JOHN STOOD FIVE feet away with one hand tugging down the bottom half of his face. Mary took a mental snapshot of the man who was looking at her like she was literally everything he’d ever wanted.
Mary knew that insecurities ran deep, and they weren’t anyone’s duty to dispel but her own. But still, the look on John’s face right now certainly helped. He wasn’t wishing her to be anything different than the person she was.
She reached her hand out to him, for him, needing him. And as she’d known he would be, he was there immediately. Palm to palm, fingers threaded and then, yes, his mouth on hers. John put one knee on the edge of the bed and leaned over her, taking deep draughts of her mouth. He tasted her fully, slowly, as if they had all the time in the universe, as if the light weren’t changing that very moment, as if the world weren’t marching on all around them, as if the two of them weren’t changing and growing and aging even as they clutched at one another, as if this moment had its own set of orbiting planets, its own gravitational force, its own history.
He shifted his weight and sheltered her, the bed dipping as he planted a hand and took even more from her mouth. His tongue was both soft and overbearing at once and Mary reveled in it, how perfectly John that combination was. Sweet and obliviously intense. He tasted delicious, like toothpaste and fresh coffee and how much he wanted her. She felt his breath fan out over her cheek and it wasn’t steady.
She thought of how he looked from afar, broad shoulders, hands in pockets, black and white. Steady. Substantial. Unshakable. But his hand was trembling as he laid it over her hip and stomach. His fingers shook, just slightly, as he slid them down and then back up, catching under the bottom hem of her shirt, under fabric, to touch her bare skin. His fingers flexed at the dip of her waist, pressing into her softness, testing the line between her body and the rest of the world. The edges of her.
He leaned back, one knee on the bed, one foot on the floor, and his eyes were bleary as his pupils grew and shrank. He gripped the bottom of her shirt in both hands and determinedly pulled it up. She’d thought he’d yank it right off, but halfway there, he made a strangled noise and fell down on her again, his mouth opening against her hip bone, his stubble rubbing at her navel, his forehead planting at the V of her ribs.
She let out a half laugh, half groan because joy was rising in her as fast as her arousal was. She grabbed her own shirt and yanked it off, and John looked dazed when he tipped his head and saw her nothing-special bra. Beige colored, because her shirt was white and she’d wanted it to be invisible. Even so, his nostrils flared like she’d just revealed the finest lingerie. He gripped her ribs with one hand and yanked at her bra strap with his teeth.
She laughed fully now. “What is it with you and bra straps?”
“They’ve never lost their mystique,” he told her in a gravelly voice. “Ever since I was a kid, it’s never failed to amaze me that sometimes, depending on what a woman is wearing, you can just casually see part of her underwear. Bra straps are freaking hot.”
“I’m sorry I robbed you of bra straps with my strapless bra last night.”
“Don’t be. That was hot too, a little mystery. Bras are girl-magic. So hot.”
As if to prove it, John’s hands were suddenly everywhere. Cupping her breasts over top of her bra, gliding and pressing, in almost-chaste second-base action. But then, in the blink of an eye, he tipped her to one side, flashed his hand behind her back and unhooked her bra smoothly. He didn’t pull it away yet, though.
“Wow,” she commented. “Most men fumble the clasp a little bit.”
He smirked at her. “I’m a bra expert, Mare.” Then he promptly tipped his head to one side, somewhat sheepishly. “My high school girlfriend held me at second base for about a year and a half. There was nothing to do but learn how to remove a bra really well.”
Mary did that laugh-groan-gasp thing again. Because she loved learning about his dorky past. And he’d called her Mare, the way only those closest to her did.
She craned up, needing to kiss him, and he obliged instantly. His lips were firm, his sweeping tongue soft and reverent. He groaned into her mouth, and Mary felt it down to her lungs. She deepened the kiss, their teeth clacked lightly and Mary grabbed at his hair. His hand slipped under the loosened cup of her bra, and they both made a sound akin to pain. When she opened her eyes, it was to see John’s clamped closed, the fringe of his black eyelashes almost disappearing. He pulled away from the kiss, his eyes coming open as his thumb strummed across her nipple, and Mary arched for him.
