by Jess Bentley
“Jake,” I breathe, barely able to make the word, and tangle my fingers in his hair. He makes a sound like he’s enjoying some kind of mythical dessert, and the vibration buzzes inside me like a small swarm of bees. My heart pounds, and all the pent-up need from the last weeks and from the erotic torture of the drive here gathers in a burning coil at the base of my spine. It slithers up my back as it spreads heat throughout my limbs until finally, like a wave shattering on the shore, every muscle in my body tenses. My fingers claw at the back of Jake’s head as he tosses me into the abyss with a flick of his tongue.
He laughs while I come, gripping my thighs as his elbows keep my knees forced apart and he gives me no time to recover. The intensity of my oversensitive clit sends spasms through my body, my back arching as I gasp and moan, begging him to stop even though I desperately want him to keep going forever.
When he straightens up, I can taste myself on his tongue. His kisses consume me as he pulls my legs around his waist again and draws me off the bar and across the room to a thick, plush rug meant to look like bearskin. With remarkable smoothness we both descend onto it.
I reach for his pants, eager to launch my own counteroffensive, and in a moment he’s free and I can feel that he’s thick and hard, the tip of him moist from excitement. He’ll stretch me, I know, and the thought of being full of him excites me all over, but I push him to sit up on his knees as I roll onto my side and taste him. Salty and vaguely sweet, I’d forgotten what a man tastes like, but it’s a heady taste that I suddenly can’t get enough of.
It isn’t easy to fit him in my mouth, but he groans appreciatively when I begin to suck the head of his cock, my tongue exploring in languid circles while he shivers and heaves ragged breaths. His hands rest on my head — not pushing, not directing, just urging — and he’s moaning my name over and over again while I work him, sliding the taut skin of him up and down as I bob slowly. Each time I squeeze him, he gushes drops of his essence onto my tongue and I wonder if he’s the type that still wants to kiss after he’s left part of himself in my mouth.
I get my answer moments later, when he tugs my head up and off of him, laughing as he takes several long, slow breaths. “Too close,” he sighs, “can’t come yet.”
“One-shot man?” I ask as I meet him halfway and no, he doesn’t mind kissing me, and the taste of us mingled and mixed together is strange and alien but intoxicating. Not just for me — I can feel it in the way his kiss changes, the slow enjoyment of something exotic instead of the near-rabid hunger.
And I’m pushing him over, tipping him slowly onto the rug as he finds the zipper of my dress and draws it down; before I know it he’s got my bra strap free, releasing it with more smoothness than I ever can so that when I finally press myself to him my breasts rest against his chest. I straddle his waist, and raise myself up long enough to take the damned thing off and cast it aside while Jake unbuttons his shirt.
His chest is smooth and stacked, and he bucks against me, his cock still wet from my mouth, gliding over my soaked lips that are moist from my excitement and his mouth, and with just a little work I feel the tip of him working slowly into me. The walls of my tunnel stretch to accommodate the thick rod, just this side of uncomfortable, and I sink down onto him.
His eyes are on mine, locked and wide, his mouth open just like mine is as we both hold our breath against the incredible feeling of being finally connected, joined, and I can’t believe it can feel this good. I’m still raw from having come once already, and I can feel every inch as it glides through me until I’m firmly seated on his hips.
Jake leans up easily without dislodging me, and as his hips begin to rock he takes my hard nipple into his mouth, groaning as he sucks. One hand grips my breast, while the other snakes around behind me to lift me up, and down, each thrust grazing my exposed clit just barely, just enough that I twitch in his arms every time.
I hold him tight inside me, and it’s easy because every part of me is locked up tight with the sensations echoing through my nerves, and in just minutes Jake is panting against me, his thrusts becoming more urgent by the second. The hand on my breast moves between us, and again he’s playing me like an instrument.
