Clichéd Love: A Satirical Romance

by Lynn Galli

  “That library was under construction the entire time I was on campus. My tuition paid for that damn library, and I never got to use it.” She shook a fist at the elaborate brick building next to an equally ornate gothic structure.

  “I can see how that would still get to someone twenty-five years later,” I joked and her fist made contact with my shoulder.

  “I loved it here.” She slowly made a circle in Red Square, taking in the variety of architecture surrounding the red brick expanse. “Did you love your college?”

  “UMass was okay, but I was ready to leave when I graduated. Ended up with a paper in Boston for a few years, but I didn’t feel an overwhelming need to stay in the state. Unlike you.”

  “Yeah,” she sighed. “I didn’t know I’d like it that much. The weather was a huge deterrent at first, but I’m glad I picked it over my second choice, Florida.”

  “Not Texas?” She hadn’t reminisced about Texas much. Like me, she didn’t return to her home town often.

  “God, no, I wanted out of there fast.” Fast enough to get rid of any accent, if she’d ever had one.

  We walked past the fountain and between some buildings to get back onto the bike trail. I checked my watch and saw that we’d been walking for two hours. Aside from a slight chill on my exposed skin and my now wet sneakers, I hadn’t noticed. The fact that it didn’t bother me at all, made me feel like I’d passed a huge milestone in becoming a local.

  “You had fun,” Iris told me as we keyed into my apartment. That cocky attitude should have made me want to throttle her, but she pulled it off better than anyone I’d ever met.

  “It sucked.”

  She shoved me inside. “I don’t even know why I try with you.”

  “I get you.”

  She gave me the cop stare again before breaking into a smile. “That you do.”

  “I never asked, but are you a video game or board game kind of person?”

  “Card games.”

  My eyebrows rose. I liked a good card game, but someone who had to enjoy adrenaline as much as a former police detective and current PI must, I was surprised she hadn’t said video games.

  “Poker?” she asked.

  “Without at least two others? Not much fun.”

  “It would be if we played strip poker.”

  “Ha!” I laughed but could have sworn something devious flitted through her eyes for a moment. And for an even longer moment, I had the urge to see her naked. An overwhelming can’t-control-myself urge.

  “Why are you looking at me like that? I didn’t take you for a prude.”

  My earlobes fired up again. I knew exactly the cause of the burning this time, yet couldn’t understand it. Desire, hot, explicit desire didn’t just suddenly turn on with someone who previously played the role of your best hang. A best hang with an indiscriminate eye and a high libido. Mount Rainier level libido. Mine was more of a trench, a deep trench at the moment. Ten, no, eleven months without sex, and I hadn’t even missed it.

  She kept looking at me as if she were expecting a response. To what, I didn’t know. I was too busy nuking every brain cell I had fighting off the bewildering desire that was making its way through my body. She stepped closer and reached her hand out. If I was going to be successful in putting a halt to this uncharacteristic yearning, I had to prevent that hand from touching me. It reached and reached and reached, and I stood and stood and stood, not doing a damn thing to prevent the touch. The one I wanted to avoid but wanted to experience even more.

  It landed on my upper arm, squeezing lightly. “I was kidding about the prude thing. You okay?”

  Yeah, I’ve just gone a little nutso at the moment. Don’t mind me.

  “Vega?” She stepped even closer.

  “Yes, yes. I’m here. Spaced out a sec.”

  “Writing an article in your head?” That distracting hand squeezed again. “Am I keeping you from doing more writing?”

  I should tell her that she was keeping me from working so she and her distracting hand and unbelievably hot body that somehow suddenly sparked an onslaught of craving would leave my apartment. “I always get my writing done first thing on Thursdays.” Except my mouth and nuclear wasteland of a brain apparently didn’t want that.

  “Thursdays,” she repeated in a reverent tone. “Then, what’s with the look?”

  “Hmm?” I managed.

  “You’re looking at me like…”

  “Like?”

  “Like it doesn’t matter how awful our last kiss was, you’re willing to overlook it.”

