by Iris Parker
He hadn’t even reacted badly to my implied jab at him. If anything, he’d been relieved. Simon had always had the slightest twinge of jealousy in his voice when he “joked” about my date with the fireman, and I still wasn’t quite sure what I’d been thinking when I invited Arthur along on our date.
Maybe I’d just wanted to see how he’d react.
Maybe I’d wanted to reassure him.
A jealous man was always a mixed bag, of course. It was usually overwhelming and stifling, a caustic element that ate a relationship from inside out. It suggested a lack of trust, a lack of confidence.
On the other hand, it was also fucking sexy. At least in appropriate doses, which is what Simon had been giving me so far. He wanted me, yes, but he wasn’t about to go all psycho over it. If anything, it was charming that he was so hung up on a “date” I’d had years ago with a friend.
Charming, and ridiculously hot.
Of course, that obsession also gave me way more power over Simon than I should’ve had after so many drinks, and after so many hours spent staring at that delicious blue-grey suit and tie.
After noting the way his pants were snug enough to hug his ass.
Tight enough to make it painfully obvious he’d been battling a hard-on for the entire damned night.
Oh, baby. They say power corrupts, and mine had gone straight to my head.
Or maybe, more accurately, it had gone straight between my legs.
“So, did you like Arthur?” I asked Simon innocently, after my friends had called it a night. The loud drum and bass tune coming from the speakers was resonating in time with the pulsing of my body, and the stiflingly hot air was making it harder to breathe.
I finished off the last sip of my strawberry margarita, chuckling as I slid my other hand along Simon’s knee. He’d made the mistake of sitting next to me in our booth, trying to box me in against the wall and the table. It was a tactic I’d been making him regret all night long, touching him and rubbing against him at regular intervals.
Much like our professional relationship, the date had quickly devolved into a back-and-forth power struggle.
One I was determined to win.
One that, judging by the way he’d failed to battle the hard-on all night long, I had already won.
Simon grunted a non-answer to my question, and I decided to go in for the kill. I leaned my body into his, pushing my breasts into his arm as I positioned my lips right next to his ear.
“I said, did you like Arthur?” I repeated in a low, sultry drawl. The dark stubble on his cheeks looked insanely sexy, and I had to resist the urge to run my tongue along his hot flesh. Being too blatant would only cost me points.
“Yeah, he’s great,” Simon said over the loud, slow beat of the music. Looking at me with those fucking perfect-blue eyes, his mouth curled into a grin. “Exactly how many cocktails did you drink tonight, Em?”
I giggled, amused that he was resorting to such an obvious strategy to gain back the ground he’d been losing ever since he opened the door to his hotel room. Tonight, there would be only one winner, and it sure as hell wasn’t going to be him.
“Let me up,” I said, and before he could react I hopped onto his lap. His hard cock pressed tight against pants, and white-hot desire shot through me as I felt it jutting into me. I took just a second to enjoy the sensation before climbing off, taking him by the hand and pulling him out from the booth.
“Get up,” I insisted, guiding him towards the now mostly-deserted dance floor. The bass echoed out a dirty rhythm that reverberated in my ribcage, an open invitation for debauchery. I pushed myself against Simon’s long, hard body, his muscles as stable as if I’d been leaning into a wall.
A wonderfully warm, masculine wall that smelled like sex and looked at me like I was the only woman on Earth.
As it turned out, Simon was actually a good dancer, and it didn’t take long before we’d coordinated our movements together. Our bodies slipped into perfect accord, following the slippery beat. His upper abs brushed against my breasts, and I wrapped my arms over his shoulders and leaned my mouth next to his ear.
He stopped dancing, and I bit at my lip as I struggled to behave myself.
Licking him was out of the question, after all.
After a moment, he groaned low with frustration, and I took that as my cue.
“Happy to be going on the same date with me that Arthur did?” I asked him, feeling his hands creeping up my back as his hips pressed against my pelvis.
My turn to moan.
“Sure, this place is quite happening,” he whispered back, and my eyes feasted on the way his Adam’s apple bobbed up and down whenever he spoke. Delicious. “But I hope we have a slightly different ending than Arthur got.”
“Pervert,” I scolded, tracing my fingers along the back of his neck. “I’m practically your sister, or have you forgotten?”
“I haven’t been able to forget you since the moment I saw you, Emilia Jones,” Simon purred. “And our parents signing a piece of paper doesn’t make us related, no matter what the state of California says.”
I laughed, and the swelteringly hot room suddenly felt like exactly the right temperature. It was humid, dirty and sweaty. Wonderful and wrong.
In short, it was the perfect physical representation of how I felt about Simon.
“How did you find out about my date with Arthur, anyway?” I asked, body vibrating in a haze of wet heat and forbidden sexual intimacy.
“Google alerts. One for Emilia Jones, and once I knew you started working there, another for Goodman Youth Center,” he said, and I inhaled the scent of his skin. Moving in so close to him was probably not the best move I could’ve made in our game, but dear god it felt amazing.
“Stalker,” I teased, even as a thrill shot through me and I felt perversely proud. “Did you have fun? Thinking about a big, burly, fireman’s hose pumping away inside of me?”
