“This is insane.” I leaned down to unzip the protective cover over the chaise. I pulled it off, and Penny, wrapped in the blanket like a greedy traitor, dove onto the cushions.
“Could I get in there?” I asked, tugging at a corner of the duvet.
“This is way colder than I expected,” she admitted as we arranged ourselves on the chaise. I leaned back, and she lay between my legs, her head pillowed by my chest.
“I think I mentioned the cold once or twice.” I lifted a few strands of her hair and let them fall.
“It’ll get warm under here soon.” She pulled the blanket over her shoulder.
“For you.” I waved my arms about. “I’m basically just wearing fluffy down trousers.”
“Ooh, I didn’t think of that,” she said, tapping a fingernail against her teeth. “You know what? I can just pull the blanket over my head—”
She disappeared beneath the duvet, pushing it up my chest. Her voice drifted up in a muffled, “There, that’s better, isn’t it?”
Suffocating her was supposed to be better? “Not really, no.”
I felt a tug at my zipper, and her hand slipped into my trousers.
“How about now?”
Her fingers closed around me, and I said, “Well, that is a little better, now that you mention it.”
Not being able to see what she was doing under the blanket was almost as thrilling as the fact that we were nearly in public. Granted, not as public as some venues I’d gotten adventurous in with partners, and it seemed unlikely to me anyone would bother spying on us out here, but there was a naughty flavor, doing it outside. My cock stiffened under the slow, steady stroking of her hand. A soft, warm breath passed across the head of me, then her lips, slick with saliva, brushed back and forth over me. I lifted up in unconscious reflex, and her laugh vibrated against me.
She drew my foreskin up, covering the head completely, and licked around the outside before slipping her tongue in to glide in a lazy swirl.
“Jesus!” I clenched my hands to fists while she took me into her mouth fully, sliding me to the back of her throat. She choked, sending a cascade of saliva down my shaft, then drew back up, pushing my foreskin up with her fist and dragging it with her lips. Then she slid down and did the same thing, again, gagging herself a bit with each repetition. I wasn’t sure what she got out of that particular move, but the sound stroked my ego like her hand stroked my cock.
I tipped my head back and let her go, kneading the sides of the cushion beneath us as she slowly bobbed her head and swirled her tongue, tugging me with one hand as she did. Fuck me, but she was fantastic at giving head. There had been some trial and error the first few times—and I’d been more than happy to help her experiment—but she was a quick learner.
And speaking of quick, when she pulled me from her mouth and slid her lips down the underside of my shaft, I gritted my teeth and counted to ten. I didn’t know what the fuck was wrong with me these days. I’d had greater stamina when I was seventeen. With Penny, a simple touch could boost me to the edge; a deliberate assault, like the one she carried out now, made any attempt at slowing down futile.
I reached beneath the duvet to put a hand on her head. “Why don’t you come back up here before I embarrass myself?”
“Why should you be embarrassed?” she asked from the depths of the blanket, but she released me and rustled her way up. “You always say that. Trust me, I would be so pleased to make you come too soon.”
“You’d be pleased? How would I fuck you?” I leaned up to bracket her ribcage with my hands. Her legs slipped around me, and the totally bare curve of her bottom rested on my thighs as she straddled me. My eyes widened in surprise. “You had panties on when we left the house, didn’t you?”
Her jaw dropped. “Of course I did!”
That was a relief, although there would have been something sexy about her going to mass without underwear on. Ah, now, I’m going to have to do penance for that thought, too.
She reached behind her and came up with a tiny pink pair of panties for proof. I took them from her and held them to my nose as she squealed and covered her face. “Oh my God, that’s so gross!”
“Not at all. You’re one of my favorite smells.” My breath caught as she ground against me. She was hot and wet, and it would be far too easy to slide into her. “We have to go back inside for that. I didn’t come prepared.”
“Oh, just this once? Just for a little bit?” she pleaded.
It’s a bad idea.
