Cocktales

by The Cocky Collective

  I toyed with saying no—to both, even if only one option was on the table. But I thought of my sad microwaved chips and holey poultry pajama pants and realized that I’d probably never see Ben again anyway, so what was the big problem with planting one on this guy, right in the middle of this driveway?

  “What are you thinking?” he asked me.

  “I don’t think you want to know.” I sounded wanton and tried not to let the embarrassment of it flood over me.

  “Do you remember what I first said to you?”

  When he looked at me like that, like he wanted to peel my leggings off with his teeth, it was hard to remember a damned thing he’d said. “Uh…”

  “Well, you see,” he said, leaning in and effectively pinning me to the car. I held my breath as he leaned over me. “You’re all over my car right now.”

  I swallowed the lump of lust that clogged my throat. “I’m guessing I owe you?” I asked, breathy and eager. I didn’t want to question it anymore. Not when the tension was drowning us both, not when my body was coming to life in a way it hadn’t since … well, I couldn’t remember how long.

  “I won’t take unless you give.” His breath was hot, washing over my ear and doing the most delicious thing to my chest. I knew, if he pulled back, he’d see my nipples standing at attention. But I didn’t want him to pull away, so I did the only thing I could think of.

  I grabbed the front of his sweater and yanked him down, sealing his mouth to mine as I laid on his car. And even though I’d been the one to initiate, he quickly took over.

  One hand came around my neck while the other dove in my hair. He sucked my lower lip into his mouth and bit, gently enough that a moan escaped my throat before I could stop it.

  The itch had turned into a full-blown forest fire and my lips were starving for oxygen, starving for him. I pulled him closer still, even as he bruised my mouth with his sucking and biting, so close that the only thing that separated us was our clothing.

  His fist in my hair tugged and another moan came from my throat. I’d never been so wanton, so desperate for more. And, when we pulled away a second later, I’d never been more brazen than when I told him, “You’re coming home with me after dinner.” I tapped the hood. “And you’re bringing this car.” But almost as soon as it left my lips, I regretted it. Not because I didn’t mean it, but because I worried if we walked away from this moment, the sexual tension would fade, or we’d—meaning me—would be too shy to continue it.

  “Or,” he said, “we can skip dinner and,” he pushed my hair over my ear, his voice like an alarm clock that just woke up my libido, “move right to dessert.”

  He read my fucking mind. Shiiiiiit. Was I really about to do this? Bail on my best friend for some guy I’d just met at her dinner party? Before we’d even had dinner?

  That fuckable eyebrow lifted and the riot of butterflies in my belly did a dip and I forgot the question I’d just asked myself. “Say yes, Millie.”

  Jesus Christ on a cracker, even the way his tongue dipped between his teeth to enunciate the double L in my nickname was sexy. There was no fucking way I was backing out of this.

  In answer, I straightened and ran my hands down my leggings as if it was a skirt I’d taken pains in selecting and not the only clean pair of leggings I owned at the moment. I grabbed the passenger door handle and gave him an expectant look. “Let’s go.”

  The beautiful blue interior welcomed my body as I sunk into the seat. I had the forethought to shoot Elizabeth a “sorry, but I just got propositioned and I don’t know what’s come over me, but my inner sex demon needs to get laid,” text as Ben revved the engine and I listened to that beautiful motor purr. “Jesus,” I said.

  “Actually,” he said, backing out of the driveway, “it’s Ben.”

  I laughed, but as soon as the laugh left me, and I’d given him directions to my place, nerves flew through me, chasing away the butterflies. The sexual tension was still there, so there that I rolled the window down to see if we could get a little breathing room.

  “So, what do you do for a living, Ben?” I made a mental note to make sure I filled out my address correctly to receive my World’s Worst Small Talk award and promptly forgot to actually pay attention to his answer. I was mesmerized by the car, by the human who drove it, and by the way he’d directly affected the sleeping bear that was my libido, with that one insanely hot kiss on his car’s hood.

