by Deanna Lee
“The first time I saw you, about eight months ago you were in the lobby with your ex-girlfriend. She was wearing little to nothing and you had a tux on. I couldn’t help but think you both looked rather unreal. Beautiful, but not particularly solid.” She blushed and then shrugged. “That sounds horrible, but tonight when you came into the elevator I didn’t see that.”
“You’re saying I looked fake before.”
“No, not fake. Perhaps less connected with the rest of us humans. You certainly didn’t look approachable.” She laughed then. “Of course, then about four months ago I’m driving to work and I see that billboard. I couldn’t believe my neighbor was up there in that ad. I told everyone I knew.”
He laughed. “Well, yeah, I can get that I suppose.”
Anne-Marie smiled and then reached out to brush a lock of hair from his forehead. “I’m telling you this because… I want you to understand something.”
“What’s that?”
“Even after I saw your picture on that billboard… I really didn’t want to know you or be involved with you.”
“What changed your mind? At least, I can hope you’ve changed your mind.”
She blushed. “Of course, and it’s complicated why. I just don’t want you to think that I jumped into this thing with you because of the way you look.”
“When Cassandra left me, I barely noticed. I’m sitting in my office one night going over a motion and I realized I hadn’t seen her in several days…maybe even a week. Also, my dry cleaning wasn’t hanging in my closet.”
“Please don’t tell me you called her asking about your clothes!”
He grinned. “I called her cell phone to apologize for not taking any time for her during that last few days and she told me that she’d moved out two weeks before. There was a long note in the kitchen detailing her reasons and a reminder about picking up my dry cleaning.”
“Sounds nice.”
“Yeah, I thought perhaps she would come back but I didn’t want to push. I thanked her and asked if I could call again later. She agreed.”
“So you go home to find the letter?”
“Yeah. It was sitting on the table along with a small metal trashcan full of ashes.”
“The boxers.”
“Indeed.” He laughed. “You just can’t trust a woman that would set fire to Charlie Brown boxers. I never called her back.”
She leaned forward and kissed his mouth. Her tongue darted briefly between his lips before she retreated. When he started to follow, she held out her hand and pushed him back into his place. “This is a conversation.”
“Conversations don’t involve sexy little kisses like that.” His tongue swept along his bottom lip. “Tease.”
“Perhaps.”
He leaned back on his hands and looked over her face. “Okay, tell me about the last man you were involved with.”
“I haven’t been involved with a man seriously in about three years but I have back-up dick that I call in about three times a month.” She grinned when his mouth dropped open.
“Back-up dick?”
“Yeah, I’ve known him since college. When ever we are single and in need of a little comfort, we hook up. It’s safe and he’s a good guy. We tried dating shortly after graduating but we drove each other insane.”
“Does he know you call him back-up dick?”
“Yep, when ever I call and get his answering machine I call him BUD. He knows what I’m calling for and if he’s up to it, I get a call back.” She laughed. “Why are you so shocked by that?”
“I just though that women were different than men. A lot different, don’t you need some sort of emotional interest to sleep with a man?”
“Ah.” She nodded. “Well, physical and emotional attraction when present together do make for much better sex. However, women and men are alike in some areas... sometimes we just need to get off. A vibrator or dildo can certainly do in a pinch, but I like a warm body just as much as the next girl.” Anne-Marie watched him digest her words and then smiled. “What? Do you think I was just auditioning you for a BUD position?”
“Now that you mention it.”
“A girl only needs one and Charlie is quite accommodating. I went to bed with you because I find you attractive on several levels and sometimes, just like with a man, a woman would rather just indulge in an attraction than to deny it because society deems she should.”
“So, the last man you were seriously involved with?”
“His name was Colin and we parted under good terms. We were engaged to be married, and then one day he met a woman that turned his world upside down. He came to me immediately. Guilty and contrite barely begin to cover how he was. Once he calmed down, he told the story. I was a little upset, but I wasn’t hurt and that’s when I realized that I really didn’t love him the way I should. I gave him back the ring, wished him all the luck in the world, and I haven’t seen him since.”
Hugh was silent as he moved to lay on his side. “I can’t remember the last time I spent time with a woman like this. Cassandra was never much for talking. She always had somewhere to go and someone else to call.”
He stopped speaking when she moved to lie on her side to face him and then cleared his throat. “I’ll admit to being something of a player. Cassandra was the first woman I’d ever lived with. She sort of just took over my life one day and I let her, because it was an easy thing to do.”
“Do you miss her?”
“No, and for a while that made me feel like an ass. I mean the woman lived with me for three years and then one day she’s gone and I don’t even notice.” He flushed and then shook his head as if to clear the thoughts away. “I want to say that it was the case that made me lose sight of her and our relationship. But, if I’m going to be honest with myself, I used that case to distance myself from her and her vision of our future. She wanted to move to New York, no kids on the agenda ever, and she wanted me to dissolve my partnership and join a big firm.”
