by KD Robichaux
I smile up at her from my kneeling position, understanding what she’s wanting, but this is something I’ve been working on with her. Voicing things she needs and wants. But I give her a little something to keep her going. “Like legwarmers and neon leotards?”
She scoffs with a little smile. “God, I hope not. They’ve been trying to bring the ‘80s back in fashion and makeup, but I’ll be damned if I ever use electric blue eyeshadow. Could you imagine my complexion with electric blue eyeshadow?” she asks seriously, finally meeting my eyes.
I take the hint and use context clues in order to answer. “Certainly not. You’re definitely a winter, and electric blue is a summer color.”
She pulls her lips between her teeth then covers her mouth with the fingertips of one hand, her eyes twinkling down at me. “You’re so adorable when you speak makeup terminology to me, Neil,” she says with a little giggle, and then she sobers. “Uhhh… yeah.”
Fuck, I love it when she says my name. After years upon years of being called Doc, the use of my real name from her lips is both jolting and heartwarming, as if it’s a term of endearment that only she uses.
“So… legwarmers?” I prompt, seeing she’s floundering after having called me adorable to my face.
She shakes her head. “Mm-mm. No on the legwarmers.” I stay exactly where I am, kneeled at the feet of my queen, but I pull my hand away, resting my elbow on my thigh. “But um, yeah. This class uses a ballet barre and techniques as a combination cardio and weight training class, and I thought maybeee…” She pulls back her lower lip to bare her teeth in a little endearing cringe. God, she’s fucking cute. But I’m not going to give in. She has to ask me what she wants.
“You thought maybeee…?” I prompt.
She gives me a little frown and then huffs, sitting up straighter on her stool and squaring her shoulders. “I was wondering if you might accompany me to the free trial class they offer at this gym nearby,” she finally gets out, looking over my head instead of in the eye. But then she automatically starts to backpedal. “I mean, I know you already go to a gym, clearly, because my God, look at you. No man looks like… you, all muscly and ripped and like you could bounce quarters off your—” She clears her throat, and my dick gets hard. “I mean… obviously you don’t need to go to some girly barre fitness class. You already know what the hell you’re doing. Clearly. You could be a stunt double for freaking Thor. But I—”
I put her out of her misery, even though I could listen to her ramble all day about the appreciation she has for the work I put into my body. “Set it up and we’re there.” This would be good for her. It would force her to take the steps to make something she wants happen.
“Really?” She perks up.
“Of course, goddess.” I smile gently.
She pushes her hair back behind her ear. “Um… I’ll have to look at the schedule, but I think they have them several times a day, even on the weekend. So then it wouldn’t have to interrupt like… your work or anything and—”
“Astrid, I’ll go any time you want. Just tell me when, and I’ll make sure I don’t have an appointment, even if I have to move my schedule around. I’ll be there,” I tell her, and her eyes get a dreamy look for a moment before she seems to snap herself out of it. I see her do this often, as if what I say affects her, and she allows it to sink into her for a moment before she activates a shield, kicking it out and rejecting it. And it makes me want to slit that motherfucker’s throat for making her this way.
“So, are you free all weekend? I… I think it’d be a good idea to schedule it ASAP so I don’t have time to talk myself out of it,” she confesses, and it makes me proud to see her wanting to fight her hang-ups.
“I’m free any time you need me, goddess,” I reiterate, and she blushes and nods.
I finally stand, allowing myself, while she’s in this rather relaxed and receptive state, to lean over her and place a gentle kiss to her forehead before backing away. She swallows thickly, shuddering at the contact, and she turns back to face her plate of food. I’d already wolfed mine down it was so delicious. I reach across the island and grab my plate to the tune of her telling me she’ll clean it up, ignoring her as I take it to the sink and rinse it off before placing it in the dishwasher along with my fork. I brush my palm along the small of her back as I pass by her on the way to the stairs, enjoying her little shiver of response, and pause long enough at the foot of the steps to say, “Going to shower. You want to watch a movie or something after?”
