by Cynthia Dane
“It might take a little getting used to, but I’m not bothered. I’m not disgusted.” Natalie’s chin touched my shoulder. “Although if you have a third nipple, tell me now.”
My fingers found hers again. “Would you like to see?”
“What? Your third nipple?”
I was still wearing my jacket until that moment. Not any longer. It soon hit the floor as if it belonged there. My blouse and bra were happy to be next. “Anything.”
She bit her lip, gaze roaming from my forehead to my lap. It lingered on my chest, which I did nothing to hide. She could see my cleavage. She could imagine what it would be like to be beneath my female body, breasts pressing against hers as we fucked half the night away. My fingers, which she claimed to love so much, were ready to be inside. Perhaps, if I were lucky enough, I could have the privilege as well.
“I’d love to see your body.” Natalie rubbed against me. Was she trying to seduce me? It might be working. “Wouldn’t mind touching it, too. You left me wanting a week ago.”
Play it cool, Erica. Don’t let her know how many giggles waited to burst forth from your useless body! “Here I thought I had made sure that I did not leave you wanting.”
“Erica… I spent half that night wishing I could give you as much pleasure as you gave me. I’m not disappointed with your performance. I’m disappointed with a lack of one on my behalf.”
How could she say something like that? Did she miss the part where I came too? “If you think you didn’t give a good performance…”
“I was pretty passive that night. You didn’t give me an ample chance.”
Natalie was beyond irresistible. How much longer could I stand not grabbing her and making her all mine again?
So, I grabbed her.
She was completely malleable as I pushed her down onto the bed again, my body wrapping around hers and my lips desperate to kiss hers. “Because I can’t keep my hands off you.” That was the only explanation I had for not letting her rut all over me a week ago. “From the moment I saw you a month ago, I’ve been nothing but unprofessional.”
Her feminine giggles ate me alive. I wanted to be like her. I wanted to be her.
I wanted to be inside of her. Now.
“You seemed plenty professional at the office.”
“Trust me.” My hand was on her breast. I could remember that first day we met in my office, when all I could think about was copping multiple feels and spreading her legs around my waist. Right there on my desk. In front of everyone. “My brain was undressing you every time you crossed my path. I must have replayed how you actually look beneath these clothes at least a hundred times in the past week.”
“Would you like to see what I look like again?”
Time for me to put money where our mouths were. “God, yes.”
Everything I wanted to do to her welled up inside of me. Everything I could get away with. Everything that would get me arrested in some countries.
I didn’t have time to figure out what I wanted to do first. Natalie took charge by pulling my head down to hers and guaranteeing I never had a clear thought for the rest of the night.
Chapter 33
NATALIE
The snaps of her blouse came undone. Overcome with the sweetest instinct to befall my brain, I shoved my hand beneath the fabric and didn’t think twice about squeezing her breast.
She stammered against my lips, destroying our fantasy.
“You’re not the only one who gets to grope, right?”
I hoped my playful flirtation would get Erica back on board with making out. Instead, she pulled away, her cleavage now on full display before me.
Combined with the sexual nature of what we did, I too was taken aback. In disbelief that this woman was so attractive.
“What’s wrong?”
Erica took a few deep breaths before answering me. “Nothing. Everything.”
I did the only thing I could think to do – I pulled the top of my dress down, sleeves and all. My pushup bra did what hers didn’t need to accomplish. “Does this help?”
She barely glanced at me. “I need you to understand something, Natalie. Before we possibly continue.”
The kid was no longer in the candy store, sampling the sweet and fantasizing about taking a huge bag home well before Halloween. She now stood outside the storefront with the harsh reality that so much candy was going to send her to the dentist. “What is it?”
“I’ve never had sex like this with a woman.”
“But…”
“That I didn’t have to buy.”
“What about Brooke?” I dared to bring her up.
“We didn’t really… it took her a long time to come around after I finally told her. She looked at me like you did. Like I was a totally different person. She had never been with a woman before, and suddenly I was asking her to be someone she wasn’t. She went from being straight to bisexual, and like I didn’t have a choice in the matter, neither did she.”
I highly doubted that was how it worked, but I didn’t argue.
“It was never enthusiastic after that. That was… years ago.”
Although I dared to bring Brooke up, I didn’t dare mention that I had similar thoughts – that pursuing a relationship with Erica like I had with Eric might mean reassessing who I was.
Just because I had been curious and turned on enough to have sex with a woman once before didn’t mean I ever wanted to do it again. Until I entered this situation, anyway. Until I realized that this person I wanted so badly had a female body.
That this person was possibly a woman.
What would that make me? Make us? Erica had bluntly said that she didn’t know her own identity. Was she a lesbian? Transgender? Non-binary? If she played her brother’s role well enough, would it even matter outside of the home?
It mattered to me. It clearly mattered to her.
So if I remained her girlfriend, what did that make me? Besides utterly confused?
I brushed my fingers against her collarbone. Erica did not shudder, but she gazed upon me with the same feverish intensity as she had a week ago. Her voice, her posture, her mannerisms, and her clothes may change, but her eyes never wavered.
