by Sara Whitney
Fire surged in her veins at the strain in his voice. Need. Not want, need. Jake needed her and only her. And she needed him too. Now it was time to show him how much.
“Hmm.” She turned onto her stomach and wiggled a bit, feeling the shirt ride up her thighs. “What else do we need to discuss tonight before we do this? International trade policy? The city’s new ban on leaf burning? Which Taylor Swift album is the best?”
Jake grinned, and his big hand traveled up the back of her leg to cup her butt. “I’m sorry. Were you talking?”
She shot him a laughing glance over her shoulder, and he flipped her onto her back and rolled on top of her in one smooth motion. Her heart battered against her ribs; this was finally happening.
“Keep talking,” he murmured against her neck. “I fucking love your voice.”
“Really?” She sounded breathy all of a sudden.
“Really. Your voice is everything. I’ve wanted to get you naked since I picked you up and put you on a desk in that furniture store. But your voice? I haven’t been able to get enough of it since the first day I met you.” His hands slid up her sides until his thumbs rested just below her breasts.
“Jake,” she breathed, putting as much weight to his name as she could, and his eyes burned into hers.
“I’m just going to start kissing every part of you now. Lost time, remember? Keep talking.”
When he claimed her mouth with his and nibbled at her lower lip, she wondered how he expected her to say anything at all. Then he moved down her body, pulling off the T-shirt and unhooking her bra. He tugged it down her arms and tossed it to the floor, inhaling hard at the sight of her breasts. She felt a surge of power at his speechlessness.
“Like what you see?” Her normal speaking voice never sounded that decadent, but she was pouring as much rich honey into it as she could and was rewarded when he looked up at her with naked want in his eyes that made her blood churn.
“Fuck, you’re hot.” His voice was reverent, and his dark hair fell over his forehead as he leaned down to swipe his tongue across her nipple.
She hissed at the sharp bolt of pleasure, and his cheeks curved into a smile.
“I don’t hear you talking, sweetheart,” he said against her skin, rolling the pad of his thumb across her other nipple. “I thought you had words for days. Tell me about Taylor Swift burning leaves.”
He was right; all her words had failed her. He sucked her nipple into his mouth, and she moaned, raking her fingers through his hair.
“That’s not talking either.” He trailed his hand down her body to a different wet heat. “Use your words, Mae.”
Mabel arched her back off the bed as he ran two fingers along her slickness. His thumb circled her clit with the perfect amount of pressure, and when his teeth grazed her nipple, she found the words she’d misplaced.
“Yessssss, just like that, Jake, please like that, please don’t stop.” The words rushed out in a throaty, frantic voice she barely recognized as her own.
And good man that he was, he chuckled and followed her commands, continuing at that delicious pressure and speed while she hovered for an eternity just beyond paradise. Finally, finally he bit down gently on her nipple, and the bolt of pleasure/pain combined with the motion of his thumb below brought her orgasm crashing down on her, leaving her gasping.
When her eyes fluttered open, he kissed her gently and whispered against her mouth, “You’re gorgeous when you come.”
Mabel ran one hand along the hard muscles of his chest, enjoying the sheen of sweat there, and whispered back, “Are you ever going to stop talking and fuck me?”
He went comically still for a beat and then exploded into a flurry of action, kicking off his boxer briefs and rolling to the bedside table to grab a condom. Mabel stilled his hand before he opened the packet, running a delicate fingertip along the wetness beading at the tip of his cock.
“Who’s speechless now?” She couldn’t help teasing him.
He responded by rolling the condom on and pulling her to the edge of the bed, positioning himself between her legs. “No words. That’s how desperate I am to be inside you.”
Mabel smiled and trailed her fingers down over her breasts, pinching her nipples. “Then do it already.”
It had the desired effect. He groaned and pulled her legs around his waist. Then, with one quick thrust, he plunged into her. She sucked in a breath at the delicious intrusion and hooked her heels together to pull him even closer. He stilled for a moment, hands tight on her hips, eyes closed, face tense.
