Beautiful Player

by Christina Lauren

Well, not everything. My friends were still the same, my finances were fine. I still ran (almost) daily, still caught basketball on TV whenever I could. But . . .

  I’d fallen in love. How often does anyone see that coming?

  “You okay?” she asked.

  “Yeah, I’m good,” I whispered. “Just . . .” I couldn’t say anything. We’d agreed on just-friends. I’d told her it was what I wanted, too. “It’s just crazy to see friends going through this,” I said, gesturing to Chloe and Bennett, covering myself up that way. “I totally can’t relate.”

  And with that, everyone was looking back to us, eyes soft and fucking invested in every single look or touch that passed between me and Hanna. I glared at each of them quickly and then stood. My chair squeaked across the floor, making my awkwardness even more evident. I was okay with being the center of attention within this group, whether I was teasing one of them or the other way around. But this felt different. I could laugh off the jokes about my scheduled hookups or colorful past with women, but right now I felt fucking vulnerable in this new place with Hanna, and wasn’t used to being on this side of the knowing looks.

  I wiped my sweaty palms on the thighs of my jeans. “Let’s . . . I don’t know.” I looked around the bar helplessly. We should have just stayed on my couch, maybe fucked again out there in my living room. We should have stayed put until things were slightly less up in the air between us.

  Hanna looked up at me, amused expression in place. “Let’s . . . ?”

  “Let’s dance.”

  I jerked her out of her chair and out to the empty dance floor, realizing when we got there that it would be even worse than what I was escaping. I’d taken us from the pack-safety of the table and onto what was essentially a stage. She stepped close to me, pulling my arms around her waist and running her hands up my chest and into my hair.

  “Breathe, Will.”

  I closed my eyes, taking a deep breath. I’d never felt more awkward in my life. Come to think of it, I’d never really felt awkward at all before.

  “You’re a mess,” she said, laughing into my ear when I pulled her close. “I’ve never seen you so discombobulated. I have to admit, it’s really kind of cute.”

  “It’s been a really fucking weird day.”

  Maddie was playing some mellow indie shit, and this particular song was only instrumental. It was sweet, almost a little melancholy, but just the right speed for the kind of dancing I wanted to do with Hanna: slow, pressing. The kind of dancing where I could pretend to dance but really just stand and hug her for a few minutes away from the table.

  On a slow spin, I turned and could see that my friends weren’t even looking at us anymore; they had returned to their conversation. Chloe was speaking animatedly about something, arms flapping above her head and I was almost positive she was reenacting some wedding-related fiasco. Now that the weird Will Inspection moment had cleared, I was torn between staying put, here with Hanna, and heading back to the table so I could be kept up to date on the increasing number of shenanigans Bennett and Chloe were dealing with. I could only imagine they were pretty epic.

  “I like being with you,” Hanna said, breaking back into my thoughts. Maybe it was the lights in the bar, or maybe it was her mood, but her eyes had more blue in them today than they normally did. It made me think of spring being released full bore into New York City. I wanted winter gone. I think I needed everything around me to transition so it didn’t feel like I was the only one going through something.

  She paused, and her eyes focused on my lips. “I’m sorry about earlier.”

  Laughing, I whispered, “You said that already. You apologized with words. And then with your mouth on my dick.”

  She laughed, tucking her head into my neck, and I could pretend we were alone, just dancing in my living room, or bedroom. Only, if we were there, we wouldn’t be dancing. I clenched my jaw, trying to keep my body from reacting to this fresh reminder that she was pressed against me, had given me the blow job of my life earlier, and that it might be possible to convince her to come back to my place again later. Even if she just wanted to curl up and sleep, I’d be completely down for that. After all the drama of the day, I didn’t really want her to go home after this.

  “I guess I don’t really know what to do,” she admitted. “I know we talked earlier but things still feel kind of weird.”

  I sighed. “Why is it complicated, though?” The lights from the dance floor ran shadows across her face, and she looked so fucking beautiful, I felt like I was losing my mind. The question filled my throat like smoke until I felt too full. “Isn’t this good?” I smiled so she might think I knew it was; maybe she would believe for a second that I didn’t actually need the reassurance.

