* * *
Simon: I can’t get enough of touching you. Of kissing you. Of tasting you. When I close my eyes, I swear you’re with me. I can smell you. It’s intoxicating.
* * *
Abby: You should know it’s the same for me. Those twenty minutes in your kitchen are on repeat in my head. Like I DVR’d them and keep hitting replay.
* * *
I crack up at her description.
* * *
Simon: I want access to your DVR. I’d like to binge watch that show.
* * *
Abby: What are you doing right now?
* * *
Simon: Lying in bed, in my T-shirt and boxers, texting you. You?
* * *
Abby: Lying in bed, in a tank top and panties, texting you.
* * *
I groan at the image. My dick hardens even more, and I skim my hand lightly over my erection.
* * *
Simon: If I were there, I wouldn’t be able to keep my hands off you. But I think we’ve established I’m terrible at resisting you.
* * *
Abby: I’m terrible at making you stop. Because it feels so good when you don’t stop. I’m shuddering as I remember what you did to me.
* * *
I breathe out hard, recalling her sounds, her whimpers, and her noises.
* * *
Simon: I’m thinking of it now, too. Loved every second of everything. I want to do it all again.
* * *
Abby: I want it, too, but didn’t we say it was bad? (Well, good but bad!)
* * *
Simon: I should know, but I lose all sense of reason when I’m near you.
* * *
Abby: I felt like you were lost in me tonight when I touched you. And I loved that.
* * *
Simon: God, I was. I’m wishing you were here.
* * *
Abby: What would you do?
* * *
Simon: Kiss you again. Take you to my bed. Undress you. Is that too much?
* * *
Abby: I want that. I want all of that. It’s not too much. Right now, it feels like it’s not enough.
* * *
Simon: You feel incredible in my arms. But you have to know there’s so much more to this for me. It’s so much deeper.
* * *
Abby: I know . . . Trust me . . . I know . . . It’s the same for me.
* * *
Simon: But that’s the hardest thing . . . I feel so much for you, and when I see you, I want to take you in my arms. I don’t know how to be in the same room with you and NOT want to touch you.
* * *
Abby: That is indeed THE HARDEST THING. :)
* * *
Simon: Ha! Walked right into that one.
* * *
Abby: You sure did. But the issue remains. Should we try to stop? To prove we can or something? Like the feats of strength from George’s Festivus on Seinfeld? And if you don’t know that episode, I don’t know that we should even talk again. :)
* * *
Simon: As if I don’t know about a Festivus for the rest of us.
* * *
Abby: Good. Keep talking . . .
* * *
Simon: But how do you know Festivus? The show ended when you were…wait, don’t even tell me how young you were when it ended.
* * *
Abby: Please. I WAS EIGHT WHEN IT ENDED, WHICH MEANS YOU WERE SIXTEEN, AND THAT IS JUST FINE WITH ME! Also, I watched Seinfeld reruns in college.
* * *
Simon: Confession—I still watch Seinfeld reruns. Anyway, resisting you sounds like an insane challenge. I’ve always enjoyed a good challenge, though.
* * *
Abby: A good, hard challenge. Incidentally, thanks for being so selfish and batting my hand away from something good and hard I was enjoying.
* * *
Now, I crack up, laughing even as I’m royally fucking turned on.
* * *
Simon: Oh, Abby. If memory serves, you didn’t mind at all when I got down on my knees and made you come so fucking hard again on my lips.
* * *
Abby: *combusts from the hotness of the memory*
* * *
Simon: *wonders when I can do that to you again*
* * *
Abby: Um, by the way, how is this conversation helping us prove our devotion to Festivus?
* * *
Simon: Do you want to stop? To prove we can?
* * *
Abby: It’s not that I want to. I just think we need to know we can work together and not rip off each other’s clothes every second.
* * *
Simon: Occupational hazard and all.
* * *
Abby: But one best avoided.
* * *
Simon: Yes. If we can. By the way, you should check out the American Bald Eagle Association’s collection of pictures from the day. You’ll love them.
* * *
I grin, confident she’ll be enthralled with the shots of the two bald eagles rearranging branches in the nest to build it up and prevent the little ones from falling out. Three minutes later, she replies.
* * *
Abby: You’re right. I do love them. Madly.
* * *
I know her. I know this woman.
17
Simon
* * *
It’s sort of like withdrawal.
The next day, I spend my morning with Hayden, taking her to story time at An Open Book, our favorite bookstore on the Upper West Side. Then for lunch, she decides to try garlic fries, even though I warn her that garlic is not her friend. But hey, we all have to learn in our own way.
