Just Like That

by Nicola Rendell

  But then she slows, my cock halfway into her mouth, her thumb and forefinger gripping the base.

  She’s got this look on her face, like she’s the queen of the world, and she knows it. She pulls me from her mouth, and licks a long line from my balls to the head. Without lifting her eyes to me—talking to my cock—she says, “I’m going to make you come. And I’m going to swallow everything you can give me.”

  Fuck, yes, she is. I tip her face up with my finger to her chin. “Then we’re going to go find some lube, and I’m going to do whatever I want to you. Whatever I fucking want.”

  “Glad we’re on the same page.”

  And then she leans over me and hits the recline button.

  Fuck. Holy, holy fuck.

  40

  Penny

  He comes in three intense spurts into my mouth, roaring out my name slow and strong, “Pennnnnnnnnnny,” as he grips my hair in his hand. After he comes, I wait for him to come back to sanity, watching his massive chest rise and fall with deep, gasping breaths. On the highway, a car speeds past, buffeting the side of the Suburban and making the cab shake. He raises his head up off the headrest. “Holy fucking shit.”

  He cups my jaw in his hand, touching my cheek with the pad of his thumb. The way he’s looking at me, it makes me feel so…

  “I fucking adore you. How can you be so sweet and yet so fucking dirty?”

  I reach over his body to raise up his seat again. “I’m a lady of many talents.”

  “No shit.” He rubs his face with his hand, pinching the bridge of his nose. “Jesus, Penny. Jesus.”

  “We should go home. Screw the lube,” I say, sitting up and smoothing my hair. I actually don’t know if we can skip the lube. I’ve never done what he wants to do before, and I don’t know how this goes.

  “Fuck that. I’m all for spit as lube in porn, but that’s porn.” He narrows his eyes. “I want to do this right, and I’m not going to hurt you. No fucking way.”

  I nod, because I’m in his hands now. “There’s a CVS next to the diner. In and out, bing bang boom.”

  He lifts his scarred eyebrow and gives me a manly chin flick. “That’s what she said.”

  My bubbling giggle fills the car right up to the roof. He’s dark and sweet and funny. Russ Macklin is all the best things at once.

  * * *

  Twenty minutes later, we pull into a parking spot in town. “Lube aisle, here we come.”

  “Christ. Even that’s hot,” he says as he opens his door to get out. But as I start to do the same he turns to me, giving me a menacing stare. “Penny. We’ve covered this. If your door needs opening, I’ll open it.”

  I freeze with my fingers on the handle. “’Kay.”

  As he walks around the front of the car, he gives me that cocky stare again. He opens up my door and takes my hand, and together we head into the CVS. I feel brave; I feel sure. I feel totally fine purchasing adult products at the same pharmacy where my mom used to buy my diapers.

  Until I see the cashier. Who is my retired, fourth-grade librarian. Also known as The Angel.

  “Oh hello, Penelope!” she chitters. The very definite smell of mothballs hangs in the air. I don’t know how it’s possible. She’s not even wearing wool.

  I grip Russ’ hand hard. On the other shoulder, the devil is laughing hysterically, wiping laugh tears from her smoky eyes. “Screw Westworld,” she cackles. “This is the best show ever.”

  “Hi, Mrs. Martenson. I didn’t know you’d started working here.”

  “Well, funny you should say that,” she says, nodding like she was waiting for me to come in here at 8 o’clock on a Sunday night and strike up this very conversation. “I was telling your mother how important it’s been for me to stay busy now that I’m retired. She was just here.” She glances around like Mom might materialize at any moment. “I’m sure you could go outside and track her down.”

  Next to me, Russ cough-snickers into his clenched palm.

  You’re not in Boston anymore! I try to tell him with my bug-eyed stare. Welcome to my world, where I have to buy lube from the lady who first told me about The BFG and where my mom could appear at any second to put a wrench in all my evening plans. “Russ, this is Mrs. Martenson. My elementary school librarian.”

  He’s man enough to not hoot with laughter, but I can tell he wants to. Badly.

