by Penny Wylder
Suddenly it makes sense to me. Why he hasn’t told Dad about him and Carlos being friends. If Carlos is from that part of his life, he hasn’t told many people about it at all.
“At the time, I was an addict.” Carlos says it so easily that I almost think I misheard him. But he’s clearly come to terms with his past. “I overdosed. Russ was able to revive me and get me to a hospital in time to make a full recovery. Any longer and I would have suffered severe brain damage.”
Russ shakes his head. “But Carlos saved me too, after that. He’s the one who convinced me to admit to my dean how much trouble I was actually in, which prompted the dean to speed up my stipend applications process and get a roof back over my head sooner.”
“We both helped each other out over the years,” Carlos concedes. “But without this guy, I wouldn’t have any of this.” He gestures around him at the rooftop, and my smile softens. I cast a glance toward Russ, my heart swelling.
Another way he’s helped the world. Done real good and made real changes. “Well. I can’t say I’m surprised,” I admit softly, which makes Carlos chuckle and Russ shake his head. “He’s a do-gooder if I ever met one, though he’ll never admit it.”
“She knows you well,” Carlos says, with a grin for his friend. “I can see why you’re so into her.”
There’s a faint thunking sound, probably as Russ kicks Carlos under the table. I can’t help it. I laugh lightly. With that, Carlos slaps the table and slides back out of the booth. “You kids have fun,” he says as he heads away. “And don’t mind me. I’m just here to provide the sustenance.”
But sustenance turns out to be really underselling it. Every course we’re served is more delicious than the last. And I have to admit, once I taste them, the emojis make more sense. This one does taste like an explosion emoji, and another one like a shooting star.
Every so often, Carlos stops back by our table with a funny story about Russ from their younger years. It’s cool to talk to someone who knows this other side of Russ, the one he hides from everybody else. It makes me feel like I’m seeing sides to him nobody else does. Like he’s letting me past his walls.
And to judge by the way Carlos keeps teasing him about it, I guess Russ has mentioned me to his friends. Or at least to the ones he can get away with mentioning me to, since they don’t run in Mom and Dad’s social circles. That means something, right?
Though what, exactly, I can’t tell. But I tell myself it doesn’t matter. For tonight, this one night, I’m just going to enjoy the feeling.
For one night, Russ isn’t my father’s best friend, the forbidden older man, a possibly terrible idea. Tonight, he’s just Russ, and I’m just Maggie. Two people on a date. Two people eating great food, cooked by a funny, interesting friend.
Two people who could maybe really be something, in the right circumstances. Given the right timing.
At some point during dinner, Russ hooks his legs around mine. A moment later, his hand comes to rest on my knee, searing hot beneath the table. I inch my leg higher between his, and I’m rewarded with a flash of heat in his eyes, a serious, straightforward stare that tells me just how much he’s looking forward to getting me alone later.
By the time the meal finishes, as fun as it’s been, I can’t wait to get out of here either. Russ spends most of dessert teasing me, murmuring comments about how good the dessert would taste licked off my skin, or tracing his fingertips along my inner thigh, his touch light enough and hot enough at the same time that it drives me wild with desire.
We bicker with Carlos about the bill for a while—he wants to comp us the whole meal, and Russ finally settles for hiding a huge tip underneath our final dessert plates—and then we slip out together, back into the unmarked mystery elevator down to the ground floor.
Since most other people seem to only just be arriving by the time we finish—I gather it’s more of a late night spot here, and I can see why, as the city view lights up around us—we have the elevator down to ourselves. The moment the doors glide shut, Russ slides around to pin me against the corner wall, his hands grasping my hips and pulling them against his, his mouth crushing mine in a hard, deep kiss. My ruby red lipstick is long gone, thanks to dinner, and I’m grateful for it. It lets me kiss him back with abandon. When his lips leave mine, I kiss along his jaw, savoring the way his rough stubble grazes my cheek on the way past. At his neck, I gently nip his skin, just hard enough to make it sting a little. He groans and grinds his hips against mine.
