Sweet Seduction

by Anthology

  His hand palms it. "You have a perfect ass...for spanking."

  There I am in the parking lot, bent over the hood of a car but not so obviously that anyone is going to come running unless I start to scream, with a man rubbing my butt. This could go a hundred different ways, more than one of them scenarios I'm sure I've seen in porn. I look at him over my shoulder.

  "Would you like that?" Heath asks me.

  I only have one answer for that, and I give it with a grin. "I guess I don't know until I've tried it."

  ***

  At two in the morning, I should be scared by a shadowy form waiting for me on my front porch, but I know who it is. In stygian darkness, I would know that shape. Ignoring him, I push past and into my living room but leave the front door open behind me.

  Ian closes it after himself. Locks it. He must be planning on staying awhile.

  I take off my coat and hang it carefully in the close. I slip off my shoes and, letting them dangle from my fingertips, climb my front stairs without a word to him. Without looking back. In my bedroom, I loosen the first few buttons of my blouse before Ian appears in the doorway. Only then do I turn.

  "Did you fuck him?" Ian asks.

  I'd guessed it was what he'd want to know, but I hadn't expected my soft-spoken Ian, my gentle-demeanored Ian, to be so vociferous in his questions. Facing him, I put my fingers to another button and slip it free. I watch his eyes go there. Watch his tongue press his lower lip as he bites down.

  I shrug out of my blouse and toss it to the floor. Then I ease my skirt over my hips and down my thighs. I let it fall, stepping out of it. I stand in front of him in the emerald green satin and black lace bra and panties I'd so cleverly described to him earlier.

  Ian is on me before I can move away, not that I've even tried. His mouth skates along my throat as he breathes me in. "I can smell him on you."

  My head falls back. I make no protest when he shakes me a little. My smile makes him angry, and I don't care.

  "Answer me, Maura. Did you fuck him?" Ian puts a hand between my legs. He finds my panties. Beneath, my bare cunt. His brow knits, his pupils wide and dark. His thumb strokes me. "Oh. Shit. When did you do this?"

  "Few days ago." I'm not drunk, but my words slur a little. I am woozy from his touch. "You like it?"

  Ian pushes me a step or two toward the bed, then onto it. He pulls my panties down. He stares between my legs and runs his hands up my thighs. His thumb finds my clit; my head falls back as I sigh. When I look at him, he still looks angry.

  "You did this for him?"

  "I did this," I say on a little gasp as his thumb circles my clit the tiniest bit faster, "for myself."

  "Answer me."

  I push his hand from me and sit up. Now I'm at the perfect height for my mouth to get at his cock, but I stare up at his face, instead. "What do you want the answer to be?"

  "Damn it, Maura!"

  "You want it to be no," I say in a slow, thick voice. "But you told me to go out and find someone else, Ian. So maybe, I don't know. Maybe you want it to be yes."

  He moves away from me to pace. I push up on my elbows to watch him. He is angry. So am I. I'm also incredibly, indescribably turned on.

  "He wanted to spank me," I say as I get up. I turn, watching Ian over my shoulder as I bend over and put my hands on the bed. Legs spread. "Like this."

  Ian makes a low, grinding noise from low in his throat.

  I rock my ass a little and lean a little closer to the bed. Eyes closed. I wait for him to touch me, and I don't have to wait long. He's there in a moment, one hand sliding over my ass and then between my legs to stroke along my already slick cunt. The other grips my hip.

  Ian has never spanked me. Never tied me up or blindfolded me. He's never asked, I never offered. We've shared fantasies, but this was never one of them. Yet here, naked but for my bra, bent over the bed, all I can think about is how sweet the sting would be if he slapped my ass. Hard.

  Ian rubs my ass cheek with the flat of his hand while the other works my clit. It feels so good I push back against him. He stops.

  "Do you want me to spank you, Maura?" He says this so low I almost don't hear him. "Is that what you want?"

  "I want whatever you want to give me, Ian."

  He doesn't hit me hard at all, but it still stings. I don't yelp. I moan. I bury my face in the bed, my fingers clutching the bedspread into wrinkles.

