Rogue Acts

by Molly O'Keefe

  More groans, some laughs.

  I stop mid-stage and prop my hands on my hips, giving the spotlight a rueful smile. “I know. It’s embarrassing, really. You’ve been there, though, right? Dated someone for a few weeks, it didn’t work out, but she made the best vegan veggie dip…” Giggles. “And had the best Indigo Girls vinyl collection…” More giggles. “And her flannel shirt collection. Unf, am I right?”

  I hold my hand up for an imaginary high-five.

  “You’ve been great. I’m Camilla, and I’m totally looking to steal your girl.”

  The round of applause and cheers is pretty solid, and I’m pumped as I jog off-stage. I thank the scheduler for fitting me in, then I head to the bar for another soda—and maybe, hopefully, another glance at the out-of-my-league chick.

  I get more than a glance.

  She’s waiting for me at the bar, and doesn’t make any attempt to hide it. She watches me approach and wiggles her fingers in a wave that gets my blood pumping.

  “Hey,” I say as I reach her.

  “I’m Elizabeth.”

  “Camilla.” I point to the stage. “But hopefully you already know that.”

  “Does that ever work?”

  “What?”

  “The steal your girl line. Do you ever go home with someone’s date?”

  I shake my head. “It’s not meant to work like that. It’s supposed to be a memorable call-back to the point of my set, but if I have to explain that, it probably didn’t do its job.”

  “It did,” she murmurs. “But it also worked in other ways. Like…I want to take you home kind of ways.”

  “Do you have a boyfriend I’d be stealing you from?”

  “Nope.” She fixes her clear, blue gaze on me. “Well, in the interest of full disclosure because I’d like to buy you a drink—I have a husband, sort of. That bit of your routine was disturbingly accurate, but I’m working on my standards. Hence being very much, very permanently separated. Ex-husband. I need to get in the habit of leading with the ex part.”

  “A husband.”

  Her lips twitch. “Yes. It’s a long, complicated story, and very much not the point of what I want to do tonight.”

  “Which is…?”

  “You. Preferably over and over again until dawn.”

  “You’re definitely separated?”

  “Officially single.”

  Maybe I don’t need to listen to Gretchen getting lucky tonight after all. “Then let’s get out of here.”

  2

  Elizabeth

  I hail a cab outside the club and step aside, gesturing for Camilla to slide in first.

  “Upper West Side,” I tell the driver when I get in. “91st and Amsterdam.”

  Camilla doesn’t bother to hide her reaction—just like I didn’t bother to hide my address. It is what it is.

  As the cab pulls away from the curb, I lean in and quietly murmur, “Did I interrupt you having a drink after the show?”

  She shakes her head. “I actually don’t drink on school nights.”

  “School—” I do a double-take. “Are you a student?”

  She grins. “A teacher. High school math.”

  “The day job.”

  “That’s the one.” She looks straight ahead.

  God, I’m so curious about her, about that. How much of her act is real? Does she like teaching, or is it really just a job with benefits that allows her to do this at night?

  But her body language is crystal clear. This is a hook-up, not a tell-all. Fair enough.

  We sit in silence as the taxi navigates traffic. She looks at me, I look at her, my nipples get hard, she glances down my body…

  Yeah, I’m down with this just being a hook-up.

  Talking is highly overrated.

  At my building, I wave at the night doorman and whisk her to the elevator, letting my fingers brush her arm, her hand, and then once we’re alone in the lift, down to the curve of her hip.

  She leans into me. “Hi,” she says, her voice soft and her eyes sparkling behind her oversized hipster glasses.

  “Hello.” I brush my knuckles against her cheek, urging her closer without grabbing on. “Kiss me.”

  She closes the gap and slides her lips against mine. She tastes like limes.

  “Kiss me back,” she whispers against my mouth.

  Oh, yes. Please. I growl as I turn my hand and cup her cheek. I hold her in place and push against her lips, making her open for me.