When we return home, I don’t even have to say I told you so. She launches a full-scale attack on her breath with her strawberry toothpaste.
Abby arrives while Hayden’s in the bathroom. We say hello. Chastely. But I’m not ashamed to say my stomach flips when I see her. This woman—she’s so gorgeous, and she rocks a sundress. The one she wears today is light blue. A little peach summer sweater is on her shoulders.
“How was Spanish class this morning? Was that new student still giving you a hard time?” I ask as she sets her purse on the coffee table.
She tilts her head, surprised. “You knew I had a Spanish class?”
I tug on my earlobe. “Yes. I’m a good listener. And you told me about the new guy who kept insisting Google Translate was all he needed.” I admit it. I’m trying blatantly to impress her.
Judging from the appreciative rise of her eyebrows, I’ve succeeded. “Yes,” she says, rolling her eyes. “His employer sent him to the class, but he thought he didn’t need it. Until I told him about the festival of turnip greens.”
I rub my hands together. “Tell me about turnip greens.”
She scans the living room. “Where’s Hayden?”
“Conducting a full decontamination on her teeth. She had garlic for lunch.”
Abby crinkles her nose. “I detest garlic. I once tried to start a petition to have it removed.”
“Removed from . . . the world?”
“Yes. I was fourteen and quite idealistic. I kissed a boy after eating garlic pizza, and he told me my breath was gross. So I started an online petition.”
That’s just too adorable. “Against the boy? Or against the vegetable?”
She parks her hands on her hips. “The vegetable, of course.”
“Did you get any signatures?”
She nods vigorously. “My God, the anti-garlic contingent is powerful. There are tons of people around the world who think it’s nature’s curse. Along with zucchini.” She shudders. “There’s no reason for zucchini to exist. Or at least, the oversize version of it when someone grows it in a garden and it gets too big.”
One corner of my lips quirks up. “You are a perfect woman. I, too, believe in the abolition of garlic and gigantic zucchini.”
She smiles back at me. And yes,
it’s just garlic and a too-big vegetable, but it’s also so much more. It’s an acknowledgement that we have these little things—and so many big things, too—in common.
I make a rolling gesture to remind her to keep telling the story. “The turnip greens. That’s the veggie under discussion. Go on.”
She peers down the hallway, then lowers her voice. “I told him the story of the culinary festival in a Galician town in northwest Spain. It was meant to celebrate the grelo, a leafy green vegetable, but in fact the small town was marketing it in a very different way thanks to Google Translate. Instead, the small town invited its residents and visitors alike to a . . .” Abby stops, collects herself, then blurts out, “A clitoris festival.”
A deep belly laugh climbs through me, then I fix on a serious expression. “I can’t say I’d mind attending such an event. That is, if you invited me.”
“Anyway, the festival holds tastings and awards for the best grelos,” she says, punctuating those last two words with naughty panache. “According to its marketing, the clitoris is one of the typical products of Galician cuisine, and a star of its local gastronomy.”
I smirk. “I’ve always thought the clitoris should be the star of any show it’s in.”
She swats my arm. “See? You would probably find Google Translate acceptable.”
I shake my head. “Never. Not when I could have a teacher like you. By the way, did the student understand the value of a teacher thanks to the clitoris lesson?”
Abby laughs. “I do believe he’s been converted.”
The clitoris conversation halts when Hayden rushes out of her room, racing through the hall. She stops short at my feet, lifts her chin, and breathes out hard.
“So much better,” I tell her, then I leave my two favorite people in the world behind as I head to the office.
When I return home in the evening, we say goodbye.
Chastely.
But I whisper in her ear, “I’d kiss you even if you tasted like garlic.”
She trembles, then she leaves.
Abby
* * *
Later that night, the email notification flashes on my phone. As I sink down onto my couch, I grab my cell, and my heart skips a beat when I see the note is from Simon.
* * *
I thought you might like to know I started an online petition tonight. It’s to recall all forms of zucchini, with a special provision to ban the use of zucchini as a present. I’ve titled it: “Zucchini is not a gift. It’s a punishment.” Let’s hope these efforts can halt the nefarious habit of neighbors with gardens from trying to unload their oversize, tasteless vegetables under the guise of gifts. Also, zucchini bread? It too is outlawed in this provision.
By the way, you looked stunning today in that blue dress. I’m confident, though, that as good as it looks on you, it would look ten thousand times better taken off you by me.
* * *
Crossing my legs at the ankles, I laugh at the same time he turns me on. I’ve started to tap out a reply when another envelope icon appears.
His name on my phone screen sends a flurry of shivers down my spine.
