regret is that there’s no way to go deeper.
When I want a different view I lie back and tell her to ride me hard. She puts her hands on my chest while I run my fingertips up and down the insides of her thighs. I get her off once, then again. The sight of her shivering, shuddering body nearly puts me over the edge, but I ’d never forgive myself if I let this end now. Not yet. Just when she begins to slow her movements, I reach back and lightly press against her ass with one fingertip. She stiffens, then relaxes, and now I’m inside her in one more way. With my cock inside of her and my finger playing with her ass, I sit up once more and kiss her. She bites at my lips and chin. It’s a hell of a thing, to see two people reduced to appetites. It’s the best thing there is.
Finally, there ’s no way to resist. I flip her over onto her back so I can look down at her. She grabs my ass and pulls me deeper. I’m afraid I will hurt her but she is begging for it. There’s nothing I can do except thruster harder, and harder, and faster, until the world explodes and I collapse onto her glistening body, as emptied out as it is possible for a man to be.
Chapter Fourteen - Maya
I wake up twice during the night. The first time, I’m afraid for a moment. I don’t know where I am, or why the shadows on the wall are so unfamiliar. I don’t understand why there is a body next to me. But when I reach out to feel the body-- that body--it all comes back to me. It’s all I can do not to wake up him for another round. My God, how does a person come back from something like that?
The second time, I wake from a dream in which all of my exes are standing in a line, trying to get my attention. In the dream, I ’m wearing the stupid lab coat that Conrad and I keep joking about. He’s standing at the end of the line and knocks them all down with a swipe of his arm. I wake, giggling. Conrad stirs . “What’s going on?” he mumbles.
“Nothing,” I say, running my nails lightly down his back. He turns onto his side and I scoot up behind him, pressing my chest against his back, trying to get as close as possible.
I wake up feeling like I ’ve been run over by a truck that was full of all my favorite foods. There’s no better feeling. If I could put this feeling in a bottle I wouldn’t have to worry about work, that’s for sure. Conrad is snoring lightly beside me. You know how they say that what you see in a person is only the tip of the iceberg? How everything real lies below the surface? I see now that there is a lot more to Conrad beneath the surface. More than most people. I keep thinking about how he said that it was all a game. Now it just looks like something he wants to reassure himself of. I don’t think he really believes it.
I keep thinking about shared moments. I ’m not sure if last night was something we shared. Did he take it? Did I? Did we share it, or each other? It felt kind of like a showdown, but with very different stakes. In any case, I’d say we both won.
I don’t want to wake him up, so I tiptoe out of the room and go downstairs. Something was bothering me yesterday and now I see what it was. There aren’t any pictures here. The cabin is obviously occupied, but there are no hints, or knick-knacks, or pieces of personalization that would give you any sign about what kind of person lives here. Someone with money, yes, but that’s all you would know. It makes me sad. There’s no texture. No richness. This is just a place and I want to know its owner better. I look out the window. The ducks are gliding on the surface of the pond. I wonder if their night was as good as mine. Angela is going to lose her mind when I tell her about it, although my powers of description aren’t going to do it justice.
Suddenly his arms are around me from behind. How does a man his size
move so quietly? He kisses the back of my neck but says nothing. Then he’s carrying me back upstairs to the shower. I had thought that things could not possibly get hotter than last night. Shows what I know.
After, we go downstairs to find breakfast on the table. “I feel like we’re out in the middle of nowhere,” I say. “Where do these elves keep coming from that are making all of these deliveries?”
Conrad smiles, but he seems preoccupied. “I think I’m ready to tell you about what I’m doing out here,” he says.
“Okay.” I sip the coffee, which is so good that I feel like I’ve never had coffee before. A whole new world opens up when you’re on his arm. But now I’m nervous. He looks so serious. I know that this is all temporary, but I’m not ready for whatever it is to end yet. I don’t want him to say anything that will change it. And if I’m being honest, I don’t want him to say anything that’s going to make me less horny. I can’t believe it, but I’m ready to go again.
