by Lucy Lambert
“I can’t wait any longer,” he breathed.
I kissed the cleft of his chin while I pushed myself against the hard ridge of his need. He groaned.
“So don’t,” I said. I couldn’t wait any longer, either.
He pushed back on his haunches. Just as deftly as he’d undone my bra, he thumbed the button of my pants and pulled down the zipper.
I arched my hips up off the bed while his fingers fisted around my waistband. He pulled them off, panties and all.
Then he shifted down, put his mouth against my stomach just below my navel. He moved down slowly, achingly.
“No fair,” I moaned, “you still have your pants on!”
But I didn’t stop him.
His mouth moved down between my thighs and his tongue found that silky, sensitive spot.
Found it, and ravaged it.
My body reared up off the bed. My fingers again grabbed handfuls of his wonderfully soft hair. Grabbed and pulled so that he pushed hard against me.
His tongue was hot, a little rough, and totally relentless.
My entire body went hot and rigid. Shocks of pleasure so good they hurt ran up into the rest of me from low in my stomach.
I thrashed on his bed, bucking in his grasp.
But he didn’t stop. He knew just how to touch me, just how to kiss me.
I rose up in a shuddering climax, every muscle and tendon in me taut to the breaking point, every thought subsumed beneath the hot wave of pleasure that rushed through me in quaking pulses.
Then my body went languid and slack and I slumped back on the bed all hot and trembly. Beads of perspiration glinted all over my body. My lungs struggled to get enough air to feed my hungry muscles.
Vance planted surprisingly gentle kisses along my inner thighs, on either side of that place in me that ached so badly for him.
“No fair,” I said, catching my breath.
“You didn’t seem to mind,” he said with a chuckle. His breath was hot against the sensitive skin of my thighs.
“I didn’t, but now I do,” I said, smiling back at him.
He stood, that mischievous glint flashing in his eyes. I watched with growing impatience and anticipation while he unbuckled the old style belt. Then undid the button and the zipper of his trousers.
He hooked his fingers into them and pushed them down slowly.
“You’re such a tease,” I said.
“Tell me you don’t like it,” he replied.
I stayed silent. I liked the anticipation and the teasing. Liked the way my body tingled with it.
He bared himself slowly. When he did, when I saw him, all of him, I ached. I became aware of our apartness, missed the feeling of his skin against mine and the pressure of his body.
He made a quick stop at the nightstand first, pulling a foil wrapper from a drawer there.
“Is this where you take all the girls?” I asked.
He stopped and looked at me, “I’ve never taken any woman to this place before,” he said indicating the whole apartment with a glance, “It’s my private place that only I know about.”
“Only you and me, now,” I said.
“You and me,” he repeated.
He finished with the contents of that wrapper, then climbed back up onto the bed between my waiting thighs.
He pushed up against me and I gasped at the rigidity of him. But he stopped there.
He traced a gentle, warm kiss along my jawline. I bit my bottom lip between my teeth.
“You have no idea how incredibly sexy I find that,” he said.
“What?” I said, letting my lip slip out.
“This,” he said.
He slid his mouth up my chin and then pulled my lower lip into his mouth. His teeth pressed down into it, just a little. Not enough to hurt, but enough for me to feel the pressure.
Then he let it go.
“That,” he said, “you keep doing it, and it keeps driving me crazy.”
“I usually don’t even know I’m doing it…” I said. I wondered what else he noticed about me. What else he took the care and time to notice. I didn’t think he actually paid that much attention to me.
But he did, apparently.
“So,” I said, “Now that you have me where you want me, what are you going to do about it?” I liked this. Liked me, rather. How coy and teasing I could be. It was a part of me I hadn’t seen in a while.
He didn’t answer with words.
Instead that pressure against me built. Built until I couldn’t take it anymore. Built until he pushed into me.
“Vance!” I said. I grabbed his shoulders and dug my fingers into his flesh.
My back arched up again, lifting so that my stomach brushed against his. The movement drove him even deeper into me. We both groaned at that.
It had been a while for me. Months. It ached and felt incredible all at once. I’d forgotten how good it felt to be with a man. To be filled up so completely.
He went slowly at first. Maybe at least in part because I’d wrapped my body so totally around him. Hands clamped onto his shoulders, legs wrapped around his hips.
But as we both fell into the rhythm I relaxed, and the pace went faster.
My hands slipped from his shoulders so that I could grab the bedspread in my fists.
When my neck arched up, he took the opportunity to kiss and suck on it, his mouth hot against me.
“I love the way you taste,” he said, his breath hot against my ear.
I slid my hands down his back so that I could feel his muscular ass flex with each thrust. Just feeling those muscles contract nearly sent me over the edge.
It was a really nice behind, okay?
“Hang on,” he said.
I wrapped my arms around his neck while he hooked his beneath my knees. He stood, the two of us still joined together.
Then he turned and pushed me against the wall and went back to work.
“Vance!” I gasped again.
No guy had ever done anything like that with me. Held me up so easily, manhandled me so easily.
