His Kinky Virgin

by Frankie Love

“That sounds fun,” I tell him, not admitting that Bridget told me this days ago. Because Gabe told her.

  They aren’t even sleeping together and she knows more about Gabe’s logistics than I do about Cooper’s.

  Granted, he could be dating other women. He could have been with other women in Miami.

  Eleven months have passed and I’m right where I started.

  Except that these feelings for Cooper have nothing do with the lust I felt back in January.

  No.

  My feelings are real now.

  “So, the last item on the list needs to get checked off,” he says, opening his mailbox.

  “Yep.”

  He grabs his mail and closes his box. “We need to get on it. I’m leaving for my parents’ for the month.”

  “All month?”

  “Yeah, Thanksgiving until after Christmas. This might be one of the only years I have that luxury.”

  “Wow. So.” I shove my hands in the pocket of my parka. “Are you keeping your apartment?”

  He nods. “At least until I sign somewhere.”

  “It’s crazy. You could be gone, for, like, ever.”

  “You’re not getting rid of me just yet, Gracie. How about tomorrow night? The final resolution?”

  “Okay,” I say slowly, hesitating, knowing I’ve been under the weather all week, unable to shake whatever I have. Keeping any food down has been a chore. “But do you remember the last item?”

  He nods.

  “Okay. So like, do you have a,” I lean in closer, “a fantasy?”

  He smiles. “Gracie Lithe, the good-girl-next-door wants to know about my fantasies?”

  I roll my eyes. “Cooper, do you, or don’t you?”

  “What, you don’t have any burning fantasy you want to act upon?”

  I shrug. “Not really.”

  “Well, that’s okay. I’m in control, remember?”

  I nod.

  “So, I’ve got you covered. One fantasy coming up. Tomorrow night. My place.”

  The next night I’m in Cooper’s bathroom, zipping up the front of the cheesiest costume I’ve ever laid eyes on.

  I call out to him, adjusting the hat on my head. “This is seriously your fantasy?”

  “Let me see, Nurse Cupcake. Come take my temperature and tell me if we should stay in bed until I get better.”

  I crack a smile, feeling ridiculous, and do my best sexy saunter out the bathroom door into his bedroom.

  “How do you want me to take your temperature?” I ask coyly. “In your mouth or up your ass?”

  “When you say temperature do you really…”

  “I mean temperature,” I deadpan.

  “But I don’t feel well,” Cooper moans, doing a terrible job of being a patient in need of medical attention. He’s in a pair of low-slung grey sweats, his hair in a sexy man bun, which is a thing – I promise, you just need to see him – and his abs are chiseled to perfection.

  “I can make you feel better,” I tell him, stepping toward him in my white uniform, nurse’s cap, and a stethoscope around my neck.

  “What kind of prescription are you giving me?” he asks, trying hard to take me seriously in this get-up.

  Before answering, I feel a wave of nausea pass over me. It’s irritating considering I have been on a saltine and water diet since last week.

  Trying to compose myself, I try again. “I am giving you a dose of your own medicine.”

  I start to unzip the front of my dress, but before I can even get the zipper past my breasts, I start heaving.

  Vomiting all over Cooper’s bare feet.

  Throwing up all over Cooper’s fantasy.

  19

  Tied Game, Bottom of the Ninth

  December

  “It would be a disaster, except it just can’t be happening.”

  “Except it is happening,” Bridget says. “This is really happening.”

  We are at the women’s clinic where she works. She scheduled me an appointment after I complained of being sick for weeks. I told her about the nurse fantasy and how I had ruined it. I mentioned having been nauseous the week before. She said, “Duh.”

  Turns out she was right.

  There is no denying the facts as I lay on an exam table, with an ultrasound pressed against my belly.

  Thump. Thump. Thump.

  I am pregnant.

  With Cooper Bentley’s baby.

  Bridget hands me my parka as we leave the office. I have a due date. I have a next appointment.

  I have a baby.

  “I just needed to get through this appointment before I talked to Cooper. Now I can. I needed to make sure it was real and not just in my head.”

  “And now?” she asks.

  “I am going to send him my manuscript.”

  She narrows her eyes. “What will that do?”

  “A lot. It will tell him exactly where I stand.”

  “And where do you stand? I mean, for those of us who don’t have access to your memoir?”

  I smile, remembering the day Cooper and I made our Kinky List. “He’s in charge.”

  “That is the strangest thing to hear out of the mouth of a Women’s Studies graduate.”

  “Just don’t say I’m dick-whipped and we’re good to go.”

  20

  Headed for Home

  December

  I call Gracie every day for a week.

  I don’t hear from her. Not once.

  I call Gabe asking for Bridget’s number, and that gets me somewhere.

  “She won’t return my calls. Do you know what’s going on?”

  “I think she just has a lot going on, Cooper. With her book and everything. She got an offer.”

  I didn’t know that.

  But I had an offer too.

  And more than anything I wanted to talk it through with the one person who I couldn’t bear to lose.

  The one person I had learned to love over the course of a year.

  “Can you please tell her to call me.”

