Sweet Seduction

by Anthology

  “Random Acts of Crazy has hit the big time.”

  “Thank Darla for it. I don’t know how she manages the budgets, but she managed this.” Charlotte reached for a bottle of wine in a bucket of ice and read the label. She turned to me. “You okay with white?”

  And that’s when it all hit me.

  “I had sex,” I whispered. The room began to spin. “I had sex and I liked it. And he didn’t hurt me. He was loving and it was good and I didn’t come but that’s okay because he was so sweet and oh, God, Charlotte, I think I’m falling for a guy named Frown.”

  I sank to the floor and hugged my knees, rocking forward and back. She dropped down, too, and put her arms around me.

  “It’s okay. Shhhhh, Maggie.”

  I laughed, a hysterical sound that felt like machine gun fire. “That’s what he said last night, Charlotte. Last night when we made love. He was so gentle and sweet. He asked for consent every time he—”

  “Are you sure he’s not a unicorn?” Charlotte asked.

  I pulled out of the hug and looked at her. Both sets of eyes were wet. “I don’t know what the hell Tyler is.”

  “He sounds like a real human being.”

  “Yes.”

  “Then hang on to him. They’re rare.”

  “As rare as unicorns?”

  “Rarer.”

  She stood and poured us both a glass of wine, mine twice as full. “Here. Drink half of this and by the time you’re done, go take a long soak. I have to go back to the concert.” She grabbed the car keys and walked to the door, then she paused.

  “You want me to let Frown know you’re in here, waiting for him?”

  The wine had a fruity scent, with a hint of something woodsy. I chugged the entire glass in one long, cool gulp before I set it down and walked closer to her. I reached for the bathroom door and swung it open, then said:

  “I do.”

  Tyler

  The concert felt like nothing more than an afterthought.

  All I could think about was Maggie. How it felt on stage, singing to her. How we kissed in front of twenty thousand people. How terrified she was to go on stage, and yet...she went. How she got over that fear and did it for me. Even when I told her not to.

  How she didn’t listen.

  How she followed me when I told her to go home.

  How all of that should have made me say fuck it and run screaming from her.

  And how all of that made me fall for her.

  I needed her. My fingers itched to touch her skin. A rising impulse I couldn’t shake kept building inside me, like a pressure cooker that could only be released through being with her.

  Two encores and More Than Nothing came on stage. Random Acts of Crazy was done and the guys wanted to party.

  I only wanted her.

  Liam went straight to Charlotte. Trevor kissed Darla. Sam stood next to me, awkward and twitchy, his hands drumming on his thighs. Amy wasn’t here. I didn’t know why not. I didn’t really care.

  Where was Maggie?

  As if Charlotte heard me asking the question in my head, she walked over, leaving Liam with Sam. “You’re wondering where Maggie is?”

  I said nothing. I couldn’t. I stopped breathing.

  She rolled her eyes. “She’s in room 1717 at the hotel. Your room.”

  I exhaled. “Thank you.”

  Liam came over with a cockeyed grin and slung his arm around Charlotte’s waist, goosing her ass. “What’s up?”

  She ignored him. “Just, Frown...just be careful with Maggie.”

  Liam stiffened. “What did you do to her?”

  “They slept together,” Charlotte said, so casually it was like I didn’t hear her.

  Liam’s eyebrows shot up. “You fucked Maggie?”

  An elbow hit him cleanly, right under the ribs, as Charlotte gave him one hell of a jab. “They didn’t fuck! They made love!”

  “She told you,” I said to her, blinking hard, trying to process too much all at once.

  “Yes,” Charlotte said simply. “Just...please. Don’t hurt her.”

  “I didn’t. And I won’t.”

  Charlotte held out the card and told me the name of the hotel. I started to leave, then stopped.

  “Is there a drugstore around here?” I asked Charlotte.

  “There’s one next to the hotel,” she said.

  Before anyone could say another word I was out the door, searching for the exit. I had something to buy.

