“Oh, no, please. Please, do it.” I touched my breasts and I saw his jaw clench. “Go on. Do it.”
“Yes, touch your tits. Play with them.” His hand moved steadily on his cock. “Open your legs. I want to look at your pussy.”
I did, proud to expose my secret flesh to him, awed at his lack of inhibition, thrilled by the expression on his face. I recognized the sounds he made, the changes in his breath, the shudder in his thighs that indicated he was about to come.
His hand blurred and a stream of warm semen splashed onto my chest and stomach. He moaned and dropped forward, one hand at my side, his face against my breast.
“God,” he said. “Oh, my God, Jo. I don’t know whether I should apologize or fetch a towel. That was so damn amazing.”
I giggled. “We’ve gone all triple-X rated and it’s our second night together and we haven’t even fucked yet.”
He gave a long sigh of contentment and settled between my legs, nibbling at my nipple in a lazy sort of way. “So what depraved act would you like to commit next? I think you should give me a demonstration with the infamous vibrator.”
“Which one?”
“Which one? How many do you have?”
“A whole stable of them,” I said proudly. “Look in that wooden box.”
He opened the box, shaking his head. “And here I was thinking that this was where you kept your girlish mementoes, the corsage from the prom and so on.”
“They are my girlish mementoes.”
He turned one on and gave a yelp of alarm at the loud buzz. “Please don’t tell me you use this with the windows open. I’ve had power tools quieter than this. Your neighbors must think you’re really into home improvement.”
“Not my choice. It was a Christmas present.”
“I hope you didn’t open it under the tree with your family looking on.”
I picked my favorite from the box. “This one is the Rolls-Royce of vibrators, very expensive, very sexy, produces quiet purrs.”
“And loud screams, I hope.” He settled with his head on one arm, and scratched his chest. “You have a couple of orgasms and then we’ll find some other naughty things to do.”
I loved it, watching him watch me. At first. He nibbled on my ear and whispered sexy things that got me hot, but then that reminded me a little of Mr. D. And I hadn’t thought of Mr. D. once until then.
I switched the vibrator off.
“What’s up?”
“I think I’m all orgasmed out. Sorry.”
“We’ll give you a break, then.” He reached for his eyeglasses from the bedside table. “What’s wrong, Jo? I feel like you’ve faded away.”
I shook my head. “I’m tired.”
I was lying, and I think he knew it. Sometime I’d have to tell him about Mr. D. and how sex had become for me something in which I participated with glee, but always with that thought at the back of my mind, Wait until I tell Mr. D., or Mr. D. will love how I spice this up when I tell him.
But I wasn’t gathering material for a story. It was just Patrick and me, and that was what scared me and now made me back off. I’d forgotten the intensity of crawling into another person’s skin and how the boundaries between two bodies, two minds, dissolved.
“Sleep, then.” He gathered me in his arms, my butt against his cock, his leg flung over mine. He reached over me to put his eyeglasses back on the bedside table.
“You’re still hard,” I murmured, wondering whether I should offer a polite hand job.
“Like I said, I usually am around you. Just ignore it. I’m sure it will go down on its own.”
I reached behind me and stroked him.
He sighed. “Ah, that’s nice, but you don’t have to. Here, let me show you how to get me off fast.” His hand clasped mine and together we pumped hard, his breathing quickening until he buried his face into my neck and warm wetness spread on my back.
“Your territory’s marked again,” I said.
He kissed the back of my neck. “Is it?”
I didn’t answer; there was nothing I could say that did not open up a whole new dangerous area.
Then he said, “I suppose it’s too soon to talk about love.”
One of the advantages of wearing glasses was that particular thrill you got from seeing them on the nightstand in a woman’s bedroom after your first night together. Or an approximation of a first night, since they weren’t actually fucking. But there his glasses sat, along with a paperback flipped open, cover up, to keep her place—she was reading Ursula Le Guin, which he thought he’d like to talk to her about sometime, except he hadn’t read this one and had some catching up to do. There was so much he’d like to talk to her about, although he knew he had to tread carefully. She was cautious around him, and that was smart; hadn’t he warned her he was damaged goods? And he was being cautious around her, with his fucking embargo, which, with his dick prodding against the bedclothes, seemed an exceptionally bad idea.