  My mouth nudged ajar. She couldn’t have just guessed that. I wasn’t broadcasting that much. “It was an awful kiss.”

  Her eyes drifted to my mouth. “It was.”

  “No one’s ever told me I was bad at kissing before.”

  “Me, neither.” Her eyes came back up to meet mine. “I wasn’t telling you, either.”

  “Neither was I.” My eyes dropped to her mouth. “It was just one really bad kiss.”

  “Chipped tooth,” she said.

  I would have smiled if the hand gripping my arm didn’t move up to seize the back of my neck.

  37 |

  Our eyes locked. I wasn’t sure if it was her hand that gentled me closer or my own lean, but our breath now mingled. Her lips were a sliver away. Lips that I wanted on me so much I didn’t care that I could fail epicly at this again.

  Her mouth touched mine. Tentative, just a light touch. The grip on my neck tightened as my hands slid onto her waist. We each took a step closer. The whole of her lips situated against mine, a try-out for the real kiss. The kissing minor leagues. Seeing as how we’d botched it the last time, letting these lips run through the farm league first wasn’t a bad idea. Problem was, I wanted so much more.

  I dared to move my mouth first. Hers parted slightly and repositioned. Another move, added suction, and we were full-on kissing now. Kissing with moving lips and, oh yes, nudging tongues. It wasn’t awful. The technique nor the feelings the kiss evoked. Not awful at all.

  She opened her mouth and pressed against me at the same time. My hands moved around her, clinging to her back. She snaked her other arm around me, pulling to eliminate the space between us. My lips opened, meeting her demand, but it was my tongue that surged forward first. Hers met mine in an expert tangle that skimmed sparks up and down my nervous system.

  No, this wasn’t awful or bad or horrible or anything like the last time. This was the best second kiss of my life.

  The length of her body pushed up against me. Every curve, every plane, every breath, every heartbeat, I felt as if they were my own. My hands skimmed over her back, exploring the same way our mouths were. Her hands began to massage. The sexy kind of massage, one that could guarantee a happy ending if I wanted. Did I want? Oh, damn, her mouth, and her hands, and her body, I wanted. I wanted so much.

  Her lips slid off mine, kissing over to my ear, still burning to amplify my desire. “We’re not bad at this,” she murmured, and my ear flashed even hotter.

  I turned my head and pressed my lips to her jaw. “Not bad at all.

  Then her mouth was back on mine, proving again how not bad at kissing we’d become. Her hands slid to my waist and, in the next moment, tucked up under my shirt. Tingles sparked on the bare skin she found there. I wanted to slide down the wall to urge her fingers higher. It was all I could do not to start grinding against her. No control. Zero, and that never happened to me.

  I gripped her hips and pushed, turning us so that her back was against the wall. There, better control. I needed it. My mouth moved against hers, wanting to be on her throat, her breasts, her abdomen, everywhere, but not able to leave her luscious, not at all bad kissing, mouth.

  Her fingers fiddled with the buttons on my shirt to let her hands map out more of my bare skin. They pushed against me to give her some room to move. As much as I didn’t want to lose the press of my body to hers, those hands needed space to make me crazy.

  I skimmed mine
up her sides, thumbs brushing over her breasts. A groan was swallowed by my open mouth. Nothing sounded better. Nothing. I wanted so much more of that. My fingers popped the buttons on her shirt, slowly at first, then hastily when her own reveal grew desperate. I could have ripped her shirt off by the time I got to the last button.

  My hands slid onto her stomach, her hard, wonderfully chiseled stomach. Another groan sounded, possibly mine, couldn’t really care because her hands danced over my chilled skin, bringing fire to every surface. Mine skimmed across her abdomen, dipping fingers into the ridges of her muscle definition. I wanted to look, but I couldn’t stop kissing her.

  Her thigh slid between mine, multiple groans this time. She turned us again, my back crashing against the wall. Her mouth popped off mine and traced the column of my throat down to lick at my collarbone. Hands moved up to brush the undersides of my breasts. Her thumbs tested the weight before she reached around to unclasp my bra. My simple, white cotton, so not sexy bra. No time to dwell on that as her hands pushed the loose bra up and her mouth locked onto a nipple.

