by Anne Calhoun
She granted the city a definite power and pace, a challenge, even. But she wasn’t sure she liked New York, that she could make it home. The only way to find out, though, was to experience the sleepy side streets and busy avenues, poke around in search of family-owned restaurants and neighborhood institutions. She liked a challenge, but she wasn’t a masochist. Sometimes she had to face down a challenge, and sometimes the best thing to do was to walk away and start over. So far, the jury was still out on the Big Apple.
He stopped at the door of a building with fire escapes climbing by the front windows, unlocked a dented metal door up two steps from the sidewalk, and held it open. She pulled her cell phone from one of the bag’s pockets and texted Trish as she followed Tim up a narrow stairwell lit by fluorescent lights.
Close up for me tonight and I’ll handle open for you tomorrow, k?
Trish’s reply arrived immediately. Sure, but can you find your way home?
Walk, bus, train, cab, I’ll be fine.
Where are you?
Tim unlocked a door marked 3B with dulled brass script and pushed it open. Through the doorway Sarah saw sunlight spilling onto hardwood floors and a pin-neat living room with an honest-to-God Murphy bed folded up.
“No way,” she said.
He peered into his own apartment as if surprised by her response. “What?”
“That’s a Murphy bed.” A modern one, in which the frame folded down from the wall between the arms of a firm sofa, but a Murphy bed nonetheless. Upon closer inspection, the underside of the bed held a blown-up map of Lower Manhattan, with street addresses neatly penciled in, block by block. Across from the bed was a table that folded down from the wall. Both were neatly stowed. In fact, not a single item was out of place in the apartment, a tidiness Sarah appreciated, given that it was tiny. A kitchenette lined the wall by the door, fridge, cooktop, and microwave crammed into the only counter space available. She doubted he cooked here much. But the light was spectacular, the west-facing windows unobstructed by other buildings.
“Yeah.”
“That’s so cool.”
Sarah’s phone buzzed. Are you with the big EMT?!
Sarah chose not to answer that question. Instead, she stepped into the apartment, tucked her phone in her bag, and hoisted it over her head.
“How does it work?”
He walked over and pulled the antique door knocker to release the bed. It dropped to the floor, neatly made with hospital corners. “Voilà.”
She looked at Tim, then at the bed. “How on earth do you fit on that thing?”
Rather than answering, he stretched out on his back on the bed. The pose was so purposefully Playgirl-cheesy, right down to the faux heated look through his lashes, Sarah burst out laughing.
She put one knee on the bed between his sprawled legs and crawled toward him. “The only thing that saves you from being completely and utterly ridiculous,” she said as she hiked up her skirt and straddle his hips, “is that you belong to some superhuman race of gorgeous men.”
The tips of his ears turned pink. “Whatever,” he said.
“You can’t possibly be humble about it,” she said, and kissed the edge of his ear. “You’re like some kind of Viking god.” She breathed into the whorled curve.
“You’re thinking about this way more than I do.”
“Cut me some slack. I just met you. But I like you even more now. Dead sexy, and the worst pickup lines ever.”
“You’re insane,” he said, but he shivered as he said it.
“I made soup twice a week for a year,” she said, and licked the lobe. “My sanity has always been in question.”
Still sprawled on his elbows, he didn’t move, just held up her weight and met her gaze unflinchingly. “Here’s the challenge, darlin’. I bet you can’t knock me flat on my back.”
She smiled at him. Physically he outmatched her in every way: taller and, based on his broad shoulders straining at his uniform shirt and the muscles tensed in his forearms under the cuffs of his waffle-weave undershirt, far stronger than she. But good sex was just as much about the mental as the physical, and in that department, she had the edge. She was going to knock him on his proverbial ass, or at least off his elbows, onto his back. She was going to make him want it, maybe even beg for it.
Some of her determination must have showed on her face, because his eyes widened ever so slightly.
