Ben stared at the door to Beatriz’s hotel room. She was there, behind that door. Right there. The last time he’d seen her she’d been completely naked and standing in his dorm room. That was five years ago. So much had happened since then. He’d gotten his first real job working for Google, gotten promoted and almost gotten engaged. This could have been his wedding weekend, but thankfully he realized his girlfriend wasn’t in love with him, only with the idea of being married. Neither of them cried over the breakup. A good sign that breaking up was the right thing to do. He’d moved three times since college and changed jobs twice, but during all that he’d held on to one constant—Beatriz.
She probably didn’t know he read her Miss Bea Haven column she wrote for The Daily Cocktail. He’d messaged Claudia on Facebook last year and asked, as casually as he could, what Beatriz was up to. Living in Spain, Claudia said. She had a great job working as a translator for a European publisher. Oh, Claudia added in the P.S., Beatriz also wrote a column for a big website that acted as the repository of all things sex on the internet. Beatriz reviewed sex toys and sex books. Nice work if you could get it, Claudia joked. Just a joke. Ben had likely broken some sort of internet record for fastest ever Google search. He found the column and read every single post Beatriz had written. He hadn’t read them all at once. He had to take a break—or two or three—between articles. Beatriz wrote in detail about her experiences with different types of vibrators—what worked for her, what didn’t, how she used them, how they made her feel. He could just see that beautiful woman lying naked on her bed pleasuring herself for hours on end. Who needed porn when he had these sex toy reviews? Knowing Beatriz, she’d stop every few minutes to take notes—vibrator in one hand, notepad in the other.
Ben even had whole sentences from her reviews memorized. He hadn’t tried to memorize them. He wasn’t that much of a desperate, horny stalker. But certain sentences had burned themselves into his mind.
The Lady Angel vibrator was a comfortable fit for a woman who enjoys deep penetration and a wide shaft as much as I do.
The orgasm the Black Prince produces makes your PC muscles buck like a stallion. My partner’s tongue provided the clitoral stimulation. The resulting orgasm was a top ten moment.
The G-spot massager from the Sirena series should come with a warning—don’t use on a day you actually need to get out of your bed. I had so much fun with it that I had ten orgasms in one day and had to change my sheets twice.
He’d never been so jealous of sex toys in his life. What he wouldn’t give to curl up in bed with Beatriz while she did her work, watching her come over and over again. He’d happily lend a helping hand. Or two. And once she came she would be so wet he could slide right inside her and stay there all day and all night long.
“Down, boy,” Ben said to his erection. He took a few deep breaths to calm himself. He still couldn’t believe he was doing this, standing outside Bea’s door. But Henry had been annoyingly insistent.
“Dude, I told Claudia that I told you back in college not to pursue Bea because of, you know, reasons. Mainly me being a pussy. Claudia hit me with a pillow and she won’t let me have sex with her until I tell you that I was wrong about doing that. So…sorry. You should probably go talk to Bea. She still likes you or something. I can’t remember exactly what Claudia said. I had trouble hearing over my hard-on.”
Ben wanted to believe Henry. Only one way to find out. Ben didn’t let Henry finish talking before he’d stalked past him and into the hallway. When he made it halfway down the hall he turned around.
Henry stood by his room, smiling at him.
“What’s her room number?” Ben had asked.
“It’s 424. Go. Have fun. Make the love. You’re welcome.”
He couldn’t believe Beatriz still wanted him after all this time. After all, he knew he’d hurt and humiliated her the last time they saw each other. He’d wanted her so badly that day he could barely breathe when he remembered seeing her beautiful naked body for the first and last time. High, full breasts, long, toned legs, hips he wanted to dig his fingers into when he buried his face between her thighs. Telling her no had nearly killed him. Only Henry’s pleading that he leave Claudia’s little sister alone, and his preemptive guilt over having sex with someone and then moving to the West Coast the very next day, kept him from taking her up on every single little thing she offered.
Maybe now he could make up for lost time.
But should he?