She nods shyly, surprising me. Usually she wants to hide in her room once we’re done eating. “S-Sure,” she murmurs, and I try to stay calm on the inside, even though I’m bursting with excitement at this small step in her coming out of her shell. When really, this is a huge, huge night for her. Asking to do something not only outside the house but something resembling an activity from her past she used to love? So major.
“Great. You pick. I’ll be down in a minute,” I order, wanting her to make another decision herself, and I hold my breath at the slight panic in her eyes.
“Ummm… any preferences?” she asks, fidgeting with her hair.
I give her just a little, so she doesn’t feel too overwhelmed. “If I own it, I like it.” I gesture toward the entertainment center that has an obscenely large array of VHSs, DVDs, Blu-Rays, and beyond. “And you know my code for my digital collection,” I remind her.
She nods once more and begins twirling her fork in her spaghetti, and I make my way upstairs.
Chapter 3
Doc
I flip on the light to my bathroom, looking around and seeing it’s pristine, just like the rest of the house. And just knowing she was in here—since there’s a fresh towel hanging on the warmer and my toothbrush is back in the holder, when I left it out on purpose just to have the evidence of her presence—makes my cock swell even more than it was from the brief kiss I placed to her forehead moments before.
And now that she’s agreed to actually spend a couple of hours with me, even if it is just to watch a movie downstairs, I know I need to take care of the fucker straining against the front of my navy blue pants. Otherwise, I don’t know how much control I’ll have over myself with her sitting nearby.
I toe off my shoes and shed my clothes, tossing them into the hamper, and then walk naked across the expanse of cool tile made to look like planks of weathered gray wood. There is no door to my shower, just an opening in the wall of perfectly clear glass, and I step inside to turn on the water. Even the short moment of cold before it turns warm does nothing to calm the ache of my cock as it juts out from my body. I turn the two knobs, making the water come out like a rain shower from above, another stream coming out aimed at the center of my abs so when I face away, it’s a jet that massages the muscles of my back. When I rinse, there’s another knob I can twist that turns the rain shower into a waterfall that cascades the soap from my large frame in seconds. But I’m not worried about actually getting clean at the moment. My thoughts are centered on the blonde-haired goddess a floor beneath my very feet as I close my eyes and take my cock in my hand and give it a few strokes.
No, no. This isn’t right. The feeling isn’t right. She’d be tighter. She’d be slicker. I reach beside me and squeeze out a little lube into my palm. After living with the woman of my dreams for a year, unable to give in to my desires, I’d taken two bottles of lube from my club’s stockpile—one for my shower and one for my nightstand drawer—because Astrid has turned me into a teenage boy who needs to jack off daily.
I groan when I stroke again, the feeling closer but still not exactly right. Not that I’d know what her sweet pussy feels like. But I can imagine. She’s so tiny compared to me. She might not have danced in ages, but she still has the petite figure of a ballerina, all long, slim lines and gentle curves. Her breasts are larger than the dancers’ I’d seen at the Nutcracker, but the rest of her? Pure elegance.
No, I don’t know what her pussy feels like, but I do know what it feels l
ike to hold her flush against me and take her in a kiss that’s savage with hunger. It was only once, and it was a whole year ago, but my fucking God it had been the kiss to end all kisses. She had whimpered into my mouth, gasped as I thrust my tongue into her sweet mouth, and had gone completely lax in my arms, giving in to the both of us.
My hand pumps faster, replaying that kiss over and over in my mind. It was in a bathroom much different than this one, a small outdated but clean one in a two-bedroom apartment Astrid and her sister rented on the other side of town. It was all they could afford on their savings, Twyla’s meager earnings at the sex shop, and Astrid’s own income from her online makeup business, when they landed in my town after running from her ex on the opposite side of the country.
