by Brill Harper
“Do what?” Obviously, Mitch has been drinking for quite a while. The kind of drinking that either turns a man mean and invincible or into a country western song cliché. “How about some coffee?”
Mitch levels a glance at me. “I’m pretty happy with rum, but thanks anyway.” He tips his glass, drinking around the ice cubes. “You ever been in love?”
I stare at Mitch with equal parts bafflement and horror. “God, no.”
“You’re a lucky bastard, then, Mr. Virile. Love will suck the marrow right out of your soul.”
The mixed metaphor confuses me, but I let the moment pass. Mitch will undoubtedly keep talking. That’s what drunk men do.
Mitch sighs. “It’s weird. The way you look at lots of women and they’re all fine and lovely and then the way the light attaches to one is different. She’s all sparkle and dazzle and it’s captivating, but it’s like looking straight on at the sun. And then it doesn’t matter if you try to look away because her light is scorched on your retinas and you’re blind forever.”
The bartender brings us another round. Which is good because I suddenly need a drink very much. “That doesn’t sound lovely at all. So, don’t fall in love.”
Mitch chuckles a hoarse sound. “That’s where the falling part comes in, my friend. It’s not a choice, it’s an accident. You just fall down, down, down.” He motions with his hands and makes an explosion sound.
I’ve managed to side-step around the hazards of “falling” this long. And for that I am thankful. “You need to brush yourself off and get back out there.”
“It’s not that easy. Once love sinks its teeth in, you can’t just get back out there and go on to the next.”
My stomach lowers an inch. I haven’t been with another woman since the night I met Holly. Surely that is a coincidence. A bead of sweat forms on my temple. Cold sweat. “How do you know it’s love, not just lust?”
“When she’s all you think about. When you find yourself picking up your phone a thousand times a day to share something with her because you know it will make her laugh or she’ll make you laugh.” Mitch shrugs. “When you want to slay all her dragons.”
I think of the tornado warning, how I wanted more than anything to make Holly feel safe. But surely that is different. I barely knew her then. It was testosterone, not love. Right?
“I don’t know how to explain it to someone who’s never felt it. It’s just that the world feels right when she’s with you. And you can tell her your secrets and your fears and you know it’s safe. You don’t have to hide anymore.”
Dante Martino.
I’ve never shared my past life as Dante with anyone before, and I told Holly the one thing that could undo everything I have going for me now. And it never occurred to me that she could use it against me because I know she wouldn’t. I trust her.
I don’t have to hide with her. I don’t even have to hide from myself when I’m with her.
I swallow hard and my stomach pitches even lower. I think of her voice, her freckles, the way she makes me laugh. I think of her heat, the way I wanted to hold her when we were done making love.
Making love?
Jesus. How could I have not seen what was happening to me?
And the one thing I didn’t think of, what I haven’t thought of once, is getting “back out there.” Because I don’t want out there. Not anymore. I want to come inside from the cold, finally.
What if it is too late?
Holly
I DON’T KNOW HOW LONG the doorbell has been ringing because, well, brunch is getting out of hand. I wipe the tears of laughter from my eyes and set down my Mimosa. “Oh my God, you guys. We’ve had three bottles of champagne and haven’t even mentioned the reading yet. We are the worst book club ever.”
I heft myself off the floor and do a mental headcount. Everyone is here, so who is at my door?
Thank God for my friends. They’ve gotten me through the last two weeks in one piece. Mostly. I let myself fall for the biggest player of them all. The Kingpin. I deserve the beating my heart has been taking, but that doesn’t mean it hurts less. At least I’m not in love.
He’s been calling. Texting. Doing and saying all the right things, but the right things are second nature to men like Dane. He is, as he had told me, a gifted actor. He doesn’t want to settle down. He doesn’t want a relationship with me or anyone else. The attention he’s been giving me is to salve his wounded ego because I said goodbye first.