He stared at the door to room 424. She still lived on the opposite coast from him. They hadn’t seen each other since he graduated college. They were here to support Claudia and Henry for their wedding, not rehash all their old drama.
But then again…they might end up naked.
Didn’t matter. He wasn’t here to have sex with her. He was here to talk. Just talk. They should talk. While talking he would tell her that while he was an idiot for letting Henry talk him out of pursuing her in college, the truth was he’d been terrified he’d end up just like Henry if he hadn’t backed away from her. Henry had been head-over-heels in love with Claudia. Even back in college Henry had been ready to give up everyone and everything to make his girlfriend happy. And Ben didn’t have the luxury of falling in love and throwing caution to the wind. He’d been the first person in his family to go to college, to get a degree and an offer of a high-paying job. He couldn’t let them down by allowing his heart to steal his ambition.
“Wait,” Ben muttered to the door. “Why am I saying this in my head and not to her?”
Ben pounded on her door.
Four agonizing seconds later, Beatriz opened the door. She wore a black silk bathrobe and looked at him in total shock as if she’d been expecting anyone but him at her door.
He looked at her. God, she’d only gotten more beautiful since college. She said nothing at all as she continued to stare at him. Rare that anything shocked Beatriz enough to silence her.
One of them had to say something, right? He was the man. It should be him. He’d say the perfect thing. Something suave, something charming, something endearing that would make up for the last time they saw each other.
Ben opened his mouth to say he was sorry, to say he should have stood up to Henry and gone after what he wanted and given love a chance instead of bowing to his ambition and leaving her behind. He was going to say he should have slept with her when she offered or at least given her a damn good reason why he hadn’t.
“Will you have sex with me?” Beatriz asked.
Ben opened his mouth, then closed it again. Then opened it again.
“Good to see you again, too, Bea.”
Beatriz laughed and gave him an apologetic smile.
“Sorry,” she said, holding the door to her hotel room open, but not quite letting him inside yet. “One-track mind. I have to write an emergency book review on a sex position manual. I need a partner.”
“A partner?”
“Well, you can’t review a sex position manual without having sex, right?”
“Good point. Very good point,” Ben said. “So you want to…with me…review your book?”
“If you want to,” she said and smiled. That smile hit him right where it counted.
“You don’t think we should talk first?”
“Talk about what?” she asked. “This is just for work, you know.”
“Oh.” Ben nodded. “Work.”
“Think about it,” she said, letting him in the room. The Hotel Essex was one of the more luxurious hotels he’d ever stayed in. Scarlet walls, black polished floors, elegant white rugs—it was an art deco dream come true. And in the middle of every room a huge king-size bed heaped in plush white linens beckoned. The headboards looked like thrones. The walls were decorated with real art, not hotel “art.” And with the black-and-red-striped curtains pulled back and the moonlight shining, one could see the rolling hills blanketed with deep soft grass and lush leafy trees for miles. It was a far cry from a cramped dorm room.
“So how have you been?” she asked.
“Good. Great. I love my job. I guess you really love your job.”
“Both jobs,” she said as she sat on the bed and tapped a few keys on her laptop. He saw her save and close a document. He must have interrupted her at work. Surreptitiously he glanced around for any sex toys. Maybe she’d put them away before opening the door. “The blog work is the most fun, though. I guess Claudia told you what I’m doing?”
“Yeah, sex education blogger? Something like that?” He tried to sound nonchalant.
“Exactly like that. My boss is in a bind. He needs a thousand words by Sunday night. I thought I was reviewing a coffee table book. Wrong.” She held up the book. It said THE MANUAL on the front in big gold letters.
“Sexy font,” he said.
“Sexy book.”
“Look…Bea,” Ben said and sat on the end of her bed. “I wanted to tell you I was sorry. You know, about not having sex with you in college.”
“That’s what you’re sorry about?”
“For starters,” he said. “Henry asked me not to go for you because he was worried I’d dump you and Claudia would kill him over it.”
“I like that my personal life was decided by you and Henry instead of me.”
Ben winced. “Yeah…add that to the list of things I’m apologizing for.”
