by Bec Linder
“I would hope so, seeing as how I do,” I said.
She shook her head, and picked up a pottery figurine shaped like a little fat-bellied dog that I had bought at a market in Cuzco. “No, I mean, that other place, that was just sad. It didn’t look like anybody really lived there. But I can see you, like, picking out that chair because you liked it and thought it would match the carpet, or whatever.”
“Is that how interior decorating works?” I asked. “I though the carpet was supposed to match the drapes.”
She shot me a dark look, and returned the dog to its place on the coffee table. “That isn’t funny.”
“Come on,” I said, “it’s a little funny.”
“I don’t want to encourage you,” she said. “So is this where you throw all of your wild parties?”
Did she think I was the wild party type? “Not really,” I said. “Actually, nobody knows about this place except my parents and Will. And you, now.”
She looked at me for a moment, her grey eyes wide and luminous, and I wished to God that I knew what she was thinking.
“Let’s eat,” I said, to break the silence. “Lunch is getting cold.”
She sat at the small table, just big enough for two, and I plated the food and brought it out to her.
“It smells really good,” she said, picking up her fork. “What is it?”
I chuckled and took a seat. “Eggplant pizzas and baked polenta fries.”
“Wow,” she said. “And here I thought you mainly survived on takeout.”
“You aren’t wrong,” I said, “but keep in mind that my brother is a chef. I haven’t been able to avoid learning how to make a few simple dishes.”
We ate in silence for a few minutes, and then she said, “Tell me about your family.”
I shrugged. “There isn’t much to say. You’ve met Will. My parents have been married for thirty years. We all get along. It’s fairly boring.”
“Happy families are all alike,” she quoted. I raised an eyebrow, and she rolled her eyes. “I know I didn’t go to college, but it’s not like I crawled out of a swamp.”
“You didn’t go to college?” I asked, surprised.
“Uh, no,” she said. “Didn’t you know that? I didn’t even finish high school. I’ve been working in strip clubs since I was seventeen.”
“Oh, Sasha,” I said, my heart breaking. But I knew she would be irritated if I expressed too much dismay or sympathy, so I said, “I’ll tell you how my parents met.”
“Very adorably,” she said. “Or, no, I bet it was something scandalous, like he was her professor.”
I grinned. “Not quite. My mother didn’t come from money. Her father was an accountant, and her mother taught kindergarten. Very middle-class. Anyway, my mother ended up going to business school, and she was hired on at the Turner Group as a Vice President. Apparently they got into a screaming match the first time they met, and six months later they were engaged.”
“That is pretty adorable,” Sasha said. “And then your dad quit working at the company?”
I nodded. “He’s still on the board, but my mother’s been running the show for decades. He does a lot of philanthropic work now, but when Will and I were younger, he mostly just stayed home with us.”
“That must have been really nice,” she said.
“It was,” I said, “although the whole stay-at-home-dad thing wasn’t so common back then, and he complained a lot that people acted like he was a child molester when he took us to the park.” She laughed, and I said, “Tell me about your parents.”
She looked down at her plate. “They were neighbors. They grew up next door to each other. My mother’s a little bit slow, you know, mentally, and I think my dad felt like he needed to take care of her. They used to turn on the radio in the kitchen, after we were all supposed to be asleep, and they would dance together. Me and my sister would sneak out of bed and watch them. I know he really loved her.”
She was using the past tense, and I remembered the oxygen tank in the picture on her dresser. “Did he die?” I asked, very gently.
She swallowed. “Yeah. A couple of years ago.”
“I’m sorry,” I said.
She looked up at me and gave me a faltering smile. “It’s okay. We all knew it was coming.” She took the last bite of her lunch, and then said, “That was really good. Thanks for cooking for me.”
If she wanted to change the subject, I wasn’t going to act like a boor and refuse. “You’re welcome,” I said. “I’m glad you enjoyed it.”
