by Cara McKenna
It felt astounding. Exquisite. And yet . . . As the moments became minutes, that pleasure plateaued, then ebbed, and finally mellowed as the friction began to drag, growing distracting, even grating. The first seeds of panic split their shells and he felt his body cool and recoil.
Christ, he’d always imagined if he found himself facing a problem in this position, it would be losing control too quickly. Yet here he was and it was the exact opposite. As the anxiety mounted, he felt the ultimate disaster become a reality—he was going soft.
He put his hand over hers, stilling it. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be.”
“It’s absolutely nothing to do with you. I don’t know what it is, but . . .”
She moved her hand to his hip, thumb stroking idly. “Is it in your head?”
“I don’t think so. It feels wonderful. I’m just not quite . . .”
“Getting there?” she supplied.
“Exactly. I was so close, then I hit a wall. It was too much. Or not enough. I can’t even say.”
“It’s fine. I mean, you haven’t had partnered sex in kind of a long time, right? You’re just used to your own hand. Loads of people get into certain grooves, with the ways they get themselves off. With their hands, or vibrators, or humping the covers, or a hundred other things.”
“Have I ruined myself forever?”
She snorted, lowering her face to his neck for a moment, and sighed her amusement in a long, sweet exhalation. She pulled back and smiled at him. “Very unlikely. Could you show me what you do?”
“You mean touch myself?”
She nodded.
She’d showed him as much, yet . . . Well, it sounded very awkward. Or very intimate, or both. He worried immediately that he wouldn’t be able to get hard again.
“No rush,” she added. “Let’s just kiss. If you decide you want to show me, just go for it. If not, we’ll kiss till we fall asleep. Deal?”
He swallowed. “Deal.”
And so they kissed. He felt awkward at that as well for a minute, but then the feeling fell aside and all the lessons returned to him. That warm flush of arousal came back to his body, first in his chest, then dropping lower. His cock grew warm, heavy if not hard. His mouth grew clumsy, but so did hers, it seemed. A hand was creeping between them, and it wasn’t his. For a second he feared she’d touch him and he’d only fail her again, but she surprised him. It was her knuckles he felt brushing his cautious erection; she was touching herself.
His mouth faltered.
“You don’t mind, do you?” she whispered, the words hot on his lips.
“No, never.”
They kissed more, more, and almost without thought, his own hand slid between them, cupping his cock through his shorts. He gave himself a squeeze, a slow stroke. The pleasure was immediate, his flesh all at once aching from the release he’d been flirting with minutes before. Again, the kissing fell apart. He laughed softly.
“Yeah?”
“This feels . . . Well, it feels good. But I doubt I could feel more naked if I actually took the last of my clothes off.”
“Can I watch you? Or is that too much?”
“I couldn’t guess. But we can find out.”
“You liked watching me,” she said.
“Very much.”
“Then believe me when I tell you, I’ll enjoy watching you just as much. More so, probably. You’ve seen me do loads of stuff. But you—you’re the mysterious one. And don’t think for a minute I haven’t tried to imagine what this might look like.”
A funny lump filled his throat, some mix of pleasure and flattery and . . . scandal. “You have?”
“Ever since I saw your face. Even before then, way back when I thought you were a woman, if I’m totally honest. But since I laid eyes on you, most definitely. Would you show me now?”
“Sure.”
They edged apart, though the distance did nothing to cool John’s overheated body. He kept his hand working, relieved when his erection didn’t wilt. He stole a glance at her face, upended by what he found there. Her lips looked full, eyelids heavy, and her gaze was locked on his hand. He’d never, ever been looked at with so much lust.
“May I . . . ?” She slowly reached between them, easing the front of his shorts down. He clasped his bare flesh, and showed her what no other person had ever seen. Pretty much the only mechanical manifestation of his sexuality, never witnessed by another soul until just now. A lonely thought, yet it surprised him, deepening his desire. He wanted to tell her, This is the most intimate moment of my life. He didn’t dare. He couldn’t bear to chase that dark heat from her eyes and replace any measure of it with pity.
Focus on the pleasure. He let his eyes fall shut, let his attention drop deep inside his body, fixating on not merely the friction and the grip, but the excitement building low and hot and frantic. And layered over it all, the awareness that Suzy’s eyes were on him.
He gasped, hitting a wall. “I’m not going to last long,” he confessed, laughing with surprise. From impotent to impending release, just like that.
“I don’t mind.” She touched him, running her warm palm down his side and back up, the contact crackling like static. He lost his rhythm, found it again, pleasure edging up against pain now, the need was so desperate.
The question of whether he’d come was clear, but where? If he were home in his own bed . . . He shifted to lie on his back. The position was all the cue his body needed. The pleasure gathered until it was just a flash of blinding sensation, spurred by his stroking hand, and he lost it. As the spasms rolled through him, he kept his eyes squeezed shut, but it was Suzy he thought of. The image of her sitting at his side as she was, close enough for their hips to touch, her expression hot and impatient and hungry.