“Well, I did sort of give you hell over it, right?” Beatriz asked, a wicked gleam in her eyes.
“I think your last words to me were ‘You fail as a man,’” Ben said. He remembered those words as if she’d spoken them yesterday. They’d burned themselves into his brain and he swore there and then he’d never fail as a man again.
Now it was Beatriz’s turn to wince.
“I said that?”
“You said that.”
“Well, I was naked, offering you every square inch of my body inside and out, and you turned me down.”
“I prefer to think of it as a supremely heroic act of self-sacrifice on my part, because my best friend had never had a real girlfriend before Claudia and worried constantly he’d screw it up with this woman that he declared as his ‘soul mate’ the day he met her.”
“Soul mate?”
“He’s more romantic than you’d expect for a guy who used to wear his underwear outside his pants.”
“Smarter, too, if he loved Claudia that much from the beginning.”
“Yeah, he’s a good guy. The best guy. Hard to tell the guy who’s been your best friend throughout your entire college career ‘no’ to a simple request not to fuck his girlfriend’s baby sister.”
“I get it. I do. It’s for the best. You probably would have fucked me and forgotten me like Henry thought.” Beatriz grinned at him, a smile that said, “I’m just giving you a hard time.”
“But I didn’t fuck you, and I’ve never forgotten you.”
Beatriz’s smile wavered a moment before returning in full force. The combination of her bright white smile and her dark copper skin nearly blinded him. He wanted to see that smile a billion more times before the day he died. At least a billion.
“So…what are we doing here?” Ben asked. Beatriz closed her laptop and moved it to the bedside table.
“Getting reacquainted,” she said. “And having sex if you’re game. I’m sort of on deadlines here.”
“You’re serious?”
Beatriz nodded. “As a heart attack. It’s no-strings-attached sex. I won’t even make you buy me flowers after. Think about it while I’m in the bathroom.”
She left him sitting alone on the end of her bed while she went to the bathroom.
Ben took a deep breath and released it slowly. Think about it, she’d said. What was there to think about? Sex with the most beautiful woman in the world? Yes, please. Then again…this was work, she’d said. Just work. Nothing more than work. Did he want to be work? Cock for hire? He’d sworn off women for an entire year, hadn’t he? Then again, he’d sworn off them because he knew he needed to get over Beatriz before dating anyone else. How was he supposed to get over Beatriz if Beatriz was under him?
“To do Bea…or not to do Bea…?” Ben asked himself.
Beatriz came out of the bathroom and stood in front of him. Her bathrobe was open just enough that he could see the curve of her breasts.
Who was he kidding?
“Let’s do this,” Ben said.
Beatriz grinned.
“Good. Thank you,” she said. “Let’s talk about the book. It’s called THE MANUAL and it’s being billed as ‘The Joy of Sex for Generation Y.’”
“What’s Generation Y?”
“Us.”
“Got it.”
“It’s a ‘hip’ sex guide,” she said, putting hip in air quotes. “Most sex position manuals use a lot of technical terminology—it’s all penis, vagina, cunnilingus, fellatio. THE MANUAL uses the words we use—vadge, cock and dick, blow job, going down, et cetera. Chapter four is called ‘Fingerbanging for Fun and Profit.’ It makes sexploration more approachable.”
“Approachable?”
“Do you want to try ligotage?”
Ben rubbed the back of his neck. “That sounds terrifying. Isn’t that something kings did to subjects who pissed them off?”
“It just means bondage. Rope. Handcuffs. Nothing scary. See how word choice can change the way you view a sex act?”
“Oh, bondage. That’s better. But I left my handcuffs at home.”
“Too bad,” she said and gave him a wink. That wink sent his temperature shooting up ten degrees. It wasn’t the only thing shooting up. “But we’ll stick to the basics this week. There are twenty-five positions in the book. We just need to try out about five of them to give a fair review.”
“Five?” Ben tried to mask his disappointment. As turned on as he was he could have tried out five tonight alone.
“Maybe more if we have time. I know you’re busy this week. I don’t want to impose on your cock.”
“Impose on it. Please.”
