by Ines Johnson
“Thanks ladies, but no. I’m talking to my new friend, MK.”
Pancake and Soda Bottle glanced at me. Holly came out of the back with a package in her hands and motioned the girls over to the cash register. They went without a huff. By the time I turned back around, Christopher, or was it Crow, had his eyes back on me.
“So, tell me about your story, MK.”
I looked between the twins and him. They looked like the type of women who knew how to tell a naked man what to do. I’d never even seen a naked man in real life. This, sitting across a table from Christopher, was the closest I’d been to a man in months. “You should probably go with them.”
“I’ll hook up with them later,” he said.
“You could probably get lucky with them. You should know that’s not going to happen with me.”
The mischief returned to his blue eyes. “I wasn’t aware that I’d offered sex. I thought we were having a conversation.”
The tips of my ears burned bright red. Of course he wasn’t interested in me. Not when he had twin models throwing themselves at him. “I’m sorry. I realize I’m not your type-”
“No,” he chuckled. “You’re exactly my type, MK.”
I liked my name. I thought it made me unique having two first names. Being called two letters, by this man with an angelic face and the devil in his eyes, made me feel like a different version of myself. Someone hip and cool.
I shook myself out of it. Inside, I was the same old Mary Katherine. “I’m a virgin.”
That should do it. When I laid that bit of knowledge on the men I dated that got them leaning back in their chairs and raising their hand for the check. Christopher leaned back in his chair, but his hand didn’t rise to call forth the end of our time together. The look on his face began as a grimace, but it kept spreading wider and wider, like the Cheshire cat.
“Oh, MK.” He shook his head as he rubbed his thumb across his grinning lips. “I’ve got a thing for virgins.”
He looked at me with interest. He specifically looked at my chest with interest, like he was debating the best way to get me out of my sundress.
I crossed my arms over my chest. “I’m waiting until marriage.”
He cocked his head, curious but undaunted. “For religious reasons?”
I was shocked that we were still having this conversation. Most guys would have run for the hills by this time. “Are you trying to figure out the rules of some game?”
He leaned back in his chair, smile still in place. “You’re the one who keeps putting your cherry on a platter. I was simply enjoying your company.”
“You’re leering at my breasts,” I said.
He shrugged, completely unapologetic. “I’ve got a thing for breasts. And your body is smoking hot. It’s not illegal to look.”
He was joking. He had to be joking. I was twenty pounds overweight, thirty if you asked my mother. Christopher was a golden god. He could go after the sure things, like Pancake and Soda Bottle who were waving goodbye as they left the shop. So why was he staying with me?
His eyes were fastened on mine. Intelligence pushing aside the mischief once more. “How are you going to write sex scenes with no sexual experience?”
The moan of a woman from the other room punctuated his question. I bit the inside of my cheek.
I looked up at Christopher, who continued to rub his thumb against his lip as he considered me. The motion was hypnotic. My tongue snuck out and licked at my lips. “Are you going to offer me some experience?”
His eyes zeroed in on my tongue. He pinched the spot on his lip that mirrored where my tongue had just landed on my bottom lip. I shut my eyes as I realized he was right. I had just offered up my cherry on a platter to him again.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I don’t know why I said that?”
“I’m not after your panties, MK. You’re not my type.”
My head jerked back giving me whiplash.
“Physically, yes. But mentally, no. You’re a Mrs. Forever. I’m a Mr. Right now.”
“Meaning,” I said, “you’re not the settling down and marrying kind? Or if you did, you would cheat on your wife.”
“I’ve never cheated anyone in my life.” Christopher frowned, looking like a petulant child and reminding me of my sister’s boys. “I’ll fuck those two girls tonight. They’ll both know I fucked the other one. Hell, I’ll probably fuck them both at the same time. Might fuck another girl after that. I don’t lie to girls to get what I want. I tell them the truth, and if it’s not something they want, I move along. I’ve never forced anyone to do anything… unless they asked me to.”
Again, I saw the flash of the devil hidden behind that angelic face.
“Plus,” he continued with that Cheshire grin, “I have a short attention span. I couldn’t keep all the lies straight in my head.”
Why was I still sitting and listening to this guy? And why was I still hearing his voice reining me in from up high on Cloud Nine? He was everything I didn’t want in a life partner. Mainly, because he had no intentions of being anyone’s life partner. He worked in a sex shop. He drove a fast car and broke the speed limit. He admitted that he slept with multiple women at the same time.
“Most would say I’m more honest than they’d care to hear,” Christopher said. “I have no intentions of getting married. That’s a condition of having sex with you, right?”
I couldn’t respond. My ears were still replaying him talking about having sex with me.
“Therefore, I have no intentions of taking your virginity because that’s not a responsibility I’m willing to commit to.”
He was right. That was more honesty than I cared to hear. “So why are you still here?”
“I never met a romance writer before,” he grinned, letting go of his serious side. “I’m interested. My mother calls me insatiably curious. So tell me, how do you keep your readers interested with no sex?”
He’d picked up the conversation about my work again, as though we hadn’t been discussing both of our vastly different sex lives. My head was spinning from all the directions my attention was being pulled toward.
