Best Erotic Romance

by Kristina Wright (ed)

  The music grew in volume as John’s ego raved and ranted, taunting him with visions of the sleep-deprived misery he’d have to face the next day, so that by the time he arrived at the downstairs flat’s door, he was ready to curl up his fist and pummel his future into submission.

  What would he do? Could he overcome his habitual kindness and tendency to gracious politesse and make some pithy, outraged statement? He might swear at her. Yes, he might. John knocked, hard.

  Four minutes later, he knocked again.

  After a quarter of an hour freezing his feet outside a blank, unresponsive door, John climbed the stairs with the Moaning Young Men chasing after, mocking his hunched back. There were dark stars in his eyes now, the marks of growing rage of a man who, since he’d left the womb, had spent his life trying to recreate that sense of perfect, balanced stasis.

  Back in his flat, he wanted to tear the place apart. But he lacked furniture to deconstruct. He looked at the window and thought about smashing it. Throwing the unwatched TV through it and watching it shatter over the rusting old fire escape.

  A thought appeared in his mind, simple and frighteningly tempting.

  It sent a shiver down his spine and made his mouth twitch. Before he could change his mind, he had crossed to the window and pulled it open, wide enough to clamber out onto the steel mesh platform.

  The air was a wonderful shock, gripping him in a dark, oily embrace that somehow, instead of sobering him up, spurred him on.

  He climbed gingerly down the staircase, flinching at the cold metal teeth digging into the soles of his bare feet, and came to a halt outside her window.

  There. She was sitting at the table, her chin on her hand, face turned toward him, eyes closed as she nodded along with the music. John lifted his hand to knock. For a split-second, he paused, looking at the little detail he could see in the dim light of the interior. Half a dozen candles burned on a plate at her elbow, their gold flames casting soft little shadows on her face. She wore a loose kimono-type garment, something that shone a little and fell from her shoulders. She looked like a painting, he thought.

  He shook his head. Waited for the pause in the song, the one he knew cut in after the middle eight. But instead of rapping on the glass, he found himself slamming it with his open hand, hard.

  Jane jerked fully awake. The dark shape at the window flung itself onto her consciousness like a slap in the face. Instinctively, she reached for the empty plate beside her, scrabbling through dry crumbs before her fingers closed over the handle of the fork.

  She raised it in front of herself like an undersized trident. Where was her phone? She had to get up and find it, but her eyes were fixed on the figure that hovered outside—a black shadow against the nearly black sky. He knocked on the window.

  Jane frowned. If he wanted to break in and rape, rob and kill her, why was he knocking? She peered into the gloom. Was he wearing pajamas? The figure shifted as she looked at him, and she saw him wave a kind of salute.

  Her neighbor? Yes, as she moved closer to the window, letting the hand holding the fork drop to her side, she thought there was something familiar about the shape of the man out there. The hair, normally brushed soft and falling over his face, stuck up wildly in all directions. But the broad, slightly stooped shoulders were his. And yes, as the candlelight fell on his scowling face, she recognized that resentful expression.

  She took the last few steps confidently and pulled up the sash as though she often received visitors via the window.

  “Either you’re recreating Breakfast at Tiffany’s or you locked yourself out,” she said, her voice warm with relief. He could be a psychopathic weirdo, but he’d always seemed an almost ludicrously polite man, one of those monochromatic shadows that skirt around the edge of life. If she passed him on the stairs, he’d flatten himself against the wall and murmur a greeting she could hardly hear.

  “Tiffany’s?” he said, screwing his eyes up. He shook his head. “Your music.”

  Jane glanced at the stereo, still warbling away. “Oh, the music,” she said, turning to give Mr. Pajamas a broad smile. “Siren song, huh? Come on in!”

  “I…” John hesitated, and then he nodded and followed the sweep of her arm. He felt somehow compelled. He folded his tall frame and slipped through the gap into Jane’s bedroom and stood on her Afghan rug holding his hands out as though feeling for invisible obstacles.

  He was tall, Jane noticed. Maybe that was why he stooped. And he was blushing too—god, how long had it been since she saw a man blush! It lit up his face under the silvery stubble.

