Calendar Girl (12 page)

Chapter Eighteen

J
UNE CAME WITH WARM
breezes and me officially bent on getting myself off with toys and thoughts of Eli. On June 1
^st
at six p.m. Matthew O’Neill called me. ‘It’s June,’ he said by way of a greeting.

His voice was as deep and rich and somehow ornery as I remembered it even though I’d been drunk and discussing female genitalia at the time. ‘It is, isn’t it?’

‘Are you officially unbusy?’

‘I am.’ I put my head down and tried to call up his handsome visage. I remembered the water-blue eyes that were somehow otherworldly and the shock of dark, lush hair.

‘Do you know who this is?’ he laughed.

‘I do. It’s Matthew with the super cool blue eyes from Captain Fred’s Fish and Chips.’ I smiled even though he couldn’t see me. Something about this guy made me feel instinctively flirty and relaxed.

‘I just got off of work, I’m the owner by the way,’ he said.

‘I thought Fred–’

‘Fred died in 1979,’ he said and laughed. ‘But most folks think that and I let them. Good for business. Anyway, I smell like fish and chips and need a shower so bad it’s not funny. But I was wondering if I could pick you up in an hour or so and take you for some mussels and beer.’

‘We could do it another night if you–’

‘Do you already have plans?’ he asked.

‘No, no! I just don’t want you to feel like you have to. Today was not a deadline or anything.’

His laughter was like dark smoke curling out of the receiver. It made my pussy wet and head buzz a bit like I was drunk. I missed feeling a man’s hands on me. I missed flesh induced orgasm. I missed being held. ‘I’ve been waiting for a few weeks for this, woman. I
want
it to be tonight.’

Was I flattered or horny or just plain greedy for attention. The answer was yes. ‘OK, an hour’s fine. I’ll be ready for mussels and beer,’ I said and then gave him my address. ‘I’ll see you soon.’

‘Righto, and Merritt?’

‘Yeah?’

‘You are the one with the cool blue eyes. You are spectacular. You are a cruel woman making me wait so long.’

I fixed my hair in a haphazard and calculatingly messy up do and dressed for a seafood joint. I was dressing for a casual dinner but the black thong and the lace bra were for dessert.

‘So you work with people who hoard. Like the show?’

‘Not always, but I am sort of known as a good one to go to. A few of the therapists have me on speed dial as do the folks at the container store.’ Up close in the low light of the seafood restaurant he was perfect. Looked more like a man who should be carved from marble than real. His face a work of perfect proportions. Sexy full lips, strong chin, big eyes with dark, dark lashes. Matthew O’Neill was breathtaking. And that wasn’t an exaggeration.

It turned me upside down and shook me hard to know he’s been tracking the time until he could call and ask me out. The oysters and mussels were known as aphrodisiacs, but I was pretty sure I’d want him if we were eating pizza and slushies.

‘And the work preceded the show,’ I said. ‘Just so you know.’

He smiled at me, reached out and wiped the edge of my lip with his thumb. My nipples spiked and my pussy flickered. Just from one touch. ‘Butter,’ he said, in way of explanation.

‘Thanks.’ I swigged my beer to settle the flock of butterflies that had taken up residence in my tummy.

‘So you must be compassionate, then? If these therapists want to work with you.’ He forked another tender mussel out of its obsidian shell and popped it in his mouth. Just the movement of his lips was enough to make me want to grab his hand and drag him home.

‘I don’t know. I’ve never thought about it before.’

‘Do you judge them?’ Matthew asked.

‘The hoarders?’

‘Yeah.’ An oyster, a mussel, a bite of crusty Italian bread soaked in juice. A swig of beer. He must work out. He ate like a horse – a super sexy horse, mind you – and was surrounded by fried food all day and yet, not a spare inch of fat on his spectacular body. But I digress ...

‘Of course not. That would be like judging someone for having diabetes or cancer,’ I said.

‘So, you are compassionate.’

That made me uncomfortable, the way he seemed to think I was ... special. ‘No more than anyone else, I’d imagine.’

‘You’d be surprised.’ His fingers settled on my face again and he smoothed his thumb over my cheek this time.

‘God, more butter? I am the messiest eater,’ I said and felt a blush stain my cheeks.

‘Nope. No butter. That time I just wanted to touch you. And you need to have a bit more compassion for yourself.’

I blew out a sigh. ‘That would be nearly impossible. I think I cut myself too much slack.’

He rattled off all that I had told him so far. Divorce, cheating husband, upset on the verge of cuckoo mother, recently outed brother, hoarders and said, ‘Sounds like you have compassion for the hoarders, the ex, your brother, your mom and your best friend ... but none for you.’

‘I ... I ...’ I had nothing to say.