  The Angel looks Russ up and down and up again. “My goodness, I didn’t know the FBI was in town.”

  Russ shakes it off with a manly press of his tongue to the inside of his cheek. “Pleasure to meet you, Mrs. Martenson.”

  “Can I help you find anything?” she asks, tilting her head exactly like a canary. “We have a special going on Halloween candy.”

  “Oh no, we’re fine. Just going to pick up some essentials,” I say as Russ takes a basket from the stack.

  “I know how you like your Dots, Penny!” she chirps. “Three for a dollar!”

  “Thanks! Yep! Thanks!”

  We head down the aisle with the baby supplies. I watch the muscles in Russ’ jaw tighten and then relax. “Know her?”

  “Only for my whole life.”

  Now he does snort, now that we’re alone. Once we’re out of Mrs. Martenson’s direct line of sight, I whisper, “It gets worse, though. You ready? Her son took me to my first high school dance. I swayed back and forth with him for four hours, and you know what I got in return? A peck on my forehead,” I say, also catching the giggles. “And not even a nice forehead kiss. Just a sort of cold-lipped press against my face.”

  “You poor thing.”

  I give him a Scarlett O’Hara swoon. “I have suffered more than you will ever know.”

  He turns more serious and pulls me to him. Behind his head is a display with a dad holding a set of twins, one cradled in each arm, and for an instant I see Russ doing that. Lordy. “You know, you don’t have to stay here forever if you don’t want to.”

  I stare at him, looking for any hint that he’s joking, or pulling my leg, or making fun of me. But he isn’t. “Are you asking me…”

  He opens his mouth but then closes it again. He loops his finger over my pearls, shifting them side to side. Finally he says, “I’m just saying. There’s a lot of real estate out there in America. The Northeast. Boston. You know. That general area.”

  It stuns me. He could knock me over with a bag of cotton balls. And yet, it doesn’t scare me. There is nothing inside me that says, Penny, don’t be absurd. For as forward an offer as it is, it’s also…a possibility. Looking into those eyes of his, anything is possible.

  My thoughts unwind like a runaway filmstrip. I let myself go there, right to the brink of the idea, but not so far that I get lost in the land of What If. Before I can say another thing, though, Kenny G gets quieter on the PA system and Mrs. Martenson announces, “Attention. We will be closing in ten minutes. We will be closing in ten minutes. Thank you.”

  It catapults me back twenty years to afternoons spent in reading cubbies with Maisie. “Oh my God, she used to say that exact same thing in the library.”

  “C’mon,” he says, wrapping his arm around me and putting a kiss to the side of my head. It’s a possessive, sensual, gentle kiss that is a million miles away from any high school dance on the planet. “Let’s get those essentials.”

  * * *

  With the full array of KY products in our basket, we head down the bath and beauty aisle. Russ stops in front of a display of bath puffs and throws a pink one in, and then considers the shelves of body wash.

  “Is this part of the plan, too?”

  “Hell, yeah.” He watches me as he flips open the top on something pink and dotted with little bubbles inside the gel. He gives it a sniff and asks, “What do you think of that?”

  Gently, he compresses the bottle under my nose. It’s rich and floral. “Oh yes, that’ll do.”

  “Excellent.” He snaps it shut and adds it to the basket, holding my hand as we head for the register.

  In th
e recesses of my memory, I remember being at the library with Maisie, and the way Mrs. Martenson would read out the titles of our books as she stamped them. It was incredibly embarrassing, because even when you’re ten you don’t want everybody you know hearing that you’ve checked out There Wasn’t Hair There Yesterday: A Kid’s Guide to Growing Up.

  But this is a pharmacy. A national pharmacy. There have to be HIPAA rules against that kind of thing. There just have to be.

  Russ sets the basket down on the checkout counter. Mrs. Martenson slides her glasses up the bridge of her nose and types something into the register.

  “One bath puff,” she says, and scans it through, and the register dings.

  No. Oh, no. No.

  “One bottle of midnight peony bath wash.”

