by Blair Grey
“I’m hardly saving lives,” Anne said, grinning. “That’s what the doctors are for.” She shrugged. “I don’t know, just normal stuff, I guess. Lina and I just joined a gym. We went over there yesterday, and let me tell you, by the time I got home last night, I was so wiped out that all I wanted to do was order in a quick dinner and go to sleep.” She wrinkled her nose. “I sound so old, don’t I?”
I laughed. “Actually, I think you’re pretty adorable,” I told her. I hadn’t meant to say it, not yet. It was true, of course. Something about her laugh, that cute wrinkle between her eyebrows when she started to get nervous, the way she blushed and ducked her head. All of it was just cute.
Cute wasn’t normally what I went for. But somehow, she had me all stirred up with interest.
“Thanks,” she said shyly, ducking her head again.
I couldn’t help myself this time. I reached out and tapped her beneath the chin, forcing her to look up at me. Her skin was warm and soft against my fingertips, and I couldn’t seem to withdraw my hand. Instead, I watched my hand as though it were some foreign thing. My fingers traced along her jawline until I was cupping her cheek with my palm, my thumb stroking back toward her ear.
That nervous crease formed between her eyebrows, and I jerked my hand back as though I had been burned. "Sorry," I muttered. It was my turn to take a hasty sip of my beer, as I tried to pretend that there was nothing wrong. That I hadn’t just crossed the line from friends to something more.
“What about you?” Anne asked. “You never told me what your job was, or if you have a job. Or what your hobbies are.” She leaned her cheek against her hand, popping a maraschino cherry into her mouth. “You’re an enigma,” she said after she had swallowed.
My brain was still short-circuiting on the image of her putting that cherry into her mouth. God, those lips of hers. That mouth. Everything about her. As cute as she was, there was something undeniably sexy about everything she did. And the best part was, I could tell that she didn’t even realize she was doing it. The thing with the cherry, the way her posture on her barstool displayed her long legs. All of it was totally unscripted. She wasn’t trying to make me want her. She already knew that I did.
Confidence. I remembered thinking that earlier. She had crazy confidence in everything that she did. And it turned me on.
I tried to remember what she had asked me, realizing that she was still waiting for an answer. “I don’t have a job here yet,” I said. Sort of true. “I have some leads, but nothing solid yet.” Also sort of true. I shrugged. "I'm sure you can guess what I do in my spare time."
“You’re a biker, aren’t you?” Anne asked. “But do you ride bikes or fix bikes or what?”
“Mostly I ride them,” I told her. The average person didn’t really know much about biker gangs. Even if she knew I was part of one, she would probably just assume that I went out for rides with a group of other dudes. I wasn’t worried about that. “I do some restoration work, too, though. My dad taught me most of it. I have a thing for taking apart old bikes and putting them back together. Getting them to work.”
“Huh,” Anne said. “To be honest, I don’t even know the first thing about fixing my car, and I’ve had it since I was eighteen.” She gave a little self-conscious laugh.
I shrugged. “Most people don’t. And some of the people who think they know all about their cars really shouldn’t be dicking around inside of them.”
Anne laughed. “Isn’t that the truth?”
Suddenly, I started thinking about suggesting that she and I take a ride together. She would look damned sexy on the back of my bike. And what could be more perfect than a long, scenic ride, just her and me? Her arms wrapped around my waist, the wind playing with those errant curls of hers. I couldn’t deny how much I liked the idea of that.
But we weren’t ready for that step just yet. I doubted Anne had ever been on a bike before. She probably thought they were dangerous. For all of her confidence, she was a sort of girl next door type. She wouldn’t want anything to do with a motorcycle. At least, not yet.
Maybe later, though. If I could keep this friendship going for long enough. If Braxton and I stayed in Sarasota for long enough. I could propose it the same way that I’d proposed this: I needed her to show me the sights. This time, we’d swing farther afield. Maybe all the way down to the Everglades. Could be fun for a little weekend trip, just the two of us. And together in a motel room, sharing a bed, that didn’t sound so bad either.
