by Cassia Leo
He shuddered as he kissed the corner of my mouth. “You’ll be calling me big daddy,” he teased, and I laughed harder than when he tickled me, and he poked me in the side. “Oh, you just wait. Stand up.”
He stood up and watched me with a seductive look in his eyes as he waited for me to follow suit.
I faced him and he smiled. “Put your arms up.” I tried not to roll my eyes as I raised my arms, and he lifted my t-shirt over my head so I was standing before him in my bra and unfastened jeans. “Turn around.”
I turned my back to him, and he quickly unfastened my bra then grabbed my hips to turn me back around. My bra straps fell loosely down my shoulders, and he watched as I let it fall to the floor.
He gazed at my breasts for a moment before he looked up at me and shook his head. I pushed my jeans down until they hit the floor and I slinked out of them. I stood before him in nothing but a pair of lacy black panties, feeling more empowered than I had all day. I knew Milo had been waiting for this day for a long time and, now that it was here, I began to think that maybe I had been waiting for it, too.
He shrugged out of his hipster t-shirt and jeans, but he didn’t stop there. He took off his designer underwear, and my eyes widened.
He was huge.
I thought Luke was big, but I had gotten accustomed to leaning forward when I was on top. When he was on top, he would watch my face for signs of pain to make sure he wasn’t going too deep.
But, apparently, that was nothing. I was seriously afraid of the erection pointing at me at that moment.
“Oh, my,” was all I could say as I stared at it. He stepped toward me and my body tensed. “Oh, God.”
He chuckled at my obvious trepidation. “I’ll go easy on you.”
Part of me wanted to grab my clothes, run out into the street naked, and hitchhike home. Another part of me, a very curious part of me, saw this as a challenge to be conquered. I wrapped my fingers around the base and my hand didn’t even cover half of it.
“I can do this,” I whispered, more to myself than to him. I looked up and I could see he was holding back his laughter. “This is not funny. That…that looks lethal.”
“Come with me,” he said, grabbing my hand and leading me toward a door to the left of the wall where the TV was mounted.
It was a home gym, complete with two treadmills, weight machines, floor mats, and exercise balls.
“What the hell? Are you going to make me work out first? Do I need to bench press a hundred pounds to qualify?”
“Nah, I’ve got something a little more exciting in mind.” He rolled an exercise ball onto the middle of one of the mats and patted it. “Sit down.”
I raised my eyebrow. “You’re not kidding. And I find it strangely hot.”
I sat on the ball and he knelt in front of me. “I am going to give you the most intense orgasm you have ever had in your life.” I gulped as he pulled my panties off and spread my legs open as I sat on the ball. “Lie back over the ball.”
“Really?”
“Really. Lie back.”
I took a deep breath and he held tightly to my hips as I lay back until my head was upside down. Before I could complain about the fact I wasn’t facing the mirror, his tongue parted my flesh and found my center.
“Oh, shit,” I whispered.
Something about being in this position made me feel both totally powerless and totally in control, as if I were a queen being tended to by a servant. My thighs rested on his shoulders as he held tightly to the ball to steady me. But it was his tongue that was the star of the show. He licked me softly then firmly, making my lower half quiver while the blood rushed to my head, making me feel slightly panicked and dizzy. It was a mixture of pleasure and pain I had never experienced.
“Oh, yes.”
His tongue massaged me in a rolling motion, and I could feel the orgasm building throughout my entire body. I shuddered as he gently rocked the ball back and forth.
“Oh, God!” I whimpered as my legs clamped around his head and my entire body curled inward then collapsed over the ball as waves of pleasure rolled through me.
I felt as if the ball were going to roll sideways and I was going to fall off, but somehow he managed to hold it steady until my body stopped trembling. He slowly rolled me forward to lower me down until I was sitting on the mat.
“What the hell was that?” I whispered as I tried to catch my breath. My legs were still shaking and my arms were a bit wobbly as I attempted to lean back.