“You couldn’t just tell her no?”
“I let her take over and when I realized I didn’t like where she was going I just avoided her like a wimp. It’s rather disgusting.”
“Passive aggressive break-up. You should write an article on that.”
“What about you?”
“What about me?” Anne-Marie asked softly.
“What do you want?”
“At this very moment or for the future?”
“Both.”
“Right now I’m getting exactly what I want.” She wet her lips and considered the other part of his question. “I’d like a house outside the city. I want to work until I’m ready to have a few children. I know that I’d want to stay home with them and then be involved in their schools as much as possible. So maybe I’m not the career girl I pretend to be.”
“How many?”
“Three,” she said immediately. “I’d like two boys and a girl. As for the man in my future, I’d like him to have a job he loves, but I want him to love coming home to me and our kids. I’d like to get married just once so he has to be a man who’d be committed to me and to making our relationship work no matter what.”
“Sounds nice. Why does he have to love his job? Not many people do, you know.”
“I want my husband to be happy with his life and that means he has to have a job that he cares about and enjoys. Life should be about being happy and I don’t want my kids tiptoeing around the house everyday because daddy had a bad day at work. Everyone has a bad day, but when ever day is bad it sort of drags down the whole family.”
“Okay I get that.”
“And you, what do you want for your future?”
“I’d like to eventually marry and have children. I want a woman who won’t order a salad at dinner and then starve the rest of the evening. She can be ambitious about her career or not. I certainly want her to be happy—but not that fake happy that woman slap on their faces so that they can avoid an argument or a bad situation.”
; “My mom does that.” Anne-Marie shook her head and then sighed. “Me, I just explode and then I feel better.” She sat up and looked around the room. “Let me get the lights.”
He nodded and watched as she slipped from the bed and turned off all the lights except for the one that appeared to be in a bathroom. She came back to bed, slid under the covers, and snuggled close to him.
Chapter Five
Hugh rolled over onto his back and then looked to Anne-Marie. She was sound asleep and he had to admit to himself that while he’d planned to talk her into more sex just sleeping beside her had soothed him. After she’d left him last night, he’d been restless and a little loss. Going back to knock on her door had struck him as something of a weakness but he hadn’t been able to help himself.
It was Saturday, a day he normally spent in the office or in the gym. He stretched his arm and then let his hands drift into the soft, dark brown, curls of her hair. She was pretty, and amazingly soft, despite what she might want others to think. He knew if she gave him half a chance that he could love her. Truthfully, though it seemed impossible, it felt like a near thing already.
Moving closer, he pulled her to him and she spooned snugly against him, sighing in her sleep. There was something to be said for a physical connection and they certainly had one. She was easy to talk to as well. If he wasn’t careful, he would talk himself into a relationship with her before she ever woke up.
He nuzzled her neck and groaned softly when she moved her ass against his growing erection. “Good morning.”
“This is a great way to wake up,” she whispered softly.
“Any regrets?”
“Yeah.” She moved against him even after he stiffened. “I meant to get some before I fell asleep.”
He relaxed and laughed. “And if I don’t like being referred to as ‘some’?”
She turned abruptly and pushed him onto his back. Sliding astride him, she shook back her hair and met his gaze with a serious expression. “The penis is allowed only a certain number of choices in the modern woman’s life. It can be the back-up dick, the ex-dick, the future dick, or the current dick which I would like to get ‘some’ of.”
He laughed at her haughty tone and lifted his hips against her. He could feel the heat of her pussy through his pants and it was almost too much. “I suppose my cock can learn to deal with being the ‘current dick’ as long as it is a secure and relatively stable position to be in.”
She grinned and pulled her nightgown over her head. Tossing it aside, she sat still and quite naked. “Good.”
Hugh ran his hands up her thighs and sighed when she leaned forward to reach the bedside table. Her breasts, nipples already starting to get hard brushed against his chest and arm while she retrieved the protection. She sat up and dropped two condoms on his stomach.
He took them and lifted his hips as she ran her hands along his sides. She pulled the pajama bottoms down quickly and after a brief tangle, freed him from them completely and tossed them toward her nightgown on the floor. Back astride his thighs, she watched him roll the condom on. Her fingers traveled to her nipples to pinch and tease the aroused flesh.
Hugh moved under her and helped her position herself to take him. As she slid down onto his erection, he sucked in a breath. “You didn’t want to slow this down?”
Running her hands down his chest, Anne-Marie rocked on him and met his gaze. “I like things slow, sometimes.”
“Now?”
“I’d like you to fuck me blind.”
