by Liora Blake
He removes his hand from my ass and waves. “Morning, Grant. No problem. Good trip?”
“Great trip. Finally got Laura to relax a little bit.”
Rolling my head down farther into his chest, I hope that Simon and Grant aren’t prone to long conversations. At some point, my being turned around this way, without acknowledging the neighborly interaction, will be weird. Thankfully, there are only a few more pleasantries before Grant rolls up his window and drives away in his minivan. Yes, a minivan.
Once Mr. Minivan is a safe distance away, I lift my face to meet Simon’s grinning gaze. “Seriously? Could you have made me look any trashier?”
“Which part was trashy? The hand on your ass or the one up your shirt? At least I had it up the back of your shirt, not the front. I have some boundaries.”
Groaning, I disentangle my body from his and open my car door. “Gives the neighbors something to talk about, right?”
“Probably. This is the suburbs. And the first time Grant’s seen me with a girl. He’s probably texting his wife with the gossip as we speak.”
My hand grips the door handle tightly at the idea that Simon doesn’t parade a variety of women across his lawn at all hours. Not possible. Even with his claims about being more than one-dimensional, I’m pretty sure at least one of the other dimensions is still manwhore incarnate. Because every single thing about him shouts to his ability to engage in indiscriminate, random one-night stands. His body, his leering smile, the litany of dirty come-ons that leaves his pretty mouth. The concept of my being the first girl to do the walk of shame down Simon’s sidewalk simply can’t be true.
I leave him there, refusing to look in the rearview mirror as I pull away, knowing that seeing him standing there, barefooted, in those loose pajama bottoms and the T-shirt that now smells like both of us, his hair all messy, would only send me back up to his doorstep, knocking until he lets me in again.
I tough it out nearly two whole days, pushing through the instinct to call him or text him, send him a bouquet of roses, possibly. When I left his house, there was an unspoken assumption of more, but I don’t want to want more. I would prefer to shake it off, this greedy, inquisitive, fuzzy feeling that covers me when I think of him. But it hovers and creeps about, flaring worst when I’m alone and lack distraction. This inconvenient collusion among my head and heart and body is how I end up parked in front of his house this afternoon, wearing a short sundress that usually gets me a few lingering looks from guys when I wear it.
When I pull up, the house looks different. Maybe it’s the light of the hot afternoon sun, or how the shades are drawn back on the front windows. Or, maybe it is just that there is less unknown now. I know exactly what I will find on the other side of his big front door. A guy with good hands, a filthy mouth, and a wicked way with the rest of his body. Knowing all that makes his front walk look like a yellow brick road to all sorts of thrills. I’m Dorothy, except my dress is shorter and instead of those ruby slippers, I have on a pair of tall wedge sandals that I hope will put my lips right next to his.
Still, I have trouble getting out of the car. I shut off the engine, but the radio is still playing quietly in the background. A sappy power ballad comes on and the lyrics about never getting enough make my lungs fill with useless oxygen, because I’m holding my breath and refusing to exhale until I figure out exactly what I am doing here. While I can’t exactly name what it is I truly want, in broad terms, it’s simple. More. Just more. There are too many things we haven’t done, too many things I need him to do to me so I can cross them off my Simon wish list. The one I totally started last night while lying in bed and trying to keep my hands from wandering.
On the passenger seat, my phone vibrates and I peer at the text that pops up on the display.
Are you coming inside? Or am I supposed to come out there and get you?
Lord. Doesn’t he have things to do, instead of watching out his window for me? He should reorganize those stupid kitchen cabinets if he has so much time on his hands. Put some order to that chaos. I drop my head to the steering wheel with a thump and grip it tightly in both hands.
Did that hurt? Don’t bruise that pretty face.
Before I can send something back or put my car in gear to drive away, the texts start coming in a rapid-fire sequence.
Don’t make me come out there.
I will.
I’ll do it, I swear.
