Fahrenheit

by Alex Rosa

  “So, did you?”

  I lift the phone from my ear, letting it fall to my chest to allow myself a second to breathe. I run a free hand over my reddening cheeks, then regroup, grabbing for it again to speak.

  “Did I what?” I ask, knowing the answer, but needing to hear him say it. It makes me nervous and embarrassed, even if I’m alone. I walked into this topic, didn’t I?

  When I hear more shuffling, I ask my question before he can fill the void. “What are you doing right now?”

  “I’m lying in bed. What are you doing?”

  “I’m also lying in bed.”

  “Perfect,” he says almost sinisterly. “So, did you touch yourself and think of me, Lauren?”

  I shake my head, fluttering my eyes closed. I could tell him I tried, and that I was tempted to go for it, but didn’t. That fateful evening after the beach my body wouldn’t allow the naughty release, no matter how tight I was wound. I admit that I was sexually frustrated from my encounter with Nate, but the prude in me, without him nearby to guide me, refused to relax.

  “Lauren,” he demands when I let the question hang.

  “I was going to, but didn’t— I couldn’t.”

  More shuffling. “Why not?”

  I sigh. How can I still be so embarrassed with him? “Can we not talk about this, please?”

  “Absolutely not. Have I ever let you get away with anything?”

  This question pleases me, because it makes me think he might feel how I feel. Like I’ve known Nate a lot longer than mere weeks, even if I haven’t.

  “I guess not.”

  “Then why didn’t you touch yourself—”

  My exasperated sigh cuts him off. “Because, I’ve never really touched myself before.”

  “You’ve never masturbated?”

  My face turns into the surface of the sun in a nanosecond. Even the word masturbate makes me red all over. You’d think I didn’t just let this guy tie me to a headboard days ago with the way I get so anxious over the word.

  “No, Nate. I haven’t. You’re making me feel stupid.”

  “Change of plans,” he breathes, and I hear more shuffling. “Take off your pants.”

  “Right now?”

  “For fucks sake, right now.”

  More rustling.

  “What are you doing?”

  “I’m taking off my fucking pants, Lauren.”

  I’m on the verge of hyperventilating as I slip off my jeans. Not knowing what the hell I’m doing.

  “Is this another lesson?”

  He laughs, and I smile as I picture him doing it. “Yeah, sorta. Although, I probably should admit that it’s only kind of relatable to your research. I’m just horny as hell.”

  There’s a boyish quality to his sexual desperation that appears in his voice, and I’m suddenly 100 percent game for what’s about to happen. Ever since I saw him on the beach, and got a little glimpse of his carefree side, I’d do anything to experience it again, even if it’s over the phone. I find that I’m starving for it, like a drug, and I don’t know how I turned into such a desperate fool for him.

  “Oh,” I reply. He doesn’t need to know I just threw my pants across the room like a football into the end zone.

  “But, I think this will be good for you. It’s all about letting go, surrendering, and seeing where the pleasure takes you. That whole self-awareness and inhibition-to-the-wind sorta thing.”

  This is happening. Phone sex. Right? That’s what this is leading to.

  “I’m nervous.” I attempt to relax into my pillow in my tank top and panties. “That was probably too honest.”

  He sighs. “What did I tell you about your honesty? I like it, and this will only work if you tell me what’s going through your head.”

  “Okay.”

  “Now, I’m going to tell you what to do, and I’m going to tell you what I want to do to you, and you’re going to make yourself come. That’s how this is going to work.”

  I attempt a dry gulp. I nod, and then realize he can’t see me. “Okay,” I reply, but my words are getting breathier and breathier.

  “What panties are you wearing?”

  I peer down at them, smirking. “An unfortunately unsexy pair of pastel purple boy shorts.”

  He groans, half-displeased and half in pleasure. “Always so fucking adorable.” I giggle as he adds, “In case it’s hard to tell, I like you adorable. It’s not something I’m used to, but it’s kind of hot.”

  “I’m not sexy?” I ask, sensing desperation in his voice again, and feeding off it.

