by Raquel Belle
“You ever fool around in an elevator before?” Anthony asked.
“No, because most have cameras in them,” I said, making him laugh again. “Are you some kind of voyeur? First, you want me to slap you around, and now this?”
Anthony grinned and the doors opened. “I just like thinking outside the box, that’s all.”
We walked outside, and the chill flew right under my dress. Thankfully, his car wasn’t too far. He drove us to a club nearby—meaning in the same borough. It was a jazz club with live music. The club was cozy, tucked into a brownstone cushioned between a French cuisine restaurant and a bakery. Half of the club was sprinkled with tables and a small bar, and the other half was dedicated to the dance floor and an intimate stage. There was a pianist, a drummer, a man on the saxophone, and a mic…but no singer.
“Why isn’t this place more packed?” I asked.
“There’s a guest list.”
At that moment, the host walked up to us with a tablet and found Anthony’s name. He walked us to a table, and a waitress was quick to take our drink orders. “I don’t know if jazz is your scene. We can skip this place and go somewhere livelier if you want?”
To my surprise and delight, the band started playing a jazzy merengue song. “Oh my gosh! No, I love this. Do you know how to dance to music like this?” My mom’s family made sure that I knew how to dance growing up, and I’d acquired a love for it.
“I’ll surprise you,” he said, grinning. Other couples took to the floor. Anthony offered me his hand and pulled me right in front of the stage. He put his other hand on my waist, seamlessly moving to the music. He knew the steps, and he knew when to flourish and pull me close. I was impressed, though not really surprised. The sex was great with Anthony, so I knew he had rhythm, and he definitely knew how to work his hips.
We barely sat down or touched our drinks, dancing from one song to the next. It was clear that the club had a Latin theme to the night’s music. I loved that Anthony thought to take me, and he was definitely a lot more attentive than other guys I’d dated. A small voice in the back of my head whispered, because he really likes you. It was both a nice and melancholy thought at the same time.
“Alright, we’ve gotta make our dinner reservation,” Anthony whispered in my ear. He pulled me by the hand, and we went back to the table for my purse. He dropped a few hundreds on the table, definitely overpaying the bill and leaving a fat tip for the waitress. I wondered how much money he had. He definitely drove a nice car, and didn’t bat an eye over the dues he had to pay for the Common Templars meeting. As a favored staff writer of a major city paper, I was sure his salary was good enough to keep him in the city because that was certainly the case with my paycheck. But I wasn’t leaving two-hundred and fifty dollar tips, that was for sure.
“That was great. I really enjoyed myself,” I said as we stepped out into the cold again.
“Awesome, I like to dance, too. We can go out all the time, then,” he said. We crossed the street and walked a quick block to his car.
“You’re not vegetarian or anything, are you?” he asked.
“No, why?”
Anthony grinned and then laughed. “Because I was about to ruin your night. We’re going to a steakhouse. Sorry I didn’t think to ask you before.”
His laughter made me believe he was a bit nervous. I didn’t mind it. I mean, a little nervousness meant he still wanted to impress me, which was really cute and totally unexpected. We got into his car, and he drove towards Williamsburg.
“Steak after all that dancing sounds good,” I said.
Anthony smirked. “Steak, or any kind of meat…?”
I laughed. “Shut up… But, yeah, I want that after.”
Anthony took my hand and laced his fingers with mine. He kissed my knuckles and held my hand the entire ride. Dinner was just as great as the dancing. We traded stories about old assignments and crazy sources and by the time we got back to my apartment, I was nicely buzzed on wine and warm all over.
“That was really great. Thanks so much for tonight,” I said.
Anthony took my hands and kissed me, then pulled me towards my bedroom. “Thank you for letting me make up for the other night.”
We reached my bedroom door, and he pulled me in for another kiss. Then he pulled off my pashmina and let it feather to the ground.
“You’re very welcome,” I said, jokingly.
