The hot ash end fell right in my lap. “Shit, shit! Fuck!”
Unbothered by me and my jumping hysteria, she slid her hands to her throat as she breathed and rode from one end of her climactic wave to the other.
I put out the burning end and stared. She was magnificence in one tiny, confident package. Something deep in my chest ached to tether itself to her and this moment.
Her head came forward, and her eyes came to mine—and then she stalked me.
I couldn’t do anything more than sit there as she leaned into my body and put her lips to mine. Not deep, not inviting—just a teasing touch.
“That,” she declared as she pulled back, smug satisfaction written in every line of her face. “Was a sexual act just because I felt like it.”
My head jerked.
“Sex can be just sex.”
She found solace in her decree, but all I found were lies. Lies to cover all of the things she was actually feeling, and lies to make herself feel validated again. Lies to find truth in all of the things she spent her time telling the people who read her column. Lies to find truth in all the discrediting things about our relationship she was telling herself.
My eyes narrowed as she backed away and picked up her clothes, donning them in order.
When I finally got my voice back, she was at the door.
“You’re wrong,” I told her, my voice steady as a steel beam.
She turned, one eyebrow raised in question.
“That was our most emotional experience yet.”
“It wasn’t,” she protested easily, turning the knob, but I crossed the room quickly and stopped her with a hand on the door and my chest at her back.
Lips to her ear, I said everything she already knew. “It was.” It was trust and intimacy, and it was both of those things on a level most people are never blessed enough to comprehend. “And, Lo?”
She turned only slightly to look me in the eye.
“It’s just the fucking beginning.”
Things were falling apart.
They were doing it in an orderly fashion, following the goddamn story arc like they were supposed to, but in no way was the conclusion coming together like I’d planned.
First, I’d thought if I fucked Reed that my need to want to fuck him would go away.
But I had fucked him.
And I still wanted to fuck him. Again. And again. And again. Although, I doubt it could still be considered just fucking when I liked him as much as I did. I was starting to agree with him, for fuck’s sake.
As a means to combat these very uncomfortable feelings, I’d had the brilliant plan to play a little game of show-and-tell with no verbal telling whatsoever. I’d just shown him how well-versed I was in the act of masturbation in the name of proving to him that sex really could be just sex. I’d thought it would make me feel better. I would be victorious. And I wouldn’t want to cuddle and gab like a couple of lovesick fools after sliding down his body like a fire pole.
So, I had diddled and I’d strummed and I’d finger-fucked myself in front of him. Unfortunately, the instant the waves of my climax had subsided, my plan went up in forest fire-sized flames. I’d put on a good face, put my clothes back on, and headed home, but I couldn’t stop thinking about the way he’d looked—fucking enraptured as he watched my exhibition with hooded, heated eyes. The way his breath had caught as my hips swayed and my fingers slid down past my belly. Mostly, the way his electric gaze hadn’t objectified me but took me in, savored, appreciated. I’d never felt the way Reed made me feel—not even close.
And now, I was still thinking about him while doing laundry in the basement of my apartment complex.
I was starting to see a theme.
I couldn’t fuck or finger-bang him out of my head. Not to mention, I still couldn’t wrap my mind around his words: “That was our most emotional experience yet.”
I tossed a purple bra into the designated “colors” basket and leaned a hip against the washer. My gaze might have been scanning down the rows of washers and dryers, but my mind was fixated on trying to dissect his words.
Our most emotional experience yet?
I mean…we hadn’t had sex. Hell, he’d stayed completely dressed and just watched my little show from his desk chair.
At your command, my mind reminded me. I told it to shut up.
I might as well have been alone in my apartment. It was merely a one-woman show that just so happened to have an audience…Right?
Once my laundry was successfully separated, I poured detergent into the washer and filled it with a load of whites. I slid my laundry card into the machine, adjusted the settings, and hit the start button.
I focused my mind on the simple task of filling three more washers with my dirty clothes. This was why it was brilliant to do laundry at midnight. No one else was down here, and I could hog four washers at one time without getting the stink-eye from the other tenants in my building.