by Julia Kent
Not this man.
As I take in the lines of his shoulders, memorizing the angle of his shoulder blades, using my fingertips to chart the curl of muscle against bone, I appreciate the broad stretch of skin that houses the essence of him.
He encircles one nipple with a finger that moves so slowly it feels cruel. Every millimeter makes me gasp. I can only inhale again and again and again until my lungs rise to meet his fingers, begging for release.
He nudges the neckline of my top down, popping one pebbled, rosy breast out and his mouth—oh, sweet heavens.
That mouth.
“Andrew.” His name comes out of me in a gasp and a shiver, as if my vocal cords and muscles were unable to discern which biological system to respond with. His mouth plays tricks with my skin as his spare hand slides up between my thighs, where all the blood in my body has pooled and is beating a timpani, a bass drum, and a djun djun all in concert.
I have, singularly, become the pulse point of the universe.
A sudden need to feel him makes me push up against his hand, my fingers at his belt buckle. Unable to see, I use touch as my guide, the hard metal a familiar rectangle, my mind recreating the process for undoing the belt as my hands do my imagination’s work.
The belt undone, I release the button, unzip him, and before I can touch him he’s kissing me again, the cold night air shocking my wet nipple as the fire of his arousal enflames me, the ice of his brief abandonment making me tug at his shirt tails, pulling up to give me access to more of him.
I need to see him. See everything. Feel everything. Inventory it and ascertain that this is real. This is happening. I am not dreaming or hallucinating. We’re in his bedroom, on his bed, and about to make love, naked and deliciously private.
“Amanda,” he rasps, his lips against mine, his erection pushing against my thigh, his body moving in short, slow strokes against me in a preview of what is about to unfold. His mouth moves against mine with a steady spiral up, each kiss more intense than the one before, his bare belly against my clothed one, the sensation of him over me nothing short of divine.
He reaches up and under me with swift, nimble fingers, the clasp separating and freeing me. I sit up and he watches with eyes that take in everything as I unbutton my top, peeling off my shirt and leaving me there with the loose bra dangling.
I haven’t been naked, in the moonlight, with a man in so long that this feels like the first time.
It’s not, but it feels that way.
He takes care of the next step, skimming my arms with his palms, riding up my shoulders and dispatching with the lingerie with a flick of his wrist, leaving me topless.
Without another word, he unbuttons his last bit of his shirt, pulls it off, and grabs the hem of his concert t-shirt, his thick arms reaching up, the cloth covering his face for a moment, giving me a complete view of his upper body on display without his eyes watching me.
And that is the moment when I become utterly, overwhelmingly self-conscious.
He’s gorgeous. Cut and broad, wild and perfect, with the textured skin of a man who spends hours a day with a personal trainer. I know what his legs look like in bike shorts, and I’ve caught glimpses of him over the past two years in suits, with and without the jacket, but having Andrew McCormick’s half-naked body within inches of mine and on display like this makes me freeze.
This man is about to make love with me. I want him to explore and enjoy all the intimate places in my body and heart that can only be accessed by my yes. And my yes is throbbing through every nerve cluster, each blush, all the flushed skin on my chest and in the wet, wild parts of me that know we have a huge bed, a magical view of the ocean, and all the time tonight to do delicious, breathtaking, pleasurable things to each other.
“Take off your skirt,” he whispers. Andrew is on his knees, his pants undone, hands by his side and inches from me. Towering over me, he’s radiating heat and want. His breathing is controlled, and his words make me reach behind me to unzip the skirt, as if there is no other choice, as if I have to do as told because I have already surrendered to him, even if my mind hasn’t quite caught up to what my body knows.
I shimmy out of it, wearing only my panties now, and he crawls over me, leaning me back, connecting our bodies only with a kiss that stretches me from toes to ears, turning me into a tingling, breathing soul that knows only sensation and that seeks to understand the world via his touch. His taste. His sound. His gaze.