He sat back on his knees and tugged the bra away.
“Mary,” he whispered. “Jesus Christ, you’re gorgeous.”
She lay topless on his bed, her body burning under his bright gaze. She dropped her eyes and saw that he was tenting his basketball shorts indecently. She lifted one leg and planted the flat of her foot against his thigh. Her knee fell to the side and his nostrils flared as she opened herself to him.
He briefly covered his eyes with one hand. “You trying to get me to fuck you with your shorts still on?”
Mary went tight and liquid between her thighs all at once. “Is that an option?”
He laughed, but it was pained, harsh. He reached down and undid her shorts, tugging them away. “Someday. For now, let’s keep things simple.”
His fingers tangled in the sides of her white underwear, but he didn’t move them. Instead, he fell forward and started kissing at her chest. Mary gasped for air when he sucked one of her nipples into his mouth, almost harshly. He scooped at her breasts, rounding them, pillowing them, burying his stubbly face in her softness. He started an unfamiliar rhythm. A tug-scrape-smooth using his lips and teeth and tongue against one nipple and then the other. Mary felt a string pull tight inside her, and she opened her mouth, chasing the feeling as she stared unseeing at the sunlight and shadow on his ceiling. His rhythm was methodical, purposeful, the way some men went down on a woman with a specific goal in mind.
Her hips started to buck underneath him. She hooked a leg around him and began to grind herself against his body, any part of his body, seeking friction at all and every cost.
“John,” she gasped, tossing her head to one side as her fingers ached from how hard she gripped his comforter. “John.”
He was going to make her come with nothing more than his mouth at her breasts, his strong hands caging her in.
At the last second, he pulled away, roughly pushing open her legs and tugging the seam of her underwear to one side. John ducked his head and tongue-kissed her between her legs, ending on a seeking suck that, like a star pulling tight in the moments before explosion, had her trembling on the edge of something world-ending. He slightly softened the suck, flicked his tongue, and Mary was gone.
She screamed his name, grateful he was pinning her thighs down because her entire body shook violently. Her world tumbled, dragging Mary along with it. She gasped for air, but it didn’t help the rainbow of spots that appeared in her vision as she said his name over and over again.
He kneaded at her wetness softly with his tongue and lips, as if making certain to press out every single aftershock. When she was finally able to look down, she saw immediately that his gentle mouth was at direct odds with his blazing eyes. Black and white, two-toned voice, rude and sweet, two men at once. He watched her with a look she’d never seen before from him.
She reached down and grabbed a handful of his shirt, yanking hard enough to stretch the fabric. He heeded. As he came up onto his knees, she sat up with him and they both ripped his shirt off. She barely had time to see the thatch of hair across his wide chest, his strong arms where they plugged into round shoulders and smoothly arcing collarbones. She barely saw it because he tumbled her backward.
He pressed her down with his weight, both hands cradling the back of her skull, tangling in her hair. “Let me, Mary,” he said. He bent his head and bit lightly at the pulse in her neck, but then his eyes were back on hers, and she was swimming in them, tumbling, lashed to him and spinning, just the two of them. “Let me,” he said again, part command, part plea.
“Condom,” she gasped, and he scrabbled at his nightstand drawer, grappling for a moment, before he brought an unopened box to his mouth and tore it gracelessly open. Condoms flew in an arc over the bed and onto the floor, but thankfully there was one in easy reach. Again, he was on his knees over her, shoving his shorts and boxers down to midknee.
He bounced free, his shaft almost touching his own stomach he wanted her so badly. Mary gasped, needing more oxygen than the hot, close air this room was providing her. His shaft was blunt and wide. Mary took the opportunity while he was tearing the condom open to sit up and get a better look. But she didn’t have time to do more than that. His hands came down, and he firmly slid the condom on.
He barred a forearm across her lower back and dragged her hips up to his, tossing her backward onto the bed, cradling her head with one palm as he came over her.
