Birthday Suit

by Lauren Blakely

  “I need to be inside you, Lulu. I need it so badly.”

  She opens her eyes. “Come home with me.”

  I’m not sure how we make it to her place, but we do, and ten minutes later, we’re inside her apartment, and I’m undressing her again, and she’s taking my clothes off for the first time, and everything is a flurry, a feverish race to the finish line.

  Somewhere along the way, she tells me she’s clean and on the pill and I tell her I’m all clear too, and when she’s naked in her living room, every animal instinct takes over. I hoist her up, toss her over my shoulder, and carry her to the bedroom.

  I turn on the light, but I see only her. I don’t give a flying fuck what her room looks like.

  She’s all I want to see.

  I’m going to watch her face as I fuck her.

  I want to see what every moan and tremble of pleasure looks like.

  She climbs up on the bed, and she’s shuddering.

  “Spread your legs.”

  She does, and a landmine of pleasure explodes in my body. Every nerve ending is raw, crying out. She’s so sensual and so ready.

  I crawl over her, straddling her, poised for entry.

  She grabs my erection.

  It’s like a jolt of electricity. Her touch shoots through my body. I’m so turned on I could light the city—I could power the entire grid. Lulu’s hand is rubbing my shaft, and it’s not fucking fair that it should feel this good, and it’s also the most fair thing in the universe.

  Because it’s absolutely incredible.

  Her hand is soft and strong, and it’s like she holds my heart in it. With every stroke up my cock, I lose a little more willpower and she turns the key in the lock a little farther.

  The words start to rattle free from their cage.

  It’s you.

  It’s been you forever.

  That won’t do.

  I bat her hand away, taking both of hers in mine then pinning them above her head.

  She stares up at me with wide, eager eyes, then whispers, “Make love to me.”

  And like that, she’s reaching into the dark, secret place inside me. “That’s all it’ll ever be.”

  Then I sink inside her, and the pleasure—the sheer, unadulterated pleasure—of being home blots out the world.

  There is no room for any other thought.

  No space for anything else.

  But this.

  I thrust deep into her, and she cries out.

  I swivel my hips, and she shouts my name.

  I grind and thrust and pump, and she pants, moans, groans.

  We’re in sync, fucking and loving, loving and fucking.

  She’s taking me to the ends of the earth, to the edge of pleasure, and I’m doing the same to her.

  But it’s not enough.

  I need to get closer.

  “Lulu,” I breathe.

  “Yeah?”

  “Bring your knees up.”

  She pulls them up higher, opening wider. “Like this?”

  “Just like that.”

  I adjust us so her legs drape over my shoulders, and this is fitting, this is how we’re meant to be together.

  “I love this,” she murmurs, and the verb seeps into me.

  Love.

  With her under me, bent up and beautiful, I can control everything, including the revelation of the vintage of my emotions.

  Because fucking her is everything.

  It’s everything I imagined it to be.

  And soon, we’re rushing, racing, chasing each other to the cliff.

  She falls first, chanting my name, calling out God’s name, announcing her pleasure. Then it’s my turn, and I’m less coherent. I’m all grunts and sizzles as the wires crackle and pleasure burns, detonating in every cell in my body.

  It’s enough to loosen the iron grip on my words.

  A minute later, I’m holding her, stroking her hair as she murmurs sweet nothings.

  That was incredible.

  That was amazing.

  That was so good.

  And I whisper something that is wholly and wonderfully true. “I’m so in love with you.”

  30

  Lulu

  I wear my heart on my sleeve.

  I am the girl who believes in big, messy, beautiful love.

  The kind that glows, spills over, and shines like a treasure chest rich with rubies, rife with sapphires.

  I’m not scared.

  I’m not afraid of feeling love again.

  Because this—the way I want to curl myself around this strong, sensitive man, the way I want to smother him in kisses and sling quips in his direction and make him spicy peppers and run my hand over his sandpaper stubble and discover all the things going on inside his head—is new.