Anthony bumped the door open with his back and then quickly backtracked to the bed. He sat, and I straddled his hips, my knees settling on either side of his waist. His lips slid down mine, to my jaw and neck. He pinched my nipples through my dress and bra. A spike of pleasure triggered my pussy, and my thighs flexed in response. Anthony found the zipper of my dress and pulled it down. He gathered it all up and pulled it over my head. Underneath, I wore a lace bra and a matching thong.
“Wait, wait…” Anthony said. He held my waist and laid me down on the bed. He took off his jacket and started unbuttoning his shirt, as he knelt down between my legs. I lifted them to rest on his shoulders. He turned his head to kiss my ankle, then the other. His shirt hung open while he unclasped my shoes. His lips tickled me when he kissed the instep of my foot and then the other. He shrugged off his shirt and quickly pulled his undershirt off, over his head.
He unbuckled his belt and pants then he hooked his fingers underneath my thong and slowly pulled it off. He smiled. “What’ll cap off the night for you?”
His electric eyes bored into mine. He kissed my inner thigh and nibbled on the sensitive skin. I giggled. “This…” My fingers itched to run through his silky hair.
“Come on, be specific. What do you want me to do for you?” He kissed me closer to my aching pussy.
“That, kiss me there,” I said, mildly embarrassed. Anthony laughed, deep in his chest and he kissed my pussy lips before his tongue slid between them. My body shuddered with pleasure and want. He spread my folds with his fingers and flicked his tongue against my clit until my legs started to shake and my hips rolled restlessly. “More pressure…”
Anthony sucked and nibbled at the sensitive nub until my hips practically came off the bed, and my pussy throbbed and clenched with an orgasm.
He quickly pushed off his pants, and I slid back to the center of the bed. He stretched over me, pulling my legs up around his hips. I felt the warmth and weight of his cock against my thigh. Then he lowered his hips, pressing them to mine, and the tip of his dick slid against my clit. I moaned, and he kissed my neck while slowly pumping his hips back and forth.
“I want you inside,” I said, breathlessly. I gripped the small of his back and cupped his neck with my other hand.
Anthony pressed his lips against my throat. “I want you to come again…” I lifted my hips and moved them in tandem with his. My body felt like it was going to catch on fire. I held on to Anthony’s arms as the orgasm built sharply. I rubbed against his cock, as the orgasm rocked through me, my pussy clenching and pulsing, as I trembled with both euphoria and need.
“That’s it, yes,” Anthony whispered in my ear. He pulled back to quickly slide on a condom. Then he positioned the beautiful head of his cock at my entrance.
He pushed in slowly and filled me up. “Fuck,” I moaned.
Anthony slowly pumped his hips at first, and then he hooked his arms under my legs, keeping them open wide, as he started going to town. I felt his cock kiss my cervix, and the sensation was incredible in the moment, but I knew I’d be sore later. “Anthony!” I cried out in pleasure. He moved his arms and hugged me tight underneath him as he stroked deep, giving me a real internal massage. I moaned loudly and wrapped one arm around his waist, the other I gripped his shoulder with.
My body shuddered then grew tense. I felt the orgasm build like a dying star, waiting to explode. The tension broke, and I was launched into an intense climax. All I could do was hold on to him as the pleasure flooded my body. His name filled the air around us—every breath, every second.
He pull
ed out of me and rested his forehead against mine while we caught our breath. He laid on his back and pulled me close to him. I sat up and straddled his hips. He unclasped my bra and kissed my breasts. grazing my nipples. I gripped his cock and lowered down onto it then rocked my hips back and forth. Anthony moaned and gripped my ass, as I rode him. His eyes were half-lidded, almost drunk. He stared into mine, as I came closer and closer to another orgasm. He rocked and held me still on top of him. His hips thrusted fast into me, and I came again, finally spurring his own release.
He held onto the condom as his cock twitched and pulsed inside me. When he stopped moving, I rocked forward, and he pulled out of me. We laid there for a few minutes, just catching our breath and feeling each other’s heartbeats.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Anthony
Naomi sat beside me on the bench and partially unwrapped her sub. We’d just met up for lunch in the park. She looked a lot happier, kind of like her old self again. She wore a long trench coat over slacks and a form-fitting sweater. Her hair was loose—as usual— around her shoulders.