“Yes,” she whispered, reveling in his obvious desperation for her, like he couldn’t go another second without her heat. “Yes.”
With one dexterous hand he pulled her panties to the side and firmly slid a finger, and then another, inside of her, opening her up for him. She hooked a leg around his waist. Mary gasped, huffing air, as John pushed the head of his shaft up against his fingers, docking himself an inch inside of her.
His attention went from between her legs to her face. “Yes?” He crooked his fingers inside of her, rubbing at her G-spot in a crazy-making motion.
“Yes.”
“You’re gonna let me, Mary? You’re finally gonna let me.”
Again, his words were a mixture of plea and command, and the combination had a rush of wetness making her ache between her legs. “Now,” she begged.
John pressed his hips forward, and his hardness pushed into her in the same motion that he removed his fingers. The push and pull of it was unlike anything she’d ever felt before and Mary straight-up screamed as he buried himself to the hilt inside of her.
She was clawed against him completely, her ankles crossed at his lower back, her hands in fists at his shoulder blades, her forehead jammed into the crook of his neck. “John.”
He lifted his head to study her face, his expression softening at whatever he saw there. “I’ll never get enough of you saying my name like that.”
He dropped his mouth to hers and started grinding his hips against hers. He went even deeper and had her gasping, her fingers scratching over his back. His pelvic bone found her clit, and she moaned.
He swallowed down her sound as his tongue tangled with hers, pulling out halfway and pushing back in. Mary somehow went tight and loose at the same time. He picked up the pace, but he was never sharp; his strokes were almost round, dragging decadently against the right places. Her fingers slipped against his back, the hot air bearing down on them, both of them dizzily panting each other’s carbon dioxide. His stubble scraped her cheek as his face slotted in beside hers, the bed creaking beneath them, his breath in her ear. He still had one hand in her hair and the sharp sting of his tight fingers had her gasping in pleasure. He’d held her in place like this once before, when he’d whispered in her ear at the bar. She should have known then that he’d be this bossy in bed. God, she loved it.
“Can you come like this?” he asked her. “With me on top?”
“Sometimes. But usually it’s better if I’m on top.”
She’d barely gotten the sentence out before he was gripping her at her waist and rolling them. She was disoriented for a moment, the room spinning around her while she got her balance against him. She planted her hands at his chest and blinked down at the sight.
“Jeez, you’re hot,” she informed him. He wasn’t cut exactly, but he was strong and extremely well formed. His normal clothes made him look put-together and contained, but looking down at him now, bare chested, Mary was very aware that she had a completely uncivilized man inside of her. She glanced back, saw that his shorts and underwear were still bunched halfway down his legs, and it made her clamp down on him. He hadn’t even been able to wait to get completely naked. Why was that so freaking sexy?
He jutted his hips up under her, his hands tracing her waist, molding her breasts, tangling in her hair, tugging her down for a kiss. “Show me how you like it,” he muttered against her mouth.
She reached up and planted a hand against the wall over his head, bracing herself for the deep grind she started up almost immediately. She took him deep and then deeper. He swore and lifted his head only to bang it back down on the bed. She didn’t bother with putting on a show for him, or with teasing. Mary went straight for the gold. She found herself with her head tipped back toward the ceiling, one hand tangled with one of John’s, bracing her. She clawed at the wall as she grinded her hips back and forth on him, shamelessly using his body for her pleasure.
He was speaking gibberish, his voice pure gravel as his free hand grabbed a handful of her ass. His hips jutted up into hers but not too invasively. He’d asked her to show him how she liked it and now he was obviously paying attention, absorbing the motion, learning. She was quickening, tightening, chasing orgasm, and it broke over her magnificently.
He realized she was coming and gripped her hips with both hands, grinding her down on him as he cursed out the universe.
Mary let herself be putty against him for just a few seconds as he kissed at her neck and pushed up into her from below. She tipped her head to one side and spoke into his ear. “Now show me how you like it, John.”
His eyes searched hers for just a moment before he was gripping the condom and pulling out of her, rolling out from under her and pressing a hand down on her lower back to keep her belly-down on the bed.
