One Good Thing

by Lily Maxton

  I was mortified. I wanted to go back to my apartment and curl up in a ball and nurse my misery in private. I pressed my hands to his chest and pushed myself off him, grabbing the edge of the sheet to hide my body as I scrambled away.

  “This isn’t going to work.” This time I bit down on my lip because I was afraid it might start trembling.

  “Dani?” he sat up, looking bemused. And sort of like a decadent pagan god, with his hair ruffled from my fingers and his erection leaping out from his body. His stupid erection. “You started thinking, didn’t you?”

  I glared. “I happen to have an active mind, so what?”

  “You weren’t thinking in the car.”

  “No.”

  “And everything was great.”

  “It’s your fault,” I said, pointing at him. “You nearly punctured my womb.”

  He frowned. “You mean I went too deep?”

  I nodded, miserable.

  “Why didn’t you tell me that?”

  “Well it’s … it’s not very conducive to the moment, is it?” I asked, repeating his words.

  “It is if I’m hurting you. You have to tell me if something doesn’t feel good.”

  My face was red, hot. “I don’t—” I swallowed. “The Twelve were probably all naturals.”

  “The Twelve,” he said with a slight grin.

  “I’m glad you’re having fun.”

  “I’d be having more fun if you weren’t standing on the other side of the room.”

  I breathed deep; the backs of my eyes stung. “I don’t think I can compete.”

  He rolled from the mattress to his feet, a graceful movement for someone as tall as he was. “I don’t know why you think it’s a competition. I don’t know why you think you have to be perfect either. We need time to learn each other.” His footsteps were muffled in the carpet as he moved closer. “How exactly did things work with you and your ex?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Did you talk to him about what you wanted?”

  I shook my head. “Not really. Sometimes it wasn’t great, but it was ok.”

  A notch formed between his eyebrows, one I wanted to smooth away with my fingertips. “Were you too embarrassed to tell him?”

  “That was part of it. But I didn’t want to hurt his feelings either.” I shrugged, the sheet slipping down one of my shoulders. Evan’s eyes traced the movement. “And I didn’t want him to think I was a bad lover.”

  “Why would he think that?”

  “I don’t know … it just seemed like it should have been more intuitive, like maybe there was something wrong with me that made me hard to please. I didn’t want him to think I was too much work.”

  Evan gazed up at the ceiling for a second. I would have thought he was asking for divine guidance, except he didn’t seem very religious.

  “That’s not how it’s going to be with us,” he said.

  I hugged the sheet more tightly around me. “It’s not?”

  “In the long run I’m not going to be able to please you any better than he did if you don’t tell me what you want. There’s no reason to be embarrassed around me, Dani, no reason to worry about every little thing.”

  My lips twitched. “Do you remember who you’re talking to?”

  The warmth of his palm rested on my bare shoulder, slid along the curve where shoulder met neck. “How could I forget?” And then he said, more seriously. “Can we try again?”

  I was already leaning into his touch. “I’d like to.”

  He lifted the sheet from my grasp, unraveling me until our bodies met once again, skin to skin. His head lowered, his hair brushing my throat as his lips touched my collarbone.

  He started to ask me questions, forcing me to tell him what I wanted. Did it feel good when he nipped my earlobe? Did I like it when he rolled my nipples in his fingers? When he licked them? When he sucked? Was there anywhere I was ticklish? What kind of motion felt the best when he had his hand between my legs—circular, downward, harder, softer?

  Just like he’d unraveled the sheet from around my shoulders, he unraveled me with his questions until there were no barriers between us. I was naked, in the truest sense of the word.

  And it was terrifying. But the onslaught was too great to withstand, his questions didn’t stop, nor did his touch. Even if I’d wanted to think, I was too distracted.

  He led me to the mattress and lay back as I straddled him again, but this time he didn’t guide me as I lowered myself onto him.

  It took me a few tries before I figured out what I wanted. He didn’t say anything as I experimented, simply watched me with eyes that looked almost black; only a thin line of color remained around the pupil.

