“That’s not—”
“No, that’s exactly what you want from me. And all you want from me. I’m a cock at your pleasure tonight.”
Her eyes flare at me. “Not just a cock. I like your fingers and tongue, too. Sometimes even more.”
“More?” I loom over her and she sucks in a ragged breath. Does she smell my body wash and after shave? Is she thinking about the fact that as soon as she texted me, I threw myself in the shower?
I’m at her mercy here.
I love/hate that.
“Equally,” she says quietly, her gaze cautious now.
“No, you said more. You don’t love my cock enough to get fucked tonight, Ali.”
“We don’t need to fuck.” She stumbles over the word and I hate myself for pushing her. She stands tall and smirks, proving once again I’ve underestimated her. “Wanna play Little Big Planet?”
I laugh. Funny girl. “No.”
“What do you want to do?”
I walk her back until she bumps against the counter. At the same time, I settle my hands on her hips. Hot and heavy, I hold them there, my fingers squeezing the top of her ass, my thumbs rubbing lazy circles on her hip bones.
She feels incredible.
She feels fragile.
She feels like mine, and nothing less than that will do.
My jaw flexes as I glare down at her. “Sunday brunch.”
—thirty-one—
Alison
“No!” The protest rips out of me first of all because it’s only Tuesday, and the last thing I want is him to turn around and head out the door until Sunday. And I’m still pissed at him about all the secrets, so I’m not giving him a date.
Not yet.
But he probably thinks I’m saying no for other reasons.
He’s not wrong. Dating would open a Pandora’s box of mess that we could avoid by…not dating. On the other hand, not dating didn’t work out that well for us either. I’m not stupid. I know that any way we do this, it’s going to be messy.
Evidence: right now. He’s pissed, and I’m not climbing him like a tree right now, getting that blissful orgasm I want so bad.
Which is really his fault, anyway. “You know, this whole thing is a monster of your own making,” I point out, trying to pull us back to the light flirting of our text messages.
Yes, I summoned him.
Yes, I texted him late at night because I want his cock inside me. I can’t fall asleep without the hard press of his body against mine, his words in my ear as he growls all the filthy ways I turn him inside out.
I need him, plain and simple.
We also need to talk, but I keep forgetting that as I watch his forearms flex and twist. Corded muscles popping out of the shadows, golden bands of strength that make my mouth water.
I set my hands against his chest. He doesn’t move. I sigh and stroke his curved pecs, then slide my fingers together, meeting in the middle. I play with the buttons there. He’s still just staring down at me. “I had no idea how awesome sex was until you showed me. If you don’t want me to text you…”
I trail off, because I’m not going to make an empty threat. I’m not calling anyone else, and I can’t even pretend I’m not going to call him, either.
“I’ll trade you,” he finally says. “Dates for orgasms.”
I laugh. “I’m going to get the orgasm anyway. You’re even worse at this lying thing than I am.”
He sighs as he winds one hand into my hair, tipping me back just a bit. Trapping me at just the right angle to crash his mouth down on top of mine.
As our tongues slide against each other, as he fills my body, sweeping all my defences away like they’re made of air, I think…what am I fighting, really?
So he’s broken my heart.
He’ll probably do it again.
So what.
It’ll be worth it.
But then he pulls back, nipping at my bottom lip as he separates us back into two people, and he says, “Fine, then. Dates for secrets.”
And whoosh, my defenses are back in place. Because there aren’t enough date possibilities to trade for all that remains unspoken between us. I wrap my arms around myself and shake my head. “You know you won’t really do that.”
“You don’t think I’ll bare my soul to you?” He steps back and spreads his arms wide. He looks like an avenging angel, his dark hair flopping over his hooded gaze, his hands turned skyward. Tall and lean and wide and mean.
“I think there’s room for you to bare plenty and still not really tell me anything at all. I think that you and I use the word secrets in two totally different ways.”
His head lifts up an inch, and his eyes glitter. “You need to get over what happened in London.”
“And you need to not speak to me like I’m a child.”
“I’m here, aren’t I?” He growls. “Even when it’s only a fraction of what I want, I’m here because you snapped your fingers.”
I gasp. “That’s not fair.”
“No? You don’t think I’m yours?”
“I think you were someone else’s first, in so many more ways than you’ll ever be mine.”
“We can’t all be virgins, Ali. You might not have been my first, but you’re my last. My only.”
I shake my head. “Don’t say that.”
“You don’t want to know how much you mean to me? You don’t think I’ll fight for you? I’d kill for you. If I back off, it’s only to regroup.”
“You’re going about it all the wrong way,” I cry, frustrated he doesn’t see it as clearly as I do. “All you have to do is be honest with me!”
“It’s not that simple,” he grinds out. “You say that like I know what you want to hear, but I don’t have any clue. You want to know…what? Do you want me to be honest about my kill count in war zones?”
“Fiancées would be a good start.”
“Fine. I had one. It was a mistake.”