Simon shrugged, pushing my arms up a few inches in the process and pulling me in even closer to his delicious body. I shivered, wishing he would just concede already and drag me off to somewhere private. At this point, I was almost turned on enough to find even a public bathroom sexy.
“I’m not going to apologize for the alerts, you know. I love them. Any time your name pops up on my computer, it brightens my whole damn day,” he whispered into my ear before leaning down, kissing my neck and making heat radiate from my belly to my chest, from my chest to my aching core. “Besides, it always adds a little fuel to my fire,” he added.
“What fire?” I whispered, surprised I was able to speak. My heart was pounding fast and hard, my throat tight. It felt like I had an untamed horse inside of me, galloping wildly, but yet intrigued by a handsome stranger’s offer of food.
Simon pressed himself back into me, and I felt the bulge in his pants twitching as he stared into my eyes.
“That fire,” he said softly into my ear, his lips brushing the soft, tender patch beneath my earlobe as he made his way down towards my collarbone. “And if I’m not more careful, it’s going to grow and grow. You’re the only one who could put it out, and the blaze will devour me whole.”
“Who says I wouldn’t put it out?” I asked, slipping my arms off his shoulders and sliding my hands down to curve of his perfect ass. I took a moment to squeeze before pulling him against me, reveling in the feeling of his cock mashing into me.
He responded in kind, placing his knee between my legs and grinding it against my tight dress. I gyrated my hips, my most intimate parts making indirect contact with him, feeling better than anything I’d ever experienced before.
Hell, Simon’s fire was going to consume us both.
I didn’t care.
I threw my head back and gasped, feeling the invasive touch of his lips along the hollow of my neck. His hips undulated alongside mine as I rode through blissful abandon.
Fuck.
Simon was clearly thinking the same thing, and suddenly we were dashing back to colle
ct our belongings and leave. Within moments we were out of the club and back on the street, the cooler air serving as a wake-up call against my hot skin. I stopped in my tracks, taking a few deep breaths and thinking.
Simon looked down at me, his piercing eyes scanning my face carefully.
“What do you want, Emilia?”
I could’ve easily lied, pretending that the cocktails and the heat had gotten to me. But I couldn’t bring myself to do it. The fact was, I didn’t want a wake-up call. I wanted to ride this feeling to the end, and see where it took us.
I’d wanted Simon for a long time now. He’d broken back into my life, ripping open old scars, but he’d done it to heal me. Now, for the first time, I felt like that chapter of our past was mostly behind us. Now I wanted to move on, to look ahead, to see what our future held.
I wanted to find out what this invisible bond between us would feel like in bed, with all the calm strength of his body on top of me.
“I want you,” I answered in a long exhale, and immediately I saw his pupils darken with animalistic desire.
“Fuck,” he growled, and in an instant his lips were on mine, his tongue invading my mouth with a hunger that had clearly been building for over a decade. It was sensory overload, and I could barely comprehend exactly what was going on. All I knew is that the bully who had once tried to ruin my life was kissing me ravenously and I wanted more. I wanted it to last forever.
Nothing had ever felt as right as this moment.
“You taste so fucking amazing, Emilia,” he growled, breaking our kiss just long enough to breathe and then descending once again onto my mouth. He moved in with enough fierceness to back me against the nearest building, grinding my brand new dress into its brick exterior.
Worth it.
Absolutely worth it.
I looked up at him, his eyes wild with lust, his unspoken demand sending daggers of excitement to my belly. I slid my hand up on his chest, meeting the wall of bulging muscles and rigid planes that I was quickly coming to memorize by touch. I wanted more, much more, and I let my hand slide down to his hips, pulling him against me and shamelessly rubbing my lower belly against his cock. I could feel how thick he already was, and I couldn’t wait to get rid of the layers of cloth that separated me from him.
Loud hollers resonated nearby as a group of revelers passed by on the opposite sidewalk, cheering us on lewdly. They were making obscene gestures, but not half as obscene as what I wanted to do with Simon.
“Let’s get out of here,” he said in a deep voice, and I couldn’t agree more. I grabbed his hand and he escorted me toward the major avenue off the side street where Quay 78 stood. He immediately hailed a passing cab, and a minute later we were sitting next to each other.
He didn’t ask, but all the same I didn’t hesitate before giving my answer.
“Yeah, come home with me.” My voice was deep and raspy, heavy with lust and almost unrecognizable. I wanted this, wanted him. Needed it. My fingers trembled when I placed my hand on his cheek, feeling the stubble grating the soft skin of my palm.
“I never thought I’d hear you say that,” he answered, taking me into his arms for a stolen kiss that left me into even more of a mess than I already was. I gave the cabbie my address and closed my eyes, bracing myself for the longest drive of my life.
If only we’d had a helicopter.
Her birthday.
I wanted to send a card, but who was I kidding?
It would’ve just ruined her big day.
21 years old.
I wonder how she’s doing.
Thirteen years I’d been aching for this moment.
Thirteen years, never believing it might actually happen.
I’d only dreamt of it, letting my imagination run wild.