Mabel wanted to reach up and smooth away that pained expression, but before she could, he began to move. The delicious friction chased every other thought from her mind, and she let him set the pace. When her head lolled to the side, the mirrors on the closet doors reflected them back, and she saw herself spilled across his bed like a pagan offering, hands clenching the covers and hair pooling around her head. She saw Jake’s muscled body tense and thrusting, watched the globes of his ass as he pounded into her. She saw the two of them finally, finally joined.
“Jake,” she murmured. “Oh God, baby, look. Do you see how good we are together?”
He turned his head and met her gaze in the mirror. “Fuck. Oh fuck, Mabel,” he ground out.
Then he lifted her as if she weighed nothing and rolled onto his back on the bed, positioning her so she could ride him, so they could both watch her move along his cock. The new position allowed him to penetrate even deeper, and it provided intriguing new views in the mirror.
But as Mabel’s orgasm drew near, she turned away from the mirror, locking eyes with Jake and reaching down to twine her fingers around his.
“So perfect. So perfect for me,” he panted, fingers tight around hers.
He freed one hand so he could caress her where their bodies were joined. As she shuddered around his cock, he gave a guttural groan and joined her in tumbling over the edge. After a suspended moment, he pulled her down next to him and kissed her, deep and slow. She curled into his big body, and their heartbeats slowed together.
Mabel woke early of course. As soon as her eyes snapped open, the entire night flickered through her head like a highlight reel from someone else’s life. A much braver someone else. Had she really started the night by getting her underwear torn off in a bar and ended it by riding Superman to her third orgasm of the night while they watched their sweaty, naked selves in a mirror?
That should really be the lead sentence in her obituary.
The clock in Jake’s bedroom read 6:15 a.m., and she felt a flutter of unease clawing at her throat. The only clothes she had with her were the Pretty Woman gear, and no way were she and Jake going out for a cozy breakfast with her in knee-high boots. Also, he hadn’t actually asked her to breakfast or made any plans at all beyond last night. Also also, she’d promised Thea she’d meet her at the gym at eight for that damn yoga class, which at the time had sounded like a dreadful idea but now gave her a plausible excuse for running away from a situation that seemed a little bigger than she knew how to handle at the moment.
She cautiously shifted to her side and allowed herself the luxury of staring at the man lying next to her. Jake was sound asleep on his stomach with an arm splayed across her waist. His handsome face was slack, lashes resting on his cheeks. The needy part of her wanted to smooth down his thick, ruffled hair and run a hand along the muscles of his back, but instead of waking him, she inched out from under his arm and quietly slid out of bed. She snatched her bra from the ground and tiptoed to the living room to collect her tiny skirt and slinky top. Her hair was a snarled mess, and she couldn’t bring herself to shove her feet back into the torture boots, so she pulled on her thin socks, slid her arms into her coat, and resigned herself to a frigid dash to her car, which was at least parked near the main door.
A quick glance around his kitchen didn’t yield a notepad or even a piece of junk mail to leave the neat freak a message on, so she fished an old Starbucks receipt out of her pu
rse and scrawled, “Early appointment. Call you later. —M”
She placed the scrap of paper on the kitchen table and frowned at the message. It was impersonal, but it was the most she was able to articulate at the moment. The intensity of their pairing last night was too much, too fast. She needed to clear her head.
Easing open his front door, she shut it behind her as quietly as she could and hustled to the elevator and out to her car. The sock-clad dash to her car in the visitor’s slot was as unpleasant as she’d feared, and once she made it home, she threw herself gratefully into the shower, then pulled on her workout gear and was fifteen minutes early to meet Thea, who, bless her heart, had actually beaten her there.
“Hi!” She looked like a tiny, spunky badass in her stretchy pants, workout tank, and hoodie, but her expression was nervous.
“Hi yourself. What’s up with you?”
They’d parked themselves on one of the comfortable-as-a-wooden-log couches in the gym lobby, which was swarming with people there for their Saturday-morning workout. Thea bit her lip and stared down at her hands, which were fidgeting with the strings of her hoodie.