  “Oh, you’re sexy. Your inexperience only adds to the equation. I’m sure I’ve mentioned this before.”

  This is a revelation. Not the part that he enjoys my cluelessness, but that he likes me adorable.

  I’m thinking I like on-the-phone Nate. With the veil of radio waves, he seems to be more forthcoming. My favorite.

  “What am I, your toy?”

  “But you’re the best kind of toy. Don’t forget you’re as much my plaything as I am yours,” he says through another muffled exhale.

  My giggles dissipate as I shake my head, curious about his sharp breaths. “Are you touching yourself?”

  “Hey, that’s my line … and maybe I am. Thinking of you in those girly, innocent panties is turning me on.”

  “Oops.” I snicker, the blood in my veins churning in desire. “What’s going through your head, Nate?”

  “I’m thinking about how, if I was there, I’d peel your panties off with my teeth.”

  He’s so sure with his response that, as if he commanded it, warmth pools between my legs and my thighs press themselves together.

  “Are you wet just thinking about it?” he asks.

  “Mm-hm,” I reply, unsure of what etiquette there is here. Not that I could’ve managed a more coherent thought.

  “I want you to touch yourself, but do it slowly. Start with your breasts.”

  I obey, finding it easier that I’m alone, and glide my hands over my breasts, my nipples hardening at the caress as I knead the soft mounds over fabric.

  “Squeeze those tits, Lauren, and press your nipples between your fingertips.”

  I suck in a breath, smoothing my hands over my tank top, and find the resistance a tease.

  “One second.” I toss the phone onto the bed and sit up. I peel my shirt and bra off, and fall back against the pillows. I grab for the phone again.

  “What are you doing?” he asks.

  “Getting more naked,” I reply, bringing my right hand back to my breast, squeezing the flesh.

  He groans. “Perfect. Are you touching yourself where I told you to?”

  “Yes,” I exhale.

  “I want you to pinch your nipple with one hand, and with the other, touch yourself where you wish my mouth could be.”

  Needing both hands, I put the phone on speaker, rest it on the pillow between my shoulder and ear, and then resume my position.

  I tweak my nipple, and obey with my other hand, starting a slow trail down my stomach, reaching the hem of their destination.

  As if Nate knows my body well, he seems to read my pace as he whispers in surround sound from the speaker of my phone, “Are you at your pussy, Lauren?”

  “Mm-hmm,” I reply.

  “Slip your hand inside, and tell me what you feel.”

  I suck in a breath as I tuck my hand inside, slipping my hand between my folds. “I’m wet,” I gasp, unsure how I’m already so turned on when this has just begun.

  “How wet?”

  I sigh as I slide my hand farther, realizing I’m soaking, and that my hand there feels good, better than good, and relieves a minuscule amount of the tension coiled there.

  “So wet. You make me so wet.”

  He groans, and I’m sure he’s still touching himself, too. I can picture his hand on his shaft, sliding up and down his impressive length, squeezing its girth at the base as he sounds off in pleasure.

  “You make me so hard
all the fucking time. It’s insane. I want your cunt so bad. I want to taste you dripping for me.”

  I’m tempted to scream for him to come over, because it’s become like a raging river between my legs.

  “I want you inside me right now,” I pant, stroking myself up and down my swollen, needy flesh.

  “While squeezing your nipple, I want you to slide two fingers inside that wet, juicy, cunt.”

  I do as I’m told, suppressing a moan. His forbidden words and my touch create a blissful dichotomy, split between a sinful reality and lustful imaginings.

  “I want you to picture me fucking that pussy hard and fast.”

  Instinctually, my eyes sink closed as my fingers begin an in-and-out rhythm, the feeling foreign to me, but I like it. I like the soft, lush feeling against my fingertips, and I imagine it’s him here with me. I moan, “Nate …”

  “Faster,” he groans. “Pinch yourself harder.”

  I sigh, long and needy, and it’s so incriminating how badly I want him as I continue with his command. Pleasure radiates at my breasts as I twist at my sensitive bud to match the intensity of my hand below.

