by Morgan Kyle
Kissing me again, he took my hand and guided it to the front of his shorts.
“I missed your touch,” he whispered.
And I missed touching you, I thought, but didn’t say, all my focus on my hands and how he felt in them. Rigid, eager. For me.
As I felt him growing in his shorts, he removed his shirt, then reached behind my back and unfastened my bra. I had to let go of him for a few seconds to let the bra fall down my arms to the floor, but my hands were drawn back to him immediately as Cole’s arm slipped around my waist, pulling my chest to his—warm, firm, tight.
This was the position we’d been in that first night. Standing. At a door. Maybe this would be our thing…
And as soon as the thought skittered through my hazy mind, Cole spun me around and held me as he walked, making me walk backwards. Just a few steps, then my calves hit something—the couch? Yes, the couch. The one that he was lowering me to right now.
With one knee between my legs, he unbuttoned my shorts. Lifted my legs, holding my ankles together, his other hand running down my leg, under my ass, underneath, gripping the waistband of my shorts and panties and sliding them up the length of my legs, tossing them on the floor.
He held my legs up, kissing my ankles, my calves, then pushing his head between them, parting my legs as he lowered them and guiding my left leg to wrap around his waist.
I ran my hands over his hard chest, feeling his muscles drawn taut, smooth beneath his skin. My fingertips explored his broad shoulders, then down to the soft patch of hair between his pecks, then farther down, following the trail to the waistband of his shorts.
I pulled them down. Felt him spring free. Felt him—thick and warm and heavy—touching my lower stomach.
He was so free with his body, the movements so smooth, his shorts were down in a second. He lifted his right leg, the one on the couch, and out of the shorts. I couldn’t see, but I imagined they fell down to his left ankle where his foot was planted firmly on the floor. He used this leverage to move back and forth, sliding himself over my wetness as his face dipped again to mine. He kissed me with a burning eagerness like I’d never been kissed before.
“Last chance,” he said.
I knew what he meant.
“Fuck me,” I replied, not letting even a second go by, my voice all breath.
He reached down to where I’d imagined the shorts landed, and his hand came back up with a foil packet. Opened it. Tossed the wrapper.
“Let me,” I said.
He handed me the condom, I rolled it down, squeezing and feeling him throb in my hand. Gave it a few strokes as I watched his face turn stone-like.
Cole shook his head back and forth slowly, like a warning.
I let go, raised my hands to the back of his neck. Tightened my grip on his waist with my ankle, pulling him against me.
He lowered his head and sealed his lips around my nipple. My back arched, I tilted my head back in response. It wasn’t planned, they’re always just that sensitive, as if there’s some kind of wiring between my nipples and my clit. The sensation was intensified by the way he slid his cock back and forth across me. Teasing me again. He’d made me wait the other day after working me up in his office, and now he was doing it again, this time so much closer.
Do it, do it, I want you to fuck me, I kept thinking but couldn’t say because I was holding my breath as his tongue laved one nipple, then the other.
I felt his movement slow, then stop, he slipped into me, my eyes wide, focused on his downward stare right back at me.
All the waiting was over. He had wound me into a tight coil, just how he’d wanted me, begging for it, even if it was just in my mind. He couldn’t hear it, but I knew he could feel it, even see it on my desperate face.
I ran my hands over his tense shoulders, his taut chest, finally landing on his firm back, holding him tightly. His entire body was like one hard muscle as he slowly rocked his hips back and forth, entering me, deliberately unhurried.
This wasn’t the mechanical, formulaic sex I’d become accustomed to. It was more than an eager, needy body part entering my own. It wasn’t the furiously rapid, seemingly out-of-control pumping that sex had always been with the few guys I had done it with.
Cole wasn’t one of them. He took his time. Extracted every little bit of pleasure he could, while giving me the same.
His hand slipped around my waist, his forearm firmly on my lower back, lifting me slightly as he slid all the way in and held it there. All the air escaped my body. My mouth was in the shape of a small O, my eyes lidded heavily, fighting to stay open so I could watch the strain of ecstasy on his face.
My previously tense body was now falling into a state of complete relaxation, all my muscles loose and humming underneath his body. I felt like I could have stayed in that position for hours, never letting him go.
But I felt a wave of heat build in my stomach. My arms and legs felt like all the blood was rushing out of them. I felt myself clench around him, felt him throb in response.
Cole and I had gotten into a perfect, euphoric, yet terrible rhythm. Terrible because it was going to bring us to the end of our first time.
His grip tightened around my waist as he drove into me. I concentrated on his face as much as I could, those blue-gray eyes glaring right into my own. He was biting his lower lip on the side, a deep groan rumbling in his chest. No crying out, no curse words, no surprised O-face.
It was as though his body was releasing energy through the noise, and as the seconds went by I felt his body go slack.
He lowered himself to his elbows, then on top of me, chest to chest, and I felt like I didn’t want the weight of him there to leave all night.
Chapter Seven
Cole said he wasn’t much of a chef, more like a short-order cook, and that his specialty was breakfast.
“I love breakfast for dinner,” I said, as I followed him to the kitchen.
