by Wolf, Alex
Mary’s eyes land on mine, and she looks like she’s in a trance. I can’t get a read on her whatsoever. My fingers tremble a little. My voice is shaky. This is the big one. It’s a huge deal to her and probably a deal breaker. I just got her to go out with me, and I don’t want to lose out on that, but I don’t want to pretend either. This is all or nothing right here, I just pray it’s good enough for her, who I am right now, and who I might be able to become.
“Did, umm, did I pass the test?”
It takes her a moment, but finally, she nods a little. All the air deflates out of my lungs, and pure relief washes over me.
“Yes, you passed.” This time she reaches over for my hand, and one of her fingers brushes against my knuckles. “And yes, it’s important to me, but I didn’t ask because I wanted to know if you believe or not. That’s between you and God, and none of my business. I wanted to see if you would be honest with me. That is what’s important to me. That you are Rick, and not someone else when you’re around me.”
My heart sinks a little, and the anxiety returns. I should feel relief, but I don’t. Because I don’t know if she can ever know everything about me. I smile to try to lighten the mood a little.
Mary glances around, and this time she’s the one who looks a little uneasy. It makes me wonder if she’s just saying I passed her test, to be nice, but really she’s going to want nothing to do with me. Because I don’t proclaim Jesus as my savior. I don’t know, I might, one day. I’m not going to fake that just to be with her, though.
“You sure I passed?” My eyes plead with her.
She just nods.
“Then what’s wrong?”
Mary finally sighs. “Is it that obvious?”
“Uh, yeah.”
She leans back a little in her seat and hugs her midsection. “I feel like such a hypocrite for demanding you to be honest when I haven’t been totally honest. Well, not to you, but I did something.”
“Like what?”
She continues like I didn’t just ask a question. “Something I shouldn’t have done, but I did it, for you.”
I sit there for a moment, not knowing if I want to hear it or not. Could it ruin the night I planned? Part of me wants to just say forget it all, just don’t worry about it, and let’s just enjoy this, but it’d still be buried down inside her. The same way all the secrets I’m keeping are eating me from the inside out.
“You can tell me or not tell me. Whatever you want to do.”
Her eyes roam over to mine. “I lied to Decker, about you. At our meeting.”
I choke up a little, surprised by the admission. “What? Why?”
“He asked me about Covington and the meeting. Covington told me he knew Abigail, you, and I were all looking into him, didn’t say how. But I didn’t tell Decker he mentioned anything about you.”
My blood heats up a little. Not at Mary, just the situation, the not knowing what the hell Covington is up to, even though I pushed back the other date to try and find out. I came up empty and didn’t have near enough time. Mary breathes what looks like a huge sigh of relief, like that was weighing her down. It pulls me out of my thoughts and brings my focus back to her. I don’t really know what to say, but I have to say something.
Finally, I just nod. “Okay, thank you for telling me. I’ll take care of it with Decker, okay? You don’t have to worry about it.”
She stares back across the table as though she wants more. More that I can’t give her right now. I could, but everything would be over in an instant. No doubt in my mind about that, and I can’t. I just can’t lose her.
“Soon, okay?”
Her glare hardens a little more. It’s so intense, I just hold up both hands and do the only thing I can do—beg. “Please? It’s a long conversation and I want to enjoy this.”
Her eyes sear a hole in mine, but she finally nods and says, “Okay, but I want to know everything. I can see it’ll be hard for you, and maybe traumatic, and I don’t want to ruin our perfect evening either. But, Rick?”
“Yeah?”
“I get all of you, the same way you get all of me. The good and the ugly.”
I nod, not knowing how I’ll ever pull this off, but I have to. It’s Mary. I don’t know if I can live without her. “I promise.”
Thankfully, the waiter walks over with our plates, and I realize we haven’t even touched the appetizers yet. It breaks the mood for a moment, enough to segue into another topic, because holy shit, that was all heavy. I just want to eat with the woman of my dreams, and smile, and laugh. I want to make her happy. It’s all I want to do.
The waiter drops our plates on the table and fucks off. He learns quick.
I ordered us each a ribeye in advance.
Judging by the smile on her face, she must approve. “He chooses well again. How’d you do it this time?”
“A magician never reveals.”
She glares at me.
I shrug. “It was more deduction and reasoning than anything. For one, I know you eat meat after taking you to Smoque. And you’re from Texas. Which means you probably like big meat.” I give her a wink, but she’s so cute and innocent, I doubt she catches the innuendo, which is twice the fun.
“Did you just say you assumed I eat big meat?”
Holy shit, I think my dick just got hard under the table. She’s way naughtier than I expected her to be. Maybe it’s all the repressed sexual energy. I don’t know. I always heard religious girls were wild, but it just seems like a guy’s fantasy and possibly not rooted in reality.
“I mean, I hoped.”
Mary dies laughing.
“For real, though. Abigail and Tate order the biggest damn steaks I’ve ever seen when we’re at the Gage, while Paisley and Quinn order chicken Caesar salads and shit. I figured it was a southern thing.”
She takes a bite of the steak. “You deduced correctly. Pat yourself on the back.”
