‘Nope. Not today.’
‘Not today!’ I laughed at the absurdity of it. ‘What kind of man are you?’
‘One who’s very satisfied at the moment.’ He bent and dropped a kiss on my temple. On the TV someone was trying to sing a Steppenwolf song and butchering the bloody hell out of it. ‘That doesn’t happen every day, Merritt. Despite what steamy books and movies say. I like that we came together. I want to relish it.’
I sighed again, but it was only half dissatisfied. The other half was unadulterated pleasure. His hands in my hair had me feeling like I was made of pudding, or something equally unstable. ‘So what do you want to do?’
‘This. I want to do this.’
‘You want to play with my hair?’ I grinned, but made no move to stop him.
‘You have a brush?’
‘In the basket on the table next to you.’ I would have pointed for him but that would have required movement.
I heard the rustle of him digging and then he touched my shoulder, ‘Sit up, Miss Merritt.’
I sat, making a noise that was meant to express my displeasure. ‘No fair.’ My stomach rumbled and I blushed.
‘After this we’ll have to whip up a snack. How’s that? Or did you want me to leave?’ He didn’t sound as if it would upset him. But he did sound like he’d like to stay.
‘Would you stay?’ I asked, trying to remember the last time Eli had spent the night. The last night I slept in someone’s arms or with warm feet brushing mine accidentally under the sheets.
‘Of course. Now this.’ He pulled the brush through my hair like it was an erotic act in itself. His strokes long and gentle and he smoothed his hands over the locks as he brushed them. He brushed each section to its full length, so it curled just a bit under my shoulder blades. I raised my hand and felt my hair, that I normally wore wind-tossed and bedheaded. Smooth silken ribbons of hair laid under my hands.
‘Wow.’
‘Yeah, wow,’ Matthew said. He brushed my bangs back so the layers framed around my eyes and my cheekbones. The layers usually just went haywire and willy nilly and that was fine. Under his hand, they behaved, curled in seductively. ‘You look like a painting.’
Wow.
Matthew kissed me again. His full mouth coming down on mine, the kiss teasing me right back to the urgent need to be with him again. But I knew he wouldn’t do it. I could feel it.
‘And we can’t ...’
‘No, ma’am.’ He grinned and I could tell that part of his pleasure came in denying me.
‘Ever?’ I yelped.
‘Don’t be silly. A man would be insane to not want to be with you ever again. How ’bout if I feed you instead.’
‘Hmm, what will you feed me?’
‘Let’s go see what you have.’ I followed him into my own kitchen. When had I last cooked a meal in here? It had been for me and Eli. A while.
Matthew rummaged around and finally said, ‘I’m thinking bruschetta. You have nice bread that’s just the right amount of stale. Canned tomatoes, dried herbs, a bit of hard cheese, olive oil. We’re good.’
I was impressed. The way to my heart was my stomach and just a touch lower. If you could do both, you were golden. ‘What’s bruschetta mean anyway?’
Matthew laughed. ‘Toast.’
‘Ahhh, super smart am I.’
‘Hey now, no reason for you to know. They could just call it toast for goodness sake.’
‘But that wouldn’t sound as fancy.’
He sliced the bread into fancy little rounds and handed them over. ‘Pop them in the toaster oven for about three minutes and flip them for another three.’ I did as told while Matthew whipped up a topping.
The phone rang and I froze, that familiar deer-in-the-headlights feeling overtaking me. The base clicked and I hit the button to hear the message as it came in.
‘Girl, it’s me. Your mother is driving your brother insane again. He came over for me to do his highlights and she showed up. And tonight I’m filling in for a psychic friend on the line. Got a man who says he can hear his parakeet’s thoughts and the bird is plotting his assassination. And Jack is having a mini crisis of the am I really gayvariety. Don’t worry, lots of us go through it, but honey, he is high maintenance, did you know? And–’
I hit the mute button.
Matthew smiled at me. It was one of those wise, calm, Zen smiles. The kind of smile I doubt I’ll ever see in the mirror. ‘Why’d you do that?’
I stood on tiptoe and kissed him softly on the lips and then turned to attend to my toast. ‘I’m being compassionate to myself.’
‘Good for you. You deserve it. Now help me load up that toast! I’m starved.’