“I wanted to see if I could fall in love,” he said. “That was originally going to be an idea for the book. Something like ‘Two weeks to fall in love. Is that super cheesy?”
“ No. ” But I’m not sure if it’s cheesy or not. I’m not sure what it is. “Does that mean we’re going to be here for two weeks?”
“Well, that’s what I’m trying to decide. I wanted to see if it felt cheesy once I tried.”
“Conrad, there’s one important question here. What do you think love is, and how are you going to recognize it once it shows up?”
“I was hoping you could help me with that. But another answer is that, given all the research that I’ve done, we should fall in love. This should be enough time. Given our personality types, and all of our sub-modes, and the obvious physical attraction, and our ages and so on, this should work. Whether it does or doesn’t, that’s what I want to write about.”
Jargon aside, transactional conversation aside, I ’m well aware that this might be the most vulnerable that anyone has seen him. Maybe it’s just the oxytocin flooding through me, but it feels like a privilege. No one who follows his exploits in the tabloids would believe this for a second.
“I had this idea of turning this cabin into a laboratory,” he said. “I came out here and decided to fill it with everything a woman would want. Something that would make it, and me, irresistible in the long term. But I immediately realized I was in over my head. Every time I thought about putting the experiment in motion with someone I liked…it never even got far enough to come out here. It was all too easy. Every woman acted like I was perfect, her dream man, within five minutes of meeting me. They didn’t have any interest in knowing me, so I’d get bored right away.”
I can ’t decide if I’m annoyed or charmed by all of this. It’s a lot to take in. When you perform an experiment, you start with a hypothesis and then try to prove it wrong. “I’m not some lab rat,” I say. Was his hypothesis, “I can make her fall in love with me?” Or was he telling the truth and it was something closer to “It is possible to fall in love during two weeks of isolation, given that you’re with the right person and you have just fucked each other nearly to death?”
I can’t focus. My God last night was good.
“No,” He says. “You’re no lab rat. Although if you were, you’d be the sexiest lab rat in history.”
“So what now?” I say.
“Now we just spend time together,” he says. “I want to talk through the ideas I had. I want you to help me think about them. Then we see if there’s any overlap. We decide if we think it’s real. Assuming that you’re interested in following the method to its conclusion, of course.”
“I think I could be persuaded,” I say. How can anyone look this good in a robe? Conrad makes flannel look like a black tie. “Walk me through the method, professor. Exactly how do you see this going?”
He nods. “It’s simple. You form a hypothesis. Your claim. If this was a third-grade science fair project it could be something like Water Boils at 212 degrees Fahrenheit.” Then you’d heat up a pan of water to 212 degrees. If it boils, you conclude that your hypothesis was right.”
My current hypothesis would be something like, “Hints of an orgasm appear within 20 feet of Conrad Storm.”
“And then?” I say.
“Then, if you’re wrong, you tweak something. You make a new hypothesis. You test it again. And you repeat until you can reproduce the same result over and over.”
“So what’s your hypothesis here?”
He pours himself another coffee. His hair falls over his forehead and he brushes it away. “That we can fall in love before you leave.”
“And what would the conclusion be, if you had to guess?”
“We experiment so we don’t have to guess. But I know the conclusion I would want.”
“ And? ”
“You wouldn’t leave. And that’s what all the signs point to unless I’m wrong about everything.”
I take a deep breath. “So where do we start? Do I need a lab coat?”
“I like you best with the fewest clothes. But there might be a lab coat around here somewhere.”
Chapter Fifteen - Conrad
Well, here we go. After cleaning up breakfast and getting dressed, we go for a walk in the woods. There ’s something I want to show her. As we step onto the trail I take her hand. When she looks at me, I say, “We have to know what we’re working with. People hold hands, right?”
“ Yes. ” There’s a lightness in her tone that I love. “So let’s examine the sensation, professor. How does it make you feel?”