It was the hardest, smartest thing I’ve ever done. Of course, sleeping with him was the stupidest.
The seven drunk women, piled all over my living room like a debauched literary harem, are still laughing when I open the door and the bottom of my world falls out, leaving me unmoored in heady waters.
“Dane?” I ask.
The man in front of me doesn’t look like the Dane Martin I’ve come to know and lust over. Gone are his contacts and immaculate suit. He even seems...vulnerable...in his ill-fitting khaki pants and collared shirt. His eyes, hidden behind huge black rimmed glasses, are pensive, and he’s done something to his hair that makes it look as if his mother combed it for him before he left the house.
If I didn’t know better, I’d have thought that maybe he keeps all his superpowers in his expensive wardrobe and without it he is a normal human being. Except, of course, I’ve seen him naked and know for a fact that isn’t true. His superpowers are kept in his suit all right...his birthday suit.
As he stands in front of me, adorably rumpled and exposed, my heart loses the endless battle it’s been waging, and I surrender, oddly triumphant, in the lost war against falling in love with him. Dante Martino, my very own endearing Clark Kent. A fantasy come to life more than even the sex-god I made love to. This man, this beautiful, currently awkward, man is everything I ever dreamed about.
But what does he want?
Dane gulps as though he is swallowing around a jawbreaker of emotion. He’s nervous. The idea of that makes me want to scoop him to my breasts and pledge my undying love. “It’s a bad time, isn’t it?” he asks.
I glance behind me; my friends are unnaturally still in hopes of hearing whatever is happening in my doorway. “Book club.” I tilt my head to get a better look at him. “Are you okay?”
“My high school reunion is tonight.”
I nod as if that makes all the sense in the world. “Okay...”
“It’s about a two-hour flight. I’m going.” He pauses, staring at his shoe for a moment, and then meets my eyes with a surprisingly intense gaze. “Like this.”
Something like hope bubbles and fizzes in my chest. “I’m not sure what you’re trying to tell me.”
“I’m going like this, and I’m going to face that kid inside you say I’m so afraid of, and I’m going to do it without all the defenses that come with being Dane Martin. Except one. I’d like you to come with me.” He doesn’t wait for me to answer his invitation. “You were right. I stuffed that clumsy, embarrassing kid I used to be into a locker in my mind just like the bullies used to do to me in the hallways of my high school. Instead of being a man, I became an actor. I’m not whole, I’m not happy, and I don’t have enough to offer you now, but I’m hoping you’ll give me a chance to show you a fully realized adult human being is underneath it all somewhere. If you help me find him.”
I inhale a breath that catches on the jagged edges of my heart, snagging and ripping and tearing my emotions. Every girl should have a Jerry McGuire moment in her life. I just never thought I’d get one with the modern-day rake.
Can I trust this grand gesture? Dare I? Dare I not?
He searches my eyes for a minute and seems to find what he’s looking for in them. “You are the only real thing I have in my life. I’m not going to let you push me away this time.”
His words electrify me. I don’t know what to say or do. Except one thing. “I guess I need to go change my clothes so you can take me to your high school reunion.”
“Yeah?”
/> “Yeah.”
He pulls me into a kiss. “I love you,” he whispers against my mouth, his arms tightening like bands around me. Which is good because I’m about to fly apart into a million pieces.
There is only one first kiss after an I-love-you and I want to commit it to my memory with superglue and staples. Dane deepens the kiss, growling a low sound of satisfaction. My bones melt more with each slant of his mouth as we trade promises without words.
I become aware of a presence behind me and look up to see Dane staring at it with one eye open. We slow our kiss and break away as all seven members of my book club squeal and clap in the doorway.
Trying to come down from that kiss is difficult. The sound of my heartbeat fills my ears and my legs are like jelly. “Um, what should I wear?”
Dane kisses my nose. “Considering the way I dressed, if you wouldn’t mind going extra smoking hot, I’d appreciate it.”
