by Alexa Day
“You feel so fucking good,” he growled.
Grace could only moan in response, quickening her pace to match his. She could see their reflection in the window, and the sight of the man behind her stirred something deep within.
“More,” she cried. “More.”
Tal ground his big cock deep into her. “You want more? You want more of that?” The hands on her hips held her in place, but she moved her hips from one side to the other, reveling in the glorious sensation of his flesh inside her. Helpless in his grasp and in the face of her own lust, she gasped and nodded.
But Tal seemed determined to prolong the delicious agony. In the reflection, his generous mouth curled into his familiar teasing grin, and he slowed his thrusts, as if to fully appreciate each second inside her. Frustrated beyond words, Grace began to push herself back into him. She needed him to fill her, to take her, and she was determined to entice him into fucking her on her terms.
He matched her pace, riding her hard, until each stroke threatened to take her over the edge. When she did reach her climax, her fingers dug into the desk’s battered, pitted surface, and her pussy clasped his cock hard. Her cry of ecstasy filled the space, drowning out the sound of Tal’s release before she collapsed, spent, in front of him.
Panting, he eased out of her. “Have I mentioned,” he asked, “how glad I am that we’re friends?”
* * * * *
From her familiar resting place in Tal’s bed, with her head pillowed on his chest, Grace gazed into the shadows and considered how differently this had all played out in her mind.
She’d looked forward to this for such a long time, long before she’d even admitted it to John. Friday night with Tal. The phrase had taken on its own magical significance in her head. It meant having the leisure and freedom to have sex all over his loft, returning to favorite places and positions, maybe indulging in an experiment or two before they ended up in bed. They might enjoy one last climax between the sheets before she came to rest right here, where Tal’s slow, regular breathing would pull her gently into sleep. The next morning, they’d sleep in, maybe hang out in bed, share breakfast, a shower, stories of his clients. She’d wrap up in the robe she kept on the back of his bathroom door. They’d laugh and tease each other, like they had before. Maybe they’d have sex again before she left, before the first of the weekend clients came in.
Her idea of Friday night with Tal didn’t involve lying awake, deep in thought. She smiled ruefully into the dark. At least the sex was exceeding expectations.
She hated to move for fear of waking him if he slept, for fear of alerting him if he was still awake. She wanted to sleep. She wanted to go home. She wanted…what?
“You okay over there?” Tal’s dark-honey drawl was slow but crystal clear.
“Yeah.”
“Want some water or something?”
“No, I’m okay.”
He was quiet beneath her again. How long had it been since they were wrapped around each other? Just a little while ago, she’d ridden him hard, they’d shared their X-rated sweet talk, just as they always had. Nothing had changed. Right?
Tal shifted beneath her, his legs untangling from hers as he turned over to face her. Grace tucked her arm beneath a pillow and lay down on it. He stroked her hair and tugged gently at her earlobe, and for a moment, she wondered if he would somehow start the Impulse-fueled cycle of ice and fire and desire again.
“Sure you’re okay?”
“I’m sure.” She patted his chest, relieved that her body didn’t seem to be responding to him. “I just can’t sleep.”
“I must be losing my touch,” he said. “Jack Daniel’s might be able to finish the job, if you want.” He sat up and rubbed his eyes. “I could use a little help myself.”
By the time Grace put on her robe and tied a bandana over her hair, Tal had pulled on a pair of boxers and set two glasses on his dining table, along with the bottle of whiskey. She took the chair across from him and watched as he poured a couple of splashes into each glass.
Tal lifted his drink. “To your friend and his pills.”
Grace touched her glass to his. She swished the liquor around a bit, but then she pushed the glass into the center of the table. “Impulse,” she said. “That’s what they’re going to call it.”
Tal finished his drink in a swallow and stared at the empty glass for a moment before refilling it. “What are they going to call the men’s version?”
“He said men don’t need an oxytocin-suppressant pill.”
Tal lifted his glass and looked at her over its rim. “What else did he say?”
Grace raised her eyebrow as if she didn’t know what he was referring to.
“Did you even ask him?”
“Yes, I did.” She sighed. She hadn’t wanted to start with this.
“And?”
“And he said exactly what I thought he was going to say. Not worth losing his job. What if it doesn’t work the way he thinks it does?”
Tal looked down into his glass. “Doesn’t make sense to me.”
Grace did take a drink then, a careful sip that left a smoldering trail all the way down into her stomach. “What doesn’t make sense? That he’s not following his dick from place to place? He’s not like you.” The silence between them seemed to thicken and chill and she watched her friend’s face. This strange brew of fatigue, restlessness and frustration, now mixed with alcohol, was making her speak without thinking. She’d meant to explain, not to argue.
She backtracked a bit. “You know how long John’s been working on this stuff? You know how close they are to getting it to the market?” She softened her voice. “He’s not going to throw that away.”
Not that she hadn’t thought about it. They wouldn’t have to go at it like she did with Tal. John would be gentle and sweet. She’d slide his glasses off, maybe run her fingers through his hair where it was starting to get long in front. He’d be very different. She couldn’t imagine those long fingers digging into her, that patient voice growling coarse encouragement.
