One Night Only

by Stewart, Lynsey M.

  Getting onto the bed, I crawled towards the headboard on all fours, bum tilted and ready to go. An invitation. I glanced at Matt over my shoulder and lowered my eyes. The bed dipped as Matt joined me, his hands splayed out across my hips.

  ‘Fucking goddess,’ he whispered gruffly against my ear, and as he bunched up my dress in one hand, sliding the fabric over the contours of my bum with another, he found me bare, naked, knickerless.

  ‘Are you trying to kill me?’ His hand slid across my skin. ‘Trying to fucking kill me,’ he muttered as he pushed his hands up my body, taking my dress with them before pulling it over my head and freeing me to him. Completely naked. Not a stitch. ‘How long has your pussy been teasing me?’

  ‘I took my panties off at the door before I knocked.’

  ‘Minx,’ he groaned, pulling me towards him, bum hitting groin. His length was hard and heavy, still wet from my mouth. There was something depraved about that and I loved it.

  ‘What do you need?’ He leant over my body, grasping my breast in his hand, and started to play. A pinch to my nipple, already hard and tight, had me rolling myself onto his cock. ‘I want to make you feel good. This’—he slid his finger through my pussy, light and soft, with a final push of perfect pressure—‘needs to feel good.’

  ‘Say you want me,’ I replied, and I had no idea where that came from. Reassurance I needed? Possibly. Horny woman on a mission? Definitely.

  ‘Stace,’ he said, both hands finding their way to my breasts now. A squeeze took me higher. A kiss to my neck anchored me back to him. ‘I can’t believe I get to touch you like this.’

  Oh, he was good. He knew exactly the right things to say. How to make a woman take her clothes off with one smirk and a touching line. In fact, he was so good, I almost believed him.

  ‘Are you sure about this? You can leave at any time.’

  ‘I don’t want to leave,’ I gasped, shaking my head. ‘I came back.’

  I pulled his head to my neck, and he took the cue, kissing me senseless on the spots I loved the most.

  ‘Thank fuck for that.’

  I heard him curse under his breath, a whisper of dirty talk. I sensed he’d left me, the warmth of his extraordinary body not quite as close anymore. A rustle of something told me he was thinking safe sex. A condom wrapper fluttered to the floor, a movement confirming he was rolling it on. His hands returned to my skin and then a heat I couldn’t explain, a feeling of complete safety and thrill-seeking excitement all at once.

  ‘Ready?’ he asked and I nodded in front of him, feeling his hand reach up to my hair, pulling it. Loose curls fell over my back and down my shoulders. Flames of red were everywhere, like we were surrounded by fire, and as he thrust himself inside of me, I believed we were.

  Matt lowered himself, almost cocooning me. His hand swooped over my shoulder and he gripped me there, keeping me steady as his thrusts collided against me. I reached behind me and wrapped my arms around his head, bringing him closer, letting me feel, hear, and smell him. Sensory overload was just what I needed. Hooking my feet around his calves, my back against his chest, I felt weightless, like we were held together in mid-air by invisible hands, and it was a move that only spurred him on him.

  Go faster. You won’t break me.

  I moved my hands to the headboard, gaining strength as I pushed them against the wall. He was skillful and aware, knowing when to go slow but lost himself at times, and couldn’t help but slip into fast and frantic. His tongue followed the curve of my back, a bite to my skin. A slap, then a rub to stop the pain. I wanted to cry when he hit my g-spot, had an overwhelming urge to sob. I knew this was more than just great sex, a welling-up-to-the-point-of-letting-go sex. This was me finding myself. Taking charge of my voice. Finding a way to surge forward, lose the baggage, start afresh.

  This was sex I’d never experienced before.

  This was rampant can’t-wait-to-get-you-inside-me sex. This was emotionally deep, when all the threads of what makes sex mind-blowing are finally pulled together. I had a man I was seriously attracted to. Someone who made me feel amazing. A perfect moment where I accepted my sexuality as important, disrobed for all to see my nakedness and shouted, ‘Take me! I’m an exploding sexual volcano and I don’t care if you judge me!’

  ‘I love seeing you like this,’ Matt said, his voice raspy and hoarse. ‘You’re about to lose yourself and it’s perfection.’