  I don’t want to compare men. I don’t want to balance and weigh loves.

  Leo is everything I thought he would be.

  Because I know him.

  There’s no darkness to be revealed in the bright light of morning. There’s no madness that’ll seep through the cracks.

  Leo is who he says he is. The ingredients that comprise him are the ones I want most in the recipe for a man to love—he’s loyal, he’s kind, he’s funny, he’s caring. And he’s sober.

  Also, he’s one hell of a fiend in the sack.

  I climb over him, cup his cheeks, and look into his soulful brown eyes. “I’m so in love with you.”

  He smiles at me from the inside of his soul. “Yeah?”

  I drop a kiss to his nose. “Yes. So much yes. It’s crazy and wonderful, and I’m kind of ridiculously in love with you. How the hell did this happen?” I burst into laughter. “Someone tell me how this happened. It’s fantastic!”

  He laughs, threads a hand in my hair, and tugs me close for a kiss. “It was time.”

  I furrow my brow, my laughter ceasing like a faucet has turned it off. “What do you mean, ‘It was time’?” Something sounds portentous in his words, and I flash back to my mother’s comment—years in his eyes.

  Has he always?

  He swallows, perhaps taken aback, then clears his throat. “I mean, we’ve known each other. You know?”

  “Right. But not always like . . .” I don’t know how to finish the thought or why it stuns me so much. But maybe it’s because I love the newness of this. I love the us-ness of this. I love that we can be a two-legged stool. Not a three-legged one with one leg sliced off.

  I want him and me, and me and him, and no one else. I want this new love to belong to us.

  “I just meant, the time was right because we’ve been friends.”

  “Oh. Right. Yes.” That feels true and good. That makes sense to me. That’s years. “It’s the same for me. I’ve been friends with you for so long. And now here you are in my life in a new way, and boom. Everything inside me blooms for you. Like a sunflower coming to life. You’ve turned me into a sunflower.”

  He chuckles once more, and I love that. I want to catch his laughter and put it in a jar, then sneak a whiff of it every time I need a pick-me-up.

  “Kiss me, sunflower. And don’t stop.”

  I kiss him madly. Ravenously. I kiss him so much it leads to more and more. It leads to him whispering roughly to me, telling me to sit on his face, to ride him, to fuck him hard.

  I’m only too glad to oblige.

  And he seems happy to oblige me in other ways too, sliding me under him once more and driving me out of my mind with pleasure.

  When we’re drunk on sex and spent, I pat his belly. “You’ve earned your cake.”

  “You really made one?”

  I shoot him a did you doubt me look. “I take birthday cake very seriously.”

  “When did you make this?”

  I shrug happily. “I had time after the hunt, so I baked it here, worked on recipes while it cooled, then headed to the shop.”

  “You’re a machine.”

  “Where there’s a will, there’s a way.” I trot out to the kitchen, slice
two pieces of the cake I slipped away to bake this afternoon, then bring the plates back to bed. I hand him a fork and his slice.

  He dives in and chews. “Best birthday cake ever.” He glances behind him at the clock. “Best birthday ever.”

  I look him over from head to toe. “I’d say. And here you are celebrating it in your birthday suit. You’ve always looked good in suits.”

  “That so?”

  “I remember noticing how good you looked in your Tom Ford suit at the chocolate show.”

  He arches a brow. “You noticed my suit at the show?”

  “I noticed how handsome you looked in it.”

  His smile is an entirely new variety. He lowers his head, grinning like he’s incandescently pleased with this intel.

  I decide to make him even happier, because I think I can. I gesture to his naked flesh. “But this one you’re wearing tonight? It’s definitely my favorite suit you own.”

  His grin shifts to decadent mode now. “I’m happy to wear it for you anytime.”

  “And I’ll be taking you up on that.” I take another bite then shift gears. “Why have you never been big on your birthday? I want to know you. I want to know all the things I don’t know.”