“Should we get started?”
“I will literally, actually, in reality die if we don’t.”
Beatriz laughed. “I can’t have your death on my hands.”
She shrugged out of her robe so casually he at first didn’t even realize she was completely naked underneath it. As she bent over to pull the covers on the bed back, Ben nearly fainted at the sight of her shapely bottom and the hint of vaginal lips peeking out between her legs. He was going to be inside her…soon. Not soon enough.
“Wow,” he said as he stared at her body.
“Wow?”
“I mean, you have a tattoo. I didn’t know that,” Ben said.
She turned her back to him.
“Oh, that’s my bumblebee. Had him for a couple years,” she said, pointing out the tattoo on the back of her left shoulder. “He’s the mascot for the Miss Bea Haven column.”
Ben started to say “I know,” but then he remembered she didn’t know he obsessively read her column. He wasn’t sure if she’d find it flattering or creepy that at least once a week he’d read her articles and masturbate to the images they conjured in his mind. Seeing her naked right now in front of him live and in living color put all his fantasies to shame. He’d forgotten how beautiful she was. He’d never forget again.
Ben started to strip out of his suit. He’d left his suit jacket in his hotel room so he only had to remove his tie, Oxford shirt, belt, shoes, socks, pants and boxer briefs.
“Dammit, I hate clothes,” he said as he yanked at his tie.
“I like them,” Beatriz said as she came to stand in front of him. She pushed his hands aside and started unbuttoning his shirt for him. “You look good in grown-up clothes.”
“I had a meeting this morning with the big bosses. I’m usually a jeans and T-shirt guy.”
“I remember. I loved your jeans. Remember that pair with the big hole in the right knee?”
“My lucky jeans.”
“Those were my favorite. I always wondered how far I could reach if I slipped my arm in that hole.”
“You dreamed of fisting my pants?”
“More like spelunking.” She pulled his shirt off and laid it over the back of an armchair. He watched her as she unbuckled his belt, unzipped his pants. She had the most perfect light brown nipples. He couldn’t wait to get his mouth on them, his fingers. He raised a hand and gently cupped her right breast. She looked up at him.
“Is that not okay?” he asked. He pulled his hand away. She smiled again.
“Of course it’s okay. We’re about to have sex. But we should probably go over what the book says before we get started.”
“Right. Sure. The book.” That’s why they were doing this. The book. The book and his penis. Those two reasons. The book, his penis, her vagina—three reasons really. The book, his penis, her vagina, her breasts, her face, her smile, her perfect ass, her laugh, her lips, her hands that were now taking his pants off…He lost count of how many reasons they were doing this. He decided “infinity” would cover them all. “Is kissing…Is that okay? Or is this just—”
“You’re not a john and I’m not a prostitute. Yes, we can kiss if you want. We’re not going to get very far if you don’t have an erection. So feel free to do whatever sort of foreplay you like.”
“I think we’re going to be okay on erections.”
“I can see that,” she said as she pushed his boxer briefs down his legs and eyed him.
“Is it…Am I…” Ben took a breath.
“Ben, are you nervous?”
“No, of course not,” he said as Beatriz walked back to the bed and picked up the book. He ripped his socks off and followed her. “I have sex all the time. I had sex…recently.” By recently he meant a couple months ago. He’d had a single fling after he and Katie broke up. Nothing since, but only because he’d sworn off women for a year. “I’m a sex haver.”
“I didn’t think you were a virgin. I remember college.”
He grinned. “I’ve just never had sex that someone’s going to write about and publish. Kind of makes you self-conscious. You know, about things.”
“Things?”
“Like my penis. I mean, cock. What word does the book use?”
“All of them. Your penis/cock/dick/staff of manhood is fantastic. Very good size and super sexy. It’s not even inside me yet, and I give it five bees.”
“I have a five-bee penis?”
Bea always rated her sex toys on a one-to-five-bees scale. The more bees the better.
“For aesthetics. We’ll have to try it out to see how it works.”
“It works. I promise it works.”