I nod, grinning. “I think I will, actually.”
The rest of the meal goes great. The conversation flows, we laugh and smile, no more heavy shit. Just two people chatting away like we’ve been best friends for years. The waiter clears our plates. I tell him to make the desert to go. I want Mary in the hotel room as soon as possible.
I stand up and walk around to her side of the table. She tries to remain composed, but I watch every tiny reaction. Her heart rate speeds up on her neck, she fidgets a little nervously with a leftover fork the waiter missed, her breaths grow shallow.
She’s nervous. Not in a bad way, though. It’s an excited nervous.
I pull out her chair and hold a hand out. She takes it.
As she stands up, I admire her in the dress once more. Fuck, she’s a work of art. I’m going to miss her wearing it after I strip it off her.
Mary Patrick
What I’m about to do goes against everything I’ve ever been taught in the church, and yet somehow, I don’t feel bad. In fact, the only thing I feel bad about is not feeling bad. I don’t know if that makes any sense at all, but my brain has gone off the rails.
All I know is when I feel Rick’s lips on mine, his body pressed against me, see the way he looks at me—I want him. It’s more than want. I need him.
He backs me up against the door of the hotel room and pins me against it. I lunge into him. I think it takes him by surprise, because we stumble back a few steps and he somehow manages to catch me in his arms.
In one smooth motion, he picks me up like I weigh nothing, and my legs immediately wrap around his waist. Rick marches me back toward the door, his hands gripping my rear and I can feel his hard length up against me.
A million things should run through my mind; how it’s not right, how it’s too fast, how I’ll regret this in the morning—but for some reason, I don’t think I will. That night in the park, when I told him to take me to his place—right then, I made my decision and I knew I’d follow through with it. I want this with him, and I’m not backing down.
Rick holds me up aga
inst the door and somehow gets the hotel key out and opens the door, all without dropping me. His hard biceps squeeze around me; he’s way stronger than he looks. Not that he looks weak by any means, but I’m not exactly light.
He carries me through the suite effortlessly, and my lips fuse to his. His neatly trimmed stubble brushes against my cheek, and his mouth connects with my neck. A small moan comes from deep in my throat, and I feel him grow harder against me when he hears it. My hips instinctively grind, and I rub up against him, searching for any bit of friction I can get. A fire ignites deep in my belly, and it rips through my limbs.
Rick groans in my ear, “You don’t know what you do to me.”
“I know what I want you to do to me.” The words come out before I can even think them through.
I’ve never been so direct with a man before, but there’s something about Rick. I feel so safe, so comfortable with him. There’s nothing I could say or do wrong, and I can’t describe how intimate that is. I’ve never had a man look at me this way before, want me this way. I feel cherished—deserving.
He sets me on my feet, right in front of the bed, and I immediately go for his tux jacket to peel it off.
He grabs each of my wrists and stops me. He shakes his head and looks me up and down, savoring every last second of this. “I’m taking my time with you.”
My heart thumps at his words, and butterflies swarm my stomach. I don’t know if I want to go slow. It’ll give my brain time to think, time to shut this down, and Rick will stop if I tell him to. I know he will.
The way he stares at me lets me know what he just said isn’t up for discussion, though. His eyes are hungry, like a lion’s, and I’m his prey.
The hairs on the back of my neck stand up, and goosebumps pebble all over my body.
His hands find my shoulders, and he spins me around, then marches me over to a huge window overlooking downtown Chicago. With a stroke of his hand, he brushes my hair to one side of my neck. My eyes lock onto the lit-up skyscrapers, but Rick’s eyes lock onto mine at the same time in the window’s reflection.
His fingers dig into my waist, then his hands roam up my ribs and he finally cups each of my breasts. “No bra?” He growls the question in my ear, and another groan parts his lips. “I’m going to strip you naked in this window, so the world knows you belong to me.”
Oh my God.
My nipples harden against his palms through the thin fabric and he pinches each of them, then rolls them between his thumb and forefinger. Instinctively, my back arches, pushing me harder into his hands.
“Do you know how beautiful you are?”
I shake my head as he kisses a trail up the side of my neck.
He grinds his hard length against me and growls against my neck as he does it. “You drive me insane, Mary. You have no idea how bad I want to tear this dress off and be inside you right now.”
“Do it then.” The words come out on a gasp as my eyes flutter closed.
“I would. Trust me, I would.”
My heart sinks. Is he not going to?
“But that would make me no better than the last guy. It’d make it all about me.” His lips tenderly kiss my ear, and he whispers, “What I want.” One of his hands snakes through my hair, and then he suddenly closes his fist around it, digging his knuckles into my scalp.
Oh wow, I like that a lot. A quick gasp parts my lips.
“I’m going to take my time, every damn second I have with you, I’m going to make it last an eternity, doing nothing but pleasing you.” He kisses back down my neck, and his free hand roams down between my legs. He reaches into my panties and squeezes me with each word. “Over.” He kisses me again. “Over.” He trails along my neck to my collar bone. “And over.” When he says it for the final time he bites down, hard enough to leave a mark.