“Lay back and relax.”
My arms shook as I lowered myself back until I was lying before him.
“Don’t wrap your legs around me this time,” he said, and I had a feeling I knew why. He wanted to be able to control how deep he entered me.
He slid forward between my legs, but I pushed down on his shoulder to stop him before he entered. “Do you have a condom? I haven’t been taking my pills.”
“Come on. Let’s take this to the bedroom.”
Once we reached his bedroom, where his nightstand was stocked with a lifetime supply of condoms, everything went hazy. It turned out Milo did know tricks I had never heard of, and it took a bit of self-inflicted amnesia to let him teach me those tricks without thinking of Luke.
I woke to find the other side of the bed empty, but still slightly warm. I ran my hand over the silky sheet for a moment before Milo walked in wearing athletic shorts, a tank top, and a gray hoodie.
“Where are you going?”
He grabbed his phone off the dresser and slipped it into the pocket of his shorts. “Kickboxing. I go every Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday. You can stay. I’ll only be gone a couple of hours. Feel free to make yourself some coffee, or whatever the hell you do in the morning.”
I rolled out of bed, making sure to keep the sheet wrapped around me. “It’s no big deal. If you’ve got stuff to do, I can get dressed pretty quick. Have you seen my shirt?”
He watched me from the doorway with a bemused expression as I clung desperately to the sheet. “Brina, relax.” He walked toward me and my body tensed. “I’ll be back in a couple of hours.”
“Kickboxing?” I muttered as he looked me in the eye, his face just inches from mine. “But you’re so…”
“Geeky? Yeah, that’s what the kids at school used to say until I started kickboxing.”
“Aw…was little Milo bullied?”
He reached up and tucked a lock of hair behind my ear as he leaned in to kiss my neck. “Not for long,” he whispered in my ear before his lips fell over my skin.
I drew in a sharp breath as his right hand slid around my waist while his left cradled the back of my skull. He forced my head to the side to open up my neck, as if he were a vampire getting ready to suck me dry. His lips moved softly over the curve of my shoulder, up my neck, until he reached my jaw. He pulled back and looked me in the eye, and that’s when I realized I had dropped the sheet. He never attempted to look at my body as he held my gaze.
“I’ll be back soon, and we can take a walk to that ramen place.”
He walked away without looking back. I sunk onto the bed and buried my face in my hands. What was I doing? This was wrong—extremely hot, but extremely wrong. This was Milo. I couldn’t tread into such dangerous rebound territory with Milo.
I closed my eyes and Luke’s face appeared before me, his lips puckered exaggeratedly like when he would threaten to kiss me when I was annoyed with him. I squeezed my eyes tighter against the image, but his face returned. This time, he was staring at me the way he used to when he knew I was thinking about my brother, with no pity, just compassion. God, I missed him so much.
My phone rang, and I scrambled toward the sound coming from the top of Milo’s dresser, beyond grateful for the distraction. I didn’t even bother looking at the caller ID.
“Hello?”
“Brina.” His voice was like warm tea laced with arsenic, all at once soothing me and killing me. My heart stuttered and raced inside me as my entire body shivered.
“Brina, are you there?”
God, how I loved the way he said my name.
“Luke.”
“Brina, I think we need to talk. There are some things I didn’t have a chance to tell you yesterday.”
“What is it?” I asked.
Maybe he was going to tell me he loved me, and all that stuff about having a new girlfriend was just a bad joke.
“I’d rather tell you this face-to-face. I can pick you up at your parents’ house in thirty minutes.”
I didn’t bother asking how he knew I was living with my parents. “I’m not home.”
The pause on the other end of the line made my skin prickle. “Oh.”
Shit!
“I’m at a friend’s apartment,” I added, hoping he would assume I was referring to Jill.
“Well, I’d really like to see you, but I don’t want to interrupt if you’re busy.”
“I’m not busy. No one’s here. I’ll be waiting out front in an hour.”
