"You didn't come, did you?" I asked. "You better not have. I want you to come inside me."
He groaned again, and I felt weight on the bed. "No, but nearly."
"Good. I want you inside me, right now. Please, Chase."
I reached for him, where I thought he was. I felt hair, took a handful and pulled gently until I could reach his jaw, and then his shoulder and then his hip, and then he was above me. I grasped him in my fist and guided him to my entrance.
"No more games. Just take me," I rocked my hips as I spoke, and he sank in to me.
He shuddered, tensed, and I felt his lips brush mine, shaking as he held himself back from the edge.
"God, you feel so good," he whispered, "I'm there already, again, I can't..." He sounded ragged, desperate.
The feel of him inside me, filling me past full, knowing he was so close, it brought me in a single rush, before he'd thrust even once, to the edge of climax. I tangled my fingers in his hair and pulled his head down to mine, crushed my lips to his. I thrust my tongue into his mouth and as I did so, rolled my hips against him, driving him to the hilt.
He held himself stone-still, every muscle tensed. He was still holding back.
"Give it to me," I breathed, rocking into him, one hand still gripping his hair, the other clawing down his back. "Don't hold back anymore. Give it to me. Hard. Now."
He roared, a feral sound, leonine, primal, and bucked his hips, sliding into me, once, deep, and hard. Again. Again. I gasped, bit his shoulder. He arched his back outward, pulling almost out and tensing, holding. Still withholding. I dug my nails into his hips and jerked him toward me, pulling with all my strength against his resistance. Still he played the game, holding back.
I rolled sideways and he went with me, pulling me over him. I draped myself on top of him, waiting, let him fade back from the edge. The game continued. Above him like this, I held the power of pace. He was sunk to the hilt, our hipbones grinding. I sat straight, stretching him backward, placed my hands on his belly, my weight spread between his body and my knees. I waited, absorbing the sensations rocketing through me: his erection, hard and huge and throbbing with pent pressure, his body beneath me, muscles tense and rock-solid, his hands resting on my hips, my heart beating wild in my chest like a fleeing rabbit, my nerve endings all afire now, silence except our breathing, the scent of sex thick in the air.
I lifted up, just a few inches, held my weight there for a moment, and then sank down. I gasped, he groaned. More. I lifted higher, sank back down harder, hips thumping, blood thrumming. He growled again. I felt his buttocks clench against my thighs.
"Give it to me," I said, leaning close to his face. "I want it."
"No," he said, crashing his lips to mine and spearing his tongue into my mouth. "Make me."
I rocked up and back down. "With...pleasure...."
No rhythm, only sporadic rolls of my hips, a pause, lift up and sink down. His hands found my breasts, pinched my nipples, sending jags of lightning bursting through me. Then he cheated. He dug a single finger between our merged bodies and found my clit somehow. I rocked back instinctively, lifted up, gave him access.
A few slow circles drove me mad; he moved his finger faster, and then I came, almost without warning, a nuclear detonation blasting through every cell of my body.
I couldn't stop the rhythm then. I fell onto him, clutched him against me and let my hips run wild.
Hips don't lie, as the song goes, and mine danced on his with truthful desperation. I couldn't play the game any longer. I whimpered against his neck as I pulsed onto him.
He arched his back upward, arms wrapped around me, clinging to me as he came. I was still riding my first climax, and when he came I soared over the edge again, the heat of his release washing through me, each piston-drive sending me further and further into a frenzy of orgasm. We were bucking in syncopated abandon now, riding each other beyond climax, beyond mere physical release into something else, into an escape from singular self into a duality of ecstasy.
We were caught up in a storm, and all we could do was cling to each other through it, let it pound through us. When it passed, we were both limp and panting, sweating, spent.
I rolled off him and nestled into his arms, feeling his heart beat against my cheek.
* * *
We showered, changed, and Chase hailed a cab, but wouldn't tell me where we were going. The cab pulled up to Macy's.
"What are we doing here?" I asked.