  ‘I’m going to come.’

  ‘Wouldn’t have it any other way, gorgeous,’ he said, changing the pace…faster…climbing.

  It was like we’d done this before. Like we knew what caused the little gasp of breaths, the shudder of shoulders, or the shaky rise and fall of our chests. Like we already knew each other inside out, a beautiful familiarity that came from long-term lovers partnered with the excitement of the very first time all over again.

  I slapped my palms against the wall, pushing them, trying to move the wall away on every thrust. ‘This is too much,’ I panted. ‘Almost too much.’ I gasped. ‘I’m not sure I’m going to survive.’

  His fingers hit my clit and that sobbing urge threatened to wrack through my body again, wreaking havoc, demolishing me.

  ‘Ohmygod. Ohmygod. Ohmygod. I’m going to—’

  ‘Fuck!’ Matt cried out with me. I clutched my hand to my mouth to try to contain the sobs...the sex sobs. I was shaking, my body shivering, my limbs light, my bones depleted. I was candy floss hitting your tongue. A shadow of its former self. Now, just…goop. His arms surrounded me, his body weight pressed down on mine, and he was all I needed. Him. Just him. I felt his hand move, heard whispers of, ‘I’ve got you. Trust me.’

  Tiny pushes and rolling of hips. He didn’t stop. Why isn’t he stopping? Normally, I’d be in my pajamas and reading a book by now. What is this magic? He pulled out and the space where he filled me with his magnificent cock was now being tenderly stroked by his fingers, featherlight, building up the strokes until I was moving again, writhing underneath him as his fingers entered me and the urge to shake off my skin took hold again.

  My arms stretched around his head, holding on, pressing him to my neck. His lips fell there, soft then urgent, riding with me, mimicking my hip roll. A body burst was the outcome. I saw light behind my eyes, imagining my body was flooded with rainbow colours, crackling and fizzing like an explosion of fireworks in a cloudless sky.

  ‘Matt?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Have I just had the full escort experience?’

  He dropped his head to my shoulder, kissing the blade of bone. ‘No,’ he replied, shaking his head. ‘Not even close.’

  I wasn’t sure what he meant. Had he been holding back? How could there possibly be more to his repertoire? A woman had to put herself back together after an encounter with Matt, or were they all taken home by ambulance?

  ‘Can I stay a little longer?’ I asked, hands pressed against the headboard, my legs refusing to work.

  ‘Stay as long as you need,’ he replied, kissing my back. ‘Stay until the morning. We’ll live our lives in this hotel room if you want.’

  I wondered if I had enough cash in my purse to cover the costs of an all-night/all-life service, but as I tried to lift my right arm—failing spectacularly in the process—and pins and needles started tapping around my body, I decided conversations of paying my bill and finding a mutually agreeable way to part ways could wait until morning.

  14

  Matt

  I woke up with my head against her stomach, her legs wrapped around me. She was sleepy, her hair a tangled mess. Still beautiful. I was usually gone by now, if I even stayed at all. Bill paid and a wake-me-up cup of coffee in my hand. But I just wanted to feel the silence, appreciate the intimacy for a while longer because when she woke up, I wasn’t sure where Stacey would stand.

  She stirred, her legs squeezing against me lightly. I held my hand against her calf and kissed her hip. ‘Hey, you,’ I said softly.

  ‘Hey,’ she replied, our
simple greeting feeling habitual and familiar.

  ‘Good morning.’

  She smiled lazily, stretching out her body with a look of complete bliss until her eyes grew wide. ‘Oh Christ,’ she said as she thrust her hands over her mouth.

  ‘What?’ Is this where the conversation begins about second thoughts, guilt, or shame? No, not yet. Give me more time. ‘It’s OK, Stace. Let’s talk.’

  She shook her hand and sat up. ‘Stay away from my morning breath.’ Catching a glimpse of herself in the mirror, her hand flew from her mouth to the top of her head. ‘What…happened?’

  ‘You look and smell amazing.’ I laughed as I nuzzled into her neck and settled beside her. She smiled and my heart started to calm down.

  ‘I’m a wreck,’ she said, dragging her hair back into a ponytail with her hands, only for it to fall back into loose waves around her shoulders. ‘You’ve wrecked me.’