  I’ll kiss her back. I’ll kiss her senseless.

  When the elevator dings, we stumble out of the car and into my hallway. She sags against the door, giggling, as I dig out my keys.

  I kiss her as soon as we are inside to shut her up, and it works. She sighs and pushes against me.

  “Touch me,” I tell her, and this time she doesn’t skip a beat.

  “Touch me back.” Each confident word lights me up a little hotter. I back her into the living room and toss my keys on a chair we won’t be using tonight.

  I want her flat on her back on the couch, now.

  She’s slim and strong, but as I peel off her clothes, I find soft spots, too. Her breasts are delicious cones, topped with the sweetest, puffiest nipples. I trace one areola with my fingertip and the other with my tongue.

  “Mmm,” she says. “I like that. I’d like it a little harder, too.”

  Tracing turns to pinching, sucking to biting, and her hips lift off the couch. Yes, I like it a little harder as well.

  I shift lower, breathing in her skin. She has a glorious scent, delicate and earthy. Cupping her breasts, I squeeze as I kiss over her belly, another secret soft spot. And when I get to her jeans, she’s one step ahead of me. I follow her industrious fingers with my mouth. She pops the button and I lick the open vee of her fly.

  She tugs her jeans low on her hips and I cover the cotton of her panties with my mouth.

  When she gets her legs free, and spreads them, I follow her fingers back up her inner thighs and under the edge of the elastic, hungrily tasting each bit of new skin exposed.

  “Is this where you want to do this?” she asks as she holds her panties to the side so I can suck on her clit. “Do you have a bed in this lovely apartment, or is it off-limits?”

  I jerk my head up. “What?”

  She waves at my living room. “This is okay, but we could stretch out on a bed.”

  “Right.” I don’t move.

  “Is that weird? We don’t have to. This is fine. I’ll shut up, because that felt really good what you were doing, and I want more of that.”

  I laugh and fold over, pressing my face into her thigh. “Tastes really good, too,” I whisper as I bury my face between her legs. But I don’t stay there. I just suck a little more because the hard throb of her clit in my mouth is what I’ve been missing for far too long.

  Then I push back from the couch and hold out my hand. “It’s okay. I just lost my mind a little.”

  She beams. “That’s a good thing.”

  We leave her clothes in front of the couch, and I lead her in her panties to my bedroom.

  She pauses me in the doorway. “Can I strip you down, too?”

  “Of course.” I catch her wrists and kiss the sweet inside curve of one forearm, then the other, before I bring her hands to my shirt and hold them there. “I have to confess something. It’s been a while since I’ve had sex. Even longer since it was with a stranger. And you are both hot and delicious and exactly what I want tonight, so I’m a little…loopy at the moment. Like, my head is spinning so much because of how much I like this, how much I want to just…” I growl and lean in to kiss her. “That.”

  “Loopy is good,” she says against my mouth, laughing gently. “Let me take your shirt off, okay?”

  Her fingers move quickly, confidently, and I arch into her touch. Little licks of heat skitter across my skin where she grazes me, then they bloom into hardier, hungrier fires once I’m bare from the waist up.

  She slows down, cu
pping my breasts and squeezing them gently as she kisses my neck. “You feel really good,” she whispers. “I’m going to get on my knees and peel off your pants, too. I want to see every inch of you.”

  Ahhh. My brain spins as I thunk my head back against the door frame.

  “Shhh. You with me? You’re shaking.” She looks up at me, and I gaze down, wondering what I did right to stumble across such a chatty, sexy little thing.

  “Good shaking,” I promise her.

  She kisses the inside of my knee. “Nice.”

  Understatement. Yes, this is nice.

  She glides to her feet, all long muscles and understated curves, and floats to my bed. I follow as if in a dream.

  “Where were we?” she asks as she falls back, her legs stretching wide.

