She smiled as he opened the car door for her. “As long as you remember how to drive and didn’t forget your appetite,” she said, the joke another sheer force of will when all she wanted to do was giggle like the idiot he called himself. It didn’t help when he got behind the wheel and stared at her in silence for a long moment, his expression one she’d seen him wear from time to time when they’d gone to college together, usually when he couldn’t quite figure out the answer to an exam they were taking.
“You weren’t kidding about going for fancy tonight,” he said finally.
“I never joke about fashion,” she deadpanned. “Or food.” “The second I believe,” he said, then laughed and threw the car into gear.
The restaurant was a five-star bistro run by some big-name chef, but if anyone had asked later what she’d ordered or how it tasted, she couldn’t have told them. She didn’t even remember what they talked about, as they soon fell into their customary banter despite not having seen each other for weeks. She did tell him she was banning kalendaryo comments for the evening, though. And when he tried to pay for dinner, she insisted on splitting the bill down the middle.
“It’s not like we’re on a date,” she said with that forced lightness.
As he drove her home, she felt that ache in her stomach expand, and she hoped he didn’t notice she was taking slow, deliberate breaths to help herself relax. As they approached her building, she asked, “Would you like to come up? It’s early yet, and I’ve got some wine in the fridge.” To her surprise, the line came out just as she’d practiced over and over again in her head.
“Sure,” he said, grin flashing. He parked the car and quickly climbed out so he could come around and open her door for her.
“My, aren’t we gentlemanly tonight?” she teased him, chuckling awkwardly.
“Tonight? I’m always a gentleman.”
“If you say so.”
He stopped to take off his suit jacket and toss it onto the backseat before escorting her up into her building. They both nodded to the doorman as they entered; Rico was enough of a fixture in her life that many of the building staff knew him by sight. They were silent in the elevator. She tried her best not to wonder what he was thinking and so mentally took herself through the steps she’d planned out for the evening. Step one: wine, for courage. Step two: proposition. Step three: seduction. Step four—she hadn’t really gotten to step four. She was pretty much hung up on step three and not entirely sure how, when, or if she’d get there.
The walk from the elevator to her apartment door seemed to take forever and yet no time at all. She dug through her clutch for her keys—evidently if there was anyone who could lose anything in a bag the size of a box of tissues, it was her.
Finally, she felt the cool metal against her fingertips and yanked them out, only to be mortified when they erupted from the minuscule depths of her bag, bringing a gold foil packet with them. She watched in horror as it fell to the floor with a faint slap that echoed loudly through her head. He bent automatically to pick up what had fallen, and she saw him freeze the moment he realized what it was.
After a second, or three, or a thousand, he bent the rest of the way, picked up the condom and handed it to her. Face on fire, she stuffed it into her clutch, fumbled the key into the lock and shoved the door open, letting him follow her in. She heard him close the door gently. Then the schhhthack of the deadbolt ricocheted like a gunshot through the small apartment.
She turned to face him, throat tight, chest even tighter. “Before you say anything, hear me out.” The words all but erupted from her mouth, hurried. She hoped he would listen, hoped she would say the right thing, hoped he would hear the truth she wasn’t sure, even now, she could admit to. And she hoped she could accomplish this before he could gather his obviously scattered wits into a thought or a question or a polite rejection. Or maybe even a sympathy sleepover, which would be infinitely worse. Mutely, he inclined his head. But for that movement, he could’ve been turned to stone, right inside her foyer.
“I don’t know what I was thinking. Or planning. Or imagining.” She stopped, then rushed on. “I just know I’ll be thirty-two tomorrow, and suddenly all the jokes about being off the calendar made me realize I’ve never held hands with a boy, much less been kissed. Much less”—she gestured to the bag she’d dropped on a table, the gold-wrapped item inside hidden from view but not from either of their thoughts—“that. And I wanted…”
And there the words strangled her. She cleared her throat. “I don’t know what I wanted.”
She found herself staring at the discarded clutch. She wondered if he would say anything. She wasn’t sure what would be better, less mortifying—if he did, or if he simply turned the lock, opened the door and left. She took a breath. Three. A thousand.
“Why me?”
There was something in his voice, something deep, not quite a growl, but as if he’d swallowed down something syrupy and thick, like molasses, and was trying to force out his words around it.
She met his gaze. Gave him her truth.
“I never thought of anyone else.”
The confession was impossibly hard to voice, but it flew from her lips with ridiculous ease.
She shut her eyes, only to have them fly open when she felt a featherlight brush of his fingers along her jawline. She found herself staring at the hollow of his throat, exposed by those two buttons he’d left undone. Then his fingers shifted to her chin and his grip firmed as he tilted her face up. For a moment she thought his eyes smiled, but then his face was close, so close to hers. As her mouth dropped open in surprise, his descended to claim it.
First kisses are meant to be sweet, and this was no exception. His lips were warm on hers, and it spread a feeling through her that was honey-gold and just as languid. She felt her body follow him when he eased back, met his gaze with her own heavy-lidded, surprised one. Licked her tingling lips to savor the taste of him. And that was all she had time to do before he bent to take them once more, this time nibbling his way up her jaw before molding his mouth with hers.
