shower, this part of him always smelled and tasted different from, say, an elbow or a chin. His cock, lower belly and inner thighs all maintained a deliciousness I could only describe as male. And unique. Blindfolded I might have faltered at identifying him by the slope of his nose or bulge of muscles, but that smell and taste would prove him to be mine every time.
“If I were in a dark room full of naked men and had to find you, I could,” I murmured before sliding my mouth over his erection.
“Do you often fantasize about being in a room full of naked men, Anne?” James lifted his hips to push inside my mouth. I curled my fingers tighter around the base of his prick to keep him from surging too far.
“No.”
His laugh was brief, breathless. “No? Never? That’s not your fantasy?”
“What would I do with a room full of naked men?”
He sighed as I sucked him. I cupped his balls, soft, and stroked my thumb along the tender seam in his flesh. “They could … do things … to you ….”
I used my mouth and hand in tandem until he groaned aloud, then stroked him up and down and gave my jaw a rest. “No. I’m a maximum two-input girl, James. All those men would just go to waste.”
I put my mouth back on him, taking him in as far as I could go. His cock throbbed against my tongue. Silky precome mixed with my saliva and made him slippery. Easy to stroke. Easy to suck.
James put a hand to my hip and tugged me gently, until I spun without taking my mouth off him so I straddled his face. It was my turn to moan when he gripped my ass and pulled my clit onto his tongue. He flicked me lightly with the tip. In this position I could control how close or far my body got to his. I could hover over his lips and tongue, move my pelvis, stroke myself along his mouth.
I loved it.
My orgasm rose fast. It became difficult to concentrate on sucking him while he licked me. We got a little sloppy. I don’t think either of us cared. We both came within seconds of each other, our cries mingling in the dark. After, when I’d turned around and lolled in sated content on my pillow, I noticed the air had grown cool enough I wanted to be under the blankets.
I pulled them up over both of us, though James was breathing in the just-about-to-snore way I found alternatingly endearing and excruciating, depending on how tired I was. He snorted into his pillow. I lay back, tired but not quite ready to sleep.
“What did you fight about?” I whispered into the darkness hanging between us.
The sound of his breathing changed. An indrawn breath. Silence. James didn’t answer and after a few moments, I forgot to ask again, so taken up was I in dreams.
Things changed, as they are apt to do, without warning. I’d spent the morning running errands, and I was playing reluctant hostess that evening to James’s family, all of them. Parents, spouses, nieces and nephews. I planned something simple, grilled chicken and salad, fresh rolls. Watermelon and brownies for dessert.
The brownies were ruining my life.
The recipe seemed simple enough. Good quality chocolate, flour, eggs, sugar, butter. I had all the right tools for the job, as James would have said with utter seriousness. I even had the skill, though perhaps not the talent. Yet for some reason, I was thwarted at every turn. My microwave refused to melt the chocolate without scorching it. The butter splattered and burned me when, forewarned by the chocolate disaster, I tried melting it on the stovetop. One egg had a blood spot, the other the bonus of a double yolk that would have been a lovely surprise in an omelet but messed up this recipe.
A glance at the clock showed the hour I’d set aside for this project had already stretched longer than that. This made me tense. I don’t like being late. I don’t like being unprepared. I don’t like being less than perfect.
I’d opened all the windows and turned on the ceiling fans, because I preferred a breeze to the noise and sterile chill of our stuttering air conditioner. The kitchen smelled good, like marinade and melted fat and baking bread, but it was hot. Chocolate stained my white shirt and the front of my denim skirt. My hair, unruly on its best days, had gone berserk and hung in tangled corkscrews past my shoulders. Sweat trickled down my back, tickling.
I’d forgotten to buy salad dressing, but no time for that now. I’d have to whip up something from scratch. No time, either, for the soak in the tub I’d planned as advance reward for serving dinner to the horde. I didn’t care if that meant my knees would stay stubbled, but I’d been looking forward to the scent of lavender and half an hour of silence. Now if I was lucky I might squeeze in a quick scrub in the shower before changing my clothes. The way things were going, I’d have to just give myself a wipe down with a washcloth and hope for the best.
Right. Brownies. I had only one package left of the gourmet chocolate chips. If I messed up again, we’d be eating stale sandwich cookies for dessert. I set the package on the counter and poured the butter from the double boiler into the mixing bowl. One step at a time.
I stirred carefully. I re-read the instructions. I lifted the bowl to swirl the melted butter and eggs together, just like the book said.
“Hello, Anne.”
Warm butter sloshed and the mixing spoon clattered to the kitchen floor. My heart stopped, my breath stopped, my mind, for one terrified moment, stopped. Like a movie put on Pause, then clicked to Fast-Forward, I jerked back to life.
I’d screamed. How embarrassing. Turning, I released my death clutch on the bowl and set it on the counter with a small clang.
The first time I saw Alex Kennedy, it was with the thud-thud of my fast-beating heart still pounding in my ears and throat. He stood in the kitchen doorway, one hand on the doorjamb at a point high enough to stretch his lean body. He leaned slightly forward, one foot balancing his entire weight while the other leg bent as if I’d caught him in the act of taking a step. I saw faded jeans, low-slung but with a black leather belt holding them snug on his hips. A white T-shirt. Very James Dean, though instead of a red cloth jacket he had a black leather coat tucked into the hook made by his hand shoved into his front pocket. He wore sunglasses, and the big dark lenses covered most of his face.
It was a picture-perfect moment, like something out of a movie, and for a moment we merely stood and stared at each other like we were waiting for an unseen director to shout “Action!” Alex moved first. The hand came off the doorjamb, the other eased itself from his pocket and grabbed the coat before it could fall. He finished his step, entering my kitchen like he’d always been there.
“Hi.” He said this looking around the room over the top of his dark glasses before he looked back at me. “Anne.”
He didn’t make it a question. James had said he was smart. Who else would I be? He didn’t introduce himself, either, a fact that could be taken as arrogance or nonchalance, or simple understanding that though he didn’t know me well enough to know it, I was smart, too.
“Alex.” I moved around the kitchen’s center island, toward him. Streaks and mess coated my hands, so I didn’t offer one. “Wow. I’m sorry, I wasn’t expecting you.”
He smiled. It’s a cliché to say it took my breath away, but all clichés began as truth, or else nobody would be able to relate to them. His mouth, full soft lips, quirked on one side. He took off his glasses. The eyes beneath were dark and could only be described as languid—lazy, rich, slow. Deep. Alex had eyes that meant something important, if only I could figure out what it was.
“Yeah, sorry about that. I rang Jamie’s cell and he said to head on over. He said he’d call you. I guess he didn’t.” His voice, too, was slow and deep. Bemused.
I laughed, rueful. “He didn’t.”
“Bastard.” Alex slung his jacket over the back of one of the high-backed chairs at the breakfast table and hooked both thumbs in his pockets. “Something smells good.”
“Oh … I’m baking bread.” I grabbed a dishtowel and wiped my hands