by Brill Harper
She rises to her knees and brings the book up to her chest. “It says here there are thirty kinds of kissing.”
My ears start ringing and stars circle my vision like I’m in a damn cartoon.
“I don’t think I’ve experienced thirty different kinds, though I bet you used several of these on me the other night. Maybe you’re right. Maybe I can’t learn everything from a book. Maybe some things just need to be experienced to be understood.”
I don’t think. I’m past the ability to do so anyway. I haul her to me and crush her mouth to mine. I don’t know the number of this type of kiss, but it’s full of frustration. Hunger. I’m furious with her, with myself.
She clings to me when she should push me away. My hands roam her back until they’re under the hem of my shirt and I’ve got two handfuls of her luscious ass. I squeeze. “This is all a setup, isn’t it? You’re seducing me on purpose.”
She pulls her head back far enough to answer. “Of course I am.”
“Just wanted to be clear.”
We tumble onto the couch and all I know is the way she tastes, her scent, her soft skin. I haven’t had a make-out session on a couch in a really long time. I kiss her harder, my tongue dancing past her lips. Panting, I break the kiss and rest my forehead against hers. “I don’t like how easy it is for you to manipulate me.”
She looks up at me a little shyly but smiling. “Do you want me to stop?”
“Hell, no.” I want her desperately. “I don’t think you should just get away with it though.”
“You’re right. I’ve been such a naughty girl. You better teach me a lesson.”
My hand grabs the back of her head, pulling her up. Tru gasps as my lips crush into hers again. I cup her firm, pert breast, squeezing and caressing under the material of my shirt.
Growling, I shift, pushing my body down against hers, pinning her to the couch as I kiss her. She purrs against my mouth and arches her back, pushing those sweet curves into me.
I’m lost.
I pull the shirt open, rending the buttons from the material. Like a striking snake, I dip my head and take a naked tit in my mouth, sucking hard on that little pink bud. She moans and writhes under me, and I press my fingers against the bare folds of her wet pussy.
Wait, bare. She wasn’t bare last time.
Startled, I lean back.
“I tried another experiment,” she says sheepishly.
I chuckle. “You’re one surprise after another.” She still has a tiny triangle of hair, almost an arrow in case I get lost. But there’s no chance of that, not when my fingers slide so easily where I want to be most.
“Oh,” she moans as my fingers work within her. I drop my head to suck on her luscious tits, licking and biting her hard nipples, drawing startled cries from her gasping mouth. It appears she likes it a little rough, which is all I need to spur me on.
I move all my attention lower, working two fingers in and out of her. She’s tight. Warm, moist, slippery. So erotic. Her hips are moving in time with my fingers, encouraging my actions. She begins to make little moans of pleasure, so I continue working her up before turning my fingers over, face up, and begin my search for that hidden spot maybe she doesn’t even know about yet.
There it is. I can feel the spongy patch, swollen with excitement. I use my middle finger to rub it softly, back and forth. She’s got her breasts in her own hands, pushing them together and the cleavage creates a new item for my bucket list of places I want to put my dick.
Her scent is powerful and erotic, drugging all my senses. Her body pitches, shaking. “That's it, baby, I want you to come.” I press harder on her clit with my thumb and she loses all control. A small amount of clear liquid shoots out of her and onto my hand as her body convulses around me.
When the final spasms of her orgasm pass, I sit up, my hungry eyes devouring every inch of her beautiful, naked body from her tangled hair, her flushed face, the soft curves of her tits, her rounded hips, her wet, swollen pussy.
I’ve never been so in awe of any damn thing in my life.
“What was that?” she asks, not so smug anymore.
“That was the hottest fucking thing I’ve ever seen in my life.” I ease my hand out of her. “You’re amazing.”
“Should I be embarrassed? I feel like I...”