She caught her bottom lip between her teeth and rocked her hips. “Just to know what it feels like.”
You could always pull out.
It had been a long time since I’d tried that trick. I hoped it was like riding a bicycle. “Just as long as you’re aware that this could have potentially unintended consequences, up to and including—”
“I had health class, Ian.” She rolled her eyes. “You could always just pull out.”
I told you.
“Well, here’s hoping,” I said grimly. Was I supposed to be the responsible one here, since I was the most experienced? Oh God, she’s so wet.
I lifted her up, and she reached between us to adjust our alignment. There was an unpleasant friction, for just a moment, then she took me in fully, and we both groaned.
She lifted up, her eyes going wide before they squeezed shut, and she rolled her hips. “Fuck condoms.”
“Hey, they have their place.” Not necessarily with fully monogamous couples who didn’t care to use them, but I felt like I had to defend my old friend, the prophylactic. “I’ve had some very good times that wouldn’t have been possible without them.”
She laughed, breathless. “Shut up and just let me feel this.”
That, I could certainly do. In fact, I couldn’t do much more. Every ripple and clench that had been muted by polyurethane before hit my raw nerve endings like a full-out assault. She rose and fell on her knees, her eyelids fluttering on every upward stroke. I wished she were naked, so I could run my hand up her chest, between her breasts, to pull her down by the back of her neck. I couldn’t do the first bit, but I did sink my hand into the hair at her nape and pull her firmly down to my lips. Bent forward as she was, she had little choice other than to balance above me and let me thrust up, doing the work for both of us.
She pulled her mouth free. “Get my zipper.”
“You’ll freeze to death.” I nipped at her earlobe.
She squirmed her head away. “I don’t care. I’m burning up.”
That she was. A slight sheen stood out on her brow and across the bridge of her nose, and her skin flushed hot and pink. I found her zipper and pulled it down, and she wriggled free of the garment, tossing it aside. For a terrifying second, it caught a draft of cold wind, and though it didn’t come close to floating over the rail, we both shocked still until the dress hit the floor. She unfastened her bra from the front and let it slip from her shoulders, and I pulled the duvet around her before we began moving together, again.
She reached between us. “That!” she shouted, slapping my chest. “Don’t stop doing that!”
I didn’t know exactly what she was referring to, so I didn’t dare deviate from my current stroke. She sat up straighter, the duvet falling from her shoulders. Leaning back to support herself on one hand, she rubbed her clit with her fingertips, her entire body perfectly bare and exposed right there on the rooftop. Snowflakes still wafted over us on the wind; they caught in her hair and disappeared within a blink. They melted before they could settle on her skin, hot despite the goose bumps that stood out on it.
She gave no indication that she was shy about being caught here. Even if someone didn’t see, it seemed impossible that the neighbors downstairs—or in the building across the street, or all of Manhattan—wouldn’t overhear her sharply ascending cries.
Not that I could help my own noises. But they were grunts of concentration, a mantra of don’t come, don’t come, don’t come repeating under every breat
h. Her muscles fluttered around me, and my bollocks drew up. I wanted to be inside of her when she came, but I certainly didn’t want to be inside her when I did. With a noise that could only be described as the sonic equivalent of distress and disappointment, I lifted her off me then urged her back down, to rub her clit along the length of me. She’d been close, and just a few glides back and forth brought her over. Her cunt made sucking wet kisses against the underside of my shaft as she moaned in relief. I grabbed her hips and kept them moving, just two strokes behind her. I pulled my shirt and undershirt up, tipped my head back, and groaned as I came, her slippery cunt still slicking over me.
She collapsed on me, smearing our fluids between us. “I know,” she said with a tired laugh. “I thought about it, but I’m too tired to stay up.”
I pulled my shirts over my head and balled up my undershirt to use as a rag when she was finally able to move. Or I was. My heart pounded like I’d run up six flights of stairs, and the pulse was strongest in my cock, mercilessly sensitive and trapped between us. I dreaded moving, and prayed she wouldn’t. I closed my eyes and took calming breaths. Meditation was good for something, after all: keeping yourself from crying when something is touching your post-orgasmic cock.