He canted her hips up and tugged her underwear to the side again, this time pressing into her easily, as ready as her body was to accept him again. It wasn’t the deepest penetration, but it was by far their most intimate position. He was stretched out over top of her, his hand tangled in her hair and his cheek pressing against hers. He gave her some of his weight but not all of it. Mary was pinned between him and the bed, forcefully adored, nothing to do but accept the pleasure he was pistoning into her. Her breasts and clit were erotically abraded by the fabric of the bedspread as he worked himself into her, his speed picking up, his chest plastered to her back.
Mary could feel his heartbeat banging against her shoulder blade, and she squeezed her eyes shut, relishing how alive he was, how alive she was. His fingers came up and clamshelled over her hands, his leg hair scraping her calves. He sheltered her and took from her and gave to her all at once.
“John,” she whispered his name again and again.
She was naming the moment, and for her, its name was John. There was no other word for this feeling, this catapult into a new life. His name meant a million things in that moment. It was the man stiffening against her as he finally succumbed to his own pleasure, it was his heartbeat at her back, it was the electric friction every place they touched. It was everything she felt for him, all at once.
JOHN GASPED FOR life as he lay on his back, every muscle in his body turned to pudding. She panted into his ear and he loved it, her body half on, half off of his. The heat was oppressive in his apartment, and their skin slid against each other without either of them moving. If John could have swallowed the moment whole, he would have. Everything was perfect. John had never known a perfect this perfect.
He shifted against her and his attention was drawn down to the basketball shorts and boxers that were still bunched around his knees.
He’d put her facedown and fucked her half-dressed. Jeez.
“I probably should have mentioned that I haven’t had sex in a long time and it was going to be, ah, vigorous. I’ll make it prettier next time,” he promised breathlessly, kicking his shorts and underwear off.
“That was plenty pretty, John,” she said, just as breathlessly. He reached down and peeled off the condom, tying it off and throwing it in the trash can next to his bed. He jumped when he felt her touch between his legs.
“Can I?” she asked, lifting her head to look in his eyes.
He cleared his throat. “Sure.”
He was still half-hard, and it might not go down with her fingers dancing over him like that. She nudged his shaft to one side and then the other, obviously in a playful, curious mood.
Her fingers circled him; she pushed down and tugged back up. “You’re uncircumcised.”
He cleared his throat again. “Yeah.”
“Hot.”
“Yeah?”
He caught her eye and she blushed. “Totally. I can’t explain it. There’s just something more...animalistic about it. Ruder. I like it.” She was fully pink now, and John was delighted.
“Mary?”
“Hmm?”
“That was the hottest sex of my life. Seriously. Jesus. I mean, wow.”
She nuzzled into him, and she kept her hand between his legs, though she wasn’t playing anymore, just holding him, almost companionably. Not that one companion generally cuddled another companion’s dick, but still. It wasn’t explicitly sexual the way she held on to him. “Me too,” she whispered. “With a bullet.”
He tried to keep his proud masculine preening contained on the inside. “And on a Thursday morning before work.”
She stretched and rolled onto her back, taking her hand with her. “Got anything for breakfast?”
“I can make you a smoothie. Or we can grab something from the coffee shop by the train.”
“Mmm.” She clapped a hand over his mouth. “Don’t talk about the outside world. The outside world doesn’t exist anymore. We fucked it away.”
He laughed. “If you say so.” He played with her hair, amazed that he was allowed to. That he’d been inside her just minutes before. Yesterday after work seemed a million years ago. He’d never have imagined, upon striding into Fellow’s last night, that he would be here now, Mary wrapped around him. A thought occurred to him and this thing was still so new that his stomach flipped when he asked her, “You still want to get together tonight?”
“Definitely,” she answered immediately, making him smile.
“I’d say we should go to your house for the air-conditioning—” his hand absently scooped and tumbled her hair “—but I don’t usually like to leave Ruth alone at night, and I already did last night.”
At his words, her entire body tightened against his, her face buried just above his armpit, her legs clamped around him, her fingers digging into his hips.
