“It’s red, too. You look like Rudolph.”
I frowned. Rudolph was not sexy. “Thanks. So what are you doing for Christmas? Heading back to Iowa?”
He looked out the window. “Not sure yet. I’d like to see my folks, but I have to work quite a bit too. I think I have Christmas Eve off, but not Christmas Day.”
“Oh. That stinks.” I blew on my hot chocolate to cool it off. “Will you spend Christmas Eve with your grandfather then?”
He shrugged and picked up his coffee. “Maybe.” Something was odd about the way he wouldn’t meet my eyes, but I dismissed it. Maybe he was one of those people who didn’t like the holidays because they were too Hallmark touchy-feely. “What about you?” he asked.
“We usually go to my mom’s for dinner and then go to midnight mass somewhere.”
He smiled. “Ah, yes. Midnight mass. When people who ignore Jesus throughout the year dress up, fight for parking spots, elbow for pew space and face time with the priest, and mumble their way through the prayers they barely remember from last year. Or from Easter.”
I shrugged. “Pretty much. But it’s important to my mom, so we go. Hey, thank you for the skates. My first Christmas gift this year.”
“You’re welcome. They felt OK?”
“Yes. And skating wasn’t even that horrible.” I took a tiny sip of my drink. “Actually, it was almost fun.” Know what else is fun?
“See? You’re broadening your horizons.”
“Yes. Just like you’re going to broaden yours at the ballet.” The idea had come to me while we were skating.
“What ballet?”
“The one I’m going to take you to. The Nutcracker.”
He nearly choked. “The whatcracker?”
At his look of dismay, I leaned forward and pointed at him. “Listen, pal, you’re lucky I’m not going to make you take a ballet class after you made me take a public skating lesson. How’d you like a pair of ballet slippers for Christmas?”
He held up his hands. “Fine. I’ll go to the ballet. Is it in English?”
“There’s no talking in ballet.”
“Can I nap?”
“No. You can watch and appreciate.”
He didn’t look too sure about that.
I picked up my cup and warmed my hands around it. “You never know, you might like it. The dancers wear short skirts.”
“Will you wear a short skirt?”
“Hush,” I admonished, but then I winked. “We’re being friends today, remember?”
Grinning, he leaned closer to me and spoke quietly. “Hey, I wasn’t the one who made a reference to my big dick earlier.”
I lifted my shoulders in a way that showed I didn’t care. “Oops.”
“I didn’t mind.”
“Yes, I noticed that.” Picking up my cup, I took a sip, then licked up some whipped cream in what I hoped was an alluring, sensual move that did not end with anything on my nose.
Charlie smiled and sat back. “I’ve missed you this last week.”
That surprised me. “You have?”
“Yes. You didn’t miss me?”
Of course I did. Especially your magic parts. “Maybe a little.”
“And I’m really happy to be out with you. I always have fun when we’re together.”
“Me too.” We should fuck.
“Should we grab dinner maybe? I think this place closes at five, and it’s getting close.”
“Sure.” And then we should fuck.
“Feel like pizza? I’ve got an idea.”
“Sounds great.” I finished my hot chocolate, we piled on our winter gear and headed out.
On our way back to Campus Martius, I congratulated myself on being a little flirty and a little dirty without going overboard. I had to play this exactly right if I wanted him to know it was OK to touch me tonight, even though this wasn’t a date.
Which was why I was surprised when Charlie picked up my hand and held it as we walked back through Campus Martius, darkness falling faster than the snow flurries drifting down around us. Here I was trying to be all no-strings, and he was the one saying he missed me and being all romantic. I lifted our hands and goggled at them.
“You want to hold my hand?” I teased. “Isn’t that, like, a gesture of affection that is nonsexual?”
Charlie looked pleased with himself. “It is. I think I’m growing as a person, being friends with you.”
“Oh, good. We’re still friends. I was just checking to make sure this didn’t turn into, you know…” I wrinkled my nose. “A date.”
“What? No.” He elbowed me. “I don’t date.”
“No, no. Of course not.”
