by Helen Hoang
“We should talk.” Her voice is throaty, the goddamn sexiest thing I’ve ever heard.
I hear her, but my body sways toward her anyway, craving another taste. It takes effort to stop myself, but I manage. “Okay.”
Her chin goes up a notch, and her expression turns stubborn. After a long pause, where she seems to struggle against herself, she finally says, “I don’t want to give you a blow job.”
My eyebrows shoot up on their own, and I stifle a surprised laugh—that’s an immature response, especially when she looks so serious. “That’s . . . perfectly fine.” Maybe it’s even a relief. Yes, on second thought, it’s definitely a relief, and it’s better that I didn’t have to ask for it myself.
She gives me a skeptical look. “Are you sure?”
I can’t help chuckling. “Yeah, it’s just a blow job. If you don’t want to do it, don’t do it. It’s not a big deal.”
“You’re wrong. It is a big deal. I’m supposed to like giving blow jobs. A partner’s pleasure is supposed to give me pleasure, and if it doesn’t, that means I’m selfish. In books I’ve read, women enjoy it so much sometimes they burst into spontaneous orgasm.”
“Wait, what books are you reading?”
She ignores the question and says, “On the flip side, I don’t need you to . . . you know.” When I shake my head, clueless as to what she means, she blushes sunburn red and awkwardly clarifies, “I don’t need you to give me oral sex. I don’t want to feel obligated to reciprocate, and it never works for me anyway.”
That almost seems like a challenge to me, and I ask, “What if I want to? Because I like it, not because I want you to do it back?” Because I do like it. It turns me on. I love the sounds women make when I go down on them, the way they move when they get close, their smell, their taste. It’s fucking hot.
Looking pained and frustrated, she says, “It really won’t work, and I’ll still feel pressured to return the favor. Can you just please—”
“I don’t need it,” I say quickly. “I won’t try to push it on you. I promise.”
She searches my face. “You’re really okay with this?”
“Yeah.”
Her eyes narrow. “Are you secretly judging me?”
I smile and fondly trail my fingertips down the side of her face. “No, I’m not. I like having everything out in the open. It makes things a lot easier.”
She releases a long shaky breath and relaxes against me.
For a while, we both stare at the pasta sitting in the skillet. When our gazes connect, we break into laughter.
“Let’s eat,” I say.
TEN
Anna
I’m not sure I’m good company as we eat. There’s too much going on in my head for me to think of interesting things to say. I can barely taste the food and the wine. I can barely sit still. Every time our knees bump beneath my tiny kitchen table, my awareness of him escalates.
I’m really doing this. I’m going to have sex with a stranger.
I don’t expect to enjoy it, but it means something to me that I’ll be doing it on my terms, that I’m setting boundaries, even if it disappoints people—perhaps especially if it disappoints people. Telling Quan that I didn’t want to give him a blow job might be the hardest thing I’ve ever done. But I did it. Part of me is still queasy from how unnatural it felt. Another part of me, however, is drunk with power.
That could just be the alcohol, though. Or his kisses.
I’ve never been kissed the way he kissed me. I’ve always loved kissing. It’s the only part of sex that I wholeheartedly enjoy, but Quan’s kisses swept me away. I can’t stop looking at his mouth, watching his jaw work as he chews, watching his throat bob as he swallows, fascinated by the way his tattoos shift. Is it normal to find a man’s Adam’s apple sexy?
This is physical attraction, I recognize. And I’ve never felt it before, not really. There are other things that I like about Julian—my parents hold his family in high esteem (his father is a urologist, and his mother is an obstetrician); he’s extremely smart and talented (he went to Harvard and then Stanford for business school); he’s hardworking (he’s an investment banker at a leading bank); he has an even temperament and never yells at me, never scares me; I understand him; I know how to be what he wants. At least, I thought I did.
He doesn’t know me, though. How can he, when even I don’t?