  I dive on her and lose myself between her thighs. She tastes even better with nothing between us. Writhing, surging, and then whimpering, too, as her legs begin to shake. I lick up every drop she makes for me.

  When her nimble fingers curve over her mound and find her clit, I move my mouth to her thigh, to the crease between her sex and her leg. The scent of her sex, fresh and fragrant, swirls around me as I lick and suck on her flesh, listening to her fingers fly faster, harder.

  “Suck on my clit,” she begs, and I dive in, taking over just as her climax hits. “Oh, God, oh yes, oh no, oh please…”

  The gibberish trails off as I keep kissing her, gently now. Little licks, tiny brushes of my lips against her pussy.

  “Come here, I want to taste myself on you,” she says in a rush.

  I curl up next to her and pull her into my body, eager to kiss her. But she doesn’t go straight for my mouth. She licks my chin, sucks on the corner of my mouth, and trails her tongue along the top edge of my upper lip before giggling and coming front and center.

  “So good,” she breathes as she teases my mouth open. “Thank you.”

  “Any time.” And maybe I mean it.

  She doesn’t say anything to that, she just rolls me onto my back and slides her thigh between my legs. She gets me off like that, riding my cunt against her muscles, with her head bowed so she can suck on my nipples at the same time.

  After, we curl up and I tangle my fingers in her dark, unruly curls. The side of her head is shaved on one side, an undercut that feels amazing when I run my fingertips over it.

  “I should go,” she murmurs after what feels like ages, her eyes still closed.

  I let out a contented sigh. “Thank you for the amazing night. Is it okay if I say we should do it again?”

  She shrugs and gets out of bed, then grins at me as she wiggles into her jeans. “You can say it.”

  “But can we do it again?”

  “Maybe.” She winks at me. “How about I give you my number and you text me in a few days?”

  “A few days?”

  “Yeah. Let it settle in, figure out if you want more of me or just more of this.”

  “Is it selfish to say both?”

  I love the way she laughs. “Selfish is important, in my opinion, but it’s also good to bump into limits from time to time.”

  Ah. “I’m good with limits. I don’t want to overstep.” Much. I want to drag her back to bed, does that count as overstepping?

  I walk her to the door because I don’t want this to be over. I want another taste of her, another round of her weight on top of me, her leg pressing between my thighs.

  I’m already aching for more and she hasn’t left yet.

  “Are you sure I can’t convince you to sleep over?” I murmur as I reach past her for the door knob.

  She gives me a half smile. “I need to go to work in four hours, and I can’t wear these clothes. My hair gel is at my friend’s place, and—”

  Pressing my finger to her mouth, I cut her off. “Overstepping alert, zero boundaries. But I have a wardrobe you are welcome to raid. I think my feet are bigger than yours, but everything else should fit. I have a bathroom full of product. And if you stay you’ll get another half hour of sleep, at least, which is a world of difference at this time of night.”

  Her eyes shift back and forth as she searches my face.

  I grin. “And I want to have sex again.”

  Her tongue slides over her bottom lip and licks against my finger.

  “Is that a yes?”

  She groans. “That’s a yes. But you better have fitted black pants.”

  I say a silent prayer for the retail therapy I threw myself into when I got separated. “At least six pairs. Get naked.”

  3

  Camilla

  I grab a venti coffee on the way to the subway, and it’s empty by the time I get to my stop.

  I grab another before I head into the school.

  Comics with day jobs need all the caffeine they can get. Add in the most unbelievable sex of the century and…yeah. I’m tired.

  And grinning.

  “Why do you look happy?” I get asked as soon as I step into the staff room. I’m not sure who asked it. There’s a bunch of people in there already, and I wasn’t paying any of them any attention.

  “Uh…” I screw my face into my usual frown. “I’m not.”

  It was Rosanne, apparently. The gym teacher gives me a disbelieving look as she gathers up her newspaper. “Sure.”

  “I had a good show last night.”

  “Mm-hmm.”

  “And I love coming to work here?”

