When he laughs in response it’s nearly my undoing.
Here’s my problem. This doesn’t happen. First sex with someone is awkward and you take turns and try to work out each other’s likes and dislikes. There’s no simultaneous wet dirty screwing and trying to delay your orgasm. But I am. And he knows it.
“Lucy. Quit holding off.”
“I’m not,” I protest, but for my lie he increases his force. I babble a thank you.
“You’re welcome,” he tells me and angles me higher. I have no idea how he’s not tired. I will write a thank-you card to his personal trainer. If my hand can ever grip a pen again. I bite my lip. I can’t let this end. I tell him so.
“Forever, do this forever,” I beg. I’m near tears. “Don’t stop.”
“Stubborn aren’t you, Shortcake.”
“I can’t let this end. Please, Josh. Please, please, please . . .”
He presses his cheek against my calf in such a sweetly affectionate gesture.
“It won’t end,” he tells me.
I can see he’s starting to lose himself a little. His eyes are lit in a bright haze, and I see him raise them to the ceiling, praying for something. His gorgeous skin is glowing gold in the lamplight.
It’s a smooth, deep rolling thrust like any of the others, but I break.
It’s not a sweet, tame thing sweeping over me. My teeth snap together, I grip on to him and wring myself out. The anguished sound I make probably wakes every single person in the hotel, but I can’t hold it in. It’s violent. I nearly kick him in the jaw but he grabs my foot and holds on to me. The pleasure boils over, my body twists, squeezes, shakes me out, and I’m out-of-my-mind crazy for Joshua Templeman. He’s right. This will not be enough. I need days of this. Weeks. Years. Millions of years.
I’m falling, completely falling, and I look up as he falls too.
He leans down against my leg and I feel him shaking in release. He looks down at me, eyes suddenly shy, and I raise my hand to stroke his cheek.
He lowers me down carefully. I can’t imagine how I’ll let him go. I wrap my arms around his shoulders and press my mouth to his eyebrow and my chest has a cleaned-out feeling like I’ve run a few miles. He must feel like he’s done a triathlon.
He looks up at me. “How You Doing?” he whispers softly.
“I’m a ghost. I’m dead.”
“I didn’t know I was lethal,” he says and begins to pull away from me, achingly slowly. I beg and plead and say, No, no, no. I’m an addict, completely hooked, already wanting my next fix while the current one is still running brightly through my veins. My body tries to hold on to him but he kisses my forehead and apologizes.
“I’m sorry, I gotta,” he says and walks away into the bathroom. I watch his backside and drop back into the pillows.
Best sex of my entire life. Best backside I have ever seen.
“Is that a fact?” he says from the other room. Seems I said it aloud.
I lay my forearm over my eyes and try to regulate my breathing. I feel the mattress dip and he pulls the blankets up over my chilling skin, and turns off the lamp.
“Now you’re going to be unbearable. But goddamn, Josh. Goddamn.” I’m slurring.
“Goddamn, yourself,” he says, and I’m tugged into the cradle of his arms. I press my cheek against him, delighting in his sweat.
“Let’s work out a game plan for when we wake up. I can’t handle it if you go weird on me.”
“We’ll say good morning politely, then we’ll do it again.” I sound like I’ve had a stroke. I fall asleep with my ear pressed to his chest, listening to him laugh.
I SOMEHOW SURVIVE until morning. I’m washing my hands when I glance up at the mirror.
“Oh, shit.”
“What?”
I open the door a crack. The room is dimly lit by strobes of light through the heavy curtains.
“I forgot to take off my makeup. I look like Alice Cooper again.”
My eye makeup is smudged black and it makes my eyes look milky-blue and lurid.
“Again? You’ve looked like Alice Cooper before?”
“Yeah, the morning after I was sick, I nearly screamed when I saw myself.” I brush my teeth and get my hair into a bun.
“I like you when you look a little wrecked.”
“Well, you’d like me right now then.”
I’m in the shower and trying in vain to get the tiny packet of soap open when I hear the door creak and he’s joining me, calmly, like we do this every day. Lust electrifies me; the strangest mix of joy and fear.
“It’s a Shortcake-sized soap,” he comments, taking it from me and biting the package. He pinches the little coin of soap out and holds it up between forefinger and thumb.
“I am going to enjoy this.”
I am so dazzled by the sight of his velvety gold skin being streaked with water I can’t do anything for a few minutes except stare, my tongue peeking out the corner of my mouth like a hungry dog. The water channels down between each muscle, before overflowing and sheening the flat planes.
The shading of hair begins in the center of his chest, fanning outward to his nipples, and moving downward in a thin line toward his navel. After being bombarded with a million billboards of shiny men in their underwear, I nearly forgot men have hair. I follow the water down, the thicker hair, the imposing jut of his erection. All of it wet. Beautifully veined, enough to make my knees lose their strength. He was inside me. I need it again. I need it so many times I lose count.
“You are . . .” I shake my head. I have to close my eyes, to remember how to speak English. He’s too much. I can’t have possibly captured this big golden creature inside a glass hotel shower, and he’s looking at me with those eyes I love so much.
“Oh, no, I’m hideous,” he whispers, mock tragic, and I feel the soap press against my collarbone. It starts to swirl in a little circle, sticky then slick.
“My personal trainer was so sure this disguise would help with women. What a fucking waste of time and energy.”
I drag my eyes open, and they must look like I’ve been in an opium den because he laughs.
I press my thumb into the smile line on his cheek. “You’re gorgeous. Beautiful. I can’t believe you.”
I back away until I’m pressed against the tiles, to get a better view, and now it’s his turn to look at every wet inch of me. My arms ache with the effort it takes to not cover myself. His perfect muscles make me look very squishy in comparison. His eyes darken as he looks at me from head to toe.
“Get over here,” he says faintly. I take his hand when he holds it out.
What a way to start the day. Showering with my colleague and nemesis.
As soon as the thought materializes, I know it’s so outdated I can’t keep lying to myself. He tugs me away from the freezing tile and faces me toward the spray, rechecking the temperature before he pushes me under. Then he puts his arms around me from behind and gives me what can only be described as a cuddle. I press back firmer against his arousal to feel him groan.
“How You Doing? Not weird? Freaking out?” He smoothes lather under my breasts, down my ribs. He lifts my arm to inspect it, and we compare hand sizes.
“No, I’m fine. How come we don’t have to worry about you getting weird? Most girls have to worry about guys making up an early-morning training session so they can escape. And in this case it’s not implausible.”
“I’ve been ready for this for a lot longer than you have,” he says. He seems to know I don’t want to get my hair wet, and turns us a little. His slippery hands coast along my hips.
“Oh.”
“Yes.”
“How long?”
“A very long time.”
“I never guessed.”
“I’m very secretive.” He is gently amused.
I capture the soap, which is fast on its way to becoming a translucent sliver. I stick it to my palm, and it gives me a good excuse to stroke over his body, while his tongue licks at the water droplets on my jaw.