I laugh. “Done.” I turn. “Ladies, book club is over. I need to get my sexy on.”
Before I can step away, Dane snakes an arm around my waist and whispers in my ear. The sensation of his mouth makes my loins quiver before I even have the chance to make sense of the message. “Do me one more favor. Skip the panties, too.”
Neighborly Advice
DEAR GIRL NEXT DOOR,
My boyfriend thinks we should move in together, but I’m not sure what that means to him. Is shacking up a good idea?
Signed,
Closet Space
~*~
DEAR CLOSET SPACE,
Ask him what that means to him. And tell him what it means to you. He may very well just be looking to cut expenses—and if that is fine with you, then go for it. But if you are hoping it’s a commitment step, then you better be sure he’s on the same page.
I may be old fashioned, but I don’t really see shacking up as a stepping stone to forever. Chances are, most people see it as a chance to “feel out the situation” with the caveat that if it doesn’t work, you can just move. I feel like that by keeping your eyes on the exit, you aren’t going to be keeping them on each other. But that is just me. You need to do what’s best for you.
Yours,
Girl Next Door
CHAPTER EIGHT
Dane
IT’S BEEN THE LONGEST God damned night of my life.
God damned speeches. God damned rubber chicken dinner. God damned small talk.
I know why it was necessary to go back to the start and why I did what I did, sacrificing my pride and showing up at the reunion as if I haven’t spent my adult life becoming the poster model of virility. But the woman I love...love...has been next to me all night in a little black dress with no panties underneath. I’ve already wasted so much time, denying what my heart knew the minute I saw Holly. I don’t want to waste another minute, and instead, I’ve had to sit for hours not touching her on the plane and then hours not touching her in a crummy hotel banquet room full of people I don’t care about. It feels like I waited my whole life for this night to start, and I want it to start right fucking now.
I slide the room key into the hotel door and hook Holly by the waist as I slam it shut with my foot. I push her back against the door and yank the material of her halter dress out of my way so I can taste the column of her throat.
She turns her head to give me better access and sighs as my teeth scrape against her sensitive skin. I want to devour her. I’m going to devour her.
Raw need pulses through me. Pinning her to the door with my body, I use my other hand to snake under her dress, caressing the soft flesh above her stocking. “Do you know how crazy you have made me all night?”
I plant hot, open-mouth kisses up her neck, to her jaw, and finally her mouth. Any finesse I might have once possessed as a lover is gone as I mash my lips against hers, practically prying her mouth open with mine. I kiss her so hard and relentlessly that my glasses get skewed between us and I have to take precious time away from her candy lips to tear the goddamned things off my face before I can resume aggressively fucking her mouth with my tongue.
My whole-body shakes and my dick is leaking pre-cum down my pant legs. She’s turned me into a fucking barbarian.
One hand cupping her fragile jaw firmly, holding her in place to take and take and take my feral kiss, the other hand moves up and explores the sensitive seam where her leg meets her body. I know she likes it, the sensation of hard and soft at the same time. I know it’s almost too much to take for her too, like a tickle that borders on torture, but I keep my touch beneath her dress light while I drill her mouth the way I want to use my cock.
The thought of being inside her now almost makes me come in my pants. I’ve never known an ache so deep, have never believed I was capable of feeling so much hunger.
Holly might have been stunned when I shoved her against the door, but she seems to come out her daze enough to finally remember she has arms. She uses them to thrust her fingers into my hair, moaning in that throaty voice that makes me wild. She arches her back, trying to get my fingers closer to her pussy and keening when instead I drop them back to the lacy top of her stocking.
“All night,” I rasp. “All night I knew all I had to do was put my hand beneath your skirt and find you bare to me. I don’t even remember most of the dinner.”
She laughs. “That’s because we left before dessert. And not too subtly, either. You dragged me out of there like we were headed to your cave.”