“Good. Let’s start with chapter two. It goes through some modifications of missionary position. Sit. Read. I’ll get the lube and condoms.”
“Lube?”
“Yes, lube. I’m wet but a little extra wetness never hurt. We’re going to have a lot of sex this week. I don’t want either of us getting chafed.”
“True, true. I lub lube. I mean, love.” He sat down and opened THE MANUAL to the page Bea had marked with a pink Post-it note and read.
Modified Missionary OR This Ain’t Your Grandma’s Wedding Night.
“We may need to deduct a bee for the mention of my grandmother,” Ben said.
“Good point.” Beatriz scribbled a note on a piece of paper that lay by the bed.
“You actually wrote that down?”
“Sure,” she said. “This is a book for partners. It has to work for both partners. I thought it was cute, but you thought referring to your grandmother’s sex life was…”
“Unnerving,” he said.
Beatriz wrote the word down. He kept reading.
Missionary position gets its name from the fact that missionaries in foreign lands would instruct the natives that the only God-sanctioned position for sexual intercourse was with the woman on her back and the man facing her on top. No wonder missionaries were often slaughtered by the natives….
Ben chuckled.
“Okay, I’m giving it the bee back.”
“Keep reading,” Beatriz said as she sat on the bed and opened her legs. She flipped a bottle of lube open and applied a thin coating to her inner lips and inside her vagina. Ben stopped reading. He also stopped breathing.
“I can’t read while you’re doing that. Your vagina has rendered me illiterate.”
Beatriz rolled her eyes, wiped her hands on a tissue and grabbed the book from him.
“It says,” she said as she lay on the bed, her head propped up on two pillows, “that one of the more popular versions of modified missionary position is the butterfly. So we should try that one.”
“A bee doing a butterfly? Is that even legal?”
“I’m sure it’s legal. But might be dangerous. At least for the butterfly.” Beatriz turned a page in the book. “It says I lay on my back and you stand for this one. You can either hold me up by my ass or we can put pillows under my hips to raise them.”
“Let’s go for the pillows.”
“You think I’m too heavy to lift?” she asked with a wicked gleam in her eyes.
“No, I just want my hands free to play with your boobs.”
“Good point. This position is supposed to help the man ‘give the clit the attention it deserves.’ That’s me quoting the book, by the way.”
“I like this book. It’s nice and friendly and tells me to touch your clit. I appreciate that.”
“So does my clit. Ready?”
Ben glanced down. He was more than ready.
“God, yes.”
“Alright,” Beatriz said. “Let’s do it.”
“Okay. We’re going to do this.” Ben stared down at Beatriz on the bed. “What am I doing?”
Bea laughed, a big, luxurious laugh.
“Why don’t we start with foreplay? That might make you feel more comfortable.”
“Yes, absolutely. Foreplay.” Ben crawled onto the bed and lay on his side next to Beatriz. “Sorry, I’ve never had sex like this before.”
“Like what?”
“Like with a professional who’s taking notes, and we’re preplanning everything. It’s not spontaneous.”
“Spontaneity in sex is overrated. I’m turned on already and all we’ve done is talk about the sex. Talking before can be the best foreplay. It’s really sexy to plan sex.”
“True. I like that I know what we’re doing. Usually when you’re with someone new, you have no idea what they like in bed. You start off in one position and you never know if that’s her favorite or least favorite. Takes the pressure off a little to know ahead of time what the plan is.”
“I’ll let you pick the next position,” Beatriz promised.
“I love this plan. I’m going to kiss you now. Are you ready?” Ben asked.
Beatriz closed her eyes and took a deep breath. She appeared to be meditating.
“I’m ready.” She opened her eyes. “Let’s do this.”
“Okay. Here we go.” Ben moved in closer to Beatriz and cupped the side of her face. For the past five minutes they’d been joking with each other. He did it to mask his nervousness. Impossible to think this beautiful, confident woman would be nervous. But now that the joking had stopped, his nervousness faded entirely. The only right thing to do at this very moment was kiss her.
And he did.