  “It’s actually amazing how good it is,” she whispered. “I feel like I didn’t know you at all before, even though I thought I did. You’re this brilliant scientist, with these really amazing, meaningful tattoos. You run triathlons and have this close, sweet relationship with your sisters and your mom.” Her nails scratched lightly down my neck. “I know you’ve always been sexual, really sexual. From the first time I met you when you were nineteen, to now, twelve years later. I really like spending time with you for that reason, too, because you’re teaching me things I didn’t know about my body, and what I like. I think what we have right now is actually really perfect.”

  I was a second away from kissing her, running a hand up her side to feel the shape of her ribs and her spine. I wanted to pull her down onto the floor and feel her under me. But we were at a bar. Fucking idiot, Will. I looked away, and inadvertently over at my group of friends behind her. All four of them were back to watching us. Bennett and Sara had actually turned their chairs so they could see us without having to crane their necks, but as soon as they noticed I had noticed them, they snapped their attention elsewhere: Max to the bar, Sara up at the ceiling, Bennett down at the watch on his wrist. Only Chloe continued to stare, a big smile on her face.

  “This was a bad idea, coming here,” I said.

  Hanna shrugged. “I don’t think so. I think it was good to get out of the house and talk a little.”

  “Is that what we did?” I asked, smiling. “Talked about how we don’t need to talk about it?”

  Her tongue peeked out to wet her lips. “Sure. But I think I just want to go back to your place and do things while we talk.”

  * * *

  I pulled my keys from my pocket, sifting through them to locate the right one. “You’re not coming up here to grab a cup of tea and then head home.”

  She nodded. “I know. But I do need to go to lab tomorrow. I don’t think I’ve ever just not shown up like I did today.”

  I unlocked my front door, pushing it open and letting her lead us inside. She headed straight for the kitchen.

  “Wrong way.”

  “I won’t leave after tea,” she said over her shoulder. “But I do want some. That drink made me sleepy.”

  “You had two sips.” We’d left her mostly full Jack and Coke on the table while Bennett and the rest did their best to convince us to stay and not only finish the one, but have another.

  “I think there was the equivalent of seven shots in those two sips.”

  Stepping up to the stove, I grabbed the kettle and then turned to fill it with water. “Then you’re a pretty boring drunk. If I had seven shots I would have been stripping on the table.”

  She laughed, opening my fridge, rooting around, and finally pulling out a carrot. She walked over to my counter and hopped up on it, swinging her legs. Even though this was so new, it seemed like she’d been coming over here for years.

  Her hair had started to come undone and a few pieces fell in small curls next to her face and down the back of her neck. The warmth of the bar, or maybe the two sips of her drink, had left her cheeks flushed, her eyes bright. She blinked slowly as she looked over at me and I smiled.

  “You look pretty,” I said, leaning against the counter beside her. />
  She snapped into the carrot. “Thanks.”

  “Think I might fuck you senseless in a few minutes.”

  Shrugging and pretending to look nonchalant, she murmured, “Okay.”

  But then she reached out with her legs and pulled me closer, between her thighs. “Despite that whole ‘work’ thing I mentioned, I think you could probably keep me up all night again, if you really wanted.”

  I reached forward with one hand and slipped the top button of her shirt free. “What do you want me to do to you tonight?”

  “Anything.”

  I lifted an eyebrow. “Anything?”

  She reconsidered, whispering, “Everything.”

  “I love this,” I said, stepping closer and running my nose up the column of her neck. “This kind of sex where I get to learn everything you like. I discover all of your sounds.”

  “I don’t know . . .” She trailed off, waving her carrot in a vague circle next to my head. “Isn’t sex with someone you’ve been with forever the best kind, though? Like she’s in bed, falls asleep, he comes in, and she just instinctively rolls to him, you know? And it’s like, her face in his warm neck and his hands all up and down her back, then her pants come off and he’s pushing inside her before her shirt is even off. He knows what’s under there. Maybe he can’t wait to be inside her first. He doesn’t have to take things off in order anymore.”