“Oh God.” My body comes alive the second it happens. Never in my life did I think biting would do it for me, but it does. Oh, does it ever.
His hand slides back and forth across me, and my panties are already so wet I can feel them sticking to my legs. Rick’s hands leave my body, and I immediately want them back on me.
He finds the zipper on the back of the dress, and slowly pulls it down until it comes to a stop at my lower back. My first instinct is to stiffen and wrap my arms around myself, but Rick’s hands find my arms.
“Relax.” He exhales warm breath in my ear, and like clockwork, my body reacts to every single sensation, every muscle loosening. Ever so slowly, he slides the dress down, and I catch it with my arms.
He takes a step back. “Turn around and show me.”
I do exactly as he says, as slow and seductive as possible, because how can I not obey his commands at this point? I’m a slave to his words.
The dress falls down and puddles around my feet, leaving me topless in nothing but my panties.
The look in his eyes says it all. There’s a spark there, a hunger.
“I’ve waited months for this.”
His eyes sear into me. Heat blooms across my chest at the sight of him. He’s a man possessed.
“Come here.” His voice is a low growl. “Slowly.”
I do it. I don’t think he knows the effect he has on me, or maybe he does. It doesn’t matter. I’d get on my hands and knees and crawl to him if he asked me to.
The whole time I walk toward him, he appraises me from head-to-toe, examining every square inch of my body. I’ve never been so bare in front of anyone else, my body on full display.
It’s so—erotic, and wrong, and everything I want to do, but shouldn’t be doing. I’ve never felt so rebellious and yet normal, like this is what I was meant to do with him. Is it wrong to enjoy this? I don’t think so. And even if it is, I’m allowed to make mistakes. It’s part of being a human.
I’m rationalizing lust, but I’ve never wanted something so bad, and I always try to do the right thing. I deserve to do this, with a man I actually care about, who respects me, puts me first and himself second. I won’t feel bad about that.
When I’m in front of Rick, his hands trace the sides of my thighs, and the curves of my hips. His head shakes back and forth, and his eyes find mine. “You are perfect.”
“Thank you.”
“You don’t need to thank me for telling the truth.”
I wrap my arms around his neck. “That’s how you got me here.”
“What?”
“By telling the truth. By being you.” I kiss him on the mouth and press into him, and the kiss grows hungry—fast.
My nipples are hard and rub up against his tux. I want it gone. I want to feel his skin on mine. I want everything, all at once, right now. I don’t want to wait, but he’s going to make me. He’s going to torture me the same way he did with his tongue the other night. My heart redlines at the thought, as the memory of that orgasm floods back in.
Rick licks and explores my mouth with an expert tongue, and his hands slide down to my backside and he yanks me against him. I start to unbutton his shirt, and with one swift movement, the room flashes all around me. He twirls us around and pins me down on the bed.
He’s not gentle at all. It takes my breath away when my back hits the mattress, and my breaths grow labored.
Rick pants above me, a rabid dog trying to tame his instincts and failing. His hands pin my wrists above my head. I don’t know if I’ve ever felt so on fire in my life. I ache for him to be up against me, for him to be inside me. But as expected, he takes his time, making me sweat this out, letting the anticipation build. I swear, he’s going to make me orgasm the second he touches me, if he ever does.
He leans back and grins, as if he can read every one of my thoughts. Slowly, and methodically, he begins to peel his clothes off, his eyes raking up and down my body the whole time. First are cufflinks and the bow tie, then the jacket. His shirt is still on, and I want it off him.
It’s excruciating. I squirm on the bed as his eyes burn a trail up and down my body. He seems to relish every second of driv
ing me insane. Without thinking, my hand slides down to my stomach, heading farther south, anything to quell this ache.
“Don’t even think about it.”
“What?”
I look up and he’s staring right at my hand, shaking his head. “It’s mine. Only mine.”
I start to say something when he walks toward me, unbuttoning his white dress shirt on his way. He takes his time stripping it off, one button at a time until he finally pulls each side of it open, and I get a peek at his beautiful body again. An even better view this time, and he looks like something from the cover of a magazine, all lean muscle and smooth lines.
As he loses the shirt, his eyes go right between my legs, as if he’s just acquired his target. He licks his lips and I don’t know if you can orgasm from someone just looking at you, but I’m close. So close.
He stops in front of me one last time, his eyes still locked between my thighs. He licks his lips, and then he’s on top of me, his chest pressing me to the mattress as he kisses me. All I can think about is what he’s going to do. I don’t know if he’s going to be rough or gentle, I really can’t tell. He’s so unpredictable, and it sends adrenaline spiking through my veins. Is he going to go slow and take his time, or is he going to go hard and fast?
I take note this is the first time we’ve ever really touched, skin to skin, and there’s something incredibly intimate, a connection that’s more than just physical. It feels spiritual in a way I can’t describe. I’ve never felt so close to a man before, so in sync with someone else.
The only thing I know, is I want another orgasm like the other night. Judging by Rick’s face, he’s about to give me one. He licks his lips, and he’s down between my legs again. He reaches for my panties, and I think he’s about to slip them off when he grins at me, then rips them in half.