Their lips met and at first Ben held back. They’d only kissed once before, the night they’d met and he’d shown her around campus. That had been a quick kiss, a mere promise of things to come. If he’d known it would be five years before he kissed her again, he never would have stopped that night.
She opened her mouth against his and he deepened the kiss. She tasted sweet and tart, like she’d been drinking orange juice. He pulled up and smiled down at her.
“Mimosa?” he asked.
“Blame Claudia,” she sighed. “Do I need to go brush my teeth?”
He shook his head. “No. You taste amazing.” Ben traced her bottom lip with his thumb. “Absolutely amazing.”
Again they kissed, harder this time, heavier. Ben pulled Beatriz under him. He cupped the back of her head and kissed her neck and ears. His erection ground against her hip and she moved against him.
“Is everything okay to do?” he whispered. “Touching and kissing?”
“Anything you want,” she said, equally breathless.
He kissed a path down the center of her chest and took her right nipple in his mouth. Beatriz weaved her fingers through his hair and arched her back.
“Nipple sucking…” Beatriz said, her voice low and heated, “is the greatest thing ever invented.”
“You like it?” He paused long enough to smile up at her.
“Love it. Don’t stop.”
“Sorry.” He kissed her right nipple again and teased it with his tongue. He held her left breast in his hand, squeezing it gently as his thumb stroked the nipple. Beatriz placed her arms over her head to give him full and unfettered access to the front of her body. He rose up on his hands and knees over her and took her left breast into his mouth as his right hand roamed down her stomach and settled between her thighs. She opened her legs and he easily found her swollen clitoris with his fingertips.
Beatriz flinched and smiled.
“Did I do something right?” he asked.
“Very right. Keep doing it.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
He kneaded her clitoris with his fingers, watching as Beatriz moved her hips in conjunction with his touch. He loved the way she moved, like a dancer—strong and graceful and fearless.
“Can I go inside you?” Ben asked as he ran his fingertips along the wet seam of her vaginal lips.
“That’s why we’re here,” she said with a seductive smile.
She spread her legs even wider, and Ben slid two fingers into her. Her slick passage offered no resistance as he pushed in as deep as he could.
“God, you feel as good as I dreamed you would.” He probed inside her with his fingers, reveling in her incredible heat, her softness, the fluttering of her taut inner muscles.
“You dreamed of me?”
“All the time,” he confessed. “I wanted you so much. It nearly killed me to back away from you. And then Claudia told me about your blog…” he said before he realized he’d just admitting to reading her sex toy reviews.
He pushed a third finger into her. Her body opened up further to receive it. He massaged her inside, in no hurry to do anything but get to know her vagina on the most intimate of terms.
“You read the Miss Bea Haven column?” She sounded pleasantly surprised, almost flattered.
“Of course not. A column where the sexiest woman on earth pleasures herself with sex toys and then writes about it? Gross.”
Beatriz laughed and Ben grinned as her vaginal muscles twitched around his fingers.
“Did you pleasure yourself while reading about me pleasuring myself?”
“Masturbate? Me?” Ben asked, feigning innocence. “Never. That’s disgusting.”
“If you masturbated while reading about me masturbating I might have to masturbate while imagining you masturbating about me masturbating.”
“Or we could just skip the masturbating and fuck each other.”
“Better idea,” Beatriz agreed.
Almost reluctantly Ben pulled his fingers out of Beatriz. He could have touched her inside all night. But they had a job to do. The best job in the history of the universe, specifically.
Ben started to pull away from her, but Beatriz stopped him with a hand on the one part of his body certain to stop him from moving a muscle.
“My turn,” she said, stroking him. “You touched me. Now I get to touch you.”
“That’s entirely fair,” Ben said as he rolled onto his back. Beatriz moved her hand slowly over his inches, caressing him over and over again from base to tip.
“Does this feel good?” she asked.
“So fucking good. I like having the underside touched especially.”
“Which side is that?”
“The top side,” he said, taking her hand by the wrist and showing her his favorite way to be touched.
“But that’s the outside.”
“Only when I’m hard. It’s the underside when I’m not.”