“Do you not hear yourself? I’m banging my head against a brick wall here. You had two chances already. I’ve already told you my darkest secrets. I told them to you before you even had a piece of me. So don’t tell me that I don’t know what you’re holding back. I know, Scott. Because I’ve given you my soul. Fuck this baring it nonsense. You own my soul. So no, I don’t want to give you my heart, as well, because I still don’t have anything of yours. See how telling me a bit here and there won’t make that fucking even?” I’m raging now, so hard that I’m shaking, and suddenly he’s got me in his arms.
“I’m sorry.” They’re simple words, and they don’t actually say much. But it’s the way he says them, gruff and rough, emotion scratching each round syllable until the two words are burrs that hook into me and hang on. “You did, and I didn’t, and it’s not enough. I’ll do better.”
I shake my head. “I don’t want…I don’t want promises.”
He’s holding me so tight now that it hurts. “What do you want?”
I want this. “You. Just you.”
He presses his forehead against mine. Our noses jostle for position as we kiss each other. It’s fast and furious, a little rough and a lot raw, but it feels right.
It feels right, too, when he wrenches down my pants, all the way to my ankles, and sets me on the kitchen counter. Eyes dark and burning, he strokes the seam of my pussy. “You’ve been shaving.”
“Just tonight. For you.”
He jerks my hips right to the edge of the counter and drops to his knees, shoving his face right between my legs. There’s nothing smooth about this. He’s hungry for me, and I’m dying for any touch on offer. The combination is combustible, and it doesn’t take long before I feel an orgasm start to build deep in my belly.
But he’s not going to give it to me that easy.
My orgasms are his to dole out, and he’s going to make me work for them. If he can’t trade something else, he’ll just trade in this—my ache, my need.
I don’t blame him. I’d do the same thing in his s
hoes.
He stands again, his hands rough and insistent on my hips as he slams our bodies together. I taste myself on his face. It makes my legs shake.
He looks down between us as he licks his lips. “You’re wet,” he says. Understatement.
“You turn me on,” I admit plainly.
He shakes his head. “It’s not me. It’s you. You’re pure passion, Ali.”
I can’t imagine ever sharing that with anyone else. “Just with you.”
He gives me a sad smile. “I know.”
He touches me, stroking me at first, then he slides a finger and then two fingers inside, making me stretch both around him and for him. I love his fingers. I’d told him, hadn’t I?
And he’d told me I didn’t deserve his cock.
My face flames.
“What are you thinking about?”
“You said I can’t have your cock.”
He gives me a long, appraising look. “That’s right. That was harsh.”
“Your fingers are enough,” I pant.
“Yeah?”
I nod. “But I want more.” And the flame burns brighter.
He adds a third finger. I know this because he tells me, but I’m not watching anymore. It’s too much. Too dirty.
It’s perfect.
The stretch this time turns into an ache before he’s all the way inside me, but he does that thing, a flick or a flutter, deep inside me, and it lights me up. I spread my legs wider still—obscenely so, now, but I don’t care, because this feels too good. My ankles tangle together in my pants and I kick them free, lifting my heels up to the counter. I’m spread wide open for him now.
“Can you take another?”
I nod. Words aren’t possible right now, because all I can think about is that warm pressure inside me, that rub and then—oh God—another flick. I cry out and bear down against his hand, and he eases back.
“No, no, no,” I pant. “More.”
He’s leaning over me now, his eyes locked on mine. “More?”
Another nod, and he’s sliding back into me. This time the stretch starts almost immediately, but he still finds that spot. I breathe out, not a word, exactly, but it sounds something like ohmygod and you’reagod, and both sentiments are true. He’s figured out my body like I never thought possible, and even though I’ve been such a bitch to him, he gives me this.
Flick.
I gasp and arch my back, sliding another quarter inch onto his hand.
“You are the most beautiful woman in the world,” he growls at me. “Fucking exasperating, but beautiful, and hot, and even when you’re pissed at me, you give me this.”
I give him this? I’m really sure I’m not giving anything right now.
I’m taking a hell of a lot.
He groans as he twists his hand, and I feel it—a spark like never before. It’s slow, so slow I don’t even recognize it as a building toward something at first. I just think, wow, that feels impossible. And impossibly good, too. But then he pulses his fingers out, then in again, and he’s only moving the tiniest bit, but now that spark is brighter. And it’s growing. Like watching a charge lit far, far away, I sense the orgasm coming before I really feel it build, but when it hits it’s like a freight train of physical sensation.
Whoosh. Blood rushes through my head as he fucks his hand in and out, in and out, and I reach blindly for my clit. When I touch it, I realize I’m soaked. Like never before.
Scott’s got four fingers, maybe even five, inside me, and I’m gushing slippery fluid like…nothing I can… “Oh,” I cry out. That’s it, a single sound. Oh. My body shatters into separate elements. Sound: loud, scary. Light: bright and all-encompassing. Touch is weird, because I float out of my body for a minute, so I can’t feel anything, and then I can feel everything. The wetness between my legs. The empty, yearning ache as Scott picks me up and carries me to bed. He holds me close and tells me I’m beautiful as he rolls on a condom, then fills that emptiness inside me, stretching me in the most delicious way until I’m coming again. He explodes right after me.
