Just Like That

by Nicola Rendell

  Awww, fuck yeah. I move in past my first knuckle, and her opening tightens around the narrower part of my thumb. That tightness is making me fucking insane, and my cock is throbbing already. “I’m going to talk you through it, the whole way.”

  “Yes, please.”

  When her ass has loosened up, and when her fingers start to work her clit more quickly, I slowly pull out of her pussy. I put more lube on her ass and place the tip of my cock right at her opening, keeping the base tight in my hand. As the head nudges into her, she freezes and looks back at me again.

  “You ready?”

  She nods into the sheets.

  “Say it.”

  Three quick blinks and a smile. “I’m ready.”

  With the shaft of my cock, I spread the lube over her opening. I use plenty, but not so much that it’s impossible to stay where I need to be. “Keep touching yourself.” I part her cheeks with my hand and drive the head just into the opening of her ass. “Relax,” I tell her, as I push inside.

  She tries to squeeze me out at first, pure physical reflex, and so tight that it wouldn’t take hardly anything to make me lose it inside her again. But I stave it off and keep up the pressure. Finally, she lets me in, with a little whimper.

  “You still good?”

  “Yes.” She grips the sheets. “I’m good. I am.”

  I’m not fucking convinced though, and I give her some time to get used to me. She’s hot, and she’s tight, and all the blood from my erection is getting trapped in the base and back in my balls. I don’t move my cock inside her ass—it isn’t fucking easy because all I want to do is go all the way in right fucking now—and I reach out for her free hand and clasp mine over it. Our fingers are tangled together at her hip, over the place where I bruised her.

  “I’ve got you.” I look down at my cock, a quarter of the way into her ass, and the idea of her being a virgin keeps repeating itself on a loop in my head. You’re her first, her fucking first. Take care of her. Look after her like she deserves.

  “What does it feel like?” she asks, her words muted by the sheets.

  “Tight. So tight.”

  “It’s different than the other way?”

  Christ. Night and day. “Yeah. Totally different.”

  I watch her ankles hook over the edge of the bed, the tops of her feet anchoring her against the mattress. She shifts her knees, getting comfortable. I start to settle into a slow rhythm, hardly fucking her at all, but letting her get used to the feeling. And me too. Because this ass, this woman. Holy shit.

  I gather a mouthful of saliva and drip a few drops down onto my shaft. When my spit hits her ass, she groans and whimpers again. “I love that.”

  Something primal overtakes me: the need to fuck her until she begs for mercy. I want to ruin her, to defile her, to take her down to nothing and then put her back together again. But I’m not going to do it. Not tonight, not yet. Slow it the fuck down, Macklin. She’s submitting to you already. Take more than what you’ve got and you’ll fuck it all up. “You decide how fast you want to go. You do the fucking.”

  She gasps a little, and I see that pretty smile. With tentative bends of her knees, she moves herself back into me, taking more and more of me. I know that if I put my hands to her hips right now, I’ll pull her into me so hard she screams, so I keep my hands back, behind my neck, giving her free rein.

  I can tell she wants it because that fear and uncertainty quickly shifts to confidence. Her early hesitation turns to a smooth, easy rhythm, each push back into me is steadier than the last. The tight balls of her fists open into spread palms, and she comes up on her elbows. Her hair spills over her shoulder and she watches me as she fucks me, as she takes me all the way.

  There’s a lot of hotness in the world. But this, right here, this little pistol fucking herself with my cock in her ass?

  Might as well tap out right now because I’m done.

  She starts to get into it, and every backward drive gets me ten times closer than she can possibly fucking realize. “Whoa, whoa, whoa,” I whisper. “Easy.”

  She gives me this wide-eyed stare and stops with my cock halfway into her. “Oh really?”

  “You’re in the driver’s seat. I told you. So just…” I clear my throat. “Give a guy a break.”

  Her head drops down between her shoulders, and a single curl slides between her shoulder blades. She sweeps her hair aside, and I see she’s smiling again. “I had no idea.”