  “Damn, Iris,” I exhaled, pushing forward into her mouth. My hands went from tracing her stomach to gripping her head. Directing her head, really, trying to keep it from moving off my nipple. My unbelievably sensitive nipple. I never did this. Never needed something so much I directed where it went. I was always in control of my actions, keen to please my partner, my own responses and needs were secondary. Today, slammed up against the wall after a walk in the rain with a friend, I was gripping her head because I couldn’t get enough of her mouth on me.

  Her teeth grazed my nipple, a little sting. My pelvis pulsed against hers. She made a sound that was part moan part chuckle as she grasped my wrists to allow her head to move to the other nipple. So unfair. I didn’t want to just stand here. I wanted to feel everything of hers, kiss everything of hers, rub everything of hers. But her mouth and my gripping hands wouldn’t stop what they were currently doing.

  When another chuckle sounded, I pulled myself together and yanked her mouth from my breast, bringing her up for another kiss and turning her against the wall. My thigh pushed its way between hers, my hip thrusting into her core. Her chuckle collapsed into a long groan that poured into my mouth. There, better. Although, not quite. For the first time I wanted her on me as much as I wanted to be on her.

  “Vega,” she whispered, pulling back to look into my eyes. “I want you so much.”

  “Yes,” I managed before my brain blitzed at the sight of her open shirt and bra pushed askew to reveal two small breasts. Dusky pink nipples puckered tight and so taunting. I ducked forward and latched my mouth to an enticing nipple.

  “Oh, yeah,” Iris breathed, her hands now gripping my head.

  My tongue lapped at the hard bud, lips pulling on the areola. I used a finger to pop the front clasp of her bra. The hand followed to close around her other breast. It felt so good, small and firm. The nipple spiked under my finger swipe. My thumb and index finger wrapped around it and tweaked.

  She keened softly and dropped her grip on my head. Reaching to cup my breasts again, she teased my nipples until they stung with unquenched need. Her thigh pressed up against me in a slow rhythm that drove me wild.

  My hand drifted down to cup her ass and pull her into me harder. She dropped her hands from the magic she was making on my breasts to open my pants and dip down over my ass to help speed our thrusts.

  Lifting my head to kiss her fully, I reached to unsnap her pants. I pulled back from the kiss to watch her as my hand snaked into her underwear, skimming over bristles to meet copious wetness. Her eyes pinched closed when my palm cupped her sex.

  “So wet,” I murmured and nibbled her lips.

  Fingers circled her engorged lips, teasing but not targeting. Her thigh gave a harder thrust, and I bucked under the move. She slid her hands off my ass and shoved my pants lower on my hips. When a hand came back, it slid under the band of my underwear and teased the top of my mound. I bucked up again, helpless to do anything but try to get her to touch me more.

  This need consumed. Unrecognizable need. Not just to have her. For her to have me. This had never happened to me. Always able to hold back, give my partner what she needed, wait for what I wanted.

  “Look at me,” she said, and I glanced up from the hand in her pants to see her blue eyes open and fixed on me. Layers of desire and burning and pleasure swirled through the gorgeous color.

  She drove downward, determined fingers searching and wanting. I let out a gasp as they landed on my clit. I’d been teasing her, and she tossed that nonsense right out. Her legs opened to encourage my hand to stop the teasing. A finger grazed her swollen clit, swiping once, twice, and pressing down, over and over. She was giving me a similar treatment. Soon our hips were thrusting, breaths pouring out audibly as our hands worked each other toward climax.

  We moved again, her back to the wall, or maybe mine, we’d turned so often I couldn’t feel who was where. She felt as if she were part of me. Every pleasurable ripple she experienced transferred to me. So in tune with her needs and she with mine, it muddled every thought I had.

  My fingers plucked at her clit, hand trapped by the band of her underwear. Her forearm was bumping against mine as she caressed me expertly, pulling want and need to the edge, backing off, and pulling again. Her breath came in truncated huffs when she wasn’t using her mouth to torture me further. I’d stopped trying to cut off my groans and gasps and moans to stay in control. Screw control. Control had no place under her mouth and hands and body.