“You didn’t pee yourself. You just rewarded me with a very rare and wonderful thing people sometimes call female ejaculation. But maybe we can discuss it in more detail later.” I pull her hand to me, pressing her fingers against the hard bulge straining within my jeans. She sits up and opens my jeans, pulling out my hardened, thick shaft. It’s soaked with precum.
Her fingers close around me and slowly stroke the length. “I didn’t really get to see this the other night. We got rushed.”
“We’re going to get rushed again.”
My mind starts working on the fastest way to get to a condom when her mouth opens and her lips slip quickly around the head of my dick. I throw my head back and groan in pleasure as her warm, wet mouth engulfs me. My pleasure starts building too fast, my hips rocking and thrusting involuntarily. “Not so fast, Tru.”
I have to pull her off my dick, God bless her. I practically throw her down and settle myself between her legs. With a hard thrust, I bury myself to the hilt in her wetness. Her body spasming under me, she cries out as I thrust too vigorously into her.
“Did I hurt you?”
She scores my back with her fingernails. “No.”
“Oh, fuck,” I groan. “Fuck, you feel good. You like this cock inside you?”
“Yes.”
I’m too rough, but she’s clawing me right back, quivering and shaking under me as I drive into her over and over again.
Her pussy tightens around me, milking me as she shatters, and with one final thrust and a roar, my body tenses and unloads deep inside her, spasm after spasm. An alarm tries to go off in my head, a warning, but all I can do is collapse my shaking body on top of her.
For a long time we lay together, limbs tangled and sweaty.
And sticky. So damn sticky.
I have never come inside a woman without a glove. She’s done something to me. Some kind of spell. She turns off my brain and turns on my inner caveman.
“I’m sorry, Tru. I didn’t use a condom.”
The sweaty spell is broken and she sits up, untangling from me. My shirt is hanging off just one of her wrists, the button holding it on her. Why is that hot?
“I’m on the pill. And after I found out I wasn’t in a monogamous marriage, I had every test there is performed...twice.” She shudders. “You?”
“I get tested regularly.” I sit up all the way, bracing my elbows on my knees and holding my head in my hand. What a goddamned downer this kind of discussion can be after the hottest sex I’ve ever had. “I haven’t been with anyone else recently.”
She’s trying to get the shirt back on, but it’s all twisted around making her one hot, disheveled mess. “Define recently.”
I exhale loudly. “It’s been at least six months for me. And this is the only time without protection.”
She nods then surprise colors her features. “Six months? I just assumed...”
“I’m a careful man, Gertrude. You should know that by now.”
Things are strained between us when it feels like we should be closer than ever. It doesn’t make sense to me. I’m not the guy who needs or wants a relationship with a woman. Sex has always been just sex, and I don’t know why this is different. Why the intimacy seems more important, and the lack of it right now makes me hollow inside.
Maybe I’m changing. Maybe she’s changing me. I go to bed, alone, because I need to think about this. Weigh it in my mind.
In the morning, I find her business plan on the desk in the office downstairs and realize she still plans to sell the bar.
What am I doing?
She breezes into the office, looking relaxed and well-sexed. A fist squeezes my heart when I realize h
ow beautiful she is. How much I want her both naked and fully clothed in my office.
She loops her arms around my neck. “I’m wondering if I can still get a refund on my sex toy. I don’t think I’m going to need it after all. Not after last night.”
Fuck. I forgot all about that damn thing. I close my eyes against the flash fantasy of using it on her myself. I wonder if it has any special features. Does it vibrate? I’d love to torture her to the edge and back over and over again.
I sigh and pull her arms off my neck, pulling away from her before she can kiss me.
I need space, and I have none. She’s in my apartment, in my bar, and in my head. Next stop is my heart if I’m not careful, and that business plan on the desk means my foolish heart needs to wake up and smell the coffee.
I learned from my mother that wanting more than you have is dangerous. That’s how you get hurt. I promised myself I’d be content with what I have and never yearn for what I don’t a long time ago. It’s time to remember who I am.