My stomach growled and grumbled. ‘Yeesh, as you can tell, much to my chagrin, so am I.’
His warm lips found the nape of my neck as his hands twined my freshly smoothed hair around and around like a rein. He kissed me there for a moment and then said, ‘I think we burned some calories.’
I turned and yelped, my hair still looped around his fist. ‘And we could–’
‘Merritt,’ Matthew said warningly.
‘Damn! Well, look at you, you can’t blame a girl for trying.’
We polished off a bottle of red wine and our fancy toast snack. Kissed and cuddled and I did my damndest to get him to have another go with me. As we watched a late night screening of The Princess Bride, an all-time favourite, I moved my head around his lap. The evidence of his arousal pressed to the side of my face, rested under my ear, trembled just a bit under the back of my head. It went through my mind to unzip his jeans and simply suck his cock until he couldn’t refuse me. But Matthew was on to me; he pushed his hand in my hair, his thumb finding the base of my skull, his pinky tickling at my temple. He touched me this way until my whole body seemed some ludicrous mix of intense arousal and supreme relaxation.
I was guessing Matthew liked hair a bit. Mine was long and normally a chaotic toss of waves and sleep crimps. I dozed off with my head in his lap and only woke when he was carrying me to bed. He stripped my jeans off, left me in my panties and tee and climbed into the bed with me. His arms fixed around me and he spooned up behind me, his cock still hard but comforting as I drifted back down into sleep.
Morning was another story. Morning came and when I opened my eyes, I saw a swaying hump of movement under the sheets. Fingers hooked in my panties and pulled. I almost protested that no! I had to pee! I had to brush my teeth! But then his mouth came down on me and my body filed all that away for later. He licked and sucked my clit until I danced under him like the bed was hot and burning my back.
Matthew pushed a finger into me, testing me, pressing my g-spot and high up in my cunt so that the echo of the urge to pee came back. It only served to heighten the feeling that I would come in the blink of an eye. His lips came back down again and he sucked my hard, little clit so that I yelped but I was coming before I could focus on that sweet rush of goodness. I moved faster under him, his fingers still in me so I felt like his puppet. Impaled on his perfect fingers, slave to his talented tongue.
I heard the rip of a condom wrapper and thought about joking that he must have been a Boy Scout as he was always prepared, But then I felt the hard length of his cock brush my thigh as he rolled on the rubber and all jokes deserted me. I arched up and spread wide, brandishing my pussy for his use.
But he flipped me, easy and sure like I was a toy. I came up on my knees for him and Matthew rose up from under the covers, throwing them off. Reminding me of some mythical god emerging from the ocean and tossing off the waves like an old coat. He wound my hair, now bed head central, around his hand and pressed the head of his cock to my wet slit. ‘Ready for another round now?’ he laughed.
I nodded though he had me caught up. I couldn’t really talk. The words, the breath – it had all died in my throat, smothered by my urgent need for him. I bore back to make him move and he did. Thrusting into me gently at first. His hands in my hair not as gentle, but his cock
moving into me with a slow ease so that I could take him all. When I had, when I groaned and moved, he started to fuck me. His free hand pressed to my lower back in a claiming gesture that made me that much closer to coming again.
He feathered his fingers along my lower spine and my nipples pebbled and I rubbed them to the pillow crushed under me. I reached down to touch my still thumping clit and the pressure of needing the bathroom added to it all. Added to the intense crush of physical sensation.
Matthew yanked and thrust, nearly in tandem but not quite. Keeping me off balance and immersed in the intense second sexual encounter. ‘I’m not much more good,’ he said gruffly. ‘I went to bed wanting you, woke up wanting you. Hell, I dreamed about fucking you. So I was past ready a half hour before you woke up.’
‘Come,’ I said.
‘Come with me,’ he countered.
He liked that rush. So had I. It was immensely satisfying to share the flood of sweet pressure of orgasm with another person. My slick fingers flew over my clit and I pushed back to help him hit that prime spot in my cunt. ‘OK. You say when.’ Even I heard the smile in my voice.
He chuckled darkly, boring down on my lower back like a king claiming his right and said, ‘When.’