But this kiss was different; the feeling rushed through her system and carried an edge, like fine brandy. It left her intoxicated, with a fire inside her belly. Untutored though she was, she eagerly followed his lead in a dance of tongues that left her breathless. Her knees went weak, but he was holding her close, her body flush against his.
Their mouths fused as one kiss turned into three. A thousand. At some point, she must have unbuttoned his shirt, because her hands slipped under the fabric to trace the contours of his torso. He made a sound against her mouth, like a soft growl, and then she felt him reach behind her and draw the zipper of her dress down.
His hands stroked her bare back in a way that had her arching into his caresses, and his mouth left hers to trail hotly down her neck. One slightly calloused hand cupped her breast, abrading her skin and shooting lightning down to the core of her. Then he took her nipple into his mouth. The feel of him suckling her made her breath catch, and in an instant she knew she was drenched at the center with her yearning for his touch.
Her knees buckled under the onslaught, and she clung to him. He urged her a step back, and suddenly she was leaning against the wall just outside her open bedroom door.
“Let’s go inside,” she whispered, afraid that if they took more time she would wake to find it was all a dream.
Then her senses whirled as he picked her up and carried her through the doorway, his mouth pressed to hers as he walked. His muscles were corded, tense, but he set her down on the bed with deliberate gentleness before stepping back, his eyes dark as coal and streaked with ember passion as he took in the sight of her.
“Ric,” she breathed. “Come here.”
But all of a sudden, he grimaced. “Wait,” he said. “We should slow down. I didn’t mean for this to go this fast.”
Despite the heat that raged through her, she felt a sudden chill at his words. “You…” Her voice failed her, and she lick
ed her lips, bringing her arms up—whether to hug herself for comfort or cover herself from his gaze, she couldn’t be sure. “You don’t want me?” she choked.
“Ana.” Her name was both curse and benediction on his lips, filled with frustration, chiding, disbelief, wonder. And something else. Something that had her dropping her gaze and sucking in a breath because the emotion in his voice was so thick and raw she could almost reach out and touch it.
Then he was on her knees in front of her, her face cupped in his hands. He watched her for a silent moment, and the look on his face was something she hadn’t let herself dream about. “Ana,” he said again, “this, with you, is something I have wanted for a very, very long time. But I don’t want to rush you into something you’re not sure about.”
She stared at him for a minute, then her gaze caught on something behind him. It was the calendar on her wall, with a big red heart on the date of her birthday. She’d drawn it weeks ago, when she’d decided how she would spend this evening. When she’d decided to take a chance. Where she’d spelled out his name before filling it in with bright red marker. Her gaze tracked upward. Above it, the clock’s hands had almost aligned on midnight. Her birthday.
“Ana,” he said, taking her hands. She looked into his eyes and saw…something. The promise of everything. “I’ve waited a long time for you. I can wait a little longer.”
But Ana was done waiting.
This time it was her lips that found his, and she eased back to lie on the bed, pulling him along with her. She reached down, her fingers trailing over his stomach and then grasping at his belt. He ran a hand from her hip up the curve of her body, and the tiny shocks it set off went straight to her toes. By the time he cupped her breasts, she knew she was wet, and she shoved his slacks down, leaving him in a pair of slim black briefs.
He pulled back, stood, kicked off his shoes and his pants, and then drew her dress down her sides to reveal the lacy black thong she’d bought while thinking about him. Then he straightened, standing proudly nude before her.
She opened her mouth to say something, but he silenced it with his. As she arched her body up against his, she felt the hard length of him press against her belly. She let him ease the last bit of fabric that separated them down her legs, kicking her thong off. His fingers seemed to dance over the curls at the apex of her thighs in a whisper-soft motion, as if asking permission. She pressed up and into them, and he cupped her, his touch warm and solid, strange yet reassuring at the same time. And she wanted it so, so much.
She could feel how wet she was, and they were eye to eye, breath to breath. Both were utterly silent as he eased a finger into the depths of her. A stroke, two, then that finger was joined by another, and he worked them in and out of her as she fought to catch her breath.
“Please,” she whispered, knowing with her mind but not her body what she was asking for. The request ended on a hiss. In the next moment, he’d moved lower, his mouth closed over one nipple, tongue rolling the other with the same magic his fingers were working inside her. Her hands struggled to find purchase on the brightly colored bedspread under her. Then she reached up so she could plunge her fingers into his hair as his thumb rubbed circles around that tiny knot of sensation at the very corner of her.
Detonation.
She cried out his name, lost any sense of coherence beyond breathless mewling sounds as sensation stormed through her. He continued to play her body like an instrument, the magic in his movements sending electric spasms up and down her body so her toes curled and uncurled with the sensation. Then she was coming again, and she had to shut her eyes against the starburst that seemed to explode against her lids.
A moment. Three. A thousand. He’d pulled her into his arms, still hard against her, fingers drawing a trail of shivers up and down one arm. She looked into his face, and she kept her eyes on his as she reached for him, circling her hand around his length. He sucked in a breath, and his muscles corded.
