Naked

by Megan Hart

  Alex came a half a minute after I did. He groaned my name, surprising me. I loved it.

  A minute passed before he reached between us to hold the condom and pull out of me. He rolled onto his back with a loud sigh. I stared up at the ceiling, unable to form words, boneless and sated.

  “I’m sorry,” he said after another minute.

  I’d been drifting, not quite sleeping but in a happy place. Now I pushed up on my elbow to look at him. “For what?”

  He sat, too, then scooted to the edge of the futon to deal with the condom. He looked over his shoulder at me. “For…well, I said it had been a while.”

  I thought he was kidding. Was certain of it, in fact, until I saw his face when he got up to head for the bathroom. And there I sat in the pile of pillows scattered by our passion, confused.

  I got up and followed him. “What do you mean?”

  He was washing his hands at the sink. “I mean…it was…fast. That’s all.”

  “Oh.” I chewed my cheek. This was delicate ground. “Hey. Look at me.”

  He turned, expression neutral. I was used to that. I put a hand on his hip, pulled him closer, right up against me. Flesh to flesh.

  “It was the best sex I’ve had in a long, long time.”

  His mouth fought not to smile. “When’s the last time you had sex?”

  “It’s been a long, long time,” I conceded, as I rose on my toes to kiss his mouth. “But that doesn’t make any less fucktastic.”

  He put his arms around me. Kissed me back. Laughed a little. “Next time…”

  I reached around to squeeze his ass. “Next time. Yes.”

  We spent the day naked or almost naked, watching movie after movie from his giant collection. He hadn’t moved in much furniture, but he had enough DVDs to stock a rental place. We ate pizza from his freezer and he made me margaritas using Gran Patrón Platinum tequila with a price tag that made me cough, while the booze itself slid effortlessly down my throat. He didn’t actually drink any, I noticed.

  “You sure you don’t want to go out?” Alex had pulled on a pair of loose, red silk boxers and lent me one of his soft and wash-worn button-downs. We’d made a table from a hard-sided suitcase, and sat on cushions from the futon. “We could head over to the Corvette. They’ve got wings on special there. Happy hour drinks, too, I think.”

  I was buzzed enough from the margarita, and I licked salt from the rim of my glass as I shook my head. “God, no. I’m stuffed.”

  He leaned to steal a piece of pepperoni I’d picked off my pizza, and stuck it in his mouth. “You should’ve said something, Olivia. I’d have made something else.”

  It took me a second to parse what he meant. “Oh…no, it’s fine. I don’t eat pepperoni, but not because…well, I guess it’s because I never had it growing up. I’m not offended by it.”

  I hadn’t actually thought about that—why I turned aside pepperoni and shrimp, two foods my mother would now rather be stabbed with an ice pick than eat. Why I’d eat turkey bacon and not the regular kind, or why I’d eat ham my dad sent home with me but never would cook it myself. I poked at the round red slices, which left a smear of orange grease on my fingertip, and instead of licking it off used one of the paper towels we had in lieu of napkins.

  He wasn’t asking, but I told him anyway. “My parents divorced when I was five. My dad’s Catholic, my mom’s Jewish. Both remarried. My dad’s been pretty active in his church for a long time, but my mom has just recently over the past few years decided to become observant. That means she follows the dietary laws and keeps the Sabbath.”

  Alex topped off my glass with more frozen margarita from the blender, his attention taken up with not spilling, but he shot me a grin. “I know what it means.”

  I laughed self-consciously. “Well, mostly around here people don’t.”

  He leaned to kiss the corner of my mouth. “You forget. I’m a world traveler.”

  I put a hand on the back of his neck so he couldn’t pull away. I turned the kiss from something small and light to deep. Hot. He was smiling when I let him go.

  “French kiss,” he murmured against my lips before sitting back. “A little later I’ll show you an Australian kiss.”

  I rolled my eyes. “Yeah, what’s that?”

  “It’s just like a French kiss,” he explained, “but you do it down under.”

  I groaned and flopped back on the pillows. “Did you learn any good jokes in your world travels?”

  Alex stretched out beside me. “That’s the best I have, sorry.”