He was already in deep enough that the insertion of his tab A into her slot B (or C) couldn’t possibly make much difference to the way he felt about her. Christ, he’d mentioned love last night. No wonder she wasn’t around to greet him and his morning erection with cries of delight. But he hoped she’d been asleep at that point and missed that bit of post-orgasmic idiocy.
He put his glasses on and took a look around her room. A nice, peaceful sort of place, nothing fancy. A few pictures he’d like to take a look at later, lots of candles (which they hadn’t lit last night, being too interested in getting naked) and a bookcase he’d investigate to see what other writers they both liked. Her Mac sat on a small desk in one corner.
The door pushed open and he sat up, expecting Jo, but it was only her cat, who gave him a reproachful look and jumped onto the bed, kneading the quilt with its paws, tail waving in the air.
“Yeah, boyo, I slept here last night,” Patrick said. “Get over it.” He scratched Brady’s head and the cat purred like one of Jo’s quieter vibrators.
“Hey.” Jo stood in the doorway wearing a bathrobe, a mug of coffee in each hand. Her hair was wet. She smiled shyly at him as she handed one of the mugs to him. “Sleep well?”
“Much better than usual. Come back to bed with me.”
“Sorry, I don’t have time. I’m meeting a friend for brunch.”
He wondered—hoped—if she was giving Ivan his marching orders. Or some other guy.
She said, “I’d invite you, but it’s sort of business stuff, so—”
“No, that’s fine. I’ve got a few things to do.” For the life of him he couldn’t think what they might be. Nothing could be more important than kissing and touching Jo, making her come, watching her face…
He pulled the tie of her bathrobe. As he hoped she was naked beneath.
He touched a nipple and watched it stiffen, her breast shaping from pointed to round.
“Oh,” she said softly. She put her mug of coffee on the nightstand and sat down beside him. If ever there was a hint that he should continue, that was it—and she took his mug, too.
He liked the way she sat, her body open to his gaze, his touch. “You’re sure you don’t have time?”
Maybe he should ask where the damned condoms were, because he wanted her, his dick drilling through the bedclothes. She smelled clean and fragrant, and that disappointed him. He’d have loved to get her naked in that shower with its handheld attachment and soap her up and make her come and come. Her skin was soft against his lips as he moved in to kiss her breasts and then her lips. “I owe you from last night,” he said and touched between her thighs, where she was silky and wet.
“Oh,” she said again as her thighs fell apart.
He disentangled himself from the bedclothes, his cock weighty and ready. She reached to stroke him; God, she’d learned his preferences so well. But now it was about her pleasure and he listened to her breath hitch and catch at the slip of his finger against her clitoris.
“Here,” she murmured, and reach
ed to guide his hand. He liked that, her openness to pleasure—he remembered her touching her own nipples as he jerked off over her last night (he couldn’t believe how crude he’d been, but she seemed to get off on it). His cock jumped in her hand. He wasn’t a great believer in simultaneous orgasms, but he wondered if her orgasm would be enough to fire him off, too. In a way, he hoped not.
“I love to see you come,” he murmured and bit her nipple, not hard, but hard enough to show her he could.
She whimpered. He’d learned she didn’t make a lot of noise until the end, when she got very noisy indeed and shook all over. It was difficult to read her level of excitement, but he had no doubt he could and would.
Yes, now, as her hips lifted and her face took on a look of fierce concentration. Now, as her clitoris seemed almost to retreat—he knew it didn’t, it was engorgement, pure and simple, the big buildup—now she was going to come. She cried out loudly, twisting against him, and her hand gripped his cock and slid.
