The Club

by Lauren Rowe

  I don’t have to ask him twice. I wince at first—I’m pretty raw—but as he burrows deeper and deeper into me, my body relaxes and receives him. His tongue explores my mouth as his shaft begins moving in and out of me, slowly, gently.

  “Is this okay?” he asks softly, his voice halting.

  “So good,” I breathe back. I want to melt with him—to fuse my body into his.

  His skin is warm and firm and rippling in all the right places. He’s kissing me, touching me, moving in and out of me. I’m lost in the moment. I’m lost in him.

  The song restarts from the beginning. He must have set it to play on a loop. I bring my legs up around him, drawing him into me. His hand reaches down and touches the backs of my thighs, my butt.

  He groans and thrusts into me even more deeply. “You feel so good,” he says. I open my eyes to find his blues eyes an inch away from mine, gazing at me as he moves inside me, the music washing over us. He brings his hand up to my cheek as he gyrates inside of me.

  Oh God, the singer keeps telling me Jonas wants to melt with me.

  Electricity is coursing through my veins. My heart is leaping out of my chest, overflowing with joy and relief and sheer awe that I’m here, with him, in his house, in his bed. I hug him to me, wanting to absorb him into me. I tilt my hips forward and back in synchronicity with his thrusts, willing our bodies to become one.

  “Sarah,” he whispers.

  I don’t know what’s happening between us, but I never want it to end.

  He yelps and devours my mouth with fervor, his tongue mimicking the gyrating motion happening between our bodies.

  That faraway fluttering announces itself again faintly. I hitch my legs up even higher around him, as I high as I can manage, trying yet another means of allowing him entry into the deepest recesses of my body. But it’s not deep enough. I need to be on top.

  He pulls away from our kiss and looks at me intensely. “I want to taste you again,” he says, his voice hoarse.

  I shake my head emphatically. “Not this time.”

  He touches my hair. “I want to taste you.”

  I shake my head. If it turns out I really am a ten-percenter, I don’t want to prove it unequivocally right now—that’s not how I want this magical night to end. “Next time,” I breathe. “I promise.” I push at his chest. “Me on top,” I whisper.

  His strong arms reach behind my back and cradle me. In one deft maneuver, he’s suddenly on his back and I’m on top of him, straddling him, riding him, losing my mind. He’s thrusting into me, grabbing at me, groping me, kissing me, groaning, and I’m gyrating my hips to take him into me as deeply as possible. He touches my clit—damn, he’s good at that—and that’s it. I’m a goner. I can’t think, can’t form words. I’m losing my mind. The pleasure’s incredible.

  Something is welling up inside me. I feel like an animal. I throw my head back and groan loudly. I’m losing control. I feel outside myself. I scream his name. I scream it again. Oh my God, I can’t control myself. Sounds are emerging from my throat I’ve never made before. I’m panting. My heart is racing. My head is spinning.

  “Sarah,” he chokes out.

  My body convulses and shudders around him, like a giant internal slap. It happens only once, but it’s forceful and undeniable.

  “Oh God,” he groans. His body shudders and shakes from deep inside me with his release.

  There’s a long pause. His breathing is ragged. His muscles are glistening underneath me.

  The song reaches its chorus again, telling me yet again how Jonas feels about me.

  I bite my lip. There’s a dull ache in my lower abdomen. I’m still throbbing. Aching. Yearning. I’m not finished.

  He reaches up to my shoulders and pulls me down to his face. He kisses my eyelids, my nose, my cheeks. “So much for a slow burn,” he murmurs.

  I laugh.

  “Oh, fuck,” he says, and sighs. “You’re killing me.” Something flickers in his eyes I don’t recognize.

  “What are you thinking?” I ask.

  He sighs. “That I keep fucking this up.”

  “Oh my God, no, this has been the best night—”

  “No, trust me. I’m fucking this up. But, soon, very soon, I’m gonna taste you, and learn you, and lead you to the light.”

  “This is the light. Right now.”

  He sighs. “No, you’re still stuck in the cave. I told you, I’m gonna give you both Valentine’s Day bullshit and howling-monkey-sex. I haven’t delivered on the second half yet.”

