44 Chapters About 4 Men (16 page)

Hoping a change in locale would inspire a little more gusto, I yanked Ken’s ass off the bed and slowly walked backward, making sultry eye contact and pulling him toward me by his hard biceps, until I was sandwiched between him and the wall. Wrapping one leg around his waist, I tilted my head back and placed his hand between my thighs, hoping he would accept the invitation to kiss and nuzzle my neck. Instead, I was caressed by a frigid blast from the air conditioner, which found plenty of space for swirling in the chasm between us.

So, there I was, throbbing and freezing and posed like a Grecian goddess on the front of a Harlequin Romance novel, while Ken was absentmindedly fiddling with my clit, staring at the reflection of the TV in a framed wedding photo just above my head. Knowing the Braves highlights were on, I even gave him the benefit of the doubt and waited a full two minutes until the sports segment was over to see if his enthusiasm would improve—it didn’t—before sending him on the vibrator mission of shame.

I should have just gotten it myself and left him alone with Bryant Gumbel. Somehow, the battery-operated appendage, coupled with Ken’s unyielding apathy, made him seem like even more of a robot. Eventually, I just gave up and retreated to the shower to brood.

Ken’s inability to show me so much as a whisper of intimacy felt like a roundhouse kick to the gut. And it made me want to roundhouse kick
him
in the nuts.

Dear Journal,

I just had an aha moment. For a solid decade, I’ve been under the impression that Ken was just tolerating my affection because he liked having a dual income.

Then, last night, during one of his particularly corpselike performances in the bedroom, I accidentally blurted out, “I feel like you’re just not into this.”

That phrase has been on the tip of my tongue since 2003.

And that’s when Ken huffed out the five words that would change my life forever, “I’m trying not to come.”

It was like a bomb exploded in the room.

Kapow!

Those five words echoed and ricocheted in my head until their meaning slowly began to emerge.

So…wait. This means that, for ten years, Ken has been lying underneath me, doing his best impersonation of someone getting a CT scan, not because he’s not into it, but because he’s
too
into it? Okay…so, this means that he
does
want to pull my hair and claw my ass and claim my mouth and grab me by my hips while he thrusts into me faster, faster, faster, but he fights the urge because he’ll come
too
quickly?

It was all coming together—no pun intended.

I thought about the mind-blowing sex we’d had in the shower a few weeks ago that lasted all of two minutes and the recent vulneraboner he’d gotten when he was sick on the couch. During both of those encounters, Ken had actually allowed himself to get into it a little bit. Have a feeling. Cop a feel. And on both occasions, he’d come pretty quickly and gotten all flustered about it.

That’s it! Holy shit, Journal! This motherfucker has been acting like a beached porpoise in the sack since the Clinton administration because he was trying to avoid that exact scenario!

The blank look on his face, the muted TV, the lifeless prone body—it’s all just been an exercise in self-control! (Only, I was the one doing all the exercising, thank you very much.) It’s like he thinks the only way he can outlast me is to pretend he’s watching a baseball game on the ceiling of a dentist’s office while being waterboarded!

Ugh! I’ve been feeling inadequate and undesirable and upset for a fucking decade over his lack of enthusiasm when the whole time he’s just been gritting his teeth and trying not to…

You know what? Now, I’m just pissed.

Maybe if this motherfucker had ever complimented me, ever said two words about his feelings, ever thought to roll up his sleeves and pleasure me
before
sex—so that when we did get down to it, he wouldn’t have to go into fucking cadaver mode and wait for me to come—ever made me feel beautiful, wanted, or remotely sexy, then I wouldn’t have spent this whole entire decade feeling like a boner-withering old toad.

Oh,
hell
no.

Maybe I should show him how it’s done…

­

Hans.

The first time I ever laid eyes on Hans Oppenheimer, he and his band, Phantom Limb, were playing to a crowd of thirty or so at a party being thrown by my friend, Goth Girl.

Goth Girl had recently dropped out of high school in order to devote more time to her burgeoning drug habit, which was being bankrolled by her much older yet equally gothy boyfriend whose house she’d just moved into.

To show off her new digs, Goth Girl threw a total rager, and just to make extra sure that the cops got called, she’d hired her friend’s heavy metal band to play in her manfriend’s living room.

I wasn’t a fan of metal—I’ve always been more of an alternative-rock kind of girl, even when I was pretending to be punk—but the band covered just enough Nine Inch Nails songs to keep me from leaving the room. And the fact that their bass player was a tall, dark drink of Heineken didn’t hurt either.

Once the band finished their set, I disappeared to the kitchen to get another beer. After freshening my Solo cup at the keg, I spun around and careened, face-first, into an unyielding wall of hot muscle and sweat. Stumbling backward, I watched in horror as half of my beer landed with a dramatic splash on the floor, just missing one of the human barricade’s massive black Adidas. Luckily, the giant reached out and grabbed my upper arms to steady me before I completely busted my ass on the keg behind me.