  And then a lot of things to say.

  Maggie

  The knock on the door woke me up. After a long soak in the giant bathtub, a scrubbing with some lavender-verbena soap that smelled like hope, and another large glass of that yummy wine, I’d dozed off on the giant bed, rolled up in a fluffy terrycloth bathrobe that was bigger than a sleeping bag.

  The click-click of the room key being slid into the door made me jolt.

  “Hello?”

  Tyler. His voice made my stomach clench, then relax. I became acutely aware of the sound of the wind against the window, the soft thud of his footsteps, the moment he came into view, sweaty and carrying a small, white plastic bag.

  I sat up and felt for my half-dry hair. I must have looked like a Muppet who’d been unpacked after a few days of stagecoach travel.

  “Hi,” I said, shy and transfixed.

  “Here.” He thrust the bag into my hands.

  “What’s this?”

  “Open it.”

  I did, the packets coming into view just moments before my eyes teared up.

  “Oh, Tyler.” Hair dye. Four packets of flavored drink mix in red, yellow, purple and orange.

  “I wasn’t sure which colors to buy. Picked the ones I’ve seen you wear the most. Figured they’d be your comfort colors.” He sat on the bed, breathing slightly hard, and reached up to tug on one piece of fading red hair.

  I dipped my head, shy again. “Thank you.”

  “I thought stress would make you dye your hair.”

  “What stress?”

  He laughed at that, his throat working and his stomach bouncing as he laughed until he began to wheeze, the sound contagious and ridiculous, earthy and pleasant. Happy Tyler was so different from Dour Frown.

  I liked them both.

  Maybe even loved them both.

  I stood, crossing the room to find the rest of the bottle of wine. I poured us each a half glass and looked around, startled to see a second bottle. I handed him his glass and he looked at it, eyes full of amusement.

  “I’m more of a Rolling Rock kind of guy.”

  “Drink up, Frown. We could both use a toast after what we’ve been through.”

  “Been through? Is that what’s happened? We’ve been through?” His eyes narrowed and he held up his glass, standing up and walking to me. “I think we’ve done more than ‘been through.’”

  “You define it, then. You’re the one who’s so good with words.”

  His nostrils flared with something just beyond amusement. “A toast. To Maggie. Who gave and gave and gave until...”

  I had the glass at my lips, perched with the wine touching my tongue. He paused. I paused. Whatever he said next would alter my entire life’s course. I knew it in this moment, and waited to hear my destiny.

  “Until,” Tyler said, clearing his throat, “I was so full of your compassion, that I could finally give some back.”

  “No,” I choked out. “Your compassion was all you.”

  He took two big swallows of wine, finishing the small glass, and set it down, reaching for me. “Yes. it was my compassion. But you unleashed it.” The wine in my glass sloshed as he took me in his arms and kissed me, tasting like grapes and sweat and a tender desperation.

  He pulled away and stared at me. The room was spinning. So was my heart.

  “Let me show you what a good person can do. Let’s take back some of the power that was taken away from us. I want to reclaim,” he sighed, “and I want to do it with you.”

  I
always knew, somewhere so layered inside me that it didn’t seem quite real, that there was a person like this out there in the world for me. I couldn’t let myself vocalize that. Couldn’t say it aloud in case I jinxed it. Couldn’t peel back the overlays and acknowledge the existence of that hope. It’s one thing to believe something: it’s quite another to say you believe it.

  And it’s something altogether different to say that you believe it’s true.

  Standing there, looking into eyes that mirrored mine like we were matter and anti-matter, I felt a realignment, as if my DNA had re-calibrated. My heart beat on. My blood rushed through me. My muscles all worked. The words queued up as though they knew when to come out.

  And the air went in my lungs, and out. Inhaled by him, and out. We volleyed our breath in even patterns, like watching tennis players in the first game at Wimbledon.

  If this was real—and the jury was still out—how real was it?

  “You know what I want?”

  “Tell me.”