“Hey, look. The tree lights are on.”
We stopped to look at the city’s towering evergreen Christmas tree, lit with thousands of multi-colored lights. I shivered, and Charlie pulled me back against his chest, wrapping his arms around me. “Cold?” he asked.
“Uh…a little.” OK, what the hell was he doing now? This didn’t seem like just friends territory. Then again, I was new to this fuck friend thing. Maybe in addition to the main course, you got a few side dishes too, like holding hands and the occasional cuddle. It was nice, actually. I leaned back against him, and he gave me a squeeze.
“Thanks for coming skating. I know you didn’t want to.”
“You’re welcome.”
“And I’m sorry I didn’t call you last weekend. I wanted to.”
I froze. What what what? He was apologizing for not calling me? “That’s OK. I wasn’t expecting you to.”
“I know you weren’t.”
I swallowed. Don’t be sweet to me, Charlie. You’ll ruin everything. “Should we go eat?”
Charlie’s idea was to grab carryout from PizzaPapalis and take it back to my place. “You don’t want to eat here?” I asked, happy to be out of the cold.
“We could, but I have something else for you in the car, and I want to give it to you.” He tapped my nose. “You’re getting all kinds of presents today, Red.”
I swatted his hand away and gave him a girlish smile. “I do love presents.”
“How did I know that about you?”
After a brief argument about what to order on our pizza—Charlie wanted four different kinds of meat and I prefer veggies—we settled for a deep dish Spinach Special with bacon and an Antipasto salad.
Back at my house, I stuck the pizza in the oven to keep it warm and took out plates, salad bowls, silverware, and napkins. Charlie went out to the car again, and when he came back in he carried an armload of firewood.
I gasped, clapping my hands together. “You brought wood!”
“My wood excites you, I know.”
I slapped him on the shoulder as he went by, but my pulse quickened at the innuendo. Humming a Christmas tune, I pulled two wine glasses from the cupboard and didn’t even complain when he left giant wet footprints on my kitchen floor. I just wiped them up.
“Got any newspaper?” he called from the front room.
I had an old Grosse Pointe News in my recycle bin, which I brought him along with long match sticks. “Here. I bought these in case I figured out how to do this. I even have the pokery tool things.” I gestured toward the little rack.
“Pokery tool things?” Smiling, he shook his head. “Let’s move your table and couch a little further away from the fireplace, OK?”
As we were moving the furniture, I had an idea. While Charlie rolled up newspaper and laid it in the bottom of the grate, I ran upstairs and got a big cream-colored fleece blanket from my hallway linen closet. Down in the front room, I dragged the coffee table further out of the way and spread the blanket out on the floor a few feet away from the fireplace. “I thought we could have a picnic,” I said.
“Sounds good.” Kneeling, Charlie piled the firewood on top of the paper and reached for the matches.
Within minutes, the fire crackled with warmth and light and I applauded Charlie’s efforts, sitting back on my heels. �
�Yay, fire!”
He closed the screen and turned to me, an amused expression on his face. “You are easily impressed.”
“Listen, don’t ruin this for me. Ever since I bought this place, I’ve been dreaming of a real fire in my fireplace on a cold night. And now I have one, so shut up and let me enjoy it, you big bully.”
He cocked his head, looked at me sideways. “You better be nice or I’ll put it out.”
I gasped. “You wouldn’t. Not after I so obligingly went ice skating with you on our non-date and fell flat on my ass.”
He grinned. “How’s your tailbone?”
I put my hands on it. “Hurts.”
“Want me to kiss it better?”
I giggled. “No.”
“I think you do.” He lunged toward me, and I squealed, trying to crawl away, but he moved much faster than I did. In seconds, he had his arm hooked around my waist, dragging me to the middle of the blanket, where he flipped me easily onto my back and pinned my wrists over my head.
His knees rested on either side of my hips, and when he looked down at me, the fire played with the color of his eyes, making them glow a fiery copper.
My heart was pounding. “What’s this?” I asked playfully. “I thought we were just friends.” Victory, that’s what this is.