  He asked me, and I told him that I was a writer for a small press, which wasn’t entirely a lie … just, mostly. Yes, I did writing. But the things I wrote were often numbers about debits and credits. And it wasn’t so much a small press as it was a failing press—small because we’d had so many layoffs. But “writer” sounded sexier than “accountant” and “small press” sounded more respectable than “failing business model badly in need of an overhaul.”

  After exhausting the most basic small talk, we arrived at my house and I looked at its black door with laser eyes, trying to remember if I’d even cleaned up the place recently. I was almost positive that my nachos were still on the coffee table, and my chicken pajamas were flung somewhere on the floor.

  Sex pad, it did not scream. Sad but comfortable, it did.

  “Millie?”

  “Yeah?” I asked, turning to him.

  He put his hand on my knee and even through the legging material, I could feel its warmth. “It’s okay,” he said. “I don’t usually do this, either.”

  My chest deflated because the pressure was suddenly gone. “You could tell?”

  “Oh yeah. It was only so obvious because I’m nervous too.” He squeezed my knee. “We don’t have to do this. Like I said before, I won’t take unless you give.”

  “Ugh.” I tracked my hands over my face. “I guess I should’ve asked if you have a girlfriend or something. Man, I’m so bad at this.”

  “I don’t.” He squeezed my knee. “I’m assuming you’re single too?”

  “Oh, so single that I practically define ‘single.’ In Elizabeth’s words, my life is so boring.”

  As if on cue, Elizabeth replied to my text and I tilted my head to read my phone’s screen: oh, thank god. Let that sex demon loose!

  It wasn’t until I heard his warm laugh and felt it reverberate down his arm, to the hand that held my knee, that I realized he could read it, too.

  “Sex demon, huh?” he asked.

  “I mean …” How was I supposed to reply to that? “I guess I wouldn’t say sex demon as much as just ‘thirsty demon.’”

  “Uh huh,” he said, blue eyes twinkling in the glow from my front porch light. He looked at my door and looked at me. “How thirsty?”

  Bless him for not making me feel even more embarrassed than I already felt. “She’s parched.” I pursed my lips, nodding. “And, I think I owe it to Elizabeth, you know, you make sure I take care of that.”

  His answering grin was so full of charm that I was surprised I wasn’t already undressing in the car and throwing my clothes at him in a furious haste.

  By the time we made it inside my house, though, the charm pushed me right over the edge and off came the clothes, his and mine in a furious rush, mingling on the floor as I pushed him onto my couch. I wished I wasn’t so impatient, because from what I could see, his body deserved an A+. But my nerves and my need mingled and translated into a frenetic energy that he matched.

  His erection strained against his pants and we both stared at it before our eyes met. He laughed, and then I did too. This was probably the most comfortable I’d been having sex with anyone—even long-term boyfriends. There were no games spurning us forward, just our equal and honest desire. And since he’d given me an out in the car, I felt like all the pressure was off completely. We’d scratch our mutual itches and then go our separate ways.

  He unsnapped the button on his jeans and then, time slowed way, way down. Or at least, that’s how it felt. He pulled down the zipper painfully slow and then rolled them down his legs even slower. It could’ve been
the ache building within me, that painful, eager ache, waiting to be satisfied that made time move at a snail’s pace, but suddenly, he couldn’t cover my body soon enough.

  “Come here,” he said, with a flick of his finger, so I did. He brushed the hair from my shoulders and placed his warm palm on my chest, down and down in a punishingly slow pace until he’d grazed over just the tips of my nipples and then moved further down until his hand was between my legs.

  I had to actually force my body to still, not to push against him like we were two magnets drawn together. He grazed his knuckle over my center and it seemed as if my entire body opened to him with a satisfied sigh, my back curving off the couch and my head tilting back to open everything up to him.

  While still holding my gaze, he dipped his finger inside. My stomach clenched, and my hands held him as if I needed balance, needed to hold onto him as he rocked my world with just that one finger. Over and over, he teased me, his mouth moving to my neck and down my stomach until I couldn’t take it anymore. I gripped his cock and ran my thumb over the tip—again and again until he yanked my hand away with a tortured groan.