“Yup. That was years ago.” My nail grazed her chin. “This is now. I’m not Brooke.”
That wasn’t how I thought I would have that revelation. For weeks, I had tried to emulate Ms. Pentecost and become the best mini-her I could. Now I distanced myself from her, and in front of my boss, no less. I wanted Erica to see me as someone completely different. Someone who wouldn’t abandon her because the truth was too hard to stomach.
Strange, isn’t it? That wasn’t the ruthless, capitalistic bitch in me trying to get ahead by impressing her insecure boss. That was the most empathetic I had ever been.
Because I knew what it meant to not belong. To not know who you were or if you could trust someone who saw you as one thing first, a human being second.
The next time I kissed Erica, I made sure she knew that it was my choice to stay.
Summoning the words to explain what went through my mind isn’t easy. I tried to push aside the shit that focused on the absurdity of the situation. I didn’t want to think about Erica being two different people she struggled to reconcile. I didn’t want to embrace uncertainty over my sexuality and what this might mean for my future. Most of all, the only thing I wanted to think about was her.
This woman, whom I had only truly met two days ago, had opened herself up to me. She wanted me. If I walked away, I might break her heart. Hell, my heart might break, although I wasn’t sure why.
Perhaps… it was the absence of kisses like that one in my life.
Erica asked me a dozen times if I was sure I wanted to stay and make love with her. Every time I said yes, and every time she held me tighter, as if I would suddenly change my mind and run away.
When I finally got her blouse off, she slipped off the bed and insisted on turning off most of the lights. I guess she was s
hy about her body.
It was strange to be with this kind of person after the man I had known. Was that sexual bravado part of the act? Was it different when Eric commanded the room? Was Erica afraid in ways Eric never would be?
Was it rubbing off on me?
“Please,” I finally begged, my hands on her chest and desperate to get her bra off. “Make love to me.”
With the lights off and my dress coming off my body, Erica was finally emboldened to give me that cataclysmic kiss that had seduced me once before. I clung to her, desperate to keep her near me.
I didn’t want her shaking. I wanted her so enthralled with me that the only thing she could do was love me.
Adore me.
Worship me.
Remember the way she touched me the first time we made love in San Francisco? It was so different now. Oh, she touched me the same. Erica Mann felt up my naked body and rubbed my slit with such skill that there was no denying how experienced she was. But the first time we did it, I thought she was a man attempting to understand the body he had never called his own. Instead, Erica had been touching me in ways she knew I would love – because she understood what it meant to stimulate those parts of the female body.
If she was that into me, shouldn’t I give her my all too?
When I was with Erica that night, I didn’t worry about my identity or sexuality, like I didn’t want her worrying about hers. We were two people undressing each other and kissing like madwomen. That was all I cared about: how good it felt, and how good I could make her feel.
I wanted to do it all. Kiss her throat. Suck her nipples. Squeeze her ass and rub her naked thighs. Marvel over how wet little old me could make her using nothing but my body. At first, I worried that she would forbid me from touching her between the legs. I didn’t know how deep her psychological woes were.
As I feared, she snatched my hand and slammed it against the bed, her body rolling on top of mine.
“You didn’t say no touching this time,” I teased.
“Maybe later. I want you too badly to give you up right now.”
Sure. That’s what she could tell herself. Meanwhile, I would reap the benefits of an eager woman kissing my stomach before wrapping her mouth around my pussy.
Without the blindfold, I could look into her hungry eyes. It was dark, but I was determined. I wanted to understand the intensity that brought me to orgasm over and over again.
But I only got to come once. When my body was done trembling and my voice was finished crying out in pleasure, Erica climbed back on top of me and took me.
It was everything I imagined since I first realized how much I wanted to have sex with my boss. Hard. Sweaty. Gratuitously unrelenting as we rocked together on the hotel bed and shared the same breath. Her body fit perfectly against mine as I opened up my legs and wrapped my arms around her. Soft thighs grinded against me. Breasts cushioned mine. Just because she didn’t have the same body I had fantasized about for so long didn’t mean I was any less in need of her lovemaking.
The heat between us drove my nails down her back and my fingers into her hair. It didn’t matter if she rutted against me or plunged her fingers into my body. I was overcome with the kind of lust I hadn’t experienced in a long, long time.
Since college, really.
I can look back now and say, “Why, yes, this is how I respond to a woman fucking me. It’s quite different, isn’t it? I daresay, Natalie, how could you not have understood it before?” But the me of back then, the one riding out that moment like Erica rode me, wasn’t thinking about that. All that Natalie knew was that no one had ever made me feel so wanted and delectable in bed before. Because Erica was on course to consume both my body and soul.
I don’t know how many times I came, or if it was one long orgasm with the kinds of peaks that took me to new heights. All I know is that I wanted to share her climax with her.
“No, don’t stop.” My breathless voice only reached her ears because I lifted my head and pursued hers as it moved away from me. “Oh my God, don’t…”
I was either still climaxing or convinced that I had more to give, because my body refused to let hers go. I couldn’t believe that it was over already!
