by Lisa Suzanne
He licks his lips, closes his eyes, and kisses me hard on the mouth. He trails kisses from my mouth, down my neck, to my chest, down my stomach, and finally reaching his destination. He pushes my knees out further before he buries his head between my legs. He starts slow—the pad of his tongue licking through me several times, but then he picks up speed. He tongues inside of me, fucking me with his mouth, and my hips buck up off the counter toward his face. I’m desperate for release at the same time I’m desperate to hold onto the pleasure, to make it last as long as I can. Forever might not be long enough.
His tongue flattens against my clit again and he pushes a finger inside me, working his finger at the same time he works his tongue. Suck and push, thrust and lick. He reaches up with his free hand to pinch my nipple between his fingers, and the ache and pleasure and pain all collide at once as my knees automatically press together against his ears and my entire body roars with release.
I tremble as I try to gain some semblance of control back. He stands, his eyes hot on mine, and wipes his mouth with the back of his hand, a move so sexy that I nearly come again just watching him. He unbuckles his belt and unbuttons his pants, and then he reaches into his boxers and pulls himself out. He’s thick and heavy, a beast in his own hand. He strokes himself a few times, up and down, up and down, his eyes on me the entire time. A drop of moisture dampens the tip, and all I can think about is how I want him in my mouth. I want to please him the way he pleased me.
I slide off the counter and kneel at his feet. He still strokes himself, watching me with the eyes of a tiger. I open my mouth and he guides himself into it, still stroking even as I close my mouth around the tip and suck. He grunts out a sexy noise of pleasure, and a dart of excitement passes through my chest that I’m the one making him feel this way.
He moans as I push his hand out of the way and take over, taking him all the way to the back of my throat. He pushes his hips against me, and my throat tightens. I do everything in my power to relax, to let him buck his hips against my mouth, to please him the way he just pleased me.
Before he comes, though, he pulls himself out of my mouth.
“Inside,” he pants. “I want to come inside you.” He’s still wearing his pants, and he reaches into the back pocket and pulls out his wallet. He finds the condom he stores there, tears the packet open, and rolls it on.
“Get back on the counter and spread your legs,” he commands.
I’m about to protest that it’s too high, but he pushes me back so I’m lying on the counter and he climbs over the top of me.
He pushes my legs apart, so far that my hips scream in pain, and then he jabs himself into me. It’s big, and I grunt at the entrance before my body accepts him in. He starts to move fast—doesn’t give me much time to warm up to his intrusion, but I don’t need it. Our bodies find an immediate rhythm. He pumps and I buck, he bucks and I take it. In and out, back and forth, and then his thumb finds my clit. It’s too much, riding this line of pleasure and pain with him, and his body starts to tremble. I watch his face, his gorgeous face as he starts to come, and the visual sends me into my own orgasm. We come together, riding the crest before we both come back down, and it’s all over too quickly.
On and off, I wanted this to happen since our dinner date not so long ago, and this feels right—like I’m entering a relationship with someone, like there’s feelings involved on both sides, like it’s going to last more than just one night.
I try not to think of that one night, not in the glowing moments after Brian gave me my second orgasm of the night, but I still think of the fact that this man here in my home wants me for more than my body, for more than the night, for more than just sex. Brian and I connected on other levels first, even though I felt like I did with Mark, too, despite the shorter amount of time we had.
I point Brian in the direction of my bathroom to clean up, and I put my panties back on and head toward my bedroom to change out of this costume and into something comfier.
I bend over a drawer to grab a t-shirt, and the comparisons continue in my head. It was good with Brian, great—there’s no doubt. He took control. He dominated without being a dominant, just like we talked about. He gave me what I wanted and he seemed to enjoy himself, too. But this is still so new. There’s still a lot holding me back, still other thoughts in my mind even though I’m trying my hardest to push them away.
I’m afraid those other thoughts are going to consume me and take away my chance at happiness with a man who’s pretty damn close to perfect for me.
twelve
“Tell me about your first kiss.” His arms are around my waist, my back to his stomach, both of us spent after going at it for another round—this time in my bed. He playfully fingers the lace waistband of my panties as we talk.
“It was eighth grade, the Valentine’s dance. Girls asked boys, and I asked Jimmy Riggs. ‘Apologize’ by Timbaland was playing and we were slow dancing in that way only middle schoolers do. He just went for it. It was quick, no tongue, right when the teachers weren’t looking. We stopped and looked at each other in a daze. Then after the dance when we were waiting for my mom to pick us up, he did it again, but this time he left his lips there for a minute and started to open his mouth and I was freaked out my mom would see so I stopped it. What about yours?”
“Sixth grade. Chrissie something-or-other, an eighth-grader, behind the dumpsters at Skateland.”
“Sixth grade and eighth grade? She sounds like a cradle-robber.”
He chuckles. “She was hot for my brother. He was a freshman in high school and she was using me to get to him. When I found out she wanted him and not me, I punched him. He punched back, and then we got into an all-out brawl that my mom had to break up. Keep in mind he was almost four years older than me, but I still did some damage.”