Intuitively, I sense that if I stray from the version of myself that he’s familiar with, he will no longer want me. That is, if he ever comes back to me.
Quan, on the other hand, has only known this chaotic, insecure, panic-attack-ridden side of me. He’s seen me at my worst.
And he’s still here.
For now. For tonight.
“You’re doing the same thing my mom does,” he observes.
I blink several times as I try to make sense of his words. “What does she do?”
“She watches people eat, like the food tastes better in someone else’s mouth,” he says with a grin.
I duck my head and tuck a loose tendril of hair behind my ear. “Sorry.”
“I don’t mind. She’s a cook and loves feeding people, so I’m used to it. This pasta is good, too.” He points at his empty plate.
I hate the thought of him being hungry—and I’m ridiculously pleased that he likes my cooking—so I push my half-full plate toward him. “Help me finish?”
After giving me an assessing look, he spins his fork in the noodles and takes a big bite. It’s a bit unusual sharing a plate with him, but I like it. It feels intimate somehow. I prop my elbow on the table and rest my chin in my palm, watching him.
As he scoops up a second forkful, he asks, “Do you always keep it quiet like this? You don’t like to play background music?”
“Do you want me to turn something on?”
“Not unless you want to. I’m just curious.” He takes another big bite of pasta, and his gaze strays to my instrument case in the corner.
“I like having music on while I cook and things,” I say, but then I frown down at the dwindling noodles on my plate. “Well, I used to. Lately, I can’t listen to music without picking it apart and overanalyzing everything until my head hurts. I haven’t listened to music for my own enjoyment in . . . a long time. I think I’ve forgotten how. Ironic, I know.”
When his expression turns thoughtful and he looks like he wants to delve deeper into the topic, I quickly steer the conversation away from me by asking, “What kind of music do you like?”
After a short hesitation, he says, “Most kinds, I guess. I’m not picky. To be honest, I’m really tone-deaf.”
“Tone-deaf as in . . . you can’t differentiate notes?” As a professional musician, one with perfect pitch no less, I can’t fathom what that must be like.
“As in my brother and sister can’t sing ‘Rock-a-bye Baby’ correctly because I taught it to them when we were little.” His smile looks slightly embarrassed, and he concentrates on scooping up the last forkful of noodles and eating them.
I think some people would laugh upon hearing this confession, but I don’t. Imagining a small Quan singing out of tune to his siblings as he tucks them in at night spills warmth into my chest.
“Did you take care of them a lot?” I ask.
“My dad left when we were really small, and my mom told me it was my job to be man of the house,” he says in a matter-of-fact manner as he idly spins his wineglass. “But”—he glances at me, his eyes dancing and a mischievous smile hinting at the corners of his mouth—“I was no angel. I got into a lot of trouble.”
“Somehow that doesn’t surprise me,” I say, and I can’t keep the amusement from my voice. “What kind of trouble was it?”
“The regular stuff, skipping class, practical jokes on the principal. The agriculture teacher was a racist, and we thought it would be a good idea to sal
t the fields. Looking back, I regret it. There was the fighting, too. There was always fighting. I almost got expelled for punching this kid in the face after he tripped my brother in the cafeteria. His dad was going to press charges but dropped it when my mom made me apologize.” He shrugs, and down on the table, I see him fist his right hand, making the letters inked onto his knuckles stand out in sharp relief. “I don’t regret punching him.”
Acting on a desire I’ve been fighting since we sat down, I settle my hand over his and bump my fingertips along his knuckles. His skin is warm, slightly rough. “What do these letters mean? MVKM?”
He smiles slightly, though his gaze is intense—I can only take it in split-second doses. I look away, only to return, and then look away again.
“Are you sure you want to know? They don’t represent my fallen enemies or anything,” he says.
“Do they correspond with people?” I ask.