His body all pounding sex and kinetic energy, he groaned deeply and I was coming again with him. Wetly spasming around his cock as he released my curtain of hair and grabbed my hips to hold me still so he could empty into me and feel me tremble.
‘I like that shudder that goes through you when you come,’ he said softly, kissing me between the shoulder blades.
‘Me too,’ I admitted. Then I bolted for the bathroom and tempted Matthew to shower with me. Hot soapy water, kissing, touching, followed by good dark roast coffee and more kisses.
Chapter Twenty
I POPPED INTO JEFFREY’S when Matthew went to check on his shack. It made me laugh. My current suitor runs a shack.
‘Oh, there she is. Where was you last night?’
‘Grammar,’ I said, pushing past him. But he blocked me.
‘Sorry. Where were you last night?’
‘Let me in.’ I eyed him up. He had no hair to muss but his face had that easy relaxed non-kinetic look of a recently laid Jeffrey. And his eyes were sleepy and there were – now that I listened – furtive movements inside his tiny apartment.
‘I’m um ... otherwise engaged.’ He toed the brass threshold and waited. ‘How about I call you and–’
‘Wait, wait, wait!’ I said, something in my body humming with suspicion. ‘You get laid you crow like a mad man. How big he was, how good he was, how long, how deep, how many! But now, no. You are not telling me anything. So either, it was bad or ...’ I gasped. ‘Or you don’t want me to know who it is!’
‘Merritt–’
‘Merritt my ass, who is it?’ I knew. I knew deep down before I even faked him out. But fake him out, I did. I faked left and he bobbed to keep up with me. Jesus. He fell for that shit every time. When he moved I slipped under his arm on the gap at his right and darted into the dark interior of his lair.
I rounded the breakfast bar and collided with my sleep-tousled brother. ‘Jack! What the fuck?’ I threw my head back and stomped my foot and yes, I did see that I was having a temper tantrum. But I couldn’t quite control it.
‘Merritt,’ my brother said, putting his hand on my arm.
‘Do not Merritt me!’ I spun at Jeffrey and shook my finger at him like he was a bad dog instead of my very best friend. ‘How could you? How? You promised me. You did. And now ...’ I threw my arms up, tears clouding my vision.
‘Why is it so bad?’ Jack asked. Instead of bravado and yelling and bellowing like a bear, which is how my brother usually behaves, he sat on a bar stool and put his head in his hands. ‘What is the big deal?’
I froze. My mouth opening and closing. ‘Because,’ I finished weakly.
‘Because it’s all about you?’ Jeffrey said.
‘No, of course not! I’m not that way.’ And I wasn’t. Was I? Hadn’t Matthew just been telling me I was too compassionate to everyone but me? But was restricting Jeffrey and Jack my right or in any way beneficial to me. ‘I mean I’m ...’
‘Girl, you have had a shitter of a shock in your life.’ Jeffrey moved past me calmly. He pulled his bright blue kimono tight around his buff upper body and poured out three cups of fresh coffee. The small apartment was done in bright colours and rich fabrics with pretty baubles and eclectic art everywhere you looked. It was both energizing and calming all at once. ‘But you can’t control us because you had no control over your man and his wiener whacking.’
I burbled out a whoop of surprised laughter. ‘Jeffrey! It’s just ... Drake and then Jack came out. And I was behind him!’
‘I know it,’ my brother chimed in.
‘And the mother, dear goodness, mother. And the cage! Men. All of them nice and different. All of them with their little kinks.’
Jack covered his ears. ‘Lalalala! You are my sister, remember?’
‘Hey! You schtupped my best friend! You man up, Jack!’
He put his hands down and Jeffrey laughed behind his hand like a young girl. ‘Go on.’
‘The one I really really liked up and left for his ex. And now this new one is fabulous but I’m not sure. I’m not sure of anything anymore! And I don’t want to be sure about the men. I want to stick to the plan,’ I said to Jeffrey.
‘Plan?’ Jack asked, sipping his steaming coffee. He drank it black. Bleh.
‘Twelve months, twelve men. No strings. Fun and fucking. A buffet of hunks, if you will.’ Jeffrey said.
‘Twelve men! In a year? Merritt, holy moly, don’t tell Mom.’
‘I know. Shit. There is no cage that could hold that.’