There was the crescendoing sounds coming from behind the wall. There was the sound of the bell dinging letting customers in. The sound of Holly’s cheery voice as she greeted them. And then there was Christopher, sitting before me with an attentiveness I hadn’t had since my grandparents passed away a few years ago.
“Relationships aren’t all about sex,” I said.
He frowned in disbelief.
“They’re not,” I insisted. “They’re about connection and emotion over time. Love happens emotionally, spiritually, before the physical. Victorian and Regency romances were hundreds of pages long with only a kiss on the last page. Yet, it was clear the hero and heroine were in love by the middle. You really know it’s true before all the sex clouds your brain.”
Christopher grinned. “How would you know that sex clouds the brain?”
“Doesn’t it?”
He didn’t answer, but I got the distinct impression, even with the mischief in his grin, that his brain never got clouded.
“People get stupid,” I said. “Two women are willing to sleep with you, one after the other, or at the same time.”
“And you think that makes them stupid? Chrissy is an engineer and Fiona created her own startup. They’re two intelligent women who have a sex positive view of their bodies. Satisfaction is a powerful emotion, a relaxing emotion that provides clarity -at least for me.”
The crescendoes in the other room were coming fewer and further between, like the last few seconds of a bag of popcorn turning in the microwave.
“If you believe so strongly in what you’re doing with the sweet romance,” he said, “why change it?”
“Sex sells. And if I want to keep my publishing contract, I have to write about it.”
He leaned forward. “But you don’t want to?”
I shook my head.
“That sounds like an abuse of p
ower to me.”
I couldn’t disagree. It was akin to a boyfriend demanding his girlfriend have sex with him or he’d break up with her. I didn’t want to break up with my career. I loved what I did. I loved weaving stories of romance, of having two people from opposite spectrums come together, and making their lives together work.
“One thing I do know is that the experience of an orgasm is something you can’t plagiarize,” he said. “Guys might not be able to tell when a woman is faking it, but another woman can.”
He was right about that. I’d watched enough opening scenes of porn to be the judge.
“If you need a hand with writing those parts,” he leaned further forward, bracing his elbows on the table, “let me know. I’ll help you.”
I pulled back slighting. My hand rose off the table like I was in grade school. “I have to ask again, but I mean it this time. Are you trying to get into my panties?”
He laughed out loud. “I don’t have to get into your panties to show you what an orgasm feels like. Give me your hand.”
Chapter Five
My fingers twitched like a nerve had been pinched and was trying to break free. My pinky finger stuck out straight as though struck by lightning. My thumb curled into my palm. The three fingers in the middle flexed forward as though reaching out for Christopher, who watched my twitchy fingers with amusement.
I balled all my fingers into a fist. “What are you going to do?”
His blue eyes locked onto mine and held. If carnal was a color, it would be found in Christopher’s eyes. He grinned, reminding me of a puppy dog. “Trust me.”
His hand lay open on the table across from mine. Not moving close. Not retreating away.
One by one my fingers unfurled. I watched them in puzzlement, trying to work out why. The scary thing was that I did; I trusted him. There was something about Christopher that told me I could.
Was it those clear blue eyes that hid nothing and let me see his every intention? Was it that mischievous grin that urged me to come out and play? Was it the fact that I had his undivided attention and had somehow managed to hold his interest?
My grandfather always told me that people tell you who they are when you first meet them. The problem was that listeners often choose to ignore the truth. Christopher told me exactly who he was. He’d said it to my face. The question was would I listen.
I placed my hand in his. His was warm. A slight hum of energy zinged between us. He ran his thumb along the sides of my thumb and then my pinky finger. The tremors stopped. A sense of calm flooded through me.
He placed his other hand below mine and continued to graze my skin lightly. “What do you feel?”
Like I was lying in a cradle of warmth. “Safe.”
My fingers flexed. I had not meant to say that. But it was what I felt. I’d never had anyone hold my hand as an adult.
I wrote about men holding women’s hands. I’d never experienced it in real life. The words I’d written didn’t do this simple gesture justice. I couldn’t tell him that. So, I did what any writer worth her ink would do. I reached into my writer’s toolbox for a metaphor.
“I mean,” I tried again, “your fingers are cradling mine. So, it reminded me of the hammock in my grandparents’ backyard. I’d lie there for hours reading and no one bothered me. My grandma would bring me honey tea and cheese sandwiches. My grandpa would kiss my forehead as he worked in his vegetable garden. Your fingers are warm and they reminded me of the feeling of the sun on my skin. The hammock was under a tree so when I swung I’d go in and out of the light. With your touch, the pads of your fingers are the warmth, and in between are the clouds. I felt safe in that hammock.”
I stopped, realizing I’d dug myself into an even deeper hole with my purple prose. I looked up into Christopher’s clear, blue eyes. I couldn’t read his expression.
He looked… enraptured? That couldn’t be right. It was more flowery nonsense spewing from my writer’s tool kit. He probably thought I was some little girl lost.
“Not that I was unsafe anywhere else.” I didn’t want him to get the impression I came from an abusive family. Dysfunctional, sure. Abusive, no.