  “Of course, Cooper,” Bridget says. “I think she just needs a little bit of time to figure things out.”

  I hang up, pissed.

  I need to figure some things out too.

  I’m about to lose my shit, My family is already over my moodiness, as am I – when a package arrives.

  A manuscript.

  My heart constricts as I read Gracie’s funny, poignant, and heartfelt account of her past year.

  She doubted my commitment. Assumed I was dating other women. She believed I was experienced in ways I certainly wasn’t. Not before her. The book was accurate except it didn’t acknowledge that she was so many of my firsts too. She deserves to know that.

  Gracie had written our story.

  But had taken me out of it.

  I needed to get back in.

  21

  NYE

  He texts me on Christmas.

  Cooper: I know your list is finished, but can I be your NYE date?

  I don’t know what to say at first. Like, pick up the goddamned phone, Cooper. Then I was grateful he hadn’t called.

  I know my voice would crack the moment I heard his voice.

  I’d tell him everything.

  That I wanted him every day for the past year. That I want him now, more than ever.

  That most of all, I want him to want me.

  Me: Of course. I’ll be here.

  He shows up, and my stomach is in knots. And that’s not just because I have 24/7 morning sickness.

  It’s also because I’m torn up, not knowing what comes next.

  “Gracie,” he says, handsome as always in a suit, overdressed for what I’ve decided is going to be a night in my apartment.

  I’m rocking sweats and a sweatshirt that says YES WAY, ROSE.

  “It feels like forever.” I pull open the door, letting him inside.

  “Too long.”

  In my living room, Cooper looks so big, as he walks around, accessing my space. A sp
ace that will be home to a baby in about seven months.

  Our baby.

  “Still the most adult twenty-something I know,” he says, eyeing my box of hanging folders.

  “More than you know,” I murmur, walking to the kitchen and grabbing him a beer.

  “What are you drinking,” he asks, loosening his tie after taking the beer from my hand.

  “Seltzer tonight.”

  He eyes me skeptically.

  “Cooper, we really need to talk.”

  “I take it you don’t want to go out?”

  “No. I mean, we really need to have a heart-to-heart.”

  Cooper nods and his eyes are on me like he’s never seen me before. I wonder what he will say when I tell him I made him a father. What will he say when he finds out he is connected to me forever.

  I’d feel bad, but I don’t. I want this baby. I am a Women’s Studies major who discovered that her sexual awakening can lead to bigger things than she ever dreamed of finding.

  A heart within a heart, a life within a life.

  Our baby, in my womb.

  A life that needs me.

  “Gracie,” Cooper says, setting down his beer, facing me. “I need to tell you something to. Let me go first.”

  I frown. “Did you get a job offer?” I’ve been scouring the news and hadn’t heard anything.

  “The Yankees will keep me if I want to stay.”

  “Do you want to stay?”

  “I want you.”

  I’m taken back. “What? What are you talking about, Cooper?”

  “I want you. I read your book. And there is a lot that is slightly skewed–”

  “That’s why I wanted you to read it. To fix any errors.”

  “Is that the only reason you wanted me to read it?”

  I shake my head, my eyes filling with tears. “No. I wanted you to understand me, Cooper, understand where I was coming from.”

  “Thank you.”

  I pull back, confused. “Thank you for what?”

  “For being so honest. I haven’t been as honest with you.” I watch him swallow, his Adam’s apple bobbing, his eyes written with concern. “I haven’t been with anyone else all year. And in the book, I get the impression you thought I had been.”

  “No one else... not in like Tampa or anywhere?”

  “Nowhere. When I committed to the Kinky List, Gracie, I committed to you.”

  “Cooper,” I start, my voice so soft.

  “And another thing I wasn’t honest about was my experience.”

  “Experience?”

  “I may have had a hundred women to my apartment, but in every single instance they were one night stands.”

  “I don’t need to know details, Coop,” I tell him, flustered.

  “I know you don’t, but when we conceived the Kinky List, I gave you the impression that I knew a lot more than I actually did. When I handcuffed you to my bed, that was the only time I’d ever handcuffed anyone. In the bedroom or otherwise.”

  “Threesomes or public sex?”

  “Nope.” He shakes his head. “And no foursomes or strip shows or videos. You were so many of my firsts.”

  “Cooper, I have–”

  “Wait, I need you to hear this, Gracie,” he says, pulling me closer to him.

  “What?”

  “I love you. I have for an entire year. Why the hell do you think I wanted to do this list in the first place?”

  “Cooper––”

  “I love you and I’m sorry for not telling you sooner. I got your book and it was amazing but there was just too much that was left out. I want my name in it. I want to be a part of your story. Now and forever.”

  Cooper kneels, eyes up at me, and out of his pocket, he pulls a black velvet box.

  “Marry me. Make me the happiest man to ever play for the Yankees.”

  The ring is a gorgeous ten-carat, princess-cut solitaire. It glitters and glows. It’s magical.

  I cover my mouth, shocked and in awe and all my nervous flutterings float away.

  Cooper Bentley loves me.

  “I have to say something first,” I tell him, my eyes full of tears now; this flood is not going to stop.

