I once had a friend in college named Maria. She met a Spanish exchange student and it began a whirlwind love affair. Three months of fucking, drinking and eating his family’s recipes because he loved to cook. Maria had called it the lost summer. From first of June to late August she was caught up in the twister of fresh attraction.
Or as she put it: One too many cervezas, two too many empanadas and a whole lot of hot monkey sex. It can make a girl forget herself.
Part of me spent those weeks forgetting myself, part of me spent it seeking. I had dreams about the men I’d been with. I had dreams about the one I wanted. Always happy when I woke up having dreamt of Penn, realising that I still looked forward to seeing him once my own self-induced time line had ended. Thrilled that I woke dreaming of his mouth on my mouth, his body in mine. Beyond happy that I still got goose bumps when I thought of him.
I threw out the toys from Eli and the tee that Matthew had left at my house that smelled of him. I cut my hair by eight inches and donated it to a charity. I considered sending a lock to Matthew but let sleeping dogs lie.
I spend many evenings with the ladies at The Drunken Flamingo and I even did another backup stint for Jack’s rendition of Tell Him (Right Now). July 30th the phone rang. Penn had left me messages, I had answered when they were work related. We still weren’t on the books until September and he didn’t push me to change it. It would all work out or it would simply implode and turn to dust.
The good news was I did not feel panic. I felt calm and curious and still very attracted to the man with the vampire accent.
‘Tomorrow is August,’ he said simply.
‘I know.’
‘Will you see me then?’ There was that smile in his voice. And knowing it was coming right across town as opposed to thousands of miles away made my body ripple like a wave. I wanted him so bad still and it truly was a joyous feeling.
Celibacy and silence and time alone with friends and self had not faded that need for him. He called to me. His voice resonated and when I closed my eyes I could see his dark good looks and the crooked way he smiled.
‘I will. I will see you then,’ I laughed.
‘I have to admit. I’m very nervous now.’ His laugh was self deprecating and endearing beyond belief.
‘You? Why?’ That floored me. It never occurred to me that he’d feel that way.
‘Because it’s been so long. Since we met, since we talked. Since we, um, well you are aware,’ he said, clearing his throat.
‘Had phone sex?’ I asked.
He chuckled and simply said, ‘Yeah, that.’
‘Were you there to meet a girl?’ I blurted.
‘I was. And I saw her.’
‘And?’
‘And the whole time I was speaking with her, my mind was full of you. You. A woman I had met twice before that.’
I blushed and said, ‘Oh.’
‘I thought it was a sign that maybe there was nothing there for me anymore. You know?’
‘I do.’
‘I look forward to tomorrow, Merritt,’ he said and then, ‘I’m going to go paint now.’
‘So fast?’ I asked.
‘Talking to you, hearing your voicemakes me want you. Makes the need for you big and toothy for me. So it will have to be short and sweet. I’ll go paint and wait for tomorrow to come. I’ll call and we’ll figure out our meeting?’
‘Sure,’ I said. I said goodbye and hung up.
Then I pulled on some worn denim cut offs, a pair of Vans, a swing top and I put my hair up in a clip. I was going for a drive. To Penn’s cabin.
I drove up that long and winding drive. The cabin came into view and it took my breath again. So gorgeous. Very much my dream home since I was a little girl. I parked but didn’t get out. I sat and watched the arching window on the second floor that I knew was his loft. Penn was up there now. Painting, waiting for tomorrow. Waiting for me. That fact set my nerves to tingling and my heart jumping. Why me? Why in the world would a man like that be interested in a girl like me?
That’s a shitty thing to think to yourself ...
I shook my head. Pretty true. Why wouldn’t he feel that way about me? Why not? I was ... ‘I am fabulous,’ I said out loud. Shit. Even I didn’t believe me. ‘I AM FABULOUS!’ I roared in my little blue SUV. I banged the steering wheel to get my energy up. The way Jeffrey jumped around and sang death metal music before a show. But when I hit it, my hand slid and I hit the horn. Bwoop!Said my car.
