by Cassie Cross
Thankfully the bartender interrupts my frenzied thoughts when he walks over and asks if we’d like another round.
“No,” I reply softly, still looking at Nate. His face falls with disappointment for just a split second before understanding lights his eyes.
He holds up has hand and shakes his head. The bartender walks away.
“Callie, I never do this, but-”
“I have a room,” I say, interrupting him to keep him from finishing that sentence. Because ‘I never do this’ is the kind of thing that people who typically do this a lot tend to say. And I’m okay with that, really. But I don’t want to hear it.
“Okay.” Nate flashes a smile as he stands up and takes my hand, threading his fingers through mine. Then, he slings his duffel bag over his shoulder and leads me out of the bar.
We make our way through the crowded terminal to the hotel, looking at each other every few steps and grinning like a couple of fools.
The elevator can’t come quickly enough.
I fumble with the key card in the lock, a mixture of nerves and excitement making my hands shake. As if Nate wants to see just how much of an effect he has on me, he wraps his arms around my waist, pulling me against him until I can feel every inch of his chest against my back. It takes me three tries to even get the damn card in the slot, and the longer it takes me, the more my hands shake.
“If you don’t get this door unlocked, I’m going to break it down,” he says, his voice a low rumble despite his teasing words. I take a deep breath to smooth over my jitters. “Let me help you,” he says, gentle now as his lips brush across the shell of my ear. He doesn’t seem to be nearly as nervous as I am, if he’s even nervous at all. He unlocks the door with a sure, steady hand.
Once we’re in the room, Nate tosses his bag to the side and pushes the door shut with his heel. Then he takes my face in his hands and kisses me like he can’t get enough, like he’s been waiting to do this his whole life. Our mouths melt together in long, slow kisses and then urgent, faster, needier ones. He brings my arms up and over his shoulders, clasping my hands together behind his neck.
“Hold onto me,” he says. And I do.
Nate kisses me again, and all I can think about is the way he tastes, the way he feels. He slides his hands down the small of my back, down the backs of my thighs, and he lifts me up. I wrap my legs around his waist, anchoring myself to him, not caring about what’s going to happen next as long as he keeps kissing me like he’s never going to stop. He gently lowers me onto the bed, then pulls off my shoes, grinning at me as he playfully tosses them across the room. I help him by unbuttoning my jeans, then he tugs on the cuffs, sliding the denim down my thighs as I take off my shirt.
I lie back and enjoy the view as Nate pulls his shirt over his head and then unzips his pants. They fall to the floor, revealing a pair of boxers with yellow smiley faces all over them. I can’t help but grin when I see them, and I trace the hem that hangs over his right thigh with my big toe.
“Are these your sexy shorts?” I ask.
He seems confused for a second, then catches on to what I’m asking after he looks down at what he’s wearing.
“Hey,” he replies, pretending to be offended. “I’ve gotten lots of compliments on these.”
I don’t even want to think about just how many compliments he’s gotten on these boxers, so luckily he distracts me by sliding them down his hips. And my eyes are glued to him. His body is insane. Sturdy. Muscular. Perfect.
“C’mere,” I say, crooking my finger at him, trying to be seductive and sexy and failing miserably. It doesn’t matter, he doesn’t seem to care.
Nate kneels over me on the bed, leaning down and kissing me before he reaches behind my back and unclasps my bra. He kisses my breasts, licking slow, torturous circles around my nipples that make my toes curl. My hands are everywhere, slipping across his broad shoulders and tight muscles, and I can’t kiss him enough. His skin is salty and sweet. I love the little sounds that he makes when I press my lips here, touch him there, and gently slide my palm along the length of his erection. He sighs, resting his head in the crook of my neck.
“Do you like that?” I ask, wanting to be sure that I make this good for him.
“Yeah,” he replies with a breathy laugh that warms my breast, and then his mouth finds its place on my skin. I continue sliding my hand up and down, and he bucks his hips against me as we kiss. When his breathing speeds up and his kisses become a little unfocused, he pulls away and kisses a trail down my stomach to the insides of my thighs. And then, oh. Oh.
“Oh my god,” I sigh, and Nate lets out a little hum of a laugh that vibrates against me and makes my eyelids flutter shut. He works magic with his tongue and fingers as I sink back into the mattress and let myself drift. I drift and drift. Sometimes my eyes are closed and sometimes I look down at him while he’s looking up at me and I have this crazy desire to run my fingers through his short hair. To scratch his scalp with my fingernails, because I think he’d like it.
So I do. And he likes it. And I like what he’s doing to me so much that it isn’t long until he makes me come in a warm, lapping wave that reaches out from my belly, cresting against my fingertips and toes.
Nate is obviously pleased with himself as I pull him up for a kiss, but it doesn’t last as long as I’d like because his lips leave mine when he sits up and reaches for his jeans at the foot of the bed. He pulls a condom out of his back pocket, and I’m so glad he wants to be safe. It would be too easy for me to be stupid with him.
