Maybe it was the urgency in her tone, but Quinn didn’t try any of his tricky manoeuvres to keep her where he wanted her. Tonight wasn’t about playing games, and the understanding was plain on his face as he took the warm space she had vacated and tucked his hands under the pillow, submissive to Molly as she knelt between his legs and took him in her mouth.
She worked him the same way he had worked her, not to get him off but to get him primed for what she really wanted. Mouthing the head as she kneaded him, Molly could see with her own eyes what she did to him: eyes flashing at her as he struggled to keep his head up, chest heaving and abs shuddering. His body became restless with pleasure and began to fidget, and that’s when she took all of him into her mouth.
She licked along the length, and as his gaze returned to her she let the smooth crest rest on her tongue. He reached up and grasped the headboard like she had done many times since inviting him into her bed. His knuckles turned white as she bobbed her head and sucked hard.
When he loosened one hand from the headboard and placed it on her head, Molly retreated. She had him hard and ready, and quickly grabbed a condom from the bedside table. She wrapped him and dragged the nightgown over her head, then straddled him.
Quinn held her by the waist but didn’t guide her as she sank down. He only held her, supported her, and let her take what she wanted.
She’d had him so many times before, but the size of him still awed her. As she shunted and slid looking for that perfect angle, he spread his fingers and dug in the tips while his expression exposed the sweet agony she put him through.
‘Go on, Molly,’ he whispered, taking her hands. ‘Show me what you can do to me.’
Challenge accepted, she went down slowly, leaning forward as the fat tip reached her G-spot, and sighed as her body told her she had found what it sought.
Pressing her palms to his, Molly forged that link and used it to get her momentum.
Not once did she look away from him. She loved that she was able to do this to him, to make those hard and desperate sounds burst from the back of his throat, to make that hot gaze glaze over as she rocked forward and back to keep that hot pulse zipping along her inner walls and over his cock.
Weeks of having him budget her orgasms had made her patient, and also vengeful. Molly’s conquest of him was relentless. She rode him hard and fast. She used every part of her body until muscles screamed and skin was slick with sweat. As the fever peaked she ground down on him, seating herself on his thighs, and held him captive with her body.
She squeezed her pussy around him and watched the effect move from her body to his. He surged up, but Molly denied him. She locked her fingers with his to keep him from shaking off her grip and went forward.
It was a take on his favourite method of torture: giving her just the head until she was almost in tears with wanting more. She left only the fat head stretching her, and her low laughter didn’t seem to register in his head as he writhed.
Her attempt to best him backfired on her. As she fucked just the first few inches, her body rebelled violently. The hot nether mouth that sucked him gave a spasm that rocked through her and stole her bravado. She ground down on him and echoed his moan as she was stuffed once more.
This time when he drove up she gave him back the control and placed his hands on her hips. He squeezed down while he pushed up, and after just a few strokes he rolled her onto her back.
Tucking her feet just above his ass, Molly became the thing she had tried to turn him into.
You’re just something to fuck.
His words never held more weight than when he had her on her back and pounded into her. His strokes were steady, wet traction building the intensity that made her whimper and beg. As soon as the first tremors of her orgasm riddled her, Quinn reached over her head and grasped the lip of the headboard, and the tempo turned frenzied.
You’re just something to fuck.
But she was more than that. She felt it in the way he clung to her, and he was far more than that to her. She didn’t want to name it, not yet, but it was there in all its power and glory beneath the surface of her skin, ready to burst out at any moment.
She closed her legs around him and sobbed through the furious pulse that shook her entire body. It was all she could do. Quinn rode her hard and deep through her climax, pinning her down with the last powerful spasm.
The bedroom still seemed to spark a few minutes later when they were wrapped together in darkness. She tucked in close to him and Quinn wrapped a possessive arm around her shoulders.
‘Hey,’ she whispered, unsure if his steady breathing meant he slept.
‘Mmm?’
She lifted her head and looked for the murky details of his face. He turned his head and she caught the outline of the top of his head.
