“Batman Beyond. Yours?”
“Old school, way before my time; Pinky and The Brain.”
“That’s classic. Okay, what’s your favorite color?” I asked, reaching over and tucking a loose strand of hair she’d missed behind her ear.
“Purple. You?”
“Blue.” And what I really meant was the insane color of her eyes. But saying that aloud wouldn’t be good. Not good at all.
“Music?” she asked.
“Classic rock,” I answered. The line of questioning continued for hours, turning and spinning into days. Every inconsequential detail of our lives—books, movies, vacations, blogs, political views, every little impersonal tidbit of information, we tossed back and forth to each other. I couldn’t honestly remember the last time I wanted to know more about a woman, or wanted to tell everything to a woman for that matter.
Each night as the sun sank below the horizon, splashing crisp, fiery colors across the sky, the questions turned more meaningful and not easily answered. I wanted, no, needed to know why a woman as brilliant as Lexa could settle for a boy like Kevin Trager? Why hadn’t she really forgiven him? What were her ambitions in life? She couldn’t want to just be a fact checker for the rest of her career. What was her childhood like? Her first kiss?
“I noticed the lack of a father figure at your Un-Wedding. What’s the story there?” I asked.
“Un-Wedding? That’s what you’re calling it?” she snorted.
I shrugged. “Just answer the question, brat.”
She poked me in the shoulder with a finger and laughed. “My father left when I was eleven. Had an affair with someone he was working with. The classic cliché affair. He’ll send a Christmas card every year, sometimes a birthday card if he remembers.” She smiled brightly, pretending it didn’t kill her to be so rejected by her own father. A low roll of tension boiled in my blood. Some men should never get the honor of having children—especially little girls—when all they’d ever end up being is jacked up sperm donors. Beyond that, now I understood her more, now it started to become clearer why she was so self-conscious.
“Doesn’t it bother you?” I asked low.
She shook her head. “It’s been so long I’m used to it already. He chose my stepmother over my mom and me. There’s nothing I could have done or said to stop it. Why let it affect me now?”
“But it does affect you.”
My words rattled her. It was easy to tell by the darkening pink of her cheeks. But she asked questions too. Uncomfortable ones.
“Why Sophia? What did you see in her?” she asked.
“Nothing, really. She was easily available. She threw herself at me one night and I just went with it. I wasn’t seeing anyone at the time, so I spent the night with her.” I rubbed at the back of my neck, ashamed and not even understanding why. “I never thought there was anything more for me. I never really felt strongly about anyone. Just sexually. I mean, I’ve dated plenty…but like Sophia said, I was always emotionally inaccessible. I’d never met anyone I wanted anything more with. I’m not opposed to the idea of relationships and marriage. I’ve never felt that way about someone before. I’m not sure I ever will. But I know I certainly didn’t feel it toward her.” I exhaled loudly and leaned back, “I always felt bad for her because I could never muster up any real feelings.”
She nodded her head slowly as she looked out over the horizon—her expression deep in thought. I watched her face carefully, wondering what she felt about my words, but she gave nothing away, just stared out across the water, impassively.
“It’s bittersweet,” she murmured, turning her head toward me and smiling tentatively. “Having these beautiful feelings for another person—the butterflies, the comfort, the wanting to spend time with someone. It’s such a breathtaking feeling. Until you taste the bitterness of them not feeling the same way back. It’s hard to let go of that breathtaking feeling. So hard.” Her eyes were wide, as if she shocked herself with her own words.
Yet I understood. I really did. Because I could already taste how bittersweet it was going to be when our time was over.
I sure as hell didn’t like the taste at all.
I leaned my phone against the lamp and angled it perfectly. I peeked at the viewfinder to see the whole room in the frame. Then I hit record. A small ding chimed and she giggled. I watched as she stood in front of the phone, biting down on her bottom lip, “I feel like there should be some raunchy music in the background.”
I hit a few buttons and a slow, sexy song filled the room. “Better?”
“Mmmm,” she purred, slowly swaying her hips to the music and sliding one strap of her dress over her shoulder. She wore her hair up in a loose twist and slowly pulled out a pin, making her hair tumble down around her face. The dark strands against her tanned skin made me think of beaches and coconut oil. She slowly turned her back toward me, peeking over the back of her shoulder, her gaze still fixed on mine. The gradual rasp of her front zipper sent waves of heat rising along my skin. The silky material of what she wore inched down her back, exposing her smooth skin. Lower and lower it dropped as she swayed her hips to the rhythm of the song. I clenched my fists tightly around the arms of the chair. I wanted them on her hips as she rode me. I wanted my cock inside her, filling her; my tongue, fingers, I wanted to crawl inside this woman and live in her blood stream.
I sat and watched her undress until I saw the small tremble of her lips. A small breath of insecurity that I wanted desperately to erase.
I lunged for her and she watched my advance with wide, hungry eyes. She needed to see how much a man could want her. After this, she’d be able to see it whenever she wanted to; all she’d have to do was press play. A reminder of the short time we had together. Fantasy Number Two: sex tape.
We fell onto the bed and she tumbled back onto the pillow, hair splayed out like a crown around her head. She watched the way I looked at her, my slow perusal of her body. She was the most stunning woman I’d ever seen. Her nipples tightened into hard peeks under my gaze, her legs rubbed against each other, and the apex of her thighs dampened with her arousal.
“You look so beautiful,” I leaned over her and whispered in her ear. “I want to do so much to your body right now.”
“Like what?” she whispered.
I shifted off the bed and dragged my messenger bag off the table. “Number seven on your list was use toys,” I said.
A small rush of breath blew from her lips and her hands grasped onto the bed sheets beneath her. “Oh, my God.”
I couldn’t help laughing. “Would you relax? It’s nothing crazy.”
“If you pull out anything with a spiked chain on it, or any gag-type apparatus or…or some other sexual torture device, I think I might run,” she vowed, trying to speak in a stern voice. The fit of giggles that completed her thought made my chest squeeze. I loved when she laughed.
“I’ll keep that in mind. Want to see what I bought you?” I asked.
She leaned up on her elbows and nodded.
“Have you ever used one?” I asked, pulling out a small bullet-shaped vibrator.
She shook her head quickly, “Not really. I tried but Kevin said it would replace him if I used it.”
“So he was jealous of a piece of plastic,” I chuckled.
“He told me he wouldn’t have to come home anymore if I bought one. He told me I should be able to come from him unless there was something wrong with me. I shouldn’t need a stupid vibrating stick.”
“And did he always make you come from his cock?”
She hesitated before speaking and looked apprehensively toward the vibrator. “I could probably count on the fingers of one hand how many times he made me come.”
“My poor girl,” I said, smiling and biting down on my lip.