When the kiss happened, Astrid was already staying with me—had hid here in my home over the weekend—so she wouldn’t have to be alone while one of my men, Seth, took her sister to my beach house. And it was a good thing too, because that motherfucker had found the women. But my goddess snuck out of the house, needing things from her apartment while I was at work, and I followed her, scaring the shit out of her when I came into her place while she was gathering toiletries from her bathroom that she could’ve easily asked me for.
I’d been like a man possessed, the thought of her being taken away from me when she should’ve been safe inside the fortress of my home consuming me, and I’d taken her mouth ferociously, cutting off the sass I haven’t heard in the year since. I miss that sass. Don’t know where it went, chalking it up to more PTSD once her sister had been kidnapped and tortured.
But I push those darker thoughts out of my mind and focus on something much more pleasurable. The way my body could surround her like a bear, wrapping her entire feminine form up while I locked her in place to have my way with her mouth, plunging my tongue inside and tasting her. Those full, lush lips turning red from the brush of my beard and the ferocity of my lips, the nibbling of my teeth before I soothed it with my tongue.
And as I remember that sweet, sweet moan of submission, and the feel of her hands lifting to sink deep into my hair just above my neck, my cock swells in my hand as I give it three more pumps, and I shudder as I come, my head falling back on my shoulders, the rain shower trickling over my face.
When the world stops spinning and my breath returns to normal, I soap up and turn the dial to the waterfall setting, rinsing off in a matter of seconds, and then shut it completely off. I step out of the glass enclosure and pull the towel off the warmer, shaking it open and lifting it to my head to dry off my face and hair. I breathe it in, catching the slightest trace of Astrid’s scent, as if she’d held the folded towel to her body as she carried it up the stairs from the laundry room. I growl as I grow instantly hard again, frustrated over not being able to take her the way I so desperately want, so needy for her that my hand does nothing to slake the desire she incites in me.
I finish drying off and head into my walk-in closet, circling the island in the center that holds all my ties, watches, cufflinks, and such, and approach the wide wall of drawers. I open the one holding my underwear and slip on a pair of black boxer briefs, adjusting my cock so the elastic holds it flush to my front. I pull out a pair of thin cotton pajama pants and tug them on, making sure Astrid won’t see the raging hard-on I’m still sporting that I’m sure won’t be going away anytime soon if I’m going to spend time next to her on the couch. I pull out a white tee, gripping it in my hand as I close the drawer more aggressively than I need to, but it doesn’t make a loud sound because the hydraulics catch it just in time.
Suddenly anxious to get downstairs, I leave the closet and my room, galloping down the steps still bare-chested, and enter the living room, seeing her curled up at the end of the couch with the remote aimed at the TV. Her eyes turn to me, and her lips part, her gaze going to my chest and lower. I glance down to make sure my dick is still secure, and seeing it is, I take the bottom hem of the tee and pop the white cotton in the air before me to loosen the tight fold, pushing my arms through the shorts sleeves, then pulling it over my head. I meet her eyes again as I tug the tight material down my chest and over my abs until the hem rests a little more loosely around my hips.
She must realize she’s staring, because she snaps her mouth shut and whips her eyes back to the TV, clearing her throat. I force myself not to smirk as I sit down next to her, far enough away not to crowd her, but close enough I can still feel her body heat radiating off her legs she’s got pulled up beneath her. She changed while I was in the shower, and her long, smooth legs are now bare thanks to her soft-looking sleep shorts. I can just make out the points of her nipples through her matching pink tank top, where she holds the remote in front of her chest, and I stifle a groan.
“What did you pick?” I ask, my voice slightly hoarse, and I grunt when Scout jumps up on the couch and squeezes his big body in the space between me and Astrid. The fucker. He turns around and around before finally plopping his ass on my hip and settles his head into the nook between her stomach and raised thighs.
Astrid giggles, resting her arm on his back so her hand takes up residence on top of his head, and he lets out a huff and nuzzles his head against her tits. The goddamn showoff.
“So, I had an idea,” she tells me, and my narrowed eyes shooting daggers at my dog raise to meet hers and soften when I see she’s a little nervous about her selection. I raise a brow for her to continue. “I’ve been seeing things on Facebook about this show on Netflix, and I really wanted to try it out.”
