Autumn moaned wordless protests, all the while thinking that it sounded like heaven on earth. This entire scene was so wrong, so right, so everything.
Blake bent his head, his beard rasping against her cheek. “You give it up easy, and I’ll let you go home tonight. I won’t drag you back to my place and tie you to my bed, use your sexy little body as my mattress. Fuck your tight cunt whenever I get hard.”
Do it, Autumn thought through the delirium of another rising orgasm. Do it.
Her legs were shaking, her back and brow studded with sweat. She just needed a little more, a little more filth, a little more stimulation…
“Or would you like that?” Blake’s fingers tugged hard at her nipples, biting into them so that she whimpered. “Would you like being my personal pussy, Blondie? Are you hoping I’ll take you home and make you my slave?”
Autumn pictured herself tied to his bed, awaiting his convenience, and a hot throb ran through her.
“God yes,” she said and no sooner had she uttered the words, than her second climax hit. The first had been fast and intense. This was earth-shattering. White light blistered behind her eyes and as she contracted around Blake’s fingers, she ground her teeth so that no sound came out of her mouth. There was nothing but silent sensation.
When she finished, she was limp as a noodle, relying on Blake’s weight and the wall just to stay standing. Her shadowy lover pulled his hand from her and sucked his fingers into his mouth. “That’s very good, little whore. Now it’s my turn. You’re going to get on your knees for me, wet me down so I can slide into your pussy nice and smooth. You got that?”
“Oh-okay,” Autumn stammered, wondering if she had the strength to hold her mouth open. He removed his hands from her body and she instantly slid down the wall trembling with pleasurable aftershocks. What had that been? And what the hell was going to happen next? They’d just done third base, one-sided third base. How was she going to handle sex without crumbling into a pile of ash? One thing was certain, she was going to try her hardest to give a gold star performance. That orgasm had been—there was no other word for it—mind-blowing.
Blake stood in front of her, his face entirely in shadow, probably wondering how to proceed now she was doing her ragdoll impression.
There was a long protracted pause, and Autumn swore she could hear the cogs in her Landlord’s brain whirring, probably wondering how he was going to wring a blow job out of her limp ass. Before she could suggest that maybe she could lie prone on the ground while he fucked her face, he ran a gentle palm over her cheek. “It’s your lucky night, honey.”
“Nngh?” Autumn said, her power of speech having not yet returned.
“I’m not going to give you what you want tonight,” he said. “I’m going to send you home hurting for my cock instead. See if you like waiting and hurting as much as you like doing it to men.” He reached down and took her hands, helping her onto her feet.
Autumn stood trembling in her pumps, weak as a teenager after her first bender. “Wait, what’s happening?”
“I’m leaving.” Blake gently rearranged her dress so that everything he’d revealed before was covered. “You’re going home.”
“But…but you were going to make me blow you!” Autumn knew she was breaking character but goddammit, she wanted to suck Blake’s cock. Sure she could barely lift her arms right now, but they had options, like that lying on the floor thing she’d been about to mention.
“Not going to happen, Blondie. You get fucked on my terms and my terms only.” Blake’s frowny face told her to give it up, that the scene was over and she could either leave with the fantasy intact or hear him rebuff her request for dick in a more overtly landlord way. She decided to swallow her pride. “Will I see you again?”
“Of course you will.” He moved her hand, pressing it against the swell of his cock. “Feel that?”
Autumn whimpered as a sluggish but determined jolt of arousal thrummed through her, a fish trying to flop back to water. “Yes.”
“That’s all for you, Blondie. I’m not gonna jack it until I see you next. I’ll save it all up for you to swallow.”
Autumn moaned, closing her hand around his swollen flesh, but Blake pulled away. He gave her another light brush along her cheek and then he was backing away and pounding down the staircase.
What the actual fuck?
“Is this legit?” she called after him. “Is this really the end of the sex thing?”
Blake didn’t reply. She listened as he reached the bottom of the stairwell, heard the exit door slam and stood there a moment.