  That gets a chorus of laughs. Everyone knows I’m counting down the days until my contract ends and I can fly out to L.A.

  “It’s payday tomorrow.” Which it is, and I am genuinely happy about that. The first bell of the morning goes, and I scoot past my mailbox before ducking into the hallway again.

  I’m still grinning.

  The morning flies by, and before I know it, it’s lunch. I go out to grab a sandwich and coffee, and while I’m in line to pay, my phone vibrates.

  * * *

  Elizabeth: You said wait a few days.

  Camilla: I did.

  Elizabeth: Oops.

  Camilla: LOL What’s up?

  Elizabeth: Is too soon to say I want to see you again?

  Camilla: Yes.

  Elizabeth: Too late.

  * * *

  I picture her unrepentant smile, the same grin she gave me when she asked me to sleep over. Elizabeth Witmore is a woman who probably never hears the word no.

  But she also has a wicked mouth and a big-ass bed.

  And I like the way she laughs, like it’s been way too long since someone reached inside her and surprised her with a good joke.

  A fucking travesty.

  * * *

  Camilla: Someone kept me up all night with a series of ridiculously good orgasms, so I need to get some sleep tonight. But tomorrow night might be open.

  Elizabeth: Really? That’s marvelous.

  * * *

  Marvelous. Good lord.

  And yes, it really was.

  We text a few more times over the next twenty-four hours, and by the time I’m leaving work the next day, I’m excited to see her.

  To get her naked.

  To press her against the bed…

  And now I’m turned on. And on the subway. Awkward.

  My arousal disappears as soon as I get off at Gretchen’s stop, though. A text from Elizabeth dumps ice water on my plans for the night.

  * * *

  Elizabeth: I’m so sorry, I need to cancel. I promise I don’t want to, but my former mother-in-law is demanding my presence at a fundraiser gala tonight.

  * * *

  I roll my eyes. My thumb itches to tap back a hard truth—like, key word there is former, right? or Rumor has it, grown-ups don’t get to demand anything from one another but we’ve fucked once. Okay, three times in one night. Four times? Maybe.

  We have a sexual connection and that’s it. I don’t know her from Adam. And it’s only my business insomuch that it means I’m not getting laid tonight after all—and probably not again,
because a socialite who hurries to do her former mother-in-law’s bidding is not my type.

  Not even if she bites my inner thigh when I come. I have some standards.

  * * *

  Camilla: No worries. Thanks for letting me know.

  Elizabeth: What are you doing tomorrow? Or Sunday? I’m yours any other time this weekend. Can I take you out for brunch? Or make you brunch at my place, naked?

  * * *

  She didn’t get the blow-off vibe. Damn.

  * * *

  Camilla: I’m kind of busy the rest of the weekend. Enjoy your gala.

  * * *

  Instead of another reply, my phone starts ringing.

  I’m tempted to rejected the call. I should reject the call.

  I press the green button to answer it instead. “Yes?”

  “You’re blowing me off.”

  “Yes.”

  “Why?” God, she’s so earnest.

  “Because you’re blowing me off. And this is what dating is like in 2018. We have high standards, which are completely justified, and people don’t meet them, and that’s totally fine. Onward and upward.”

  “But we had a nice time the other night,” she says softly, like she didn’t get the memo that 2018 is the year of the Jaded Bitch.

  “Sure. Thanks for the orgasms.”

  “I have a complicated relationship with my ex’s family.”

  “I can tell.”

  “It’s not a bad relationship…I’d like to tell you more, if you’d see me again.”

  I close my eyes and tell myself her soft voice is not worth any extra time. Myself does not listen. “I have to be honest, Elizabeth, this is a red flag.”

  “I can see how. Just give me a chance to explain.”

  “You said something about brunch?”

  She exhales, like maybe she was holding her breath and waiting for my answer. I scowl, because I shouldn’t like that. “The brunch invitation stands, yes. But here’s another idea…”