  “Have a seat,” she said, waving at the futon in the center of the room. “Want a drink?”

  Before John could answer, she was sweeping over to the sideboard and picking up the gin. She poured a generous tumblerful.

  “I’m really not here to drink,” he said.

  “Oh, you’ll need a locksmith, won’t you? I’ll get the Yellow Pages,” she said and hustled to the bookshelves in the kitchen. She swiped an extra glass while she was there—at least now she didn’t feel like such a lush. Drinking alone was not good for her soul. When she came back, John was sitting on the futon, looking thoughtful. She dropped the directory in his lap and raised her glass.

  “Cheers, anyway,” she said.

  He sat and stared, his dark, ragged, sleepless eyes fixed on a point just to the left of her head.

  “So what do they call you?” she said, ducking her head toward the empty air where his gaze was stuck. He looked down at the floor and cleared his throat.

  “John,” he said. “My name is John.”

  Jane nodded. “I’m Jane,” she said, holding out a hand. “Nice to meet you.”

  They shook hands, and Jane held his cool, dry palm in her own. There was apparently something intensely interesting just behind her shoulder—his eyes kept sliding over there. Curious. But she took the chance to get a good look at him.

  He had delicate water-blue eyes with lashes as long as a giraffe’s. A stubble shadow that roughened his face and darkened the fine-carved bones of his jaw. Under his striped pajamas, his body was long and a little awkward, as though he didn’t know where to put his limbs. He must be a bookseller, Jane thought. Something serious and elegant. She checked out his hands. Pale, fine, no rings. Yes, she thought, as she watched his face blotch with an awkward, patchy blush. He’s lovely.

  Oh God, John thought. Oh sweet, gentle Jesus. There was a square framed picture of a tropical beach on the wall behind her head—an old record cover—and he carefully examined it. Otherwise he might look at her again. She was splashing more wine into her glass, and there was a faint purple stain on her top lip, but he couldn’t help himself, his gaze was pulled down to the pulse at her throat, to the pale skin.…

  “Is everything okay?” she asked.

  John let out a deep breath. “Your—shirt,” he said. “It’s not. It’s undone.”

  “Huh?” Jane looked down to where the thin fabric of her blouse clung precariously to her jutting breasts. And the breeze from the open window, John said to himself. Please God, help me.

  ‘”I’m trying not to look!” he blurted at last, shoving a hand into his hair and shaking his head. “I don’t even know what I’m doing here. What am I doing here?” he murmured to himself. It felt like he was sleepwalking, like all the anger had pooled out of him and left him sitting here limp and foolish on this woman’s couch.

  Only, he realized with a growing, unnerving feeling like the swoop of his stomach as the roller coaster approaches the steep curve, not all of him was limp. His prick was starting to rise, reaching inexorably toward the light and poking rudely to attention. No no no, he told himself, but the brain in his dick just shrugged.

  The flimsy cotton pajamas rose like a marquee being erected.

  He grabbed the Yellow Pages and flapped them open in his lap. The sudden jolt made his cock leap joyfully and butt against the spine. He pressed the heavy book down and chanced a furtive glance at the girl
. Jane.

  “Hey,” she said, swinging her hips gently from side to side.

  “Yes?” He sounded like he was in pain.

  “Dance with me,” said Jane, and held out her hand. “I love this song.”

  John frowned.

  “Come on, baby,” Jane said, clicking her fingers in the air in front of his downturned face.

  John raised his head, and his face was full of scrambled signals. His eyebrows twitched, and his cheeks flared. He shook his head harder.

  “This song,” he said at last, “is shit. This song and the next song, and the one when you flip the record over and crank up the volume on your terrible crackling speakers.”

  Jane took a step back, stunned. She reached for her throat. “You don’t like it?”

  “I don’t like it,” John said, tossing the Yellow Pages onto the couch and rising up. The cords of his pajamas swayed either side of his huge, angry erection, but he was beyond caring. “No. I don’t like the crass verse, melody or chorus. I don’t like sitting up all night listening to you croon and cackle and weep into your pillow…”

  Jane’s blue eyes pricked. She scrubbed at them roughly with the back of her hand.

