Neat

by Steiner, Kandi

  “You want it here, don’t you?” I asked, voice rasping against the chills on her neck as I pressed a little more. It wasn’t enough to penetrate, just enough to make her writhe between me and the door.

  Mallory didn’t answer, but she didn’t have to. The way her ass poked up higher, her back arching so deep I wondered if she’d break told me more than her words could what she wanted.

  I shook my head, kissing her neck as I pulled back on the pressure a bit. “I’ll give it to you. But not tonight. Tonight,” I said, slipping my fingers down farther until they slid between her drenched lips. “I’m taking this.”

  I dipped two fingers inside her at once, hips thrusting into the back of my hand to assist as she cried out, head falling back on my chest, eyes shooting open to watch me as I withdrew my fingers and repeated the motion, over and over, stretching her wider each time, reaching new depths.

  Her eyes were an icy tundra, so blue they were somehow almost white as she watched me. Her eyes searched mine, lips parted, eyelids fluttering just slightly each time I pressed my fingers inside her again.

  I let her watch me while I fucked her with my fingers, our breaths coming in short pants, mixing in the air between us. When it was too much not to kiss her any longer, I crushed my mouth to hers, keeping my fingers deep inside her and curling the tips on a search for that magic spot that would make her come undone.

  Mallory’s legs shook so violently I thought she’d fall if it weren’t for me pinning her to the door. So, I gripped her tighter around the waist, taking her weight, my fingers continuing their assault as I sipped every breath of air she was finished with.

  “Logan,” she half-whispered, half cried into my mouth.

  I waited for more, for her to tell me to stop, to keep going, to fuck her, to get on my knees and suck her clit. But all she said was my name, a longing, sigh of syllables, and then her legs seized, along with every other muscle in her body.

  She came with a moan in my mouth, and I gobbled up that noise like my first meal in years, curling my fingers the same way I had been to keep her orgasm going as long as I could. Wetness sprayed from where I fucked her, soaking through her leggings and my sweat pants, too.

  “Oh my God,” she cried, finally pulling back from my kiss to ride out the rest of her climax. She screamed and moaned, back arching, legs shaking again as she surrendered to the feeling.

  When she was done, she fell limp, and I really did carry her full weight as I slowly, carefully, withdrew my fingers.

  Mallory panted, letting her hands fall from where I’d told her to keep them above her head. She turned in my grasp, pulling at my shirt, my hair, my pants, like she needed me closer — and I obliged in every way possible, holding her to the door, my lips trailing over her slick neck.

  “Holy fuck,” she breathed, pressing a hand to her forehead. I pulled back, locking eyes with her as she shook her head. “I’ve never… I didn’t know I…”

  I chuckled, kissing her nose. “That was fucking hot.”

  Mallory laughed, but as soon as the sound found her, it was gone again, her eyes heated, tongue rolling over her bottom lip. She fisted her hands in my shirt, pulling me to her for a long, hard kiss before she tugged on the fabric.

  I leaned back, letting her pull the shirt over my head before I was kissing her again. She pushed us away from the door, her legs shaking as she backed me up to the couch. My legs hit the edge of it, but before I could sit, Mallory yanked at the hem of my sweatpants.

  “Take these off.”

  I smirked, eyeing her as she stepped away from me, stripping her own shirt over her head and flinging it somewhere across the room. “Yes, ma’am.”

  We watched each other like animals about to fight rather than fuck as we stripped — me pulling my sweatpants and boxer briefs down my legs, her peeling her damp leggings to her ankles, kicking them the rest of the way off. Only a simple, black sports bra hid her breasts, and with one quick tug and maneuver of arms, it was over her head and on the floor, too.