I was staring, I realized, and I hurriedly cast around for some way to change the topic. Well, change the topic? I couldn’t even remember what we had been talking about to begin with.
“Your friend, Lina, what does she do?” I asked. I didn’t really care all that much; I’d rather hear more about Anne. But it was the first thing that came to mind, and I just hoped it didn’t seem like too weird of a question to ask.
But Anne was still staring at me. Assessing me. “We could go back to my place,” she said suddenly.
I stared at her. Was she serious? I frowned. We’d each had a few beers already by this point, and I wasn’t sure that was such a good idea. I didn’t want her to feel like I had taken advantage of her.
Then again, if I didn’t go home with her tonight, it was possible that I would never get the chance again. That once she sobered up, she would never want anything to do with me. And I was starting to realize that it wasn’t that she wasn’t interested in me. Oh no, far from that. She was interested. She couldn’t seem to take her eyes off me. Off my lips, specifically, like she was spending half our conversation just waiting for me to kiss her.
No, whatever it was that was holding her back, it wasn’t lack of attraction. I could tell that she was nervous, but she didn’t strike me as shy. I couldn’t tell what it was that was keeping her from wanting this to be a date. But if she wanted me to come back to her place, if she wanted to take things further, I could tell that that was what she actually wanted. She wasn’t just letting me talk her into it.
And anyway, just because I went back to her place with her, it didn’t necessarily mean that we were going to do anything. I could continue to hold back, to wait for her to make the first move. If she didn’t make another move, then I would leave. I promised myself that.
“If you don’t want to come back with me, that’s all right,” Anne said, and I could see in her eyes that she was hurt, that she mistook my silent calculations for refusal.
I leaned in close to her, close enough that she could feel my breath against the shell of her ear. “It’s not that I don’t want to come back with you,” I told her, deciding that the bold course of action was the best one. Lay it all out on the table now, and if this wasn’t what she wanted, then she could tell me so herself. She was a big girl after all.
“The truth is,” I continued, lowering my voice even further, “I’m afraid that if we go back to your place, I’m not going to be able to keep my hands off you any longer. And I thought we were just supposed to be…friends.”
With my hand resting on her lower back, I could feel the shiver that ran up her spine. She looked at me with hooded, lustful eyes, licking her lips, her eyes darting down to my own mouth. I wanted to kiss her right then, but I held back. I had made my move. Let her make hers.
“Come back with me,” she repeated, her voice ragged with want. “I don’t care if you can’t keep your hands to yourself, just come back with me.”
“Done,” I growled, slamming back the rest of my beer and standing up. I held out an arm to escort her out.
Thankfully, she didn’t live very far away.
My jeans were already tight against my bulge, my whole body tuned into her every move. “This is me,” she said, leading me through a gate and up a walk. But we didn’t even make it to the front door before she was dragging me to a stop, standing on her tiptoes, her lips questing mine.
I didn’t hesitate for a second before pressing my lips to hers. I pulled her body against mine, feeling the energy thrum be
tween us. The kiss was sloppy, uncoordinated. We were both tipsy and needy and so desperate for release. I stumbled backward, practically dragging her along with me toward the front door.
This was a first move if I had ever seen one. There was no way this was “just friends” anymore.
She pushed my flannel back off my shoulders and then started tugging my T-shirt up over my head. I pulled away with a ragged laugh. “Maybe we should wait until we’re inside before we get to that,” I suggested, looking pointedly at the houses to either side of us.
Anne pulled back, looking bashful. “Sorry,” she said, and for a second, I thought she was going to revert to that nervous girl who didn’t want this to be a date. What would I do if she told me to go home right now?
Well, I’d go home, of course. And jack off, probably multiple times, thinking of the feeling of her lips against mine, her body pressed up against my torso.