  She bit her lip and held my gaze. This was the face of a woman who was remembering what had gone down the night before and thankfully, her smile didn’t fade.

  ‘Can I get you some coffee? You’ll feel less wrecked after coffee.’

  ‘I need a shower and an industrial bottle of curl tamer.’ She got off the bed and leant into the mirror. I couldn’t resist joining her, my hands finding her gorgeous ass.

  ‘I love your bum,’ I said, sliding my hand over a cheek.

  ‘You see bums all the time,’ she replied, arching her eyebrow. ‘Numerous bums. Copious cheeks.’

  ‘Not this one though.’ I got down to my knees and kissed the curve. ‘This one happens to be my favourite.’

  She dropped her hands, her smile going with them. ‘Your sexual experiences are all one-sided, aren’t they? You give pleasure but you don’t receive. That must feel so hollow. Lonely even.’

  ‘Not really,’ I explained. ‘They’re not what I want. Why would I chase more from them? I’m providing a service and that’s as far as it goes.’

  ‘Like a cleaner or a car mechanic?’

  ‘But less messy.’

  She rolled her eyes before crossing her arms around herself. ‘Isn’t it interesting that some of your clients come to you to find the intimacy they’ve lost, but you don’t get the same from them?’

  ‘No. I don’t,’ I replied, wrapping my arms around her. There was always a restriction. I didn’t give myself fully, and I knew that after last night. I held on tight to myself, my needs, my pleasures, but with Stace? That was me breaking free, stretching out, giving in. Uninhibited. A starved man ready to feast. She’d made me find myself again and I was addicted. Addicted to her, to this.

  I felt her deep sigh against my chest. ‘Do you close yourself off to be able to…give yourself to them?’

  ‘Are you interviewing me again?’

  Was she in journalist mode or just reflecting on the morning after?

  ‘Trying to make sense of everything,’ she replied. I knew the feeling. ‘I’m trying to understand how your clients would feel in the morning.’

  ‘How do you feel?’

  ‘Good,’ she replied, smiling as she fiddled with her earrings. ‘It’s refreshing to have sex with a man who actually knows what he’s doing.’ I laughed at that, a deep rumble that was infectious, and Stacey caught it too. ‘You’re definitely in the right job. You should think about giving lessons. It could be an extra side-line until you qualify.’

  ‘That isn’t a bad idea.’

  ‘I’m serious.’ She turned to me and for a second, I held her in my arms and imagined what it would be like to do this forever. To forget she was a journalist writing an article on a male escort I couldn’t identify as myself anymore. She put her arm on my shoulder, tried to straighten my bed hair with her other hand, and I closed my eyes and enjoyed it. ‘Once the article’s published, you’ll be inundated.’

  ‘Are you going to give me a good review?’

  ‘I haven’t thought about how I’m going to word it yet,’ she replied. ‘Maybe I’ll have more questions once I start fleshing it out. Would it be OK to arrange to see you again?’

  I pulled away, stepping backwards as her words brought me back to reality. She covered her breasts, holding her hands under her armpits.

  ‘Or…I could give you a ring?’ she asked tentatively.

  ‘Yeah,’ I replied, grabbing my shirt from the floor. ‘Whatever works for you, Stace.’

  ‘Thanks,’ she said quietly as I started to get dressed. ‘That’s…helpful.’

  ‘Happy to help,’ I replied as I picked up my trousers, remembering Stacey on her knees before me, unzipping them and letting them fall to the floor. She’d taken me in her mouth, telling me she wanted to give me pleasure, and that’s when everything had fallen into place. I stopped doubting what we had was more than an orchestrated moment. A journalist and an object of an article. She wanted me. I wanted her. We wanted each other.

  I’d never kissed a client like that.

  I’d never felt the heady shallow breaths of arousal, the fizz of blood through my veins, or the bone-deep desire to get as close to another person as I could. Stacey brought me back to life last night. A man so used to pleasing others, I’d forgotten what it was like to have a slice of that myself.

  She made me feel important.

  Joyful.

  Happy.

  But that piece of wonderful was slipping away from me. Talk of writing, conversations about questions and giving me a call. My brain was branding me a fool and my heart was leaking out all the good from the last few hours.