“Yeah. My family, minus my dad. M is for Mom, V is my sister, K for my brother, Khai, and the last M is for Michael, my cousin and best friend.” He opens his hand and turns it so he can interlace his fingers with mine, a movement that makes my heart knock around my chest like a Ping-Pong ball. “I wanted them on my right hand because they’re important to me.”
“I like that,” I say, and I feel a sharp stab of envy for these people whom I’ve never met. No one has ever wanted to carry a reminder of me on their skin.
His smile widens in response. His gaze drops to my mouth, intensifies, and I stop breathing. Moving slowly, like he’s giving me time to back away, he leans toward me and cups my jaw with his free hand. His thumb brushes over my bottom lip, and the breath seeps from my lungs as I touch the tip of my tongue to his skin and scrape him with my teeth.
I’m worrying that was too weird, I’ve never done something like that before, when he closes the distance between us and crushes our lips together. His tongue strokes into my mouth, taking, claiming, like he wants to consume me whole, and weakness shoots through my body. I love the way he kisses me.
He pulls back, his lungs heaving, his lips red, one hand bracing the table. I guess I almost knocked it over. “We should take this somewhere else,” he says in a low rasp, urging me to my feet.
“Couch is right there. Bedroom around the corner,” I say, and my voice doesn’t sound like me. It’s husky, breathy, completely unfamiliar.
“Couch is closer.” He guides us a few steps in that direction but stops to kiss me again, like he can’t help himself, licking my bottom lip before sucking it into his mouth.
To keep from melting to the floor, I wrap my arms around his neck and press my body to his. He’s deliciously solid, thick and strong where I’m not.
His arms close around me, and I feel his hands smooth up and down my back, before gripping my hips and pulling me close, onto my tiptoes. I gasp into his kiss as his hardness settles into the cradle of my thighs. Inside, I clench with a pure wanting. I’ve had sex hundreds of times, more probably, but I’ve never ached for it like this. I can’t quite grasp why everything is different now.
My back meets the cushions of the couch, and Quan settles against me, kissing my mouth, my jaw. “You still with me?” he asks against my neck, and shivers race down my spine.
I can’t talk, so I run my hands down his chest until I find the hem of his shirt and pull it up. His eyes meet mine for a burning second before he pulls his shirt over his head and tosses it to the ground.
Thought fails me as I touch shaking fingers to the lean muscles of his abdomen, push my palms up to his wide chest. He’s scalding hot, but smooth, starkly masculine. I can feel his heart beating, his lungs rising and falling. The sight of my unmarked skin against the dense designs inked onto him mesmerizes me. There are crashing black waves with intricate detail like in a Japanese watercolor painting, a water dragon, wide-sailed ships. I trace my fingertips along the calligraphy that continues from his neck down one side of his chest, ending beneath his ribs. I want to know the story written in his skin, but I suspect it’s too personal to be shared with me.
Hidden in the waves by his right hip, my fingers find . . . a small octopus, and I draw in a sharp breath and gaze at him in wonder. “You have . . .”
He grins. “That’s the tattoo you want to talk about? Out of all of them?”
“Is it the one from the documentary?”
“Nah,” he says, smiling wider before he kisses my neck. “I got that one a long time ago. I like the ocean and sea creatures and things.”
“Are octo—” His lips part, and the wet heat of his mouth sears my skin. I forget what I was talking about. All I know is the feel of his lips, his tongue, his teeth. I arch closer to him, unable to control the sounds coming from my throat.
The front of my dress falls open as he kisses his way to my collarbones and down to the edge of my bra. Instead of going through the work of undoing the clasps in back, he yanks it down, baring my breasts to the cool air for an instant before he sucks my nipple into his mouth. My entire being tightens in response, my stomach, my core, between my thighs.
“You’re really good at that,” I hear myself say, my surprise evident in the wondering tone of my voice.