Jack snorted and I giggled. ‘So now to me and the man,’ Jack said and I shit you not, I think that Jeffrey blushed. ‘What’s the big thing?’
I sat down next to Jack, suddenly weary. Jeffrey, the domestic goddess (on occasion) started whipping eggs in a bowl and set a pat of butter in a frying pan to melt. ‘Before all this Drake was my husband. Mom was nosy but normal. You were just Jack who had trouble meeting girls and Jeffrey was ... well, hell ... just as he is now. And that was my world. I loved you all and you all had your little niches in my life. Now everything is bleeding all together and I have these men who all make me feel so good in so many ways but none of them hit all the things I need. So I can’t help but wonder, is it them ... or is it me?’
Jeffrey turned, stirring his eggs without even looking. ‘Yes,’ he said.
‘Yes?’
‘Yes. It’s D: all of the above. They are not perfect, you are not perfect. Your brother is gay, girl, I proved that to him last night–’
‘Lalalalala!’ I yelled this time.
Jack blushed and dropped his head and Jeffrey grinned like the Cheshire Cat. ‘Your mother is adjusting. Your ex is ... confused? Crazy? The verdict is still out. You find something you need in each of these guys but not everything. And ...’ He turned and started to plate the eggs.
‘And?!’
‘And you need to be patient. With your life. With your heart. With yourself, Miss Merritt. I know you suck at it, but you must cut yourself some slack and just wait.’
Wait? Wait was the worse word in the world to me. ‘Um ...’
‘You heard me. You have to wait. Your life will work out. You just need to put your hands up and enjoy the rollercoaster ride a bit. Because white-knuckling it is not working.’
‘Merritt?’
‘Yeah?’
‘When I say, God I want him, who pops into your head?’
Pop! There he was. A big, tall, dark smouldering hunk of man. And I was shocked. Penn Fratila. I looked right at my brother and lied my ass off. ‘No one.’
‘Then you’re not ready,’ he said. ‘Keep having fun.’
‘OK,’ I whispered.
‘Breakfast is served, darlings,’ Jeffrey said and presented us with cheesy egg
s, some sliced fruit and toast.
‘When did you make toast? I didn’t see you make toast,’ I said scarfing my breakfast like I hadn’t had cereal and coffee with Matthew at home.
‘I’m faster than the human eye,’ Jeffrey said with a flourish. ‘I have talented hands.’
‘I’ll say,’ Jack said between bites.
I dropped my fork and clamped my hands over my ears. ‘Lalalalala!’
‘Ready?’ I asked Michelle.
She looked like I was taking her before a firing squad instead of into her own recently cleaned out walk-in closet. ‘Yes. Thank you, Merritt, thank you,’ she said.
‘Don’t thank me yet. You might hate it.’
‘Is it shoved to the ceiling with stuff?’
‘No,’ I laughed.
‘Then I’ll love it.’
I took her hand and squeezed and together we pulled back the accordion door. ‘Tada,’ I said, trying to lighten the tension.
She gasped, covered her mouth and started to cry. I tried not to panic. This was not my first hoarder and I knew that usually the tears were relief. Only a handful of times had they been grief for lost stuff. ‘It’s beautiful,’ she managed, despite a heavy rush of more tears. Michelle, a big woman with long black hair, scooped me into her ample embrace and squeezed. I had to laugh, though I had hardly enough air.
‘I’m glad you like it. Now let me give you a tour.’
We hugged for one more squeeze and then I showed her. ‘Shoes in the shoe boxes. How many do you see?’
‘A dozen.’
‘Right, so if you find a killer pair of shoes and it brings your total to thirteen then ...’
‘I have to ditch or donate a pair to bring the total back to a dozen.’
‘A difficult feat for any shoe-loving girl,’ I joked so she wouldn’t feel singled out. ‘I have to make myself fork over old pairs I haven’t worn for a while when I get new ones.’ I reached in my pocket and handed her a card for the local women’s shelter. ‘I donate them here. It’s a shelter for abused women and their kids. They also have a job programme to try and help the women start over and gain independence. So you can feel good about donating. Someone who really needs your shoes will get them.’
Calendar Girl - An erotic novel (Xcite Erotic Romance Novels) Page 14