AJ TRACHTENBERG HAS me pressed against a desk, and his erection is digging into my stomach. My hand hovers in the air near my mouth as I stare into his dark eyes, flashing in the light of the office whose door he just kicked shut on his way to pounce on me.
His chest heaves as he takes my face in his big, hairy hands and before I can finish licking the frosting off my lips, he’s doing it for me. His tongue is hot and wet and I groan at the feel of it parting my lips.
I draw a shaky breath as I feel him moan into my mouth. I lean in to the pressure of his palms against my cheeks, melting back against the desk as he kisses the hell out of me. And then abruptly stops.
“What?” I hiss at him, leaning forward in an attempt to grab his tie and pull him back against my mouth.
“I’m furious with you.” He clenches his jaw and I see a vein bulging in his neck, right where his dark hair curls a little bit behind his ear.
“You’re always furious with me.” I reach for him again and he wraps his arms around me, pulling me up from the desk, against that delicious body of his. He’s so tall and firm and fuck! I wonder if the rest of him is as hairy as these beautiful hands now splayed across my ass.
AJ buries his teeth into my neck and it hurts so good. I lean into him, thrusting my hips against his, desperate for some sort of friction. He backs away again.
“You made me make that poor woman spill cake,” he growls. And then he sticks two fingers into a slice of cake on one of the plates and I watch, transfixed, as he picks up a glob of cake and brings it to his mouth, his pink tongue coming out to lick those beautiful digits clean.
“I made you? What? I was taking a phone call from my father about his eye surgery.” I should put my hands on my hips or tell him to mind his own business, but I don’t. I just reach for a plate and start feeding myself some of the cake AJ dug into with his bare hands.
I start to wonder if the cake tastes like AJ. Or if AJ tastes like cake. I glare at him around my index finger, licking icing off my nail.
His face shifts, slightly. “I didn’t know your father was sick.”
I stab a finger into the cake. “He’s not fucking sick. And he can take a fucking cab to get his cataracts sliced off if my brother isn’t available. I’m not. Flying. There. For. This.” I stab the cake with each word and finally scoop a giant mouthful of cake toward my face.
I feel a clump of it fall onto my chest as I cram the cake into my mouth and I groan around the mouthful. “Dis is so gut.”
AJ has stepped closer to me again, his nostrils flaring a bit as he breathes, staring at me while I chew. He reaches out and wipes his finger along my collar bone. Slowly. So slowly. I feel the rasp of his calloused skin against my chest and my breath catches while I wait for whatever he has planned next. As I swallow the cake, AJ dips his head and licks my skin.
I’m done. I’ve melted and I’m done now. I start to sink and, feeling me topple, AJ picks me up and props my bottom against the edge of the desk. He uses his hand to brush the plates of cake to the side to make space for me and then he steps in between my legs.
Wow. Just wow. Why on earth have I not been seeking out party sex with grouchy, bearded, hairy men? As I catch my breath, I decide I want more of what I just had. I want more of the cake, more of the kissing, more of this sexy shoving his body against mine, please and thank you.
“You drive me wild.” He’s leaning over me like I’m a barbell he’s about to heft up, his hands splayed on the desk beside my skirt. I look at his crotch and I actually see the fabric of his pants twitch as his bulge throbs in there. I reach for it, cupping him, savoring the way his head falls forward like he’s on the brink of passing out.
“I’ve always been wild,” I tell him. I hear the music pick up outside and figure the speaking portion of the evening must have ended. People are probably looking for us. I can’t find it in me to care. I’ve been so stressed out, so busy, so frantic. And right now, I’ve got decadent buttercream and hairy man and all of it is mine to eat. For right now.
I start to unzip his fly, but AJ catches my hand. “We don’t even like each other. This isn’t right.”
I arch a brow at him. “Who said anything about liking each other? I don’t need to like you for you to fuck me on this desk.”
His eyes flash. “Is that what you want, Samantha?” I like the sound of my name in his mouth, the way his plump lips look as they press together to pronounce the M. The way his tongue peeks between his teeth on the TH sound. I’m so close to him I can see it all, and rather than answer him, I grab his tie again and pull him against my lips.
But wait. No. I’m not supposed to be doing this here. He’s mad at me for some reason, and I’m mad at my family and this is a benefit event for science educators. I need to go be responsible and … he pulls back from the kiss and takes a few steps away from me. “What are you doing?”
AJ shakes his head rapidly and begins adjusting his tie. “AJ.” I cross my arms over my chest protectively, feeling exposed and chilled in the absence of his body heat. “What are you doing?”
I watch him swallow and lick his lips, lips I know taste like cake. “Samantha, I…” He runs a hand through his hair and sighs. “I need to get back out to Margot and my colleagues. I shouldn’t have followed you or eavesdropped on your call.”