  “…I don’t like lying in bed running through the ways I could short out the power in your flat or slip sleeping tablets into your water supply or set fire to my own flat and claim the insurance and have enough to move away somewhere I would never…”

  John took a step forward. He was a good foot taller than Jane, but she’d never really noticed until now. He leaned in so close Jane could see the candle flames reflected in his eyes.

  “…ever have to hear your infantile, pox-ridden, crapulous gutter music for the rest of my life.”

  Jane, the girl who had spent her life in a shouting match with the universe, suddenly went quiet. She looked up at John’s dilated pupils. His fists hung by his sides, clenching and unclenching. Between them, his moderate but obvious erection waved gently back and forth like a conductor’s baton.

  She bit her lip. Covered her eyes with her hand. When she started shaking, John reached out and nearly touched her, but he couldn’t do that, wouldn’t do that. Had he scared her? If he held her now it would make it worse. Invade her space. He couldn’t.

  “Oh God,” he said, “I’m sorry.”

  Jane made a stifled, uncertain noise.

  John blew air through his pursed lips, gritted his teeth, and grabbed her shoulders. Immediately, her knees buckled, and she sank into his arms. John tried to maneuver his cock out of the way, but it kept insinuating itself between them.

  “Jesus, I didn’t mean to frighten you,” John said, placing a hand lightly on the back of her bowed head. He could smell her hair. Bubblegum and cigarette smoke. She shook in his arms, and the movement made him doubly uncomfortable.

  Jane pulled her face out from where it nestled in John’s armpit. Smudged mascara had given her black-ringed panda eyes, but they were dry. She grinned.

  “Frighten me? Unlikely, mister. John.”

  Her mouth—satin and juicy and soft and tender—was so close he could feel her breath on his face. She blurred in front of his eyes, and he thought it must be a mirage, that there was no way she would be moving in so close to him, bringing herself close enough to…

  His world went suddenly sweet and upside down. Her lips on his. The tip of her tongue darted into his mouth. He thought to himself, Oh!

  She was rubbing up against him. That devious cock of his reared up against Jane’s belly with delight, surging forward to meet her with bold joy and god-damn-whoa lust that made his heart ache.

  They collapsed together, falling against the couch and scrabbling not to break the embrace. John’s pajamas were a flimsy barrier, and Jane had his cock extricated and standing proud within seconds. In turn, John plucked at her kimono, pushed it roughly aside to free her breasts. He squeezed tenderly, leaning down to suckle and bite, but not hard enough to bruise.

  “Yes,” said Jane, “more, please more.” He looked up and caught sight of the clock behind her head, just to the left of the framed record cover.

  Five A.M. Dawn was starting to turn the sky light. His neighbor’s tits were in his face, her nipples still wet from his mouth, and the music. The music was still playing.

  “Excuse me,” John said, and laid Jane down gently on the couch. He padded over to the stereo, trying to cover his awkward hard-on while Jane sighed behind him.

  “What are you doing?” she asked, as he lifted the needle from the record and cut the singer off in midchorus.

  Silence bloomed between them. John met her eyes, saw the restless spark and the tiredness in them. He moved to her and sank onto his knees in front of the couch.

  “You love music,” he murmured, whispering now as the quiet boomed in his ears. Jane nodded as he pulled her jeans open and bared her pubic hair, the top of her clit.

  “So lie back,” John said, lowering his head. “And listen.”

  He put his mouth to her, bending like a monk in prayer. The nerves in Jane’s body all rushed between her legs, every fiber and pore of her pricked and readied for his touch. And he was quick. His tongue slid between her lips with delicate precision.

  Should she have guessed? Someone who danced at the edges of life, who flattened himself against walls to keep from brushing against her?

  Yes, she thought as she closed her eyes and let out a deep breath. That supple, skillful mouth working against her now, that flicking and licking and sucking. Only a quiet man could be that good. Only someone who listened, who was sensitive to the minute ebb and flow of things.