“Close,” he groans. “Fuck… Janie… fuck I’m close… come with me… come for me, Janie…”
His teeth bite, his tongue flicks, and his fingers pinch and rub as he picks up his pace, and I can hear it in his voice how close he is, how desperate he is to come with me. What was an almost plaintive need before becomes a command as my walls tighten around him.
“That’s right,” he growls, “come with me, Janie… good girl… you like that, baby, don’t you? Come on, just a little more. Come with me, Janie… fuck…” The word is drawn out, and echoed from my own throat as our bodies tense together and for a heartbeat we’re suspended together, his cock swelling inside me just before it begins to pulse in time with the contractions inside my own body as we both explode.
We’re both hanging in the afterglow, locked together still, and I can feel his dick still jumping in response to my own aftershocks. He kisses my breasts, and the space between them, and my neck. He nibbles my ear, groaning softly, and then finally we’re kissing again.
I don’t know how long it lasts, how long we stay like that, but when I begin to rise, he laughs quietly, and pulls my hips back down so we can start all over.
We never do get around to that glass of wine.
Janie
We wake up early the next day, and from the moment I open my eyes my mind and body are filled with the distinct sensation of being on vacation even though I know that it’s still a work day for me. But that time seems to be hours away and all I want right now is to be here, now — that’s what all the self-help gurus say, right?
Jake isn’t with me, but the smell of something cooking is. I sit up, and listen carefully — from down the stairs I can hear the sound of things sizzling. That is definitely bacon.
Wrapped in only the sheet because my clothes never made it upstairs with me, I pad down the stairs to find Jake naked except for an apron, his muscular, sculpted body bobbing and swaying as he hums to himself. I can wait to announce myself; this is worth watching.
After a minute or so, Jake turns with a pan in hand and freezes when he sees me leaning against the banister.
“Caught you,” I say, smiling compulsively.
Jake snorts, and waves the pan in my direction. “That’s all the show you get. You want more, I better see some dollar bills.”
“But can he actually cook, is the question,” I mutter as I approach the bar.
Jake is smug as he delivers not just pancakes, but credible crepes to a plate. He makes a show of scattering berries, cream cheese, and some dark blackberry-based drizzle in overly intricate swirls before rolling it all up and adding bacon to each plate. “My mom used to love making crepes,” he tells me. “I learned from her. I’m confident in my crepes, but that’s about all I got.”
“Just the one trick?” I sigh, feigning disappointment. “Taking you back to the shelter.”
Jake barks a laugh, and comes around the bar to kiss me, his warm hands gripping my hips. “I think I have more than one trick,” he mutters against my lips.
“Fair enough.” I’m hot for him again, and the fact that he doesn’t seem to mind what I look like in the morning makes it somehow even more acute. Not that I’ve passed a mirror on the way down, but I’m well aware of how I present in the early hours.
“Come on,” he says, tugging me off of the stool. He takes both plates and leads me out the sliding door facing the beach and then, bold as you please, walks off the back porch and down a little path to the sand wearing nothing but that apron. His ass is high, round. I want to grab it.
My lip between my teeth, I giggle as I clutch the sheet to me and follow him down. It’s a private beach here, probably one of his father’s properties if I had to guess, and no one can see us easily without scaling the cliffs. That doesn’t seem likely. It
’s nerve-racking at first, but gets easier once we’re seated under a canopy on the sand.
He’s not wrong about the crepes — they’re good. If I was inclined to run a breakfast service in addition to dinner, these could easily be on the menu. The bacon is cooked just right, and I don’t feel remotely guilty for devouring two thick-cut pieces in just a few bites.
Jake has zero compunctions about being hungry either, and barely talks while he eats breakfast. When we’re both done, he sets the plates aside and pulls me to him, so that I’m between his legs, leaning back against his body while we watch the morning sun climb over the great blue. In the daylight, the water here is sapphire blue, and still enough that I can see fish and crabs darting around beneath the surface.
“That’s the first you’ve said about your mom,” I tell him. “Earlier, that she taught you how to make crepes. Are you two close?”