“Are you okay?” He looked down at her in alarm, having no idea what the heck had just happened.
She nodded against him, and when she looked up, her eyes were wide and her lip was between her teeth. “I’m okay,” she answered, sounding strained. “Ask me later. I can’t talk about it now.”
But that look on her face was just about all the answer he needed. He was pretty sure, almost positive, that talking about not wanting to leave Ruth alone had just kicked her over the edge and into love with him. He searched her gaze and saw that she was overwhelmed, giddy, terrified. He leaned forward and gently kissed her, hoping to soothe her. He knew the feeling.
“Ask me later too, okay?” he said softly, and this time it was her eyes searching his, trying to figure out if he was saying what she thought he was.
She blushed and buried her face, and John gave her one last cuddle before he sat up on the edge of the bed. He cleared his throat. “I think we should take a freezing-cold shower together so that we don’t get heatstroke before we even go outside,” he suggested over his shoulder.
She gasped and then her hands were gentle on his back. “Oh, my God. John. I scratched you to hell back here.” Her fingers gently traced the lines that her nails had apparently scored into him. He flexed his back, feeling around.
“I like it,” he told her honestly. “It feels good. It’ll make me think of you all day.”
She hooked her chin over his shoulder and straddled him from behind, her legs along his legs, her wetness smashed against him. “That’s how I feel about you between my legs. I’ll feel it all day.”
He groaned and looked at the clock. “Shit. Work. You can’t say stuff like that to me when we’re gonna be late for work.”
“We’ll take a quick shower,” she promised, her hand snaking around to his front and gripping him again, this time pumping him with much more intention than her playful touch from before.
He stopped protesting and instead reveled in the feel of her delicate but firm grip. He looked down at his lap and grunted at the erotic sight of her gorgeous hand gripping him so tightly. She slid around to his lap, slipping off her underwear and swiping a condom from the floor on her way. She sheathed him with it as she straddled him. He sat on the edge of the bed and she sat on him, lifting up and taking him in in one long, wet slide.
This time wasn’t any prettier than the last time, he figured, but he couldn’t find it in him to care. She rode him hard, artlessly, and it was hands down the sexiest thing he’d ever seen. He leaned back on his palms and just watched, letting her get herself off on his body any way that she wanted. When she shuddered hard, calling his name and clamping down on him rhythmically, he banded an arm around her waist, securing her, and drove himself upward in several short, intense strokes before he was coming hard, sharply, woozily. Perfection.
They sagged to the side, and he took a long moment to gain his breath back before he was lifting her, carrying her to his shower.
“You love carrying me,” she muttered into his shoulder.
“I do,” he agreed. “It makes me feel...”
“Like a man?”
“Not quite. It makes me feel human. I can’t explain it. Connected to you. Protective. Like I’m the one thing in between you and the rest of the world. I love it.”
He set her down carefully in the shower and her smile nearly knocked his metaphorical socks off. He’d told her she was radiant and, boy howdy, he hadn’t been lying. The woman was incandescent.
A second later, though, before he could twist on the shower, she stiffened, clapping a hand over his mouth even though he hadn’t been talking.
“Shh!” she hissed. “Do you hear that?”
John cocked an ear and heard the familiar, benign tones of his neighbors talking. “My neighbors?”
“I forgot how thin your walls are.” She had both hands pressed to her flaming pink cheeks. “Oh, God. John.”
He couldn’t help but grin. “Are you reflecting on the number of times you just screamed my name?”
“I can’t believe this. I haven’t even met them yet!”
“Mary, it’s New York. Hearing your neighbors have sex is a citywide experience. Practically a rite of passage. Besides, they’re not exactly celibate. I’m sure they don’t begrudge me returning the favor.”
“But I was loud.”
He laughed, charmed and so freaking in love with her. “I know. It was the best. I hope you’re like that every time. Lets me know I’m doing well.”
“It lets everyone on your entire floor know you’re doing well.”
He laughed again and turned on the shower, laughing harder when she yelped and twisted away from the cold spray. “There are worse things, Mary. There are much worse things.”