"Shopping," was his cryptic reply.
"Well no shit, it's the world's largest department store. Shopping for what?"
He just grinned. It seemed a bit like a leer, honestly, lecherous and eager for what he had planned. I rolled my eyes at him and let him drag me by the hand up the escalators and to the lingerie department.
"Lingerie? Really?" I stopped at the entrance to the lingerie department.
"Yes, really."
"Are you saying my underwear aren't sexy enough for you?" I teased.
"I'm saying you can never have too much sexy lingerie."
We browsed together, Chase showing me what he liked—always grabbing an item several sizes too small. Eventually, we settled on a red and black lace bustier with matching panties, and a hot pink and purple ruffled set.
I tried a few of the less adventurous bras, and then stepped back out, fully dressed, with an idea. It was near closing time and the store was empty, with one store assistant prowling around. I waited until she was sorting through a stack of panties on the other side of the department, then pulled Chase with me into the changing room.
I stripped for him, peeling off my clothes to a silent rhythm, then pinned him against the stall wall with my body. I was down to just my panties, rubbing my bare breasts against the soft cotton of his shirt. I felt him burgeon in his pants, met his gaze as I unzipped him.
"Hello? Is anyone still in here?" The store clerk called out.
"Yes," I said. Chase had frozen, not even breathing. "I'm just trying on a few last things. I'll be done in a minute."
"We're closing in five minutes. If you're going to make a purchase, it needs to be soon."
"Okay, I'll be right out." I stifled a laugh, tugging Chase's underwear down to free his erection.
I glided my hand on his length, put my mouth to his ear and whispered, "I want you right now." I felt Chase’s erection throb and tense as I spoke. "Put it me.”
I stroked him, one hand massaging his sack, until he was rolling his hips into my hand. When he was nearly ready, I stripped my panties off of one leg and faced the wall, bending at the waist with my hands braced.
Chase didn't need another invitation. He slipped a finger into me, finding me already wet. He plunged into me, and we both had to bite our lips to stifle our moans.
"Hello? I really need to cash out, dear," came the clerk's voice. Her shoes peeked under the door, tiny little white sneakers, the footwear of a woman who spends her life on her feet.
I was just within reach of the top of the door. Chase had frozen, and I plunged my hips back into him to get him moving. The exhilaration of this moment, being completely naked, with Chase's thick member driving into me from behind, and only a thin stall door between us and complete humiliation...I nearly came right then. I caught up the hangars of the items I wanted and hung them over the door.
"Ring these up and I'll be right out to pay," I said. My voice wasn't quite steady, but she didn't say anything, if she'd noticed.
Chase was moving slowly, trying to avoid making any noises as our bodies joined. I was riding the edge of climax now, and so was Chase.
"Will that be cash or charge?"
God, the woman was relentless. Leave me alone for five seconds!
Chase handed me a wad of cash and I handed it over the top of the door.
"I don't know how much it'll be, but that should cover it," I said, a little breathless.
The clerk took the cash and finally left us alone.
"Now, Chase!" I whis
pered. "Come for me, right now!"
I drove my ass onto him, feeling him plunge hard to the hilt. Again, even harder, and the stall shook. A third time, and I rocked backward to absorb the impact, feeling him drive deeper than he'd ever been, both of us silent, breath caught. I felt him tense, drive one last time into me, and then he was coming, flooding me with his seed. I felt him come and I joined him an instant later, resting my head against the wall as he fluttered into me, my inner muscles clenching around him in spasms.
He pulled out of me, tucked himself back into his pants and slumped back against the wall. "Damn, Anna...just...damn."
I smirked at him, feeling sated and daring. I dug in my purse for a little packet of tissues, and cleaned myself before dressing again. I told Chase to stay in the dressing room until I called him.
I walked up to the cashier's stand, my thighs quivering with aftershocks. I could barely walk, but I had to cover up and act as if nothing had happened. The woman, mercifully, had everything bagged up and the change ready, and she vanished into a back room with barely a "thank you."
