“What then?” I play along, leaning my elbows on the cool granite, the chill of the slick rock sending a shiver all down my arms. “I know you need the money right now…”
Faintly, my nipple pokes out from the chill and I brush it against his biceps. In an instant, a lightning strike of nerve endings electrifies my whole breast as if he’s reached out for it.
His breath catches again, and our gazes magnetize.
“Hey.” He leans close, hot air from his lungs tickling the end of my nose, swirling on my lips. They tingle with longing, my pulse rapid with want.
He’s farther away than he was when—hello—we were onstage and he was throwing me all around, but somehow it feels like he’s closer. Already inside. He lassos me with his stare, my breast still warm against him, and there’s a grasp that’s taken hold. He binds me without touch. I’m a prisoner to these eyes of his and he can see straight through me to the wine rack on the counter.
And, somehow, I’m more naked, more alive, than if I stripped off every last stitch of clothing and surrendered right here, right now.
“I’ve been wanting to talk to you about something,” he says, not moving a muscle.
His eyes are two pendulums. Two hypnotist’s watches. Drawing me out of consciousness with a power I can’t explain. They’re onyx. The unknown. Inviting as a skinny dip in a forbidden forest. But they shine bright like moonlight reflecting off dark water. Sincere. They look straight into mine, and I don’t need him to say anything else.
I don’t care.
I haven’t been imagining whatever this is. It’s there. He tells me with that hint of smolder behind the darkness. That tinge of a smirk. I felt it moments ago through the thin fabric of my yoga pants. That longing. His body betrays him, and so I don’t care what’s right or what’s wrong. I’m not interested in propriety; I’m interested in the truth. And the truth is staring me right in the face. Radiating with a torment matched only by my own, which pulses—writhes—through my every liquefied cell.
His mouth opens, those lips I’ve craved all night, and whatever he’s about to say, that’s nice, but I just don’t want to hear it. Not now. Maybe not ever.
Gracelessly, I grasp a fistful of his tee shirt at the collar. Yank him to me. Those lips on my lips, and he gives an almost imperceptible whimper as the two meet. Firm. A little rough even as I hear the clink of him trying to wrap his mind around it all—clumsily setting his glass on the granite without looking, without parting our kiss, all the while pressing me into the counter with his full weight.
I imagine the bruise blossoming down the ridges of my spine like clusters of verbena as he arches me back, and I all but cry out, the warmth of his body spreading a wildfire throughout mine.
I drink in his scent, deep into my lungs. He smells like clean linen. Like perfection.
Like wine, as the glasses topple against the backsplash and sauvignon blanc soaks its way into my hair and trickles down my neck.
“Let me get that.” He laughs, a ruthless quaver against the delicate skin behind my ear, as he buries his face in the flesh of my neck. It’s slick with wine, and now with the flicker of his tongue, and my senses elude me.
He’s sucked them into the vortex of his mouth along with my breath. I clutch at his every contour, fingernails scratching against the fabric, the ripples in his back pleading not to be contained.
My breath catching, I throw my head back with each new undulation of biting winter. My vision blurs with fire and ice. Crimson and silver.
I’m falling, falling, sinking into the abyss, my hands at the base of his neck, and I pull him down. Pull him to me. Pull him closer. Devour him the way I’ve wanted to but couldn’t.
But when he lowers me to the floor and the small of my back brushes the unforgiving surface of the hard wood, I snap back. My wits about me. I can’t go down yet. Not without a fight. Not without a struggle.
In a desperate tussle, I pin him to the floor and anchor him there. Hover over my kill, so still, so unsuspecting. I dangle my breasts like forbidden apples ripe for the picking and run my hands underneath his shirt. Feel the smooth, hot skin of his pecs as he trembles at my touch. His heart thuds beneath my fingertips. And it’s too much. It’s a crime against everything good and holy that his form is restricted by cloth and thread, so I tear the shirt off him and he ensnares me with a look.
