Mister O

“But what?” I ask, because I’m dying to know what comes after that.

She takes a breath, purses her lips together, then speaks. “I was a virgin until I was twenty. I’ve only had sex with two guys, and none of it was very memorable. None of it was on a counter, or the dryer, or even in a hotel bed,” she says, patting the mattress.

Maybe it’s the dark of the night, maybe it’s her, maybe it’s just that the only thing better than having hot sex with the woman you want is talking about hot sex with the woman you want. Or, just possibly, it’s that she’s opening up to me for real now. Perhaps that’s why I open up to her.

“I was twenty the first time I had sex,” I say, serving up a detail I don’t share with many people, because it’s personal.

Instantly, her eyes widen. “Are you serious?”

“No, I’m lying,” I say sarcastically.

She pushes my shoulders, nearly toppling me on the bed. “Stop it. I want to know the truth.”

“I was a sophomore in college when I finally ditched the V-card.”

“You were a late bloomer,” she says softly, something like wonder in her voice.

“Girls were a complete mystery to me before then. I didn’t know how to act around them, or what to say. Sort of how you feel sometimes, too.” I realize that maybe Harper and I aren’t that different. I just got over my awkwardness around the opposite sex well before she did.

She gives me a sweet smile. “I guess we do have that in common. Among many other things,” she says, and my chest heats up as she inches closer. “Was she a sophomore, too?”

I shake my head and laugh. “No. She was a grad student. She was the teaching assistant in my animation class.”

Her eyes turn into moons. “Did she teach you everything you know?”

I reflect on her question, and the answer is a big no. But she started my education in women. She was instrumental in showing me the ropes, and telling me every little thing that drove her crazy. I was a good student. I followed her directions, and it was the best damn class I ever took. Any guy who thinks he automatically knows how to please a woman is a conceited ass. Every woman is one of a kind. Every woman has her own titillations and turn-ons. From my teaching assistant, I learned the foundation—how to listen to a woman’s cues, how to give her what she needs, how to make her want more and more.

I don’t say that to Harper. I liked the conversation better when it was about us. “How would you feel if we stopped talking about other women?” I ask, echoing her sentiment from the train on the ride here. “I’d rather talk about what we just did, and what other things I can do to you.”

She swallows and takes a breath. “When I said touching your arms in Central Park was the most action I’d gotten in ages, I meant it. I haven’t done that much. But I want to, Nick. I really want to,” she says, her voice impossibly soft. “I just feel like I don’t know what I’m doing.”

I tuck my finger under her chin and lift her eyes to mine. “You were amazing, Harper. You rode me like a champion equestrian. I loved every second of it. Wait. I loved every millisecond of it.” I shake my head. “Make that every nanosecond.”

She grins, then erases the smile from her face just as quickly. “Riding you was easy. But beyond that, I want to know what feels good to you, and what you want. And I want to know what I like. I can tell you what I think I like. My God, I love looking at dirty pictures, and sexy pictures, and naughty gifs, so I think I have a good idea.”

“So you’re not curled up at night with your deck of cards after all,” I say, fixing on a look of overdone surprise as I touch her fingers. “You’re saying you’ve done a lot of one-handed computer work?”

That naughty grin returns in force, shining at full wattage. “My web history is an homage to the hottest Tumblr feeds around,” she confesses.

“I’m going to need to see that. As part of this whole dating lessons thing. I need to know exactly what you’ve been looking at. And to look at it with you.”

“That’s what I’m getting at.” She stops to take a breath, then holds her chin high. “That’s why I kept asking you what you liked, and now I want to ask you something else, since you seemed to like what we just did.”

And it clicks. It goes off like a starting gun. “Teach you. You want me to teach you,” I say, my voice raspy, full of want.

Her eyes twinkle with naughtiness. “I do.”