Midtown Masters

by Cara McKenna

  What they’d make of Jacob’s revised sex life, John couldn’t guess, and didn’t need to find out until the following July, when the seventh installment released, just in time for beach-reading season. Even if the critics panned John all over again, he didn’t care. He was proud of what he’d done in those two short sex scenes. Suzy had read them and given him a few notes, some suggestions for how to deepen the emotion, and he’d done what he could within the bounds of Jacob’s voice. His editor had been thrilled. And if she and Suzy both approved, there wasn’t much else to wish for. No one else mattered, he’d decided.

  John glanced at the oven. He was in charge of the pork loin that was roasting, and the timer showed it still had forty minutes to go. “Anything need doing in here?’

  She shook her head. “Soup’s keeping warm, and I just popped the potatoes in a few minutes ago.”

  “And he definitely eats pork?”

  She laughed. “Yeah. Meyer’s as indiscriminate with meats as he is with lovers.”

  John faked a bruised ego. “I hope that’s not entirely apt.”

  “No, not really. Meyer has two modes, when it comes to sex—hook ups and . . . everything else. Anything that lasts longer than a night, basically. If you’re attractive, he’ll fuck you and probably not ask your name. But if, during the course of the sex—or if you met him with your clothes on—you manage to make him think, let him argue, intrigue him in some way . . . Then it’s on. It’s different. If he wants to impress you, you’ll feel it. If it’s just sex with a good-looking, willing stranger, it’s more disposable.”

  “I can’t imagine doing that. Having sex with someone within an hour of meeting them.”

  She smiled and rolled her eyes, nodded. “Try ten minutes, and yeah, I’m kind of with you. I mean, I’m no stranger to hook ups, but it’s different when you’re a girl, I think. It is for me, anyway. I want to make sure a guy deserves it, first. He has to make me laugh, or have something interesting to say. There’s got to be that spark of something, even if it’s something pretty shallow. With Meyer, it’s just got to be chemical.”

  “I’m not sure if I’m horrified by that or envious.”

  She shrugged and sipped her wine. “Depends on what you want out of sex, I suppose. I have a suspicion that you’re after more than an orgasm.”

  He nodded. “That’s the thing. Anonymous hook ups . . . Why not just stay home and . . . you know.”

  “Rub one out?”

  “Yes, if you’re only going to treat someone like your right hand. Not to be crass.”

  “Not at all. I think it’s a difference in wiring. I think for someone like Meyer, he needs there to be an actual, other person. That excites him way more than porn or some horny daydream might. Me, I’m more in your camp than his. Again, possibly because I’m a woman, so the stakes are just higher, when it comes to anonymous sex. If I was thinking I wanted to hook up one night, I have to weigh the chance it’s a bull’s-eye and I meet some person I’m attracted to, respected by, who’s good in bed, and cares that I get off, and doesn’t secretly record the whole thing. Versus the guaranteed good time I could have at home, alone.” She paused, clearly considering something, and John waited a long moment before nodding to say, Go on.

  She frowned. “The thing is, I think Meyer’s lonely. Don’t ever tell him I said that.”

  “I wouldn’t.”

  “But I think that’s the difference. Loneliness, in conjunction with an addictive personality. He’d never say as much, and probably doesn’t even believe as much inside the safety of his own head or heart, but I think that’s part of it. Or else it’s my inner therapist dying to make a case study of my best friend.”

  It made sense to John. He was lonely, or had been, before he’d met Suzy. He had a few acquaintances and was close with his family, but he’d definitely been missing the presence of a romantic partner. He was actually very good at romance, he’d discovered, to his great shock. Once the social-anxiety hurdle had been cleared, the day-to-day act of being someone’s partner came rather naturally. Or did with someone as easygoing and low maintenance as Suzy, at any rate.

  Meyer was the opposite, he supposed—swimming in lovers but estranged from his family. John couldn’t begin to imagine what that must feel like. Perhaps like sitting down to a new feast every evening, but waking up hungry again each morning.

  “It must be exhausting, sleeping with someone new every night,” he said. “Being on like that, I imagine. At the risk of sounding lazy, I’ve come to enjoy it when it’s . . . I don’t know . . .”

  “No stakes?”

  “Easy,” he said. “Relaxed. Just rolling around in bed on a weekend morning.”

  “Easy like Sunday morning,” she offered, grinning.

  “Yes. Just like that—”

  The chime of the bell turned their heads, and in a breath his nerves were back, buzzing like bees all through his body. They rose as one and she grabbed his hand as they headed for the den, squeezing it, then dropping it as they reached the front door.

  Meyer was framed in the slender pane, facing the street. Snow was landing in his hair and on his shoulders and the scarf wrapped around his neck. He was half-silhouetted by the yellow streetlight, looking like a still from a movie.