Christopher squeezed my palm. He grazed his fingers over my wrist. The sensation shot up my arm like an electric shock, right into my chest. A shudder went down my spine and I let out a trembling sound.
His eyes widened in surprise. Or was that male gloating? He’d gotten me to spew nonsense and now he’d gotten a physical reaction from me. He probably saw a clear pathway to my panties.
I tried to yank my hand away, but his long fingers closed around my wrist. They were light enough to let me know that I could get away. They were firm enough to let me know he wanted me to stay.
“Wait,” he said softly. “Tell me what you felt just then?”
His eyes were earnest as they looked into mine. There was no gloating. Only curiosity. Could that be right?
“I like the way you describe things, MK.” He grazed the pulse point over my wrist. “It never occurred to me that such a light touch could be so sexy. Tell me? How would you describe that in a book?”
My head spun as my pulse raced. Here was a guy asking me for my favorite thing. He wanted me to tell him a story. There was no way I could resist. I stopped struggling and let him have my hand.
I closed my eyes and pictured the hero in my book. Unsurprisingly, the hero had blonde hair and blue eyes. “When his fingers slid down her wrists, her blood wanted to reverse course and follow. His touch stopped my heart and changed the course of my life.”
The room fell silent. The chorus of meditative orgasms stopped. No new customers dinged into the door. Holly’s cheery chatter muted as well.
I opened my eyes. There was a small smile of satisfaction on Christopher’s face. “I meant to say her eyes, not my eyes.”
He tilted his head in acknowledgment, but I didn’t think he believed me.
“I stand corrected,” he said. “That totally turned me on. And you’re not even naked. You’re very good.”
A tremor went up my palm which still lay in his hand. His hold tightened slightly, just a firm caress. Everything in me slowed. The tremors, my pulse, my heartbeat, my sense of self-preservation. My doubts of who he’d told me he was.
I thrilled at his praise, feeling for the first time that I could do this. I could throw the door wide open and write this steamy book.
“What are you going to do about penetration?” he asked.
And just like that, everything came crashing down.
“Please don’t do the crashing waves or any water references,” he said. “I don’t know any guy who would want his moves compared to a woman drowning.”
“I don’t know? I haven’t gotten that far.”
He grinned at the double meaning of my words. I hadn’t gotten that far in my intimate life nor in the book’s plot.
“You don’t need to be penetrated to have an orgasm.” His words were thoughtful. He gazed off into the distance, still holding and caressing my wrist and fingers.
A tingling sensation made its way up my arm. My breathing shallowed. I should probably take my hand back. Instead, I pressed my thighs together.
“You could just describe the sensations you feel from masturbating.”
He didn’t look at me as he said it. But in the silence that ensued he turned those blue lasers back on me. It took him only a second to review the x-ray of my red face and make a diagnosis. I knew it was clearly written on my face that I’d never touched myself in that way.
“I can help you with that,” he prescribed. “If you’d like.”
“You want to help me masturbate?” I pulled my hand away then.
There it was. He’d been trying to get inside my panties the whole time. I should’ve known better. I should’ve listened. I was nothing but a conquest to a guy like this.
“You don’t have to get naked,” he said, eyes smiling like he’d seen my every thought. “And I won’t touch anything you don
’t want me to. I can get you close to coming just touching erogenous zones that don’t touch where your bathing suit does.”
I heard this man loud and clear. I believed him. He looked at me with those fathomless eyes, hiding nothing. My fingers, which had balled into another fist, unfurled once more.
But there was no way I was doing this. I couldn’t possibly do this. Was I actually considering doing this?
The sound of a whistle cracked the air, muting the ringing of the bell over the shop’s open door. A dark figure stood in the door. The same man who had raced down the street with Christopher walked in and had winked at me.
Without his sunglasses on, his hazel eyes did a slow scan of my body, taking his time at the slow curve of my ample bosom on down to my wide hips which took up the whole plastic seat of the chair. He sucked in his bottom lip as his journey reached my thick thighs, which were pressed together under the table.
I wanted to say something, but I couldn’t. I thought of any number of sassy quips, but my throat went dry as his eyes heated my limbs. Those blazing eyes stayed on me as he spoke to Christopher.
“Yo, Crow? You ready?”
Crow seemed an odd nickname for Christopher? Why not Chris? Or the more popular Topher?
“No, I’ll catch you later,” Christopher said, leaning back in his chair. His eyes were also on my breasts. “I’m still working here.”
The other man’s lip curled into a smile that would make the devil shiver. “She coming to the party tonight?”
Christopher’s eyes found mine. The edges crinkled as he gave me all of his focus. “No, she’s not like that.”
There was disappointment in his voice. There was also certainty. It shouldn’t have mattered. I didn’t want to go to this party where he was planning to have sex with two or three women. But part of him wanted me there. That thought thrilled me.
“She looks sweet,” said his friend who still hung in the doorway.
“I’ll catch you later, Eagle.” Christopher tossed over his shoulder.
Eagle turn to head out of the door. “Selfish son-of-a-bitch,” he murmured. The ringing bell punctuated his exit.