  I let my eyes devour her like she really was my prey, gaze sliding over the mountains and valleys of her goddess-like body. Her breasts were modest but round and plump, the peaks puckered and begging for my tongue. Her stomach was flat and toned, a dipped line running from the bottom of her rib cage down to just above her belly button — another trail begging to be licked. Tattoos that merely peeked out from the edges of her clothing before were now on full display — a phoenix starting at her hip and wrapping up her rib cage, a half-sleeve of flowers stretching from her elbow to her shoulder, a line of script highlighting the curve of her hip. Those lips I’d stared at for years were swollen, parted, her own eyes feasting on what she saw between my legs before they flicked up to mine.

  She didn’t say a word, just pressed one hand hard into my chest and shoved. I fell back, bare ass hitting the couch cushions, and as soon as I was sitting, she was on top of me, her mouth hard on mine.

  And that’s when it all hit me.

  Maybe it was her being on top, me submitting, her taking control. Maybe it was her slim waist between my hands, her lips on mine before they kissed a trail over my jaw, down my neck, and back up again. Maybe it was her paint-matted hair falling in a curtain over my face, or the slick heat of her sliding over my shaft, eliciting a guttural groan from me that sounded like something off National Geographic.

  Whatever it was, it finally hit me.

  I was kissing Mallory Scooter.

  I was touching her. She was touching me. It was bad. It was wrong. I needed to stop, to push her away, to rewind time and go back to when I would never even entertain that she could want me like this.

  But it was too late.

  My next breath was a shaky one, and now it was my hands that trembled as I held her, as she rocked her hips, coating me in her climax. She moaned when the tip of my cock brushed her sensitive clit, her eyes fluttering closed before they shot open again. In seconds, she was off me, digging in a drawer somewhere near where her bed was set up in the corner opposite the living room.

  There were no walls in her studio apartment, just one giant, open space. Still, that distance between us was too far, and I found myself crossing it to meet her again, sliding my erection between the gap of her thighs just to feel her warmth again.

  She sighed, falling back into me, and I flexed my hips again, fucking her thighs and somehow knowing just from that that fucking her pussy would be the end of me.

  Mallory spun in my arms, holding up a shiny gold packet. “Condom,” she rasped, and then she pushed me back again — this time, into her bed.

  I fell into the sheets, her bed unmade from when she’d climbed out of it that morning. I smelled her all around me — in the sheets, on the pillows, in her hair that fell over me as she straddled my lap again. This time, she rolled that condom down over my shaft, and then she placed her hands on my shoulders, her eyes wide and locked on mine as she lowered down onto my tip.

  I hissed, inhaling a breath so hot it felt like smoke in my lungs.

  Mallory dropped a little lower, the tip of me stretching her open again, and with each centimeter that she dropped, I swore the fire spread. I felt it in my lungs, my veins, every muscle and joint and organ burning alive with one all-encompassing thought.

  Mine.

  I was fucked.

  I knew it when she took me in completely, when she paused there with me inside her, our eyes locked, her lips parted and my bleeding heart in her fucking hands. She’d taken a part of me, and given me a part of her, and now — without the other — neither of us would be the same again.

  Mallory’s breaths worked in time with her movements — an inhale each time she lifted, a shaky exhale each time she lowered — over and over, again and again, her hands braced on my shoulders, her eyes locked on mine. My grip was so tight on her hips I knew I’d leave a mark, but I couldn’t move them, couldn’t release for fear she’d disappear like a fantasy I’d had so many times.

  Her pace was s
o slow, so torturous. I felt every centimeter of her walls pulsing around me, and the climax was right there, waiting to release, but never quite reached.

  I rolled us, maneuvering until I was on top, and I pushed up onto my knees with my hands braced on her thighs. With each pump of my hips, I pulled her toward me, reaching a new depth that made her eyes roll shut. Her fists twisted in the sheets, yanking until one corner popped off the mattress.

  She moaned and writhed under my pulses, her beautiful breasts bouncing with each new thrust. I fell down over her so I could suck each mound into my mouth, tongue circling her nipples, hands kneading the flesh. She was everywhere — her nails on my back, her ankles locked behind my ass, her breasts in my mouth, my hands, her pussy tightening around my cock.