  I grab Russ’ hand and hang on tight as she picks up the lube.

  “One container of intim…” She trails off, blinking. Shocked. And clearly, quite surprised that there is a product that includes the words pleasure, lubricant, intimate, warming, cooling, and enhanced sensation all on the front label. She looks to me and then Russ and back again.

  Boston. Hello?

  But then, bless her sweet angel heart, Mrs. Martenson swallows a smile, scans it, and drops it into the bag without a word.

  41

  Russ

  We get back to the house and find Guppy sprawled out on the couch like an exhausted linebacker.

  I lock the door behind her and ask, “Is he going to bother us?”

  She shakes her head. “I walked him before dinner. He’s out for the night.”

  “Good.” I take her purse off her shoulder and hang it on the hook. Then I pull off her pearls and set them on the table by the door. She undoes the top button of my shirt, and I unzip the tiny zipper on the side of her dress. Kissing her is as natural as breathing, and I’d rather have my lips to hers than anywhere else. So I kiss her again, this time less frenzied than earlier. The CVS cooled us both down, which is good. “I want to take this slow. Savor every fucking second.” I lower myself onto my knees in front of her and start undoing her heels. They aren’t just heels, but these sexy-ass sandals with straps that go partway up her calves. I undo the fastener and unwind the leather, letting my fingers slide along the small indentations in her skin. She steadies herself with one hand on my shoulder as I help her out of the left and then the right. When I come back up to standing, she pulls the tail of my shirt from my pants and undoes my belt as I walk her back up against the wall of the foyer and press my body into hers.

  “You go start the shower,” I whisper into her ear. “No arguments.”

  “Okay,” she whispers back. But then as she turns to go, she stops. She gives me that sweet, beautiful smile and ever-so-slowly starts unpeeling her dress from her body. Fuck.

  “Shower,” I tell her again.

  “A striptease isn’t an argument, is it?”

  I go right for her, automatic and instinctive, but she stops me with her palm to my chest. She sits me down in the chair under the coat hooks. Inch by inch, the dress comes off her body. She lets it fall to the floor and bats my hand away when I try to undo her bra.

  “You like torturing me?” I ask.

  “You know I do.” She reaches back behind her and unhooks her strapless bra. Her breasts come free, her nipples tight already. She shimmies out of those sexy red panties, soaked through. She picks them up with her toes, bending one leg and snatching them out of the air. Then she gives me a long, dirty kiss and walks down the hallway, bare-assed and with her panties hooked over one finger, swaying in time with her hips.

  * * *

  I take a candle from the bookshelf, along with a lighter and the CVS bag. I put the lube and the massage oil on the bedside table. When I hear her step into the tub, I open the bathroom door. The bathroom has steamed up already; as I close the door, she pokes her head out from behind the shower curtain.

  “Close those pretty eyes.”

  She smiles, biting her tongue a little. And then she does as I asked.

  I light the candle and turn off the lights. I hear her gasp as the room goes dark. “What are you up to?”

  “Taking care of you. That’s what I’m here for.”

  When I’m sure the candle is lit for good, I put it next to the sink and strip off my clothes. I see her watching me through the little space between the tiled wall and the curtain. “Am I supposed to still have them closed?” she says softly. “Because that would be such a shame.”

  “You’re perfect.” I step out of my boxers, hard again already. She slides the curtain open for me, watching me through the gap, and then I take the bath gel and the puff and join her.

  From the tips of her fingers to the back of her neck, I cover her in soapy suds. I move across her bellybutton, over her nipples, down each hip, along the soft skin at the backs of her knees, careful to not neglect one single curve, one single valley.

  Standing behind her, I press my cock between her ass cheeks. “I’m not going to lie to you, Penny. The things I’m feeling for you I haven’t felt in years. Ever, maybe.” I turn her in my arms, and raise her chin on my finger. “Ever.”

  “Me too.” She wipes some water from her cheeks and forehead, and then I pull her closer to shield her from the spray.