“Good, it’s my favorite too. And when I say it’s my ‘specialty’ I mean it’s really the only thing I can cook.”
I sat on a barstool and watched him opening cabinets and drawers and the refrigerator. He wore only his boxers. I had slipped on my underwear and his big t-shirt.
As he prepped for cooking, I turned on the stool and looked around at the den. When I had entered the apartment, I hadn’t noticed anything about it. Just him. I was focused solely on him. Now, though, I saw that it was sparsely furnished. The couch (with which I was now very familiar), one recliner, a TV sitting on what appeared to be a coffee table. That’s it. No pictures on the wall. Nothing else. I thought I heard him saying something and then…
“Brooke?”
I spun around. “Sorry. I was just looking…”
He smiled. “Not much to look at. Remember, I just moved in. Anyway, I was asking how you like your eggs.”
“Whichever way you’re having yours.”
“Scrambled it is.” He paused for a moment. “If you want to look around the rest of my grand palace, feel free.”
I walked down the short hallway. His bedroom contained only a bed, no other furniture. Peeked into the bathroom. Plenty of towels and, to my surprise considering he was a bachelor, the bathroom was neat and clean. Thank God.
I felt an urge to tell him he should make this place more homey, and that I wanted to help him pick out some stuff, but quickly realized that sounded more like a nagging girlfriend than I wanted to sound like.
Breakfast-dinner was ready quickly, and we ate at the bar in silence for the first few minutes, until he said, “What’s your major?”
I sipped from the glass of orange juice and set it down. “Psychology.”
He closed his eyes, shook his head with a little grin on his mouth, then looked at me. “So, what’s your diagnosis?”
“Of?”
“Me,” he said.
I laughed. “I don’t have one. I don’t diagnose people.” That wasn’t exactly true. I tried not to, really tried, but sometimes it was impo
ssible not to. “And what would I be diagnosing anyway?” I gave him my raised eyebrow look.
“I was kidding. So what are you going to do after you graduate?”
“Grad school,” I said, pulling his big t-shirt down over my knees. I don’t know why, but there was something about talking about myself that made me feel vulnerable right then. The t-shirt pulling was involuntary, as if a thin layer of cotton would protect me if he happened to ask something I didn’t want to answer.
“Then what?”
“I’m not sure,” I said. “Maybe get a job somewhere counseling, or maybe go for my doctorate.”
Now it was his turn to raise his eyebrows. “Impressive.”
I tried to shrug it off.
“Where are you from?” he asked.
Great. Here it comes. Family questions.
“Indian Trail. Just outside of Charlotte.”
“Never heard of it.” He stabbed a piece of scrambled egg with his fork.
“Most people haven’t.” I didn’t want him asking anything more about my life back home in my small town. “What about you? Where are you from?”
“Actually, North Carolina, originally. But when I was five my parents moved to Virginia and I’ve lived there since I moved here. Went to UVA on a swimming scholarship.”
There was a pause and some silence. He had finished his sentence but something told me there was more, so I waited.
“I, uh, actually swam in the Olympic trials two years ago.”
Whoa. I knew how difficult it was to qualify even for trials. “And…?”
He laughed as his eyes looked at the bar and he fiddled with a napkin. “Well, you never saw me in the Olympics, did you?”
“I’ve never watched.”
He looked up at me. “Bullshit. But thanks for the sympathy.”
He was good-natured about it, could joke about himself, even something as big as not making the Olympics.
“What did you study?” I asked.
“Pre-law. But the pre- is as far as I got.”
“Why didn’t you go to law school?”
He stood, stacked our plates, and took them to the sink, where he answered with his back to me. “Just had some doubts, some second thoughts, about what I wanted to do. And I love swimming. Always wanted to try coaching, so my old coach did some calling around and putting in a good word for me. When this job opened up, I took it.”
Opted for coaching swimming instead of law school? It was true, on the face of it, but there had to be more there. Despite my curiosity being piqued, I didn’t dare press him on it.
As he dried the dishes, he turned toward me again. “I suppose I should have asked this long before now, but…no boyfriend?”
My eyes involuntarily rolled up to the ceiling. “What, do you think I’m a slut?”
He froze.
I laughed. “Don’t worry. I didn’t think that’s what you meant. But no, there’s no boyfriend. And thank you for being a gentleman and asking after you’ve already fucked me.”
He looked at me briefly before chuckling.
“And you?” I said. “Girlfriend back in Virginia? Wife, kids, and a dog?”
“What if I told you all of the above?” He smirked and placed the dishes in a rack in the sink. “Nope. No wife, no kids, no girlfriend. About the only thing on your list I would want is the dog.”
So he didn’t even want a girlfriend.
“Then why don’t you get one? A dog, I mean.”
He walked around the bar, stood behind me before I had time to slide off the stool. His arms slid around my waist and his hands rested on my thighs as he kissed my ear. “This apartment is way too small for a dog. Plus, I don’t know how long I’m going to be in Chapel Hill.”
He didn’t want a girlfriend, didn’t know how long he was going to live here in town. It was perfect for exactly what I had set out to find this year—someone to spend time with, no strings attached. But what I wasn’t counting on was all the secrets.