  “I never had much growing up. There were years when we had very little.”

  “You didn’t celebrate your birthday at all?”

  “We did. My mom always made sure we had something, whether it was a small gift like a Matchbox car, or something a little bigger, like a book. But because it was hard for my parents, I didn’t want anyone to ever feel like they had to do something for me. That’s why my birthday was never a big deal to me.”

  “I like doing things for you.”

  “I like doing things for you and to you.” He finishes his slice and sets the plate on my nightstand. Then his stomach growls.

  “Cake not enough for you?”

  “I guess I’m still hungry.”

  “I’m terrible, since I didn’t feed you dinner. Do you want to order something? Pizza, Thai, Vietnamese . . . there’s a fun place down the street that has sliders.”

  “Sliders. When did sliders become a thing?”

  I laugh as I take another bite of my cake. “I think it was because of White Castle. That Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle movie?”

  “Ah, yes. They started calling them sliders. Why not call them mini burgers though?”

  “Because mini burgers doesn’t sound as sexy as sliders?”

  Leo’s face straightens. “Lulu, I need to tell you something.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Sliders are not sexy.”

  I put down my plate. “What’s sexy to you?”

  He reaches for me, flips me to my stomach, and kisses my spine. “You. Literally everything about you.”

  “Everything? You sure about that?”

  “I’m positive, and just because you doubted me, I’ll prove it to you.”

  He proceeds to travel up and down my body, naming all the sexy spots.

  Back of your knee.

  Inside of your arm.

  Right there above your belly button.

  The shell of your ear.

  Your ankle, dear God, your ankle.

  The dimple at the top of your ass.

  I shiver as he continues his soliloquy, lavishing attention on my hungry, greedy body.

  Somehow, he wrings another orgasm out of me, and then I give him one too, and it feels like the world is a string of pearls at our feet.

  Like everything is possible if we’re in this together.

  That floaty, bubbly sensation carries me into the next day, to Strawberry Fields in Central Park, where we meet the team, grab our clue, and, like super decoder spies, run through options.

  * * *

  Add me up and I’m like a two by two, climb me and you’ll be lucky twice . . . Look inside and you’ll see a famous flyer, look out and you’ll see nearly everything. I’m arguably the prettiest, and I’m inarguably a masterpiece of a movement.

  * * *

  “Is it a Monet?” Noah asks. “Wait. Someplace with a Monet where you have to climb up to it. Monets are pretty stinking pretty.”

  “Oh, that’s clever.” Ginny’s tone is straight up admiring. “Is it a helicopter tour? Private plane? Oh, wait.” Ginny crinkles her forehead. “Famous flyer. Please tell me we don’t have to go to Jersey to the Lindbergh monument.”

  Noah clasps his face. “No, not Jersey. Anywhere but Jersey.”

  Ginny laughs, and Noah nudges her, and all is right in their world.

  Leo snaps his fingers. “Lindbergh. He’s on a ceiling somewhere. There’s a mural. Where is it, where the hell is it?”

  “I know!” I crack the last clue.

  We’re off and flying faster than the famous pilot, en route to the Chrysler Building, seventy-seven floors high, boasting a mural of Lindbergh in the lobby ceiling. The building is arguably the most beautiful skyscraper in the city, and it’s inarguably a masterpiece of the art deco movement. It’s a gorgeous steel invitation to climb skyward and marvel at beauty, inside and out.

  Once there, we torpedo through our tasks, confident we’ve made up for some of our lost time yesterday, and I’m hopeful we’re in first place.

  I don’t want to win for me.

  Or even for Leo.

  I want to come out ahead for Ginny and Noah, these new friends who’ve brought me into the fold so easily, and for everyone else at Heavenly who gave me a chance.

  Along the way back to Central Park, Ginny and Noah laugh and joke, teasing each other in a whole new way.

  “You’re really telling me you’d just lift your pizza?” He mimes eating a slice, flat as a board.