  “I hope you brought a condom,” I told him, both a request for one and a request for him to finally—blessedly—slide inside me. I pulled him back to the couch, deciding the ten further steps to my bedroom was too damn many.

  “I did.” I watched in amazement as he slid it over his erection, but he didn’t make a move to bring it between my legs when it was encased in latex. Instead, he leaned down over me on the couch and licked up my jaw, biting the sensitive skin behind my tear and then he blazed his tongue down my neck; licking and sucking the entire way down.

  “Jesus,” I said, surprised by the way that lit tiny little fires inside me and had me squeezing my thighs together, desperate for even a tiny bit of contact action.

  “My name’s Ben,” he said again and as I laughed at his joke, he slid inside so quickly that I gasped from the instant pressure and the simultaneously instant relief.

  Ben was a giving lover, I learned. He met me stroke for stroke, and even though I knew he came way before me—which I took as a compliment—he still rode me hard until the climax hit me with the force of a semi-truck, sending me sprawling off the couch and to the floor.

  Wave after wave poured over me, so powerfully that I wasn’t entirely sure that he hadn’t somehow broken me. Was sex always like that? I couldn’t do a mental inventory of all my sexscapades, not when my leg twitched, and my chest heaved with each breath. He was breathing heavily too, but not so winded that he couldn’t pick me up off the ground with a laugh and heave me up onto the couch beside him.

  “That was fast,” I said in between deep breaths, my arms deadweight at my sides.

  “Uh, yeah,” he said with a pained laugh. “Sorry about that.”

  “Oh!” I put my hand on his thigh—still naked, still hot—and shook my head. “No, that’s not what I meant. I just meant that I met you, what, an hour ago?” I swallowed and couldn’t help but laugh. “But yes, that was fast too.”

  “I know.” He dragged a hand over his face. His lips were wet and if I’d had the energy I would’ve straddled him to suck on them. But alas, all I did was make what likely resembled blowfish lips at him, imagining it. “I’m sure Finn is less than impressed.”

  “He’s probably grateful that you got that monster vehicle out of his driveway, lest he ruin his street cred.”

  Ben laughed, and I decided that I wanted to bottle up the sound and bring it out to listen to on special occasions. Like when I went back into sex hibernation.

  “You’re funny, Millie.” He dropped his head against the couch cushion and looked at me in a way that made me feel all tingly. “I needed this before I start my new job tomorrow.”

  Realizing that I didn’t even know what that job was, I nodded like I knew exactly what he was talking about. Post-coital wasn’t the best time for me to ask him what he did for a living, not when I couldn’t be bothered to worry about the fact that we were inches away from my paper plate of half-eaten nachos. “Are you trying to thank me for the sex?” I asked.

  “Well, not in such frank terms. More like I was going to thank you for giving me a night to reflect on when I’m stuck in meeting after meeting tomorrow.”

  “In that case,” I said, leaning against him a little bit. “You’re welcome.” I tried not to nuzzle him too much. What was the protocol after great stranger sex? “I mean, you satisfied my thirsty sex demon, so I guess we’re square.”

  “Is she satisfied?” he asked with a wicked little lift of his lips. “Because, like you said, we don’t want to disappoint Elizabeth.”

  I grinned back at him. “She’s satiated. For now.”

  He moved and immediately, I jerked back. Was he trying to tell me to give him space, so he could be on his merry way? But he merely grabbed his phone from his pants and pulled it out.

  Oh, even worse. Was he going to ask me for my number only to never call? I didn’t need an obligatory phone number exchange. But instead, he pulled up his web browser and typed in pizza delivery.

  “I hate to be presumptuous,” he said. “But I don’t think I can show my face to Finn right now. How do you feel about eating?”

  “I feel like that’s the very least we should do, don’t you think? Eat something? Elizabeth would be so disappointed if we skipped her dinner and then didn’t even eat.”

  “You’re right. We mustn’t disappoint Elizabeth.” He thumbed through his phone. “How do you feel about pizza?”