I giggle. “So much drama. You two still fight over girls?”
“I don’t know if fight is the right term. But yeah.”
I’d love to meet him. The thought randomly crosses my mind, but it’s way too early to talk about meeting families.
“What about your sister?” he asks. “Do you two compete?”
“Never over boys.” I turn onto my back so I can see him. “Rachel’s three years younger. She sometimes had crushes on the guys I’d date, but we have different types.”
“What’s your type?”
“Hot guys with dark hair and green eyes named Brian.”
He tightens his arm around me. “Good answer. What about your sister?”
“She’s been with this guy, Ben, for like three years. They’re gonna get married someday. She’s more outgoing and spunky and he’s sort of an introvert, so I guess her type is quieter guys.”
“Opposites attract,” he muses.
“Sometimes. I dated a guy who was my total opposite once and it didn’t work. You have to have some things in common.”
“Like what?”
“I don’t know.” I lift a shoulder. “Core values?”
“What do you value?”
“Family. Friends.”
“Don’t most people value those things?” He runs a finger down my cheek as I nod. “What characteristics do you value?”
“Honesty. Humor. Intelligence. You?”
“Work ethic, leadership, and confidence, among others.”
I mentally note that they’re all work-related, which makes sense for someone who runs his own business. I was hoping to get more of a personal insight into him through this conversation, though. “For yourself or for others?” I ask.
“Both.” He focuses his eyes across the room as he talks. “I surround myself with people who hold those traits as values. It’s what’s made my business so successful so quickly.”
“Yet you’re dating a woman who takes summers off.”
He laughs. “That doesn’t mean you don’t have a strong work ethic. My cousin is a teacher. I see what you go through. You deserve summers off.”
“Thanks,” I mumble, neve
r sure how to respond when people compliment my profession rather than me personally. I close my eyes. It feels so good here in his arms, so warm, and my body is so exhausted from our night together, from three orgasms in the span of a few hours. I drift off to sleep.
Fingertips slowly ascending my thigh, so slow and full of anticipation I think I might die of need. Lips clashing, tongues battering, hearts pounding. We’re so close that I feel the beat of his heart against my breast hammering as hard as mine. But why? Is this different for him the way it is for me? Raw, unfiltered passion. Hands groping, gripping, grappling. The taste of beer on his tongue, cold and bitter, mixed with peppermint, and the chill of the cool liquid splashing into my belly button before he laps it up with his tongue. Fingers twisting in my hair, pulling as I come, come, come. He comes next, thick, hot ropes erupting from him and onto his fist, onto the naked flesh of my pubic bone. Then it all starts over again, the seduction, the foreplay, and finally the main event. Again I come, come, come. This time I come so hard that I come undone.
I wake with a jolt.
“You okay?” a voice whispers in the dark.
“Yeah,” I whisper back. It’s a lie.
I’m not okay.
I’m not even close to okay.
Brian holds me, pulls me more tightly against him as he worries about me—my needs, why I woke with a jolt in the middle of the night, if it was because of a bad dream.
It wasn’t a bad dream. Far from it.
It was a dream that pressed a needy ache in my core and dampened my panties. A dream of a night that did happen, a replay of the events—that one night I still wish wasn’t limited to just one night. One night that satisfied every need I’ve ever had—until it was time to leave. One night that meant more to me than it did to him.
Guilt blooms in my chest as the reality hits me.
It was a dream of another man.
*
Brian and I see each other nearly every night when he isn’t working. He texts me throughout the days, little messages here and there to let me know he’s thinking about me. On the nights when he doesn’t have dinner meetings, we go to dinner, sometimes along with Jill and Becker and other times alone. On the nights he has to work, he comes by afterward and almost always stays until morning.
Each day that passes pushes my one-night stand further into the past. The memory should be starting to fade by now, as memories do, but it hasn’t. I’m still consumed by what happened.
I avoid Vail. If a song comes on the radio, I shut it off. If I happen to see his name in my Twitter feed, I scroll right by without allowing my eyes to focus in on the words.
After an entire month has passed, I unfollow him and the band on Twitter. I unlike the Vail Facebook page. I delete him from my Instagram. I ask Jill not to show me articles of him, not to share any news related to him with me. It’s easier this way. Deleting Mark from my social media has helped tremendously. It’s made it so there isn’t a constant reminder of him feeding the obsessive beast in my mind, and it’s allowed me to start relegating him to the past while I focus on my blossoming feelings for Brian. I’m halfway between lust and love, and I’m pretty sure love is starting to win.
On one particular Wednesday morning after we’ve been seeing each other for almost a month, Brian groans as the alarm wakes him too early. He stays with me most nights and gets up at the crack of dawn so he has enough time to go home and take a shower before work. It seems silly. He could probably sleep another hour if we went to his place, and I could just get up and go home whenever I was ready since my summer schedule is so flexible.
I finally ask through the morning haze of sleep, “Wouldn’t it be easier to stay at your place?”