  "You want me to hurt you?" Ian rubs the flat of his hand over the heat his slap left behind. "Is that what you want?"

  It's not about that, but I'm not sure he'd understand. "I just want you to...own me."

  I think he will spank me again, but instead Ian pulls me upright. He spins me to face him, his hand between my legs. "Did you let him spank you?"

  My voice catches as he finds my clit. "...No, Ian. I didn't let him."

  "Did you fuck him?"

  "No, Ian."

  "Why not?"

  "Because he wasn't you."

  His kiss is too soft. Too tender. I want it to bruise and sting and hurt; I want the taste of blood. Ian slides his hand into my hair and yanks my head back, exposing my throat to him. He bites me there, at last giving me the pain I so unexpectedly crave.

  "Did you kiss him?" Ian asks against my skin.

  "No. Not even that."

  He lets out a shuddering sigh. His fingers ease inside me. His thumb presses my clit.

  I have been on edge for most of the day, and this is Ian. My Ian. I'm coming before he fucks into me more than four or five times. Shaking, I dig my fingers into his shoulder as the pleasure surges through me. My orgasm is sharp and hard and fierce, the sting of it sweeter than the slap had been.

  He kisses me again, not hard. His tongue strokes mine. He holds me while the aftershocks shake me, until I'm finally still. Then he takes my hand and puts it to the bulge in his crotch. He moves it along the ridge of his erection, and I discover I'm far from finished.

  I work open his belt, his zipper. Our mouths fused, I get Ian's cock from his pants. I break the kiss with a small gasp at the heat of him in my hand.

  Somehow, we are on the chair next to my bed. Ian's so deep inside me it hurts. My knees press his sides. His hands cup my ass. Mine are on his face. We are not kissing, but our mouths are so close we might as well be. We breathe together. In and out. We move, slowly at first. Then fast and faster, each thrust inside me bringing me closer to another climax. We finish together, and I'm not at all ashamed that the noise I make at the end is exactly the sound of his name.

  "Stay," I say against his mouth as he throbs inside me. "Please, Ian. Stay with me."

  ***

  The park was a beautiful place to be in mid-October. A little chilly, but the changing leaves had not yet started to fall and the trees were full of red and orange and gold. Ian shifted on the bench, a paper cup of coffee in his hand. He hadn't lifted it to his mouth once, not in all the time she'd been talking.

  "Too bad that's not how it happened," Ian said.

  Maura smiled, then shrugged. "A girl can dream, can't she?"

  "The first part of it. That was true."

  It was. He had called her while she got ready for her date. She had been wearing the panties and bra she had described. She had gone on a date with the perfect plastic surgeon, and they had ended up at the hookah bar.

  At last, Ian sipped his coffee. It had to be cold by now. He'd barely taken a drink all the time she'd been talking. "The rest of it, though. When does it become fiction?"

  "When do you want it to?"

  "I know I wasn't waiting for you when you got home," he said.

  "So. Back it up. Do you want the rest of it to be fake, too?" Maura had her own coffee, but hers was almost gone. She'd needed the caffeine and sugar to get her going, though once the story began she'd found it surprisingly easy to tell him.

  On the park bench, they had to sit side-by-side, but both of them were turned in toward each other. Knees barely touching. Ian had a bad habit of bou
ncing his knee, and now Maura reached across and put her hand on top of it to stop him from jostling. Ian shrugged.

  He'd agreed to meet her here today. At least there was that. It was better, seeing him in person, than it could ever be on the phone or video chat. She kept herself from leaning in to smell him only because she did have a tiny shred of pride.

  "Do you want to ask me if I fucked him?"

  Ian shifted at that. His coffee sloshed from the small hole in the lid of his cup, spilling over his hand and onto his khaki pants. "No. I don't want to know. It's not any of my business."

  "No, not really. But I'll tell you --"

  "I said I don't want to know!" Ian got up and stalked to the trash can, where he threw his cup so vehemently it was like it had done him wrong.

  "That was the deal, Ian!" Maura called after him.