“So, you guys have a healthy boning relationship, but what about the other stuff?” She asked, before she took a bite of her sandwich. A cold breeze blew dead leaves out from underneath the bench.
“What other stuff?” I said, and sat back with my sub.
“You should know! The conversation? The intellectual compatibility?”
“Oh! Yeah, we’ve got that. We’ve got a lot of that. If you meet her, don’t ever tell her I said this but…” I paused and Naomi looked at me with an expectant grin, like she was ready to laugh. “She’s smarter than me.”
Naomi’s grin widened, but she didn’t laugh. “Good, I’m happy for you, bro.”
“Thanks. Anyway, you never told me how that talk with Jess went. Was it anything legit?” I bit into my sub and savored the marinara sauce and meatballs.
“She apologized for freaking out when I mentioned marriage,” Naomi said and wiped her mouth, smiling behind the napkin. “She wants me to go with her to her family’s Thanksgiving dinner in Boston.”
“Holy shit,” I said, impressed and a little surprised. It wasn’t that Jess’s family didn’t accept her, or didn’t know about Naomi, it was that Jess had real commitment issues.
“I’m nervous. I mean, I met her mom before, not her dad though, or her siblings, or her grandparents or…anyone really.” She wrapped up her sandwich, barely through half of it, and tucked it into her purse.
“Damn, took your appetite, huh?” I said. “There’s nothing to worry about. Everyone loves you when they get to know you.” An idea hit me as I said that. “Do you want to meet Beth?”
“Yeah, but don’t be mad at me if I steal her away from you. Also, what if some of her other family that’s there is like…judgy?”
I shook my head and balanced my sub on my lap, then picked up my bottle of water. “No way. She wouldn’t bring you into that environment then, would she?” I took a swig of water and saved half of my sandwich for later.
“True…” She picked up her sparkling water and uncapped it. “So where and when do you want to hang out with Beth? Maybe I can bring Jess along.”
“I like that idea. I’ll see when Beth is free and find something for us to do,” I said. My cell phone rang, and an unknown number popped up on the screen. I answered because sources have been known to call with their numbers hidden and you never knew who wanted to reach out to a journalist.
“Anthony Preston,” I said.
“Hello! It’s Nathan Chester.”
I paused, surprised that he was reaching out to me. “Hey, Nathan, how are you?”
Naomi lost interest in eavesdropping and checked her watch. She mouthed that she was heading back to the office.
“Wonderful, wonderful, Anthony, how about yourself? I hope the feature is coming along well?” Naomi gave me a fist bump and walked quickly towards the street. I checked my watch. “Yeah, it is. I got a lot of good information and history there at the meeting. I have you to thank for that.”
“Good, good. I’m glad to be of help, and I’m glad you’re writing about us along with Beth,” he said.
“Oh, you know that I’m working with her?” I stood up and strolled towards the street. The office was only five blocks away. A cold wind raked through my hair, so I pulled my hoodie up and adjusted the phone.
“Yes, I spoke with her to ask about how all that was going to work. What with a reporter from a competing paper gathering information for her…” Nathan paused to laugh.
I wasn’t smiling, though. Why wouldn’t Beth tell me that Nathan had reached out to her? What the hell did they discuss exactly? I tried to shake it off. “Oh that’s…yeah, it’s an interesting arrangement.”
“Yes, well, I didn’t call like this simply to chat. There’s a spot open in our Manhattan chapter for a couple of new members,” he said.
I paused at an intersection and waited for the light to change. My hand gripped the phone tight, and I had to wonder if Nathan had offered Beth a spot in the society, and if she was taking one for the benefit of her article and maybe future articles. “Oh, really…?”
“You easily fill the criteria, Anthony, so I thought I’d call and see if you’d like to be recommended. You already know so much about us as it is,” he said.
The light changed, and I hurried across the street and kept walking. The building was only a couple blocks ahead of me. “Well…well, uh …I never really thought about joining, if I’m being honest. I do love the mission, but the ritual aspect of a secret society really isn’t my speed.”