“We used to be,” Jake says, a ghost of old sadness in his voice. “She left a while back. Didn’t fight to take me with her — she never would have won. My father doesn’t like losing, you know? She didn’t get a dime. She’s on the other coast now. I think she remarried a few years ago. We… don’t really talk much.”
“What does she do?”
“She’s ah… probably a housewife again,” he says. “She didn’t really have any skills when she married Reginald, so…”
“That’s sad,” I say. “I mean… if it works for her it works, you know? But there’s nothing quite as freeing as being self-made. I think I only really started to live when I opened up Red Hall.”
“It would be nice,” he sighs. “Not to be so tied to Reginald. He’s threatened to disinherit me if I open a gym.”
“So?” I ask. “Don’t get me wrong, a billion dollars is probably good to have in your pocket but… it’s not your dream to just be rich forever, right? In the end, money’s only worth money. Dreams are worth the time and life it takes to make them come true.”
“You make it sound easy,” Jake laughs.
“It’s not,” I tell him. “It’s the hardest thing in the world. You have to keep innovating, keep coming up with the next thing. But it’s unbelievably satisfying in a way you just have to experience for yourself. Lately we’re planning this…” Maybe it’s not a good idea to go talking about the hot sauce line. But, maybe if he’s inspired, he might actually do something on his own. Why do I care about that?
“Lately…?” he wonders.
“Ah… well, I worked with my chef, Lacey Ming, to develop this hot sauce line. Six different sauces that we’re going to roll out over the next few weeks into the fall. I’m thinking we’ll develop a different line each year, and then maybe do some seasonal stuff. I’ve been wanting to do something that’ll really make us stand out, you know?” I squirm against him a little bit, and then move so that I can face him. “It’s a good feeling. Knowing that you’re taking risks, making choices… building something.”
He meets my eyes, smiling at me but… something is different. Guarded. Did I make a mistake? And if I did, which one was it?
I try to err on the side of optimism — maybe it’s just hard for Jake to really open up. With a father like his, it wouldn’t surprise me. We’re at the beach just a little longer before finally we return to the house.
“I’m gonna shower,” I tell him, loosening the sheet from around my body suggestively.
“Sounds good,” Jake says. He smiles, and then hands me a box. “I ah… made sure you had a change of clothes.”
“You just think of everything, don’t you?” I wonder as I take the box from him.
I ascend the stairs slowly, suggestively — or at least, I’m trying to. Jake doesn’t seem to take the hint, though, occupying himself instead with cleaning up his cooking mess in the kitchen. It’s disappointing, but I suppose I’m a little sore anyway. A break isn’t a bad idea, right?
But the seed of it festers, and by the time I come back downstairs wearing the gorgeous little strapless sundress he got me I can’t help wondering if maybe his interest just evaporated after we had sex. It’s not like he’d be the only guy who operated that way.
He kisses me when he sees me, and he’s dressed as well, having showered before I even got up. But it’s not the same kind of passionate kiss as before.
“I should probably get home,” I tell him softly. “Long day ahead and all.”
He nods. He does smile, but his eyes are shadowed. Something’s bothering him. I’m not sure I want to know, so when he picks up his keys and says he’d be happy to drop me off at work, I just follow him to the car.
All the way there, I remind myself: it was just a hookup. I’m not invested. So if we did this once and then never speak again, it’s no big deal.
Right?
Jake
“Is it weird I can still smell you?” I text Janie a few days after our un-fucking-believable encounter.
I wanted to see her again the next day, but I’m trying to follow “the plan.” The whole method behind making a woman fall head over heels to the point that she craves my presence. I hate doing it to Janie; it makes me sick. Reginald expects me to reintroduce the idea of a PR relationship again, though, and he wants it soon.
So for three days, all we have is an ongoing text exchange to remind us both of what we had together at the beach house.
“Maybe you’re marked,” Janie sends back. “Good luck washing that off.”