  “Oh.” I pressed a hand to my chest. “I have a deep and abiding love for dough and cheese and marinara.”

  “It just so happens that I do, too. Would you object to splitting a pizza?” His face was so earnest, like he wanted an invite without having to ask for one in a way that put either of us in an embarrassing situation.

  He wasn’t running. Not yet, at least.

  “I mean, I guess I can be persuaded,” I said. “I had such big plans, though.”

  “Oh.” He nodded, playing along, and motioned to the stupid paper plate on the coffee table. “I don’t want to interrupt your gourmet meal.”

  “Yeahhh.” I stood and grabbed the paper plate. “I was kind of hoping you wouldn’t see that.” I stepped behind the couch and shoved it and the tiny bit of dignity I had before he’d seen it down as far as I could reach.

  “The pajamas are something else, too.”

  I wanted to shove my face down into the trashcan too. “Oh, yeah?” I asked, acting totally cool and not at all like the evidence of my sad little singledom was at the feet of this gorgeous man. “You have a thing for chickens?”

  “Do you have a thing for cocks?”

  “Wh-what?” I snapped up the offending pajama pants and tugged them on.

  He wagged a finger at my pants. “The cocks.”

  “Chickens,” I corrected.

  “Roosters. Roosters are cocks.”

  I looked down at the pants, yep, there were indeed a few roosters sprinkled among the many shades of white and brown chickens. “Then yes, I have a thing for cocks. And chickens.” I tried not to look right at his lap as I said it and snatched up my t-shirt, tugging it over my head. This was it. Me in all my pajama-clothed glory. And somehow, he still grinned at me like it was somehow charming.

  When the pizza came, we pigged out on equal shares, with Investigation Discovery playing on in the background. “How’d you know what kind of car that was anyway?” he asked me, just as a string of cheese slapped my chin.

  As delicately as I could, I pushed the cheese into my mouth. “My dad was super into old cars like that. Making them purr. He didn’t have a ton of money to do so, though, so he took me to a lot of car shows. The fact that you have that car kind of blows my mind. I wish he could see it.” Wistfully, I picked at a piece of pepperoni. I didn’t want to talk about my dad and the dreams he’d never achieve. I handed Ben a napkin when cheese attached itself to his chin. “It’s my dream.”
<
br />   He stretched his arm behind my head and I snuggled against him, feeling more comfortable than I’d expected to feel in the presence of a man who was still a stranger. A stranger I’d seen naked, sure. But stranger nonetheless. He brushed a piece of hair away from my face and I inhaled his scent deeply, wanting to retain this moment in my memory long after he was gone.

  It was getting late and I was tiring fast. I knew I was two yawns away from a deep sleep when his voice rumbled, “Any time you want a ride, just say so.”

  Unlike the first time he’d said it, this time his voice was free of sexual innuendos. He was genuine, as far as I could tell, but I just couldn’t imagine that I’d see him again after a night like tonight.

  A thought which was confirmed when I suddenly awoke, alone on my couch, with a piece of notepaper on top of the empty box of pizza.

  Thanks for the laughs. - Ben

  My resigned sigh was followed with the immediate reminder that I had to get ready for work, pronto. I pulled on the leggings I’d worn for all of twenty minutes the night before and grabbed a shirt from the dryer that wasn’t entirely dry yet and ran, like a mad woman, out of the house to work.

  It was meeting day. Every Thursday, the owner—George—filled out conference room with bagels and coffee and donuts. People filed in to fill the chairs around the obnoxiously large table—larger now that half of our employees had been laid-off—and since I was late and not wanting to get on George’s radar so early, I snuck in and slid between Joanne from marketing and Patsy from human resources and acted as if I was terribly interested in their conversation about new management and saving the company. Secretly, I was gearing up for a second interview with another firm, hoping they would see my potential and snap me up faster than I’d propositioned a stranger the night before.

  After grabbing a cup of now-cold coffee and making sure I avoided sitting next to the office gossip, Felicia, I slid into one of the last remaining seats like this was a game of musical chairs I desperately needed to win.