  “I mean, I might be taking you in the ass, yeah. But you’re…” There she goes again, coming back into me, taking all of me. “…you’re in control. That’s the thing, Penny. I’ll always be trying to take what you’ve got, because you’re the one with all the power.”

  “That’s so sexy.” She bends forward, almost making my cock slide out of her, but then leans back into it, and I watch every inch of me bury itself into her ass. “Tell me how it’s different,” she says.

  Jesus. She wants me to make a full sentence when I’m nothing but reptile brain and need. But I’m not about to deny her, so I try to explain it. “Taking you in the pussy, it’s tight everywhere. But this is all focused at the opening.”

  She nods, and stretches out her arms as she curls her toes. “So when I do this,” she says, coming back into me almost brutally. “You like that?”

  “Holy fuck,” I snarl, staring up at the ceiling.

  “And this?” she says, pulling away from me slowly, half an inch at a time, before driving herself hard back into me again. Her ass slaps against my thighs, my balls swing forward against the lips of her pussy.

  “Be careful, Penny. I’m barely stopping myself from taking you until you can’t handle me anymore.” It comes out like a warning, dark almost, because it is. She’s got me on the verge of losing my fucking mind. “You don’t understand what you do to me. You’ve got no fucking idea at all.”

  She picks up the bottle of lube and hands it back to me, and then she says, “So show me.”

  42

  Penny

  It hurts so good. It’s the only way to describe it. He doesn’t take me as hard as he has before, and I start to realize that’s because he…can’t. Because he’s that close, because it feels that good. Just a few minutes of this, and I’ve got this beast of a man, with his tattoo and his scars and his attitude, with his military record and his filthy-good Tumblr habit, ready to go down on his knees.

  It’s incredibly empowering, like I’ve put a spell on him. He nails me with a good solid thrust and braces himself on the bed, his abs pressing into my back.

  “Christ, Penny.” His voice is hoarse and gravelly, like he just woke up.

  This isn’t taboo. This isn’t vulgar. This is amazing. And I love him like this, so strong and yet so vulnerable. It’s mesmerizing. His expression is softer and less in charge. He drives into me, watching his cock and biting his lip as he does. In the mirror behind him is the reflection of his sexy tush, clenched tight, perfect depressions in each cheek.

  “I need you to come, at least once,” he says.

  Keeping myself on one elbow, slide my hand down to my clit and run the tips of my first two fingers over the knot of nerves.

  “You think you can do that for me?” he asks as he reaches forward, going all the way into my ass and pinching my nipple in the same instant.

  It short-circuits all my logic. Whatever little bit of power I felt I had two minutes ago, poof. One pinch and I’m putty all over again.

  “Touch that pussy. Make it happen. Right fucking now.”

  He rolls me onto my side, and takes me even deeper than he had before. My opening burns, but not so badly that I can’t stand it. He slides around behind me, pulling me right into his body and making me hiss because he’s gone so deep.

  “Too much?”

  “A little,” I pant, my fingers frozen on my clit, all absorbed in the sudden burn.

  And so he eases up and goes slower. Into my ear he tells me, “You’re so fucking beautiful, Penny.”
He tightens his grip on my body. “Nobody’s ever made me feel what you do.”

  I turn my face into him, and he kisses me, a gasping, aggressive kiss, a substitute for the word neither one of us is ready to say. When he lets me go, I tell him, “I know this isn’t supposed to happen so fast, but…” I bring his hand to my chest, like maybe he’ll sense the word right through my body. That pinch in my heart that can only be one thing.

  He doesn’t flinch. He doesn’t backpedal. “We’re falling in love with each other,” he whispers. “I’m not afraid of that.” Then he closes those gorgeous eyes and places that scratchy, rugged jaw to my shoulder.

  “You feel it, too?”

  “Penny.” He pushes into me a little more. “I couldn’t lie to you right now if I wanted to, and I promised you. No more bullshit. Only the truth.”

  He plunges into me deeply and stays there. “Let me feel you.”

  It doesn’t take focus, it doesn’t take any tricks. It just takes listening and agreeing. So damned simple, so damned easy. He wants what I want, and I want the same.