“Oh my God, what?” Mabel asked. “Is somebody dead? Am I dead?”
That, at least, pulled a smile out of her. “You’re not Bruce Willis, no.” Then she took a deep breath. “Okay, I’m not sure whether I should even bring this up, but were you with Jake last night?”
How could she possibly have guessed that? Mabel’s surprise must’ve registered as a no, because Thea covered her face in her hands with a wail. “Oh God, I shouldn’t have brought it up.”
Mabel gripped Thea’s knees to get her attention. “Brought what up?”
She lifted her head slowly, then her words tumbled out in a rush. “Okay, so in that case, I don’t know if I should tell you, but I bumped into the lady across the hall on my way out this morning, and she complained that some, and I’m quoting here, ‘trampy tramp’ snuck out of Jake’s apartment a few hours ago.” Thea leaned forward and squeezed Mabel’s shoulder. “I’m so sorry. I guess she was barefoot and her hair was absolutely wild. And, well, he and I share an apartment wall, and last night I did hear some, um, things…”
Thea’s voice trailed off as Mabel collapsed sideways into a quivering mass of embarrassed horror. “Oh my God. You guys share a wall?”
“I’m so sorry!” Thea cried. “I knew I shouldn’t have told you. Maybe she made a mistake and saw somebody leaving a different apartment.”
“No, it was Jake’s.” Mabel clapped her hands over her face and spoke from between her fingers. “I’m the trampy tramp. And oh my God, you heard us?”
Thea’s mouth formed a perfect O for a solid twenty seconds before she dissolved into giggles. “You trampy trampy tramp!” she crowed, nudging Mabel’s shin with her toe. “So? How was it?”
Mabel’s whole body melted into boneless satisfaction, and she grinned dreamily up at Thea. “So good. So incredibly good. So unbelievably, brain-meltingly good.”
“Uggghhh, jealous.” Thea stood and matter-of-factly zipped up her hoodie. “Come on. Today is not a day for yoga. Today is a day for donuts and coffee and gossip. I’m buying.”
Thirty-Two
Jake wasn’t terribly surprised to find himself alone in bed on Saturday morning. Disappointed, yes. But not surprised. He’d hoped Mabel would stick around after they both dropped to sleep exhausted; Mabel first thing in the morning was something he was dying to see. And kiss. And touch.
Okay, he was also dying for a repeat of the previous night, although maybe less frenzied this time. He wanted more savoring.
But her side of the bed had long grown cold by the time he woke up. He tamped down the hurt that bloomed in his chest; she’d been resisting the pull between them for so long that her bolting at the first opportunity made a weird sort of sense.
It still stung of course. But he wasn’t going to take it lying down, although it did take a slight struggle to disentangle himself from the mess they’d made of his sheets. He wandered through his apartment, looking for any sign that last night had actually happened and hadn’t been an especially vivid fantasy. He found his T-shirt crumpled on the bedroom floor and his jeans in the living room. Nothing of Mabel’s though, not until he spotted the note on the table. Barely a note actually. A few terse words that did nothing to ease his growing concern.
The last time he’d had skin-to-skin contact with Mabel, he hadn’t sought her out the following day, and on Monday everything exploded. He didn’t think they had any remaining undetonated grenades lurking in their lives, but just in case, he wasn’t going to leave their next meeting to chance or put it off until he bumped into her at the station. He needed to see her. Today, if she’d let him.
He sat on the couch and spent way too long laboring over a text message that conveyed the right amount of warmth without crossing into desperation.
Jake: Missed you this morning. Free for dinner later?
He hit Send and stared at the screen, relieved when her response zipped back almost instantly.
Mabel: Yes to dinner. Yes to missing you too.
Good. That was friendlier than her note at least.
Mabel: Will you wear your pink apron?
She remembered the apron. He grinned down at his phone. His cousin Brandy had draped it around his neck and snapped that shot during the lead-up to their family Thanksgiving, and he almost hadn’t sent it to Mabel because they’d left things in such a weird place, but God, he was glad he had.