Heat crawled over her face and she sipped at her drink again. She could imagine what would happen afterward, though. The awkward silence in the dark. The horrified look on his face. The carefully chosen words of regret. She could imagine that with no problem.
“You trying to get rid of me, Tal?”
He drank about half of what was in his glass. “Me? No. I just don’t get it, is all.”
“There’s nothing to get.” Grace looked down at her hands. “You know, I basically gave him an engraved invitation.”
Tal smirked at her. “What, did you kiss him on the cheek?”
“On the mouth, wiseass.”
“Yeah, but how did you kiss him?” He stood and beckoned to her. “Show me.”
Grace gave him a skeptical look from her place at the table. She wasn’t in the mood for a blow-by-blow critique of how she’d behaved in the hallway that night. She already knew she hadn’t been enough to tempt her best friend. She didn’t need to know why she hadn’t been enough.
“I know, I know,” Tal said. “But just show me.”
She rose reluctantly and joined him. “Now I had just picked up my keys,” she said.
“Wait, where was this?”
“In the hallway in front of my place.”
“So you would have been coming up from the floor.”
“That’s right.” She put one hand on her hip. “Do you need me to actually get on the floor? I don’t want to deprive you of any part of this experience.”
“Now who’s the wiseass? I’m just trying to make sure I understand what you’re talking about.”
She rolled her eyes. “So when I got up, I kind of braced myself against his chest.”
“And what’s he doing?” He smiled down at her and for a second she felt like a little girl in a school play, reminding herself that everything was okay, that it was just make-believe.
“Just standing there. He had his hands in his pockets
, I think.”
“Okay. Did you say anything before you kissed him?”
She shook her head, not wanting to linger over the memory of the moment her friendship with John changed forever. “I don’t think so. I think I just kissed him.”
“Show me,” he said.
Grace steadied herself against Tal’s chest. She could feel the steady beat of his heart under her fingertips as she went up on her tiptoes and brushed her lips against his. For a second, she was right there again, in the late-night solitude of her hallway, somewhere she’d never been with Tal. The soft fabric of John’s shirt was beneath her fingertips instead of Tal’s taut, warm skin. The smooth seam of John’s firm mouth was next to hers instead of Tal’s full, generous lips.
In a distant region of her mind, she half-expected Tal to wrap his arm around her waist and take charge of the kiss, fastening his mouth over hers, coaxing her lips apart with his tongue.
But he did none of those things, and after just a second or two, the amount of time she had spent kissing John so long ago in her hallway, she pulled away from him and dropped back onto her heels.
Tal cocked his head thoughtfully. “Mmm. And that’s exactly how you kissed him?”
“That’s it,” Grace said.
“And what did he do then?”
“For a second… For a second, I thought he would kiss me back.” She swallowed the memory down before she went on. “But then he said goodnight and went back to the elevator. Afterward he said all the things you expect a friend to say. You know, that we were drinking, it wouldn't have been smart, stuff like that.”
“Had you been drinking?” Tal’s voice softened, inviting her deeper into the least comfortable part of this uncomfortable conversation.
“Not like that. Not really.” She put her hands back on her hips and looked up at her friend. “Anyway, neither of us ever mentioned it again. Satisfied?”
Tal shook his head and sighed. “That still seems strange to me. But I guess if you’ve kissed like that, and he still walked away, then maybe you’re right about him.”
“Hey, don’t take it so hard.” She smiled. “It’s actually kind of nice to have a guy friend who’s not thinking about how soon he can get into your pants.”
“I’ll take your word for it.” Tal pressed his lips to the top of her head, almost exactly as John had. The gesture might have been innocent but for the faint scent of whiskey on his breath. “You’re not going home again tonight, are you?”
Bone-deep exhaustion crept into her, as if answering his question for her, and she yawned. “No. But don’t let me oversleep tomorrow.”
He chuckled. “I’ll get you up and ready as soon as I am.”
As Tal slept behind her, Grace studied the shape of his hands in the shadows and sighed. What would it be like to share a bed with John? She’d never know. But she’d never face that morning-after regret either.
She closed her eyes. That was worth it.
Chapter Five
Wall-to-wall interviews, all day long, had turned John’s metal chair into a torture device, but Grace’s arrival gave him both the will and the freedom to search for one last comfortable position for the day’s final meeting. While she got herself, her coat and her purse situated across from him, he set his glasses on his legal pad and rubbed his eyes with the heels of his hands.
He slowly stretched his legs and back, a luxury he didn’t permit himself with other subjects. They needed the professional scientist, someone who never got uncomfortable in that chair or anywhere else, the sort of person who’d listened to shocking personal stories all the time without squirming or flinching or raising an eyebrow. With Grace he might have to hide a lot of things, but fatigue wasn’t one of them. In fact the promise of stories from her first Friday night with Tal had started to revive him.
Data. Not stories. It’s data.