“So fucking complicated,” she mumbled, but she couldn’t keep from smiling. Whatever weird instincts had driven her eccentric landlord away, she was sure they were well intentioned, and this was still the best not-sex of her life. She slowly climbed the stairs to her apartment and wasn’t at all surprised to find the exit door on the third floor unlocked. She was surprised to find another note taped to her door, however. She pulled it off and read, Figured we’d start slow the first time. Sleep well, Fun-Size. The Landlord.
Next to it was a small drawing of…her. It was only done in pencil but the likeness was undeniable. Her hair was a cloud and her eyes were oversized, she looked delicate and waifish. Was that how he saw her? Did he really think she was that beautiful?
It was then that Autumn felt something truly, sincerely complicated; her stomach fluttered with what could have only been the first stirrings of a crush.
“Fucking hell,” she muttered to herself and unlocked her apartment door, determined to hustle all the pigeons out of the bath and take a long hot soak. She’d barely kicked off her shoes when she felt her phone buzz. Wondering—not hoping, definitely not hoping—if Blake had texted, she pulled it out and found a message from Owen. “Hey lady, how’s the date going?”
She smiled at the message and typed back. “Good thanks. Over now.”
Her phone buzzed right away. “Details. All the details.”
She hesitated, then grinned. If he really wanted to know… “Dinner at Eleven Madison Park followed by multiple orgasms in my apartment stairwell.”
The reply came so fast it was like magic. “Insufficient details. Coffee. 11am.”
CHAPTER 6
Blake studied the damaged Bible through the hands-free magnifier perched on his head. He’d been contacted late last night by a local financier about restoring a family heirloom and agreed to take it on, mostly out of fascination. In true impatient New Yorker fashion, the man had messengered the book over this morning, bright and early. Blake had never restored a Bible before and the pages were incredibly thin—and there were so many of them. Regardless of the high price such a project would earn, he’d been more interested in the challenge.
Or the distraction, more like.
Normally when he accepted a job, there was between three and six months of lead time. He was damn good at the art of book restoration and scheduled for the foreseeable future. But he’d hoped something new—spontaneous, even—would occupy his mind until he saw Autumn again.
Sweet, delicious Autumn.
Blake took off the magnifying headset, leaned back in his chair and grunted. He was positive last night’s date had been a disaster. Table manners and small talk weren’t exactly his strong suit, so he’d spent a lot of time staring at Autumn and willing the night to move faster…while having an equally strong urge to slow it down. It was disconcerting, the way he couldn’t seem to picture her in the soft restaurant light without his blood racing faster. The sun followed her at nighttime, too. Their date had confirmed it. This glow remained on her wherever she went, catching on stray freckles and white strands of hair among the dirty blond. It was beyond Blake how a man could focus enough to have a conversation while looking directly at her, listening to the little trip in her voice whenever the subject changed directions.
The night had changed direction, too. He’d planned on bringing her to the stairwell, but he hadn’t planned on leavin
g so soon. He’d spent the morning wondering if he was fucking insane for doing so. His mouth salivated thinking of her indecently pointed nipples, how they’d plumped on his tongue, so smooth and sweet. He’d been caught between her tits and her mouth in that stairwell, starved for both in a way he’d never come close to experiencing. Starved for her orgasm over his own. He’d wanted nothing more than to unzip his pants and fuck her blind against the concrete wall, her ineffective red dress rucked up around her hips.
So why did he stop? His heavy cock wanted an answer.
For one, as soon as she went all limp and sweet on Blake, he’d felt like that same depraved monster that used to stroke off to increasingly dark fantasies about the petite girl with the happy disposition. The one who chatted merrily with tenants and…cleared that damn path for him the day they’d met. Could he really unzip and use her mouth, when she didn’t even have the energy to stand? She wanted him to. He ached to take things all the way. His head needed to catch up with his hunger first, though.