The orgasm was long, nearly painful after so much starting and stopping and teasing, and the ebbing was as pleasurable as the crest, pure relief. As the haze of it lifted, a wave of shame or embarrassment hit him. He didn’t want to open his eyes and see his cock in his hand, the spoils of pleasure basted all over his belly.
Then a curious sound raised his lids. A soft and reverent “Wow.”
He met her gaze, finding it just as he’d fantasized in the final moments, and her lips parted as well, a sheen to her skin. He swallowed, looked around in vain.
“Hang on.” She left the bed to disappear into the bathroom, returning moments later with a washcloth. It was warm and damp as she stroked it across his skin, a detail that struck him with a sharp, deep, surprising pang. Just that she’d taken the time to wet the towel, make it warm, to do this herself, when she so easily could have simply handed him the towel . . . He’d seen that sex could be tender and caring—Suzy and Meyer had performed that admirably for him, and the movies peddled that fantasy as well. But when one’s only sexual experience had been rushed and aggressive and had climaxed with frustration and failure, this tiny scrap of sweetness was nearly enough to make him cry.
“Thank you.” He could only whisper it, afraid his voice would crack.
“Sure. Thanks for letting me watch. Was it a good one?”
He nodded. “Intense, after all the buildup. That good kind of hurt, if that makes sense. If women feel that.”
“Do we ever.” She folded the towel and leaned over to set it on the far edge of the big mattress, and John took the opportunity to pull his underwear back up.
“Those are my favorites,” she said, pulling on her own underwear. “The orgasms where you’re practically begging for it to be over. If it’s somebody else giving it to you, that is.”
Would he know that particular desperation, he wondered? It must be exquisite torture, dying for release and all the power to grant that wish lying in another’s hands. Just imagining it set a spark of lust striking in his belly. Nothing worth stoking, though, not when this calm felt so good. Still, t
here were ten thousand things he wanted this woman to teach him. So much more than he’d gone looking for when he’d first sought her out.
She’d lain beside him and she took his hand now, the pair of them warm and damp, a nice complement to the sound of their slowing breath in this quiet room.
“That was . . . It was something I’m not clever enough to adequately describe just now.”
She laughed. “The best-selling novelist is without words—I’ll take it.”
“It was meaningful,” he said carefully. “Important, I mean. To me. This is coming out wrong. I don’t want to sound clingy or strange.”
“You don’t.”
“But I’d regret it if I didn’t let you know what it means, or try to. It was more than just some fun to me. This made me feel functional, for lack of a better adjective. I honestly never thought I’d experience something like this with another person.”
She squeezed his hand, didn’t let go. “That means a lot.”
“I want to say enough that you know how momentous this was for me, but not so much that I sound like I think we’re getting married.”
Another laugh, tinkling like bells in the air above them. “I hear you. I don’t like to imagine I’m disenfranchised about sex, but it’s been a long time since I felt what you must be. I don’t regret having as many sexual experiences as I have, but that part of it is over for me—that feeling like it’s all so huge and new and exciting. Being with you tonight’s given me a taste of that again, though.”
“I wish I could obliterate the night I lost my virginity and have this be the first real sexual experience I’ve had. Albeit unorthodox and embarrassingly late in life.”
“Yeah, but just think how much you still get to look forward to trying.”
With you? An unreasonable thought to have. Surely she meant in general. For one, they lived five or six hours apart, and for another he doubted she’d want to date him. He was a lot to take on, and he knew it. He needed patience and handholding and socializing, frankly. A fun experiment for a lost weekend, but too unhousebroken a mutt to just up and adopt.
Still, maybe there was tomorrow night. A lot could happen in a single evening—he knew that now.
For a long time, they lay without speaking, playing tiny games with their hands, poking each other’s palms with their thumbs, squeezing in rhythms the other would repeat, a dozen funny little flirtations he’d never have had the imagination to invent for Jacob to do with a lover. Though Jacob wouldn’t, anyway. There was no room in his world for silliness. John suddenly didn’t envy his creation’s sex life quite so much. He rather enjoyed the silly bits.
Suzy broke the silence after ten minutes or more. “It won’t hurt your feelings if I don’t sleep here, will it?” she asked. “It’s nothing personal, I’m just completely unprepared, toiletry-wise. And, to be overly honest, because I usually take my Prozac first thing and missing a pill makes me super spastic.”
“You don’t need an excuse.” While it surely would have thrilled him if she had wanted to sleep in his bed, he wasn’t hurt. Frankly, waking up with her might easily have felt too intense. He’d fumbled his way through plenty of novel new dynamics already; he could use the time and solitude to wrap his head around everything that had happened.
“It would have been nice, don’t get me wrong.” Her gaze dropped to his hand as she took it with hers, thumbs rubbing his knuckles, squeezing his fingers. “Just maybe a little soon.”
“I’ll take your word for it. I’m thoroughly clueless about etiquette in situations like this.” And God forbid she’d had a terrible time and stayed out of pity or guilt, only to wake up regretful, stuck with him—
“Can I still tag along to the mill, tomorrow?” she asked. The words were a sunbeam breaking through the clouds, swallowing him up in pure warmth.
“Of course. If you’re not tired of me, that is.”
“I could say the same.”