  “That’s how we do it down under.”

  “And I don’t fold it when I visit my grandparents in Mexico City,” Noah says, dropping into a Mexican accent for that line. “But we’re New Yorkers now. We gotta fold it. That’s how we do it here.”

  She laughs. “I assure you, the lift works just fine for a slice.”

  “Let me prove the fold is better. I’ll take you out to get pizza and prove it.”

  “Fine. You can prove it.”

  He pumps a fist. “It’s a date.” He glances at her nervously. “It’s a date, right?”

  “It better be a date.”

  I smile at Leo, a few steps in front of me, and he smiles back. Yes, all is right in the world as we return to Strawberry Fields. Kingsley stands near a pack of ducks, tossing her sister’s popcorn to the local waterfowl. Her sister pretends she’s about to chuck chocolate at them. Kingsley grabs her arm before she can throw, then they laugh so loudly it carries to us.

  I try to spot other teams, to figure out where we stand. As I scan the hillside, it looks like we’re the second team to return.

  I slow my pace when a familiar face comes into view.

  My heart rate spikes.

  I squint.

  It can’t be.

  Am I seeing things?

  Specifically, someone I haven’t seen since my ex-husband's funeral.

  She’s toweringly tall, beautifully blonde, with carved cheekbones.

  Pale-blue eyes somehow contain a sadness that will never be erased, alongside a strength I can’t even imagine.

  Tripp’s mother.

  31

  Leo

  I first met Vivian Lafferty when Tripp and I were juniors in college. We’d decided to get away from campus for the long weekend and spend it in Manhattan.

  “My mom just remarried, and the new place is sweet. She’s out of town with her husband. Let’s crash there and get in trouble in the city.”

  “Maybe let’s crash there, but not get in trouble in the city?”

  “Fun police. I have a fake ID, and I intend to use it.”

  He did make good use of it, but everyone did in those days, so I thought nothing of it. And truthfully, there was nothing to it, though perhaps it was a harbinger. Besides, when Sunday morning rolled out and
his mom returned, Tripp was sober, freshly shaven, and showered. Plus, she’d told him she was coming home early, so he surprised her and her new husband with Eggs Benedict, her favorite.

  Over breakfast, she peppered me with questions, wanting to know about my parents, my brothers, what I thought of school. By the time she’d finished, she issued a declaration. “I like you, Leo. You’re a good influence on my hellion.”

  “Hellion? He’s more like a hell-raiser.” I’d winked, she’d laughed, and we’d proceeded to debate which was worse and which was better—a hellion or a hell-raiser. She was sold on me that day, and Tripp was sold on how well I got along with her.

  At the wedding, I was his shield. “Keep my mom and dad apart. If my dad seems like he’s going to make a dig—since that’s his style—say something funny to cut the tension. Promise me?”

  I kept that one, playing the referee he needed.

  I was some kind of best man.

  At the end of the night, Vivian thanked me. “I know it’s not easy for him being around both of us. We’re trying to be better. Well, I can only speak for myself. I’m trying to be better. I’m glad you were here for him.”

  That wasn’t the first time she’d say those words to me—I’m glad you were here for him.

  Now she’s heading toward me, her lips turned up in a faint smile, a little rueful, as if she’s done something a tiny bit wrong. “Leo. Look what I’ve resorted to. I have to track you down at work. You won’t return my calls.”

  I laugh nervously, then wonder why the hell I’m laughing nervously.

  Oh, right. Could it be because her former daughter-in-law spent last night in my arms?

  That’d be the reason, and I swear I’m made of cellophane and she can see through me.

  “Sorry about the phone tag.”

  Sorry about fucking my best friend’s ex-wife.

  “I’m just teasing.” She drops a kiss to my cheek, her habit. “I actually called your office, and your assistant said you’d be here. I had an appointment nearby, so I thought I would pop over and find you.” Her crystal eyes drift behind me, registering surprise. “And look who I found. Both of you.”