And second. He couldn’t give Autumn what she wanted right away. Why the hell would she stick around afterward? He was an asshole who reacted to sunlight like a million-year-old vampire just awoken from his tomb, and she was loved by sunshine. If he let the head between his legs make the decisions, she would have been shackled to his wall last night while he wrote a phony ransom note to her family, reading it out loud and making her lick the envelope. He would do those things to satisfy her. Hell, to satisfy himself.
Autumn deserved more than that. Yeah, he’d insisted on three dates so she would be comfortable while they explored these fantasies she’d been harboring about him. Not actually scared. Just…on the verge. The razor’s edge of nervous. But his ulterior motive for bringing Autumn on three dates was about a lot more. Not that he would ever admit to it out loud, but he might have benefitted from the same kind of guidance all those years ago. It was far too late for him to change now, but Autumn was young. And…incredible. If anyone could shake off a bad break up and strike out on her own, she could.
As soon as he showed her that, Blake could go back to fixing books in the darkness, as he was doing right now. He could go back to peace and quiet, instead of constantly wondering about the adorable Australian upstairs and whether or not she was cool enough with one measly, second-hand window air conditioner. Or if she still received calls from her shithead ex-boyfriend.
Hence, the age-spotted, torn-up heirloom Bible on his desk.
Blake pushed back from the desk and stood, those first steps toward the living room on the painful side, his leg protesting its use. Perhaps the very act of having a rare, personal conversation with Autumn last night had unearthed other, personal conversations from his past. Because the sharp twinge in Blake’s leg sent him back to the weeks he’d spent in the hospital, while undergoing several surgeries to repair bone fractures and torn ligaments.
His hospital room had been a revolving door of activity—fellow sandhogs, union reps, nurses, doctors and family. What he remembered the most, however, was his friends and fiancée. How they’d shifted around him in awkward tableaus, exchanging covert glances and changing the topic before it was completely exhausted—very unlike them. His idiot friends were known for running a subject into the ground and setting it on fire. Leaning back among the pillows, his perceptive abilities had been keener than ever because he was only required to watch. The subtle shift in the air when his fiancée and the head surgeon were in the hospital room together had started a ball of intuition rolling down his spine. He saw the way everyone seemed to go tense as if waiting for them to slip up.
Blake was a man of few words. So on a day when his injury had already made him weakest he’d ever been in his life—and gut-deep instinct told him he’d been thrown over—no exceptions were made. Not at such a sickeningly low point. If anything, he was capable of speaking even less. Blake’s fiancée had leaned over to fluff his pillow, locked eyes with him and understood she’d been found out. Hands shaking, she’d removed the ring—but he’d stopped her.
“Keep it,” he’d said, already wanting no physical reminder of that time. That life.
Oddly enough, the worst of the pain came on the heels of that sliced-off engagement. He’d turned to his friends. Kevin, Elaine and Tommy in their ice sculpture formations around the room. And he’d roared at them to get out, despite the shot of pain it blasted down his side. Elaine burst into tears. Tommy made a belligerent face and stormed off. Always the last one to take a hint, Kevin came forward, palms out, trying to reason with Blake. Reason. To this day, it blew Blake’s mind that anyone alive thought they could talk their way out of months of lies. No. Impossible. That was the last time he’d seen any of them and he wouldn’t have had it any other way.
Ignoring the acid in his stomach, Blake stalked to the refrigerator, planning to throw together something to eat. Before he could grip the handle, though, his landline rang.
He dragged a hand down his face. “Goddammit.”
Already well aware of who was calling, Blake didn’t bother picking up. Ross was a young pot-enthusiast who lived upstairs and perpetually roamed the halls in slippers eating bowls of cereal. A while back—and against his better judgment—Blake gave Ross the landline number, but only because the guy’s ceiling sprung a leak while Blake was in the process of replacing his broken cell phone. He was the only tenant who had the number. And for some ridiculous reason, Ross thought that made him special. It didn’t.
Blake grabbed his tool box on the way out of his apartment, forcing himself to take the stairs to Ross’s floor, instead of the elevator. He wasn’t weak, like he’d been that day ten years ago, not by any stretch. Giving in, that was weakness.