“Not tired at all.” Exhausted, presently, and in the most delicious way imaginable, but not tired in the least.
“Well, me neither. I’d say let’s grab lunch beforehand, but I’m meeting Meyer at eleven for coffee. Can I . . . How would you feel if I told Meyer what happened, between us? He’s going to ask, but I can tell him to butt out, if you want me to.”
“He’s your lover. It seems like he’d have a right to know.”
“I wouldn’t go that far, but he’ll be nosy, for sure. Your privacy counts for a lot.”
John gave that some thought. A part of him did feel some strange measure of guilt, for what he’d just done with another man’s seeming wife. Suzy might downplay what there truly was between her and Meyer, but having spent six hours or more watching the two of them together, John respected their connection. He might be naive about this stuff, but he hadn’t imagined it. “You can tell him whatever you like,” he decided. “I don’t mind.”
“Thanks. He and I are friends, as much as we’re lovers. Probably best friends. And it’s always nice to be able to girl-talk about this stuff.”
“Well, talk away. Feel free to overstate my skills,” he added with a smirk. “Or lack thereof.”
She dismissed that worry, flitting a hand in the air above them. “No problem there. You’ve left me with nothing but lovely things to share.”
His face warmed, but he only gave it a moment’s attention. Little by little he was getting out of his own way when it came to being with Suzy—just being, just talking, not dwelling on what he was saying wrong or what shade of red his face might be. It was such a small thing, compared to real human struggles, yet it felt monumental to John.
“You . . . You make all of this feel very easy,” he told her. “Very natural, when to me even meeting an acquaintance for a coffee has me sweaty with anxiety and self-doubt for days ahead of time.”
“Aww.”
“I’m a notorious plan-breaker. I’m astonished I didn’t chicken out about meeting you.”
“I knew where you were staying. I’d have stalked you, yanked you out of this room by force.”
“I’d have thought no other meeting would have been as scary as this one, just given how loaded our acquaintance is, but . . . I can’t explain it. I felt compelled. And I knew I’d never have forgiven myself if I’d backed out.”
“I wouldn’t have forgiven you either,” she said, and turned onto her belly, propping her chin in her hands and regarding him. “I don’t want to go home.”
“You don’t need to.”
“I don’t need to, no, but I will. It makes sense, for both of us. We’ll have other chances, if we’re meant to.”
He nodded, and realized the thought of her leaving him was half gut-wrenching tragedy and half relief. She was right; there’d be other chances if it was meant to be. “Shall I make it easy? Order you to go?”
She sighed. “No, I’ll play it cool. Leave of my own free will.” With that, she rolled back over and sat up, scooted to the edge of the bed. He admired her body, the trough of her spine and the rounded silhouette of her hips, decorated in cream silk and lace. She was a lovely shape; slim, soft in some places, toned in others. He’d seen so much of her body on camera, yet it was infinitely more stunning in person, so much more real. He liked the feel of her skin, the smell of her sweat and her perfume. Her hair was messy but it still shone in the lamplight. He watched her comb it with her fingers, watched her shoulder blades moving beneath her smooth skin and the small swells of muscle in her shoulders. He tried to memorize every detail, still not quite willing to believe he’d ever see her again.
“What time, tomorrow?” she asked, standing, stooping, then clasping her bra behind her back.
Again, that warm flush of pleasure. “The private tour’s at one thirty, so we could either meet there, or here, a little earlier.”
“I figured I’d drive us. Meet you in the lobby at one?”
“Can I bring you a coffee?”
He laughed softly, the sound turning her head. “No, no. You’ve spoiled me enough already.”
“Fine.”
John left the bed, dressing as she was; he’d only change into his pajamas once she left, but sitting around in his underwear on the bed felt rude, somehow.
She finished by buttoning up her sweater just as John smoothed his shirt down his chest. He passed her her shoes and watched as she slid them on at the edge of the bed. She smiled up at him.
“Thanks. For this, for tonight. For meeting me, when I know I came off like kind of a crazy lady, before. When we first started chatting.”
“Not crazy. Not at all.”
“I can get kind of intense, and I don’t always realize it.”
“Even if you were, we met in rather an intense way, so it felt perfectly appropriate, I’d say.”
“Good.”
There they paused, no words seeming to occur to either of them for several seconds.
“May I walk you to your car?”
She waved her hand. “No, no. I’m like three steps from the door.”
“At least down to the lobby, then.”
She shook her head. “Stay barefoot. You have nice feet.”
He laughed. “Good to know.”
“I want to remember you just like this,” she said, giving him a serious up-and-down appraisal. “Just walk me to the door and kiss me good night.”
“I can manage that.” How refreshing to have a woman tell him precisely what she wanted and expected, and how to meet her needs, whatever they might be. He supposed some of that must be down to his having admitted how out of his depth he felt. Honesty truly was a useful policy.
Suzy put out a hand and he took it, and they crossed the carpet, then the hardwood, to the door. He opened it for her and she grabbed her purse from a coat hook.
“Thank you, sir.”
“Sure you don’t want an escort to your car?”
“Positive. Kiss me, and tell me ‘good night,’ and nothing more.”