“I don’t care about that,” I spit out. “Why did you stop—touching me?”
Rather than answer, AJ gives his suit a final pat and grabs two plates of cake from the desk. Without another word, he balances both plates in one hand, opens the door, and leaves the office. “Huh,” I say out loud. “So this is what this feels like.” I have never had a man initiate sex and then walk away before either of us reaches the crescendo. I do not like this.
There’s no way I can go back out there and just mingle with people. I have icing residue on my chest and I can still feel the echoes of AJ’s heat tingling along my front. I eat a piece of the cake, trying to decide what to do, and notice the fire safety map posted by the door to the office. Studying it as I dig into another slice, I see that I can circumnavigate the party and sneak out the front by way of the coat check.
I grab a slice of cake for the road and get the hell out of there. By the time I reach my car, I realize my tears have gathered and are now leaking from the corners of my eyes. I touch my cheek in surprise. I don’t typically cry. Who has time to sit and feel feelings? “Oh boy,” I mutter, shoving a final bite of cake in my mouth and tipping the plate into a trash can as I dig my phone out of my pocket.
I need to talk to someone. I bite my lip. My friend Orla has a baby and I don’t want to wake her up with a call. Esther is probably elbow deep in bar patrons and I’m pretty sure Logan was looking forward to a night on top of her Callum. I press a knuckle into one of my temples, fretting. I’ve been working so hard lately. I really, really could have used a pleasant, sexy diversion tonight.
Instead I’m maybe crying a little bit in the dark, alone. I need a mom right now. Isn’t that what people would do when something like this happens? Call their mom and vent about the awful man who rejected their advances?
Orla also lost her mom. She’d know what to say right now. But she’s also been telling us all about how Nora is teething and not sleeping. “Shit,” I mutter, unlocking my car and sinking inside.
“Are you cursing at me?” I hear a voice coming out of my phone. “Hello?”
My eyes widen and I fumble for the screen. “Oh, god, Orla, I must have boob-dialed you or something. Were you asleep?”
She yawns loudly. “I was not asleep, actually. I’m driving to the freaking north hills to get eye drops for the rabbit. Did you know rabbits can get pinkeye?”
“I’m sorry. What are you talking about?” Suddenly I forget why I was so upset as Orla vents the details of her husband’s pet rabbit’s conjunctivitis. She tells me about playing Rock Paper Scissors with Walt to see who “got” to leave the house to get the eye drops while the other adult stayed home to manage baby bedtime.
“This is so weird. AJ had pinkeye the other day!”
“The grumpy science guy?”
“Yeah.”
“You know that shit is super contagious, right?”
I had not considered that. I tap at my face, wondering if I got pinkeye from making out and didn’t even get an orgasm out of it. “Can I just skip to the part where I called you cursing?
“Yes,” she says. “Sorry. Distract me with tales of a world that doesn’t involve massaging a small mammal’s tear ducts.”
I shake away the mental image Orla paints and remember the tears. “AJ fucking Trachtenberg,” I mutter. I tell her about the floor cake and the sexy kissing.
“Sounds promising,” Orla says. “Why are you calling me cursing instead of going for round two?”
I groan. “There wasn’t even a round one. He just…stopped.”
“Come again?”
“I’d like to come the first freaking time! Orla, he just stopped. Licked my damn collar bone, sucked the frosting off his finger, and smoothed his tie and left the room.”
She makes a humming sound. “He sure does send some mixed messages.”
“Thank you! It’s weird, right? Does he think I’m gross? Is he kissing me on purpose to mess with my head?”
“Listen, I’m about to arrive at the vet hospital, but I think it’s safe to assume he’s not purposefully messing with your head. From what you’ve said he seems very starchy.”
“Starchy is a pretty good adjective here, yes.”
I hear the click of her turn signal. “I wonder if it scared him to give in to his passion like that? Sam, I see the vet tech waving at me. Let’s talk through this some more after I deal with the rabbit eye.”
I sigh. “It’ll simmer. I’ll probably just go home and fall asleep.”
She laughs. “I’ve met you, Samantha Vine. You will go home and agonize over this and then do something amazing with your frantic worried energy, like build an algorithm to catalogue men’s facial expressions or something.”
“That’s not the worst idea you’ve ever had…”
She laughs again and we hang up. I feel slightly more validated hearing Orla agree that AJ sent confusing signals, but try as I might, I can’t let go of the sting at having him walk away. I don’t run to my computer to build out an algorithm as Orla suggested, but I do spend most of the night combing through resumes from Shane and Audrey, sorting them into piles and hoping I can trust my team about hiring more staff. Clearly I can’t trust my own instincts these days.