“Game on,” she said. “Winner chooses the forfeit. If I win, I choose what you lose. If you win, you choose what I lose.”
“You’re pretty trusting,” he said. “I already told you I’m a terrible winner.”
“I’m Pollyanna incarnate,” she said. “And I’m not going to lose.”
She sat back and studied him. She wasn’t a performing seal; she didn’t have a bag of tricks gathered from the pages of a women’s magazine guaranteed to drive a man wild. But, perhaps without thinking about it, he’d given up the most primitive desire a man had. Every man she’d ever slept with got really, really grabby when he was turned on. Hair and hips, mostly. He had strong abs, but if he wanted to touch her at all, he’d have to lie back.
Practicalities first. One couldn’t cook in an untidy kitchen. She pushed herself off the bed and went to her knees on the floor to unlace his boots. His eyelids drooped as he watched her, and hell yes, he was hot. She used the familiar motions of unlacing the boots to occupy her hands and let her mind drift. It was the same thing she did when she was constructing or modifying a recipe: using a stored body of knowledge and letting her creative brain do its thing. Some people would look for weaknesses in a competitor and try to exploit them. She came at a challenge another way: What desires could she heighten? What does he like, want?
Maybe she should just ask. She looked at him as she worked his first boot off his foot.
“What do they call this? Afternoon delight?” Working away at the laces of his other boot, she didn’t expect an answer and didn’t get one beyond a slight curve of his lips that made his blond beard glitter in the sunlight. “It feels naughty, having sex during the day. Everyone else is busy, working, running errands, but we’re here. It’s a secret in the sunshine.”
“We ran our errands. We went to the bank. We’ve earned this.”
That worked for her. A treat for both of them, earned after a long day’s work, no strings, no complications, easy and fun and just a bit competitive. She tugged off the boot, rested her hands in her lap, and let a little bit of her determination to win show in her eyes. Caught up in the moment, she crawled back up the length of his incredible body until her mouth rested by his ear again. “I like taking what I’ve earned,” she said.
Still braced on his elbows, he turned his head. She didn’t move, just let his stubble rasp across her mouth until the bristly blond scruff ended and his lips began. Slightly parted, they were close enough that smell and taste happened at the same time, the scent of spicy sauce making her mouth water as much as the promise of his tongue sliding against hers. For a moment she paused, felt anticipation flicker to life in her nipples and clit as his breath caressed her lips. She loved this moment almost more than any other during sex, the threshold moment when she knew what was coming would be so good, but the tension of waiting was almost as good.
Then anticipation tipped over into desire. She touched the tip of her tongue to his lower lip, slid it back and forth just inside his mouth. Straddling his hips as she was, there was no mistaking the erection pulsing to life between her legs, separated from her body by the thin cotton of her panties and his rough cotton cargo pants. Eyes still closed, she focused on the slow glide of her tongue and the answering pulse in his shaft. Reluctantly, she eased down against his torso, but kept her upper body braced on her hands. Like this her breasts brushed his chest with every inhale, rasping cotton against her increasingly sensitive nipples.
“Come here,” he murmured.
She drew back enough to look into his eyes. “I can’t get much closer without taking thing
s a little faster than I’d like.”
One corner of his mouth quirked up. His eyes were heavy-lidded, the irises a darker blue with arousal, and the flush on his ears had spread to his cheekbones. “Sure you can,” he said, and his voice swirled dark and rich into the sunlight.
“You’re awfully bossy,” she said.
“You’re not the only one paying attention.”
She laughed, because it was all so delightful: the sunshine, the heat, the man sprawled out before her, the challenge. She cupped the back of his head with one hand and pressed the other to the side of his face. The position pressed her body to his from breasts to knees, contact in all the right places, with the additional bonus delight of her bare thighs against his cargo pants. His shoulders and arms were rock-steady, not a hint of a tremor in the muscles.