I’ll drag you out of the car and throw you over my shoulder.
Spank your ass all the way up the sidewalk.
I don’t give a shit who sees.
Neighbors would love it.
When they’re eating dinner tonight, they’ll talk about it.
. . . then he was smacking her ass! Can you believe it, Grant? Her ass! In front of the whole neighborhood!
Hoping he will stop, I get out. Slamming the car door behind me, I straighten my dress and stand on the sidewalk for a second, staring at the ground until my phone vibrates again.
One foot in front of the other, sunshine.
I stomp my right foot a little and then throw my hands up in annoyance. “Jesus Christ! I’m coming in, you dumbass!”
Laughter ripples through an open window. The quiet of the suburbs on a hot weekday afternoon carries the sound as if it were a speaker. A husky chuckle follows, one that trails off until I see the front door open. When he comes down the sidewalk to where I am, halfway to the porch, he stops and shoves his hands in the pockets of his loose shorts. Then he leans in and puts a featherlight kiss to my lips, so soft that I wonder if his aim was off. Leaning back, he rocks a little on his heels, anxious and seemingly unsure.
The shoes worked, though. My lips are so perfectly in line with his, I can’t think about anything else for a moment. Dragging my gaze away, the notion that he wasn’t expecting me comes rattling through my brain. I drove over here like a lusty zombie without thinking about what I might find. Like a threesome. Or, at the very least, a naked stripper or something.
“I guess I should have called. Instead of just showing up here and sitting in my car like a stalker.” The need to fidget and distract myself itches through my skin. I smooth the front of my dress aimlessly and clear my throat.
“No need. I wasn’t doing anything. I was going to give it a couple more hours before I drove over to your place, but here you are. Saved me the drive.”
Moving forward, he puts another kiss to my lips. More forcefully this time, but still without wrapping his arms around me, using only his mouth until I tilt my head to break it.
“Still. It was rude. You might have had plans, or . . . whatever.”
Simon cocks his head to the side and knits his brows together a little. “Is this you awkwardly referencing me having another woman here? Or plans to be with someone else?”
His lips part a fraction and then his tongue peeks out to touch the center of his top lip. I can’t see anything but that, and the way it leaves a tiny little glisten of moisture there. When I draw my focus back to the rest of his face, he is still staring at me, perplexed. I’m sure he thinks I really want to know, but I don’t. Because if he does have a slew of other women around, it will only serve to make me feel more pitiful, getting in line with the rest of them for my turn. If he says the opposite, that it’s just the two of us for now, that’s too much pressure. That right there would take this from pitiful to powder keg in no time.
“I wasn’t referencing anything other than my bad fucking manners. Don’t make a thing out of it.”
“I’m not making a thing out of it. Jesus. I’m not even giving you shit about it.”
Shaking his head, he pulls up his ball cap, swipes his hair back, and then replaces the hat, shoving it down low on his head. “I like you, Devon, and I’m not remotely interested in any other women. Do what you want with that information. Torment me, annihilate me, skewer me. But when you’re done, if you could hand my balls back in one piece, that would be great. Because I’m pretty sure I’ve allowed you
to get a firm-ass grip on them.”
How this happened, I don’t freaking know. How I ended up driving over here, wearing a short dress and some sexy wedges designed to get him to ravish me again, only to have the boy I’m craving end up looking at me like I’m a heartless bitch, I’ll never understand. Sighing, I throw my head back and look up at the cloudless blue sky.
“Why are you doing this, Simon? Why are you making this weird?”
“I just fucking told you why. Because I like you. We had mind-numbingly phenomenal sex. More than once. I told you I wanted to be with you bare and unprotected someday. I stood on the sidewalk with my hands all over you and chatted up the neighbors. All that shit because I like you, Devon. Is that so hard to understand?”
This is not going according to plan. My plan involved us being naked already. We should have been done with round one by now, flopped in a sweaty heap of tangled limbs on his bed. Or the living room floor. The plan I had in mind wasn’t terribly detailed regarding specific locations.