“That I can understand, but lately those traditions aren’t as prevalent. The robing, really, and the Classics meetings will be the extent of any ritual-like practice,” he said. “Why don’t you come to one of our normal meetings and see if that will sway you any?”
“A normal meeting? One where women are allowed?” Getting into a meeting like that would be great for background information in the feature. I reached the building but hung out in the courtyard, sitting on one of the stone slabs.
“Precisely,” he said.
“I’m open to that,” I said. I got a weird and sudden burst of heartburn and pressed my hand to my chest. “When’s the meeting?” I was silently cursing the marinara sauce, but I couldn’t ignore the bite of guilt creeping up the back of my neck.
Nathan gave me the information—the meeting was coming up in a couple of days—and then we ended the call. I sighed and glanced at the sky—a thin layer of cloud covered the blue. Why wouldn’t Beth tell me that Nathan had called her with potentially the same offer he had given me? The adult thing to do would be to ask her about it outright. But if she was hiding things, even though we were working together in good faith, then maybe I ought to just go to the meeting and catch her. Then I could ask questions at the right time.
I sighed again and shook my head. No, that was too immature. I’d have to figure out a good time to bring it up without doing too much damage to our relationship. It was so new, and I fucking had feelings for that woman, but if she was lying to me… What did that mean? I texted Beth: Can we go through the recording tonight? When she didn’t text back immediately, I went upstairs and just fucking stressed, all the while hating that I was even stressing.
***
Beth opened the door, and her cat Huevos padded out and rubbed his head on my leg. “Hey,” she smiled and kissed me. We stepped inside and I noticed our usual setup on the kitchen table—her laptop and a couple of notepads, even though I always used my laptop for notes. That little detail had endeared me to her early on in our sessions, so now it just seemed unnecessary.
“Hey,” I said.
“What’s wrong? Long day?” Beth’s hair was straightened, and she wore jeans and a loose sweater that fell off of one shoulder, showing the strap of a tank top. In any other circumstance, I’d be all over her.
“My day went fine until I got this…random call from Nathan Chester,” I sa
id, as I followed her to the kitchen. She turned around, curious but nothing else. Her body language didn’t seem defensive or like she was trying to hide anything.
“He called me yesterday too, but it was such a nothing call that I completely forgot about it. Did he ask how we’re writing features together but separately?” She grabbed a couple bottles of water from the fridge and handed me one.
“Yeah, he did. Said he was surprised that we were making it work,” I said and studied her reaction. She seemed oblivious, so she couldn’t be hiding anything from me, nothing major anyway.
“Did he mention to you that they’re recruiting a couple more members?” I asked, as I followed her to the table.
“I don’t think so. He asked if I would need anything more for the feature, and I told him that we had all we’d need here,” she said and gestured to the computer. “Why, did he ask you to join?” She seemed amused by the thought and her eyes lit up with laughter…but she didn’t laugh.
“He did, yeah. I told him I wasn’t into the ritual stuff,” I said, feeling more at ease. She hadn’t been lying to me after all.
Beth laughed. “Exactly. I can’t even imagine you wearing hooded robes every meeting and agreeing to be kidnapped to every venue.”
I smirked. “That ain’t happenin’ unless it’s you kidnapping me…”
“To slap you around and make you my bitch?” She asked. I leaned over and nipped her neck, then kissed her with tongue. She bit my lip, and my cock twitched in response. I picked her up and soon forgot about the recording and everything else but Beth for a while.
***
As I sat at the specified bar in Lower Manhattan, waiting for Nathan to materialize with his sketchy black SUV, I debated leaving. I felt guilty for putting off telling Beth about the meeting. She still didn’t know. I swirled the ice around in my water and finished the glass. Really, I didn’t know why I was still going, other than from curiosity driven by my journalistic brain. I couldn’t not go. I had to see what a truly regular meeting was like in the Common Templars. I’d tell Beth about it later and hope she’d understand. She would because I had no intention of keeping it from her. I sighed and wiped my hand over my face. She’d gotten over the Naomi thing easily enough, right?