Fortunately, she didn’t tell me to go home. Instead, she caught my hand in hers, and this time it was her dragging me up to the door. She fished in her pocket for her keys and then fumbled the lock open. She threw her keys haphazardly on the table in the front hall and then I was on her again, crowding her back against the wall and removing her shirt this time, nearly tearing it in my frenzy to feel her naked skin against mine.
12
Anne
This whole thing had gone from zero to a hundred in a matter of hours, but I didn’t really care. Not as Landon raked his teeth lightly down my earlobe, down my sensitive jawline, down my neck. He nipped and sucked and licked at my skin, as though he wanted to taste every inch of it. His fingers were no less attentive than his mouth either. They had stripped off my shirt and then my bra, and now his thumbs were sliding against the nubs of my pert nipples, sending small jolts of pleasure spiking through my body.
I moaned as his mouth returned to mine, his tongue plunging inside, searching out those hidden spots of sensitivity. He nipped at my lower lip and my fingers caught at his hips, pulling him closer to me even though we were already impossibly close, his weight pushing me back against the wall.
We hadn’t even made it out of the front hall yet.
Landon’s fingers fumbled at my jeans, and I finally batted him away, catching his fingers and pulling him upstairs. It took all of my will not to stop and push into another kiss, halfway up the stairs, when I realized I could feel his eyes practically burning the jeans off my ass. He was watching me, watching the way that I moved, and there was something about that attention to detail that was so hot.
I stripped down the moment we crossed the threshold into my bedroom. Landon followed quickly afterward, leaving his clothes in a messy pile with mine and joining me on the bed. He climbed on top of me, his hot, muscular body covering mine. I was already trembling with need, feeling as though I might burst at any second. I could feel the dampness between my legs, knew that I was practically dripping.
Whatever else might come of this night, I needed this. Raw, carnal, lustful sex. I needed this.
It was strange, really. I had thought that I was doing all right. I took care of myself. I had my toys. I knew how to work my body over into ecstasy. But this felt entirely different. Landon’s fingers, his lips, his tongue, they all did things to me that I could never do to myself. They stimulated something deep inside of me, something I hadn’t even been aware of.
I was helpless to stop the tide of my pleasure. So I lay back and let myself succumb to it.
Landon smoothed his hands down my body, his eyes telling me how incredulous it still was that he was here, that we were really doing this.
I hadn’t exactly planned on this. First of all, I hadn’t expected him to be so brazen as to come back to the pharmacy for a second day in a row. Sure, I knew that he had said that he would just have to find something else to interest me if I wasn’t interested in a date. But I had kind of thought that he was just saying that. Or that it would take him some more time to come up with an alternate plan. Instead, it was like it had taken no time at all and here we were.
I didn’t have any regrets, though. As I had chatted with him at the bar, I came to the conclusion that he was actually a pretty decent guy. Smart. Spontaneous. And it had been a while since I had any sort of spontaneity to my life. That became pretty obvious when he started asking me about my hobbies. What were my hobbies? What did I even do when I wasn’t at work or out with Lina? Not much, I had to admit.
It had been all too easy, in the name of spontaneity, to invite him back here with me.
Anyway, it wasn’t like this was my first time. There was no reason not to have sex with him. I just had to make sure, afterward, that he understood that this was just sex. That there wouldn’t be anything more, not even a little cuddling, and that once he left, this thing between us was over, as far as I was concerned. I wasn’t interested in a repeat performance.
Although with the way that he was skillfully playing with my body, maybe I should have been.
He traced his tongue along the tattoo on my side even as his fingers plunged inside of me, and the intimacy of both actions was startling. I gasped, my back arching, my core tightening. I needed more. I couldn’t help but sob with that desire, and Landon pulled back, a grin on his face.