He releases my nipple from his mouth, and a knowing smile touches his lips. Watching me, he licks the hardened tip, nuzzles the underside of my breast, and takes a tiny bite, sending a starburst of sensation washing over me in a red haze before he soothes me with his warm palm. He kisses his way to my other breast and teases me. He blows on my nipple, licks it lightly, pinches it with his fingertips, and then he takes me into his mouth and draws with exquisite pressure.
I cling to him, alternately gasping and hissing through my teeth as he caresses me with his hands and mouth. It turns out I am absolutely crazy about breast play. I had no clue.
When our lips meet again, I kiss him with abandon, tangling my tongue with his as I touch him everywhere my hands can reach. His chest, his shoulders, the broad expanse of his back, his head. His closely buzzed hair scrapes against my palms in the most interesting way.
He shifts against me, pulling my thigh up along his side, and rolls his hips. I feel him, hard where I’m soft, and I know what’s coming. The good part of sex is ending, and the not-so-good part is starting. I don’t mind, though. This has been the best sex of my life.
I expect him to sit back and remove our underwear so we can get things moving, but he doesn’t. He continues kissing me, touching me. One hand cups my face, tilting my head back so he can kiss me deeper. With his other hand, he strokes my thigh, my butt, squeezes it.
“What do you like, Anna?” he whispers.
When I stare at him, completely stunned by the question, he works his hand between us and eases his fingers beneath the waistband of my underwear. I catch my breath when his fingertips slip through my folds and explore me with languid strokes. I’m wet, extremely so, and that’s unusual for me. When Julian and I have sex, it’s uncomfortable for both of us until my body eventually warms up and self-lubricates, but even then, I’m not like this.
He trails his mouth to my ear and asks, “How about this?”
I don’t know what he means until he begins circling my clitoris in slow, gentle circles. It feels . . . almost good. So close to good. If he would just—
His slippery fingertips shift and rub directly over me as he nips my ear. A moan escapes my throat—that bite, I don’t know why I like it so much, but I do—and he continues the same motion with his fingers, which, again, is almost good. I hide my face against his neck as he strokes me. It’s arousing. I get wetter. But it’s not what I need.
“Anna,” he asks, teasing a finger into me just the barest bit. “How do you like to be touched?”
I press my face tighter to his neck. I want to be the kind of woman who can boldly tell a man how she likes to have her sex touched. But I can’t answer him. Someone could threaten to kill me right
now, and I still couldn’t answer. I wish he just knew. Why don’t men just know?
His finger pushes deeper into me, and I arch into the penetration, surprised when he slides in with little resistance.
“More?” he asks, and a second finger works into me gradually.
I love the sensation as my body stretches to accept him. It’s decadent and unbearably sexy, but it isn’t long before the pleasure ebbs. When he strokes his fingers in and out and curls them, touching me deep inside, it’s nice. But that’s it. Just nice.
Clinging to him tightly, unable to look at him, I whisper, “I’m ready now.”
“Ready for what?” he asks.
“Ready for you.”
ELEVEN
Quan
If there was any question whether or not things were in working condition, it’s definitely answered now. My cock is so hard I hurt. She’s soft and tight against my fingers, drenching me, and I want inside her.
“Is that what it takes for you to come?” I ask, breathing kisses into her hair because her face is hidden from me.
Instead of answering, she hugs me tighter and burrows closer, and feelings of tenderness nearly overwhelm me.
“Anna?”
Silence. At this point, the first shreds of worry creep into my mind.
“Can you talk to me? Did I do something wrong? If I did, just tell me, and I’ll fix it. I want this to be good for you.” That’s important to me, maybe more important now than it’s ever been in the past.
“Can’t we just . . . keep going?” she asks without looking at me. She runs her hand down my arm and then presses on my hand that’s between her thighs, undulates against it, so my fingers push deeper into her. Fuck, that’s hot. “This is fine.”
Fine? I don’t want sex with me to be fine. I try to ease her away from my neck, so I can see her face. “Will that be—”