Ross was waiting at the top of the stairs when Blake reached the third floor, bowl of what looked to be Cinnamon Toast Crunch balanced in one hand. “Hey, man, you didn’t answer the bat phone.”
“Please stop calling it that,” Blake groused, skirting past him. “What the hell is wrong this time? I told you to stop taking the batteries out of the smoke detector. You can never get them back in.”
The young man took a large bite of cereal, instead of answering. He raised a finger, the international sign for hold on and Blake rolled his eyes. Ross had zero respect for the landlord-tenant relationship. Although, he had to admit, the kid wasn’t that bad. Sometimes. He had some personal hygiene issues and a parakeet that never shut the hell up. To Blake’s surprise, though, Ross had turned out to be one of the few people he could talk to for longer than five minutes without wanting to drill into his own ear. Not that he would admit to it, even under threat of death. They shot the breeze once in a while at the mailboxes or during repairs. They weren’t…what did Ross call them? Twin flames?
God, how annoying.
Blake walked into Ross’s apartment to the sound of a chirping bird and an applauding television studio audience. He scanned the messy abode for signs of needed repair. “Well?”
The door rebounded off the floor stopper behind him, leaving it ajar. “Okay, don’t get mad,” Ross said, creeping around the front of Blake. “I have something you’re going to want to see, man. It’s high quality shit.”
Blake set down his toolbox with a clatter. “How many times do I have to tell you? I don’t want to buy any weed. And this better not be the reason you called the…”
“Ah!” Ross gave a slow motion fist pump. “You almost said bat phone.”
“No I didn’t.”
“All right, man. But we both know you wanted to.”
Knowing from experience that Ross would be content to repeat himself for an hour, Blake decided to change the subject. “Why am I here? And before you ask, no, I’m not asking why we’re here on earth. I mean why am I in this apartment right now?”
Ross pointed a sooty finger at him. “I saw you leave the note on that Australian girl’s door, you closet Cyrano.”
“I think you mean Casanova. Which I am not.” Blake scratched at the nerves tingling at th
e base of his throat. “You didn’t read the note, did you?”
“No way. I’m happy to live in the mystery.” Ross gestured to a laptop that was open on his kitchen table. “Are you?”
“I’m leaving.”
Blake picked up his toolbox and turned for the door, just in time for Mrs. Zhu to walk into the apartment. “What’s happening in here?” She breezed past Blake, smelling of dish soap and the hard, green apple candies she always handed out. “Did Wendy start yet?”
“We got ten minutes,” Ross answered. “Grab a snack.”
“Does anyone in this building work?” Blake asked.
Ross struck a model-esque pose. “Your Australian girl does.”
“Her name is Autumn and you should know that, considering she presses the elevator call button for you when your hands are full of laundry.” Blake realized he’d said too much. Both tenants were now eyeing him with blatant curiosity. He scowled. “You do too much laundry for someone who primarily wears a bathrobe.”
Mrs. Zhu plopped down on the couch. “You’re very touchy today, Mister Munroe.” She propped her feet on the cluttered coffee table. “I’m usually the touchy one.”
“It’s true. She is,” Ross said in a stage-whisper. “She just shows up now. Like clockwork. Calls me, too.”
“I can’t imagine what that’s like,” Blake deadpanned.
Ross waved a hand. “You don’t mean that. Come here.”
He stepped over a disconnected bike wheel on his way to the kitchen table, Blake reluctantly following behind. He was fully prepared to find something stupid on the screen, like the time Ross faked a clogged sink so he’d come upstairs and watch an SNL sketch about cats that shoot lasers. Thinking of SNL made Blake think of his talk with Autumn last night, so when he saw her picture on the screen of Ross’s laptop, he thought he was imagining it. Then Ross looked so smug about his surprise, Blake knew it was real. That was really Autumn in a stadium of some kind, wearing a red and black jersey and carrying a huge flag with what appeared to be a jet plane on it.
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