Now, now. He watched semen spill blissfully from his cock, spurting onto the sheets and her wrist— God, what a mess, what a glorious lovely coming and coming apart it was.
“Sorry about the mess,” he said.
She grinned and wiped her hand on the sheet. “Not the first one we’ve made.”
We. He liked that, that she regarded his errant semen as a joint responsibility. “Elise always used to complain.”
“About sperm?”
“Yes. She always ran into the shower after.”
“She’s crazy,” Jo said and stretched. Her vulva was pink and shiny. She reached for her coffee, turning so the bathrobe fell away and revealed one glorious curve of butt. His hand moved there to clasp it, fitting as though made to be there.
“You’re gorgeous,” he said. “Beautiful. What an arse you have, woman.”
“Thanks.” She took a gulp of coffee. “I’d better get dressed.”
He put his boxers on and watched with as much pleasure as if she were undressing for him. She wandered around naked without a hint of self-consciousness, and then put on a pair of socks, which looked strangely sexy to him. But, as he was learning, almost anything Jo wore looked sexy to him. She pulled on a pair of white cotton panties and a camisole, no bra. A sweater that looked hand-knitted over that, and then a pair of jeans. She knelt on the floor for a pair of hiking boots, and then sat to lace them up. She plucked a suede jacket and a long, soft, brightly colored scarf from the hook on the door.
“You’re driving, then?”
“Yes. It’s too cold to bike and not swelter in the restaurant.”
He couldn’t figure out whether she was dressed to seduce or to make him jealous, or, possibly, amazing though it might be, that that’s what she felt like wearing that day.
“I’d better get back and do some work,” he said and gathered the rest of his clothes, giving the warm fragrant bed a last, regretful look.
“You may well be invited back,” she said with a grin.
He pushed her up against the wall and kissed her thoroughly to make sure she would stick to that, and she giggled and pushed him away.
“Look what you’ve done to yourself,” she said with mock severity.
His cock prodded against the frogs on his underpants. “I’ll keep it safe for you,” he promised.
He watched her run down the stairs and heard the throaty cough of her car starting up. He should remind her to get it tuned for the winter.
No, he shouldn’t. It wasn’t his responsibility, just as it wasn’t any of his business who she was going out with.
20
“YOU’RE LOOKING GOOD,” HARRY SAID.
I unwound my scarf; it was a bitterly cold, windy day, and the scarf wasn’t entirely to make a fashion statement.
This restaurant wasn’t the sort of place I normally came to, full of tanned people wearing ski-lift labels on their expensive jackets. The décor was vaguely Zen, a few fountains with trickling water and large rocks, orchids and ferns, a slate floor and much dark polished wood.
Harry examined his menu. “They make omelettes to order here—they’re very good. Fancy a mimosa?”
After we’d ordered and were waiting for our food, Harry got down to business. “You have been a naughty girl, Jo. Record-breakingly naughty. How was your Thanksgiving?”
“Fine other than Ivan showing up, as you probably know.”
“That boy certainly has a talent for mischief.” He sipped his mimosa. “He told me your Irish boarder got quite bent out of shape.”
“He isn’t— Oh, never mind.”
“You obviously haven’t bothered to read your handbook.”
Since my handbook—that large, intimidating folder—was still in my locker, I shrugged. “I’m leaving the Association, Harry.”
“You do need to go through the proper procedure, otherwise, as you should know, you’ll be liable for a stiff—” he paused to wink “—fine.”
I kept my face neutral and dug into the fruit salad I’d ordered.
Harry poured syrup over his waffles. “Resigning at this point wouldn’t be a good idea, Jo, but if you have to…well, give us notice in writing. It’s all in the handbook. I’m sorry we’re losing you. It does happen. People pair off, become exclusive, but it’s unusual to do so while you’re still in the Great Room. In fact, we don’t recommend it. And then there was the, ah, unfortunate episode with Jake.”
“I haven’t paired off with anyone.”