  I leaned forward, supporting myself with one arm, my hand spread on the white of the sheet next to his head. I moved slowly, more diagonal than up and down. That small change made a world of difference. He couldn’t go quite as deep; the amount of pressure, the sensation of slow-heat and friction, was perfect. I moved against him, the muscles low in my abdomen clenching.

  “Better?” he asked, brushing my clit with his thumb, the way I’d told him I liked it.

  I sucked in a breath. “Not bad,” I responded, my voice strangled.

  His hand fisted in my hair; he pulled back, exposing my neck, sweeping it with his tongue.

  And for a long time, there was no talking, only our mingled breathing, and the sounds that seemed to erupt from my throat, cresting in volume and frequency as I pressed down harder, rode him faster. I knew I’d be crazy embarrassed later, but I couldn’t stop myself from vocalizing my pleasure.

  He lifted his head, capturing my nipple in his mouth as his thumb continued to work me; he bit down.

  My orgasm crashed like a wave dragging me under the surface; I trembled and moaned, burying my face in his neck, and he drew out the sensation with a few slow strokes as he wrapped his arms around me.

  It took me a long time to find my voice.

  “Did you …” I trailed off, embarrassed.

  “What?”

  “You know … finish.”

  “No.”

  I frowned against his skin; I tasted a hint of salt. “It wasn’t good for you?”

  He rolled me over, still joined, and pinned me.

  “No thinking,” he said.

  “But—”

  “I wanted you to come first. It’s very simple,” he teased. “No worrying required.”

  “I don’t like you,” I muttered.

  He grinned, knowing I didn’t mean it. “Do you like this?” he asked. He pulled his hips back until he’d nearly withdrawn, and then surged forward to slide all the way in.

  I arched my back off the bed. “I do like that,” I responded.

  He did it again. And again. Until I was writhing underneath him and my worry faded to the point where we connected.

  Chapter Fourteen

  I spent the night at Evan’s house without even meaning to. But after eating dinner and then making love again, I was exhausted. Wrung out, limp, but in a way that had me stretching out like a cat stealing a shaft of sunlight—utterly satisfied.

  Sometimes I had trouble sleeping at night. But my mind was blissfully blank after that evening with him—I slept better than I had in years.

  My first booty call had been quite the success.

  If the light flooding the room was any indication, I awoke late the next morning, curled up around Evan as tightly as a vine on a trellis. We were both naked. My head was against his shoulder, my leg flung over his waist, pinning him down. It was a little too intimate.

  I inched back, trying to extricate myself.

  His hand tightened on my knee. He cracked his eyelids open, a shimmer of blue.

  “How long have you been awake?” I asked softly, my pulse accelerating just from being so close to him.

  “Just a few minutes.”

  “You didn’t watch me sleep or anything did you?”

  “I’m not weird.”

/>   I stared at him.

  “Okay,” he relented. “I might have watched you sleep for a little bit, but it wasn’t anything stalkerish.”

  “I should go,” I said. “Alyssa will wonder where I am.”

  He lifted his eyebrows. “Can’t you send her a text?”

  I didn’t answer. I didn’t want to be pushed.

  “All right,” he acquiesced. “Do you want breakfast before you go?”

  My stomach growled—loudly enough for him to hear—as soon as he mentioned the word. It was my turn to acquiesce.

  “Pancakes?”

  “I thought you could only make scrambled eggs,” I said.

  “I’m a man of many talents,” he responded. “Actually, it’s a box mix; I just add water.”

  I smiled. “I’m so impressed.”

  Evan propped himself on his elbows, and his hands framed my face. He dropped a faint kiss on my lips. “I think I can find other ways to impress you.”

  He grinned—a mischievous, slow thing. He looked boyish and carefree, his hair a random mess from the exploration of my fingers.