I gave him the address to the apartments across the street from Milo’s building and he paused again. Did he know where Milo lived?
“What’s wrong?” I asked, trying not to let my paranoia tinge my voice.
“Nothing. I’ll see you in an hour.”
I shook my head as I set my phone down on the bed, where I had just committed unspeakable acts with Milo. I had to wash away this sin. I had to wash away Milo’s scent. It was all over me.
I turned on the shower in his bright-white bathroom. Everything was white except for a dark wooden spa bench inside his huge shower. I tried not to imagine him sitting on the bench getting a blowjob, but it was impossible. Ever since last night, everything about Milo and his apartment screamed sex.
I stepped into the shower and my eyes widened as I glimpsed the array of bath products arranged neatly on the built-in shelves. They were all men’s products. I was going to meet Luke alone for the first time in over a month, and I would do it smelling like a man. If he didn’t already suspect I had spent the night with someone, then this would surely tip him off.
I used the smallest amount of soap and shampoo I could then quickly exited Milo’s sex shower and toweled off. I grimaced as I pulled on yesterday’s t-shirt and jeans and realized they smelled like Milo. He was inescapable. I did a half-ass blow-dry of my hair and raced outside to stand in front of the apartment building across the street.
Seven minutes later, my mouth went dry as Luke’s car pulled up in front of me. I slid into the passenger seat and, for just a second, I managed to pretend that nothing had ever happened. He was picking me up to go out to dinner or to go sailing.
Then he spoke and the illusion was broken. “Thanks for meeting me.”
His gaze penetrated my t-shirt. He made no effort to stop himself from ogling my chest.
“Hey,” I said in an attempt to focus his attention.
He looked up, and the sheepish grin on his face made me want to lean over and kiss him.
“I guess old habits die hard,” he said as he pulled out onto the road and set off toward the outskirts.
“Where are we going?”
“Greene’s.” We hadn’t been to his favorite café since the first and only time he took me there—the time he revealed I was the only woman he had ever taken to Greene’s. I wondered if that was still true.
“So…how was your visit to San Francisco?” I asked when the silence became too much.
“I haven’t gone yet.”
He didn’t offer any further explanation. I wanted to admonish him for not visiting his parents as he had promised me he would, but I didn’t have any right to hold him to promises he had made while we were engaged in our sham relationship. But I couldn’t help but wonder if he would have made the trip to San Francisco if we had stayed together. The blast radius of our breakup reached farther than I could have imagined.
Once we were inside the café, wrapped in the cool, coffee-scented air, he pointed toward the empty sofa in the back of the café. “Go ahead and sit down.”
“But you don’t know what I want.”
He pursed his lips. “You’re getting an espresso.”
“Do I not have a choice?”
Frustration flashed across his face as he realized he had lost some of his power over me. He was not pleased. “Fine. What would you like to drink?”
I smiled. “Double espresso.”
He narrowed his eyes at me. “Why I oughta…Go sit down.”
I couldn’t erase the beaming grin from my face as I took a seat on the sofa. He returned quickly with two tiny cups filled with steaming espresso. He placed them both on the coffee table and took a seat next to me, far enough away so we weren’t touching.
“What did you want to talk about?” I asked as I reached for my drink.
He placed his hand over mine before I could lift the cup. “Wait a second. You’re going to drink it right this time.”
I gazed at his hand on mine, and the longing I had been fighting off the past five weeks returned, making my limbs ache. He pulled his hand back, and I didn’t have to look at him to know he had felt it too.
My mind drew back to the last time we sat here, when he reprimanded me for gulping my espresso too quickly. I was wearing a t-shirt and jeans he had made me wear, and he was dressed in a suit, minus the jacket. Everything was the same except this brick wall that had been erected between us. The graffiti on the wall was clear—bold block letters spelling out It’s over.
“Just sip it slowly,” he said.