‘I know you have plans for New Year, but what about Christmas?’
He snorted, the puff of air ruffling the top of her head. ‘Sleeping in, Queen’s speech, then I make pizza.’
She zigzagged the tip of her finger down his still damp chest. ‘Care to share your pizza?’
‘You don’t have plans?’
‘My parents divorced about fifteen years ago, and I refuse to take sides. On Boxing Day I hit them both up. I visit my mother in the morning and my dad in the afternoon, and then I come home and drink. Christmas Day, on the other hand, I’m totally free.’
He sighed, and regret hit her. Had she really just asked him to spend the holidays with her after having known him only a few weeks?
In this most untraditional of relationships, sometimes it was hard to remember that those stupid rules of dating probably still applied.
‘I’m not making you pizza,’ he said, and her spirits deflated until he went on. ‘I’ll mash your potatoes and bring you a box of stuffing, but you have to make a turkey, or at least a chicken.’
Relief washed through her, and Molly cackled. ‘I’ve never cooked a turkey in my life, and I get my chicken already cooked from the grocery store.’
‘Pizza it is, then,’ he said, and went quiet. After a moment, he jostled her. ‘I hope you didn’t just lie to me so you don’t have to cook a turkey, because I really like turkey.’
‘Hand to God, I’m a failure in the kitchen. I can turn any egg into a masterpiece, but poultry evades me.’
‘What about ham?’ She gave him a little kick, loosened his laughter. ‘All right, I’ll do pizza. We’ll watch It’s A Wonderful Life five times and get sick on chocolates.’
‘And then I’ll give you something to unwrap under the tree.’
‘Deal,’ he said, and dragged her deeper under the covers.
Chapter Eight
Her phone rang just before noon, as she was pushing through the back door with her arms loaded with groceries.
It was Quinn. She knew it by the ringtone she had set a few days earlier: The Tragically Hip’s ‘Fireworks’. The lively tune was muffled in the pocket of her anorak, but she could hear the words in her head. He’d cooked her dinner one night, and when she told him she’d never heard the song he put it on repeat and told her about how he’d once dragged himself, barely lucid with the flu, to their concert when he was in his early twenties.
Not caring about whether she cracked her eggs or squashed her bread, Molly tossed the black fabric bags onto the counter and dug into her pocket for the phone.
‘Hey there,’ she answered.
‘It’s Saturday, isn’t it?’
‘A question like that just goes to show you’re not a man who works the nine-to-five, otherwise you’d know it in your bones that it was Saturday.’
‘Words cannot express how horny I was when I woke up a little while ago. I’m sitting here in my empty apartment with my hard-on in my hand thinking about how much better I’d feel if it was in your mouth.’
Molly shivered as she unzipped her coat. ‘And this call is to ask for assistance with this problem?’
A low laugh tickled in her ear. ‘I know exactly what
you’re doing right now. You’re biting your lip and squeezing your legs together.’
‘Oh, you think you’re so smart,’ she replied, but he was right. Even over the phone he made her feel as though he was right behind her, lips close to her ear, what little space between them electric.
She was sure that if he were there with her, he’d already be undressing her. It made her wet just thinking about it.
‘I want you to drop what you’re doing and meet me in the park. I want to bring you to my place.’ He sucked in a quick breath, and then let out a low moan. ‘I’ve got one hell of a view from my sofa, and I want to make it better by putting you on your knees in front of me.’
Once she hung up, Molly felt electric. The commute was the same one she took to work and she could have been at his place in just over half an hour, but she had the sense that this was going to be an occasion, and she wanted to dress the part. She wanted to be a bombshell for him, for herself, and so she slipped into a black bra and thong set and accentuated it with a matching belt and stocking set. She covered it all up with a green bateau dress, then tucked herself back into her anorak.
Luckily, they were going through a mild spell and the wait by Lake Ontario didn’t leave her with pins and needles in her nearly bare thighs and ass. He appeared on the boardwalk, jogging towards her in navy-blue track pants with white stripes and a grey T-shirt patched with sweat stains.