  I turned onto my side, facing him. “That’s okay.”

  “Do you have to work tomorrow?”

  I made a face. “Don’t remind me. But, yes. Not until four with Foto Folks, but I’ve got a few client jobs to take care of in the morning. Why?”

  “Just wondering if you had to go to sleep early.”

  I returned his smile. “I should. I should go home soon.”

  “No,” Alex said seriously. “Don’t.”

  I groaned again and flopped onto my back to stare at the ceiling. “Alex…”

  “Olivia.”

  I sat up and pulled my knees close to my chest, my arms linked around them. “I don’t want this to get weird or anything.”

  He tugged one of my locks. “It doesn’t have to.”

  I looked at the futon, pillows scattered and sheets rumpled, and the box with condoms spilling from it. I looked at our dinner. I looked at him.

  “This has been great, Alex. Really fantastic. And unexpected.”

  “I’m full of surprises.”

  Of that, I had no doubts. “I think I should go now.”

  His eyes narrowed and he looked away for a second, then back. “I wish you wouldn’t.”

  “Alex…” I sighed. I didn’t want to leave. I wanted him to go down on me again, I wanted to fuck him again, and that, I knew, was only going to lead to trouble. And I had been warned.

  “Olivia,” he said again, patiently, “do you have a boyfriend?”

  “You know I don’t!”

  “Would you like one?”

  I rested my chin on my knees and studied him for a few long, silent minutes. He didn’t look away. He didn’t shift or twitch. Alex simply waited for my answer.

  “Don’t you think most people want someone?” I said finally. “Even the ones who say they don’t?”

  “Yes. I think so.” He tilted his head a little. “So?”

  “Do I want a boyfriend?” I squeezed my arms tighter around my knees, then looked deep into his eyes. “Are you offering?”

  “I like you. You’re beautiful—”

  I laughed.

  He raised an eyebrow. “You are. And talented. And fun to be around. I’ve never met a woman who liked the movie Harold and Maude.”

  “We haven’t even dated,” I said.

  Alex didn’t glance at the futon, scene of our sexcapades. “We can date.”

  “Uh-huh.” I chewed the inside of my cheek. “Maybe we can start with that.”

  He laughed. “Okay.”

  “Okay, now this is weird.” I unlinked my hands to stretch out my legs.

  “I told you it doesn’t have to be.”

  “I haven’t had a boyfriend in a long time, that’s all.”

  “I haven’t had a girlfriend in a long time, either. Probably longer than you haven’t had a boyfriend.” Alex ran a fingertip down my shoulder to my wrist, then pulled his hand away. He laughed, then held up a finger. “Wait here.”

  He jumped up and disappeared into the bedroom he never slept in, and came out a moment later with a frazzled silk flower on a green plastic stem. He dropped to one knee in front of me, a hand over his heart, and held it out. “Olivia. Will you do me the honor of being my girlfriend? Or not being my girlfriend, whatever you want to call it?”

  I broke into laughter and took the pathetic flower. “Where did you get this?”

  “It was in the bathroom vanity when I moved in. See? It’s fate.
”

  “It’s disgusting.” I let it droop in my hand.

  “Hey, real flowers have bugs in them. Be glad I didn’t bring you a beetle-infested rose or something. That would’ve been disgusting.”

  I couldn’t keep a straight face around him. I tossed the flower aside and held out my arms for him to move closer. “This is crazy.”

  “I got your crazy,” he whispered in my ear, before he kissed my neck in the tender spot he’d discovered.

  I know he had to feel the way my pulse raced when his lips skimmed my throat. I know he heard the sharp intake of my breath when his teeth nipped me there, and I’m certain he felt the tug of my fingers in his hair when I sank them in deep.

  He unbuttoned my borrowed shirt and folded it back to reveal my bare breasts underneath. His lips moved over my collarbones on each side, then down over the slope of my flesh, pausing to suckle at one nipple, then the other. I sank back onto the pillows, my arms over my head, and gave myself up to him.

  “You are too hard to resist.” My voice hitched.

  I felt his laughter against my skin. “I know.”