He kneels in front of me, my legs on either side of his as he looks down, his eyes locked with mine. I can’t read his expression, can’t tell exactly what he wants me to do next. And it’s killing me, because whatever he wants me to do, I want to do it. One of his hands lightly traces the outside of my calf and the other cups my foot, lifting it until it rests on his shoulder. He turns his head and plants a sweet, gentle kiss on the inside of my ankle.
“You are so beautiful,” he says, his voice very soft and very deep at the same time. I’m lying naked in front of him, so he knows this is a sure thing. He doesn’t need to flatter me, but still…I’m flattered. What am I supposed to say? You’re handsome? I’d like to lick every square inch of your body?
He doesn’t wait for me to figure it out, he just leans down and kisses me as he hooks his arms under mine. I reach up and touch his face, wondering why all of this feels so tender when it isn’t supposed to mean anything at all. Nate presses his forehead against mine as he slowly pushes into me. He sighs and runs his fingers through my hair, and somehow it feels like we’ve been together like this before. He knows every spot to touch that makes me gasp, every stretch of skin to slide his tongue across that opens me up to him. He brings me to the edge of pleasure and pulls me back, again and again, until my whole body is humming and desperate. When I finally fall, I bury my face in his neck. He follows soon after, peppering my face with kisses.
After, we lie there in bed, clinging to each other. Until a kiss turns into more kisses and a touch turns into a thousand more. Until he’s inside me again and my body is wrapped around his and our names fall from each other’s lips. We follow the same pattern all night, over and over again, until we finally drift off to sleep.
I wake up just before dawn, wrapped in Nate’s arms. I’ve never been so comfortable and so scared in my entire life. I don’t want to walk out of this room and never see him again, but more than that I don’t want him to become another Ethan. I’m scared he’ll break what’s left of my heart, and I’ll get so hardened against men that I won’t be able to have another night like this again.
No, it’s better for me to leave things as they are and let this night become a memory.
I get dressed quietly and gather my things, ignoring the nagging ache I feel as I slip out the door.
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It’s been four months since I graduated from the University of Virginia, crammed everything
I owned into the trunk of my Honda, and headed north for a new life and a new job here in Washington, D.C.
Working as a junior associate at a mid-level accounting firm isn’t exactly my dream job, but it pays the rent.
The city is as bustling and intimidating as it is beautiful, but I’m having trouble connecting with new people. My best friend Alexa lives nearby, but she works long hours and isn’t around all that much. My other friends from school are scattered throughout the country, either at new jobs in new cities like me, or back at home with their parents.
So, in the absence of any kind of social life, I’ve formed a deep, lasting relationship with Netflix. Occasionally I spice things up with a pint of mint chip, whenever I’m compelled to eat my feelings. This is pretty much my new normal, and tonight? Alexa’s had enough. She’s staging an intervention.
“Are you gonna get ready, or are you just gonna lie there?” Alexa yells from somewhere in the recesses of my bedroom closet.
Snuggling the fluffiest pillow I own, I burrow down deep into my comfy mattress and turn up the volume on my television. “Just gonna lie here.”
“C’mon!” Alexa throws a balled-up T-shirt across the room, which lands right on my ass. “I need you to pick a dress.”
Alexa holds the only two little black dresses that I own, ones I rarely wear because I hate going to the kinds of places I’d have to wear them. Like the one Alexa is intent on dragging me to tonight.
“Short or shorter?” With a hanger in each hand, Alexa displays my options. “The short one accentuates your curves, but the shorter one says, ‘I’m here to have sex tonight.’”
“Maybe you should wear that one then.”
Alexa sighs, tosses my dresses on the bed, then walks over and pries the remote from my hand. She aims it at the television, and a second later the screen flickers off.
“Why did you do that?” I’m not proud of the mild panic that laces its way through my words.
“I’m instigating a breakup between you and your boyfriend, Netflix.”
My comforter pools around my hips as I sit up, indignant. “Our relationship is totally healthy, okay? It makes binge-watching so easy.”
With an exasperated sigh, Alexa sits down on the edge of the bed. “Stop deflecting.”
I consider arguing with her, but I press my lips together to stop myself from speaking. I don’t want to fight. “Okay.”
“You’ve gotta get out and meet some new people. You need to stop hiding and let yourself have some fun. The way things are now, you’re going to wake up one morning when you’re fifty and regret the fact that the only meaningful relationship you have is with your television.”
“To be fair, televisions will probably be obsolete 27 years from now.”
Alexa narrows her eyes. “Hayley.”
Having a person in your life who knows you better than anyone else is really great, except for when they call you out on your shit when you’re not ready to be called out on it.
“I’m fine with my life the way it is,” I lie.
Alexa gives me a look that screams you’ve got to be kidding me. “Weren’t you just complaining about your dry spell, like, two days ago?”
I glare at her. “Using my involuntary celibacy against me is just rude.” She’s right, though. I was just complaining about it. I’m at the point now where I feel like there should be a sign above my bed that reads:
DAYS SINCE NON-SOLO ORGASM:
186
Not that I’m keeping track or anything.
“No-strings-attached fun awaits you if you just put on one of these dresses.”
“I hate clubs,” I counter, which is the absolute well-documented truth. “Can’t I just put on my favorite jeans, go to the grocery store, and…I don’t know, meet someone in the produce section?”