“Shh,” he soothed, resting his palm against my cheek. And at that moment, I realized I was actually doomed. That when I came, it would be earth-shattering, a more powerful climax than I had ever felt before. There was no getting out of this without wanting him more than I already did. There was no getting out of this without wanting a repeat performance some other time.
That was fine, though. As long as it continued to be just sex. We could handle that. We were both adults. I just had to make sure I didn’t get feelings tied up in this as well.
Landon laughed and shook his head. “Don’t take this the wrong way, but do you ever relax? I can practically see the gears turning in your head right now.”
I blushed and shrugged. “Maybe you’ll just have to figure out some way to get me to stop thinking,” I challenged.
“Maybe I will,” Landon agreed, his eyes narrowing dangerously. He reached over to the side table and grabbed the condom that he had tossed there earlier when we had first been stripping off our clothes. He ripped open the foil and pulled out the latex, slowly rolling it down his impressive length. With that in place, he lined himself up at my entrance. “You ready?” he asked, his voice tight with the strain.
“Go slow,” I asked quietly. “It’s been a while.”
Landon’s eyes grew even darker at that, the pupils almost totally blotting out the green. He nodded at me and slowly, inch by inch, started to sink inside of me.
I moaned, long and low, feeling almost as though he couldn’t fit inside of me. Surely, he was too big for that? But eventually, he was seated fully inside of me. It was only as his thumb swiped gently across my knuckles that I realized I had reached for his hand. Our fingers were tangled together there, resting against the sheets. And again, there was something strikingly intimate about that.
But this was just sex. I looped my feet around Landon’s waist and urged him to move.
His thrusts were slow and gentle at first, letting me get used to him more than anything, but soon he was pumping into me with reckless abandon. I was breathless from the feeling of it all, but I didn’t want it to ever stop.
Yet again, he seemed to sense out every last need that I had. Seemed to find all those spots inside of my tight pussy, even the ones that I never managed to find myself with my toys. He used me and used me until I was utterly spent, until I was sobbing out his name and clinging to him and otherwise just an absolute mess of need and want and lust, my brain fizzing over with desire.
He finally came as well, his hips slamming into mine two final times before going still, his muscles strained and glistening with the faintest sheen of sweat. He gave a muffled groan, and I could feel him pulsing inside of me, spending burst after burst of his seed until finally, we were both sti
ll except for the rise and fall of our heaving chests.
He fell to the side, his dick popping out of me with an obscene noise. He lay there for a long moment, staring up at the ceiling, and then finally peeled the condom off, a look of distaste on his face as he knotted it. “Do you have a trash can somewhere?” he asked, his voice sounding raw, as though he had been shouting.
I blinked over at him and then gestured toward the en-suite bathroom. “In there,” I said.
Landon rolled out of bed, stretching for a moment and then heading toward the bathroom to deposit the condom in the bin. I forced myself to get out of bed. When he returned, raising an eyebrow at me, I wordlessly held out his pants to him. “I think it would be better for you to leave,” I told him.
Landon stared at me for another long minute and then ran a hand back through his hair. “What, do you have a boyfriend coming over soon or something?” he asked.
I flinched at his icy tone. It was such a change from how friendly he’d been earlier. And I knew I probably deserved it. We were still coming down from the glow, and I wanted nothing more than to curl up in bed with him and drift off to sleep.
But I knew that was the wrong idea. Cuddle and fall asleep together, that was the first step in getting attached to someone. Next thing I knew, he’d be making me breakfast and we’d be the perfect picture of domesticity. I had had that once, and I wasn’t looking to go down that road again.
No, this was just sex, and now that the sex was over, it was time for him to go.
“I don’t have a boyfriend,” I said, keeping my own tone clipped and formal. “But I’m not going to make this more than what it is.”
Landon cocked his head to the side, studying me. I could tell that there was something he wanted to say, but whatever it was, I didn’t want to hear it. I was going to get enough shit from Lina when I told her about this. Which I would, because we never kept anything from each other. She’d be planning the wedding in her head already, though.