Tru
I LOOK UP FEMALE EJACULATION in between pulling drafts, and am relieved I didn’t wet myself last night, but I’m not sure how I feel about Nash knowing secrets about my body that I didn’t even know.
He’s acting weirder today than even yesterday. I thought we went someplace new, but now he’s running even faster in the other direction.
After we close the pub, I turn on some jazz standards, but he doesn’t spin me around the bar like before. I’m trying to work up some anger, but when I sneak looks at him, he’s so...sad. His long face is pulling feelings from me like...go comfort him. But the wall he’s built is awkward. I really don’t know what to do. I thought I had it handled with the “just seduce him” thing, but that only seems to work in the moment. A very fine moment, but it doesn’t carry over.
I don’t even know what I want from him. I thought it was just the sex. But the space around my heart is physically aching from the space between us. I want the friend. I want the lover. I want the business partner. But it feels like I might only end up with “that guy I used to know.”
What a sad thought. That space around my heart squeezes a little more.
I really like Nash. Most of the time. He’s funny, level-headed, more caring than he knows. He’s a good man. Despite my disturbing his whole life, he’s shown me how to stand on my own feet. How to learn new things. He takes care of me without making me feel like I can’t do it myself.
We make it through the whole day acting like strangers. This evening, he is hanging up the dog leashes on the hooks he installed near the apartment door this afternoon when he hangs his head.
“Nash, what is wrong? You’ve been acting strangely all day.”
He crosses the room like it’s the corridor to the electric chair. “I don’t want you to get the wrong idea about us. What this is.”
“Okay.” My head is held high, but my knees feel a little shaky. He’s breaking things off then.
“I’m not trying to hurt your feelings.”
I nod. Of course not. “Have I done something wrong?”
He tunnels his hands through his thick hair, mussing it up sexily. “No, of course not. We just need to create better boundaries. We are done with the sex.”
“I see.” Shame fires inside my belly. “This is about the...squirting thing, isn’t it?” I should have known it wasn’t as great as he pretended.
“No. Not at all.” His hands clench into fists, once, twice. “That was actually the most awesome thing ever. This has nothing to do with you. It’s just...with us living together... I mean in the same apartment, and working together, the sex is confusing things. It’s getting too domestic.”
The old Tru is trying to break into my thoughts with embarrassment or low confidence, but the new Tru, the one I’m building from scratch, is actually doing some quick calculations.
He continues as if he can’t see the shift coming over me. He goes into the kitchen and starts the kettle, pulling two mugs down and opening the box of tea. “I don’t want you to get the wrong idea. I’m not the settling down type.”
I cross my arms over my chest, watching him as he carries on with making tea. Tea. “You certainly are not domesticated at all.”
He apparently doesn’t hear the sarcasm. “Right. That’s what I’m saying.” He gets a fresh towel out from the drawer and wipes down the counter. “I like being single. And you’re the kind of woman who needs a different kind of man.”
“Sure I am.”
He switches the magnet on the dishwasher and opens it to empty it, pulling out the rack. “Why is your dildo in here?”
“I wanted to clean it before I used it.”
He stands up and scrubs his hands over his stubbled cheeks. “Right, okay. You haven’t, uh, used it yet.”
I shake my head and meander over. We both stare at it. “No. Haven’t had a chance. Guess I will now. Since you and I are done with the whole sex thing.”
He swallows hard, his hands clenching and unclenching repeatedly. “Tru...I—”
Whatever he was going to say is swallowed by the shrilling whistle of the kettle. He shakes his head to clear it and pulls the kettle off the heat, pouring the water into the cups.
But not in a domesticated way, of course.
“I’ll just take my tea into my room,” I say, making a show of plucking the dildo from the rack first. “Thank you for being honest with me.”
I smile and he narrows his eyes. “You’re thinking that you’re going to seduce me again. You think I have no willpower and that the idea of you and that purple...that I won’t be able to stop myself.”