* * *
Also, did you know that the French phrase "Se taper le cul par terre" means to laugh uproariously? You probably did. Funnily enough, Google Translate will tell you it means “ass banging on the floor.” I believe this gives new meaning to the phrase “laugh my ass off.” It’s also a great reminder of the value of language teachers.
By the way, you’re so much hotter than Google Translate. That’s another benefit of you as a teacher. Though, come to think of it, if any of your students look at you the way I do, I might have to go caveman on them.
* * *
My response is simple. I shoot him back a note saying: Is Google Translate hot???
Then I ring him. It’s after ten, and I know Hayden is sound asleep. “So you have it bad for your teacher?” I say when he answers.
He laughs, a rich, deep sound. But what he says next isn’t funny. It’s dirty and makes a pulse beat between my legs.
Simon
* * *
I close the door to my bedroom, ensuring privacy. Then, with the phone pressed close to my ear and my filthy imagination already firing on all cylinders, I answer her question.
“I want to bend my teacher over the desk.”
Her breath hitches. “Naughty student.”
I sink down on my bed, picturing perfectly what I want to do to her. “Hike up your skirt. Pull down your panties.”
“I like this image,” she says breathily. “Would you pin my wrists over my head then?”
I groan appreciatively, loving the image she evokes. “You’d like that, wouldn’t you?”
“I would.” Her voice is a purr, and I can see her now—on her couch, her hand drifting down her belly. And just like that, my dick refuses to be ignored.
I skim a hand over my erection. “I’m going to file that piece of intel safely away and use it someday soon.”
“I look forward to that someday.” She’s quiet for a moment, then her voice is soft. “You really thought about my dress today?”
“This surprises you? Was there something unclear about the obscene levels of desire I have for you?”
She laughs lightly. “No. But tell me. Was I wearing anything under the dress when you took it off?”
I like where this is going even more, and I push my briefs down, wrapping a hand around my shaft. “Black lace panties. Matching bra. I stripped them off then kissed you all over, and you melted when I touched you.”
“I do melt when you touch me.”
“And now? Are you melting now?” I ask, because I’m fucking burning up all over as I touch myself.
“I’m on fire.” She gasps, and the sound lingers so seductively.
“Did you just touch yourself?”
“Yes, and I’m picturing you.”
All I can see right now is Abby, naked, her back arched, her hand moving faster between her legs. It’s the most arousing image my brain has ever had the good sense to create. “And what am I doing to you?”
She doesn’t answer right away. Drawing a sexy breath, she says, “I’m unzipping your jeans.”
I’m silent for a few seconds, adjusting to the new direction. I figured she’d detail a scenario of me burying my face between her legs, and hell, if that isn’t my favorite thing to get off to. But this is insanely hot, and my fist is already moving up and down my erection as she adds to her fantasy. “I want to do that to you. I want to get on my knees for you.”
Oh, fuck. All the blood in my body goes straight to my dick. My breathing grows louder as she tells me how she wants to slide her hand into my boxers, push them down, then touch, stroke, and taste. Her voice and the pictures she paints send me into a tailspin, and I can’t get enough of her words. Then she adds, “I’ll lick and kiss, and then wrap my lips around you.”
I’m close, so fucking close. My voice is husky, thick with lust as my fist flies faster. “I want to see that, Abby. I want to curl my fingers around your head and watch you do that to me.”
“I’ll take you in all the way.” Her breath comes in harsh pants.
“Fuck. I can’t get enough of you.”
She moans. “I can’t get enough, either. I want all of you. I want to taste you in my mouth.”
Then words are pointless as our noises become the only soundtrack. She cries out, and I recognize the pitch now, and how it means she’s tipping over the edge. The pleasure in me skyrockets. I picture her on the other side of the park, her fingers between her legs, sending herself soaring. That image blazes in front of me, and the tension in my body tightens, then snaps. My release is powerful, but over far too soon as I groan her name into the phone, and she does the same for me.
My body is still buzzing a minute later after I clean up. “So if resisting phone sex is one of the feats of strength, we just failed miserably.”
“We sure did.”
“And I don�
��t regret it at all.”
“Nor do I,” she says, and then we talk for another hour, and it has nothing to do with sex.
We talk about our least favorite vegetables, and our most favorite fruit, and we agree that cottage cheese is the devil, and wonder how Brussels sprouts somehow tricked everyone into believing it was a cool food.
She tells me she wants to take a trapeze lesson someday, but that I still have to teach her pool, and I tell her I’d love to, especially since she’s helped me so much with French. I learn she volunteers for a local literacy program, and I tell her about my plans to run a 10K for a children’s hospital charity at the end of this summer.
The Sexy One Page 11