  “Ah, Vega,” she panted, letting two moans slip before a final, long audible groan.

  Pulsations drummed against my fingertips as she climaxed in my arms, shuddering violently. Her fingers, so deft at making me want everything she could give, had seized with her orgasm, giving me a moment’s break from the precipice I was teetering over. A moment was all I got before they convulsed with her pulsing rhythms, tearing an orgasm from me. My mouth made a sound I didn’t recognize as my head and shoulders jerked forward, knocking against her time and again in a powerful climax.

  Unbelievable, amazing, out of this world. No other thoughts could push their way inside, and for once in my over-analytical life, I didn’t care.

  38 |

  My face was buried in the crook of her neck. Breath still heaved from me and matched the rhythm Iris was setting. She was clutching me to her, which was a good thing since I couldn’t stand up on my own. Not after that shattering orgasm.

  Perspiration slicked my skin and slid against the bared strip of Iris’s stomach. God, we hadn’t even bothered to get undressed. That kiss—that unbelievably, phenomenally, not bad in any way kiss—had led to upright sex against several areas of the wall and one of the windows. My wonderful voyeur proof windows. Not that anyone could have seen much because we were still mostly clothed.

  And I was still practically collapsed on top of her as much as one can be while standing. Her lips brushed my neck in a leisurely crawl. Each smooch would have made me shiver if my body wasn’t completely drained of all energy. I touched my tongue against her neck, tasting the perspiration and triggering small tremors. She must have a tad more energy left than I had.

  My hands drifted up from my stabilizing grip on her hips to brush under her unbuttoned shirt and skim across her flat stomach. It quivered under my caress. My lips widened against her neck. She’d been nothing like I expected. I now felt stupid for expecting anything with her. Just because she wasn’t ultra-feminine didn’t mean I should have assumed she’d insist on a particular role. The same role I usually took and had once before been a problem when I’d attempted to date another non-femme. Iris seemed happy to share, which I really, really liked.

  “That was…” Her voice sounded drugged.

  My smile returned. I slid my hands up and cupped her small, tight breasts. She shuddered and moaned. The sound made my sex clench and again when her nipples hardened against my teasing palms. Her hands shot under my
loosened bra to mimic my actions. Fingers tweaked my nipples when she didn’t initially pull a moan from me. My teeth sank into my bottom lip to prevent any more moaning. I’d done enough moaning and groaning and even whimpering under the assault of her hands and mouth and press of her body. But one expert tweak, and she got what she wanted.

  When she chuckled at the sound, I pulled back and seized her lips. I should have been afraid that the sudden kiss attack might prompt another horrible episode of surprised kissing, but I didn’t have the energy to worry. Great sex, hell, out of this world sex, must have reset my brain and deleted the prior insecurity about my lack of kissing prowess. Or the brain reset came with an upgraded factory setting for kissing abilities. Either way, I didn’t care. Kissing her was the second most enjoyable thing I’d done in my life.

  She was savoring the kissing just as much. Her mouth slanted perfectly against mine, opening when mine did, tongues reaching for more. It was so intense I’d forgotten that I was teasing her breasts, those luscious mounds that barely filled my palms. Smaller than anything I was used to, but damn if I didn’t ever want to stop touching them. They were absolutely perfect in shape, size, and texture.

  A soft beeping sounded and would have annoyed me if not for her amazing lips making love to mine. It sounded again, and a groan poured into my mouth.

  “Tell me you’re going to ignore that,” Iris spoke in between kisses.

  My head cleared just enough to register what she said. “Not mine.”

  Her head jerked back for a second when the beep sounded again. “Then I’m definitely ignoring it.” She placed an unhurried kiss on my lips. “You have the most gorgeous eyes. I can’t stop staring at you.”

  Heat blazed on my face and settled on my telltale ears. “I could say the same about you.” Violet blue eyes, the exact color of an iris flower, and she thought my drab olive green could compare? Sex must have blitzed her brain as well.