I snuck Chase out of the changing room and we left Macy's laughing like teenagers.
After Macy's we went to Times Square and mingled with the bustling crowd, holding hands and talking aimlessly. We sat on the giant steps with the signs around us, kissing as if we were alone, making out until even the New Yorkers shouted at us to get a room.
* * *
We spent the entire following day in the recording studio. I sat in the producer's booth watching in rapt interest as they laid down track after track, sometimes going back for a dozen takes of the same section of song, the same riff, the same vocalization until they got it right.
I knew my way around a mixing/EQ board, and I quickly learned to understand what the producers and sound engineers were doing at the giant board on the other side of the acoustic room.
The whole process made me wonder if I could ever find my way on the other side of the glass, where Chase and his band was. I'd always loved singing, and had settled on DJing as a way of utilizing my musical talent, modest as it seemed to me. As any girl with a decent voice, I'd harbored dreams of "being a singer" but as I got older and learned a bit about the business, I came to realize how distant and unlikely a prospect that was. Now, sitting in a real recording studio, in New York City no less, those dreams all came rushing back to me.
I was lost in my thoughts and was startled when Chase came up behind me and kissed me on the neck.
"Thinking deep thoughts, huh?" he asked.
"What? Oh, yeah. Guess so. I didn't hear you come in."
"I called your name twice, babe. You were zoned out. What were you thinking about?"
I looked up him over my shoulder. "Oh, just how cool it is to be here, in a studio. Thanks for bringing me."
"Thought you might like it." He glanced at the producer, a younger-looking man with full-sleeve tattoos on both arms and wide-gauge earrings. "We have a few minutes left on our time, right Jake?"
Jake nodded, glancing at his watch. "Yeah, a couple. Wanna lay down a bonus track with your girl?"
Chase just gestured to the door to the booth. "Shall we?"
We sat down in the booth and Chase settled the expensive headphones on my ears.
"What do you want to sing?" Chase asked.
I thought carefully. I didn't know if they were going to actually include this recording on the CD or not, but if they did, I wanted it to be knock-out.
"I don't suppose you know 'Don't You Wanna Stay' do you?" I asked Chase.
"Jason Aldean and Kelly Clarkston? Surprisingly enough, I do," Chase answered, with a sheepish grin. "I learned it when I did a karaoke contest with a friend. We actually won with that song."
The producer tapped at the computer keyboard for a moment, and then the introductory strains filled my ears through the headphones. Chase started it off, the slow, sad melody turned aching and haunting by his clear, powerful voice. He really is amazing, I reflected. I heard my part coming up, and Chase nodded to me. I took a deep breath and added my voice to his, and once again I felt that intangible, bone-deep knowledge boil in my blood. We were on, we were hitting it just right, our natural chemistry and talent flowing together. I could see the producer nodding, a surprised expression on his face. We were killing it.
I felt my skin prickle and adrenaline surge through me, felt the notes flow from me without thought, without effort. Chase's hand was in mine, and then my eyes closed and all I knew was the music and those wonderful lyrics, which had suddenly taken on new meaning.
Every kiss we'd shared filled the spaces of my mind, every moment spent naked together, every look, it all took on new importance. I really had no clue what this was with Chase, or how long it would last.
The song ended all too soon, and Chase and I ripped the headphones off to embrace each other.
"That rocked!" Jake said. "Chase, your girl's got some real pipes on her. I may have to steal her, one of these days. For music, I mean."
"You just want to steal her, period," Chase said, with a wry grin.
Jake shrugged. "Yeah, well, you'd better get out of here before I do. Good work, guys."
We left the studio to have a later dinner, and I had the song running through my head the entire time, as well the thoughts the lyrics had engendered. Chase must have sensed my pensive mood.
"What's up, buttercup? You seem lost in thought again." He pushed back from his plate and searched my eyes from over the top of his glass of beer.
I shrugged. "Oh, that song has just always had a lot of meaning for me. It always makes me think, I guess."
"So what are you thinking now?"