  How can that be? This was the most romantic night of my life and also the best sex I’ve ever had. Okay, granted, I didn’t technically come—I mean, I don’t think I did—I’d know it if I did, right? But I was closer than I’ve ever been, for sure. And, really, it doesn’t matter anyway. I’ve decided I don’t care about coming. What we just did was more than enough for me.

  “As far as I’m concerned,” I say, “we just had howling monkey-sex. It can’t get any better than that.”

  His mouth hitches up on one side. “Oh, Sarah. My poor little bonfire-admiring-green-bean-eater.”

  I laugh out loud.

  He shakes his head and sighs in frustration.

  Oh, I don’t like that sigh. I smile at him, but I’m uneasy. Obviously, I’m already starting to disappoint him. “I can’t imagine anything better than what we just did, Jonas,” I say, but even as I say it, I know my words won’t convince him. The man wants what he wants. Why, oh why is he so focused on me having an orgasm? Wasn’t tonight incredible? Wasn’t it enough? It was for me. If I had to choose between having this day over and over, and trading it in for some mythical orgasm that “untethers” me in some vague way I can’t begin to understand, I’d pick this night every single time. No orgasm could beat the way I feel right now.

  We’ve stopped everything and melted together.

  He kisses me gently. “Just you wait ‘til you finally see the light outside the mouth of the cave, baby.” He laughs like a villain in a cartoon. “Bwahahahaha!”

  I can’t help but smile. I like it when he’s playful. But I’m anxious. What exactly is he promising? I wonder how long he’ll keep trying before he throws up his hands and says, “Forget it.”

  “But right now, I gotta pee,” he says.

  He tilts suddenly to the side, throwing me off his lap onto the bed in a crumpled heap. He rolls off the bed and heads into the bathroom, practically whistling a happy tune as he goes, stopping first to turn off the music.

  I lie in the bed, looking up at the ceiling. I’ve never felt so compulsively attracted to another human being like this. I don’t want this to end—but what if I can’t deliver his “holy grail”?

  He returns and scoots next to me in the bed. He’s got his laptop with him. He grins at me mischievously.

  “I thought we could take a look at my very first note to you—My Beautiful Intake Agent—seeing as how it’s what made you throw yourself at me and beg me to find you.”

  I swat him on the shoulder. “I thought you were a narcissistic jerk.”

  “Well, I was. Am. But you wanted me anyway, right?”

  I nod profusely. “Yep.”

  “Well, then, let’s enjoy my narcissistic ramblings together, shall we?” He clicks into his email account to retrieve the document. “Oh, wow,” he says, his attention diverted from the task at hand. “I’ve got an email from The Club. Lovely.”

  Every hair on my body instantly stands on end.

  “‘Dear Mr. Faraday,’” he says, reading from the email on his screen. “‘Our records indicate you have not been using your membership. Do you have any questions or concerns? Please let us know if we can assist you in any way.’”

  I have a pit in my stomach.

  “Fuck you,” he mutters to his computer screen and looks at me, smirking. His grin instantly vanishes. “Why do you look like that?”

  “Why would a sane person spend two hundred fifty thousand dollars on something and not use it?�
�� I feel sick.

  “Maybe I’m not sane.”

  “But they’ve got to be wondering why.”

  “They got their money; that’s all they care about.”

  I keep having this unshakeable feeling—or is it a premonition?—that violations of The Club’s rules don’t go unpunished.

  “Sarah,” Jonas says, “what’s wrong?”

  I sigh. “I don’t know. Never mind. I’m probably just being melodramatic.”

  “What?”

  “I just keep feeling like there’s got to be some sort of consequence for what I’ve done.”

  “What you’ve done? Sarah, I know you’re fucked-up, but are you batshit crazy?”

  I don’t return his smile.

  His face registers acute concern again. “You didn’t defy The Church. You defied The Club. Big difference.”

  I’m unconvinced. I keep feeling like the shit’s going to hit the fan at some point—and sooner rather than later.

  “Is there something you’re not telling me?”

  I shake my head.