“An—”
She cut him off with a kiss, then she was stroking his length in a way that had him growing even harder, if that was possible. Then she positioned herself above him.
“Wait,” he said, and eased her gently back onto the bed. In a flash he was out the door, but before she could protest, he was back, a familiar-looking gold-foil packet in one hand. He tore the wrapper and pulled out the condom, rolling it down his length with the ease of practice and an economy of movement.
Then he was beside her once more, and they were alone. “It’ll be easier for you if you’re on top,” he said, and she eagerly rose up to straddle him. He guided her so the tip of him was at her entrance, and she was still so wet that when she sank down, it slipped inside with no resistance.
She lowered herself on him a little more, as a tightness built inside her. Just when the discomfort shifted into pain, she felt his fingers at her curls once more, his thumb at that magic little button. His mouth took hers, and somehow the pain flashed then ebbed away. He was seated all the way within her, and it felt perfect.
He grasped her hips and guided her up, then eased her down, and she soon caught the rhythm, riding him while their tongues tangled and their sweat mingled. His fingers delved down once more and scaled up the intensity of sensation by a thousand. She flew apart as his hold around her tightened and he thrust once, twice, thrice, and found his own release.
A minute. Three. A thousand. She sprawled over him with part of him still inside her as he held her, one hand playing idly with her hair.
“Ana.”
She eased up and off him to lie beside him on the bed. “Mmm,” she murmured.
“You know I love you, right?”
“Mmm.” She turned her head and smirked when she saw the expression on his face. “I love you too.”
He grinned back at her, and then looked at the clock on the wall. “Hey,” he said. “It’s past midnight. Happy birthday.”
She followed the direction of his gaze, but instead of the clock, she found herself staring at the calendar. “Thank you,” she said, and smiled.
ANOTHER WAY TO START A FIRE
Kristy Harding
Gwynn sat on the floor in the middle of her one-room cabin. Her eyes rested lightly on a screen where an image of yellow and orange flames curled and stretched, merged and then parted to reveal the top of a low blue flame that burned hot and steady like a welder’s torch. The reveal of the blue flame was sudden and so short-lived that no one, unless he was searching for it as hard as Gwynn had been, would have seen it before the unsteady fire leapt up again as if someone had doused it with gasoline, burying the blue flame again. Gwynn swore at herself. How many times would it take before she learned not to get excited when she saw blue? She closed her eyes and massaged her temples, trying to avoid the sensors that rested there. Careful as she was, the movement of her fingers around the sensors disturbed them, and the screen filled with static.
It had taken her months of trolling medical suppliers to track down enough sensors, and days of nail-biting soldering to assemble her meditation rig. The meditation rig, an EEG machine, was in that moment translating her mental activity into the image of fire, a visual representation of her brain’s electrical currents.
Opening her eyes, she looked out the window, trying to figure out what time it was and if she could justify a break. Even though she’d just rented the cabin and started her practice in earnest a month ago, she was filled with urgency. She only had the place for the winter before she was back behind a desk writing code, a job she was grateful for because it allowed her to save up enough to disappear into the woods for three months but otherwise barely tolerated—a fact that separated her from the other programmers on her team, who practically dreamed in code. What she did there in the cabin, that’s who she really was, a techno-monastic on a quest to achieve the impossible: Inner peace? Nirvana? Control? Every day she meditated for hours, trying to see the blue flame that represented alpha waves. Zen waves, she called them, because they were unusua
lly present in the brains of monks after years of meditative practice.
There were no clocks in her cabin, and in the middle of the afternoon the light had the same foggy gray-filtered-through-pine-needles quality it had when she woke up. Most of the time she liked the timelessness of the forest in winter. She had chosen to practice here miles away from the nearest road under the sprawling cypress trees because the dull light, like the silence, worked on her with its steady sameness, and it was only under these conditions that she was able to calm her monkey mind enough to see the blue flame, though lately those moments of calm came less and less often.
There was a knock on the door, and the flames on the screen jumped and sparked. A fragment like burning ash rose on invisible currents and floated over the fire as Gwynn thought of the last person who’d knocked on that door.
A few weeks ago, a hiker named Emily had shown up red-nosed and shivering in a T-shirt. A foraging run had led her off the trail and out of the neighboring park. The sun would go down in a few hours. Her cell phone had died, and she had no idea where she was. Gwynn had been having a hard time meditating that day and hated strangers almost as much as she hated small talk, but there was something about Emily that kept her from pointing out the path and sending her away. Sure, she was sexy as hell. Even before she warmed up, she had the glow of someone in her natural element. It was easy for Gwynn to imagine her running through the forest like Artemis on her long legs, but there was a kindness about her, too, and a gentle toughness that Gwynn respected. It hadn’t surprised her at all when Emily said she was a physical therapist.
Gwynn had invited her in and made them a pot of tea and spent the entire time trying to figure out if Emily was attracted to her, too, or if she just listened so well to everyone. Unable to make a decision either way, she assumed Emily was just nice and said nothing, then was sad when Emily disappeared into the woods again with a canning jar of tea.
Best Women's Erotica of the Year, Volume 2 Page 9