But as much as I want him, this can’t be worth it, sniping at each other. Not even in the way we normally do—instead we’re bickering for real, with hurt feelings and wounded pride. Turning on my heel, I start back toward the car.
“Goddammit.” Following the words is the sound of Simon’s bare feet slapping against the walkway with soft thuds. When he reaches me, his arms go around my waist to stop me, the grip loose but secure. Pressing his forehead to the back of my skull, he sucks in a deep breath.
“Don’t leave; I want you here. You shouldn’t feel weird about wanting that, too. Wanting this, both of us wanting it, is OK.”
My eyes drop closed as the weight of his limbs grounds every part of my body into this spot on the earth, where his body and mine fit together just so, and he’s saying things that seem to make sense. When he feels my body relax, he squeezes my waist again, and turns his head to mumble into the skin of my neck. “Now, would you just come in the house so I can put my hands up this dress?”
When we walk back inside, through the open door and into his living room, he’s holding my hand and letting our intertwined fingers dangle between us. Music drifts in from another room in the house, low and soft. I turn my head toward it and take a side-glance at him.
“What were you doing before I got here?”
“Reading. Hoping you’d show up.”
Simon pulls me to the other side of the living room, into an adjacent room I never noticed when I was here before. Through the wide opening is a study, with books covering three of the room’s walls, shelves rising from the floor to the ceiling. The only wall that doesn’t have shelves is lined by a deep window seat covered in thick pillows and heavy cushions, all bathed in afternoon sunlight from the windows above them. A few of the sashes are raised and the street is clearly visible from this spot in the house. He was sitting here when I drove up, able to see my every move before he started with the texting. Books seem to be everywhere: stacked on the floor, lining the shelves, heaped on the window seat. Nothing is in an organized fashion. Spines point every which way: some rest open but facedown; other, heavier ones lie flopped open to random pages.
Dropping my hand, he walks across the room and proceeds to flip a record on a player.
Aw, hell. Bob Marley on vinyl. When the music starts again, I want to kiss him until he passes out, because reggae in the stifling heat of late August always makes me feel young and stupid. It’s the soundtrack of my many poor adolescent decisions, courtesy of my best friend Kendra and her aunt’s backyard in Fairfax. The woman had a deep love of all things reggae and a wonky moral compass that meant she didn’t care if we got drunk right in front of her. A summer afternoon at her place meant hot sun, cold, cheap beer, and a boy’s hands on my skin until I told him to stop.
I refrain from knocking Simon to the ground and re-creating memories of the summer I turned sixteen, because he’s hesitantly watching me from across the room and it feels like we’re suddenly not sure what to do with each other. Drifting to the bookshelves, I draw a finger over the edge, pausing to look at some of the titles. No copies of The Da Vinci Code or Twilight that I can see, which are the only two books I’ve finished in the last ten years. Groaning inwardly, I stop in the corner and turn to him. “You’re smart, aren’t you?”
“Is there a particular reason you sound horrified when you say that?”
Shrugging, I turn back to the books and pull one out, flipping through the pages. Before I can even pretend to read some of it, Simon’s body is nestled against mine, turning me to face him. He backs me firmly into a corner where two walls of shelves adjoin and takes the book from my hands, tossing it on a shelf. Placing one hand on my hip, he uses the other to run his fingers through my hair, his eyes roaming over my face.
“Look, don’t turn us getting to know each other into some We’re so different bullshit, OK? Two people can’t banter and fuck like we do and not have something, right?”
I shrug again.
“Are you mute all of a sudden? Because that doesn’t work for me. I love trying to keep up with you, Devon. It’s basically my favorite thing about you.” Leaning forward, he drags his finger along the deep V-neck of my dress until he pauses near my clavicle, then traces the same path again. “Don’t make this complicated. How about you tell me about your day, sweetheart. Tell me every little thing you did since I last saw you.”