I linger over him, a few strands of hair framing my face skimming either side of his. I slide out my ponytail holder and my hair flows free, soft. He sifts his fingers through it and then tangles them tight. Crushes me to him.
We move like a live wire together. Sparking. Burning. Endangering everything in our wake. We roll, bang arms, shins, elbows, heads against the pitiless wood without caring what’s at stake besides this moment.
With one sweep, he rips my shirt right off me—and then snap goes the bra, like it’s nothing. The power, the control in his fingers, sends waves of frantic desire coursing through me. His chest, every swell glistening and tattooing itself into my memory.
This time, it’s all just for me to see.
“Should I make stripper jokes now?” He takes my shirt and swings it overhead, half a sexy smile, half a snarl looming over me.
“No jokes,” I say and curl my fingers through two of his belt loops. Tight.
He grunts in response, deep in my ear, and his voice is low. The bass timbre sending goose bumps all down my left side as he makes his way back to my mouth by way of my neck. My throat, still sticky with the sweet remnants of wine I can taste on his tongue.
I grapple for breath as his scruffiness—this five o’clock shadow I’ve not seen before tonight—scrapes its way across my jawline, my chin. He seizes handfuls of my hair. Yanks. Then he’s back at my mouth, taking all he can from it, taking everything I’m giving. My bare skin burning against his, flesh on flesh. Nipples stinging against teeth.
I’m overcome with the need to satiate this starvation, this torture.
At long last, he tugs my yoga pants down, gently at first, trying to give off the illusion that he’s composed, I suppose, but his cock gives him away. He’s trying to play it so cool—a smirk here, an exhale there—but his erection betrays him; it’s too hard, too desperate, pressing into my hip, and I know it won’t be long before he’ll have to stop playing the sexual martyr and vanquish what it is he really wants.
When he twists the lace waistband of my tanga panties—nothing gentle about that!—and twirls the fabric at my hip, the tension builds between my legs. He pulls it tighter, tighter, until there’s not a measurement small enough to describe the distance between it and me—there isn’t any. I’ve soaked it through, and the sensitive skin beneath it pulses. Stings. Yearns for more, for something, anything, to relieve the pressure sure to break me apart.
He teases me with kisses along the curve of my abdomen, a thumb pressed firmly against the outside of my underwear, against my clit.
And then I reach for his belt buckle. Enough is enough.
He gives a soft chuckle and leads my hands away, above my head. Holds both of them there by my wrists in the grip of one of his.
“Not yet,” he says.
Dick.
“Oh, you think you’re running the show?”
With his free hand, he reaches down, beneath the lace this time, and kind of growls when he feels how wet I am. It breaks his gaze, which has been so disciplined up until this point. His eyes take on a wild look, and a thrill skates down my legs at what he’s doing.
“This—” he starts to speak, but the fire in his stare has completely taken over, and he squeezes his eyes shut as he slips a finger inside. Slow. His breaths catching. Ever increasing. Still steady and hot against my chest as his weight bears down.
I move against him. I can’t help it. Beckon him. I need more than this.
And all at once he lifts me up—flips us—so now he’s the one on his back.
My body shivers, pangs of raw hunger emanate from the void of where his fingers j
ust were. I tear into his jeans like a ravenous forager, and he’s just as I felt against my ass, against my hip—rigid against gray boxers, hard and hot and helpless.
My turn to drive him crazy.
I position myself between his supple legs, and with each whirl my tongue gives, each slide of my hand down his cock, his whole body spasms. I glance up at him, powerless, and an evil laugh bubbles from the depths of me. Such control never gets old. I toss my side bangs with a flick and decide it’s time.
He must sense it too because he eases me back toward his mouth, cradles my head in his hands, and takes command once again. Sucking in every breath he can, sucking me breathless. Before I can even take off my underwear, he’s slipped on the condom like a goddamn sex magician, and I glance down at the wrapper.
Magnums.
“Wow, you certainly think a lot of yourself.” I pull back playfully and beckon him through my eyelashes, a grin tugging its way up my face.