Luckily, that was when Matthew leaned in and kissed me. His mouth was gentle but insistent and I readily opened my mouth for him to kiss me deeper. We’d sat fairly close together on one side of the rounded table so we could hear each other above the music and the TV showing sports. His arm crooked around my neck in a gentle hook and he kissed me again.

‘Will you show compassion to me?’ I asked, not letting myself analyse my own words. I could over analyse the hell out of myself given even a fleeting chance.

‘What do you mean?’ He turned and faced me full on, kissing me in a gentle repetitive motion. Chaste soft pecks on my nose, my cheeks, my lips, my chin. It was both sweet and stunningly sexy at the same time.

I put my hand on his hard thigh, rubbed my fingers along the worn denim, feeling the strength of his muscles and the warmth of his skin. ‘Will you take me home soon? I’m so ...’

He grinned, his forehead to mine. He wasn’t kissing me now. His big blue eyes seemed capable of seeing into my soul. ‘So what?’

‘I’m a bit ...’ I shook my head, laughing softly.

‘Say it. Trust me. Just say it, Merritt.’ His amusement was palpable and I laughed again.

I leaned in, pressed my lips to his ear and said, ‘See, the thing is, I’m really, really horny. And you’re really, really nice. And hot. Nice and hot.’

He put my hand on the fly of his jeans under the table where no one could see. A fleeting gesture, he put my hand down, pressed, lifted it up. Just long enough for me to feel the lovely hard-on concealed under the table. ‘Sweetheart, I counted down the days until I could call you. And you are not the only one who’s horny. Or hot. Or nice and hot.’

One more kiss and he drained his beer, ate the last mussel and smiled at me. That crooked smile was enough to make the parts of me that weren’t humming with want yet start up. The waitress, perky in her khaki shorts and green uniform polo sashayed up and said, ‘Can I get you guys dessert?’

I thought of my thong. My lacy black bra. His hard cock in those nice fitting jeans. ‘Goodness, no.’

‘Me, either,’ Matthew said with his molasses voice. ‘Just the cheque.’

We practically broke our necks getting out of that place.

We hit the foyer wall on the way in the door. He’d started kissing me on the doorstep as I tried to get my wildly jumping key in the slot. Jumping because my hands were shaking from the fact that my whole body felt like a live wire with an overwhelming need for this guy. His lips were on the back of my neck, kissing that bundle of nerves that always make my panties wet and my head swim. I was a sucker for that spot. It was the second best spot on my body.

I turned just over the threshold to say something stupid like, ‘Welcome to my house’ and he hit me full force, pushing me to the smooth green wall. His lips on my lips, his chest mashed to my breasts, his pelvis crushed to mine so that I could feel the full firm length of him riding the slick ready cleft between my legs. I gasped, but he captured that puff of air with his kiss.

‘Where is your bedroom?’

‘It’s down ... it’s over ... we need –’

‘Too long,’ he laughed, pulling at the button of my jeans, working my pants down around my hips, my knees, my legs. I danced in place helping him to rid me of all the offensive layers of clothes in the way of our lovemaking. I felt the small packet outlined in his front pocket and pulled the condom out like a magician’s assistant revealing a trick.

His mouth never left my body. My lips, my shoulder, my breast. As he fought his own clothes, I tore into the packet, ready for him. His lips were everywhere and nowhere but always on me. When he stood, free of his denim, I stopped. He stopped the kiss to look at me. Really look at me, bare assed and flagrantly ready for him, pressed to my own foyer wall. ‘God, woman, you are ... stunning. Simply stunning.’

‘Shh,’ I said, embarrassed, taking him in hand, rolling on the condom. Pulling him ever so gently by the cock, I tugged him in to embrace me, cutting off his kind words with yet another kiss. Then I wrapped my leg around his waist, opening my body to him. Letting him feel my wetness. Welcoming him in.

‘But you are, so don’t shush me,’ he said. Matthew slipped the tip of his cock up and down along the wet seam of my sex. He pushed just the head in, holding my leg over the crook of his elbow. Pinning me open against the wall. Wet, eager to the point of insanity. Unfulfilled. ‘Say it. Say you’re stunning.’

‘You’re stunning,’ I joked feeling silly and shy.

He pulled back just enough that his cock did not touch me anywhere. I felt the absence like a blow. This was mental BDSM, if you came right down to it. ‘Say it, Merritt,’ he said. His teeth found my shoulder and he nipped me just enough to start a fresh rush of my own juices between my legs. His skin against my nipples, his lips on my throat.

I caved. ‘I’m stunning. I’m stunning. OK, please. God, please, Matthew–’

But I didn’t get to finish because he’d thrust into me and I was clutching at him. Trying to keep from falling or coming or bursting into little bits of light and smoke, which was how I felt. Aware of every single nerve-ending in my body as he fucked me up against the wall in my foyer.

