A Big Surprise for Valentine's Day

by Jackie Lau

  Her head was pressed against the bed, but she nodded.

  So he spanked her again. Twice. Three times. Four times.

  “Sebastian,” she said, begging, but she didn’t say for what.

  He pulled the dildo out of her and replaced it with two fingers, hissing when he discovered that she was dripping wet. The fact that she was so turned on...it turned him on even further.

  “Good girl,” he murmured. “So good.”

  He shed the rest of his clothes and sat behind her. Pressed his mouth to her entrance, fucked her with his tongue, then swirled his tongue over her clit. Again and again....

  “Sebastian!” she cried, her hands gripping the blankets.

  Over the past couple weeks, he’d learned that Amber could come a few times in close proximity—usually with clitoral stimulation.

  “Another?” he said.

  “Yes.”

  He jacked himself off with one hand while the other thrust the dildo into her body. He loved how it looked coming out of her channel. When he pressed his finger to her swollen nub, she jumped and came immediately, sobbing against the blanket, her knees sliding back until she was lying on her stomach, unable to support herself.

  He lay on top of her, pressing kisses over her neck and face. “Do you want more, love? Or are you finished?”

  “Let me get you off first. You wanted to see my mouth on your cock, didn’t you?”

  He could only nod.

  She took a few deep breaths, recovering, before pushing him onto his back and wrapping her lips around his erection.

  He ran his hand through her hair and murmured, “You’re incredible... You’re so good at taking my cock... God, yes.”

  He didn’t last long. Soon, his entire body was pulsing with his orgasm, and a shout ripped from his mouth, catching him off guard.

  “Amber.”

  When he found his bearings again, he realized the dildo was still inside her. Her pussy had been full when she’d sucked him off.

  Oh, fuck. He jammed it into her again and again as he devoured her mouth and squeezed her breasts and tried to give her all the pleasure in the world.

  And when she screamed for him, he was filled with bliss.

  * * *

  Amber felt like she was drunk, though she hadn’t had a drop of alcohol tonight.

  But she was giddy and light-headed, and she couldn’t stop smiling and laughing. She’d had plenty of satisfying sex before, but it had never made her feel quite like this.

  She nestled against Sebastian. He was grinning too, looking mighty pleased with himself for what he’d done to her. She wanted to kiss him, and so she did, leisurely stroking her tongue into his mouth.

  Afterward, she couldn’t help giggling again.

  Her body, though, was utterly boneless with satisfaction. She’d already gotten up to go to the washroom, and she didn’t plan on standing up again for a long time.

  “You wore me out,” she said.

  And she drifted off in his arms.

  * * *

  Sebastian was a bit of a morning person, though he would have happily stayed in bed for longer today, tangled up with Amber.

  However, they both had to work.

  He’d showered quickly, and now she was showering while he made her breakfast.

  Coffee was already brewing. Normally he’d have cold cereal during the week, but he figured he had enough time to make French toast. Thankfully, he had the ingredients for this unexpected romantic mid-week breakfast.

  Romantic?

  For Sunday’s dinner, he’d been very careful to make sure it wasn’t romantic, but now he was making French toast with maple syrup and strawberries and baked banana, and he was whistling.

  He wiped his hands on a towel and glanced at the perfect slices of strawberries he’d cut, determined to make sure their plates looked just right. He couldn’t help wishing that it wasn’t dark out, and that he had a little glass vase of flowers. Daisies, maybe.

  Sebastian wasn’t used to lying to himself, but he realized he’d been doing a little of that lately.

  But no longer.

  He was falling in love with Amber Wong.

  He certainly hadn’t expected this to happen, just after he’d moved to Stratford, only a few months after his break-up with Lucinda.

  Yet there it was.

  Funny that you fucked a woman with a dildo and it made you realize you were falling in love with her.

  Though, frankly, it had started when she drove him to Waterloo to have bubble tea, if not before.