Him.
“You,” he says between kisses and hands, heat and pressure, friction and fire and strokes and oh—“are more beautiful in person than I’ve imagined all this time.” With arms like corded steel, he pushes up, impossibly up, and the light from outside catches his face.
I see truth in his eyes.
That truth gives me permission to touch him, to splay my palms against the thick muscles at his waist, to roam and rove and close my eyes and just feel. He’s mine to touch and his hitched breath tells me he likes this. I curl up enough to lick the base of his throat, then kiss to his chin, the rasp of a day’s beard making me shiver.
Will he? Does he...? My self-consciousness burns off me, like the heat of the morning sunrise evaporating the dawn’s dew.
That mouth separates from our kiss and he bends to my breast, sucking in one nipple as one hand reaches between my legs. I’m wetter than wet and while my mind goes on vacation for a few seconds to some ecstasyland I didn’t know I possessed, he renders me completely naked.
And then stands, blissfully joining me.
The long, warm stretch of his nude body against mine, thick hair against my own smooth skin, is a study in contrasts.
“I can’t believe this is happening,” I say, as he crawls into bed and presses against me, but my tone isn’t one of disbelief. It’s one of confirmation.
“Then I need to up my game, because if you’re still not sure this is real, we have quite a bit of work to do.” His mouth begins a slow descent between my breasts, over my belly, and to the promised land.
And with that, he keeps his word, all hands and mouth and tongue and taste and sighs and moans and cries of pleasure and release that come from two years of not knowing. We make up for lost time. Again. And again.
And again again.
Remember Sex Math? Oh, yeah.
And this game?
We both manage to win.
* * *
I have a confession to make.
I have never spent the night in a man’s bed.
I wake up in a total panic, my heart slamming against my chest like a bear whacked a bees’ nest and all the bees are trying to escape in one big buzzing wall of fury, synchronized in their brutal attempt to leave. I’m covered in sweat and my legs are sticky.
Why do my hips ache?
And who is this two-hundred pound, six-foot muscled furnace in bed with me?
“Amanda?” he asks, sitting up, bed head smashing his hair against one side of his face, eyes squinty with sleep. In bright daylight, this close to him, his eyes are even browner. How is that possible? “What’s wrong?” Warm hands float to my naked back, rising up my shoulders in a gesture that is supposed to comfort me.
Except I’m in a panic because of my stupid naked-in-public dream.
And now I’m naked in public.
For real.
Sort of.
Last night floods my memory, how Mr. Flesh Furnace here used that same mouth that is smiling at me to make me arch up and press against it for more, how that tongue made my thighs shiver, how those hands that gently rub my back elicited sounds from me that involved octaves I’m pretty sure the human throat can only access during orgasm.
Orgasms.
My whole body goes tingly as I reach for the sheet and pull it up over my breasts.
“I’m fine. Just a dream.”
His hand rides down over my chest, jarring the sheet loose from one breast. “Your heart is racing. Must have been some dream.”
I’m blinking ov
er and over, my face frozen as I try to relax and lower my shoulders. My neck is tight with tension and he’s next to me, sitting up, and oh, yes. He most certainly is naked, too.
Daylight is a blessing and a curse.
“It’s the same dream I’ve had almost every night since I was five,” I admit. I’m not sure why I tell him this. Maybe actually being naked makes me feel like it’s safe to talk about dreaming of being naked.
“Whoa. Same dream almost every night for nearly twenty years?”
“I know.”
“That’s intense.”
I can’t stop looking at him, distracted now. He dips his head down to force me to catch his eyes.
“Hi.”
“Hi.”
Have I mentioned the fact that I have never, ever spent the night at a man’s house? What am I supposed to do right now? The Walk of Shame never involves the sun. The sun is most certainly out right now, impishly watching as I fumble my way through this morning-after stuff.
Andrew takes care of the what do I do next? question by kissing me. This is a slow, deep kiss that I start to pull away from because, hello, morning breath?