  Without the bath of music she was used to, her ears reached out to find the smaller noises. In the gap of silence, she heard a new tiny, intimate melody, so unfamiliar it was nearly embarrassing. There were only the wet sounds of him eating her. The creak of the futon spring under the weight of their swaying, rocking bodies. And her own ragged breath, quickening, rising to meet his silent intent.

  She wound her hands into his hair. “Come up here,” she said quietly.

  He nodded, gave her pussy one last loud smacking kiss, and slid up and over her body, like he was polishing the curves of a cello with his own skin.

  “Make love to me,” she whispered. All the joy and angst of the night was melting under the dry heat of his body, the pleasant digs of his bones, and the scrabble of his hair against her own softer, smoother flesh. She let out a sigh, and the breath made her body give a little, made space for him to slip inside her.

  John offered his cock to her, sliding it gracefully over the mouth of her slit and into her hot wet drum. As he did so, they locked eyes. “Jane,” he said.

  “Yes.”

  He plunged into her, fucked her with a decisiveness that took his own breath away. He fucked her enthusiastically but artlessly, his hips moving in time with the silent tick of the alarm clock upstairs that he couldn’t see, bucking in again and again and again as if he couldn’t help himself.

  “Oh, oh, oh,” she said, each time.

  John lifted his head. He took a deep breath and smiled. He knew better.

  He broke the rhythm. Paused, so that they could beat softly against one another—hear each other’s pulse and tremor. Her body echoed his. Outside, a blackbird shrieked.

  “Don’t stop,” she said, “I could do this forever.”

  “Yes,” he said, pushing. “At least, with breaks in between to do other things.”

  “No,” she said, “just fucking.”

  He held back. “You don’t want me to kiss you, maybe?” His lips danced over hers. “Like that?”

  “Okay,” she said, nuzzling at him, nipping at his lower lip. “That too. But more of the fucking, also.”

  “Counterpoint?” he said, eating her mouth and starting, slowly, to fuck her again.

  She laughed into his open mouth, let the laugh tumble into a groan.

  “And more,” he whispered, sliding a finger between them and rubbing at the key of her clit with
the polished skill of a musician. “Like this. Glissando.”

  She responded, collecting him with her legs, heels, gathering him in, crying out, moaning, saying “Yes” and “Fuck” and the other crude, repetitive words that love songs are made of. Saying them over and over, making them sound soft with her lust-heavy tongue.

  “Oh god. Fuck, I’m coming,” she said, and he thought it sounded like a snatch of verse from one of her interminable records.

  His cock contracted in response. A frown passed over his face. Jane’s hips rose and fell, jerking with the release of orgasm. Unable to hold back any longer, he spilled into her, uncontrolled, inelegant, probably making some inhuman noises of his own.

  As they rocked together afterward, soothing the tremors, she kept murmuring her invocations, her vulgar litanies. “Fuck. Oh god. Oh, baby.”

  He raised his eyebrows. Tilted his head to hear her say them again. At last, he nodded. “Okay,” he said. “Yes. And, I think, encore.”

  Outside, the birds started to sing; a glass-throated robin and a chattering wren joining the blackbird, then the chaffinch adding a plump trill and the other unnamed birds calling over each other, making the back garden a tangle of different voices.

  By the time Jane came a second time the morning was a riot of beautiful, chaotic noise.

  ABOUT THE AUTHORS

  SHAYLA BLACK (aka Shelley Bradley) is the New York Times bestselling author of over 30 sizzling contemporary, erotic, paranormal, and historical romances for multiple print and electronic publishers. She has won or placed in over a dozen writing contests, including Passionate Ink’s Passionate Plume, Colorado Romance Writers Award of Excellence, and the National Reader’s Choice Awards. Romantic Times has awarded her Top Picks, a KISS Hero Award, and a nomination for Best Erotic Romance.

  RACHEL KRAMER BUSSEL (rachelkramerbussel.com) is the editor of more than forty anthologies, including Obsessed, Passion, Orgasmic, and Fast Girls. She is senior editor at Penthouse Variations and writes a column for SexIs magazine. She covers sex, dating, and pop culture for a variety of publications and blogs at lustylady.blogspot.com and cupcakestakethecake. blogspot.com.