I tried to kiss her. I tried to touch her. I crossed every boundary because my sex-addled brain begged me to.
It took Erica slamming me back down to the bed to get me to snap out of it.
“You’re a handful.” She collapsed next to me, hand between her legs. I took the hint. Erica didn’t want a handful of me, because she had a handful of herself to attend.
No matter. She may not want me in her body or putting my hands all over her pelvis yet, but I would do my part to make sure she came as hard as I had. While her fingers rubbed her slit, I descended upon her lips and grazed my teeth over her nipples. I wouldn’t be satisfied until I heard her voice when she climaxed.
It was beautiful.
A new admiration tore through me. Any woman who made that kind of girlish sound when she brought herself to orgasm deserved my admiration.
God, I was in love with her, wasn’t I?
But I didn’t know that yet. All I knew was that Erica’s fingers dug into her scalp and her face contorted into exquisite pleasure, and I was a part of it.
She tackled me with kisses one last time. I knew from the desperate way she mangled my lips that this might be the last burst of sexual depravity we could indulge in that night.
I was right.
I knew I couldn’t stay. There was work in the morning, and Eric needed to return. Erica would have to wake up a different person, and my presence would complicate that.
Still, I wasn’t completely without some respect. After Erica explained that I could wash up and get dressed, she gave me one last tender kiss, and I was immediately washed away on a sea of bliss.
She couldn’t drive me home. She could barely see me out the door, but I didn’t care. Nor did I care that Nick silently escorted me down to the parking garage where Clyde and the Mercedes awaited me. All I cared about was the warm feeling washing over me and the text hitting my phone the moment Clyde turned down my street.
I will be thinking about tonight for the rest of my life. Good thing I’m seeing you again tomorrow.
My mother couldn’t understand why I was so uncharacteristically giggly. In truth, neither could I. Because I was so wrapped up in the fairy-tale of the day that I didn’t have time to think about what this meant for me or my future.
I wish I had the time.
Chapter 34
ERICA
“I’ll be thinking about tonight for the rest of my life. Good thing I’m seeing you tomorrow.”
That was the last text I sent Natalie that night. By the next day, I was beside myself with excitement. What I didn’t expect, however, was to see Natalie the moment I stepped into my office Monday morning, dressed as if my birth name were Eric Mann.
Apparently, she had come in so early that she had single-handedly readied one of the conference rooms for my important meeting that morning. Almost impossible to believe that she could beat me to work.
Let me tell you how impossible it was to do anything but grab her and kiss her in front of the whole office. It didn’t help that everyone had their eyes on us from the moment we crossed paths at a bright and early 8:30. Brooke and my security knew about the relationship, and anxiously waited for us to fuck up in front of God and everyone. As for the others, such as my receptionist and the other intern who was as good as a dormouse around there? They must have recognized the attraction between us. I had to be on my guard. Never, ever let my façade down.
This was my usual day. But that didn’t mean it wasn’t an extra layer of hell that Monday morning. The memories of our intense lovemaking were still fresh on my mind. I could still smell her body and taste the depths of her core on the tip of my tongue. Her hair had draped across my own nudity for more than a few minutes. That morning? Natalie had pulled it all back into a ponytail, something I had y
et to see on her before.
It was gorgeous, like everything else she wore and did.
Don’t ask me how we managed to stay professional under the onus of hiding our relationship. A greater question would be asking how I possibly hid my giggling or other unmanly behaviors. My tutors were somewhere wondering where they had gone wrong with me.
It’s almost like I was embracing the natural me. If Natalie weren’t careful, I’d have to lock her away in a tower only I could access, just so I could keep my costume before the world.
I was tempted to do that anyway, because the thought of anyone else seeing her and wanting her as badly as I did conjured the green horns of jealousy on my head.
“See that you had a lovely date yesterday.” Brooke decided to make my relationship the first topic we discussed privately that morning. Not the corporate meeting we exited five minutes ago. Not the other appointments I had that day. Natalie. She still wanted to talk about my girlfriend. “Ms. Chen is positively beside herself in twitterpation.”
“What about Twitter?” I asked, pulling out my fountain pen from its drawer and signing off on the pertinent documents from the meeting.
“It’s from… never mind.” Brooke leaned across my desk, attracting my attention. Did she think I had forgotten what her lovely face looked like? Yes, yes. I would always have fond memories of us holed up in bed on lazy Sunday mornings, her half-asleep giggles making me wonder what other mysteries of her personality I would uncover over the years we spent together. But that was in the past. As Natalie had informed me the night before, she was not Brooke. Certain expectations were tempered, but I still had much to look forward to.
And she knew me. She may not know me yet, but… she knew me!
The fact she was whip-smart and beautiful only made my infatuation with her more palpable. As I’m sure Brooke gleaned from the moment our paths crossed that day.
“It went quite well, thank you.”
She cocked her head. “Try to contain those little smirks, would you?”
“I’m in my office with trusted company. I’ll smirk all I want.”