“Shut up.” He laughs. And, just as quickly, the joke is gone. He’s slid the seeping fabric to the side, a shiver zapping me when my wet skin hits the cool air. He holds me there a second, hands coiled around my hip bones. The urgency throttling me, throttling him. I can feel the restraint pulsing in his very fingertips. They shake with desire.
And then, finally, mercifully, with trembling hands, he eases me down onto him in excruciating, exhilarating slow motion.
I’m helpless to stifle a gasp—good God, he is steel. And suddenly his giant hands have taken hold of my ass—squeeze. The friction setting my abs, my thighs, ablaze.
“I have wanted this since—” He bites down on his bottom lip, his voice strains just above a whisper, and it compels me forward, the two of us struggling against each other, our bodies lapping at each other like two angry waves on the sea.
This is nothing like I’ve ever written. I take notes with my body, with my hands, the rubber band of tightness that stretches down my calves as I rest them upon stalwart shoulders. Memorizing every bend of his torso, each dip of an ab. Each eager touch is mouthwatering research I beg will go on forever.
My eyes threaten to roll back in my head, to sink into the darkness, but there’s no stopping now. He wears a snarl of hunger, of beautiful pain. Sweat drips from his forehead to mine in one splash, and it startles me. I tighten against him, and he groans, not far off from his own oblivion; but before I can slow down, relinquish control, I’m done for.
I lose myself, every muscle constricting against him without limit
without recourse
without mercy.
“Jesus,” he exerts, and a fireworks display is contained between the two of our bodies, the aftereffects swelling, undulating, shocking their way through my limbs and sparking down to my toes.
* * *
By the time three a.m. rolls around, we’ve repeated the task on just about every surface I’ve got.
After the last round, he gathers all our clothes into a ball and sticks them under one arm, lifts me over his shoulder like a goddamn caveman, and carries me up the stairs to the only place we haven’t done it—my actual bed.
And then he body slams me onto the pillow-top mattress.
“My body cannot have any more sex with your body,” I say, swathing myself in Egyptian cotton, all my parts tender and sore from overuse.
“Yeah, I know—mine either.” He laughs and does an exaggerated hobble to the other side of the bed, slips under the covers next to me. “Well, I’d give that an A plus for sure. How about you, teach?”
I melt into his arms, every ache in every muscle, every eventual bruise, scrape, and burn totally #worthit.
A delicate sheen of sweat settles over us as moonlight spills in through the window sheers, and he wraps me up in a bear hug. I lie there on his arm, outstretched, not facing him, wondering if it’s getting all prickly, falling asleep, and he’s just being polite.
But neither of us says a thing.
Our breathing slows, my eyelids start to get heavy, and eventually I can tell he’s asleep. At least it sounds like he is, as a gentle snore crackles on the air.
I want to turn around and see what he looks like while he sleeps, but I don’t want to wake him. We’ve been through the sex equivalent of war tonight, and boy’s gonna need his rest.
Besides, it’s been a long while since I’ve been held this way, and I don’t want it to end.
I tell myself that the longer I can remain motionless, barely breathing, the longer I can stretch the hours of this night into spools of silk and weave them into a tapestry of infinite time and space. Into eternity.
I wish I could tell my girlfriends about it.
Quinn and Valerie.
Just the thought of them makes my heart twinge. While I’m able to stifle a cry, traitorous tears leak across the bridge of my nose and drip onto my pillow, and I’m really thankful Nick’s asleep.
But also that he’s here.
I pull his arms tighter around me. Nuzzle closer.
Sad as it may be, I’m going to savor this moment. No matter the ramifications tomorrow. Whatever happens, happens.
But it sure as hell feels incredible tonight.
* * *
When I awaken, however, the morning sun beams directly into my eyes like it’s trying to give me Lasik surgery and casts a new light on—everything.
I karate-chop my way out of the arms that no longer comfort me but confine me, and all at once, my vision does a sort of a-wooooo-guh with its focus, first panning way back, then zooming way in, again and again, in a fashion that makes me both startled and seasick.