“Why would I give a hand job to a guy who wasn’t turned on?”
“Impossible. If you were touching him, he’d always be hard,” Ben said, turning his head to kiss her. Her hand on his cock made every muscle in his stomach and lower back tighten like a coiled spring.
Beatriz laughed against his lips as she wrapped her hand tightly around him and pulled. He groaned in the back of his throat.
“If you keep doing that I’ll come in your hand,” Ben warned.
“Oh, no. Anything but that.”
“I thought we were doing the butterfly.”
“We are. But I like getting to know your body.”
“It is beyond pleased to make your acquaintance.”
Beatriz finally released him. Good timing, too, as he was getting precariously close to orgasm. She slid on top of him and put her hands on either side of his head.
She dipped her head and kissed his lips while he brushed her long dark hair over her sculpted shoulders.
“Are you ready to be inside me?” she asked.
She asked the question with sincerity, and he answered with equal sincerity while looking into her eyes.
“Yes.”
He kissed her and held her close a moment. He couldn’t believe it was finally happening. For years she’d been the one who got away and now here she was, in his arms, waiting for him to make love to her.
No. Stop. This was just sex, Ben reminded himself. Beatriz had even called it work. He shouldn’t get all wrapped up emotionally in this. Sex. Fucking. Just that.
He almost convinced himself. Almost.
She moved off him and Ben slowly stood up. He rolled on a condom while Beatriz lined up her hips with the end of the bed and put two pillows under her pelvis.
“Stand right there,” she said, pointing at the floor. “I need to put my ankles on your shoulders. Sorry if my feet smell weird.”
Ben took her ankles in his hands.
“Horrible. Can’t even breathe,” he said before turning and kissing the top of her right foot.
“Okay, whenever you’re ready, I’m ready,” she said as she scooted an inch closer to the end of the bed. He looked down at her, at the absolute splendor of her nakedness, her breasts and hard nipples, her soft flat stomach and rounded hips, her hair against the sheets, black on white. He took his erection in his hand and guided it to the opening of her vagina.
Slowly he eased into her, wanting to relish every second of this moment, of this first penetration. He slid in until his hips were flush against her bottom and he felt the hard stop of her cervix barring him from going any deeper.
Closing his eyes, he took a few deep heavy breaths to calm himself. He opened them and saw Beatriz looking up at him.
“You’re smiling,” he said.
“You’re inside me.”
“That’s why I’m smiling, too. Does it feel okay?”
She nodded. “Deep. It feels really deep.” She lifted her hips and he bumped against her cervix again.
“Too deep? I can pull out.”
“Try thrusting. We’ll see how it feels.”
He pulled out and pushed back in again. He’d never seen anything sexier in his life than the sight of his cock moving in and out of Beatriz. Her wetness coated him, her heat consumed him. He ran his hands up and down her long legs. He found her clitoris again and teased it with a single fingertip. The combination of penetration and clitoral stimulation seemed to do magical things to Beatriz. Her fingers clutched the sheets and her hips moved up and down his penis. He barely had to move now. She did most of the work.
“Good?” he asked.
“So good. Can you hand me my phone?”
“What?”
“My phone. By the bed. Can you reach it?”
He could reach it, easily. He handed it to her and she tapped on the screen.
“Sorry,” she said. “Part of the job.”
“Are you texting somebody while we’re having sex?”
“Notes,” she said. “Just takes a second.”
“This is for the review?”
“Posterity demands it.” She tossed her phone aside and smiled up at him. “Seriously. Sorry about that. I should have warned you.”
“What did you write?”
“Just notes.”
“Bea…”
She took a quick breath.
“I wrote that this position is highly recommended for lights-on sex as you get to see your partner’s amazing body in all its glory.”
“I noticed that. You look incredible.”
“I was talking about you,” she said.
Ben started to say something funny, something snarky, then stopped himself. Nothing came out except a grinning, slightly sheepish “Thank you.”
Beatriz said nothing to his “thank you,” only continued to gaze at him with eyes glowing with heated desire.