“Nope. I heard you loud and clear. We are done having sex together. You don’t want me to fall for you because you are happy being alone, so you’re doing me a big favor by saving my heart from the inevitable breakup that is coming because you don’t think I can handle a purely sexual relationship.”
“What are you up to?”
“I’m up to having a purely sexual relationship with my new toy. I hope I don’t develop too many feelings for it. Since I’m prone to throwing my heart around, obviously.”
“I knew you wouldn’t take this well.”
“I’m taking it just fine. I think what you want is for me to throw myself at your feet and beg you to love me, but that’s not going to happen. I was just fine with having a lover. I’m happy being single. I think you are the one getting all the feels, as Stella would say, and that scares the crap out of you.”
“You’re crazy. It would be insane for two people like us to fall in love. We have nothing in common.” He pulls the bag out of my mug and stirs some honey into my tea. Just the way I like it. “I don’t know the first thing about relationships or putting someone else first. And you’re still recovering from having your heart ripped out.”
“I most certainly am not. Richard humiliated me, hurt my pride, but my heart is just fine, thank you very much.”
He makes eye contact with me for the first time tonight, and my world shifts. He’s looked at me with annoyance. He’s looked at me with amusement. He’s looked at me with hunger. This is something completely new.
He’s never looked at me in love before.
Or maybe I just didn’t see it before. Maybe I was too wrapped up in my feelings of inadequacy to notice. And now I can’t not see it. The light in his gorgeous eyes when he looks at me. “You’re falling for me,” I don’t realize the words have tumbled out of my mouth until it’s too late to scoop them back in.
Panic shadows his face. “No.” He shakes his head vehemently. “No, Tru.”
“You are,” I continue, heedless, I guess. “You are. That’s what this is about. You’re not trying to protect my heart. You’re trying to protect yours.”
“Woman, you have been nothing but a trip to Crazy Town since you got here.”
“It’s all right, Nash. I know this isn’t what either of us wanted. We just need to think it through.”
I look around the apartmen
t, the home he’s welcomed me into. The dogs are cuddled together on a bed. Everything fits. I panic a little. “How did we let this happen?”
“We didn’t let anything happen, but I see you are proving my point. I knew you were getting the wrong idea.”
I most certainly cannot fall in love. Not now. Not with him. I mean, he’s great. Better than great. It’s me—I can’t be vulnerable. Not again. Not ever again. That doesn’t mean I don’t get a little flustered with the look of horror in his eyes. “Look, I know why I’m not interested in a relationship. But what exactly is your deal? I mean not just with me, but in general? With relationships?”
“I just never wanted to settle down.”
I take a sip of my tea. Again, he’s not seeing how settled he is. “But why? Did you have a bad breakup?”
“No.”
“Did something happen to you? You never talk about your mother.”
“And I’m not going to start tonight. Go to bed, Tru.”
Oh, hit a nerve, did I? “Is she...gone?”
“She was never here. Not in any meaningful way. I really am not going into it with you.”
At my bland look, he shrugs and sits on the couch, so I join him. “So she’s not dead.”
“Not that I know of.”
Interesting. “Does she live nearby?”
“Tru,” he warns.
“You know every sordid thing about my family life. I shared my most humiliating experience with you. I’m not going to be scared off by you telling me you don’t want to talk about it.”
His voice is clipped, edged with annoyance or anger or both. “My mother was a groupie. Might still be. She followed Ironwing around from bar to bar in Los Angeles, and then when they hit it big, she followed them around from venue to venue. She got knocked up and claimed it was my dad.”
“What do you mean claimed?”
“He never asked for a paternity test. He gave her money, a place to stay. Married her. Ironwing stopped touring because he didn’t think it would be a good way to raise kids. I think he didn’t trust her parenting skills if he wasn’t around, and it turns out he was right.”