  ‘Are you getting ready to leave?’ Stacey asked as I started lacing my shoes.

  I wanted to get out of this room. Far away from the potential for her to continue setting up more interviews, to highlight this was nothing more than a job to her.

  ‘I thought that’s what you’d want,’ I said, my back to her. ‘Isn’t the article called “One Night Only”?’

  ‘Working title,’ she muttered as I glanced at her, watching as she picked up her dress and pressed it to her body, covering herself completely.

  I closed my eyes and dropped my head. I knew I’d lost her. Lost the fantasy that this could be something more.

  ‘I’ll order you something to eat,’ I said. ‘Grab a shower and it should be here when you’re ready.’

  * * *

  Bacon, eggs, and toast were waiting for her when she slowly opened the door and emerged from the bathroom, looking like a goddess. Her hair was pulled back, dress in place, makeup perfect. I almost pleaded at her feet to let me see her again.

  ‘Something smells good,’ she said.

  ‘That’ll be me.’

  She let out a small laugh as she sat down at the table, where I poured her a cup of coffee.

  ‘Aren’t you joining me for breakfast?’

  ‘No,’ I replied. ‘I’m not hungry.’

  Because my stomach leapt out my body the moment you realigned this as part of your job.

  She took a sip. ‘I have a bite mark on my boob.’ She pulled her dress down slightly and sure enough, there was purply-blue mark to the wonderful mound of her breast. ‘I was thinking of asking you to sign it. Keep it as a memory.’ She laughed.

  A memory. Fuck.

  ‘Pass me a pen and I’m there.’

  She held her hand over her nose, trying to contain her smile that didn’t quite meet her eyes this morning. ‘What are your plans for the rest of the day?’

  Moping. Wallowing in misery. Missing you.

  ‘I’ll probably hit the gym. Visit my dad.’

  ‘I thought you lived with your dad?’ she asked.

  I’d tripped up. Hadn’t been able to keep up the lie.

  ‘He’s staying…somewhere else at the moment.’ She considered me from over her coffee cup, blowing on it before taking a sip. ‘He’s all over the place sometimes, but…he’ll be back.’

  ‘There’s always more to the story,’ she said softly, smiling as she put the cup back on the saucer with a clink. She’d said the
same words last night but hadn’t pushed me. She had a journalist’s nose for a story, but I couldn’t go there, especially now that our terms had been clarified. The real story would far outweigh the one I’d told so far, and I wasn’t ready for that.

  ‘Are you heading back to Brighton?’ I asked.

  ‘No, I’m staying with Vanessa from work. It made sense, time-wise. I can get started on the article and be back in the office tomorrow.’

  ‘Great.’

  She popped a piece of bacon in her mouth and watched as I put on my jacket, then started gathering my things.

  ‘Matt?’

  ‘Yes?’ I looked at her, stopping what I was doing. My name sounded hopeful on her lips and I wanted her next words to be ones I needed to hear. A reassurance she enjoyed our time together, and would like to see where this goes.

  ‘How much do I owe you?’

  I tried to take a breath. Cleared my throat. Wanted to make myself disappear. ‘Stace. I don’t want your money.’

  ‘I’ve taken too much of your time already.’

  ‘No,’ I said, holding up my hand. ‘I can’t take it.’

  I felt a rush of panic flooding my body, a cold waterfall effect from my neck down to my stomach.

  ‘I’m a client,’ she said softly. ‘I should pay you.’

  I shook my head, throwing my toiletries in my bag before zipping it up quickly. ‘No.’

  ‘Matt—’

  ‘No,’ I repeated. ‘I can’t do this.’

  ‘What?’

  I looked at her again, wondering why she wasn’t battling with herself as much as me. I had so many questions to ask. I wanted to hear from her that she didn’t feel how much we twisted together, tangling pieces of us I thought would never untwine. She stared back at me, pulling in her lips. Blinking. Not giving me a sign.

  ‘I guess I’ll see you when the article is finished,’ I said.

  ‘Yeah,’ she whispered before clearing her throat. ‘Like I said, you’ll need to approve it before it can be published.’ She stood up, walked closer to me, and held out her hand. I stared at it, unable to leave on a handshake. ‘Thank you for making this experience so…easy.’