  Against my thigh, I felt his cock rise in the silk. He shifted, and the heat of it pressed my bare skin. The pillows slipped under me as I arched into his kiss. I’ve never felt small. I tower over my mother, can look my brothers in the eye, and stand only an inch or so shorter than my dad. I’m curvy and rounded and they’re all spare and thin. Here in Alex’s arms, I felt petite.

  “I didn’t realize how big you were,” I said against his mouth.

  He shifted my weight, just a little. “I’m not surprised, considering the size of your dildo.”

  I swatted his chest. “I’ve never used that thing!”

  He laughed and eased me onto the futon, which had been stripped down to the bottom sheet. “Uh-huh.”

  I reached between us to grip a handful of silk-covered cock. The silk moved easily over him as I stroked, and his hiss rewarded me. “And that wasn’t what I was talking about.”

  He pushed into my hand and buried his face against my neck to lick and suck gently. “Good. Because there’s only so much my ego can take.”

  I snorted softly and let my fingers close over him a little harder. “Something tells me your ego can take a lot.”

  He looked at me then, not smiling, his gray eyes intense. “Smoldering” is what Sarah would have called it. She reads a lot of romance novels. Alex was definitely smoldering.

  “See? You know me already,” he said.

  I pushed at his shoulder when he moved toward me for another kiss. He stopped. “You make it sound like you’re hard to know.”

  His gaze softened. “I don’t want to be.”

  He had a hand on either side of me, dipping the futon, and one of his knees fit just between mine. All he had to do was bend his elbows and straighten his leg to be on top of me, but Alex held off. I pressed my palms to his cheeks, holding him still while I studied every line and curve of his face.

  “You don’t want to be an international man of mystery?”

  He shook his head, and my fingers slipped on his skin. His hair tickled me. “Not really. Not with you.”

  Heat flooded me, top to toe. I felt the blush, even though I knew the color wouldn’t show on my skin. I gently pulled his mouth to mine. Lip on lip, a gentle brush. A small and tiny kiss made bigger by what he’d said.

  I didn’t ruin it by talking. I know when it’s best to be silent. I answered with my eyes, my touch, instead. Another kiss. We moved together without needing to choreograph it, our bodies shifting in perfect time.

  Alex rolled onto his back and I followed. I straddled him. I took a fistful of silk and pulled it down, baring him. His long arm found a condom from the half-empty box, and he handed it to me with another smoldering look.

  I didn’t take off his shirt, not even when I sheathed him and pushed him inside me. My thighs gripped his sides, the shirt fell open, showing off my breasts and belly, the curves no diet would ever whittle off me.

  His hand slid between us, his thumb pressing my clit. “Like this?”

  I loved that he asked, and more than that, remembered. I’d had lovers who didn’t know what I liked after a dozen times fucking. “Yes.”

  His other hand gripped my ass, squeezed. “Shift up a little bit.”

  I did, and gasped at the pressure on my clit. All I had to do was move, just a little, and his cock slid in and out with ease, while my clit rubbed his knuckle, and sometimes his belly. Perfect. Magic. I closed my eyes, head bent, pleasure rising in me again when an hour ago I’d have said I was spent.

  It took longer this time than it had the others. We moved slower. Didn’t rush. Time went liquid around us, and I melted with it.

  “Yes,” he said when the first tremors shook me. “Fuck, yes.”

  I opened my eyes to look down at his face, twisted with his own desire. His eyes gleamed, then his eyelids fluttered. He thrust harder inside me. My orgasm started in long, rolling waves and I made hardly a sound, but Alex knew it. He groaned. He slowed. The futon rocked under us.

  He took my hand, slipped his fingers into mine. Linked, we came together. A gasp and a sigh, I wasn’t sure who made what noise, only that we both did it at the same time.

  The first few seconds postorgasm are always as different as the orgasms themselves. This time I rolled off him into a boneless heap, arms and legs akimbo, and shuddered out a breathless “whoa.”

  “Aw, shucks, don’t say that just to make me feel better.”

  “I don’t say things just to make people feel better,” I told him. It wasn’t meant to be serious. How could it have been, when I could barely string two words together?