“Fuck, Maggie. You don’t know how hard it was to sit inches from you all night without touching you.”
“I don’t know. You managed to touch me a little bit…” I point out with a sly grin. “At least enough to leave me aching for more.”
His eyes find mine once more. “Believe me. That was nothing compared to the way I’m going to touch you tonight.”
My breath hitches in my chest. “Tonight…”
“Oh, we’re not done.” He tilts his head, eyes dancing. “You haven’t visited my apartment yet, Maggie. And I intend to thoroughly enjoy you in every single room of it.”
My mouth goes dry at the promise, just as the elevator doors ding open again. He steps away from me, and cool air floods back in between us, making me ache to be in his arms again. But apparently our night has only just begun. For once, I’ll have plenty of time to enjoy that.
9
Russ’s apartment surprises me. It’s not a penthouse with a crazy view like I might have guessed—like I’m sure my father would have bought, if he didn’t have the wife and kid to think about, the way Russ doesn’t. Instead, Russ’s place is a cool mix of vintage and modern. Exposed brick walls in a huge loft space, with his bed on an open platform above and behind his ultra-sleek and modern looking living room. The kitchen is in another section of the apartment, along with a guest bedroom and a bathroom that looks like something straight off a spaceship, with a huge rain head shower and jets along the walls.
Not to mention a jacuzzi tub…
But I don’t have much time to take it all in. We’re barely inside the door before Russ’s hands find me, sweep under me. I laugh against his chest as he picks me up and carries me toward the steps.
“We’ll save the tour for later,” he says as we start up the stairs. “First, I need to show you my bedroom. Or rather, I need to peel off all of your clothes in it…”
I grin and lean in to kiss his neck softly, before I let my cheek rest against his chest. It never ceases to amaze me what great shape he’s in. The way he can just pick me up like this, as if I weigh nothing at all. I can feel his chest muscles tense against my side, and it only makes me want to peel off his shirt again, to savor his naked body the way I haven’t really been able to since the night we hooked up in my childhood bedroom. And even then, we weren’t totally free to enjoy one another.
“At least here I don’t have to try to stay quiet,” I murmur.
Russ chuckles, and the laugh vibrates through my body as we reach the top of the landing. His bedroom is simple and sleek, too—a huge king size bed with white sheets, one dresser, and a closet of flannels and T-shirts. Like me, Russ rarely dresses up. Though he definitely looks amazing when he does. “Oh, I intend to make sure you can’t be quiet tonight.” Russ’s eyes sparkle with amusement. Then he leans down to lower me onto the bed, following me down, so his warm, strong body hovers over mine.
I arch up against him impatiently, my arms wrapping around his neck to try to draw him toward me. But he resists, and I pout a little, impatient.
He presses a finger to my lips. “I’m taking this slow, Maggie,” he says, in a low voice that makes me shiver.
Then he rolls off of me and reaches down to undo one of my heels. He leans in at the same time, kissing the sensitive skin right at my ankle. I shiver, and he lets the first shoe drop, before he kisses his way up my calf. He switches legs and trails his tongue down the inside of my calf to my other shoe. Undoes that one, slow and steady.
“You su
re know how to tease a girl,” I whisper. My breath hitches then, as he slides back up my body to catch the hem of my dress. He teases, running a hand up my inner thigh and back a couple of times before he suddenly flips me over. I gasp, and look back over my shoulder at him as he draws the zipper of my dress down.
“You look hot as hell in this,” he says as he slowly peels the zipper off. “But this dress will look so much better on my floor.”
I feel like my entire body is blushing by the time he has the zipper undone and starts to drag the dress down over my arms. He rolls me back onto my stomach as he pushes the dress off my legs, lets it puddle onto the floor. I reach up, then, and grasp at the buttons on his shirt. He lets me undo them, one at a time, and my eyes widen at the sight of that firm, sculpted chest.
I run my hands from his pecs to his abs, tracing the outline of his muscles. He reaches down, his hands slowly traveling down my stomach to toy with the hem of my panties.