  I pulled back and stared at her as she snapped another bite of her carrot. She had quite the vivid image of such a moment. I personally would never have said familiar sex is the best kind. A good kind, sure. But the way she said it—the way her voice dropped and her eyes kind of closed—fuck, yes, it sounded like the best kind. I could see that life with Hanna, where we shared a bed, and a kitchen, and finances and fights. I could see her getting angry with me, and me coming to find her later and making it up to her in whatever sneak-attack ways I had learned over time because she was mine and, being Hanna, she couldn’t help but let every thought and desire slip out of her mouth.

  Damn. She wasn’t sexy in any of the ordinary ways. She was sexy because she didn’t care if I was watching her chow down on a carrot, or that her hair was in this half-assed ponytail she hadn’t bothered to fix since we were lounging on the couch earlier. She was so comfortable in her skin, so comfortable being watched—I’d never known a woman like her. She would never assume I was staring and judging. She assumed I was staring because I was listening. And I was. I would listen to her ramble about familiar sex and anal sex and porn films forever.

  “You’re looking at me like I’m food.” She held out her carrot, grinned wickedly. “Want some?”

  I shook my head. “I want you.”

  She moved her hands up, unbuttoning her shirt now, and slid it off her shoulders.

  “Tell me what you like,” I said, stepping even closer and kissing the hollow of her throat.

  “I like when you come on me.”

  I let out a quiet laugh into her neck. “I know that. What else?”

  “When you watch where you’re moving in me.”

  Shaking my head, I said, “Tell me what you like that I do to you.”

  Hanna shrugged a little, running her fingertips down my chest before reaching for the hem of my shirt and pulling it up and over my head. “I like when you throw me around a little, have your way with me. I like when you act like my body is yours.”

  The teakettle whistled, screeching in the quiet kitchen, and I moved away just long enough to grab her mug and pour some hot water over a tea bag. “When I’m touching you,” I told her, putting the kettle down, “your body is mine. Mine to kiss, and fuck, and taste.”

  She lifted her eyebrow and smiled at me. “Well, when I’m touching you, your body is mine, too, you know.”

  My mind went completely, directly into the gutter when she leaned across the counter, reached for the honey, and drizzled some into the mug.

  Taking the honey wand from her, I swiped some excess on the lip of the jar then ran the stickiness across the top swell of her breast. She watched me, her tea apparently forgotten.

  “So take control,” I told her, kissing her jaw. “Tell me what to do next.”

  She hesitated for only a beat. “Suck it off.”

  I groaned at the quiet command, licking across the honey before sucking her skin into my mouth with such force I left a small, red mark. “What else?”

  Her hands slipped behind her, unlatching her bra just as I ran my tongue over her skin. I moved to her nipple, blowing lightly across the peak before sucking her into my mouth. Gasping, she whispered, “Make it wet.”

  I leaned forward, doing exactly what she asked, licking her breasts, sucking them deeply, laving her skin with my tongue until it glistened. “These will be fucked soon.”

  “Teeth,” she whispered. “Bite me.”

  With a groan, I closed my eyes, biting small circles into the swell of her breasts, finding small traces of honey remaining on her skin. My hands slid lower, to her jeans, and I worked them and her underwear down her hips so she could kick them to the floor.

  Her hands ran over my shoulders, legs spread open. “Will?”

  “Mmmm?” I teased down her ribs, lifting both breasts in my hands. I knew her tone; knew what she was about to beg me to do.

  “Please.”

  “Please what?” I asked, pressing my teeth carefully into her nipple. “Please hand you your tea?”

  “Touch me.”

  “I am touching you.”

  She let out an angry little growl. “Touch me between my legs.”

  I dipped my finger into the small bowl of honey, and pressed it against her clit, rubbing it across her skin as I pressed my teeth into the delicate flesh of her breast. She moaned, head falling back, and pulled her feet up onto the counter, legs spread wide.