“What’s it about?” I prompt, liking this idea already for the possibilities, my mind instantly filling with Netflix and chilling with my woman.
She’s not your woman, asshole.
“So it’s about this matchmaker, and she’s Indian, so she’s introducing these people to basically set up arranged marriages. But people are saying the show is like… super addicting. Do you want to try the first episode with me, and if it sucks, we can watch something else?” she asks hopefully.
And I’m so happy she’s chosen to ask me about this instead of just waiting to watch it by herself that I want to whoop with pride. But I hold it in, not wanting to embarrass her, so I say instead, “Only if you promise that if it doesn’t suck, you won’t watch it without me.”
Her lips purse as she searches my face with slightly narrowed eyes.
“Come on. It’s like an unwritten rule of Netflix. Once we start something together, we gotta finish it… together.” I let the innuendo hang thick in the air that I mean something much more than just a television show.
Her hand twirls one of Scout’s ears between her fingers almost unconsciously. And then she nods. “Deal.”
I smile and face the TV but focus my attention on her in my peripheral vision. She watches me for a moment longer, and then lifts the remote, and I see her select her own profile on the Netflix home screen. It still does something to me, seeing her name next to mine, her profile picture set as Jonathan from Queer Eye, because he’s her “spirit animal,” as she called him.
Curious, I’d watched an episode in bed one night, just to see what he was like, and it was both heartwarming and broke me at the same time. The therapist in me dissected the fact that Astrid saw this dude that was so full of life, exuberance, and who was so animated and happy in everything he did and said, and she identified with him on the inside, who she really was as a person. But then she’s now such a soft-spoken, meek, and frightened woman on the outside thanks to her ex. It made me want to work harder to get her strength back, make her stronger than she ever was before, so she can let that spirit animal inside her show through and break free.
I’m not ashamed to admit I ended up binge-watching every episode, because that shit is as hilarious as it is emotional.
It also made me feel closer to Astrid somehow, watching a show I know she loves so much.
Not even a full minute into Indian Matchmaking, I have to interrupt. “Would you mind putting on the subtitles please?”
I chuckle softly, even though I want to throw my head back and laugh but don’t want to scare the shit out of her. “No, it’s okay. They’re just talking so fast and switching back and forth between Hindi and English that I can’t keep up.” She relaxes, so I add, “And I’m not that old.”
She uses the remote to switch on subtitles, then murmurs under her breath, “Pretty old, dude.”
“I’m only forty-two. Forties are the new twenties,” I joke to cover up that I hope she doesn’t think I’m too old for her twenty-seven years, and she looks at me again.
“God, I hope not. It would be very awkward to see you doing a keg stand. It’s much hotter seeing you sip your scotch from a crystal tumbler,” she replies, and her compliment shoots straight to my dick. I manage not to groan when I sink down on the cushion, my long legs sliding out in front of me enough my head now rests on the back of the couch as I let out a long breath of air that puffs out my cheeks. I grab a throw pillow and cover my lap, holding it down against my cock, and she giggles.
She fucking giggles.
Not too old then.
Scout grumbles between us, adjusting his big back end with my new position, but he settles back down, continuing to enjoy his goddamn head rub. The lucky fuck.
She pushes Play once more, and we finally begin watching the show.
Hours later, it’s nearing two in the morning. Needless to say, we’re invested in every single person finding their perfect match, but sometime at the beginning of the episode we’re on now, Astrid had twitched violently beside me, and I looked over to see her sleeping, her head resting on the arm of the couch. Scout had put himself to bed several episodes ago, so her feet had slowly inched closer to me as her legs relaxed in the space the Aussie’s absence had created. I watched her for a few minutes, seeing her eyes move back and forth beneath her lids, her lips turning down in the corners in a little frown before her bottom lip quivered. Just when I was about to wake her from her bad dream, her face relaxed again, and now she’s snoring softly.