But I reach down and stop him, my eyes dancing. His eyebrows rise in surprise, but he lets me move his hand away from me. “You always get to go first,” I tell him, grinning. “My turn.”
He just lifts a single eyebrow, clearly amused. “If you insist.”
“I do,” I reply, before I push up off the bed and turn to gently push him down where I was lying. He sprawls easily across the bed, his hands above his head as he watches me work.
“You look even better from this angle,” he remarks with his trademark grin, and I flash him a smile of my own in return, before I lean down to trace my tongue over his clavicle, and trail kisses over his chest. His skin is so smooth, his muscles strong. I can’t get enough of his scent, either, or the way he tastes just how he smells. Heady with a hint of musk, a masculine scent that drives me wild.
I kiss my way lower, to his stomach, and tilt my head up to watch him as my hand slides up his thigh, toward the hem of his boxers. “I want to taste all of you,” I murmur, echoing his sentiments. His stomach tenses under my hands, and even from this angle, I can see the flare of heat in his eyes.
“You want to suck my cock, is that it?” he replies, eyeing me steadily, although I can see by the thick bulge in his boxers that his casualness is entirely feigned. He wants me to do this as much as I want to do it.
“Exactly,” I whisper, and inch lower along his body, my hands following me. I hook my fingers under his boxers and drag them down his legs. He arches up off the bed to help me, and when his cock springs free of the fabric for the first time, it makes my breath catch in my throat.
Fuck. I knew he was big. I could feel it every other time I touched him, or when he fucked me. But this close, I’m appreciating his cock in a whole new way. It stands straight up off his body, a thick vein running along the side, swollen and rock hard with want.
“See how hard you make me, Maggie,” he whispers, as if reading my mind. “Every fucking time.”
I flash him a sly smile and push his boxers the rest of the way off his legs before I lie along his legs, my mouth inches from his cock. But I’m not going to let him have me that easily. I’ve learned a thing or two about the power of teasing from him.
I trail my tongue along the creases where his thighs meet his hips. I make sure to nip gently at the skin there. “I love watching you get hard for me,” I murmur, and he reaches down with both hands then to stroke his hands slowly through my hair. His fingers curl in my hair, and I flutter my eyes when I peer up at him, my eyelashes brushing against his cock, I’m so close to him.
I hear him suck in a breath through his gritted teeth, and I know I’m having the effect I want. Then I lean in again to trail my tongue around the base.
God he tastes incredible. Like salt and sweat and sex.
He watches me with hooded eyes as I move, tracking everything I do. “Have I mentioned before that you have a magic mouth?” he asks at one point, when I gently suck one of his balls between my lips and trace my tongue along it, toying with it.
I chuckle, and I’m rewarded with another sharp intake of breath from him, as my mouth vibrates against his balls.
Before long, I’m feeling more comfortable, and really exploring. I part his legs, and he obeys the movement. I trace my hands under him to squeeze his ass, and then trail my tongue up along his whole shaft, from base to the tip. When I reach the tip, I find a drop of precum dangling there like a drop of fruit, salty on my tongue as I lap it off.
He groans again, a little deeper this time. I feel his hands continue to stroke my hair, the fingertips curled, as if he’s resisting the urge to draw me down.
So I continue to tease. I lick him in long strokes, base to tip and back again. I lock my eyes on him at the same time, and it feels so hot to watch him from this angle, to see the effect I’m having on him.
After a few long licks, though, Russ’s patience runs thin. His hands tighten in my hair, and his voice is commanding when he speaks again. “Open your mouth, Maggie.”
I flash a smile. He’s back in command. The way I like it. I part my lips, and he positions his cock at the tip of them. Slowly, I bend down to take him into my mouth. I move slow, just a centimeter at a time, savoring every inch of him. His cock feels velvety soft along the sides, and rock hard at its core, a contradiction that sets me aflame to feel it.
At the same time, I toy with his balls, my hands gently tugging them away from his body, rolling them between my fingers softly. Before long, the tip of his cock reaches the back of my throat, and I go to pull away and begin again.