  I sucked in a breath when she pulled my mouth to hers again, kissing me hard, and I pumped once, twice, a third time before I pressed so deep into her I saw stars.

  She cried out, her moans living and dying in my mouth as I found my release inside her. Everything was still except for where I pulsed between her legs, and for that moment in time, I’d found the kind of ecstasy I thought only drugs could produce.

  Maybe I blacked out.

  Maybe I traveled through time, to another universe, another dimension.

  I couldn’t be sure, but when I came to, I was on my back, panting, my fingers tangled in Mallory’s hair. Her leg was draped over my stomach, her arm over my chest, both of us riddled with such a fierce exhaustion that we couldn’t open our eyes.

  For a while, it was just us breathing, fingers gently moving — mine in her hair, hers trailing a path from my pecs to my abdomen and back again. When our breathing smoothed out, I could hear the distant sound of the music still playing on the speaker downstairs, and the soft whiz of a car driving by on Main Street.

  Mallory lifted her head, balancing her chin on my chest as her eyes searched mine. She quirked one brow. “I think you ruined my pants.”

  I barked out a laugh, and I wasn’t sure if it was because of what she’d said or because I’d just realized that it was real. What had only happened in my dreams before tonight had just happened in reality.

  I had a naked Mallory Scooter sprawled across me, and it was so much sweeter than anything I’d ever dreamed.

  “Well, paybacks are a bitch,” I said, nodding toward my paint-stained shirt on the floor. “Told you that was one of my favorite shirts.”

  Mallory smiled, her eyes heavy and sated. She climbed up my chest, pressing her lips to mine, and when she pulled away, she watched me with questions and concerns dancing in those blue irises of hers.

  But she didn’t speak any of them out loud.

  Instead, she rested her head again, wrapping herself around me even tighter as I pressed a kiss to her forehead.

  And in the arms of denial, we both fell fast asleep.

  I didn’t know what time it was when I finally woke the next morning, only that the weight of Mallory’s head was still resting on my chest.

  It was warm, even with the comforter kicked down to my feet and the sheets covering only half of my naked torso. My body ached as I stretched my toes, flexing my calves, feeling the muscles in my quads protest at the movement after last night.

  Sometime in the middle of the night, I’d woken up to Mallory’s ass pressed against my groin. I didn’t remember what time, or how long we’d been out. If anything, it felt almost like a drunken dream, like something I’d imagined — spooning her, kissing her neck, feeling her nipples harden under my touch, her back arch as I pressed my erection between the gap of her thighs.

  Neither one of us had rested again until we were both spent, and then we’d curled back up easily, like we’d been together for years, like me being in her bed was the most natural thing in the world.

  I ran my fingers through Mallory’s hair, ready to gently wake her, but when the silky strands ended abruptly, I peeked one eye open.

  Dalí flicked his tail from where he was curled up on my chest, croaking out something between a meow and a yawn as he watched me with lazy yellow eyes.

  “Well, hello there,” I murmured, scratching behind his ear.

  I looked around the rest of the studio apartment for some sign of Mallory, but found nothing. It was just a series of messes everywhere I gazed — the wad of paint-stained sheets on the bed, our clothes littering the floor. I couldn’t help but let my eyes wander over her own mess that had existed before I’d even been there, too — the dishes in the sink, the half-empty glasses and mugs on the coffee table, the wires from her curling irons and straighteners falling over the cabinet of the bathroom sink, the dozens of paintings and sketches and framed photographs leaning against the base of nearly every wall.

  I smiled, feeling completely surrounded by her.

  And in the next instant, my stomach dropped so violently I nearly puked.

  I shot up in bed, causing Dalí to scamper off much the way he did the night before. He hid under the couch as I had my heart attack, and I pressed a hand to my chest, feeling the hard pumping of the frantic organ beneath.

  Holy fuck.

  I slept with Mallory Scooter.