I laugh. “Is that why the ladies keep sniffing me and moving on?”
“Definitely. Part of a secret code we all know about. Can’t say more than that.”
“Maybe I should mark you, then.”
“No need. The only other men in my life are either gay or related to me.” There’s a winking smiley face emoji attached to the end.
“Chester?” I send her.
“Yes, Chester.”
“Can’t believe anyone can stay gay with you wearing those dresses to work every day,” I send. “He must be really committed.”
“His boyfriend is way hotter than I am in a dress,” she replies. “Miss Layla Fine. Drag queen at Mercury’s. Stunning. She even has better tits than me, the bitch.”
“Maybe I should drop by…”
“Good luck with that.” A laughing face emoji, followed quickly by a banana. I can almost hear her laughing.
“Am I distracting you?” I send.
There’s a long pause, and I wonder what she’s doing. It was hard, when we left the beach house. Opening up like that about my mother made me suddenly terrified, and made everything about our interlude seem somehow too real and at the same time cheapened. But keeping myself closed off from Janie is next to impossible. Every time we talk, it’s like there are hooks inside me, catching long-buried emotions and memories and dragging them up by force. It hurts, but at the same time there’s something cathartic about it.
I wish I could tell her everything — tell her about why I’m really pursuing her so hard, and what Reginald wants and what I’m risking if I don’t do what he wants, and what I’m risking if I do. The truth will come out eventually, I know that. When it does, who will I be at that point?
A man is defined by his actions. It doesn’t matter who you want to be, if you do the things that a person you don’t want to be would do. I don’t want to be my father, but what the hell am I doing? A damn good impression of him, that’s what.
“I don’t mind being a little distracted for once,” she finally replies. “You make me nervous.”
Good instincts. Somehow, I can’t believe she doesn’t see right through me. It would almost be easier if she did. Pushing Reginald’s agenda is going to cost me in the end, whether I succeed or not. But if she could just get her head on straight and see me for what I am… she could come out on top. She could win, and I could go back to Reginald in disgrace, but only because I fought and lost instead of refusing to follow his orders. I’m honestly not sure which would be worse in his eyes.
At least if I lost fair and square, I c
ould point out that he’s lost before as well. Not often, and less as he’s gotten older and more experienced; more ruthless. But it’s not unheard of. Surely he couldn’t fault me for failing to seduce an intelligent woman who doesn’t fit his theory that women are inferior. No one who’s spent any time with Janie could think that.
“I’m nervous, too,” I text. It’s true, but that’s not all it is. Vulnerable — that’s the key. As much as it hurts, I have to open myself up to her if she’s ever going to sympathize with my position, and that’s what I need.
The next text comes quickly, and it’s the one I’ve been dreading. “When can I see you again?”
The question hurts me, physically, even though it’s exactly the one I need to see. “Soon,” I send her back. “Got things going on. Get that sauce line going; you’re gonna need some free time.”
She sends back a winking emoji and some chili peppers.
There’s a part of me that wishes we could just stay here, at this step, forever. Not that I don’t want to see her again — it’s like I’m having withdrawals at this point, and she’s the only thing I can think about — but once that happens, it means we’re that much closer to the end, whichever end we get.
Still, I can’t just stall her forever. We made memories at the beach house already, so I make sure the place is free for the next few weeks, just in case. Another one of Reginald’s nuggets of tainted wisdom — find a place and make it special, make it positive. People are more susceptible to suggestions they might otherwise reject when they’re in a place like that. Christ, he’s done it to me plenty of times.
Yeah. It’s a damn fine impression. How far do you have to take it before it’s not just an act anymore?
I’ll probably find out.
Janie
Mama finally gets to go home, and when I get the call I take a break to go see her. Not a long visit, but I feel bad that I wasn’t able to pick her up. At least George managed to come through in this particular instance. That’s probably the extent of his utility for the next several months. Spend it wisely, right?
