Double Dare(149)

I nodded towards the living room.

“Your package is the other room,” I drawled. “I dropped it as soon as the clothes came off, as soon as those jeans dropped off your bod. You always use jeans to cover yourself?”

And the brunette laughed then for real, throwing her head back, those curls a glorious mass down her back.

“The jeans were the only things I had,” she explained ruefully. “Honestly, everything’s super disorganized and shoved randomly into different containers, I probably have kitchen utensils mixed with books, it’s so messed up.”

“Well, you could have used the sheets on the bed to cover yourself,” I said, quirking an eyebrow at her. “Like a toga of sorts.”

And the girl colored again before smiling at me.

“I didn’t even think about that,” she admitted, staring at the pale yellow coverlet. “I guess I just grabbed the first thing at hand, and that happened to be my dirty jeans,” she said, pulling her mouth into a rueful grin. “Although these sheets are pretty dirty now too, I’ll have to find a spare set somewhere in the pile out there,” she sighed.

And I laughed a deep belly laugh then. These sheets were more than a little dirty, they were positively disgusting with our sex fluid. I’d come, she’d come, there were droplets of pussy juice and semen everywhere, not to mention the huge pool of sperm she’d been lapping not minutes before.

But there were more important things than laundry to think about now, so I tried to get to know her a bit despite the fact that we’d just fucked each other silly.

“So, where you from?” I asked casually. This was a pretty common question, no one was actually from New York and I didn’t think it’d set off any warning bells.

But this girl was different.

“Um, the Upper East Side,” she hedged, not looking at me.

Okay, that was fine. Being a rich kid from UES was no problem, you couldn’t help what you were born into. But I could tell Laurie didn’t want to talk about it, so I went in another direction instead.

“What do you do for work?” I asked again, curious about the beautiful girl. Her job obviously couldn’t pay much, this place was really small and old, although it was spic and span. But I wanted to keep things light and besides, New Yorkers always ask each other about their jobs, sometimes even sharing salary information with complete strangers.

“I work for the City,” she said softly, looking at me. “Have you heard of HRA? We administer things like SNAP and public assistance.”

Oh fuck. Ms. Holmes was a real do-gooder because HRA stands for Human Resources Administration and SNAP was the City’s name for food stamps. Laurie was definitely into helping the downtrodden.

“So how’s the job?” I asked. “You’re probably an angel at work,” I added, “So many people must appreciate you.” Because although I never talked about it, once upon a time my family had used food stamps, there’d been a few times when we didn’t have enough to eat and the extra had filled a much-needed void.

And she smiled at me then.

“I do translation work,” she explained. “There are so many people who don’t speak English but need help accessing public benefits, so I help translate signs and brochures into different languages so that we can reach all New Yorkers.”

I cocked my head at her.

“And which language do you translate into?” I asked.

She bit her lip.

“Spanish … and Mandarin Chinese,” she said.

I whistled through my teeth. Holy shit, this was one smart girl. If she’d said Spanish, I would have been duly impressed with that alone, being a one language guy myself. Shit, I barely even speak English sometimes, so Laurie was already one up on me.

But Spanish and Chinese? That was fucking impressive. The two languages are nothing alike and it only confirmed my assessment that there was a lot more to this girl than met the eye. Despite living in this humble apartment, she had to have a rich background because you can’t learn Chinese without going to some fancy immersion classes, without taking a trip to some Asian country. So I just whistled again.

“How’d you pick those languages up?” I asked. I expected the brunette to babble on and on about exotic trips abroad, how she had friends who lived in far-flung locales and went on fancy jaunts. But instead, she shook her head.

“Rosetta Stone,” she replied, referring to the tapes that any John, Dick or Harry could buy for a hundred bucks a pop. “I listened to the recordings over and over again until I was fluent.”

Now I was definitely impressed, revising my initial impression of the brunette. She’d been able to learn not one, but two languages from listening to tapes? Holy shit, that put most college students to shame. And as if reading my mind, Laurie nodded.