She leaned back in her chair and gave me a considering look. “Now what?”
Well, all I wanted to do was tumble her into bed and tease her until she forgot her own name, but I thought suggesting that mere moments after discussing her deceased father might be a little crude. “Anything you want,” I said. “We could open a bottle of wine, if you’d like.”
“No,” she said. Her eyelids dipped down, and then she glanced up at me, a sly heat in her eyes that set my pulse racing. “I want you to take me to bed.”
And so I did.
14
I lay her down on her back in my bed, her face lit by the sun streaming through the skylight above. Her hair spread across the pillow in a dark mass. I lay beside her, propped up on one elbow, and drew the fingers of my free hand along her neck and down her chest to the triangle of pale skin revealed by the neckline of her blouse.
She shivered at my touch, and this was one of my favorite things about her: how responsive she was, how eager for more.
“You magnificent creature,” I said.
“I’m not a creature,” she said, wrinkling her nose.
“A nymph,” I said, pressing a kiss to her temple. “A maenad.” I kissed her mouth, feeling it curl into a smile, and she wrapped her arms around me and gave herself over to the kiss.
She was soft and yielding beneath me, and I claimed her mouth with my own, opening her with my tongue, tasting her lips and teeth. I drew my hand down her body, cupping her breast, mapping out the lush curve of her hip. She had the sort of body that would make angels weep. I wanted her naked so that I could explore every inch of her skin. Just the thought of it had my cock standing at attention inside my jeans.
Still kissing her, I began fumbling with the buttons of her blouse. They were small and slippery, and undoing them with one hand was impossible. I groaned, frustrated, and she started laughing.
I pulled away and sat up, looking down at her. “My ego, of course, is unshakable, but you might consider that laughing at a man in this situation isn’t a great way to fill him with confidence.”
“I don’t feel sorry for you at all,” she said. “Is this your first time with a girl? Do you need me to explain how to unhook a bra?”
I could think of at least five snappy replies, but I held my tongue for once and simply gazed at her. This was what I had wanted, and now I had it: Sasha mocking me, her eyes filled with laughter, her face flushed and her mouth wet. I would never get enough.
“I’m just kidding,” she said.
“I know,” I said, and ran my thumb along her lower lip. “Don’t worry, sweetheart. I learned how to unfasten a bra in the eighth grade.”
“Yeah, and I bet you were fucking your way through the cheerleaders by the time you hit high school,” she said. “But I like pretending I’m the only one for you.” She reached up to unfasten the first button.
Well, she was the only one for me now, but I would never tell her that. I couldn’t imagine sleeping with another woman, not after I’d had my mouth on Sasha’s tits, and heard the little noises she made when she came. She had ruined me for good. “You’re right,” I said. “I’ve never been with a woman before. You’re my very first. Be gentle with me.”
She grinned, her eyes crinkling. “We’ll go slow, then. Why don’t you take off my shirt?”
I took my time unbuttoning her blouse. The tease, after all, was half the fun. As I slipped each button through its tightly-stitched hole, my f
ingers brushed against her skin, and she twitched slightly each time. Ticklish, then. Something to keep in mind, and exploit at a later date. When I reached the bottom of her shirt, I spread the placket open, revealing the lacy black bra just barely containing her breasts. I exhaled slowly. Fancy lingerie was cheating. It was all I could do not to fall on top of her and take her right then, foreplay be damned.
“Now you should take off my skirt,” she said. She drew one of her legs up and planted her foot on the bed, and the skirt rode up and pooled at her upper thigh. I took the gesture as the invitation it was and slid one hand up her thigh, very slowly, and realized she wasn’t wearing panties an instant before my fingers brushed against her bare flesh.
She was wet already, slick and swollen. “Jesus Christ,” I said, “don’t you ever wear underpants, woman?”