Jake: Your place okay? Mine lacks kitchen supplies.
Mabel: And mine doesn’t? But sure, come by whenever. Can I pick anything up?
Jake: Nope. See you around 5.
He didn’t want to wait until five. He didn’t want to wait at all. But she clearly needed space, and he’d give it to her. He’d just have to fill the interminable hours in between with busywork so he wouldn’t claw his way out of his skin.
At the grocery store, he wandered the aisles and snagged the ingredients he’d need for dinner, then made a few more stops when he couldn’t find the final ingredient for the evening. At last, after the longest afternoon of his life, he pulled into the driveway of Mabel’s one-story brick home. He hadn’t been back since he’d taken her home after that first Moo Daddies concert, and now that he was seeing it in daylight, he was able to appreciate the way the aquamarine shutters mirrored the personality of their owner: attractive with a flash of the unpredictable.
He gathered his supplies and slipped an item on over his coat before walking up her front steps, laden with bags. He rang her bell and was rewarded with a delighted laugh when she opened the door.
“That is the pinkest apron I’ve ever seen.” She grabbed him by a frilly strap and hauled him inside. “Just had this lying around, did you?”
He followed her into her house and set the grocery bags on her white-tiled kitchen countertop. “What, this old thing? Yeah, had it for years.”
“Years,” she repeated, reaching behind him to fiddle with the price tag on the neck strap.
“You asked for a pink apron, and since the original’s with its owner a little north of here, I had to find a replacement,” Jake told her. “This is not an easy thing to find in Beaucoeur, I’ll have you know. I had to try three different stores. The saleswoman assured me that my wife would love it. I couldn’t bear to tell her it was for me.”
They both looked at the cotton-candy-pink apron that barely covered his thighs and the lacy, heart-shaped pocket sewn directly over his groin.
“I may not be your wife, but I love it.” She hooked her fingers around the straps and pulled him close.
He responded by wrapping his arms around her and kissing her soundly, enjoying the soft sweetness of her mouth.
The last thing he wanted to do was pressure her, but he also wanted to let her know where he was on the events of the day so far. “I was disappointed to wake up alone,” he said against her lips. Not accusatory, just a statement.
Sh
e colored a little and pulled back. “I promised Thea I’d meet her at the gym, so I needed to go home and get changed. Although I guess I could’ve just knocked on her wall. By the way, I recently learned that when you said she’s your neighbor, you literally meant neighbor.”
“Aggressively friendly literal neighbor, yes.” He ran his thumb along her jaw. “And that’s the only reason you snuck out?”
She turned her head to catch the tip of his thumb between her teeth, then let it go. “I needed a little time to process. Last night was…”
Her voice trailed off, and Jake rested his hands on her shoulders. “I’m desperate to hear what adjective you come up with.”
She laughed and dropped a tiny kiss at the corner of his mouth. “Amazing.” Another small kiss, this time on the opposite side. “Fantastic.” One more kiss, directly to his mouth. “Intense.”
His enjoyment of her lips on his skin was interrupted when she gave him a little shake. “And? I’m desperate to hear your own adjectives about last night.”
“Mind-blowing.” He kissed her cheek. “Life-changing.” He kissed her jaw. “And yes, intense.” None of that was an overstatement. She’d opened doors for him last night that he’d never walked through in terms of physical pleasure from an emotional connection.
He was hooked on her now, so he kissed her throat and kept kissing down to the neckline of her soft, long-sleeved shirt, scraping his teeth over her collarbone. She dropped her head back to give him access to the soft skin there, and he could’ve stood in the sunny kitchen and kissed her for hours.
But he pulled back and said, “Mabel, I’ve got to ask you something incredibly important.”
She froze and asked warily, “Yes?”
“Tell me, and please be honest: Do you own a zester?”
Her lips twitched, but she kept her voice flat. “I like grated cinnamon in my hot chocolate. Of course I own a zester.”
“Okay then,” he said. “Step back and let the master work. Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to provide the music for the afternoon.”