“I had all the small talk I could take. You’re lucky I stopped at the front desk and that they had a vacancy, or we’d be doing this in the rental car right now.” I’d booked a room at a better hotel ten minutes away. But it would have been ten minutes too long to wait to get my dick inside her body.
I undo the closure behind her neck and pulled the fabric of her dress down, revealing the perfect tits I’ve been dreaming about since I had my first taste of them.
God. How have I managed a lifetime without her? That I’d touched another woman this way almost sickens me now.
Without the finesse I’ve made myself famous for, I latch onto one pebbled nipple and suck greedily. She bows her back beneath me as if electricity is arcing through her, and maybe it is. I feel like a snapping livewire. My need sparks with electric energy, a wild current of high voltage.
Holly holds me to her chest tightly, as if I would be anywhere else at the moment. She whimpers my name.
“It’s okay, baby. I’m going to take good care of you.”
I pick her up, loving the way her legs wrap around my hips, pushing my engorged cock against the juncture of her legs, the place I need to be more than I need to breathe. In this new position, I have even better access to her chest, and I wage a battle with myself whether to keep her pinned to the door and ravage her or make the long trek to the bed where I can spread her out like a buffet.
The new beast inside me doesn’t fucking care so long as he gets inside her tight, warm pussy quickly, but I want it all. I have a feeling I will always feel like this, a little sick with a desire so strong that I will never be whole unless she is with me.
I nip her neck and start for the bed, holding her soft ass in my hands and squeezing. She moans my name and sucks my earlobe until I feel the bed at the back of my legs and sit, gripping her body close to me so she doesn’t feel unsafe on the way down. So she knows I’m in control.
A control that slips more every second.
“You don’t even know how turned on I was tonight, Dane.” She pulls at my shirt clumsily. “Every time I looked at you, all nerded up, but knowing how sexy you are. Knowing that underneath those clothes, your skin is so hot and molded over so much muscle.”
I help her drag the material over my head, amazed really, that she finds me so much sexier when I look like one of my unenlightened clients. I saw it in her eyes when she answered her door earlier in the day, though. Pupils don’t lie.
She draws a hot, wet circle around my nipple with her tongue, and I squeeze her hips tighter, groaning.
Fuck. I’m not going to make it. Her hands get busy stroking over my chest and back, and she coos her satisfaction. “I’ve been wet since you told me not to wear panties, Dane.”
“Jesus, Holly.” I fumble with the zipper at her back, wondering if maybe I’ll just do her under the skirt if I can’t get it undone fast enough.
She rubs herself against me, grinding until we’re both gasping. “Every time you looked at me, I knew you were thinking about what was under my skirt.”
“What wasn’t under your skirt, you mean.” Finally, the zipper comes down and I lift the whole thing up, instead of down. My fingers go automatically to her wet pussy, and she holds my shoulders, straddled across my lap in her black stockings and heels, writhing against my hand. I’ve never seen anything as erotic as she throws her head back and lets pleasure roll over us both in waves.
She is so beautiful.
“I need to be inside you,” I say in a voice not my own.
I roll us over to undo my pants with one hand while kissing her. And it isn’t working. Son of a...I’ve spent the better part of a decade becoming the smoothest man in the universe, and now my zipper is stuck like a first timer.
Holly giggles beneath me and it feels like rays of sunshine hitting every corner of my soul. “Stand up,” she says.
I do as she asks, and she rolls to a sitting position on the edge of the bed. She pulls me closer by my waistband and works on my zipper. I still need to touch her, so I stroke her hair, winding strands of it around my hands, marveling at the color and the softness. I’m a fucking goner.
The relief I feel when the zipper releases and my cock escapes the confines of my pants is amazing, but not nearly as much as the feel of her hand working me from base to tip slowly while she slides my pants down my legs. She doesn’t let go when I step out of them, but she does look up at me, making sure I watch as she slowly swipes her tongue across the tip of my cock.
“I won’t last ten seconds, babe.”