I imagined Penn inside, pausing, looking out the window to see what lunatic had come up his long private driveway to honk the horn. I blew my long bangs out of my face and hiked my boobs up in my bra. The girl equivalent of adjusting your equipment. I climbed free of the vehicle, grabbed my tote and stomped up to the front door. I was trying to be brave, but I feared I appeared rabid.
I knocked. I knocked so hard my knuckles sang and I hissed. But I kept knocking until the door swung open and a very surprised, flustered looking Penn Fratila said, ‘Merritt! Merritt what are you doing here?’ And then he scooped me into his arms and hugged me like he hadn’t seen me in years and had counted every second.
My heart melted a little right there. ‘I came to ... to see you. I came because I wanted to see you today and now, now that I am here, I am afraid,’ I said quietly.
He pulled me inside and shut the door. His mouth was so close to mine I could feel his energy, but he didn’t kiss me. ‘Why are you afraid?’
‘I’m afraid now that I’m here you’ll change your mind. Realise you were wrong. Hell, realise you had the wrong girl! All of the above.’ My heart beat so hard I felt sick. Tears pricked my eyes. Weeks I had put this off and here I stood and the man was more handsome, hell, more beautifulthan I remembered. And here I was. Me. Just regular old me.
He was laughing softly and it was so nice to see him laugh and not just hear it. He leaned in, pressed his soft, warm lips to mine and pulled me in. His tongue brushed mine and seared me with heat. My body slammed tight to his hard length and I felt his cock ridging the fly of his jeans. I sucked in a breath but there was just more kiss behind that.
‘Does that feel like I’ve changed my mind? Like I’ve come to my senses? You are more beautiful than I remember, even. And trust me, I’ve thought of you, imagined you, pictured you every day since I left. Not just that, I’ve thought of, imagined and pictured you doing very dirty things to me. For me.’ He tugged me tighter, sliding his big hands up and down my back so that I hummed. ‘With me.’
‘Yes,’ I sighed. ‘I mean, yes?’ I laughed.
He kissed me again, but didn’t push it. He took my hand and tugged. ‘Let me prove it to you. Follow me.’
‘You don’t have to prove anything,’ I said. ‘I just needed ... time. And I got it and I don’t want to wait until tomorrow for the first. I wanted to see you tonight.’ But I followed him up the steps to the loft, already running what would be needed for starting his job in September through my mind.
When we got to the top, he pointed. I was confused at first. There was so much to see beyond a single point. But when my eyes found it and I bit my bottom lip to keep from crying out. It was like a mirror, but better. A mirror that showed the me I wanted to be. Or better yet, a mirror that showed the me that Penn Fratila saw. ‘Oh my God.’
‘I had to do something to help keep myself patient.’
I moved toward it. Not as big as his first canvas I saw. Probably roughly a foot and a half by two feet. And it was me. Back bared, nude, hair sliding along one side of my curved waist. Just the hint of an eye, a cheekbone. A beautiful midnight sky with the hint of a full moon. I looked surreal and sexy and beautiful.
‘That’s not me,’ I said. ‘That’s some idealized version of me.’ I moved to it.
‘Don’t touch you. You’re wet,’ he said, and chuckled, tracing my spine with his fingertip so that I shivered.
Yes. I was wet. On canvas and in my cut-offs.
‘Wow.’
‘And it i
s you, Merritt. I did it by memory and it is you. You just don’t see it. You’re too close to you to see your beauty.’
I stood before it and shook my head. His lips came down on the back of my neck, his hands floating up, sliding, moving under my swing top. I shut my eyes, let my body go haywire. I let him cup my breasts and then peel my bra cups down and run his thumbs over my nipples. ‘I’ve waited a really long time to touch you for real,’ he said in my ear. ‘Not just touch myself and pretendit’s you.’ He laughed softly and I smiled.
I turned in his arms, stood on tiptoe and licked his lips before kissing him. ‘I’m afraid that now that I’m here, you won’t want me,’ I said again.
He licked my ear, my neck, my collar bone. Put my hand on his hard-on and said, ‘Does that feel like the erection of a man who does not want you anymore?’
The mix of his words and his accent had me smiling. But I ran my hand along the length of him, wanting so bad to feel him bare. To feel him inside of me. To have him take me right here in full view of me as a work of art. Me as he saw me. ‘I want you,’ I said. ‘I want you really bad and right now and I want you to want me. God, Penn, I want you to want me so bad my head is swimming.’