And then I don’t care, because I melt into the bed as he doesn’t care, either. I follow his cues. If he wanted me to leave, this would be awkward and weird, right? He’d be up and showered and drinking coffee, and I would rush to get my clothes on. We would pretend the night before had been just one of those things, and I would depart with that blinking sense of confusion that comes from having a one-night stand and not knowing quite where to compartmentalize the emotions attached to the carnal event.
But that is not happening right now. Not one bit.
This is the kiss of a man who enjoyed last night thoroughly, of a man who is in no rush to separate from me, and as my hand reaches down to stroke his ass and more, I encounter ample evidence of his intentions.
I am following his cues, all right, and he is presenting one very big one right now before me.
“My goodness,” I whisper, hand wrapping around his delightfully awake shaft. “Is this breakfast in bed?”
“Oh, God,” he sighs as I offer my variation of room service, burrowing under the covers to give him a little of what I got last night. “You are perfect,” he adds in a tight voice, which loosens considerably a few minutes later when he finds his own special, lower octave.
He starts to return the favor and it occurs to me that this could all happen again. That last night wasn’t an aberration. That he wants more.
And just then, a buzzer sounds in the apartment.
“What is that?” I ask as Andrew’s head lifts up from under the sheet with a groan of frustration.
“That is the building concierge, buzzing me.”
“A package?”
“No,” he groans, rolling off the bed and walking to the bathroom. Ah, the view. The view. I didn’t know an ass could have that many muscles in it. He comes out of the bathroom wearing a thin silky robe and saunters over to the bed, planting a kiss on my forehead.
“Then what?”
“Someone realized my phone is off and they’ve resorted to this.”
“Oh,” I say in a small voice. He reaches for his pants and pulls out his phone, turning it on. It buzzes in fits and starts, like a vibrator with a battery that’s dying.
Not that I, uh, know what that looks or sounds like.
“Jesus Christ,” he mutters to himself. “Two hundred and forty-seven texts. My phone can’t keep up with all the notifications.”
Ouch. And I thought it was bad when my mother—oh, no.
My mother.
“Can you hand me my purse?” I ask. He finds it in the living room and brings it back, eyes glued to his phone screen.
The magic is definitely over.
By the time I check my messages and text mom back to assure her I haven’t been chained to a wall in some lair in Mexico and am not sold into sex slavery by a perverted billionaire, I hear the gurgle of a coffee machine.
It never occurred to me to ask Andrew whether he drinks coffee. Thank God he does, because that would be a show stopper. I can handle a workaholic CEO with a body designed by Crossfit and a tongue that should qualify for the Ironman Triathlon, but if he doesn’t drink coffee I’m outta here, because that’s just not human.
I also take this chance to snoop.
I hear him talking out in the living room. It sounds like a tense discussion, so I avoid invading his privacy. Last night he welcomed me into his bed and I welcomed him into my body. This morning it’s time to go back to reality, where boundaries do, indeed, exist—and respecting those is important.
Even if I really, really need caffeine right now.
Snooping and respecting boundaries seem like contradictions. But they’re not. Bear with me. I can explain. Everything I know about Andrew is either from him directly, from Shannon, a little from Declan, some from my incessant Google searches, and from my oh-so-careful physical examination of as many nooks and crannies on that hot body as I could reasonably search on Date #2.
This is a chance to learn more.
“Damn it!” he shouts from the other room. The coffee machine sighs.
I am totally not going out there right now. More ammunition for snooping, er...research.
His closet is bigger than my bedroom. He has an affinity for purples and smoky blues, the heathered colors that come from tailors so exclusive they don’t have retail stores. His suits line up like good little soldiers, and nothing is out of place. This is one of those closets where the shoes aren’t on the floor, or in little cubbies. I reach for a drawer handle and the drawer tips out at a forty-five degree angle, revealing dress shoes in neat lines, three shelves deep.