  He turned, brows knitted, and came back to the bench to stand over her. "All I ever said was that I thought you needed to see other people, spend some time making sure you knew for sure what you wanted..."

  Maura stood. Ian didn't move back, so they were toe-to-toe. "And I told you that you were going to have to listen to me talk about it until you couldn't stand it any more. One way or another."

  Her heart pounded at the way she pushed him. He could walk away from her, forever. He could have decided he was done with this, with her, with everything. And then what would she do?

  Learn to live without him, Maura thought as she watched his expression twist. What other choice would she have?

  He stared at her without saying anything for as long as it took her to count to fifteen in her head. Kiss me, she thought, but Ian didn't. Touch me. But he didn't do that, either.

  Instead, he took her hand and pressed it between them, inside his long trench coat, to the bulge in his pants. He rubbed her hand slowly along him, staring into her eyes without looking away. Then he curled her fingers gently around him and held her hand still. That was all it took to send her heart thumping in her throat. To weaken her knees, make her clit pulse.

  "Ian," she murmured when he didn't say anything, "I didn't fuck him. I didn't even kiss him. The stuff about spanking...all made up."

  That's when he let her go, and stepped away. "But you did with that other guy."

  Her mouth opened and closed a couple times before she could find words. "Yes. I did."

  "Are you going to see him again?"

  "Heath?"

  "Him. And the other guy. The one you used to fuck in college." Ian's face held no expression, and his voice was cold.

  Maura lifted her chin. "Heath, probably not, though if he asks me, I might go. Daniel? Yes. Definitely. Friday night, as a matter of fact. We're going to dinner."

  Ian took a few more steps backward and put his hands in his pockets. The hem of his coat flapped a little in the suddenly chilly breeze that also pushed his hair over his forehead. "Have fun."

  "All you have to say is 'don't,'" Maura told him, but Ian shook his head and walked away.

  Chapter Ten

  Maura's phone pinged with a text she didn't bother to check for some thirty minutes or so -- busy with work and not expecting anything important, she registered the message when it came in but promptly forgot to check it when her boss peeked around the edge of her cubicle with a new folder of work for her go through. Thirty long minutes before she saw the message was from Ian and her heart leaped. Thirty minutes, she thought, in which maybe he'd been waiting on pins and needles for her to reply.

  It was a photo, taken with one of those phone apps that add effects and filters to turn any mundane snapshot into brilliance. Ian had always been derisive of those pictures and the online services that showcased them, yet here it was, a squared picture of an artificially bright landscape. A tree, bare of leaves but for one still stubbornly clinging to the dark branch. The grass below it, very green. The tree itself black. The leaf, a gorgeous, glowing red.

  The text below the photo said, "thought of you."

  Damn him for making her want to cry at work. Damn him for taking this beautiful picture -- and despite the pretentious use of filters and effects, the shot was beautiful. It was art. Ian had made her something beautiful and sent it to her, and Maura actually clutched her phone to her chest for a moment before heading down the hall and out the back door to the smoking area so she could have some privacy to talk to him.

  "I love it," she said without preamble when he answered her. "But it surprised me. Why did you send it?"

  "I told you. I saw it and thought of you."

  She paused, scuffing her toe along the concrete while she thought of what to say. "Why?"

  "The one leaf. It won't let go of the tree, no matter how hard the wind blows."

  She closed her eyes against the spark of tears. "Oh."

  "Eventually, though, it will have to give up. Fall down." Ian's voice got a little rough. "Eventually, the leaf will let go. When it starts to snow, it won't have a chance."

  "Maybe," Maura said, "we'll have a mild winter."

  They shared the silence for a minute or so. The sound of his breathing comforted her. The fact he was there, real and alive somewhere out in the world, even if it could not be beside her...well. It had to be enough, didn't it? And if it wasn't, she would have to find a way to make it be.

  "Will you...have dinner with me?" Ian asked. "At my house? Tonight? Forget it. You probably have a date already --"

  "I do. Two, actually."

  He paused before answering. "How do you have two dates in one night?"