“There’s another note you should make,” he said. “For the guy, this position is awesome because he can watch himself moving in and out of her. I mean, you. I mean, I can see all of you, and it’s sexy as hell.”
“Really?” she asked.
“Seriously. I can’t stop looking.”
Beatriz picked up her phone again, tapped a few buttons and then handed it to him.
“Take a pic,” she said. “It’ll last longer.”
He stared at her. “Are you serious?”
“You think only men love porn?” she asked. “The pic is for me. If you’re lucky, I might email it to you.”
“I’m inside you. I am officially the luckiest man on the planet.”
He took her phone and snapped a few quick pictures of their bodies joined together. He gave her the phone back and she tossed it aside.
“Make me come, and I’ll send it to you,” she said.
“Challenge accepted.”
He started to thrust with intensity again. He couldn’t get enough of fucking her.
He rubbed her clitoris as he pushed into her harder and faster. Beatriz closed her eyes. She seemed to lose herself in the pleasure of the moment, running her hands down her stomach, cupping her own breasts, lifting them, pinching her nipples and moaning in breathless little pants. He increased the speed and pressure of his ministrations to her clitoris, a move that caused Beatriz to gasp loudly. Her body went stiff for a moment before she released a loud, lusty cry. Her vagina spasmed with her climax all around Ben’s still thrusting length.
Beatriz took a few calming breaths.
“Okay,” she said, still panting. “Your turn.”
Ben kissed her calf.
“Is it cheating if I get on my knees? I’m not sure I can come in this position.” He had to concentrate so hard on keeping her legs on his shoulders that he doubted he could focus enough to orgasm while both standing and holding her legs up.
“You can do whatever you want. The butterfly position has been tried, tested and woman-approved.”
Laughing, Ben pushed Beatriz back on the bed so he could kneel on the mattress. He lowered her legs down to either side of him and held her hips.
“This position is called the Anvil according to the book.” Beatriz grabbed the book lying on the bed and flipped it open.
“The Anvil?”
“Don’t ask. It makes no sense to me either.” She flashed him a picture of a couple having sex in the same position they were in—woman on her back, man on his knees, her ankles on his shoulders. She tossed the book aside and adjusted her legs. “Thanks for the orgasm. I guess I owe you a picture.”
“You’re even sexier when you’re coming,” Ben said as he put his whole body into his thrusts.
“I want to see you come.”
“You will. I’m so close. I love fucking you.”
“Good. I’ll need you to do it again tomorrow.”
“Call my secretary. We’ll see if I can fit you into my schedule.” He winked at her. Neither Heaven nor Hell nor pre-wedding festivities was going to keep him out of Beatriz’s bed and body this week.
Ben took Beatriz’s breasts in his hands and held them while he moved against her and inside her and with her. She’d already had her orgasm, but she still moved, raising her hips to meet his thrusts, coaxing him on and on. He lost himself inside her, lost all self-consciousness, all nervousness, all fear. Their bodies merged seamlessly. He belonged inside her. Long, slow strokes turned into sharp, hard, fast thrusts. He pounded into her shamelessly, mercilessly, her hungry sounds of pleasure driving out any fear that she wasn’t enjoying this as much as he was. On his knees over her with his hands on her breasts, Ben came with a guttural grunt that did no justice to the incredible pleasure of the orgasm that shot through him from neck to knees.
He collapsed on top of Beatriz and rolled them onto their sides. For a long time they merely lay together in a tangle of arms and legs as they tried to catch their breath.
Ben felt a sense of peace, of perfect happiness coming over him. They had only this week together and he was determined to spend every free second inside her.
“So…” he said at last as Beatriz stretched out next to him, her thigh over his stomach, her head on his chest where it belonged.
“So?”
“That was chapter two?”
“Chapter two,” she said.
“How many chapters are in this book?”
“Twenty.”
“Wedding’s in five days. Twenty chapters. Four chapters a day.”
“We can skip some.”
He shook his head.
“Oh, no, if we’re going to review this book, we’re going to review it right.”
Beatriz laughed and laid her head back on his chest.
“I love my job.”