In the shower, during our two summers together. Picturing her in the same room, naked, touching the same things. It was the only room in her house with a lock, and maybe she’d taken advantage of the privacy in the same way I had….
Thinking of her when I was alone in bed, hard and unable to sleep.
Thinking of her when I wasn’t alone in bed, on top of some brunette who could almost pass for her when the lights were off. How many strange women had I called Emilia during the throes of passion? How many times had I woken in the middle of the night, covered in cold sweat?
I’d never allowed myself to think this moment would come, but yet here it was. She was sitting next to me, and I was struggling not to pinch myself in the arm. If this turned out to be just another vivid dream, I at least wanted to enjoy it for as long as I could.
Feeling her nestled beneath my arm, smelling her so close to me, my head was swimming more now than it had been in the club. Our rather shameless public display of affection a few minutes ago was far more of a rush than all the alcohol I’d had tonight.
“Are you okay?” she whispered, shuffling around in her seat. I could feel cool air touching my skin in the place she’d been resting, and I wanted nothing more than to feel the weight of her pressing back into my body. I wanted to stroke her cheek, run my fingers through her long hair, coax her back next to me.
I wanted it more than anything else, but I knew I couldn’t. It had taken all my strength to stop the first time, and I knew that if we started again here, we’d never be able to stop. We’d end up putting on a show for the cab driver, and I had no intention of making our time together so crass. If mere sex had been the goal, even Quay 78’s bathrooms would’ve done the trick.
No, this needed to be special.
“I’ll feel a lot better once we get to your place,” I explained, looking out the window as we passed through empty streets. Time seemed to slow down as the dingy lights of the city blurred past us, and I would’ve given anything to speed things up. I’d just gotten a taste of heaven, and I needed to feel her against me once more. I felt like an addict in search of a fix, except she was right next to me all along.
The wait was insufferable.
After an eternity, the long and straight city avenues turned into cozy, winding residential streets. When the cab pulled to a stop in front of an apartment complex, I didn’t even wait for him to announce the fare. I practically threw a fistful of money at him, more than enough, and told him to keep the change as I slid from the vehicle and rushed around to help Emilia out of the car.
We made it into the building and slammed the elevator button, realizing with frustration that it needed to come down to the ground level. Not wanting to waste time, Emilia and I rushed up the stairs and made it to the second floor in the blink of an eye. While my heart was pounding in my throat, she fished her keys out of her bag and unlocked the front door.
She clicked on the light slowly, a little hesitant and shy. In the blink of an eye, I was faced with all things Emilia. Everything I’d been carefully trying to avoid for years, until one day an article in the paper had brought all my feelings back to the surface.
Everywhere I looked tonight, those feelings intensified. Sitting atop a large windowsill were old trophies I knew she had won running, or pictures of her in the competitions. Her long mane tamed into braids and ponytails, joy on her face as the hair flew behind her.
On a wall across from those, she’d captured other moments of her life. Her diplomas, pictures of her celebrating with Lena and Joana. Knickknacks from trips and vacations she’d taken as a new adult, memories from a well-rounded life.
Next to her TV was a wall of books, with magazines and newspapers stacked into an orderly pile near the shelves. On her coffee table were two French pastry cookbooks, both sitting open, and a dog-eared copy of a tome I knew well. Fundamentals of Rugby had not only been my bible when I was just starting out as a high-strung coach on the path to redemption, but it had been written by my old mentor and first coach. A man who’d seen something in me when no one else did, and probably saved my life in the process.
“I see you’ve been doing a lot of reading,” I said lightly, placing my hand on the small of Emilia’s
back and enjoying the feeling immensely.
“Before you ask, no, I’m not going to serve you pastries tonight,” she joked back, and I wanted to kiss her more than I wanted my next breath.
“But yeah, the book has been a lifesaver,” she said after a moment. “The team is always hungry for more, all the time. More tips, more training, more skills, more skits. They’ve really taken to the sport more than I ever thought, and it’s been hard to keep up.”
“Yeah, their enthusiasm is humbling,” I said back. As much as I wanted to throw Emilia down onto the couch and ravish her, I was sincerely happy that the rec center’s rugby program was such a success. “Do you think you could find them a regular coach, after the summer season is over?”
“It’s not exactly a popular sport here, you know. It might be really hard,” Emilia shrugged. “We might have to branch into football, or just go back to our policy of non-specialized training. I mean, it’s great that they’re playing competitive sports and actually discovering that they’re good at something, of course. I just don’t know if we’ll be able to continue, and the original idea was just to initiate them into healthy habits of regular physical activity.”
“Competition is vital to some of us, you know,” I pointed out.
“Learning life skills is also vital.”
“Being competitive is a life skill,” I quipped, tickling her a little. “I win.”
“Not the most important one, though. And it needs to be in the right context, otherwise you just end up self-obsessed and unable to take no for an answer,” Emilia said.
“If I took ‘no’ for an answer, my life would be a lot worse. And you’d be out of a job right now, for that matter,” I shrugged, clearing a bottle of nail polish and her Kindle off the sofa before sitting down.
“Fair enough,” she said a little awkwardly. “Make yourself comfortable here, I need a second to go change. I haven’t been able to breathe since I put this dress on six hours ago.”