  "I have a spreadsheet," she told him, and burst into semi-hysterical, on-the-verge-of-tears laughter. She pressed a hand to her mouth and looked around to make sure she was alone, but there weren't many smokers left in the office.

  "Can you squeeze me in?" Ian laughed, too.

  It was so good to laugh with him. "I miss you so much," she said impulsively.

  "I miss you, too."

  "I will have dinner with you," she told him. "Absolutely."

  ***

  What do you wear to dinner with a not-quite-former lover? Should she dress for seduction or comfort? It all came down to the shoes. She could wear the six-inch, black patent leather ankle breakers, or she could go with the low-top Converse embroidered with skulls.

  Comfort won. At this point, if she wasn't able to seduce him wearing jeans and a concert t-shirt, no amount of heavy duty feminine artillery would matter. Besides, she had a tiny shred of pride. She didn't want it to look like she was trying too hard.

  So. The jeans that made her ass look magnificent, a form-fitting concert tee that showed off her tits and whittled away her sides to emphasize her hips. Sneakers. Hair pulled on top of her head in a messy twist designed to look as though she'd barely bothered with it, but more importantly, to show off the line of her neck and collarbones exposed by the t-shirt's neckline, because Ian loved her neck.

  She wasn't totally giving up on the idea of seducing him.

  She brought wine, too. The kind he liked. Earthy and rich and red, too heavy for her. She'd also picked up dessert, chocolate-peanut butter cake with an inch of thick fudge frosting. Cake like that was almost as good as sex, so...just in case.

  She'd been to Ian's house a few times, but it felt so different to park in the driveway and walk to the front door as though she had nothing to worry about. Cake in one hand, wine in the other, she used her elbow to push the doorbell and willed her hands to stop shaking. She couldn't do anything about her insides twisting up like pantyhose in a washing machine, but she put a smile on her face and lifted her chin.

  Deep breath.

  He opened the door for her, a kitchen towel slung over his shoulder. Fuck her life, he looked better than any chocolate cake ever could. He wore khaki pants and a pink dress shirt, open at the throat and rolled up to show off his forearms. He knew what he was doing all right, and they shared a look as she crossed the threshold.

  "I like your shirt," Maura said. She'd bought it for him, dared him to wear it. She'd tol
d him only men totally confident in their masculinity could get away with wearing pink.

  He smiled. "Thanks."

  "Wow, something smells amazing." She handed him the bottle of wine as she followed him into the kitchen, where she put the cake on the center island. She took another deep breath, this one not to center herself but to enjoy the delicious odor. "What are you making?"

  "Beef bourguignon." Ian pointed to the crockpot on the counter. "I had a recipe."

  She'd bought him the crockpot, too, certain he'd never use it though he complained often about having to decide what to make for dinner. The fact he was using it now, just like he was wearing the shirt she'd bought him, could mean something. Or nothing. Or everything.

  "Yum," was all she said. "What can I do to help?"

  They'd never shared any sort of domesticity, but they worked together easily. Setting the table, checking on the boiling egg noodles, pouring the wine. Once, moving from the fridge to the table, they almost collided. Ian stopped her with a hand on her upper arm before they could hit, and they stood face-to-face for a few seconds longer than necessary. She thought then he might kiss her, but he didn't.

  "Careful," Ian murmured.

  She wanted to eat. Had been starving, as a matter of fact, but now could only push the succulent chunks of beef around in the gravy and nibble gingerly at the noodles. It meant the wine went to her head sooner than usual, so she could blame that for the slightly woozy way she walked after dinner when Ian told her to leave the dishes and follow him to the den. She'd been in that room before. On the couch, she remembered that, though nothing else about the room.

  Maura looked around as though seeing it for the first time, then at him with a laugh. "None of this looks familiar."

  "No?" Ian looked around, then back at her. "Do you want some more wine or anything?"

  He had to remember the only other time they'd been in this room. Hands roaming, mouths kissing, the soft gasp of his name when he entered her. It had been dark, the only light coming from the hallway outside. It had been the night she ran here, desperate to get away from a house where even breathing had become too oppressive. At the time she'd worried that she tasted of sweat, but it hadn't much mattered.