  It was the complete opposite of how he’d appeared last night when he’d set foot in the kitchen and uttered my name. Then he’d looked worn, old, much older than twenty-eight.

  “Was everything okay at your parents’?”

  Evan’s smile faded. For a second I didn’t think he would answer. “It was fine.”

  I stared at him, frowning. “Are you—” I stopped. I’d been about to ask “Are you having problems with your family?” but it was too personal a question.

  It would be an investment in a relationship I didn’t want to have.

  I shrugged off his evasive answer. “Never mind.”

  He could evade me all he wanted—it didn’t matter. I crawled from the bed, aware of Evan’s eyes following me the whole way. Our clothes were strewn haphazardly on the floor; I crouched and sifted through them, my skin heating at his attention.

  “Stop watching me,” I muttered. “I’m not dressed.” I lifted my crumpled sweater and jeans in front of my nakedness as I stood.

  He was lying on top of the sheets, his arms crossed behind his head lackadaisically, unabashed by his own nudity and the way the daylight was much more glaring and revealing than artificial light. Of course, he’d been with thirteen women, so he was probably used to baring it all.

  “I like watching you. Particularly when you’re not dressed.” He flashed a wicked smile at me. “Anyway, I’ve already seen everything.”

  Everything. My hands tightened around my clothes. Good Lord, he had seen everything. And more miraculously, at the time I hadn’t cared.

  He tilted his head. “Come here.”

  “Why?” I asked suspiciously.

  “Because,” he said, changing his voice to sound like the cultivated, deep tones of Clark Gable, “you need to be fucked, and often, and by someone who knows how.”

  I pressed my knuckles to my lips as I started to laugh. “Oh wow. That’s really bad.”

  He grinned. “You know I’m liable to say all kinds of stupid things just to make you laugh. It’s the price you’re going to pay for your booty calls.”

  I cocked an eyebrow. “So my laughter is the payment for your services?”

  “Something like that.”

  My arms folded over my chest, still hugging the clothes against me. “What makes you think you’re good enough to get paid?”

  The look he sent me was pure male arrogance. “You whimpering my name over and over kind of lends to that impression.”

  I had whimpered his name. Especially the second time, when he’d tortured me with a series of quick shallow thrusts, refusing to go deeper for a long time even though I’d clawed at his back and uttered a stream of profanities. Totally embarrassing. But I tried not to show it.

  “I’m glad to see you’re making up for the confidence you lacked in high school. But I really think you’re overdoing it.”

  “Overdoing it?” he asked. “We’ll see about that.” He unfolded his long body from the bed and advanced on me.

  I was frozen to the floor, caught by the easy, graceful way he moved, by the sense of purpose evident in his stride.

  His arms wrapped around me; his mouth descended on mine. “I didn’t tell you,” he said, breathing my breath, “how much I love your dirty mouth.”

  I flushed from the roots of my hair to the tips of my toes. “That wasn’t like me. You … you were teasing me; it was frustrating—”

  “I had trouble falling asleep last night because I was imagining how it would feel to have that mouth on me.”

  His lips forged a gentle, tingling trail to my ear and along my jaw. I swayed against him, some voice in the back of my mind wondering why something that had seemed like an obligation with Drew caused a potent, consistent throbbing when I thought of doing it with Evan.

  And then I stopped thinking and slid to my knees in front of him.

  *

  An hour later, we replicated the scene from the previous morning; I sat at the kitchen island while I watched Evan cook. Of course we were eating pancakes instead of eggs, and by this time it was definitely closer to lunch than breakfast.

  I’d been forced to put on my clothes from the day before. Evan had changed into a fresh pair of gray sweatpants with a white T-shirt.

  “Will you be at the Christmas party?” I asked. A calendar with astronomy pictures—like stars exploding and shimmery nebula and faraway galaxies—hung on his kitchen wall. I hadn’t even realized we were a few days into December.

  The SLQ party was set for the middle of the month.

  “I don’t know,” he said. “Something always happens—it’s like the cursed Christmas party.”