But Russ tightens his hands in my hair. “You can give more,” he says, his voice low and confident.
I moan a little, unsure. Can I?
But his hands are firm, and his smile is steady where it’s fixed on me. So I suck in a deep breath and try to keep going.
My gag reflex kicks in and my whole body tenses, but Russ doesn’t let it faze him. “Breathe,” he reminds me. “And relax, Maggie. Trust me.”
I let my jaw relax, let my whole body go limp, in fact. Russ guides my face closer to him, and his cock slips past the trigger for my gag, just far enough that I feel him tickle the back of my throat. It’s a strange sensation, unique and hot at once. And it makes me proud.
“Good girl,” he whispers. “Look at you taking my whole fat cock at once.”
I moan again, this time in approval, as he slowly lets up the pressure and draws my mouth away again, back up his shaft. I withdraw all the way to the tip, and purse my lips before he pulls me back down again, so my lips create constant pressure around his shaft.
He groans once more, and starts to move my face, faster. He draws me up and down his length, and I let myself go, relax my jaw and my body, let him take control. “That’s it, Maggie,” he murmurs. “Let me fuck that sexy mouth of yours.”
Another moan escapes me, and I can tell without even touching myself that I’m soaking wet from this treatment. From gazing up at him and watching him get off, just from my mouth alone. Before long, he’s moving faster, thrusting his hips up off the bed to drive himself deeper into my mouth. His hands guide my face back and away again, over and over, building up a rhythm until he’s thrusting up into me.
Finally, I feel his body tense, his hands tightening so hard in my hair it brings tears to my eyes, although it’s a good kind of the pain. The kind that makes me want more.
“I’m close, Maggie. I want to come in your mouth.”
I make a sound, not quite a moan, not quite words. His cock goes stiff and taut in anticipation between my lips. I moan again on purpose, knowing the vibrations must feel good. That does it. One more hard thrust and Russ comes deep in my mouth, his cum shooting down my throat.
“Swallow it,” he orders, as I feel my body tense at the response. I do, swallowing hard once, then again, my head still bobbing up and down on his cock as I clean every inch of him with my tongue. I never knew cum could taste like his does, salty and almost a little sweet. It’s fucking delicious.
It makes me want to do this again.
Finally, he gently pushes me away and tugs me up toward him. I slither up his body, lying down along him to savor the feel of my bare skin on his. I’m still wearing my bra and panties, a matching, lacy, barely-there set that I bought specifically for the next time I ran into Russ, but other than that, every inch of my skin makes contact with his. He feels like a small forest fire beneath me, white hot.
It makes me eager for more.
When I reach his mouth, he kisses me, long and deep and hard, his tongue invading my mouth the way his cock just did. He pulls back just far enough afterward to catch my eye. “You taste like me,” he murmurs. “I like that.”
“So do I,” I whisper truthfully. “I want you to claim me.”
His eyes flash. Without warning, he flips us around again, until I’m pinned beneath him. “Is that so?”
“Yes,” I breathe, letting my head fall back against the cushions as he starts to kiss his way down my chest, as his fingers slide beneath me to unhook my bra.
“You want to be mine, is that what you’re saying?”
“Fuck yes.”
He tugs my bra off, and I obediently lift my arms to let him draw it off, before he tosses it off the side of the bed to join my dress on his floor. “Good.” He leans back down to suck one of my nipples into his mouth, his teeth lightly grazing the areola in a way that makes me gasp and tense. It doesn’t hurt, not exactly, but it’s a new sensation. Toying with the edge of pain and pleasure. His tongue laps against my nipple at the same time, making it harden. “Because you are mine, Maggie,” he murmurs when he draws back again, and his breath is like a flame, licking my wet skin. “You’ve been mine since the moment we first touched. And I intend to keep it that way.”
His words ignite me. I arch up against him, unable to resist, savoring the feel of him, and the way he makes me feel when he talks like that. I want that to be true. I want to be his, now and for good.