Why did he care how I sipped the espresso? It’s not as if I would ever come back to this place without him. I took a small sip of the hot, bitter liquid and flashed him a quick smile. “Mmm…”
“Can you taste it?” he asked, a note of childlike hope in his voice.
“Taste what?”
He took a sip of his espresso and rolled it around in his mouth before he swallowed. “It’s a little fruity.”
I couldn’t help but think of the time he took me to IHOP, and the waitress ogled him as he ate his Rooty Tooty Fresh and Fruity breakfast. She was probably startled by both his exquisiteness and his enthusiasm for pancakes.
“Fruity, huh?” I asked, unable to hide my smile.
He shook his head. “Stop grinning and take another sip.”
“God, you’re so bossy,” I replied before I took another slow sip.
He watched me eagerly, awaiting my reaction. “Well?”
“Is that a hint of caramel I detect?”
“You’re such a nerd,” he said.
The look of admiration on his face warmed my insides more than the coffee.
“Luke?”
His smile faded. “I know.”
Who were we kidding, pretending this was some kind of date?
“What did you want to talk about?” I asked, though I didn’t really want to know. I just wanted to sit here sipping espresso until the end of time…or until one of us died of a caffeine overdose, whichever came first.
He took a deep breath as he stared at the espresso cups. “I wanted to talk to you about what happened yesterday.”
“Please, Luke, you don’t have to apologize.”
“It’s not that. It’s just that I didn’t get to say everything I wanted to say.” His gaze shifted away from the coffee table and found my eyes. “Brina…I’m moving.”
“Okay…where are you moving to?”
He looked down at my knees. “Not far. South Lake Union.”
“I don’t understand. What’s the big deal about the fact that you’re moving? And, what the hell? Why can’t you look me in the eye?”
He heaved a deep sigh as he looked up. “I’m moving in with Olivia.”
It couldn’t have hurt more if he had literally punched me in the gut. I shut my eyes. I couldn’t look at him. I couldn’t speak. The only word I could even think was, Why? But I couldn’t ask him that.
“Brina? Please say something.”
“Why…?” I whispered. “Why…are yo
u telling me this?”
“I didn’t want you to hear it from someone else.”
I rubbed at the pain in my chest. “Oh, God. I can’t breathe.” I stood up quickly and the darkness in the café was disorienting. “I have to go.”
He shot up from the sofa and grabbed my arm. “Wait. I’ll drive you.”
I wrenched my arm free. “Don’t touch me.”
“Come on, Brina, the last thing I wanted to do was hurt you. You don’t deserve that.”
I couldn’t help but laugh. “Are you kidding me? That’s what this is about, isn’t it? You’re still trying to get revenge for what I almost did to you. First, I’m fired, and then I make a fool of myself at your fucking conference, but that wasn’t enough. You had to bring me here and flirt with me before you dealt the final blow.” My entire body trembled as I shook my head. “I didn’t think you were capable of this.”
Chapter 4
Luke
I was chasing after her for the second time in two days. She dodged a heavyset woman on her way out the door, and I cursed as the woman and I did a which-way-are-you-going dance. I finally scooted around her and tore through the door.
“Brina!” I called after her as she powerwalked through the parking lot toward the sidewalk.
She glared at me over her shoulder and kept walking. I darted across the asphalt and easily caught up to her.
“I would never deliberately hurt you. You know that,” I insisted as I tried to keep pace with her while also dodging light poles.
She slowed down a bit and her face softened. Maybe it was the fact she was still wearing the jeans and t-shirt she’d worn to the conference yesterday to see me. Maybe it was the way the snarl on her luscious lips slowly disappeared. Or maybe it was just that I could no longer fight it.
I stepped in front of her, catching her off guard as I took her face in my hands, and kissed her. Her hands clutched the front of my shirt as she leaned into me. I breathed in her scent and I had to fight the urge to pull away from her as her tongue sought mine. She smelled like a man, but I couldn’t bring myself to break the connection. I kissed her hungrily, savoring the faint taste of coffee and lip-gloss.