  “Me, neither.”

  Something in his voice turned my head to look at him. Alex stared at the ceiling. He licked his lips once, then again. He blinked rapidly, as if he had something in his eyes.

  “Telling people what they want to hear just to make them feel better is no better than lying,” he added offhandedly.

  He looked at me. We didn’t say anything for a second or so, and then I rolled toward him and kissed him. He kissed me back.

  “So, if I ask you if a pair of jeans makes my ass look fat, and it does, you won’t tell me it doesn’t?” I traced my name on his chest with my finger.

  Alex laughed and pressed my hand still against him. “I just won’t say anything.”

  “Then I’ll know my ass looks fat in those jeans,” I told him.

  “Yeah,” Alex said, before he kissed me again. “But at least you’ll know I wasn’t lying.”

  Chapter

  09

  “You have a seriously warped idea of what’s romantic,” Sarah said from around a mouthful of sushi.

  “You look so cute with rice falling out of your mouth.”

  She snorted and dabbed up the fallen crumbs with a thumb, then licked them off. She pointed her chopsticks, the ends stained with soy sauce, at me. “Dude says you have a fat ass and you get all squishy? Warped.”

  “He did not say I had a fat ass,” I rebutted. Alex had, in fact, spent the next fifteen minutes telling me how much he liked my behind. And my in front. And all the other bits in between.

  She shrugged and dipped another piece of spicy tuna into the soy-wasabi mixture. “Meh. Don’t listen to me. I’m just jealous you’re all getting laid and stuff, and I’m at home alone with my hand.”

  “Poor thing. Don’t you have a B.O.B.?”

  “Ran out the batteries on that sucker and haven’t upgraded,” my friend said with a grin. Then another shrug. “Battery-operated boyfriends can’t take you out for sushi.”

  “I’m the one taking you out for sushi,” I pointed out.

  Sarah licked her chopsticks seductively. “Any chance of me getting lucky?”

  I laughed so loud the other diners turned their heads to stare. “Um…no.”

  “Why, cuz you’re all gooey and gushy over Mr. Alex Gigantic Magic Cock Kennedy? What did he do, gi
ve you his class ring?”

  From anyone else it would’ve sounded like mocking, but I knew Sarah well enough to know she was teasing. “Don’t hate.”

  She laughed when I imitated her, and stole a piece of salmon-avocado roll from my plate. “I can’t help it. I’m jealous. Or envious, maybe. I don’t wish you didn’t have what I want. I just wish I had it, too.”

  “What happened to that guy you hooked up with from the motorcycle shop?”

  She fixed me with a typical Sarah look, raised brow, curled lip, totally snarky. “He didn’t like bunnies.”

  I stopped with a piece of sushi halfway to my mouth. “So? When did you get a rabbit?”

  “I don’t have a rabbit, but I totally can’t get into a guy who hates bunnies. I mean, that’s so…wrong. Who hates bunnies? And he didn’t laugh at LOLcats.com, either. He said they were…” She lowered her voice, looked around. “Stupid. And lame.”

  “Ouch. Who doesn’t like pictures of cats with funny captions? That is pretty lame.”

  “Yeah. I dumped him. And the sex was pretty bad. Really bad, actually. Do you know,” she added, with another point of her chopsticks, “the last really great fuck I had was with a guy I will never, ever go to bed with ever again?”

  Sarah’s love life had more ins and outs and turnabouts than any of my other girlfriends. “Who was that?”

  “Oh.” She shrugged again, ate the sushi, drank some hot tea. “Some guy you don’t know.”

  “Well, that’s not fair. Why’d you bring it up if you never told me about him?” I finished my sushi and drank my tea, too, thinking about ordering some extra sushi rolls to take home for dinner. “And how do you know you won’t ever get with him again if the sex was so great?”

  Sarah laughed, again drawing attention, and shook her head. “Oh, God, no. Joe? No way. He is so not boyfriend material.”

  “Ah…so you’re looking for a boyfriend.”

  Sarah raised a brow again. “Dude. Where have you been? I am so looking for a boyfriend. I want it all. I want a ring on my finger, I want babies. The works.”