Between the feel of his finger lingering near my breasts, the heat of his body near mine, and the goddam Marley playing so softly in the background, I can’t process his oddly normal question.
“What?”
“Tell me about your day. Simple question.”
It might have been simple, except that he takes this moment to pull my hands above my head and holds them there with his own, then nudges his body against mine until my ass hits a low shelf. “Do you want me to go first?”
I let out a murmuring sigh and drop my head back, barely managing a nod to answer him.
“OK, then. I woke up. Felt across the mattress for your body. No luck.”
Before I can ask if that’s it, he starts in again. “Got up, ate some cereal. Thought about you on top of me with cereal crushed underneath us.” His hips push into mine, one insistent shove to make it clear he’s right here with me, hard and ready. “Took a shower. Put having you in the shower on my Devon wish list. Went to the studio. Did some session work with a jazz group. Came home. Got hard thinking about this. Thinking about you.”
Dropping his hands from my wrists, he reaches for the hem of my dress. Sliding it up, his hands find my hips and he spreads his palms flat there, with his thumbs grazing the sloping edges of my panties for what feels like hours. Finally, he hooks his thumbs and starts to tug.
Once he’s drawn them down to the middle of my thighs, he bends his knees until he hits the floor in front of me, leaving my panties to rest against my ankles. Looking up, he grins lazily and licks his lips.
“Step out of these, baby.” Lifting one foot at a time slowly, because if I don’t I might find myself falling to the ground, he slips off the white lace thong I very deliberately chose and drops it on the floor. Gently, he slips under my dress again, hands traveling only as high as the curve where the top of my thigh meets my ass, then back down all the way to my ankles. “Now you. Tell me about your day.”
Not wanting him to stop, I swallow and wet my lips, trying to find the strength to speak when every notion in my head is screaming to use my mouth for more interesting endeavors. But something in his tone earlier, the sting that laced each word, makes me want to do whatever he says for a little while. Even if this is just a temporary extension on a liaison that is only one layer deep, I still want to make it clear that I showed up here for him, all of him, from the way he uses his body to the way he calls me on every bit of bullshit I throw his way.
“You really want to know? Kind of boring.” When the words leave my lips, one of his hands moves to bunch my skirt up at the waist, and he murmurs something
to encourage me to talk, then starts to trace his other hand up the inside of one thigh.
Dear God, hard to think now, very hard to do anything but roll my hips forward and wait for him to put pressure where I need it. I lock my knees and try to speak again. The words are a tumble of sharply spoken yet broken phrases, all in an effort to get the information out as quickly as possible.
“Fine. Woke up. Ate breakfast. Got ready. Three clients. Hot yoga class. Took a shower. Drove here.”
Simon moves to grasp one leg behind my knee, bending it so that he can place my foot on one of the lower shelves. Shoving a few books down out of the way, he ensures that my heel is fully on the shelf before rising and pushing my dress around my waist again. “That’s it? Nothing else to report?”
Raising his eyes to mine, he takes his hat and turns it backward. The move is both ridiculous and hot, because I understand exactly why he’s doing it, yet it still makes him look like an asshole frat boy when he does. Focusing on the first part of the equation, I decide to tell the rest of the story, the rest of what consumed my thoughts for the last thirty or so hours.
“I spent every other second thinking about this. You. Put on a dress to come over here hoping you wouldn’t be able to think about anything but taking me once I got here.”
Obviously, I said something right, because all he does is groan about dying for his first real taste, before dropping to his knees. Letting his tongue circle, he teases with just that before finally spreading me with one hand. In that move, the tip of his tongue rubbing against every twinge of those bundled nerves, my brain shuts off and my mouth snaps shut. When he starts to trace up and down with his mouth, leaving a wet path in its wake, my jaw falls open again and one of those mortifying moans he’s so good at coaxing out of me rises up through my vocal cords.