  I ran a hand back through my disheveled hair, cursing under my breath when I couldn’t get my fingers through the matted paint. All the thoughts swirling around in my head now felt just as sticky and complicated.

  Thoughts that were nowhere to be found last night.

  I couldn’t grasp onto one worry before another bounced in, like a set of ping pong balls let loose inside a rotating box. I thought about my mom, my brothers, about the fact that Mallory had been off-limits to me my entire life due to the last name she bore. My job was the next thought in my mind — the title I had, the one I wanted, the years of effort I’d put in to be the best at what I did.

  I thought about the laptop, the hard drive, the password I wasn’t sure I’d ever be able to decode to see if there was anything my father left behind. I’d been so fixated on that yesterday, and maybe that’s why I’d had the lapse in judgment.

  I wasn’t in the right frame of mind.

  But perhaps the biggest worry of all was that the number-one thought in my head wasn’t that it was wrong, that I had fucked everything up by giving in, that I’d finally had Mallory Scooter in the way I’d always desired.

  It was that I still wanted her, even more so now, and she was nowhere to be found.

  Anxiety was still rippling through me as I let out a sigh, trying to calm my breathing and looking around the room as if it would have some sort of answer for me. When I looked past the pillow Mallory had slept on last night, I saw a sketch pad near her phone charger. It was propped open to a page somewhere in the middle, with chicken-scratch scrawling across it.

  I reached over, pulling the pad into my lap, and when I saw the doodle next to the words, I smirked.

  It was us — her mid-slingshot with her paint brush, sending paint flying across the page at me. And I had a brush in my hand, though my arms were crossed, shielding my face. We were both laughing, our features large and cartoonish.

  And my awe for Mallory grew even more at the fact that she could bring that image to life, that she could bring any memory back with just a pencil, a sheet of paper, and those magic hands of hers.

  Had to leave early for church — you know, princess of Stratford, and all. ;) Help yourself to some coffee. - M

  I was still smiling, but my stomach dipped and flattened at her words. Other than the half-hearted joke and a winking face scrawled after it, there was no indication of how she was feeling, of what she was thinking about what had transpired between us the night before.

  Then again, I couldn’t exactly blame her — since I had no fucking idea what to think about it all, either.

  Another sigh left my chest as I crawled out of bed, tugging on my sweat pants before I tore out the note and the doodle, folding it into a square and tucking it in my pocket. I pulled on my t-shirt next, and then I padded my way over to the still-hot coffee pot, po
uring what was left into a mug I’d plucked from the clean dish rack.

  I sipped carefully on the hot liquid, leaning against her kitchen cabinet and looking around at the mess again. I couldn’t de-tangle any of my thoughts, so I decided to put them to rest for now. I needed to talk to her — that much was fairly clear — and I couldn’t talk to her right now. Until I could, I needed to calm down, to not let anxiety convince me I needed to break through the doors of that church and demand answers in front of God and the whole town.

  I did need to get through those church doors, though — not to interrogate Mallory Scooter, but to show face and make Momma happy. I’d already missed the first service, but I could make it to the second one, and knowing Momma, she’d wait to make sure I showed up since I hadn’t made it for the early one.

  And though I was able to put most of my worries to bed, at least for the moment, I wasn’t able to leave that apartment in the disarray it was in.

  So, I finished my coffee, coaxing Dalí out from under the couch and loving on him while I made a plan. Then, I did the best thing I could do for my anxiety.

  I cleaned.

  And left a note of my own before slipping out the back door.

  Mallory

  It felt like someone else sitting at the country club brunch with my parents.

  It must have been someone else’s hand reaching for that mimosa, someone else’s mouth moving, answering my parents’ questions. It absolutely had to be someone else’s legs crossing in the sun dress under the table.

  Because in my mind, I was still in bed with Logan Becker.

  I was across town, at the opposite end of Main Street, stretched out under the sheets in the morning sun with my bare chest pressed against his ribs. My arms were wrapped around him, his around me, my head on his chest, his breath on my ear.