“I can’t believe we just did that on the roof,” she mumbled against my neck.
I opened my eyes. “We’re on the roof?”
She gave me a little push. “By the way, that feels really good. Can we do that all the time?”
“If you don’t mind using an alternate method of birth control.” I wanted to have kids with her. I just didn’t want to have them next summer.
“Okay. I’ll look into it. And as soon as I have something, we’re doing it this way every time.”
“Can we change the venue to somewhere warmer next time?”
She lifted her head from my shoulder, her hand fumbling between us. I sucked in a breath as she cupped me. “See? They didn’t freeze off.”
I gave her ass a little slap, and she squealed. She sat up, and we hurriedly cleaned off with my shirt. Now that we weren’t lost in a haze of sensory poetry, the temperature was far more evident than before. We retrieved our clothes and hurried to the elevator, wrapping up together in the duvet as we rode down.
As we reached the third floor, Penny asked, “Do we still have any of that ice cream from the other night?”
“I think so.”
She grinned and hit the button for the lowest level.
In comparison to the roof, the apartment was like a tropical paradise. We went to the kitchen in the all together; the refrigerator was seeing a lot of nudity these days.
“Why is everything salted caramel, all of a sudden? I just got used to everything being blueberry pomegranate acai,” I complained as I retrieved the ice cream. A gentleman always opens the freezer to spare a topless lady the unpleasantness of the chore.
“Brace yourself, peppermint is coming,” she warned. “Every October, like clockwork, pumpkin comes in. The day after Thanksgiving, everything is mint. Which is just about the most disgusting flavor I can think of.”
“I rather like mint, myself,” I said, peeling back the lid of the carton.
“Oh, well, true love totally called off.” She grabbed two spoons from the drawer and leaned over the edge of the counter, so we each stood on one side.
“Don’t you want to go sit down?” I nodded toward the dining table.
She shook her head. “Uh, no. I really don’t feel like leaving a slime spot on your chairs.”
“It is not slime.” I hated that so many women were ashamed of their bodies and their natural functions. “It’s proof that you just had an incredible time, and I’d like to think I had a little something to do with that.”
“Oh, you had a lot to do with that.” She snagged the carton from my hand and took the first bite, moaning in appreciation. “You were so sexy today.”
“I thought I looked like an undertaker.” I dueled with her spoon to get to the ice cream.
“It wasn’t that. It was seeing you at church, how much you really believe in all of it. That was sexy.”
And baffling. “Why is that sexy?”
“I don’t know.” She shrugged and dug into another spoonful of ice cream. “Having faith in something makes you vulnerable. Vulnerability in a man is hot.”
While I appreciated being considered hot, the first part of her statement bothered me. “Why does believing in something make a person vulnerable?”
“Because if you believe in something, you can be let down. Like, okay, look at me and Brad. I thought we were really going to be together forever. I believed that would happen. And when it ended, I was destroyed. I made myself vulnerable to that hurt through my faith that everything would turn out all right.”
“But you just told me, not a full two hours ago, that you believe we’ll turn out all right,” I reminded her.
“Yeah, but we’ve had signs. The fortune cookies. They never lie.” She made a face. “I suppose believing in superstitions is also a form of faith. Maybe I really am setting myself up for disappointment down the road.”
“Never. Not with me.” I pulled the carton toward me and took a bite of ice cream, myself. I swallowed and said, “All humans are vulnerable, emotionally. We pretend we have control over it, but we truly don’t.”
She laughed. “Well, let me believe, okay?”
Silence settled between us comfortably as we stood naked in my kitchen, and in the moment, it wasn’t difficult to believe along with her.
* * * *
Tuesday afternoon, I got a call I had been dreading.
“Ian!” Carrie’s voice enthused over the line. “Carrie Glynn. Is this a bad time?”