  “What is it?” Cooper looks up at me, ring in his hand, offering it to me.

  “I’m pregnant, Cooper, we’re having a baby.”

  He shakes his head, absorbing this, and I take the ultrasound photo from the folder hanging in the box. Handing it to him as I explain.

  The due date, when I heard the heartbeat. How the night in Vegas, when we fought... was also the night we made something beautiful.

  “Gracie, we’re having a baby?”

  “Yes, and if it changes what you just said --if you want to walk away -- if this was all a big misunderstanding…”

  “Stop it,” he tells me, pulling me to him, pressing the ring onto my finger. It fits perfectly. “Stop it, Gracie. You said I was in charge? Well, you and me, we’re having a baby and getting married.”

  I laugh, wiping my eyes. I have a ring on my finger.

  “Okay,” I say, laughing.

  “Is that a yes?” he clarifies.

  “It’s a yes.”

  He kisses me, on the lips, then drops to his knees, lifts my sweatshirt, and kisses my belly. He wraps his arms around my waist, pulling me to him.

  I wipe the tears from my eyes, wondering when this life became my own.

  “Cooper, I love you.”

  “Then we need to do number eight.”

  I shake my head, laughing, unable to believe my luck. “There was no number eight on the Kinky List, Cooper.”

  “True, but there is one thing we haven’t done yet.”

  “What’s that?”

  He lifts me, carries me to the bedroom, and places me on the bed.

  “Gracie, we’ve never made love.”

  Epilogue

  18 months later…

  The book release party is held at a sex dungeon in Brooklyn. At first Gracie had said no way, no how—that it needs to be somewhere respectable considering her parents would be there—but the more she thought about it she realized it was actually perfect.

  After all, her name is on a book about sex.

  “Jana texted,” Gracie says, stepping from the car outside the dungeon. “She said Thomas went down just fine.”

  “She really is the best nanny in the city,” I say, taking my wife’s hand in mine. We walk inside the venue with our fingers laced, our hearts knit.

  “Right? Jana manages to get him down in less than fifteen minutes.” Gracie shakes her head. “It takes me ages to get him down. I don’t get enough sleep. Look at these circles.” She widens her eyes, but I just lean in for a kiss. “I wish I were a natural.”

  “Remember we’re batting .300, Gracie. You’re more than a natural, you are his mom. No one can compete with that.”

  “Except you, Coop. Thomas loves you. And this little one?” She rubs her tiny baby bump a smile on her face. “She’s going to be such a daddy’s girl.”

  “We’re pretty lucky.” I wrap my arms around Gracie, kissing her forehead.

  “I know.”

  Inside the dungeon Gracie’s publicist leads her to a table where she will be signing. A stack of hardbacks ready for her signature.

  “Hey man,” Gabe says, walking over and handing me a drink. “Gracie has quite a crowd.”

  Bridget is at his side and she gives me a quick hug. “This is so awesome. Tons of college friends are here, and professors. And that woman is a journalist from the New York Times,” she says pointing out people in the room. “Is she nervous?”

  I think she’s more mortified about her parents coming to a sex dungeon,” I tell them.

  They laugh, holding hands. They got engaged two months ago, at Area 51. Both romantic and really strange. Perfect for them.

  “Well,” Bridget says. “They got an advanced copy of the book and have already read about her getting it up the ass. I’m pretty sure they can handle a
club with a few chains and whips.”

  “This place is pretty cool,” Gabe says. “Maybe we should get married here.”

  Before I can shake my head and say no way, Bridget is nodding. “I can totally see it.” The two of them walk away discussing a potential reception, and I look for Gracie.

  We’ve done our best to be in the same state, but considering my gig with the Yankees, it’s meant a lot of travel for Gracie. Since Thomas was born it has been more difficult, and with another baby on the way I know it won’t get easier. Which just means when we can be together, we have to take advantage of it.

  “Do you need any thing?” I ask, coming up to where she’s getting set up. She’s sitting behind the signing table, and there’s already a queue of fans all ready to read about our exploits.

  “I’m good,” she says as the publicist comes over telling her the signing is going to start. “But,” she says, smiling slyly. “I was thinking … we have a sitter … and we’re at a sex club. Maybe after the signing we could …”

  “Gracie Bentley, you are always full of surprises.” I grin as I step away and she begins signing.

  Gracie may not be a virgin, but she’s still kinky as ever.

  It’s just now; the virgin next-door has become my kinky wife.

  Chapter One

  Cassius

  Five minutes before I walk onstage in the warehouse downtown, I see my girlfriend Gina kiss my brother Chad.

  My stomach drops. My mind reels. Flashes of her and me for the past five fucking years grind into my skull.

  I went to the alley to breathe before my show, but now all I want to do is punch the fucking wall until my knuckles bleed. The only reason I’ve gotten this far—which still isn’t very fucking far—is one hundred percent because my Gina and Chad have had my back.

  Apparently the only backs they have right now, though, are one another’s. Their kiss is more than just mouth-on-mouth; it says a thousand fucking things.

  But mostly it says that I’m in this alone.