  I laughed. “That sounds ominous.”

  “Last year a woman went into early labor. Her water broke all over the floor. The year before that one of the employees somehow found out that his wife was cheating on him, and they had a huge argument in front of everyone. The year before that a guy in management came out of the closet after like twenty years and announced his love for a coworker.”

  “Who knew there could be so much excitement at SLQ?”

  “Excitement? More like trauma. I’d personally rather not know other people’s darkest secrets, but it’s like they get drunk and just have to share. Except for the woman who went into labor—I’m hoping that wasn’t alcohol induced.” He glanced at me. “Do you think you’ll be there?”

  “I might.”

  “You’ll probably be one of the ones who ends up tipsy and dancing on a table, won’t you?”

  “Well you know how wild I am,” I said. “I might even swing from a few chandeliers. Give an impromptu lap dance to one of the owners.”

  “Or—and I like this idea best of all—we could have sex in the bathroom.”

  I fluttered my eyelashes at him and did my best southern accent. “Oh, Rhett, you do know how to romance a girl!”

  This time he was the one who burst into laughter. And I had to admit, there was something satisfying about it, something a little too addicting, like I might be tempted to say or do anything to make it happen again. I found myself grinning like an idiot in response to the sound.

  He set a plate down in front of me, still smiling faintly. “I know what you’re going to think when you bite into those pancakes, but no, Emeril Lagasse did not sneak into the kitchen to make your breakfast. It was all me.”

  “You’re silly,” I said, because I was feeling too light and giddy myself to think of anything with very much wit. And then I berated myself … did people even use the word “silly” anymore? I might as well have started the sentence with “Gee.”

  “Only for you,” he responded.

  He walked toward the living room and I heard a rustling. When he came back he dropped a plastic grocery bag on the countertop. “I almost forgot—I picked up some tea on my drive back yesterday.”

  I pulled it toward me, eyeing through the contents. “S
ome tea” was an understatement. He’d bought Earl Grey, English breakfast, Irish breakfast, green tea, mint tea, and even a couple of loose-leaf tins with a package of disposable teabags. It looked like he was a Viking raider who had been on a tea-pillaging mission. I lifted my eyebrows.

  “I might’ve gotten a little carried away, but I wanted to make sure you have what you want when you’re here.”

  “Thanks,” I said. My voice was nearly a whisper.

  It was incredibly sweet of him to have been thinking about me last night, enough to stop at a store and raid their tea aisle when he’d obviously been tired and upset. But I hadn’t asked him to be so considerate of me.

  It would be easier if he wasn’t.

  Chapter Fifteen

  “So it’s serious?”

  “No,” I said. I’d been watching TV when Alyssa returned to the apartment from a shopping excursion and promptly began questioning me. She didn’t even bother to put the bags away, just piled them on the living room floor along with her coat and scarf.

  “But you spent the night with him. You didn’t spend the night with Drew very often and you dated for a year.”

  I clicked off the television. “I was tired.”

  Alyssa grinned and shook her head. “You’re making exceptions for him.”

  “I am not.”

  She flopped down next to me on the sofa, crossing her legs. “So if he asked you to move in with him, would you?”

  “No!” But I did like his house. And the study was fantastic.

  “You hesitated. You’re thinking about it!”

  “He has an actual house; it was nice being there—you know, a lot of space, a yard, that kind of thing,” I admitted.

  “Would it have been as nice without him?”

  I could feel my cheeks heating, but I couldn’t stop it.

  “Uh-huh. You’re the queen of denial, Dani.”

  I rolled my eyes. “Are we back in the nineties? I think that’s the last time I heard that expression.”

  She ignored me. “You told me Drew’s new apartment was the size of a house and you never even considered moving in with him. Which I thought was kind of weird, since you’d been together so long.”

  “I wasn’t ready. You don’t just move in with someone because you’ve been together for a long time. And I’m not thinking about it with Evan either—I spent one night there.”