As my eyes made the long journey from his boat-like shoes up to his face, I took a quick mental appraisal.
Baggy black pinstriped slacks, chain wallet, slightly damp wifebeater plastered to a seriously bulbous set of six-pack abs, obviously tall as shit, seeing as how I haven’t even made it up to his face yet—

Oh my God! The fucking bass player!

Hoping he was a friendly giant, I donned my best please-don’t-hurt-me-mister smile as I continued to crane my neck the rest of the way back, finally taking in his looming face. This dude could have gotten a walk-on role as one of the bad guys in a
Die Hard
movie, no problem. His features were severe—jet-black hair violently headbanged into a mop of stabby, sweaty two-inch-long little spears, heavy Neanderthaloid brow impaled with a silver barbell on one side, and a prominent German nose. But his playful gray-blue eyes and pouty lips, which were upturned into an adorably dimpled smile, fought hard to betray his otherwise villainous appearance.

Just looking at him made me feel as though I were standing under a streetlight on a hot summer night. While he was imposingly tall and slender and dark and hard, the glow he cast down on me was nothing short of sunshine.

“Hey, kitten. Going somewhere?”

I managed to squeak out an apology, but when I went to scoot around him to get out of his way, the giant simply snickered and tucked me under his arm. Holding me firmly to his side, he wrapped his long, strong callous fingers around my shoulder and steered me back into the living room. It was a bizarre move, but for some reason, I was helpless to stop the forward progression of my steel-covered toes. It was as if I had been sucked into his cool, self-confident aura, suspended in a magical fairyland where strange men don’t rape drunk teenage girls at parties. Plus, with our height difference, my head fit perfectly under his big tattooed arm.

Mmm…

The raven-haired rocker steered me toward Goth Guy’s black leather sofa, but rather than release me to sit, he effortlessly flopped onto the couch, twisting me on the way down so that we both landed side by side, his arm never leaving my shoulders. During our descent, he also managed to maneuver me so that my legs landed across his lap—his free hand coming to rest on my thigh.

Holy shit. This fucker is good.

“So, what’s your name, Tinker Bell?”

As the dimple-cheeked devil beamed at me, I became aware that he was also nonchalantly rubbing a slow circle on my thigh with his thumb. I felt my cheeks heat with a blush that I was sure could be seen from outer space. I was sitting on the lap of quite possibly the sexiest man I’d ever encountered, and my brain chose that exact moment to forget how words worked. All it could process was heat and rhythm—heat in my face, heat where his massive hand was absentmindedly kneading my body, a virtual fire being stoked in my belly, and the tempo of his fingers strumming my thigh, which seemed to be in perfect concert with the blood thrumming between my legs just inches away.

When my brain finally registered that the expectant look on his face meant I was supposed to be answering a question, I frantically searched my recent memory for whatever the fuck it was that he’d asked me.

Something, something, Tinker Bell. Something…

Shit.

Taking a lucky guess, I blurted out, “BB?”

Why did that sound like a question? Oh God. He’s going to think I’m already drunk
.

I swallowed and tried again, forcing myself to meet his gunmetal-blue gaze. “I’m BB. Hi.”

Jesus, that was smooth.

“So, Bumblebee, why were you in there, getting your own beer? Don’t you know it’s against the rules for pretty girls to get their own drinks? You’re lucky I found you.”

He could say that again.

It was a cheesy pickup line, but the tattooed mystery man delivered it with such a flirty playfulness that I felt myself relax a little and blush even more.

I looked down and continued our conversation through my eyelashes, trying in vain to hide my hot pink cheeks. “Well, who else was gonna get it for—”

“Me,” he interrupted with an arrogant grin.

Mr. Tall, Dark, and Tattooed tilted my chin up with the hand that had been resting on my shoulder, encouraging me to look at him.

“I have a feeling I’ll be getting
all
your drinks from now on, Bumblebee.”

Squeal!

To anyone else in the room, I’m sure it probably looked like I was being glamoured by a sexy vampire who was about to dine on my jugular. This cocky stranger had absolutely no boundaries, and my inner rape whistle should have been blaring, but for some inexplicable reason, I felt completely safe. There was no desperation, no salacious neediness, no predatory pheromone being emitted from him at all—just a warm, fuzzy cloud of flirt and familiarity.

Although I’d literally
just
met the man, he made me feel more secure, beautiful, and interesting than any man I’d ever met. And I didn’t even know his name. Not that it mattered. He was seventy-five inches of snuggle bunny disguised as a pierced, tattooed rock star.

I was home.

Standing in the pit waiting for Phantom Limb to take the stage always made my stomach do back flips. Not because of all the PBR I’d funneled in the parking lot. Not because I was nervous for Hans. But because of my stupid fucking territoriality.

Everyone with a uterus in that audience was about to find out how incredibly sexy and talented and gorgeous and
tall
my boyfriend was, and I might or might not have to pull one of those bitches off of him before the end of the night. Hans was just too goddamn nice. If some coked-up cock-nest monster started dry-humping his leg backstage, he’d simply let her and possibly pat her head sympathetically while she came. God forbid he hurt her feelings or embarrass her by pushing her away.