  Crouching, I ran my tongue over her, not teasing, not even able to. The honey was warm from her skin, and tasted fucking amazing. “Holy fuck,” I whispered, sucking gently on her small fold of nerves.

  Her hand ran into my hair, pulling, but not for pleasure. She raised me up to her face, leaning forward to kiss me. She’d put honey on her tongue, too, and I knew in a hot pulsing heartbeat that I would now associate this flavor with Hanna forever.

  Her quiet little moans filled the space between our lips and our tongues, echoing mildly, growing tighter when I reached between us, slid my fingers over her skin, playing where she was slippery and hot. The counter was a little higher than my hips, but I could make it work if she wanted to fuck in the kitchen.

  “Let me get a condom.”

  “Okay,” she said, pulling her fingers from my hair.

  I turned, padding in bare feet down the hall, unbuttoning my jeans. I pulled a packet out of the box in my drawer and moved to return to the kitchen, but Hanna was standing just inside my bedroom.

  She was completely naked, and without saying anything, walked over to my bed and climbed to the middle. Resting back on her heels, she sat with one hand on her knee. Waiting for me.

  “I want to be in here.”

  “Okay,” I said, pushing my jeans down my hips.

  “On your bed.”

  I got it, I thought. It’s pretty obvious you want to have sex on my bed, what with the nakedness and condom in my hand. But then I realized she was actually asking me something. She was wondering whether my bed was off-limits, whether I was that kind of playboy, who never brought girls home and took them into the inner sanctum of the bedroom.

  Would it always be like this? Her unspoken questions, uncertainty about what I was giving her that was new and special? Wasn’t it enough that I was secretly giving her the chance to break my heart?

  I joined her on the bed, beginning to tear the condom packet open with my teeth before she reached up and took it from me.

  “Fuck,” I mumbled, watching her duck down to run a tentative tongue across the tip of my dick. “Holy hell. I just love your fucking mouth.”

  She kissed the tip,
running her tongue up and over me. Drawing me into her mouth.

  “I like watching you,” I babbled. I was so fucking tight and the vision of her doing this . . . I wasn’t sure I could hold out. “I feel like I’m going to come.”

  “I’m barely touching you,” she said, clearly proud of herself.

  “I know. I’m just . . . it’s a lot.”

  She took the condom and rolled it over me, laid back on the bed. “Ready?”

  I hovered over her, looking down the length of our bodies before I positioned myself to slide into her. She was so warm, so slippery, and I wanted to last, draw this moment out just a tiny bit longer. I pulled my hips back slightly, tapping my cock gently against her clit.

  “Will,” she whined, hips arching up.

  “Do you realize how wet you are?”

  With a shaky hand, she reached between us, touching herself. “Oh God.”

  “Is that because of me? Plum, I don’t know if I’ve ever been this hard.” I felt my pulse reverberating down my length, pounding.

  She gripped me then, and inhaled sharply, whispering, “Please.”

  “Please what?”

  Her eyes opened and she whispered, “Please . . . inside.”

  I smiled, enjoying her sweet, urgent agony. “Does your pussy ache a little?”

  “Will.” Beneath me, she moved, searching with her hands and hips. I brought her fingers to my mouth, sucked each into my mouth to taste her sweetness.

  Then I reached between us, circling a finger around her slick opening. “I asked you, does it ache right here?”

  “Yes . . .” She tried to push up, to get even my finger inside but I slid it up and over her clit, making her moan loudly. I dragged my finger back down, dipping into the unbelievable wetness. “Does it ache in your thighs? Are these sweet little petals right here—” I bent, sucking her nipple into my mouth and playing a little with my tongue. “Are they tight and aching, too?” Fuck, her breasts. So fucking soft and warm. “God, Plum,” I whispered, feeling desperate. “I’m going to make it so good tonight. I’m going to make you feel so fucking good.”

  She arched off the bed, hands in my hair, down my neck, scratching along my back.