She crossed her long legs and laced her fingers together in front of her knee. “Ready to start?” Her bright, expectant tone made her sound like the one with the answers. In many respects, she was the expert, here to answer his questions, but her enthusiasm about her role lifted his spirits.
He slid his glasses back on before turning on the tape recorder and sliding it toward the center of the table. “I want to hear every detail.”
“Okay. Here’s a detail for you.” She leaned forward and addressed the tape recorder. “For a minute there, I thought it wasn’t going to work.”
His fingers tangled around his pencil and it flipped away from him across the table. “What?” So much for his buoyed spirits. “What happened?”
She pushed the pencil back toward him. “That’s just it. Nothing happened. I took it and waited to get cold and then, you know, get warmer, but then nothing happened.”
John carefully retrieved the pencil and as discreetly as he could, he wrote, delayed onset in the margin of his legal pad. “But eventually something happened, right?”
“Yeah, it did. Eventually.” Grace linked her fingers again. “But it gave me a scare. What if it wasn’t working, you know?”
John circled the word delayed twice and put a star next to it. What if it hadn’t worked? Not long ago, he suspected, her solution would have been obvious. Now it was cause for concern. Interesting.
“How long before it started working?” he asked.
“I had time to go all the way to Tal’s, drive around in circles looking for a parking spot and hang out with him for a little while. I don’t know, maybe an hour?” He had written that down too before she asked, “It didn’t take that long last time, did it?”
“I’m not sure. I don’t think so.” He tapped the page with the point of his pencil. “Once it started working, did it work just like the last time?”
Grace leaned back in the chair and grinned. “Oh yes. Slow to start, but a very nice finish.”
He swallowed and pulled the legal pad toward the edge of the table, aware of his accelerated pulse rate. He bit his lip to keep from smiling. Before long she’d have him trained to respond like this at the slightest verbal cue.
Right. Like you’re not already there.
“So what did you do in the meantime?” he asked.
“We had more time to fool around first.” She met his gaze, and warmth slowly spread through him. “You know how last time we were just all over each other?”
He did smile then. That had been hard to forget. Listening to her describe it on tape and then visualizing everything she’d done hadn’t made life any easier for him.
“I remember,” he said.
“This time we went a lot slower. We spent a lot of time touching each other.” She crossed her legs. “Then I gave him a blowjob and after that, I felt just like I did the last time.”
John frowned at his notes. “So was it working before the— Before you performed oral sex on him?”
“You mean before the blowjob? Yeah, I think it had started to work before the blowjob.” Grace chuckled and he looked over at her. “You’re blushing again. I haven’t even really started this story and you’re already blushing.”
He couldn’t help smiling as he went back to his notes. “I’m not blushing. I’m thinking.” He looked back over at her and tapped the page again. “So you can say ‘blowjob’ another fifty times if you want and it won’t bother me.”
“Thinking about what?”
Her teasing voice made him want to look up, but instead he shook his head. “This isn’t about me, remember?” He devoted his attention to linking the words on the paper in front of him with horizontal and vertical lines. “Now what were you saying?”
“I was saying that I went down on Tal before the Impulse started working.”
“So it started working during the blowjob. As you were doing it.”
He looked up after the question, mostly to read her expression. Her full mouth curved into a thoughtful pout.
“Yeah, that’s right. Each time I came up, I got a little hotter.”
John wrote, incremental incre
ase in arousal and asked, “Is that unusual?”
“To that degree, yes.” Her chair creaked as she shifted her weight in it. “Kind of like last time, you know? I don’t usually get that turned-on over a blowjob.”
He underlined increase in arousal. “Did you come?”
Heat bloomed on his skin and he braced himself for more teasing about how he was blushing. But Grace explained that Tal interrupted her before either of them reached climax. “I don’t think I was going to come anyway. Not there.”
John wrote, interruption before climax and drew a line across the page to divide this part of her narrative from the rest. “What happened after that?”
“We went into the other room. Tal has an office at the back of the gym.” John leaned over to take down the counter number on the recorder and then drew a quick map of Tal’s office as she described it. Inside a large square, he drew a rectangle for Tal’s desk, a couple of others for his filing cabinets, a slanted line for the door. He wrote, window in front of the desk. Grace explained that they were against the desk with the office lights on when Tal discovered that she wasn’t wearing anything beneath her skimpy dress, and among his own observations, John gradually noticed that he was holding his breath.
“You’re right in front of the window?” he asked.
“That’s right.” Desire made her voice dark and breathy, a temptation unto itself.
He didn’t dare look up, even if the alternative was focusing on the images brought to life by her words. “You’ve been in front of the window before.”
“Couple of times.” She chuckled. “It faces an alley. There’s not anyone back there in the evenings.”
An alley meant another building facing Tal’s window, someplace where a person might sit in darkness and watch this spectacle unfolding as Grace described it. Framed by the window, she would twist and bend in harmony with Tal’s touch, her head thrown back, her long neck exposed as he filled his hands with her tender, lush body.