Gasoline meet fire, Hugh thought as he gripped her hips and rolled them over. Beneath him, she lifted her hips against his and spread her legs wide for his invasion. Closing his eyes, he thrust his cock deep into her cunt and shuddered when she cried out. A woman’s pleasure had never meant so much to him before. He pushed aside that confusion.
She met each thrust of his body, begging softly for more and praising him in the next breathless second. “More. More.” She drug nails down his back and groaned. “Perfect, so good.”
“Will you take more?” he demanded through clenched teeth as he coaxed her legs around his waist. “Tell me!”
“Yes, yes.” She held him tighter and fisted one hand in his hair. “Give me all you have.”
Anne-Marie took a shuddering breath as the stroke of his cock into her body quickened. Her insides seemed to have caught fire, and the tinge of pain was just as exciting as the pleasure that already coursed through her. Needing release, she moved one hand between them to stroke her clit. She caught it between two fingers and rubbed it quickly, expertly.
Roughly, he pulled her hand away and replaced her fingers with his own. She arched in his arms and cried out when his thumb started to move in time with the quick thrust of his cock. Hot, heady pleasure pushed at her and when she could take no more she collapsed against the bed and let it take her.
She rushed wet and hot against him. For a moment, he could do nothing but bask in the heat of her and then with his own need to release hammering at him, he released her clit and began to push his cock in and out of her quickly. Each thrust drew a soft moan from her lips, and it urged him on. When he could take it no more, he let himself go and pumped into her with quick thrusts as he came.
* * *
His mother always said that when a woman takes time to cook for a man that it means something, so as he sat in Anne-Marie’s kitchen watching her make French toast and sausage links he couldn’t help but wonder what it meant to her. She was wearing a pair of slacks and a fitted sweater that showed off her tidy little figure in a way that made his blood heat.
Before she’d sent him off to get dressed, she’d talked to him into taking in a movie in the afternoon. When he got back to her apartment, she was dressed and in the middle of cooking. He’d pushed aside the thought of taking them out for breakfast and had sat down at the table as he’d been instructed.
He spread out the newspaper he’d picked up and looked through the listings. “There are a few choices…what did you have in mind?”
Anne-Marie turned to look at him and then laughed. “Don’t worry. I won’t drag you to a chick flick. A comedy would be great.”
“Okay.” He ran one finger along the listings of the cinema closest to them. “Chick flick, scary movie, sequel to a bad movie, chick flick, chick flick, scary movie.”
“Okay, maybe you will be watching a chick flick.” She laughed and pulled two plates out of the cabinet to her left. “Unless you want to hang around here and we can have a film festival of our own.”
“I have all three extended editions of the Lord of the Rings.”
“If I said that was a nerdy thing to admit?”
“I’d tell you that you haven’t begun to experience Middle Earth until you’ve seen it on my flat screen in the extended editions.”
“Okay, I’ll watch Lord of the Rings… all three movies.”
“And in retaliation?” he asked as she sat a plate down in front of him.
“I’ll have to make a list.” She set syrup on the table and then grabbed her own plate.
When she was settled, Hugh picked up his fork and cut into a slice of the French toast. “So, out of curiosity, what does your dream house in the country look like?”
“Are you sure you’re ready to discuss my dreams?”
He chewed thoughtfully and watched her as she speared a sausage link. “A man can't begin to make a woman’s dreams come true if he doesn’t know what they are.”
She tilted her head. “If I buy you some more of those Charlie Brown boxers will you lay around the house in them occasionally?”
He covered her free hand with his own. “Only if you get a pair to match and return the favor.” He watched her put her fork down and then he tugged her hand until she stood. Carefully, he pulled her around the table and into his lap. “I make you nervous.”
“Yeah, a little.”
“I’m not going to come in and take over your life, maybe your body a few times a day but not your life
.” He threaded his fingers through hers and marveled at how small her hands were. “We have all the time in the world to figure out where this is going to go.”
“Okay.”
“But, I’ll tell you one thing…”
“What?”
“BUD is history.”
She met his gaze, saw the determination, and grinned. “It was the boxers that did me in you know.” She leaned forward and kissed his lips.
“It was the pink toe nails, but that is between you and me.” He warned gently. “I’d never live that down at the gym.”
She was silent for a moment and then slipped from his lap. She went back to her chair and sat down. Carefully, she arranged her place setting and then met his gaze. “It’s always a brick house with big windows and flowers are planted everywhere.”
BIO
Deanna Lee lives in the southern United States. She has been writing for eighteen years. Deanna is engaged to be married, works in a library, and spends her spare time writing and reading. To learn more about Deanna's day-to-day trials, check out her website. She would love to hear from you! You can visit her on the web at: www.deannaleebooks.com
See other works by this author at,
www.VenusPress.com