  He looks wary.

  “I’m sure I’m just being paranoid. Forget it.” I shake it off. “Why don’t you read your cocky-motherfucker-asshole message to me? I could use a good laugh.”

  He closes his laptop and puts it on his nightstand. “Come here,” he says, pulling my naked body to his. I love the feel of his warm skin on mine. I lay my head on his chest.

  He strokes my hair. “What you did was a good thing. A very, very good thing.” He kisses the top of my head.

  I close my eyes, enjoying his embrace, his touch.

  He continues stroking my hair. “The best thing.”

  The anxiety I was feeling vanishes. My entire body relaxes.

  “You’re safe.”

  I can’t believe his first cocky note to me—well, not to me, but to some nameless, faceless “intake agent” who turned out to be me—has led to this exquisite moment.

  His hand moves to the curve of my lower back and stays there. “You’re safe,” he whispers.

  “Mmm,” I say. I’m drifting.

  Jonas’ breathing has become rhythmic under my head.

  I’m floating between consciousness and dreamland, the words of that first note scrolling through my head like a news ticker: Nice and slow ... only ever dreamed ... like no man before ... surrender, totally and completely. I never thought in a million years I’d be lying here now with the author of those words, our naked bodies pressed together, my heart beating against his.

  Jonas is asleep underneath me. His chest is rising and falling slowly.

  My breathing is beginning to match his.

  My mind is blissfully deserting me.

  I’m falling, falling, falling. Darkness is overtaking me. But just before I fall completely, just before I slip into serene unconsciousness, one last thought—an admission, really—the exact admission he predicted I’d make in that first arrogant note—flitters across my mind: “In addition to you being one cocky-bastard-asshole-motherfucker, you’re also the man of my dreams.”

  Chapter 17

  Jonas

  “Mmm,” she moans.

  It’s morning. Rain is beating against my bedroom window. We’re lying in my bed together, naked, tangled up in my sheets. I don’t know when we fell asleep last night, but we must have. The last thing I remember was stroking her hair as she laid her head on my shoulder.

  I’ve been awake for a few minutes, listening to the sound of the rain, enjoying the sensation of her bare skin against mine. I’ve had a boner from the minute I opened my eyes, but I’ve let her sleep. Unfortunately, my time is limited this morning—I’ve got something really important scheduled at the office in about an hour—and since I’ve decided that Jonas-gets-off-but-Sarah-doesn’t is no longer acceptable from this moment forward, sex simply isn’t going to happen this morning. No more quickies—no more fucking around. I’m going to do it right from now on. As I’ve been lying here, feeling her soft skin against mine, listening to her breathing, I’ve decided not to have sex with her again until I’m sure the situation’s perfectly ripe for her to come. No matter what. She doesn’t know what she’s been missing, but I do. And I hate myself for continually leaving her standing on the proverbial curb while I peel away in a Ferrari. It’s not fair to her.

  I thought I’d be calling all the shots, but that’s not the way things have worked out. Damn, she’s bossy. I didn’t fully grasp that aspect of her personality until last night. If she’d have let me be in charge like I wanted to be, I’d be lying here right now replaying her first orgasm over and over again in my mind. And giving her an encore this morning. But no. She had to take control, and I had to be a pussy-ass and let her, and now everything’s all built up in her mind and she’s probably got performance anxiety like a motherfucker. Now, thanks to my inability to resist her, I’ve got to be especially mindful about next steps. We’re at a tipping point here, and I don’t want to screw it up.

  She’s so close. Oh my God. Last night, I felt her body constrict and collapse and shudder around my cock, I’m sure of it. It was brief, just once—but it was ferocious. If she’d just listened to me and done things my way, she’d have come by now, I’m sure of it—but no, my crazy little bucking bronco has to go for the jugular every time. And I keep bending to her will because, truth be told, she owns me. Damn. She really does. And the worst part is that, intellectually, I know exactly what buttons she’s pushing—exactly what defense mechanism is coming into play—and I still can’t resist her. It’s like I’m playing chess with a girl who tells me, flat-out, “I’m moving here so you’ll move there, so I can take your king”—and yet I’m still dumb enough to move exactly where she tells me to, anyway. Am I stupid or just going crazy? I think it’s the latter. I think I’m devolving into a certain kind of madness, thanks to her—an all-consuming madness. And it’s fucking amazing.