Determined not to rush this, she brushed her open lips over his stubble from the corner of his mouth to the place where his jaw hinged, absorbing the texture and scent of a man who’d worked with his body all day. She delicately licked at the scruff, then again at the boundary line of beard and soft, sensitive skin by his ear, taking her time. He’d bet her he was strong enough to hold up under her, so she rested her weight on his chest, her soft belly against his, her sex pressed firmly against his erection, but she just let those sensory awarenesses settle in his brain. All the things that make me female pressed against all the things that make you male, but we’re not going to do anything about it. Not yet. I’m going to inhale the scent of your hair, your neck, the hidden hollow behind your earlobe, because it pleases me.
His head tilted to allow her better access. In reward, she scraped her teeth over the exposed tendon, all the way down to his shirt collar. His cock, nestled between her thighs, pulsed as she made her way around to the notch at the base of his throat, then back up into the deliciously rough texture of his beard, over his chin, to his lips.
Still holding his face, she kissed him, licking into his mouth, opening him in a lazy, thorough process, running her fingers through his hair, scratching gently at his scalp in between kisses. When she drew back, red flags of color darkened his cheekbones.
“So good,” she murmured.
This time his smile didn’t crook quite so far. Pleased by this response, she sat back on his thighs and started unbuttoning his uniform shirt. She left it tucked into his pants but spread it open, revealing the waffle-weave undershirt stretched taut across his chest and abdomen. With her head tilted ever so slightly, she trailed her fingers from his chin, over his throat, down the center of his chest, stopping at his belt buckle. Again and again, studying a thing of beauty awaiting her pleasure, making no bones about how much she liked the power.
“I’ll take it off,” he said, and pushed up on one hand.
“No need,” she said calmly. Imperiously. Meeting his gaze.
No need at all. She pushed the undershirt up just enough to expose his nipples, then bent forward and licked one until the taut nub hardened for her. Then she closed her teeth around it.
His head dropped back, and a long, low groan rumbled from his throat. She hummed, just to let him know she’d taken note of his response, then sat back again to unbuckle his belt. The leather was dark with age and use, a practical thing, probably regulation to wear one. Unlike several of her belts, a single line marked the only place it was ever fastened, but based on the total absence of fat under his skin, he didn’t struggle with his weight.
A quick tussle with button and zipper, straining to contain his erection, and she had the fly open, the fabric spread. “Lift,” she said.
He did, his entire abdomen flexing as he moved. She worked his pants and boxer briefs down to the tops of his thighs and left them there. His erection lay thick and heavy against his pelvis, the tip wet.
Now that she knew what she was working with, she took her time and explored, tracing the framework of his body, muscle and bone, where it lifted and flexed under the skin, the edges of his ribs, the definition of his muscles, his hip bones, the flat wall of stomach between them. She trailed her fingers around his cock, outlined it, from the base to the tip and around, then over his balls. Again and again she let her fingers wander over his torso from his nipples to his balls, keeping her touch firm and purposeful but always avoiding his cock. As she watched, it thickened and darkened in color, the tip growing more wet. His thighs tensed involuntarily.
“You’re a tease.”
“Shush,” she said in reply. His hands were now curled into loose fists on the bed. She flicked a glance at his face. “If it’s too much,” she said sweetly, her fingers flat on either side of his cock and her thumbs brushing rhythmically over his balls, “just say the word.”
“Because you’re magnanimous in victory,” he said, part hope, part disbelief.
“Admit defeat and find out.”
His head dropped back. He inhaled, slow and deep, then blew it back out again. Muscles flexed in his neck and torso as he lifted his head to look at her.
She smiled, then closed her hand around the base of his cock and drew it up to the tip, then back down. His whole body jerked. “Oh, fuck,” he said, so she did it again, slow and firm, using her thumb at the tip. He shifted under her, his uniform pants preventing him from spreading his legs.
“Shh,” she soothed, patting his hip bone with her free hand. “You’re almost hard enough.”