I was as honest as a woman could be without simply dying on the spot from embarrassment.
And he already had me out of my cut-offs. I danced in place as the sun shone like bright rays of diamond and gold through the tall windows. I shimmied out of my panties, I raised my arms to be relieved of my swing top. I shook my shoulders to help get out of my bra, I bared my neck and my breasts to his mouth and tugged his jeans button like I had a grudge against it.
‘Out of these,’ I said. ‘And you have to help me because I’m clumsy as shit.’
He was out of the jeans before my heart beat a full beat again. He stood there, big, dark haired, leanly muscled – smiling. Male perfection at its finest. He put his hand over my heart and said, ‘Your heart is racing.’
‘You’re naked,’ I said.
‘I know.’ He stepped in to me. His bulk and warmth pressing to my air conditioned cooled skin. I took his cock in hand and just squeezed him, gently but firmly so that he stilled. Paying attention to my hand on his skin. ‘I like that. The feel of you touching me. Hell, the lookof you touching me.’
‘Condom? Hurry, hurry,’ I whispered.
He reached to a drawer overflowing with tubes of paint, papers, brushes. He really did need me in a professional capacity but that was neither here nor there. I pushed my hand past his and found the foil packet. I ripped it open, kissed him. ‘Please don’t change your mind about me,’ I said, baldly honest to the point of feeling a sharp stab of pain in my chest. I was so anxious and so eager I felt giddy with it.
He put my shaking hand to his own chest so I could feel his heart galloping. ‘Does that feel like a heart that’s changed its mind?’
I pulled my hand back and leaned in to kiss the spot where my fingers had just rested. His chest jumped under my lips with the force of his pulse. I licked at the flat of his nipple and trapped the very tip between my teeth. ‘You taste like summer and heat,’ I said.
Penn pulled me in and kissed me, his hard length pressing to my pussy lips. I was so wet I felt the dampness at the tops of my thighs. ‘You taste like sweet wine,’ he said.
‘Funny, I haven’t had a drink. Yet. But I feel like I could use a bucket,’ I laughed.
‘Not yet. Soon.’ He pushed me back and tried to take the condom from me. I snatched it back.
‘No, no. I get to do it. I want to,’ I said. ‘Please.’
He let me, thrusting his cock forward so I could reach him. I studied him for a moment, though he made needy, gruff sounds in his throat. My fingers danced along the flared head of his cock and I ran my thumb over the slick split on the head. I bent to press his length to my cheek and when he stilled, breathing hard like he’d been running, I turned and sucked the very tip into my mouth. The most sensitive part of him running over my bottom lip like velvet and rose petals. ‘I think you’re trying to kill me,’ he breathed. ‘Trust me, I’m worth way more alive than dead. At least at this point in my life.’
I smiled, finally unable to wait any more even to taunt him, I rolled the condom on and sat up straight to look at him. ‘I’ve waited a long time for this,’ I said. ‘God, I hope I’m good.’
His eyes went wide and then laughter overtook him, dark eyes flashing, white teeth gleaming as he threw his head back and roared. ‘You are too perfect. This is why I lo–’
‘Don’t,’ I said.
‘Fair enough,’ he said and grabbed my ankle, pulling me forward on the table I had sat my bare bottom on. I slid along on a fall of papers, my ass coming to the very lip of the table and when I went to stand, he pushed me back. Gently but firmly. I laid back a bit, and he parted my thighs, rubbing the slippery head to my cunt and said. ‘But at some point you’re going to have to let me be honest with you.’
‘I know,’ I said. I lost the rest of my words when he pushed into me. His thrust rough and gentle all at once. He took me like I was his, entered me like he had the right. And I welcomed him, legs spread, eyes open, lips parted as he slipped deeper into me and stilled. Hovering over me, dark eyes studying me as I was pinned there. A butterfly secured to a velveteen board. I had never felt more naked than when his eyes were on me that way.
‘You’re going to have to accept my heart. Or break it,’ he said, moving. His movements so subtle and fluid that it felt like a tide rocked us. Like the earth was swaying and we were simply holding onto each other.