  She moans again and stretches her hands above her head.

  Damn. If I’d only known she was that close, I’d probably have done things differently last night. I would have licked her nice and slow, just like I’d planned from the get-go. I just overthought everything, that’s all. I was so worried she was too tired, and I didn’t want to give her some kind of complex when it didn’t work out. But I was wrong. If I’d only done it right, if I’d have let her simmer, anticipate, yearn like her life depended on it, it would have worked last night. She’s ready to go off like dynamite. But, no, I barreled right in and fucked her exactly like she wanted. Why can’t I control myself with her?

  She props herself onto her elbow and looks down at me, her dark hair falling around her bare shoulders. “Good morning, Jonas,” she says with mock politeness, as if we’re just meeting for the first time.

  “Why, good morning, Sarah,” I reply, mimicking her tone. “So lovely to see you this fine morning.” She looks beautiful.

  She sighs audibly. “Lovely, indeed.” She grins.

  I glance over at the clock and grunt. Damn. I’ve got to get to the office. If all goes according to plan, today’s meeting just might change my entire life.

  She follows my gaze to the clock. She purses her lips. “I’ve got a class in an hour,” she coos. She touches my face with the back of her hand. “But I suppose I could miss it just this once, if a tragically good lookin’ guy with sad eyes and bulging biceps were in the mood to show me the ‘culmination of human possibility.’” She flashes me a mischievous smile and leans in for a kiss.

  I grimace. Oh my God. This is the worst timing in the history of the world. “I’ve got an important meeting,” I say—and the minute the words leave my mouth, I know they sound like a kiss-off.

  She tries to mask her face in nonchalance, but she can’t hide the fire in her cheeks. She pulls away, smiling. “Oh, yeah, I should get to class, anyway.” Her cheeks are blazing. She quickly begins untangling herself from me, obviously planning to exit the bed as quickly as possible and hightail it out of here.

 
I grab her arm. “Sarah, no.”

  She turns to me and feigns a lighthearted smile. “It’s fine.”

  “Listen to me. It’s this huge thing with Josh and these guys coming in from Colorado. Life changing, maybe. If it were anything else, anything at all, believe me, I swear, I’d clear my calendar for the whole day—for the whole week—and spend every single second with you, right here in my bed, exploring every inch of you, day and night. There’s nothing I want more than to be with you.”

  I’ve never said anything even remotely close to these words to a woman before, ever—never even felt remotely tempted to utter words like these—but as I say them, I know they’re one hundred percent true.

  Her shoulders relax. “Oh,” she says softly.

  Jesus, did she really think I was kicking her out? Like, literally, kicking her out of my bed? After the incredible night we just had? I sigh. Of course she did, thanks to that stupid application. I wish she’d never read it.

  The smile that spreads across her face this time is genuine. Unguarded.

  “Yeah, oh.” I push her hair behind her shoulder. “I keep telling you—I can’t get enough of you. Please, please, please believe me. I’m telling you the truth—I’ll always tell you the truth. Good, bad, ugly. The truth.”

  She bites her lip. “I can’t get enough of you, either.” She rolls her eyes. “Obviously.”

  My cock is tingling with anticipation. Well, maybe there’s time, after all?

  I look at the clock again. Damn. No. There’s no time. I’m going to be late as it is. Sure, Josh can start the meeting without me—but I’ve definitely got to get over there. Josh is Mr. Personality, Mr. Close-the-Deal—but I’m the one who understands the numbers. He needs me. And this deal is the biggest deal of my life.

  I sigh at my predicament. She’s as ripe as a summer peach. If I licked her now, nice and slow on her sweet button, she’d go off like dynamite. But I don’t have time to do it right, so I shouldn’t do it at all.

  “I wanna do it when we’ve got time. No pressure on us.”

  She nods. “I know.”

  I grin. “I’ve got a proposition for you.”