“Exactly. I’m being friendly.” He lowered his mouth to my neck, making the room spin. “Very, very friendly.” His breath was warm against my skin.
“Why?”
“Because I like you. Because I’ve been thinking about this all day.” He picked up his head. “All week, really.”
“Oh, God. That feels so good,” I whispered, arching my neck as his lips traveled from one side of my throat to the other. “But I thought—I thought—” I struggled for words as he traced my collarbone with his tongue, wondering exactly how much I should protest, if at all. I wanted to play this exactly right. “I thought we weren’t going to do this again.”
He stretched out his legs, covering my body with his. I felt the solid length of his erection on my thigh, and heat rushed to my core. “I’ve decided we can amend the terms of our friendship a little,” he said.
“You decided? I don’t get a say?”
He slid up on my body, his cock centered between my legs. “You can stop this at any time.”
I narrowed my eyes. “He says while pinning my arms over my head.”
He smiled. “You love it.”
“No, I don’t. Because I’m a good girl, remember?” I slipped my legs to the outside of his and tucked my heels around the backs of his thighs just below his ass, pulling him into me. “So I don’t want you to undress me. I don’t want your hands on me. I don’t want you to know how wet I am.” Charlie’s breath came heavier, faster. His eyes lost some of their brightness. “I don’t want to feel you moving inside me. I don’t want to feel your cock so deep I can’t breathe. I don’t want you to make me come.” I lowered my voice to a whisper. “Because I don’t love you. Are you listening, Charlie Dwyer? I don’t love you.”
And then something snapped between us and we went at each other like rival boxers at the starting bell. Sweaters and jeans and t-shirts and underwear were torn off and discarded. Lips and tongues and teeth collided. Hands skimmed frantically over skin warmed and burnished gold by the firelight. Fingers sought and stroked and sheathed and circled until we both trembled with want.
I let go of him only for the fifteen seconds it took for him to get a condom from his pants pocket. My heart knocked hard against my ribs, and my veins bubbled with pure desire and adrenaline. I propped myself up on my elbows, watching him sit back on his heels and roll the condom over his erection. My eyes fell on places on his body I hadn’t yet touched or licked or bit or kissed, but vowed that I would.
Impatient to feel his skin, I got to my hands and knees and crawled onto his lap, taking his cock in my hand and placing it between my legs. Charlie’s fingers dug into my hips as I lowered myself until my ass rested on his upper thighs. Oh, my God, the way he filled me. I clutched his shoulders and twined my legs around his back, needing a moment to adjust. “Just wait,” I breathed, when he started to move. “Give me a second.”
I closed my eyes, willing my body to relax, to form to his, to take him deeper. Slowly I began to rock my hips, guided by his hands.
“Christ, you’re beautiful,” he whispered.
I opened my eyes and found him looking at me, but rather than become self-conscious, it spiked my desire. I wanted him to see me, watch me. I held his gaze and circled my hips in a slow, sinuous motion. Once, twice, three times, and each time Charlie’s fingers clutched my flesh a little harder. He lowered his mouth to my breast, and I arched my back, threading my hands through his hair when he sucked one hard nipple long and deep, gasping when he took it between his teeth. But when he started to tip me backward, I put my hands back on his shoulders.
“Lie back,” I whispered, my skin prickling with heat. “Let me fuck you this time.”
I don’t know who was more surprised that I actually said it, me or Charlie, because normally I think he would have just pushed me down and taken me the way he wanted to. But he lowered himself onto his back, lifting me onto his hips. Astride, I braced my hands above his shoulders and let my hair fall forward, grazing his chest.
“I can feel you so deep like this,” I whispered, moving my body over his in a lazy, undulating rhythm. I leaned down and brushed my lips against his, pulling back slightly when he lifted his head to kiss me. Smiling, I lowered my mouth into the crook of his neck and swirled my tongue on his throat like I wanted to around his cock. He must have been thinking the same thing, because he groaned and his cock twitched once within me. I laughed, sucking on his earlobe. “I felt that. You want to come, don’t you?” I whispered in his ear, moving my hips faster. “Are you close?”