  He brought the coffee and mugs to the table on a tray, and he was about to plate the French toast when Amber came into the kitchen. She was wearing black pants, a white shirt—and God, the vest she’d worn yesterday. Her hair was wet, and she had a towel over her shoulders.

  “You don’t have a hair dryer,” she said.

  No, he kept his hair quite short and didn’t need one.

  He made a mental note to buy a hair dryer this weekend.

  “I might have thought of it if I’d had more time to pack, but there was the blackout, and...” She shrugged. “The power’s back on, supposedly.”

  “That’s good.” Though he would have been happy to have her back here tonight.

  “It smells great. What did you make?”

  He held out a plate with two pieces of French toast and two long slices of baked banana. She hadn’t been impressed with his banana milk tea, but she’d said she liked cooked bananas, and he didn’t have much other fruit in the house. There were sliced strawberries scattered over the French toast, and a few more in the corner of the plate.

  “Sebastian, you garnished it!” She took the plate and kissed his cheek.

  He could get used to this. Waking up with Amber, having breakfast with her, seeing her dressed up before she went to work...

  Oh, yes. He wanted a whole lot more than this arrangement offered.

  Perhaps the fact that she was happy about breakfast was a sign that she might be interested in something more, too.

  After all, it wasn’t like Amber was completely against dating. She’d just wanted to take a break after all her shitty experiences with men.

  Which she’d told him about.

  Perhaps that was also a sign that she wanted to be closer to him.

  Or it was a sign that they were friends, and her delight over breakfast was just a sign that she was hungry.

  Hmm.

  He knew he was better than the boyfriends she’d told him about the other day. This had nothing to do with size, of course. He wasn’t a white boy with a creepy fetish; he believed in equal rights; he wasn’t sixteen years older and in a position of power over her.

  Okay, the bar was low, but he knew he’d treat her right.

  He sat down with his plate of food and put the pitcher of maple syrup on the table. Yes, he’d actually poured the maple syrup into a small pitcher rather than putting the bottle on the table. He sure was being fancy.

  “This banana is good,” Amber said. “It’s so sweet and melts in your mouth. You used butter didn’t you?”

  Watching her eat his food was making him a little hard, but he didn’t think they had time to do it before work.

  “Do you enjoy cooking?” he asked instead, wanting to know more about her.

  “I don’t mind it on occasion, but I don’t like having to think about meals every day. It’s one of the things I hate about being an adult—you always have to figure out what to eat for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. I wish someone would do it all for me for a few weeks.”

  He held himself back from volunteering.

  “Actually...” She had a bite of French toast before continuing. “You know what I want to get into? Cakes. I love watching baking shows. I want to make and decorate fancy cakes. There’s a class I could take in Waterloo, but...” She shrugged.

  “Why not? Is it too expensive?”

  “It’s more that it seems like a silly hobby, and it’s not like I’d ever do it for a l
iving.”

  “You don’t think you’d be good enough?”

  “No, I just don’t have an interest in doing it professionally. I prefer my current job to working in a kitchen.”

  “There’s nothing wrong with doing things for fun. If you don’t want to take the class alone, I could do it with you.”

  The words had just popped out of his mouth.

  And that’s how he knew he was really falling in love. Sebastian had no interest in cakes and cake decorating. He appreciated the taste of a good cake, but he’d always thought elaborate wedding cakes and such were silly.

  But it sounded fun...if it was with her.

  When should he broach the issue of them being a real couple?

  Amber had a sip of coffee, then spontaneously burst into giggles, as she had so many times in his arms last night.

  “Imagine if our parents found us eating breakfast together,” she said.

  “Fortunately, my parents are unlikely to surprise me with a visit at seven in the morning.”

  “But if we did this on the weekend and were, say, having brunch at ten, it wouldn’t be out of the question. My parents usually call before they visit, but occasionally they don’t. They’d ask lots of questions and would interfere so much. My family is always jumping to conclusions and getting carried away. If my grandma saw us eating breakfast together, she’d probably be planning the wedding.” Amber shuddered.