For a moment he didn’t see her, which gave her the luxury of getting over the shock of viewing him in this element. She didn’t get to see it that often. When he came in from a run while at her place he bolted right to the shower and emerged brand new. The most she got was a blur.
The dirty sneakers and the reddish hair curling around the edges were such a far cry from the spit and polish of his trade. There was Quinn the smooth, the heartthrob women paid to spend a few hours with, and then there was Quinn who lounged, rumpled and gorgeous, in the bed she had slept alone in for so long.
She liked this incarnation, and rose to meet him. As his attention fell on her, he slowed down to a trot.
‘You must be frozen,’ she said as he slowed, a smile forming on his lips, and leaned into him when he was close enough. ‘What happened to your hard-on?’
‘I had a brief chat with my dick and told him if he was patient, he’d have something better than my hand to contend with.’ He slipped his arm around her, and she parted her lips for him, but he quickly pushed her away. ‘I stink, and I don’t want to sweat all over you – yet.’ He took her hand. ‘I’ll shower, and unless I come up with something better, I’m going to spread you out on my dining-room table and fuck you half-dressed.’
She glanced around to see if anyone had heard, and was strangely disappointed to discover that no one had. Other joggers, some alone and some in pairs, ran past them on the path, oblivious to the sexual negotiations that had opened up. The moment was so significant to her that it was almost insulting that no one noticed the earth shift a little under their feet.
‘Aren’t you cold? It’s not exactly summer breezes out here.’
‘Not yet, and not if I beat the chill home.’
At the edge of the park, where the green met the concrete between the St James and his condo building, the city leapt out at her. A bus rumbled by with a belch of exhaust and darted from one lane to the other with utter disregard for the cars around it. It was one thing to work here, but Molly couldn’t imagine making a home in a place where there was so much going on. She preferred her quiet house tucked in the suburbs. Home was a sanctuary, a place to escape the incessant movement of the city. Even when they had entered the courtyard flanked by the buildings and the noise abated a little, Molly still abhorred it.
And she instantly abhorred his two-level apartment. It was a heartless open space with uninspiring black leather and glass, a showroom from a catalogue surrounded by windows that made the city look even colder.
Molly moved to the window and pressed her face against the glass. Being up so high seemed so cold, especially with the harbour beneath them and the islands in the short distance. She felt like an ice queen in a crystal tower. She couldn’t imagine getting any sense of peace out on that narrow balcony.
‘You don’t like it,’ he said, and laughed when she turned towards him. ‘Your face is always so readable.’
‘It’s not what I would want for myself.’
‘It’s out of your comfort zone, like me.’
He stood in the dining area and leaned against a monstrous table made of chrome and tempered glass. Maybe it was because she was getting used to seeing him in her small house with its stuffed furniture and clutter, but even Quinn seemed out of place.
‘You know, when I first noticed you at the hotel I thought the expensive suits and the million-dollar smile were all for show. Then I noticed your hands. Your hands made you real. This –’ she raised her arms and gestured to every corner of the condo ‘– is just the surface. This is appearance. I want to see what makes it home for you.’
‘I don’t have a secret room,’ he said with a gentle laugh. ‘If you want to make a game of it, I’ll give you free rein while I shower.’
She worked the buttons down the front of her coat and grinned at him. ‘You’re not worried I’ll snoop around too much and find some skeleton in a closet?’
‘I have no skeletons. I’ve given you almost all of my flesh and blood, save for a few bits and pieces I keep scattered about.’ He pushed away from the table and seemed about to approach her, then stopped and laughed as he sniffed himself. ‘You’ve got, oh, fifteen minutes? That run killed my hard-on, but with nothing to do in there but soap up and think about getting you in my bed, I’ll be ready to go when I come out.’
‘Then I’d better be thorough, hadn’t I?’