  With one more pinch of my nipple, he’s sending me tumbling down, and his growls tell me I’m pulling another orgasm out of him too. He isn’t even fucking me, there is no friction, but I know it from the way his breathing becomes more urgent, more desperate. I know it from the way his eyes slide shut and his eyebrows come together in a serious, hard-set line. I know I’ve got him right where he’s got me.

  His hand slides up my body, up my chest. To my throat. And that does it. “Russ. Oh God.”

  43

  Russ

  There’s something ringing. I blink hard at the clock. It’s 3:10 a.m., and she’s still tucked up in a ball, her back to my chest. I fell asleep inside her, and we haven’t moved a muscle since. It’s heaven, except for the sound of a ringtone marimba cutting through the quiet over and over again.

  For a second, I think we can wait it out. But it keeps on and on, and I know the ringing is going to fuck this all up. She’s sound asleep, and I’m not about to let anything disturb her. Carefully, I slip out of bed and head into the hallway, closing the bedroom door behind me.

  As suddenly as it started, the ringing stops. I scan the dark living room and see Guppy sitting on the couch, watching me.

  “Hey, man,” I whisper.

  He gives me a bored mouth adjustment and hurls himself onto the cushions.

  But then the ringing starts again. It’s coming from her purse, and the lit screen makes the top of her bag glow. I reach inside and grab the phone. I’m about to decline the call—who the fuck calls at this hour anyway?—when I see an old man’s smiling face, and underneath the caller’s name: GRANDPA

  At three a.m. You don’t have to be a PI to know this is a seriously bad sign. I could hustle back to her bed and wake her up, or I could make an executive decision. So I do.

  “Yeah?” I answer. “Penny Darling’s phone.”

  There’s a pause. “Sorry,” says a woman’s voice finally. “My name is Karen. I’m a nurse at Atlanta General Hospital. Is Miss Darling there?”

  I sink down onto the couch next to Guppy. Fucking fuck. The image of some nurse in an emergency room flashes into my head. Right on cue, I hear hospital noises in the background. The sound of a PA system. A rattling cart. Beeping from machines. The situation is pretty fucking clear: Something has happened to her grandpa, and it can’t be good.

  “Is he okay? Is he hurt? Is he…” I don’t even have the courage to say it. I don’t even know the guy, but in every photograph of the two of them together I feel the love she’s got for him. Every time she mentions him, she sparkles with the most intense, pure adoration.

  Behind me, a light comes on from the hallway, filling the room with shadows. “Everything okay?” Penny says, her voice sleepy and a little hoarse.

  There’s about a millisecond when I think I’m going to have to give her the worst news a person could get in the dark of the night, or any time of day at all.

  But then there’s a clatter and a bang, the rustling of someone grabbing the phone on the other end of the line. A new voice comes through the phone, saying, “Lucky Penny. I twisted my stupid ankle, and they insisted on calling my next of kin. I’m not dead, promise.”

  The relief hits me like a shot of Jack Daniels after a long day. I might never have met him, but because he matters to her, he matters to me. It’s that fucking simple. “This isn’t Penny. This is Russ.”

  “Oh, boy,” says her grandpa with a little embarrassment in his voice. “My apologies, Russ. Pleased to…speak to you, and sorry to…” The phone rustles, like he’s moving the mouthpiece. In a much louder voice he says, “…Go to all the trouble of disturbing you in the dark of the night for a sprained ankle! Isn’t that right, nurse?”

  Old man spunk. You can’t beat it.

  “No need to apologize. Penny’s right here,” I say, and hand over the phone.

  * * *

  She ends the call and says, “It’s a break, not a sprain. If I hop in the car now, I can be in Atlanta by morning.”

  Sprained or broken, she’s not standing by, and I don’t blame her. “I'll drive you.”

  She shakes her head. “You’ve got stuff to do here. They’re discharging him tomorrow, and then I can come back,” she says, “because we don’t have much time left together. I don’t want to lose a moment, but…”

  While she seems unsure, there’s not a single question in my mind. “Go, don’t give it a thought.” I might be counting the days with a lump in my heart, too, but life is life. It doesn’t stick to a schedule.