His disbelieving laugh tumbled into a rich groan. When he was thrusting into her hand, she stopped. She’d exposed just enough to use him for her own pleasure, and now the heat pooled sweet and slick between her thighs. She left him there to claim her messenger bag from the floor between the kitchen and bed, and found a condom in one of its many pockets.
She shimmied out of her panties first and watched his pupils dilate even more. Then she straddled him again, her skirt pooling on his thighs as she tore open the condom packet.
“Take your clothes off,” he said.
Her messy knot of hair slipped even more as she shook her head mock-regretfully. “Why bother? You can’t touch me.” She bent forward and whispered in his ear. “I wish you could.”
She drew her lips along his jaw, then kissed him, slow and deep and all tongue. When she drew back he captured her lower lip between his teeth and held on. Electric sparks shot from her lip to her nipples to her ready sex. It was her turn to whimper.
“Tell me to touch you.”
“Ah, ah,” she chided. “I’m not making this easy for you.”
Using the tips of her fingers to handle him without giving him any satisfaction at all, she rolled the condom down his shaft, taking care to smooth his hair out of the way. If she cupped and massaged his balls in the process, if she worked over his cock, testing the reservoir, adjusting it just so, she simply exercised her prerogative.
Then she gripped his shaft just below the head, rose to her knees, and lifted her skirt just enough to expose her sex. “Watch,” she said.
She took her time, using the head of his cock to open her folds and smooth her slick fluids, then situated him just inside her sex.
“Christ,” he said.
His hands were fisted, his abdomen gleamed with sweat, and his eyes were fierce. She paused to savor that threshold moment when the promise of him inside her was imminent, but not yet, not yet, oh, not yet. Her head dropped back, and the elastic holding her hair up lost the battle with gravity and sex. Eyes still closed, she kept hold of her skirt with one hand and lifted the other to tug the elastic free. Her hair tumbled around her shoulders.
“Christ,” he said.
Little by little she sank down, taking him in slow, hot stages, shivering with each subtle stretch until her inner thighs pressed against his hip bones and he was fully inside her.
“Oh,” she said. “Oh, yes.”
Heat wicked along her nerves as she rode him, lost in sensation. She kept her skirt lifted to just the tops of her thighs and planted her hand on his sternum as she moved. This gave her the leverage to lift and fall and help
fully kept his undershirt pushed up. Her gaze flitted from his eyes to his mouth to his incredible torso to his clenched fists.
“So good,” she said.
“Faster,” he said.
“No.”
“More.”
She laughed, then shifted her weight from her knees to the hand on his sternum, let her skirt drop, put that hand on his shoulder, and leaned. “More of this would be good, wouldn’t it?” she murmured in his ear. “I’m not going to give it to you. If you want more, take it.”
He groaned, and the grabby impulse did him in. His hands clamped around her hips, driving her down as he thrust up. There was a short battle as he tried to keep his shoulders off the bed, but she pushed him flat on his back and whispered, “I win.”
“Fuck winning,” he said, and rolled her to her back. His next thrust, deep and hard and uncompromising, made her cry out. She wrapped her legs around his hips, flattened her hands at the base of his spine, and lifted into his pounding strokes. Her entire nervous system went up in flames as her orgasm steamrolled her. He followed her almost immediately, muffling his low groan in her hair.
When she came out of it, the first thing she noticed was his hand cupping the back of her head to push her mouth against his shoulder and stifle her cries. She rolled her head into the touch, feeling his fingertips press into all the tight spots in her skull.
“That was incredible,” she said.
“Except for the part where I lost,” he said, the low rumble of his voice in his chest too satisfied to give the words any weight. He pulled out and removed the condom, then a couple of strides took him to the bathroom. Sarah rolled to her side, pushed her skirt over her hip, found her hair elastic in the sheets and pulled it over her wrist. When he emerged, he was zipped up and tucked in, drat it.
“Hi,” she said, grinning.