She laughed. “Sometimes. I like getting some airflow, you know?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “Please tell me more about this. Do you go commando on the subway?” I liked the idea of her sitting across from me on a crowded subway car, wearing a short skirt and slowly spreading her legs to show me her pussy. I had a feeling it wouldn’t take much persuasion to talk her into some exceptionally naughty public sex. In that same subway car, maybe, during rush hour, both of us standing up, Sasha holding onto a pole and doing her best not to cry out—
Down, boy. Stay focused. I had no need for fantasies when the real thing was right here, waiting for me to touch her. I caressed her thighs, her skin smooth and soft beneath my palms, and slid her skirt up around her waist. She was pink, luscious, and all mine. I dipped my thumb inside, and then slid it up toward her clit, rolling a slow circle around the tight nub.
“Well,” she said, and blew out a little puff of air, already distracted by my fingers. “It’s just nice, you know, feeling the—breeze—ah—”
I had ducked my head and put my mouth on her, and she lost the thread of her sentence after that. She tasted good and smelled even better. I settled in for a long, slow exploration, licking her first with the broad flat of my tongue, and then firming it to a point to flicker over her clit. I loved everything about going down on a woman, and Sasha wasn’t shy. She didn’t try to hide herself or apologize for imagined flaws. She ran her hands over my head, her fingernails scratching lightly at my scalp, a maddening tease.
My cock throbbed with desire, but I wasn’t done with her yet.
I pressed two fingers into her tight heat, giving her something to bear down on, and she sighed sweetly and flexed around me. The hot clutch of her body made me think, unavoidably, of sliding my cock inside and fucking her until we were both too worn out to move or think.
“Don’t stop,” she sighed, and I smiled against her. I had no intention of stopping.
I could tell when she got close, because her steady breathing turned into desperate pants, and her legs began shifting against the bed, restless. She moved her hips in tiny rocking motions, working herself against me, rubbing against my tongue—and Christ, it made me hotter than it should have to realize that she was using my mouth to get herself off.
I redoubled my efforts.
It didn’t take long after that.
“Alex, oh,” she cried out, and tried to pull me away. I ignored her. Her body spoke to me in its timeless language, and I knew she didn’t want me to stop. Her hips arched against me, her cries growing louder in the quiet room, and I sucked at her clit and twisted my fingers inside of her, curling them up toward her navel. She made a high, sharp noise, almost a squeak, and came, shuddering, squeezing around my fingers, throbbing beneath my tongue as I eased her though it.
When she quieted, I pressed a kiss to her thigh and drew away, my mouth wet with her desire.
She was sprawled, red-faced, panting, and each breath shoved her glorious tits one millimeter closer to spilling out of her bra altogether. She was sweaty, disheveled, and perfect, and my cock was hard and raring to go. I gave her a minute to recover, and then I said, “You’re still wearing too many clothes. Strip.”
She sat up and shrugged out of her blouse, and I took it from her and tossed it on the floor. I didn’t care if it got ruined. I would buy her another one. Then she lay down again and arched her hips off the bed to tug off her skirt. She shoved it down toward her feet and kicked it off the end of the bed. Clothed in nothing but her bra, bare from the waist down, she rolled to face me and said, “I’ll let you do the honors.”
“Mm, and what an honor it is,” I said. I slid one hand behind her back and found the clasp of her bra. In one motion, I squeezed and twisted, and the band opened up.
She laughed. “You’re showing off.”
“Am I?” I asked. I slid the straps from her shoulders, and bent to kiss the upper curve of each breast, the lacy fabric scratching against my chin. I loved breasts of all shapes and sizes—small, large, lopsided, perky, a little asymmetrical—but hers were about as close to perfection as you could get: not so big that they looked out of proportion, but enough to make a generous, squeezable handful, and tipped with pink nipples, the exact color of the inside of a seashell, that tightened up so wonderfully against my tongue.
“Yeah. I use both hands,” she said.