  “My parents, too.”

  “No, your parents hate me.”

  What?

  “Of course they don’t,” he said.

  “Okay, maybe that was a bit strong, but they’re not my biggest fans. I work for a theater festival—that’s not respectable enough for them. They were perturbed by my so-called wild antics in high school. I’m positive they don’t think I’m good enough for you.”

  “Our parents are good friends. They’d be thrilled.”

  She shook her head. “Our families can’t find out. They’d get the wrong idea—mine would be happy, yours wouldn’t—and I don’t want to tell them what’s actually going on. Your parents would definitely think I was a bad influence.”

  It was clear she wouldn’t be receptive to the idea of a relationship with him.

  If they were in a real relationship, they’d have to tell their families eventually. He agreed that their families would be a little annoying, but it seemed like a small price to pay for being with Amber. And in a way, it was nice that their families were already friends. There would be no uncomfortable meet-the-parents-for-the-first-time dinners—because they already knew each other’s parents.

  He still didn’t believe his parents would be unhappy, as she assumed.

  Well. Now was not the time to ask Amber about being a couple. He would say something eventually, but not yet.

  Chapter 9

  “Let’s see if I’ve got this right,” Gloria said. “There was a blackout on Wednesday night, I wasn’t responding, so you went to Sebastian’s and stayed overnight?”

  “Yep.” Amber sipped her beer. “What else was I going to do until bedtime?”

  “You could have hung out at Tim Hortons. Or here.” Gloria took off her black fedora and gestured to their surroundings. “You could have spent the evening staring at Justin Bieber.” She pointed at the poster on the wall.

  “Or I could have had sex. It was an easy decision. What’s wrong with a booty call?”

  “Nothing,” Gloria said. “But you could have returned home to sleep, yet you stayed. Just trying to figure out what’s going on.”

  “What happened the next morning?” Roxanne asked.

  “He made me coffee and French toast with baked bananas,” Amber said morosely, knowing how her friends would take it.

  “He likes you. He definitely likes you.”

  “No,” Amber protested. “He’s just a sweet guy, that’s all.”

  “You think he makes French toast for every booty call?” Gloria asked.

  “I don’t think Sebastian has many booty calls, to be honest.”

  “Yet he made an exception for you.”

  “We agreed it’s just sex.”

  “Perhaps he thought that at the beginning,” Roxanne said. “But French toast? With baked bananas?”

  “And a strawberry garnish.” Amber wasn’t sure why she mentioned that. It was adding fuel to the fire.

  “He garnished your fucking breakfast?” Gloria spoke as though this was truly shocking information. “None of my boyfriends or girlfriends have done that for me.”

  Amber’s lips twitched at her friend’s vehemence. “Well, they should. You deserve a strawberry garnish.”

  “Ha!” Gloria said. “You didn’t protest and say he isn’t your boyfriend.”

  Oops. She hadn’t. It didn’t mean anything, though.

  “I’m drunk. My brain isn’t operating at a hundred percent.”

  “Oh, come on. You’re only on your second pint. You’re not that cheap of a drunk.”

  “Personally,” Roxanne said, “I think the baked bananas are a bigger deal than the strawberries. Slicing up strawberries takes a minute. Baking bananas requires more effort.”

  “But less hands-on time,” Gloria countered. “No, strawberries are inherently romantic. If a guy serves you strawberries, he knows what he’s doing. Bananas might have been meant as a dirty joke. Like, he wants you to bake his banana.”

  “What does that even mean?” Amber asked.

  “Who knows. I just made it up.”

  “Anyway,” Roxanne said, after raising an eyebrow at Gloria, “this guy definitely has a crush on Amber. On that we agree.”

  “Yep.” Gloria took a swig of her beer. “Amber, this guy wants you for more than your hot body and great skills in the sack. I’m positive.”

  “And you definitely want him, too,” Roxanne added.