  I have no doubt in my movements, and there’s an unspoken amount of trust I have with him as I obey. I can sense it through the phone as I touch myself. The tension coils tighter and tighter in my center, confirming it and damning it, promising an epic climax.

  “I need more.” I sigh.

  “Now, use your other hand to rub your clit,” he pants.

  I arch my back. My body twists into a panic with the need to unwind as Nate’s commands come more as a necessity to the throb that’s only growing. I move to yank off my panties, needing the freedom.

  “What are you doing now?” he asks.

  “Taking off my panties.”

  “That’s my girl.”

  Usually, I’d giggle, but I’m in too much of a libidinous state. I gasp, slipping the damp frantic from my body, needing to touch myself although I’ve never done it before. My hands go back to their goals, one circling my clit and the other inside me. Each movement I make sparks lightning bolts through my body. I’m dripping with an instinctual, carnal want for Nathan Sanders.

  “Ahh.” The sensation sends a thrill through me, my eyes still shut tight, absorbing every ratchet of pleasure buckling through my body as I climb higher.

  “What do you want me to do to you?” he asks, reading my breaths for what they are.

  “I want your cock,” I whine, thinking of it, its soft, heavy steel in my hand, against me, inside me, trembling when he’s on the brink.

  “How bad?” he groans, and I continue to imagine him touching himself. Each stroke he’s thinking of me doing the same to myself. It’s so hot, and dare I admit, one of my new favorite bedtime stories.

  “I need it. I need it so bad. I need you.” A gasp barrels up my throat. I’m trying to swallow my desire because it’s so overwhelming, and he isn’t even here next to me. “Faster, Nate, faster,” I whisper as if he’s entering me, my fingers plunging in and out of my sex, while rubbing my sensitive center.

  “I am. My hips are slamming into that tight cunt of yours. My balls slapping against your sweet pussy. I’m going hard, and you—Oh, fuck …”

  My orgasm syncs with his as the building pleasure has me falling over the precipice, and all I can whisper with lustful satisfaction is, “Fuck, you feel so good, Nate,” as my fingers match the slowing rhythm of my trembles.

  I pull my hand free and away, needing to give my body a break, and allow it to ride the serene wave rolling through my limbs.

  I picture Nate surging through his own earth-shattering orgasm, and his attempt to rein it in. His sharp breaths echoing from the phone beside me says it’s an accurate predication. I smirk, knowing that this orgasmic come down is as overwhelmingly unexpected as it is surreally fantastic.

  I grab for the phone, pressing it to my ear, panting, but swallow each incriminating gasp.

  I hear Nate’s constricted groan of my name as he exhales, and a tinier moan trails after it.

  I think I’m hot and bothered all over again as I use his rushed breath’s as a soundtrack to my personal high. Listening to Nate’s orgasm in my ear is almost as orgasmic as having him inside me.

  He just came. On the phone. Saying my name like a prayer.

  “Nate?” I ask. I still can only hear his sharp intakes of breath. I have to try and get some control over the smug smirk trying to slither its way onto my lips right now.

  I may have given him control, listening to his instructions, but I still feel this sense of heady power knowing that I affect Nate as much as he affects me.

  I tally his orgasm on the same list of wonderful Nate rewards that includes his laughter.

  “Nate? You okay?”

  “I’m fucking perfect,” he huffs as he seems to be finally getting a grip, acclimating his cool, as if he didn’t just blow his load on the other end of the phone. “So, am I going to see you tomorrow night for dinner?”

  “Yes.” A thousand, fricken times, yes.

  “How are you feeling?”

  “Really relaxed,” I exhale, doing a head-to-toe body check of my languid limbs. “That was kind of crazy.”

  “I think we can call it a good kind of crazy.”

  I smile. “You think so?”

  “I know so.”

  “You’re always so sure of yourself. I think that might be one of my favorite things about you.”

  He chuckles. “Why’s that?”

  I shake my head, baffled how we’ve gone from phone sex to playful jabber, even between our periodic panting as our bodies are still coming down from their high.