As soon as he had disappeared down a narrow, unlit hall, Molly swept her gaze around. She didn’t need to be thorough in order to find pieces of him strewn about. His grey and black box wasn’t so colourless after all. She opened up the entertainment credenza beneath the mounted flat-screen and found nothing more complicated than a streaming media player and a cheap DVD player. He owned a total of five DVDs, all hockey-themed movies, and a quick peek at the media stream revealed that recent history extended no further than a documentary on retired porn stars and Breaking Bad.
As she moved into the kitchen, she placed another tick on her mental checklist of The Things About Quinn. She discovered an extra-large plastic bag loaded with miniature chocolate bars. The discovery made the flavourless contents of his refrigerator and cupboards less pathetic, and the calendar on his fridge marked with CHEAT DAYS gave her a chuckle as she imagined his first week of retirement spent ingesting a spread of junk food and sweets.
She stood over the sofa and took note of a faint ass-print in the centre. It was easy to imagine him binging on his hockey movies, attention rapt as he dug into his allowed rations of chocolate. Moving down the hall off the kitchen and following the sound of the shower, she opened a door and discovered a home gym, a Spartan space of equipment save for a small table that housed a speaker dock. Nothing remarkable there except the slight funk of sweat.
Moving to the next room she found an office space. It was neat, but she recognised the furniture as the economy-style that came from a catalogue.
Here is where she found the book nerd he had said he was. She had almost forgotten about it until she was faced with three waist-high bookcases filled with books of every genre. They were grouped in neat rows, and here Molly recognised a part of Quinn he had shown her only in snippets: the young man who had spent half his life in chaos but who now had his home in perfect order. He even had a reading nook, a chair that looked more worn than any other piece of furniture, with a lamp over the shoulder and a pair of reading glasses resting on the edge.
And his fish. One, to be precise: a cheerful-looking fish that she discovered was a puffer of some sort, once she approached its huge tank. It swelled up as she peered in on it, then like a little
submarine retreated into one of its many caves.
There was no opportunity to inspect the loft. As soon as she returned to the living room, the water stopped. Quinn emerged a few minutes later, and Molly greeted him from the dining table, sitting on one of the black seats in nothing but her lingerie, with his reading glasses propped on top of her head.
She couldn’t match the devilish grin he gave her. She expected she got halfway, but the sight of that expanse of an upper body, glowing from the shower, threw her off-kilter. He wore only a green bath towel that went to his ankles, and when he stopped and crossed his arms over his chest he looked like some powerful warrior who had stepped out of time.
‘Did you find me?’ he asked.
Molly reached up and rested the glasses on the bridge of her nose. ‘I did. You’re a perfectly normal human being.’
‘I wouldn’t go that far. Disappointed?’
‘A little. Part of me was hoping to discover you’re actually a Russian prince masquerading as a gentleman of the evening for sexual kicks.’
He sank onto the sofa facing her and draped his muscular arms across the back. She noted that he had taken a seat right where she had discovered the impression in the cushion. He showed himself to be a man of habit, and it took away some of the shine his usual pose created. She laughed out loud.
He didn’t question her laughter. He simply returned her smile and stretched out his legs.
‘Care to tell me what you’ve learned?’
Molly struck her own pose, one leg crossed over the other and finger at her temple. All she needed was a legal pad and pen on her lap to finish the slutty-shrink illusion.
‘You own five movies, all hockey movies, which sort of balances out that whole bookworm thing you have going for you with that library. Plus there’s your weird fish, which tells me you’re more into how cool it is than having it as decor. Also, your chocolate betrays you: you’re a fat man trapped in the body of a cover model, and I suspect that as soon as you stop selling your body you’ll let go and develop a beer gut and a double chin. I suspect you’ll also grow a beard, both to cover up your double chin and to rebel a little.’ She got to her feet and pulled off the glasses, and let them dangle from her fingers as she crossed towards him. ‘I’m a little surprised by how weak your prescription is. For someone who reads like you do, I would have expected a little more eyestrain. Are you wearing contacts right now?’
Holding My Breath Page 13