He grabbed my head and brought my face right above his, holding it there a second before crushing his mouth to mine. His tongue lashed between my lips and I sucked it into my mouth, meeting it with my own. Charlie’s fingers curled in my hair, pulling it, thrilling me with the sharp, needling pain. No one had ever pulled my hair before during sex.
“Yes,” I hissed between our lips. “Yes. Pull it. Harder. Harder. Harder!” With every word I bucked my hips with more force, grinding against his pelvic bone.
“Now who wants to come?” Charlie tightened his fists even closer to my scalp. “Hmm?”
“Oh God…I do—I do…” My lower body began to clench up and my movements changed to tiny little circles on his cock as the orgasm reached its peak, my pussy tightening around his shaft.
“Fuck yes, sweet thing. Come for me, right there. Come on my cock.”
His hushed, intense voice pushed me over and I came hard, collapsing onto his chest. But I had no chance to breathe before he flipped me onto my back and thrust into me so hard my teeth knocked together. He had my wrists above my head again, and I brought my knees up, squeezing his driving hips between my thighs. I watched him above me, his eyes catching the firelight again, burning bright with urgency. “Fuck yes,” he growled, his movement slowing, the muscles in his arms bulging.
As he stiffened, his body going still, I closed my eyes and tilted my hips to take him as deep as possible, my awareness centered entirely on the contact between our bodies, at the way he fit so perfectly inside me, at the way I could feel the rolling pulse of something happening inside him.
When his body went slack on mine, I opened my eyes to find him looking down at me in sort of a hazy confusion. “Erin Upton. What the hell?”
I knew exactly what he meant.
#
We ate our dinner and drank some wine and watched TV and even cuddled a little on the couch, and I imagined both of us wanted to go at it again, but we managed to say good night, put the fire out, and keep our hands to ourselves.
How many times was wise on a non-date anyway? Once seemed allowable, like maybe you gave in to the urge for fun, or it overtook you in a mom
ent of weakness, or you just had to scratch that itch so it would go away. Twice was pushing it. Twice was suspicious. Because two times implied that you didn’t have control over your desire. That once wasn’t enough to sate you. That, in fact, all it did was add fuel to the fire of your need, and you were having a hard time thinking about anything or anyone else. Two times could not be passed off as just friends. Two was specific—I don’t just want to have sex. I want to have sex with you.
And of course, he didn’t stay the night. I didn’t even ask him to.
Tuesday night after I got home from work, I called him.
“Miss me?” he said when he picked up.
“Sorry, wrong number.” I ended the call and sat there smiling for a moment before calling back. It rang so long I thought he might let it go to voicemail just to punish me, but he answered eventually.
“Very funny.”
“Sorry, couldn’t help it. How are you?”
“Good. You?”
“Good. Working this Thursday night?”
“No, I’m on days this week. Why?”
“My turn to take you somewhere.”
He groaned. “The ballet thing?”
“Hush. I’ll pick you up at six-thirty.”
“No, don’t come here. I mean, I’m all the way out in Novi. Where’s the show?”
I smiled at the way he called it a show. He probably pictured the Rockettes. “Downtown. But I don’t mind coming to get you. I want to see where you live.”
“No, I’ll just meet you. Don’t come here.”
The smile faded. I got that he was trying to spare me the drive, but he was acting a little weird, defensive almost, about my going to his house. Was he still that nervous about the attachment thing? “OK,” I said easily. “No worries. I’ll meet you at the Fox at seven-thirty. Does that work?”
“Perfect. Thanks.” His relief was evident in his voice.
“You’re welcome. See you then.”
#
I subbed out my last few Thursday evening classes to get ready for the ballet. For this non-date, I wore a pretty black lace cocktail dress with three quarter sleeves, a deep V neckline, and a pale pink satin ribbon belt. It was probably a little dressier than I had to be, but since I wore sweats to work and didn’t go to fancy places too often, my chances for dressing up were limited. And I liked how I felt in a dress and heels, my hair up, perfume on my neck—it wasn’t all for Charlie.
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