Alexa lets out a sharp laugh. “I think you’re missing the point of a one-night stand, sweetie. You want to find someone dirty-hot and dangerous who can make you come 20 times and doesn’t care if you call him back. Your little produce section fantasy is marriage material. If that’s what you’re looking for, then a club is definitely the wrong place to go.”
“You know I’m not looking for…” I narrow my eyes and lower my voice. “The M-word.”
“Never in my life have I met a commitment-phobe who turns up her nose at the idea of casual sex,” Alexa replies, rolling her eyes. “You have a problem, and I’m offering you a solution. Plus…free drinks.”
“It’s not the casual sex I’m turning up my nose at. I want the casual sex. It’s the going to a club part of this scenario that I dislike. It was so easy in college…guys were always so ready and willing, and they were everywhere. All I had to do was step foot out of my dorm and I’d practically trip over two guys who were anxious to get into my pants.”
Alexa laughs. “There are tons of guys around who are anxious to get into your pants,” she assures me. “You just have to go outside a ten-foot radius to find them now.”
“Tell me about it.”
“You look hot in those dresses, Hayley,” Alexa says, nodding toward where they lie at the foot of my bed. “I’d be willing to bet that you won’t even have to stay at the club for very long.”
That gets a smile out of me. Apparently, a little bit of flattery goes a long way for me these days.
“It’ll be fun,” Alexa continues, knowing that she’s managed to put a dent in my defenses. “At the very least you’ll get to spend some time in the land of the living.”
“Hey,” I reply, offended. “I go out in the land of the living all the time.”
“Yeah,” she snorts. “To go to work, get more ice cream, and then come home.”
That one stings a bit, and Alexa must notice because her expression immediately softens.
“Look, I know you’re having a hard time. It was the same way for me when I moved up here last year, but you’re not making it any easier on yourself.”
She has a point. I hate it when she has a point. It’s one night…what can it hurt?
With a deeply aggrieved sigh, I swing my legs over the side of the bed and stand. Alexa looks up at me with a hint of a smile and a little bit of hope in her eyes.
“Hand me a dress.”
“Which one? Short or shorter?”
If I’m going, might as well go all the way. “Shorter.”
“Is this as awful as you thought it’d be?” Alexa asks.
I don’t answer, because really…it’s worse.
The club’s bass is pumping, the smell of sweat and too much alcohol in the air. A sea of bodies moves along to the beat on the dance floor, while Alexa and I fight for a little bit of real estate at the bar.
A guy slides up behind me, pressing his cold glass against the sliver of exposed skin at the small of my back as he grinds his erection against my ass, his free hand inching dangerously low across my belly. His cologne is as strong as his advances, and I shudder when he leans in close, his hot breath on my ear.
Gross.
“No thanks,” I say firmly, pinching his wrist to get his hand off of me as I jam my stiletto into his foot as hard as I can.
“Bitch.” He gives up easily, though, flashing an annoyed look in my direction before he slinks back into the crowd, moving on to less fortunate prey.
Men like these are the reason I hate clubs, assuming any woman is willing and there for the taking, available to touch however he wants. I realize this is basically a meat market, but I’d like someone to understand that there are boundaries, and give me the chance to indicate I’m willing to have mine crossed before they do the crossing.
Alexa’s busy trying to find some commitment-free fun of her own, but by the looks of it, she’s having about as much luck as I am. She twists away from a handsy jerk a few feet away and makes her way back to my side.
“Remind me why we’re here again?” I ask Alexa, before taking a sip of my whiskey sour. It was free, which seems to be the only redeeming quality of this shitty evening so
far.
“We’re here to get you laid!” she replies with an enthusiastic yell, and her words reverberate through the crowd.
Everyone in our immediate vicinity stares at us.
Oh god. Have I mentioned that I hate clubs?
“She isn’t interested in any of you!” Alexa shouts as the music picks up again, then she grabs my hand and leads me away from the bar. “I’m so sorry about that. I was just trying to make sure you could hear me over the music.”
Alexa looks so upset with herself that I can’t possibly be angry with her. She only has my libido’s best interest at heart.
“It’s okay,” I assure her, even though my cheeks feel hot as the sun from sheer embarrassment as we push our way through the crowd.
“Wanna leave?”
All I’d have to do is nod and this failed experiment of an evening would be blessedly over. I should tell her yes; part of me really wants to. But for reasons that even I don’t fully understand, I say, “No.”
We’re a few drinks in, and Alexa’s off grinding against some man who looks like he’s old enough to be her father. She seems happy, so I can’t hate her for that, but I can hate her for leaving me here alone.
Just me and my drink all by ourselves in the corner like a couple of losers. I’m trying to convince myself to stop being such a wallflower and dance already. I toss back what’s left in my glass and set it on the ledge behind me when an astonishingly, unbelievably hot guy catches my eye.
Actually, astonishingly, unbelievably hot doesn’t even begin to accurately describe this man.
Hot Guy is incredibly tall, has a mop of dirty-blond hair, and raspy scruff peppering his movie-star jawline. A tight henley shows off every inch of his broad chest and muscular arms from where he stands across the room, just staring at me.