  “But that doesn’t mean I don’t want to do terrible things to you.”

  “Oh, God,” she growls. Gritted teeth again. I fucking love that.

  “Doesn’t mean I don’t want to worship you right over the edge.”

  I squeeze a handful of the gel into my palm and pull her toward me. I keep my eyes right on hers, one hand at the small of her back. And then I move my other hand, and the gel, down between her ass cheeks, just sliding my finger over that tight, perfect opening. As the cold gel touches her there, she inhales and holds her breath.

  The way she responds to all this, it’s got a certain nervousness. I press into her ass a little harder with my first finger, warming her up. “Have you ever done this before?”

  The area around her lashes is streaked with mascara, double-dark and sinful. “No. Never.”

  Well, fuck me. All at once, the need to protect her and to look after goes into overdrive. To do what I need to do to her, yeah. To have my way with her. But I also need to make sure she’s good, every fucking step of the way. “You sure about this?”

  She nods against my chest, and her ass opens up a millimeter. I let the water rinse away the suds but keep my finger exactly as it is.

  “Will it hurt?”

  Christ almighty. I’m forty fucking years old, and she’s making me feel like it’s the first time. “If it does, you stop me.”

  “Okay.”

  “Promise me.”

  She nods again, and then whispers, “Promise. Unless it’s the good kind of hurt.”

  “Exactly.” Fucking exactly.

  * * *

  I lay her down on her stomach in bed. I press my cock against her thighs, and she reaches back to grab me but I don’t let her take over. I put myself right at the opening to her pussy and push into her. I’m so hard that I don’t even need to guide myself inside. Her body is still wet from the shower, and so is mine. The water makes her extra slick, even wetter than before.

  Into the mattress she moans, “Why do you feel so good, Russ?”

  Fuck me, she doesn’t know the half of it. Every curve and inch of her body feels like it was made for me. I reach around in front of her, sliding my palm between her pussy and the mattress, and make a circle around her clit. She grips me tighter in response, an instant constriction that goes straight up my spine. “For the next four days, you’re mine. There’s nothing you can do to change that.”

  She reaches up behind my head and runs her fingers lightly through my hair. I kiss her shoulder, her throat, and that pale sliver of skin between her ear and her dark hair. I push all the way into her, slowly, so fucking slowly, until I hit her cervix. When her body bucks, I ease up.

  Buried inside her from behind,
I come up onto my knees and take the lube from the nightstand. Because of the way I'm on top of her, her cheeks are compressed, so I pull them apart and squeeze some lube onto the pink line of her ass. It runs down onto the base of my cock, and drips down along my balls.

  “You nervous?”

  She nods, without turning to look at me. “Yeah. I am.”

  I hold her tight, her hips like perfect, curved handles. “I’m going to warm you up first. Get you used to the feeling, see if you like it.”

  “Okay,” she says softly, and then turns her face toward the headboard, chin to the bed. Her body tenses, like she’s bracing for something to hurt her. For real pain, and not from clothespins. I don’t like that—I want her to enjoy it, I want her to want it. I need to know that’s where she’s at, or I’m not fucking doing it. “Hey. We don’t have to do this.”

  She turns her head quickly so she’s facing me. “No, no, no, don’t stop. Please.”

  Goddamn it, that. That look in her eyes, all that desire, all that uncertainty, all that need. That is what I need to see. And so without taking my eyes off of her, I open up that tight O with my thumb. As I press into her, she gasps.

  I drive my cock into her pussy a little further to reassure her, to give her something familiar. But goddamn it, her ass is so tight around my thumb and everything inside me is telling me to fuck her there and fuck her hard. Right now. “Jesus.”

  Gripping the side of her ass with my fingers, digging into those sexy curves and lines, I open her up a little wider.

  “Touch yourself,” I tell her. “But don’t go too far.”

  As she does, I move into her further with my thumb. The hand that isn’t busy with her clit makes a tight knot of the pillow case.

  “You okay?”

  “Yes.” Her breath comes out in a long, unsure shudder. “Yes.”