He fit in me perfectly. He touched all the right places in me. His lips touched mine and I felt unglued and safe all at once. He kissed me again, moving deliberately but gently and tears pricked my eyes. ‘Why are you crying?’ he asked, kissing my eyelids, licking at one salty tear as it broke free.
‘I don’t know,’ I sobbed.
‘It’s OK. I sort of feel like crying too.’ He kissed my lashes and my nose. He kissed my lips and my chin. His lips travelled my neck and my shoulders and he took my nipple into his searing mouth and sucked so that the humid sweetness of his tongue made my pussy clutch up around him. ‘I feel that. How good you feel. It’s not even describable. It defies definition, the soft perfection of your pussy.’
‘You’re making me blush,’ I gasped. I was trying to open for him and enfold him at the same time. My body a gasping, grasping oxymoron.
‘You’re blushing all over,’ he said. ‘Your face, your neck ... your chest.’ Penn dropped kisses on the skin he mentioned until he pulled free of me and I sobbed. ‘Your belly and your ...’ He trailed off as his tongue found me. Pushed into me and then sucked my clit. He moved his mouth and tongue on my pussy until I grabbed handfuls of his papers and cried out, coming long and hard. It has been so long. Too long. And all that time I’d had a head full of him. Of Penn and this. So his mouth on me was just too much and his soaked tongue was enough to push me over that edge, plunging me into release.
‘Come back. Back up here. In me. Penn, come on,’ I reached out for him with every word, my hands blindly seeking the firm flesh of him under my fingers. His baritone chuckled laced itself with a foreign tinge, warmed my belly and sent my heart into another erratic dance. My fingers found his forearms, big and strong from stretching canvases and hauling gear and working. He worked this land, I’d seen that when I drove up. Huge gardens more like sections of farm land. He was a peasant, an artist, a man and a god all in one.
He thrust hard so my bottom scooted across his work table. Something cool smeared along my skin and something tacky caught in my hair. I didn’t care. I pulled at him with my legs, forcing him deeper, yanking him closer. Closer to my skin and my heart.
He pulled out again and I yelled something mindless, but it was only to flip me. My upper body pinned to the table, my legs spread wide and my hips yanked up just enough so that when he bent his legs he was able to drive into me, pushing my belly to the lip of the table. He said in
my ear, ‘Look there.’ He pointed to a nearly hidden section of mirror and I could see us.
Me pinned almost flush to the workspace, at his mercy, under his jerking body as he fucked me. My loose and tangled brown hair brushing my flushed face. My own big blue eyes staring back at me, caught somewhere between intensity and submission. He fucked me and I watched him. His eyes met mine in the mirror. So dark they were hard to read, but I could read his body. The joy and the war within. He wanted to come and he wanted to wait. He bent, eyes still on mine in our reflection. He bit the back of my ear and said to me, ‘I want you to come with me. I want you to come at precisely the moment I do. I want to feel you go tight and ripple around me. I want you, Merritt, to milk every last drop of come out of me. I want to see you come while I come. Can you do that?’
‘God, yes, I want to. I will. I will try.’
He found me with his fingers, rolling my clit between thumb and forefinger before starting in on circles that pressed that rigid bit of flesh so that my whole pelvis filled with pure pleasure. ‘Come with me, Merritt. I can’t hold on much longer. You’ve been in my mind all this time. Front and centre. The star of the show.’
He gave one more gruff thrust and he was coming and I was coming with him. Watching his gorgeous, perfect face.
He kissed the back of my neck, holding me there. His lips trapping me so that I had to stay right there and see us. See us in the mirror. Together.
‘Did you change your mind?’ I breathed.
‘You are a special kind of crazy, you know that?’
‘So they say.’
Chapter Twenty-nine
‘GIRL, YOU’D BETTER SPILL IT.’ Jeffrey was filing his nails. I could hear it over the damn phone. The man could be at a funeral and file his damn nails.
‘I’m here. I couldn’t wait. I took matters into my own hands.’
‘I bet you did,’ he said. I heard Jack laugh in the background.
‘Do you have me on speaker, Jeffrey?’
Calendar Girl - An erotic novel (Xcite Erotic Romance Novels) Page 21