  “Because, I don’t need any more doubt in my life, and you always manage to be the only sure thing when you open your mouth. It’s not that I don’t think when I’m with you; it’s just that I’m not worried about having to think.”

  “Hm.” He sighs, and the long pause has me worried. However, something is different in the silence, a heaviness lurking that Nate has never revealed. It’s his solemn curiousness that I can sense bleeding into the silence, and it doesn’t feel bad, but it doesn’t necessarily feel good either.

  Unpredictable is the only way that I can describe it.

  “Well, I better let you go. I’ll pick you up at eight tomorrow night for your game of Twenty Questions. Same spot as usual, yeah?”

  I clench my eyes shut, knowing that his closure to our phone call confirms I’ve probably said too much.

  Me and my stupid mouth.

  “Yeah, sure. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  “Hey, Lauren?”

  I sit up, swinging my naked legs over the side of my bed. “Yep?”

  “As much as the phone sex was great, and the memory of hearing you come from thinking of me will get me hard for days, I really am looking forward to fucking you tomorrow night.”

  I smile, and it’s a stupid smile. Like an annoyingly dumb one. One that you’d get if your schoolboy crush passed you a note. Not a smile you should get when the guy you’re currently lusting after tells you he’s going to fuck your brains out. I’m such a lady.

  What has my life become?

  “Who says you’re getting into my pants tomorrow?”

  It’s a crazy thing to say considering every time we’ve seen each other he’s definitely had an all-access pass to my pants party.

  “We’ll see,” he threatens. He knows he owns me. It’s almost embarrassing. “G’night, Lauren. I think I need to go take a cold shower.”

  I giggle. “We’ll see, indeed. Good night, Nate.”

  I hang up.

  Same dopey grin. Same frazzled state. And still naked.

  However, this time I tell myself I’m going to play him at his own game tomorrow night, because I can. He taught me that.

  I shouldn’t wonder why my hardest decision getting ready is whether I should wear underwear. It’s dinner, so panties seem logical, but no matter, I still walk out of my bedroom without them
on.

  I throw on a long silver chain over my plum halter dress, which Rebecca was kind enough to loan me. I didn’t ask for a dress to borrow; she just brought one into work with her the next day.

  I can’t tell any longer whether she has my best interest in mind or the article’s, because the way the dress hugs my body—its short hem and lace trim—speaks volumes.

  It doesn’t whisper, but instead moans fuck me good.

  I shamefully admit that might be what I’m going for, even if my plan is to deny Nate access to my body tonight. It’s a stupid power play. I’m normally not into playing games, but this one seems fun and a bit necessary. With work looming over my head, maybe not allowing Nate to screw my brains out might help me focus on the real task: securing my promotion.

  I stuff my mini-notepad and a pen in my purse, swing it over my shoulder, and head into the living room.

  Garrett is waiting for me. This isn’t something I anticipated. He hasn’t been home most nights this past week.

  I stop dead in my tracks. He’s already staring at me from the couch. Eyes wide, soft even, almost pleading, but frozen when he sees me.

  What in the what?

  “Garrett, is everything okay?” is the first thing flying out of my mouth, because no matter what, I still care.

  He lifts a heavy shoulder. “I could be better, but it’s fine.” He pauses, his brows pulling together as his eyes drag down the length of my body, all the way to my black, platform heels. “Is that dress new?”

  I shrug. These are the most words we’ve exchanged in over a week.

  “Uh, kind of. It’s on loan from Rebecca. Dress to impress, she says.”

  He smiles. “You look pretty.”

  My eye twitches. The statement, although most likely sincere, sounds juvenile. The way the words ring from his lips reminds me of what you’d say about a twelve-year-old’s Sunday church dress. I know this is him trying, so I attempt to take it at face value.

  “Thank you.” I twirl. “I got me a real date at a real restaurant.”

  He rises from the couch, antsy. “Oh yeah? New dude?”

  I shake my head, eager to leave now, starting my strides to the door, knowing that this conversation leads nowhere. “Nope. Same dude.”

  “The sex club guy?”