It’s a question I’ve been itching to ask. After a month, he still hasn’t invited me to his place. At first, I worried that it was because he was hiding another woman, but with the amount of time we’ve been spending together when he isn’t working, it seems highly unlikely.
He brushes me off with a non-answer as he sits on the edge of my bed and pulls on his shoes. “I’ve got too many roommates at the moment.”
I sit up and pull the sheet up to cover my naked chest. “Why?”
He tugs the sheet from my fingers and allows himself an unobstructed view of my naked chest. “I don’t have my own place. I’m still house hunting. Between nights here and work all day, I haven’t had much time to look at places.”
He reaches for my breast, and my line of thinking is completely shattered under his touch.
It isn’t until much later that I realize I asked the wrong question.
I asked him why he has so many roommates. I didn’t ask him who his roommates are.
thirteen
“To the Fearsome Foursome,” Jill says, and I roll my eyes.
Jill, Becker, Brian, and I are standing at the bar after a Cirque du Soleil show the boys took us to when Jill says the cheesy toast. The four of us have started hanging out whenever the boys have free time. Brian and Becker even carpool on their way over to our place on occasion. When Brian and Becker aren’t working late, the four of us often have dinner together. Sometimes on the weekends, we’ll sprawl on the furniture in our family room and watch a movie together with a glass of wine and a bowl of popcorn.
Jason is tending to business in Chicago, and I wonder if he and Tess are still casually screwing. She went to Colorado to visit her family and I haven’t talked to her in weeks. Brian’s business is booming, and he’s headed out of town to Houston for work tomorrow morning. I considered going with him, but he’ll be working the entire time he’s gone. I promised my mom I’d drive home to Phoenix sometime this summer, but I never said when. This could be a good time.
After a few drinks at the bar, we head home. Tonight, the furthest thing from my mind is another man. I’m focused solely on Brian and the way he makes me feel.
When we get back to my house, I lead him to my bedroom. He doesn’t attack me the minute we close the door behind us like he usually does. Instead, he gives me a sensual kiss that makes my toes curl.
He backs away and clears his throat as he unbuckles his belt. “I don’t really want to go to Houston.”
“I don’t really want you to go.” I step out of my heels and set them in my closet.
“I didn’t bring a condom tonight.” His voice is low when he speaks, and I freeze for a beat inside my closet as I wonder if this means no sex tonight or if he’s getting at something else.
I step out of the closet. “We used all of mine. I can ask Jill.”
He slides his pants down his legs and steps out of them. He goes to work on the buttons on his shirt next as he shakes his head. “I didn’t bring one on purpose. I want to feel you, Reese. All of you. I want to go to Houston with the sweet velvet memory of being inside you, no barriers, just us.”
A seed of worry plants in my mind, but he alleviates it. “I’ve only been with you for the past month. I’ve exercised disciplined responsibility before you.” He finishes undressing then steps toward me, and for the first time, he’s tentative.
“Is this okay?” he asks.
I nod, and then he takes his time to show me how he feels about me as his body moves tenderly over mine.
Just before I fall asleep in his arms, I hear him whisper, “I’m going to miss you so much.”
I’m going to miss him, too.
*
I’m bored and lonely without him. I physically felt his love the night before he left, and he’s gone almost an entire week. He texts me often, calls when he can.
I didn’t go to Phoenix. Instead, I stayed home and caught up on some reading and spent time volunteering at my local library. This week’s task was organizing books in the children’s section, and by the time I left today, I felt great about my progress.
It’s the night before he’s scheduled to come home that something changes. It’s a little before ten, and I’ve had two glasses of wine that made me sleepy. I text Brian.
Me: Going
to bed soon. Just wanted to say goodnight.
I expect a text back, but he my phone rings a few minutes later instead.
“Hey,” I answer.
“Hi,” he says.
“How’s work?”
“Productive. I wrote three new contracts this afternoon and I’m out now with some clients.”
“Isn’t it almost midnight there?”
“Yeah. We’ve been out for a few hours. You know, wining and dining.”
“Having fun without me?”
“Never.” I can hear the smile in his voice. “I’ve been thinking about you all day.” His voice is low and husky.
“I’ve been thinking about you all week. I can’t wait to see you tomorrow.”
“I can’t wait for the other things we’re going to do tomorrow.”
My heart flutters as I think about what that might mean. I’d be content with just a kiss. My body aches for him, and more than once I’ve thought about reneging on our deal to wait for each other before we tip the scales of pleasure again.
“Fox? You coming?” A woman’s voice calls from the background. She sounds much more sultry than a business associate should sound.
“Shit,” he mutters. “I need to go.”
“Who’s that?” I can’t help myself from asking.
“My secretary.”
The blood in my veins freezes. He doesn’t say her name, but he doesn’t need to for me to know exactly who it is. “You didn’t mention you were traveling with a woman.”
“It’s not like that.”
“It seems kind of like that when you don’t mention her.”
“Fox!” I hear the voice again.
He sighs. “I have to go.”