When he gets us under the blankets, I burrow into his chest and hope that when I snap back to reality, I can find the words to tell him I love him.
I love him and need him, no matter how fucked up I am.
—thirty-two—
Scott
I don’t think one intense night is going to fix everything in our relationship.
I’m hoping croissants and lemon curd might help, though, so I’m holding Ali to my request for Sunday brunch.
Of course, that’s five days after she invites me over, and I fill the intervening days with as many orgasms as she wants—gotta keep her happy to distract her from the fact that we’re sort of dating again.
After Paris, I’ve missed sleeping with her, and this week I haven’t spent a single night in my own bed.
I’m pretty fucking happy about that, and Ali seems to like it, too.
Heading to Eastern Market on Sunday, though, she’s wary. Hence the lemon curd.
It’s going to be my secret weapon.
“Do you need coffee?” I ask her as we pick our way through the outdoor market.
“I’ve got coffee.”
“But do you have Jamaican Blue coffee?”
“Does that make a good vanilla latte?”
Jesus. “What did you say I drink? Boring old man coffee? This is the best of the best of boring old man coffee.”
“No vanilla syrup?”
“You won’t need it.”
She gives me a skeptical look and I grin and pay the man.
She stops and points her finger at me. “I thought you wanted to go out for brunch? You’re buying everything we need for a breakfast at home.”
I shrug. “I think I just said brunch. I didn’t specify where.”
“Interesting,” she says, looking at me suspiciously.
“Is it?”
“Hmmm. Very.”
“Good. I like to be interesting to you.” I offer her my arm and she takes it. “Raspberries?”
“Sure. After we have brunch, are you going to go back to your place and see if it’s still standing?”
“Have I been at your place that long?”
“A few days.”
“Is that a problem?”
She doesn’t answer right away. So prickly, my Ali.
“Maybe we should take this stuff back to my place to eat,” I say, not looking at her. “That way you could escape whenever you want.”
“I don’t want to escape.” She says it quietly, but it lands squarely and I puff like a peacock.
“No?”
“Not today, anyway.”
“K. Good.”
—thirty-three—
Alison
I wake up a week later to an empty bed. It’s such a rare occurrence now that my first thought is, “Where’s Scott?” in genuine confusion. It’s a good kind of weird.
My second thought is that I really want some of that damn coffee he bought. Then I realize that’s because I can smell it coming from my kitchen. But when I get there, I just find the freshly brewed coffee with a note explaining that he’s headed to the Mayfair Enterprises offices in Maryland for “boring corporate stuff.”
I roll my eyes and pour myself a cup of coffee, breathing it in before I pad to the fridge for the milk.
It’s good, but it’s still coffee. It needs a healthy splash of dairy.
Attached to the milk carton is another note, this one telling me to check my email. He’s drawn goofy smiley face with a body…and a raging boner.
Classy.
I’m still giggling as I search the living room for my phone. I think I may have shoved it somewhere when we were getting busy last night.
I find it under a cushion and check my messages. Twenty minutes earlier, Scott sent me an email with a couple of attachments. The first one is a scan of his medical test results. The second is a sworn affidavit—oh my God, he’s such a dork—signed by Wilson Carter as a
witness.
My heart pounds in my chest as I read his sworn statement.
I, Scott Mayfair, do solemnly and faithfully attest to the fact that I have only had sexual relations with one woman, Ms. Alison Dashford Reid, since December of 2014.
I blink at the screen. 2014?
I pick up the phone and tap his name on my screen. He answers on the first ring and I launch into it before he has a chance to say anything. “You haven’t slept with anyone else in like a year and a half?”
“Well, you haven’t slept with anyone else, ever.”
“That’s different.”
He laughs. “How so?”
“I didn’t know how amazing sex was. Not truly. It was an academic notion.”
He grunts. “It wasn’t an academic notion while we were broken up.”
“True. But…you know.” I can’t imagine ever wanting to have sex with anyone else.
“What?”
“Shut up, that’s what.”
“So you accept my documentation?”
Of course I did. “I suppose.”
“I love it when you play hard to get.”
I snicker.
“I can be back in the city in four hours.”
That sounds perfect. Except…“Damn it!”
He laughs. “Oh no, what?”
“I’ve got a meeting with my advisor this afternoon.”
“Okay. Dinner, then.”
“Dinner and sex, so classy. It’ll need to be late.”
“Late is my speciality. We can make it pizza for that special touch.”
I chuckle. “And eat it in bed.”
— —
First rule of teasing in a new relationship: know what your hard limits are.
I stare at Scott as he plops the pizza box in the middle of my bed.
“No?” he asks, and it’s just cute enough that I change my head shake into a nod.
“It’s okay,” I squeak. “Let’s just move the quilt.”
If I were anyone else, it would be a family heirloom. Since my family doesn’t do quilts, I bought it at Goodwill. But it’s precious to me.
“We can eat at the table,” he says as he fires up my TV.
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