I tuck the “drawer” back in and leave.
I look out the window and see his little balcony. It really is just two chairs, a table, and an umbrella. Unlike all the other balconies, he has no plants. Nothing. Not a single bit of decoration. It stands out in stark contrast to the rest of the apartment, which is carefully designed and color-coordinated, the look and feel textured and nuanced by someone who knows what they’re doing with space.
Weird.
His nightstand is a goldmine. There are a few fitness magazines, a tablet computer, and a bottle of lube. I squeeze my eyes shut and close the drawer. Hey, if he ever snooped in my bedroom, he’d find way more than just a bottle of lube in my nightstand drawers. I single-handedly keep the battery industry going during dry spells.
His dresser drawers are full of rolled socks and underwear, folded t-shirts and jeans. Polo shirts. Workout clothes. Each type of clothing has its own drawer. A hand-carved wooden bowl on one dresser contains an old-fashioned analog watch, some change in various currencies, and a few tie pins. Cuff links.
And a single photo rests on his dresser.
It’s him, Declan, Terry, his dad and his mom, all on a boat somewhere on the ocean. I’m guessing it was taken shortly before his mother died, because Andrew’s around fifteen or sixteen. He’s tall, but not as tall as he is now, and he has the lean look of a teen boy who is just about to fill out as testosterone performs its destiny.
A breeze flows from the left, shoving all their hair to the side, and they’re laughing. Andrew is looking at his mom, Declan’s staring into the camera, Terry is holding his mom’s shoulder, and she’s not quite looking at whoever took the picture.
James is just smiling, the grin so bright it’s blinding.
Tears hit me like I’ve been shot from behind, like an arrow pierced me between ribs and struck my heart, the feeling so sudden and unexpected I gasp, an animal sound filling my raw throat.
This is what a real family looks like. A happy family. One filled with joy and love.
And it can all end in seconds.
We have no pictures like this in my house.
I doubt they even exist.
At least Andrew has this. Had this. Had a world where people looked at each other like that.
“You don
’t know what you’re talking about!” I hear Andrew say, his voice loud but controlled. I sniff and turn away. If I keep looking at that picture a part of me will fall apart, and right now, I can’t have anything else inside me vibrate on a different frequency, because too many of those and the dissonance will make me shatter.
I’m dragging the bed sheet everywhere, covering my nakedness, and I decide it’s time for coffee. As I reach the threshold between Andrew’s bedroom and the living room, I hear:
“Dec, it’s not like that. Amanda’s not one of those.”
I freeze.
Declan? He’s been shouting at Declan?
About me?
“Look, I know. I know.” I hide myself, able to watch him pace across the stainless steel and granite kitchen, his body flickering between low-hanging ceiling lights that drape in regular intervals across a breakfast bar.
“And I won’t. I won’t hurt her this time.” He swipes a frustrated hand through his bedhead hair, leaving locks standing straight up. He’s agitated.
“I know she’s Shannon’s best friend—”
A string of loud, angry sounds comes through his phone. Even I can hear them, and my mouth curls up as I realize Declan is playing the part of the protective older brother.
But for me.
What did Shannon tell him?
“And this is not a one-night stand, Dec. She’s still here.”
The phone goes silent, and then I hear, quite distinctly:
“What?” The sound of Declan’s voice roars out of Andrew’s phone. “You’ve never had a woman stay over.”
My whole body goes warm in a flush of radiance.
It’s true.
This is a first for both of us.
“I know. That’s what I mean. This is something different.” Andrew’s voice drops. “Don’t worry.”
Declan says something. Andrew’s face tightens.
“Jesus, not this again, Dec. You and I have to agree to disagree. We all have our own risk levels we’re comfortable with.”
Declan says something I don’t understand, and Andrew laughs.
“Right. I won’t ruin your wedding. I promise.” The sound of Andrew gets closer and I realize I can’t be found hiding, so I move, acting as if I were just walking out.