  John pulled the door in and Meyer turned, breaking into that same old mischievous smile from what felt like a lifetime ago. No, not a lifetime. Merely an education.

  “Look what the cat dragged in!” Suzy said.

  John stepped back. “Welcome. How was your flight?”

  “Shorter than my Uber ride from the airport, it felt like.” He stepped inside and set a small suitcase down. “John, hello.” He put out his arms and they hugged, though they’d never done so before. It felt right, and also a little strange. Two five-o’clock shadows brushed, then they stepped apart.

  “You look well,” John said.

  “You too. And you,” Meyer said, glaring at Suzy. They hugged for a long time, part of it with Suzy squeezed tight and lifted up into the air against his chest, feet dangling six inches from the floor. Meyer set her down and scanned the room. “Fuck of a house, John. Jesus.”

  “It was a real crap hole before I moved in,” Suzy said.

  “Uh-huh. Where can I put my coat?” he asked, unbuttoning it.

  John stashed it in the coat closet and they made their way to the kitchen.

  “This is sickeningly classy,” Meyer said, looking around. “Suzy, how have you not managed to ruin it, yet?”

  “I’ve made my mark, here and there. Mostly upstairs.”

  “Where’s that hideous yellow abomination?”

  “My beautiful gold wing chair is up in the second study, if that’s what you mean.”

  “Something to drink?” John asked Meyer. “My sister gave me an espresso maker last Christmas, and Suzy taught me how to actually use it.”

  “I wouldn’t say no.”

  “Latte? Cappuccino?”

  “Just a shot’s fine. The only kind I get to order, these days.”

  They headed to the kitchen and John made the espresso while Suzy checked on dinner.

  Meyer accepted the prim little cup, then hunkered down with his elbows on the table. “So.” There were perhaps four feet between him and John, but in that instant he seemed close enough for their breath to mingle. “Which of you do I have to thank for this kind invitation?”

  It seemed clear who was expected to answer. John swallowed, feeling a measure of that old intimidation from the dawn of summer.

  Still, he wasn’t a babe in the woods any longer. Plus, every pleading, desperate word Meyer had spoken to him the night they’d fucked was seared indelibly on his memory, and he’d be a liar if he said he didn’t revisit them often. He would follow that man into deeper, darker woods than he’d ever dared dream he’d venture, whistling all the way.

 
“It was both our ideas,” John said. “We, um . . . It was always on our minds, what happened back in June.”

  “Always on the tips of your tongues,” Meyer said slyly, “as you edged toward orgasm, I hope?”

  John cleared his throat. “That’s not untrue.”

  Meyer sat back, crossing his legs and looking victorious. “Good. I’d hate to have been forgotten.”

  “Far from it.”

  “I was hurt it’s taken this long, frankly. I was beginning to think you’d tamed poor Suzy for good. Tell me it’s the opposite. Tell me it’s like The 120 Days of Sodom around here every night.”

  John laughed. “No, not quite.”

  “No skull-fucking of nuns, then?”

  “No. Give us another six months.”

  Meyer smirked. He wasn’t one to laugh, John had come to realize—to laugh at another’s joke was like a little admission of defeat to a man like Meyer, who needed to be the most clever and devilish one at the party, and no doubt usually was. But John would take such a smirk and triumphantly mount it on a cherry plaque above his mantle.

  “She treating you right?” Meyer asked.

  “Very.”

  “And is he treating you right?” Meyer called to Suzy.

  “Exceedingly.”

  “Except when you feel like having your hair pulled.”

  John blushed, as this was a literal scenario that had happened.

  “‘Right’ is open to wide interpretation,” Suzy told Meyer as she squinted at the meat thermometer. “And sometimes hair-pulling just feels so much nicer than a foot rub.”

  “Hear, hear.”

  John eyed the oven clock. Perhaps a half hour until dinner.

  Soon they’d be filling their bellies with delicious food, with drinks; filling this room with laughter and innuendo, and no doubt flirtation.

  An hour from now they’d likely retire to the couch in front of the fireplace, where the words might grow softer and fewer, where mouths might join in far more than mere banter.

  And when the flames ultimately ebbed and guttered, three lovers would make their way upstairs to one bedroom. What might happen there, John couldn’t say.

  Though he knew one thing for certain—he couldn’t wait to find out.

  Since she began writing in 2008, Cara McKenna has published more than thirty-five romances and erotic novels with a variety of publishers, sometimes under the pen name Meg Maguire, including the Sins in the City novels and the Desert Dogs novels. Her stories have been acclaimed for their smart, modern voice and defiance of convention. She is a 2015 RITA Award finalist, a 2014 Romantic Times Reviewers’ Choice Award winner, and a 2010 Golden Heart finalist. Cara loves hearing from readers!

  What’s next on

  your reading list?

  Discover your next

  great read!

  * * *

  Get personalized book picks and up-to-date news about this author.

  Sign up now.