Nick.
Naked Nick.
The sun.
Way too high in the sky.
My alarm clock.
Seven fifty-three.
“Shit.”
I leap from the bed, rip off the sheet and hold it around me in a makeshift toga. It leaves him completely bare against the morning, his dark skin illuminated by the sun pouring in, but there’s no time to admire his body right now.
Nick rubs at his eyes. “What time is it?” His voice is thick. Sleepy. It’d be cute if I weren’t freaking the fuck out.
“You’ve got to go. I’m late!” I’m flapping around like a headless chicken on shrooms, bumping into the bedpost, my dresser, the bathroom door.
He laughs. “What are you doing?”
My fingers flail against the keyboard on my phone as I text Ida to tell her I’m having car trouble and ask if she can get one of the aides to cover me for, like, an hour.
Just then, a muffled ding!
I retrieve his jeans from the floor, and his phone falls out of one of the pockets and into my hand.
A message lights the screen.
Stephanie: I need you.
And my stomach feels like it’s dropped out from under me.
Nick is the type of guy who someone feels she needs. And I’ve had a taste of that, of him. So I get that. More now than in all the weeks we’ve chatted, flirted, connected. More now that he’s lying here in my bed, that I laid in his arms all night and felt safe, felt protected. Felt understood.
The text message scares the bejesus out of me.
Because I don’t want to need him.
I don’t want to need anybody.
I have wanted and needed enough in my life, and all it’s ever gotten me is nothing.
Is this, right here.
Is a night or two—or maybe a few months—but never a lifetime. Never love for real.
I look down at this girl’s words. This girl who’s also had a taste of what it’s like to be with this man. And what’s it gotten her, being with him? Nothing.
I can’t do it again.
And suddenly, I feel angry for her. Why can’t he love her? Why can’t he need her like she needs him?
Why can’t it ever work for chicks like us?
And, just like that, the decision’s made.
I need to cut this Whatever It Is off #effectiveimmediately before history repeats itself,
or worse.
Whatever that could be.
“Nick.” I shove his jeans, his phone, everything, at him as a barrier. Shield my eyes from his glorious, mesmerizing body before it entices me again.
“Yeeeees?” He grins at me, arms out, hands now folded behind his head. He’s got one leg crossed lazily over the other, even though he’s naked as the day is long. He’s confident AF, and it’s both distracting—and infuriating.
“Stop it.”
“Stop what?”
“You’ve got to get your shit and go.”
He sits up. Tone still even. “But don’t you want to—”
“No—we shouldn’t have. Dammit, Rae.” I bang the heel of my palm into my forehead and feel the effects of All the Wine.
“And now you’re talking to yourself? I’ve been with some crazy chicks, but—”
His nonchalance stirs a tidal wave of anger that crawls from the depths of my soul, unfair as it is—he can’t hear my thoughts. I try to keep my voice calm, but if he doesn’t GET OUT OF HERE or at least stop being so goddamn effing cocky, I won’t be able to hold it back. Release the kraken!
“I can’t do this.”
He utters one incredulous guffaw that ricochets off the headboard and hits me right in the face as I’m ransacking my drawers for any remnants of clean clothes I can possibly wear to work—or, yanno, hide all the shame I’m about to feel.
“You were pretty capable of doing this last night.” An eyebrow climbs its way up his forehead, a dimple popping with his half frown.
“Stop it,” I say again and defend myself from those features of his with a hand. “Last night was a mistake.”
He shakes the pants out and starts putting his clothes on, his eyes taking on a more serious, worried look now. “You’re not playing?”
“Of course not. I don’t know what I was thinking.” I start flinging skirts, tops, dress pants, pairs of socks, everywhere. “Well, of course I know what I was thinking. I’m extremely attracted to you. Yes.”
It’s almost like he’s not in the room, and I’m just spewing a Shakespearean soliloquy at a horrified audience.
Actually, it’s exactly like that, except it’s an audience of one.
Mr. Right-Swipe Page 19