I still wasn't sure if I wanted to have that conversation with Chase yet, if at all. It was too easy to just float along one day at a time and let the relationship, such as it was, just be a nameless, uncategorized thing. To put a box around it, to give it a name and boundaries would be to change it.
After a long, thoughtful silence, I shook my head. "Nothing. Nothing important."
Chase frowned. "You know we have to talk eventually, Anna."
"No we don't. One day at a time. Carpe diem and all that."
He laughed, a mirthless, resigned sound. "Isn't this backwards? Aren't I supposed to be the one avoiding the discussion?"
I shrugged again, a coward's non-answer. "How about another beer and then we go back to your place?"
Back in his bedroom, we lay down, fully clothed, on his bed, just holding each other. The avoided conversation loomed between us. It really was backwards, him being the one who wanted to put a name to what we were, to establish our thing together as a relationship. I didn't want to do that. Why I didn't want to was a more complicated thing, and that's what I ruminated on as I lay in Chase's arms, content to be held for the moment.
Why didn't I want to commit to this being an actual relationship, monogamous and working toward some kind of future together? Chase was incredible. He was charming and thoughtful, gorgeous, talented...an amazing lover. He was going places, career-wise. He wanted me. That was a big one. He wanted me. I'd still not quite gotten over that. I think I was expecting it to change at some point, for him to wake up and realize he did in fact want a girl who was not me, who was in some way either more or less than me, depending on how you looked at it. But he hadn't so far, and judging by his response to my avoiding the relationship discussion, he wanted more with me. Something long-term.
Why wasn't I jumping at that?
Jeff.
I'd left something unfinished with him, back in Detroit. I hadn't said when, or if, I was coming back. I'd just left, perhaps precipitately. I'd hurt him. That was clear in his eyes, in the tense slump of his shoulders when he drove me home.
He'd never said what he wanted, with me. But he hadn't needed to. It was clear, somehow. Jeff had a way of implying his desires without saying them, of communicating his thoughts nonverbally. I couldn't have pinpointed what it was he'd done, or how he'd looked at me
that told me he wanted a relationship, but I knew he did. Maybe it was the fact that he'd held a crush on me for all the years we worked together, never voicing it, never moving on it after a few initial, hesitant flirty moments I'd pretended not to notice. Maybe it was his slow, sweet, reverent love-making.
I shut down thoughts of that. I couldn't let my mind go there, not when I was in Chase's bed.
The realization hit me like a ton of bricks: I had to choose. Stay here, indefinitely, and eventually decide that I was staying with Chase. Or, I had to go back to Detroit and face Jeff. That's what had been niggling at me since I'd arrived here. I didn't know how to choose. I didn't know what I wanted. Who I wanted, long-term, if either of them.
"Quit thinking so hard and just be here with me," Chase said.
"Are you a mind-reader?"
He turned into me and kissed my cheek, then my chin. "Sometimes. You wear your thoughts on your face, though, so that makes it easier. You're thinking too hard. We don't have to figure anything out. Just be here with me, in this moment, right now."
I nodded, his stubble scratching my temple. "You're right. I'm sorry, I'm just—"
"Let it go for now."
I lifted up on an elbow. "So distract me."
Our lips met, a hesitant touch at first, almost as tender as if it were our first kiss. Slow, and delicate. Explorative. It wasn't a kiss meant to go anywhere, at first. It was just meant to be a kiss, the expression of affection. His kiss told me what he felt about me. His lips showed me in a visceral way that he thought I was valuable, and beautiful.
The feeling of being desired, the knowledge that a man as hot as Chase thought I was beautiful...that was something I couldn't ever get enough of. I still couldn't turn off my brain, even kissing Chase like this. He had unlocked something inside me, that night in his bedroom in Detroit. He'd unleashed something powerful and insatiable. He'd made me understand my own worth as a sexual woman. There was a phrase I'd heard a million times before but never really truly grasped until this moment in Chase's New York apartment:
Big Girls Do It Boxed Set Page 13