  “Okay,” she says, and puts her phone on the kitchen table. “I’ll just put a few things in a bag. But wait…we left my car at the restaurant. Shit.”

  “We’ll go get it right now.”

  “Right, good, okay. But also…” She grimaces. “Maisie is out of town. On her yearly pilgrimage to the Promised Land.”

  I've got to take a total shot in the dark on this one. “Miami?”

  Penny shakes her head. “IKEA.”

  At first, I’m not totally sure why it matters where Maisie is, until Penny glances toward the couch.

  Guppy.

  She looks from me to the dog and back again, like the idea is so ridiculous that she won’t even give it a full thought. “I’ll call my Uncle Tom. The guys at the brewery love him.”

  “At three a.m.?”

  She grimaces again, and puts her hand to her face. “Good point, and I can’t bring him to my mom and stepdad’s because he doesn’t get along with the goats.”

  She really is so cute when she gets wound up. But there no need for that, not when I’m here. I put a firm hand each of her shoulders. “I’ll take care of him.”

  She pulls her face away in surprise. “No need to be a hero, Russ. You’ve done enough for this country.” She places her hand to my tattoo. “You’ve already got your Bronze Star.”

  So cute. So unnecessary. “I’m serious. You go, I’ll stay. I’ve got this.”

  I can see all the thoughts spinning through her head, things like, Does he even know how to feed a dog? and What will happen when he tries to walk him? and Will they fit in bed together? But I’ve been in dicey situations before. I can handle a grumpy pony-sized dog with sheriff’s stars on his collar. No fucking doubt about that.

  “I’ve got this, Penny. You go. Guppy and I will be fine.”

  “I’m sure I can call doggie daycare. They can come pick him up if I just…”

  “Penny.” This time, I’m really stern. “Go. Do what you need to do. I’ll be here whenever you get back. Don’t worry about a thing.”

  She inhales hard, like she’s about to plunge into a pool, and then all at once hits me with a spray of buckshot warnings: “He detests plastic flamingos, he’s afraid of redheads, and he shouldn’t eat bananas unless you want to gas yourself to death.”

  “Noted.”

  “You have to feed him three times a day, and he likes a hardboiled egg with dinner
.”

  “Got it.”

  “Under no circumstances should you let him anywhere near the Chihuahua that lives down the street. Her name is Miss Muffet, and he has the hots for her in a totally inappropriate way.”

  “Penny.”

  “Every night at about 5:55, he starts to hump his bed. It’s really best if you don’t interrupt him. And he doesn’t like when you stare.”

  I pull her into my body so her bare skin presses against mine, until those tender nipples compress against my upper abs. “We’ll be fine.”

  The couch makes some crunching wicker noises as Guppy gets comfortable. He lowers his enormous head on the back of one of the cushions and stares at me. Careful what you wish for, man.

  But I can handle it. Totally.

  I can tell Penny isn’t convinced, though. So I pull out the big guns and reassure her with the most honest thing I can say, straight from Dickens himself. “We’ll get along like a house on fire. I’ve fucking got this.”

  * * *

  The next time I open my eyes, the sun is up, and there’s an enormous set of dripping jowls dangling over my face. Guppy has put his paws on the mattress and is staring down at me, like a doctor waiting for a patient to wake up from a concussion or an experimental anesthetic.

  “Hey,” I say, using my hand to block the sunshine streaming in.

  He lowers his nose, blinking those huge bloodshot eyes.

  “You good?”

  Blink.

  The dog is absolutely having thoughts. The cure for cancer, a solution to the crisis in the Middle East, a short but concise history of the liquid-fueled rocket engines. Big thoughts.

  I sit up and rub my face. As I do, I also give up the prime middle-of-the-bed real estate, which is clearly his preferred spot. He jumps up making the springs ping and groan, and noses his way under the covers until all that’s showing is his tail and one huge, bear-like foot. He digs into the fitted sheet with a sort of sporadic, furious scraaaaatch-scratch-scratch, followed by a sniff so hard it makes the top sheet suck tight against his huge muzzle.