He savaged my neck and shoulders with more kisses while our bodies continued pounding together.
Part of me wanted to tell him to slow down, that we didn’t want the neighbors calling in a complaint.
The rest of me wanted him to go faster, harder.
Apparently, he agreed with the second part.
The two black and white framed prints against the same wall trembled and rattled. Sweat stood out on both our bodies. My lips went raw from kissing his, and still I kissed him some more.
He was so totally in control, and I was so totally into it. There was something about giving yourself entirely to another person like that. Something that drove me crazy.
He brought us back over to the bed. He was tireless. My body ached, inside and out, and he didn’t flag. Didn’t slow down at all.
He pushed me down onto my stomach and kissed all across my shoulders and the back of my neck. He moved me onto my side and the kisses didn’t stop.
We finished where we began, the two of us facing each other. I had my hands on his sculpted chest. His heart beat steady and fast and strong.
I felt the buildup inside of me. The clenching of muscles, the gathering of heat and sensation and energy.
“Do it with me,” I said.
He kissed me as we both climaxed. I wrapped myself around him again, needing to hold on against the force of it, my entire body trembling and shaking. I dug my fingers into his flesh, and he liked it.
I was a lightning rod, and he was the lightning.
After, I relaxed my hold on him only a little. He left little, nuzzling kisses along my collar bone. The tickle of his stubble against my skin was exquisite.
For those few minutes, everything felt good and complete in the world. The world itself seemed saturated with color, brighter somehow.
For those few minutes, I forgot even the cause of our coming to that place.
He rolled off me, laying be
side me on his back. Without really thinking, I sent my hand out and found his. I twined my fingers in his. He squeezed back.
His other hand he put behind his head. He made quite a picture there in the sunlight in that pose, the well-defined muscles of his arm standing out, his hair in sexy disarray, a flush to his body that no tan, fake or otherwise, could match.
I did this to him. Me, I thought with some pride at my handiwork.
“So…” I started, then stopped. My lips throbbed. They throbbed with each heartbeat. It was a nice throb, though. Just like the nice ache settling into the rest of my body. Earned aches.
“So?” he repeated, turning his head slightly so that he could regard me.
“So, are we going to spend the next day or so like that?” I asked.
Heat rekindled inside me at the prospect, building while I watched Vance’s chest rise and fall. There were definitely worse ways to spend this waiting period.
He went onto his side, still facing me. He traced his fingertips along my jaw, down my throat, over one breast, the nipple stiffening at his gazing caress. The hand settled flat against my stomach.
“I thought so,” he said.
“Was this all some nefarious plan to get me into bed?” I asked, smiling. My lips and my cheeks ached then, but I didn’t care.
“Hey, I always play the hero, don’t I?” Vance said.
“What part does that leave me?” I asked.
He started to reply, but then his phone went off. He leaned over the bed, found where he’d discarded his clothes, rifled through them, the phone ringing through it all. The ringtone became clearer, less muffled.
“Just let it go,” I said.
He answered.
Chapter 17
VANCE
I wanted her again. Intended on having her again. I was ready to go, if you know what I mean.
But then my phone. My damn phone.
I should’ve left you in my trailer, I thought when I fished it out of my jacket pocket, the caller ID confirming what I already suspected.
I sat up on the bed and answered. “Yeah?”
“You changing the plan or something?” Rudy said.
I took the phone away from my face and placed my hand over it, looking back over my shoulder at Erin.
She made an exquisite shape on the bed. She lay on her side, facing me, her head propped up with one hand. That desire for her inside of me pulsed inside of me, coiling low in my stomach.
Except I couldn’t hang up. Not yet.
“Just my agent,” I said. “Give me a minute and I’ll have this sorted out.”
She shrugged. I stood up from the bed, still totally naked, and walked out to the hallway, the Italian marble flooring cold against the soles of my feet. “L. Burgess” didn’t spare any expense with his hideaway apartment.
Out in the hall, I leaned against the wall. The sunlight coming in through the windows in the living room filtered over my way, dappling the wall with bright spots.
I put the phone back to my ear. “No,” I said.
“Sure seems like it. I got a one PO’d cameraman here with no camera. Tells me that’s your doing. You know, man, if there aren’t any pictures or any stories about this, then there’s no reason for it. You know that, right?”
“I know. I saw it happening and had to stop it. Rudy, she’s not used to this sort of thing. She’s a nice girl.”
“Kid, are you joking?” Rudy said, “This is like Sandra all over again! No real feelings! Acting! You know how to do that, right? Act? You screwed the pooch with real feelings last time, or don’t you remember?”
“Of course I do,” I said. I let my tone tell him that I didn’t like his. He went too far sometimes. I thought maybe this whole thing with Erin was one of those times.
“Right, right, I know that,” Rudy said, sounding a little more cowed, “But no more breaking cameras and threatening to break faces, got it? I don’t know where you two are, but you gotta be seen. Soon. Before that Cyrus girl does something crazy or Kanye decides to give a speech in front of the UN Security Council or something. Strike while it’s still hot, you know?”