It took me a moment to snap out of my breast fugue and remember what she was talking about. “It’s best to keep one hand free when you’re in bed with a beautiful woman,” I said. I pushed the bra down to expose her breasts and bent to suck one nipple into my mouth. It obediently tightened into a firm little nub. Sasha made a sighing noise and moved to give me better access.
I could have spent all day there, burying my face in her frankly incredible tits, but I had other plans. I caught her around the waist and rolled onto my back, drawing her on top of me. She straddled my hips, her hands braced on my chest, and looked down at me, her hair falling around her face, thick and dark. “I want you to ride me,” I said.
A slow flush spread across her chest and face. “You still have all your clothes on,” she said.
I spread my arms wide and smirked at her. “I guess you’ll have to do something about that.”
Together, we undressed me. Sasha tugged my t-shirt over my head and unzipped my chinos, slipping one of her little hands into the fly to curl around my dick. “Not yet,” I told her, drawing her hand away, and laughed at her when she pouted. My trousers were old and faded, loose at the waist, and they were easy to shove down and kick away. My shorts followed.
Then we were naked together, and Sasha actually blushed as she reached down to rub her thumb over the head of my cock.
“Oh, no you don’t,” I said, pulling her hand away again. “If you start with that, this is going to be over way too fast.”
“I guess you don’t have a lot of control, since this is your first time and everything,” she said.
“Little girl, no man alive could make it more than five minutes with you,” I said. “But I’m superhuman, so I’ll aim for ten. Now reach into that nightstand and get a condom for me.”
She did as she was told, and I gazed admiringly at her waist and hips as she leaned over to open the nightstand drawer. Once she had the foil packet in hand, she hesitated, poised above me, and then ripped it open with a quick motion of her fingers.
“Oh, are you going to put that on for me? Probably for the best,” I said. “I’ve never done it, you know.”
She rolled her eyes, but she was smiling. “Didn’t you ever practice with a banana?” she asked. “They made us do that in sex ed in fifth grade. We were all so embarrassed that we just giggled the entire time.”
“I don’t want to think about you in fifth grade,” I said. “Unless you were already fully developed and seducing the gym teacher, in which case, I’m always game for a little role-play.”
She rolled her eyes again, and then, steadying my cock with one hand curled around the base, rolled the condom onto me.
The touch of her hand nearly undid me, and I was wholly lost when she rose onto her knees and positioned me at her e
ntrance, and then sank down, inch by agonizing inch, taking me inside.
“My God,” I said, and she laughed at me. She was always laughing at me.
I never wanted her to stop.
She rose and fell above me, riding me expertly, and I watched her, my hands gripping her generous hips, as she moved and gasped and made the most delightful noises I had ever heard. Her breasts swayed with each movement. Her belly curved outward below her navel. Her thighs enclosed my hips, holding me fast. She was everything a woman should be. It was like watching porn, only better, because it was Sasha.
“You love this, don’t you?” I asked. “Riding my dick. If I kept you in my bed all the time, if I never let you go outside—”
“That would be creepy,” she said.
“I suppose we would have to eat at some point,” I said. “But otherwise... Christ, you feel good.”
She grinned, and then arched backwards, face turned up toward the ceiling, and started moving faster. Her hair brushed against the tops of my legs. Time elongated strangely: a moment became an hour of watching her mouth open around a moan, and then things sped up again, and she was moving too quickly, escaping my grasp. I hadn’t done drugs in years, not since that crazy summer in Greece when I was in college, but it was that same feeling: the lifting, the ecstasy, the sensation of somehow being outside myself.
If I could bottle Sasha and sell her on the black market, I’d be a far wealthier man than I already was.
I couldn’t have said how long it lasted. My cock was hard and throbbing and ready to explode, but I held on, determined that I wasn’t going to give in before she did.
“Alex,” she said, clear and sweet, looking down at me.
It was so good to hear her call me that, and the pleading note in her voice was even better. I loved to hear her beg.