It feels like she ’s delicate. Her hand is so small. The bones are fragile. “It reminds me of how small you are. I like the feeling of your skin on mine. It makes me feel protective. I don’t know how you feel about the white knights that want to swoop in and save every woman, but I mean it. I’m bigger than you and holding your hand makes me feel like I’ve taken responsibility for you.”
“But,” she says, stepping ahead of me and pulling me along, “It looks like I’m leading you. That means I’m in charge, right?”
I catch up. “Maybe. I’ll make a note of it.” The leaves are changing. The forest is a riot of vivid color.
“Where are we going?”
“I know a spot.” I haven’t been out here in a long time, and there’s a reason for that. But there’s a peace that you can’t feel anywhere else. “I’ve always loved stepping into the trees,” I say. “Doesn’t it just make you feel like you should whisper? It’s kind of like going to church.”
“Are you a church going lad ?”
“Oh no, not me. My parents took me when I was a kid. Catholic. I don’t have an ax to grind, but it wasn’t for me. Hey, look.” I point up the trail, which is opening into a clearing. It’s been so long, but the giddiness comes back like I stepped into a time machine.
“Whoa!” says Maya, stepping into the clearing. She looks up, and up, and around.
The clearing is ringed with totem poles. They ’re each at least 50 feet high, but some are upwards of 100. My favorite is painted blue, yellow, and red. “You’re not going to believe this,” I say, “But my dad carved these.”
“No way!” She’s practically hypnotized and I know the feeling. “What got him into that?”
“This all used to be a Boy Scout camp,” I say. “He bought the land and developed it as a surprise for a friend. He just loved the scout organization. Family tradition.”
“That’ s quite a surprise. ”
“He was quite a friend,” I say. “But even for all the money we had, my dad liked to work with his hands. He was always making things. He didn’t like to just ‘do deals,’ as he put it. Didn’t really fit into the knowledge economy. So we’d come out here, chop down a tree, and he’d get to work. It’s incredible.”
She runs her hand along the beak of a fierce-looking head. Then she looks at me. “How exactly does this fit into our experiment?”
“They say that one’s parents are the w
indows to the soul, right?”
“No, I think that’s eyes.”
“I like mine better. So, I’ll go first. My relationship with my parents was pretty near perfect. It might have been helpful if they had made me struggle a little more. I work because I like to work, but I think they would have been happy to let me sit around and read or play all the time if I had been the kind of kid who just wants to be idle.”
“I’m sure they were wonderful,” she says. “This is good data.”
“What about you?”
Maya frowns. “There’s not much to say. I had a good, short relationship with them. They died when I was ten years old.”
“Maya. I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay. Of all things, it was a boating accident. I was staying with my grandmother while they were deep-sea fishing. That was my dad’s real passion. I didn’t go because I get motion sick on the water. If I had, then…anyway, my grandmother raised me. I had a happy childhood, I just didn’t get to have it with my parents for as long as I would have wanted.” She looks up at the poles again. “My dad would have loved this. He said that people who can’t work with their hands don’t know what they’re worth.”
“What did he do?”
Maya doubles over laughing. “Actually, he was a journalist. He typed, but it wasn’t what I would call working with his hands. His soul wasn’t shaped in a workshop or anything.” She’s quiet for a moment. Then she smiles and walks towards me. “If I want to jump your bones right now, does that mean we’re falling in love? Or am I just feeling crazy because you make me feel crazy?”
I pull her close and squeeze her ass. “It could be a little of both. I have to say, I feel similarly. We should probably wait and see if it fades.” I let her go, take her hand, and keep walking. “I’ve got something else to show you.”
“Aw. Can’t you show me out here? I think I’m ready to see it again.”
Maya is turning out to be far better than I could have guessed, even though I ’ve been working off of the most sophisticated models known to mankind. Brilliant, gorgeous, and freaky. But I’m being serious when I say, “Not here. I don’t think I could live with myself if I did anything dirty in this place. But that doesn’t mean I’ m forgetting. ” I pull her into the trees and we keep walking. The silence is comfortable. Most people don’t know how to be quiet. Maya seems as if she’s totally happy with her own thoughts. Must be nice.
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