  “Have you not been listening to anything I’ve said?” Amber curled her hands in frustration. “We’re fucking, and we like each other’s company. I don’t want anything romantic.”

  “Then why have we been talking about this for twenty minutes?” Gloria demanded.

  “Hey, this wasn’t my choice of conversation.”

  “But you keep adding interesting details.” Roxanne crossed her arms over her chest. “I think you secretly want him, but you’re in denial.”

  “My thoughts exactly,” Gloria said. “The reason you keep bringing up all the things he’s done—”

  “Is because I’m drunk!” Amber protested.

  Thank God she had enough presence of mind not to mention the cake decorating class.

  “I don’t buy it,” Gloria said. “You enjoy being teased about this guy because you liiiiiike him.”

  “Stop it,” Amber said, without any force behind her words.

  She most certainly did not enjoy all this teasing...did she?

  She doubted herself for a moment, then shook her head. Nope, she didn’t enjoy it. Time for a new topic of conversation.

  “Hey.” The voice was lower than either Roxanne’s or Gloria’s.

  Amber turned and saw a man standing beside her, with glasses and a rather cute nerdy look. He ran a hand over his face, as though nervous.

  “Hey.” She smiled at him.

  “I...uh...can I buy you a drink?” He gestured to her nearly-empty pint. “What are you drinking?”

  Amber’s instincts when it came to men had failed her many, many times in the past, but she was older now, and she was convinced she was getting better at this.

  And this guy seemed sweet and looked like Chidi from The Good Place.

  However, she didn’t feel even a flicker of interest.

  “Sorry,” she said kindly. “I have a boyfriend.”

  “Really, she does,” Gloria piped up. “It’s not just a line. I mean, the guy’s not officially her boyfriend, but she sleeps over at his place—”

  “Only because of the blackout,” Amber said.

  “—and he makes her romantic breakfasts.”


  “They’re not romantic.”

  “Tell me.” Gloria turned to the man. “If you made French toast with baked bananas and strawberries for a woman who spent the night, would that mean you had romantic feelings toward her?”

  “Uh, yeah?”

  “See, Amber?” Gloria grinned triumphantly. “Told you.”

  The man returned to his friends on the other side of the bar.

  “Do you and Sebastian have any cute nicknames for each other?” Roxanne asked.

  “I bet you call him Sebbie, don’t you?” Gloria said. “How sweet!”

  “I don’t think he’d like that,” Amber said.

  “Nah, I’m sure he’d find it cute if you called him Sebbie.”

  Amber felt her lips curve into a smile, then quickly put a stop to that instinctive facial expression. Her friends would read too much into it.

  “Have you done lots of dirty things together?” Gloria asked. “Did you grapefruit him?”

  “Um....”

  “Didn’t you see Girls Trip? Is his dick so big that it requires two grapefruits?”

  Amber found herself considering the size of an average grapefruit relative to the size of Sebastian’s dick...then told her brain to behave. “I’m not dicknifying that with a response.”

  Gloria slapped her hand against the table. “You said ‘dicknifiying’!”

  “No, I said ‘dignifying’.”

  “Gloria’s right,” Roxanne said.

  “It’s the alcohol.” Amber nodded at her glass. She was getting sick of all the teasing, and her friends were delusional. “Hey, there’s a play I want to see in Toronto next month. Anyone want to come with me?”

  “You could bring—” Gloria began.

  “No, I’m not bringing Sebbie. But you could ask Syd. Things are still going well, right? And you’ve reached the six-month mark now?”

  Amber was pleased things were working out for Gloria. But her and Sebastian? That wasn’t the same.

  * * *

  When Amber got home on Saturday after her family’s Chinese New Year dinner, she brushed her teeth, changed into her pajamas, and snuggled under the covers, phone in hand.

  Hey, she texted Sebastian. You’ll never guess what happened tonight.

  She stared at her phone for two minutes, willing it to vibrate.

  What? he replied at last, and she couldn’t help smiling.