“Yeah? According to Ivan, there were a lot of hot-and-heavy glances between you and this Patrick fellow.” He forked in a mouthful of waffles. “Jake’s pretty pissed off.”
“I’m pretty pissed off with him.”
“Well, in any case, the Association wants to make amends for any unpleasant experiences you may have had. And, all things considered,” he said, tossing a white envelope onto the table, “you’re a very lucky girl.”
“What do you mean?” I opened the letter.
“Promotion,” he said, a big grin on his face. “You’re going upstairs, my dear.”
“You’re a real jerk,” I commented. I read that now I could bring guests to open nights, I had use of the pool, locker room, gym, golf course and spa, and presumably, although this was not mentioned, my choice of hot young bodies from downstairs. A glossy brochure had photographs of the facilities, a near pornographic close-up of a plate of luxurious yet unidentifiable food garnished with an orchid, a shot of a golf course.
“Congratulations.” Harry laid his fork down and dabbed at his mouth with his napkin. He looked genuinely pleased, almost paternal, as though it were his doing. “So what do you think now? Oh, by the way, we have an open night tonight. Why don’t you bring your new squeeze along?”
“Oh, sure.” I could just see Patrick’s contempt for the activities in the Great Room. I’d not felt shame until this moment. I wanted Patrick to think well of me. I wanted—
“No, upstairs. Bring him along tonight to dinner. Stay over if you like—in fact I’d recommend it. It’ll be fun. I know you haven’t had the best experiences with us, and I want to show you what you’re missing—great food, good conversation, hanging out with smart, well-informed people. It’s not all kinky stuff, although if you want kinky, you can find it, no problem. But that’s all strictly optional. We don’t force anyone into anything, and if it seemed that way with Jake, I’m sorry. Real sorry. I’ll have a chat with him about it. He can come on a bit heavy, I know. How about it, Jo?”
I hesitated. “It sounds too good to be true, Harry, which means it probably is.”
“We’ll give you a really nice room,” Harry said. Did he know Patrick and I hadn’t screwed yet?
“I need to think about it. I’m not sure what he’s doing tonight.” I hoped he’d be doing me in some capacity. He’d mentioned going out to dinner. Well, why not going out to dinner and having our girly overnight consummation at the Association?
“Okay,” I said. “So if I brought him along, it would be just that
—dinner and staying over? No group sex or beatings or anything?”
“Honest to God, Jo, all that takes place in specific areas. It’s a big house full of all kinds of different activities. If you want something a bit kinky, it’s there. If you want romance, we’ll have rose petals on the bed and scented candles and all that stuff. Have a massage—not that sort of massage, you naughty girl—in the spa. How about it? Have dinner, stay over, no strings attached.”
He looked so homely and sincere I almost trusted him. Almost. “Yeah, sure.”
“Think about it.” Ignoring my sarcasm he patted my hand and then looked at his watch. “Oops. Gotta run. Call about tonight by three, okay, and I’ll send a car for you.” He signaled to our waiter to bring the check.
I wrapped my scarf around my neck as we walked outside into the bitter cold that brought with it a hint of sleet.
“Brrr. See you tonight, Jo, I hope.” Harry bent to kiss my cheek. He delved inside his down jacket. “One more thing. Dress code.” A couple of black masks dangled from his hand.
I took them and tucked them inside my jacket. “Thanks for brunch.”
I sat for a moment in the car, thinking about this new and unexpected development, and read the letter again. It was tempting—Patrick had wanted to do something special for our first time—but I didn’t trust Harry or anyone else there. I tossed the letter and brochure into the backseat and started the drive home, thinking I might as well stop at the grocery store and pick up a few essentials.
In the store I pushed my cart around a corner and came face-to-face with Angela. At first I didn’t recognize her—no black leather in sight; she wore baggy jeans and a down jacket, no makeup, and most surprising of all, she had a baby seated in her cart.
“Hi!” I said, astonished, and making a major etiquette break.
A small boy ran up with a box of cereal. “Gramma, I got it.”
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