  “I want you to make love to me three times.”

  “Three? Tonight?”

  “Three.”

  He started to ask why. Then he gave me a gentle look of understanding, a dawning recognition of the power of what I was saying.

  “It would be an honor, Maggie.”

  My fingers trembled as I set down my wine glass, then slowly, eyes locked on his, undid the sash of my bathrobe. He’d seen me naked in the full light yesterday.

  On stage today.

  And now, as the bathrobe dropped, I realized it was time to let him all the way in. To let myself all the way in.

  To let go.

  “You sure about this?” he asked, his eyes wide and intense, taking me in. He was all primal heat and I was enjoying being looked at like this.

  From the way his pants were tightening, I could tell he was, too.

  “Quit asking me that, Frown, and kiss me.”

  “Don’t have to say it twice,” he said, filling his palms with my breasts in under a second, his mouth hot and tangy on mine. A rush of every emotion I’d been feeling since I last touched him came roaring through me, my hands frantic against his skin, ripping his shirt off over his head and reaching for his jeans button.

  “Is this okay?” I asked, his mouth on my neck, nipping as I struggled to get his pants off.

  “Jesus, Maggie. You don’t have to ask.”

  I laughed. “Consent works both ways.”

  “You have my blanket consent forever.”

  Forever.

  My hands froze.

  Could you really feel this so quickly for someone? Could two days on the road together lead to the kind of certainty I was feeling? Tyler paused, too, but instead of freezing, he tightened his arms around me, burying his chin in my hair. The smattering of chocolate-colored hair across his chest and abs scratched against my bare breasts and belly, interrupting the smooth warmth of his skin. He smelled like salt and excitement, like musk and second-hand smoke. I licked his shoulder.

  “What’s that for?” he said, laughing into my neck.

  “I’ve wanted to do that for days.”

  “I’ve got other more interesting places you can lick.”

  “Promise?”

  He groaned, his mouth slanting over mine, my hands resuming their job. In seconds he was naked and we were on the bed, my movements fast and heated, his slower and gentler.

  “Are you sure?” he said for the thousandth time, and finally my anger poked through.

  “I’m not a porcelain doll. I’m not a sheet of glass. You don’t have to treat this like it’s some kind of therapy.” I tried not to sound annoyed, but I failed. I just wanted...to feel normal. To fall into the arms of a man I wanted and make love. To have this roll out like any other couple.

  But we weren’t like any other couple, were we?

  “It’s not. I’m not. I just...” His hands filled with my ass and he made a low, animal sound in the back of his throat. “It’s so fucking hard to hold back, Maggie. You’re the most desirable woman I’ve ever laid hands on, and you’re fucking amazing, and you just—I want to bury myself in you and never leave.”

  I closed my eyes and smiled against his mouth as his tongue slipped between my lips and he kissed me until my legs wrapped around his waist, the tip of his erection so close. Too close.

  “We need a condom,” I rasped.

  “Too early for that,” he murmured as he kissed his way down to my breast.

  “No. Not this time. I just want you. Now.”

  He frowned. I could feel his eyebrows move on my nipple and I laughed. “Now? Already?”

  “Three times,” I hissed as I twisted away and found my backpack. Condom secured, I turned back to find him on his knees, cock at attention, and a skeptical look on his face.

  “Margaret Stevenson.”

  Uh oh.

  “I just showed up at your house two days ago and made you drive me twenty-nine hours through armadillos and biohazard gummy bears and a yappy dog that bit me.” He pointed to Attila's puncture mark on his calf, his body fluid and graceful, my eyes hungry and body ready.

  “I am not,” he continued, in a voice that was half joke, half lecture, and half earnest, “going to just wrap it and slap it inside you.”

  I reached for him and laughed, breasts bobbing, his chest so textured and gorgeous. He didn’t pull away when I rolled on the condom and I didn’t pull back as he reached out, his hands roaming freely against my skin, our bodies free and open.

  “Maggie,” he said softly.