Yes. No time was a good time to discuss the resort project, because I hadn’t made up my mind, yet, and I was painfully aware that the clock was ticking. “Not at all. What can I do for you?”
“Well, I know this is short notice, but I’m in New York, and I have time to meet this evening. Are you free?” she asked.
“Yeah, I’m free.” I grimaced. I wasn’t exactly free. I’d told Penny I would be calling her, with the possibility of grabbing some dinner. But we hadn’t made a firm commitment, and she would understand that plans sometimes changed for work. She was one of the hardest working people I knew.
“Great. Would you like to have dinner, keep it light and informal?” she asked cautiously.
“This is a job interview, isn’t it?” I asked, half a smile creeping across my face.
“If you wanted to brainstorm some ideas, I wouldn’t be opposed.” She laughed. “Eight o’clock all right?”
“Sure. Just send my secretary the information.” Or, more aptly, have her secretary send me the information. Carrie was a bigger fish than I was.
“Sure thing. I’m looking forward to seeing you and catching up,” she said.
After we hung up, I called Penny. It went to voicemail, as it frequently did during her workday. “Hey, Doll. I won’t be able to get together tonight. I’ve got a work dinner to go to. I’ll give you a call after, if it’s not too late. I love you.”
Between work and dinner, I had no time to go home and change. Penny had called me back, but I’d been in a meeting, and when I tried to get her from the cab, she wasn’t answering. All I wanted was to hear her voice, just for one second. Not being able to reach her was agony.
Maybe this is a sign, you idiot. If I couldn’t stand to speak to her for one day, how would I survive being separated from her for eighteen months?
But how could I turn down a project with a great potential payday for the firm? I made good money, but the people who worked under me depended on the company. It would be irresponsible to throw away the chance to secure their futures, too.
Calm down, a more rational part of my brain interrupted. You don’t have the job, yet.
The restaurant Carrie and I had worked out was a sushi restaurant in Midtown, upscale casual, the perfect place to muddy the waters betwee
n friendly business meal and formal business meeting. When I arrived, she was seated at the bar. She stood and gave a wave.
“Ian Pratchett. You look exactly as I remember,” she lied through her teeth.
She, on the other hand, looked better than I remembered. Her blond hair was styled in careful waves, and her face was smooth and tight, like she’d never been in the sun a day since the 80’s. Which was a ridiculous assumption, considering her golden tan. She’d obviously had some work done, but the results were excellent.
“You’re a rotten liar, Carrie. But you look amazing. Spain agrees with you.”
“Thank you.” She didn’t try to demure. She was just as confident as I remembered.
Carrie had reserved a table, so the hostess seated us, right away. She didn’t waste any time launching into small talk. “So, how’s Gena?”
“I hope she’s very well,” I answered honestly. “But I wouldn’t know. She and I divorced earlier this year.”
“Oh no.” Carrie’s face crumpled in embarrassment. “I had no idea. Burt didn’t mention—”
“It’s fine.” I waved a hand and picked up a menu. “It was for the better. We grew apart in terms of our goals for the future. But I have a fantastic girlfriend now, and we’re very happy.”
“That’s wonderful.” Carrie picked up her menu. “If she has a brother, send him to see me.”
Carrie had separated from her husband, Chris, five years ago. I wasn’t sure if they were officially divorced or what the situation was, but I didn’t want to pry.
“And how are your kids? They’re not kids anymore, are they?” I glanced over the menu, though I usually ordered the same thing at sushi restaurants, no matter where I ate: tuna sashimi and a dragon roll.
“They’re great. Jackson just graduated from Harvard; I’m actually flying down to Boston to meet him in the morning. Angela is in New Zealand, working on a ranch. It started out as backpacking, but now she wants to stay in the shire.” Carrie sighed. “The best I’m hoping for is that she doesn’t come back pregnant.”
First Time: Ian's Story (First Time (Ian) Book 1) Page 22