There was so much we didn’t say in that conversation. A lot more. I knew it. He knew it.
We were two people sharing one big secret between us, and hiding so many more from each other.
Chapter Eight
The last days of summer slipped away over the next several weeks as fall set in, bringing with it the first cool, brisk mornings. I settled into my classes, figured out that one of them wasn’t going to be as easy as I had thought. I considered dropping it because I didn’t need it to graduate, but decided not to. It gave me something to do, something I needed to concentrate on a few nights a week.
We had our first two swim meets, both at home. I did well in the first, but faltered a little in the second one, not even placing in the fifty-meter freestyle final. That was my usual strong race, what I was known for on the team. Coach Malone pulled me aside and asked if there was something distracting me. I told him no, there wasn’t, I was just having an off day. He said he would like to see me work a little harder at practice, and that’s exactly what I did starting the following Monday.
What started out as two trips per week to Cole’s apartment turned into three. We couldn’t stay away from each other. Actually, it was more a case of not being able to keep our hands off of each other.
One night he asked me to undress for him, slowly, as he lay on the bed watching. I’d never done a striptease before. That’s not quite what this was, though. There was no music; I wasn’t doing any kind of hip-swaying or booty-shaking (or any kind of shaking); and I didn’t grind on his lap with my back to him.
He just wanted to watch me gradually reveal my body to him in the stark brightness raining down from the overhead light-fan fixture. I felt vulnerable at first with him staring at me. It was odd. He’d seen me naked so many times. He’d explored my body with his hands, lips, and tongue. This time, he was doing it purely visually. I’d never had a man admire me like that before.
We decided that I shouldn’t be staying the night at his house. It was actually my idea to begin with and he agreed. But the more time that went by, the more I wanted to fall asleep in his arms, wanted to wake up in the warmth of his bed.
Maybe someday. Maybe not. For now, we were still keeping it as unserious as possible, and not staying the night was one bold line never to be crossed, reminding us that we weren’t truly together. It served as kind of a safe boundary. Not spending the night there reduced our chances of being discovered. The forbidden nature of our arrangement—that’s what it was, an arrangement, not a relationship—was fuel for the raging flame between us, but we weren’t going to be stupid enough to get sucked into it.
*****
I did fuck up one night. I always turned my phone off when I got to Cole’s, and that night I missed a call and four texts from Eric. I didn’t see them until I was on my way home. Eric and I had talked earlier in the week about getting dinner that night. It slipped my mind. I had stood him up.
Feeling like shit, and also wondering what I would say to him, I called him but got no answer. He was either ignoring me or he’d found something else to do. I hoped it was the latter, but I found out the next day that it wasn’t.
We were standing outside the Journalism building. I had waited for Eric to show up and when he came down the sidewalk, he stopped. Didn’t try to avoid me. Didn’t look angry. Worse, he looked disappointed. I could see it in those droopy-dog eyes of his, the ones that he used to make people feel guilty since as long as I’d known him.
“I’m sorry,” I said, my face forcing one of those please-forgive-me smiles.
“Don’t worry about it.” His facial expression didn’t match the words he was saying, but I let it go.
“Saturday night,” I said. “Just you and me. Whatever you want to do.”
He gave a small smile, dipped his head and scratched his forehead. “You’re making me feel like a neglected child.”
I laughed, and so did he, and I knew it was going to be okay.
*****
That Saturday night
we ended up at a party being held at a house where two of his broadcasting classmates lived. Eric drove to my place and we walked the three blocks there, wanting to avoid trying to find parking but also figuring we could both drink whatever we wanted without having to worry about either of us getting behind the wheel of his car.
The house was obviously set up by college guys, a few mismatched couches in the den, a lamp on top of an upside down wooden crate, street signs tacked to the walls along with a few music and movie posters. Not a female touch anywhere.
People were gathered in small groups, the largest around the keg on the back patio. That’s where Eric and I went first, and a few of his friends were glad to see me, one of them asking where I’d been, adding that he hadn’t seen me around as much this year. I didn’t make a big deal out of it, blaming it on being a little busier than usual. He was just drunk enough to drop the subject.
We went back into the house, where the speakers were pumping some kind of electronic beat on a loop. Not my type of music, and not Eric’s either, so a few minutes of standing around yelling into each other’s ears was about all we could take. We went out onto the front porch where it was quieter and less crowded. We found some open space and sat on the railing.
“Maybe it’s none of my business,” he said, looking straight ahead and not at me, “but what was so important that you didn’t show up?”
I felt a cold rush sweep down from my face, into my chest and stomach, and it wasn’t from the beer. I didn’t want to lie to him, but I had to. Not just to shield myself, but also to protect Cole.
I was quiet for a moment. He turned his head toward me.
“Nothing,” I said. “It just slipped my mind. You know I wouldn’t do that on purpose.”
He nodded, looked down at the porch. “Are you dating someone?”
“What? No.” I instantly felt guilty, but had to keep up the charade. “I can’t believe you would think—”
He raised his hands, the beer in one, the other showing palm, like a surrender. “Okay, okay. Sorry. It’s just…you know you could tell me, right?”