  “Just shut up and make love to me, Tyler. You’re using too many words.”

  His mouth twisted with amusement and then he was over me. In me, rocking our world as my hands dug into the tight muscles of his back, fingers curling to touch him, squeeze him. I matched his rhythm until my breath came in little pants, my body so close, so close...and I was lost in the movement, consumed by the flow of flesh and groans, sighs and touches, until he came and shuddered, leaving me on the edge but not uncomfortable.

  It was good.

  It was better than good.

  It was getting closer to normal.

  He rolled off and sighed, the sound long and full of frustration. I took that as my cue to get more wine. My body was loose and my mind and heart were overflowing.

  Life was good.

  Tyler went to the bathroom and I heard the tub faucet. He came out a few minutes later, naked and handsome, casual and cut. The slope of his muscles gave life to his tattoos, the rose somehow more heartfelt, the colors vivid and alive.

  “Let’s have a soak,” he said, taking the full glasses of wine from me. “Let me make that up to you.”

  “Make what up to me?” I was genuinely confused.

  “You didn’t...I can’t make you...” He swallowed, suddenly nervous.

  Nervous?

  “Can’t make me what?”

  “C’mon, Maggie. Don’t make me say it.”

  “Say what?”

  “Did you orgasm?”

  The room went ice cold.

  “What?”

  He shrugged. “I think that’s my answer. I’m sorry.”

  “You’re sorry? For what?”

  He gave me a look that said the answer to my question was obvious. My eyebrows shot up as I got what he wasn’t saying.

  “You think my orgasm is your responsibility?” I squeaked. “Where the hell did you come from, Frown, and did they break the mold after you were hatched?”

  He just rolled his eyes and walked into the bathroom, carrying our wine with him. I chased after.

  “No, really. You think...help me out here.”

  He stopped in the bathroom and handed me my wine, crossing his arms and holding his stem in one hand, twirling it. The image of our nude bodies in the mirror, leaning against the bathroom counter as if we did this all the time, made me laugh.

  “You’re laughing because I’m not a good enough lover to make it pleasurable for you.”

>   “Now you’re just fucking with me,” I said, gulping down my entire glass of wine in a few throat spasms.

  “No. I was fucking with you a minute ago. Unsuccessfully.”

  “Tyler. Seriously. Just because I didn’t come doesn’t mean it wasn’t pleasurable.” I reached for him, trying to block out the image of our bodies in the mirror. A huge wave of exhaustion hit me like a fog bank, like walking into a mist and suddenly having no visibility.

  He frowned, his eyes finally meeting mine. “But it’s just...you gave and gave so much to me and I couldn’t even give you this one thing.”

  Something clicked in that moment. “Is that part of why you left me at the campground?”

  “Yes.” He didn’t even try to deny it.

  I climbed into the tub, reeling from that fact. He climbed in, too, moaning as the hot water hit his skin. We were road weary, full of fading adrenaline, and boneless from sex. The water was perfect and I curled in his arms, the water lapping at my nipples as I reached up with my foot and turned off the water.

  We said nothing for a few minutes. Just soaked and breathed and thought.

  “You were amazing tonight. On stage. You totally rose to the occasion,” he whispered.

  His erection began to press into the small of my back. “And you’re rising to the occasion right now.”

  He chuckled, running his hands down the lines of my arms, my hips, up between my legs, fingers tickling my inner thighs. “Do you know how beautiful you are?”

  I shivered against him, my heart in my throat. “No one has ever said that to me before.”

  “Not even boyfriends before...you know.”

  “No. Not even them.”

  “Then I need to say it again: you’re the most beautiful woman I’ve ever known, Maggie. And someone should tell you that every day of your life.”

  You.

  “And I’m sorry I let you down, but I’ll—”

  I stood, the water dripping down on his face. I reached for his hand and brought him back to the bed, both of us wet. I didn’t care. “Listen.”

  “What?” He looked down, eyes hooded.