I stayed silent for a while.
“Vance? You still there?”
“Yes.”
“Do you understand what I’m saying? Just a few months, that’s all I want. Let me work my magic. You just keep yourself from getting in too deep like last time.”
“Sure,” I said.
I caught movement in the corner of my eye. I turned.
Erin stood leaning against the doorway into the bedroom. She’d wrapped the sheet around herself. A triangular slash of space in the sheet ran down her side, exposing a delicious view of flesh.
She smiled at me, a little shyly. She did that thing where she bit her bottom lip. On purpose, I thought. Maybe not so shy, then.
Too late, I thought. I did feel something for Erin, and it wasn’t just lust and desire. Desire of a sort, I suppose. Desire to get to know her better.
“Vance? Get back out there. Not only do I have the casting director up my ass about your skipping out on the shoot today, but I’ve paid a bunch of people to handle all this. Don’t make that wasted money.”
“Sure. Don’t call again, Rudy. I’ll call you,” I said.
I hung up just as he started squawking something else at me. The phone didn’t ring again, so I supposed he got the message. That was good.
I put the phone down on the narrow shelf I used for keys and whatnot in the hall. Then I went over to Erin.
“Everything okay?” She asked, looking up at me. I saw her eyes searching mine, flicking left then right.
I found the fold points in the sheet and slid my hands beneath them along the bare skin they concealed, wrapping my arms around her waist.
“They are now,” I said.
She’s so soft and warm, I thought. That coiled desire low inside me pulsed again. A strong pulse that careened through the rest of me.
“Nothing to worry about? They must be mad about today, I mean,” Erin said.
“Let them be mad. It’s not like they’re going to recast me or anything.”
“Good,” she said.
Then she stepped back out of my grasp, moving back into the bedroom. She bit her lip again, and my body responded the only way it could. Her lip slipped out from between her teeth at her smile. A self-satisfied smile at the effect she had on me.
She turned around, facing the bed again. She let the sheet slip down. It pooled around her feet.
Her hips swayed a little while she sauntered back over to the bed.
“Care to join me?” she purred, crawling back up onto the mattress, shooting a look at me over her shoulder.
I did.
We exhausted my modest supply of protection that night.
It hadn’t been that intense between me and a woman for a while. And as I lay in the dark bedroom, staring up at the shadow-flooded ceiling with my arms crossed behind me head, I knew why.
I looked over at Erin’s sleeping form, just a vaguely woman-shaped shadow in the night. My body ached. Every inch, and then some. I was exhausted. Down to my bones.
But I couldn’t sleep.
I knew it had been so intense because I knew it would end. Because it always ended between me and women. Especially women I liked.
It ended messy. It ended publicly.
I looked over at Erin again.
This time, I wished it wouldn’t.
Chapter 18
ERIN
A story broke the next morning about someone leaving their mic on after a talk show interview and promptly going off on an insane racist rant.
Vance explained it to me over breakfast.
There were, of course, more details than that. Names, things said, reactions. But I didn’t pay any attention to them.
He’d made me pancakes, you see. Fresh ones. I watched him mix the egg, flour, water, and a few spices and other things he wouldn’t let me see in a metal mixing bowl with a hand whis
k.
“Old family recipe,” he said over his shoulder, keeping his body between myself and the bowl. All I heard was the rasp of the whisk while he stirred away.
He wore a pair of loose fitting navy colored pajama bottoms and a plain white apron, the knot of it in the cleft left by well-formed back muscles.
I liked watching the interplay of those back muscles while he bent to his tasks.
I was distracted. These thoughts that really kept me from focusing very much on celebrity gossip.
For all I cared, he and I could stay in that lavish apartment for weeks before coming up for air.
“I didn’t think you guys could really cook,” I said. “I figured you all had personal trainers and dietitians and contract obligations and whatnot.”
He moved from the kitchen island over to the stove, where he swished a pat of butter around in a skillet until it was melted. Then he poured two dollops of the secret Tracker family pancake recipe in.
He turned the oven on as well, PreHeat flashing on the little digital display.
I smelled it, and my mouth watered. The coffee in front of me on the table also smelled good, but didn’t fill me up.
He grinned over at me and a tingle of excitement ran down my body, starting just below my chest and ending under my stomach.
His hair was all mussed up, one lock tufted almost straight up just off center. It was adorable.
We’d spent all night in bed, but not much of that time went to sleeping. Despite all that, if he wanted, I was in for another session. Despite how sore I felt.
I knew it was a cliché, but I really did feel that soreness in muscles I didn’t remember having.
Then again, he’d shown me ways of being together that I’d never even thought up, let alone imagined trying.
Like when he used the headboard to do that thing… my mind wandered.
I forced myself back to reality.
I don’t know what had gotten into me. Him, he did, a saucy voice said. I’d never been like this with a guy before. Never this insatiable.
And certainly, no guy had ever been like that with me.
But that smile… I thought. And those arms, that back and chest, and those shoulders. All mostly bare, covered only by that cotton apron.