I wanted to wonder if the blinds were down. Or if anyone could see us. Or if anyone cared. But I didn’t. It didn’t matter. All that mattered was the feel of him pressed to me, hot, imposing, sexy as hell. He filled me and stretched me, driving into me maddeningly slow until I felt my cunt so tight around him I wanted to cry. Then he palmed my ass, lifted me so I could bring the other leg up. I wrapped around him, open for him, desperate for him and he pinned me to the wall, moving fast and with intent until I came, crying just a little, laughing a lot.

Matthew’s release curled in and around mine. Weaving through the spasms and cries of my orgasm. A stunned growling release that left us shaking in the small room and I counted his heartbeats as his chest pounded in time with mine.

Chapter Nineteen

M
ATTHEW SAT ON
the sofa, his feet bare, jeans low on his hips, shirt off. My head in his lap I let him run his fingers through my hair as I purred like a feline. No wonder cats seemed so damn satisfied. This was awesome. ‘I want to do it again,’ I sighed. It was the second time I’d placed the request.

His fingers dug into my mussed hair, rubbing soothing circles on my scalp. The feel of it resonated through all of me. Shoulders, belly, scalp, nipples, pussy. Even my toes tingled with pleasure. ‘Please?’

‘Nope. Not today.’

‘Not today!’ I laughed at the absurdity of it. ‘What kind of man are you?’

‘One who’s very satisfied at the moment.’ He bent and dropped a kiss on my temple. On the TV someone was trying to sing a Steppenwolf song and butchering the bloody hell out of it. ‘That doesn’t happen every day, Merritt. Despite what steamy books and movies say. I like that we came together. I want to relish it.’

I sighed again, but it was only half dissatisfied. The other half was unadulterated pleasure. His hands in my hair had me feeling like I was made of pudding, or something equally unstable. ‘So what do you want to do?’

‘This. I want to do this.’

‘You want to play with my hair?’ I grinned, but made no move to stop him.

‘You have a brush?’

‘In the basket on the table next to you.’ I would have pointed for him but that would have required movement.

I heard the rustle of him digging and then he touched my shoulder, ‘Sit up, Miss Merritt.’

I sat, making a noise that was meant to express my displeasure. ‘No fair.’ My stomach rumbled and I blushed.

‘After this we’ll have to whip up a snack. How’s that? Or did you want me to leave?’ He didn’t sound as if it would upset him. But he did sound like he’d like to stay.

‘Would you stay?’ I asked, trying to remember the last time Eli had spent the night. The last night I slept in someone’s arms or with warm feet brushing mine accidentally under the sheets.

‘Of course. Now this.’ He pulled the brush through my hair like it was an erotic act in itself. His strokes long and gentle and he smoothed his hands over the locks as he brushed them. He brushed each section to its full length, so it curled just a bit under my shoulder blades. I raised my hand and felt my hair, that I normally wore wind-tossed and bedheaded. Smooth silken ribbons of hair laid under my hands.

‘Wow.’

‘Yeah, wow,’ Matthew said. He brushed my bangs back so the layers framed around my eyes and my cheekbones. The layers usually just went haywire and willy nilly and that was fine. Under his hand, they behaved, curled in seductively. ‘You look like a painting.’

Wow
.

Matthew kissed me again. His full mouth coming down on mine, the kiss teasing me right back to the urgent need to be with him again. But I knew he wouldn’t do it. I could feel it.

‘And we can’t ...’

‘No, ma’am.’ He grinned and I could tell that part of his pleasure came in denying me.

‘Ever?’ I yelped.

‘Don’t be silly. A man would be insane to not want to be with you ever again. How ’bout if I feed you instead.’

‘Hmm, what will you feed me?’

‘Let’s go see what you have.’ I followed him into my own kitchen. When had I last cooked a meal in here? It had been for me and Eli. A while.

Matthew rummaged around and finally said, ‘I’m thinking bruschetta. You have nice bread that’s just the right amount of stale. Canned tomatoes, dried herbs, a bit of hard cheese, olive oil. We’re good.’

I was impressed. The way to my heart was my stomach and just a touch lower. If you could do both, you were golden. ‘What’s bruschetta mean anyway?’

Matthew laughed. ‘Toast.’

‘Ahhh, super smart am I.’

‘Hey now, no reason for you to know. They could just call it toast for goodness sake.’

‘But that wouldn’t sound as fancy.’

He sliced the bread into fancy little rounds and handed them over. ‘Pop them in the toaster oven for about three minutes and flip them for another three.’ I did as told while Matthew whipped up a topping.

The phone rang and I froze, that familiar deer-in-the-headlights feeling overtaking me. The base clicked and I hit the button to hear the message as it came in.

‘Girl, it’s me. Your mother is driving your brother insane again. He came over for me to do his highlights and she showed up. And tonight I’m filling in for a psychic friend on the line. Got a man who says he can hear his parakeet’s thoughts and the bird is plotting his assassination. And Jack is having a mini crisis of the
am I really gay
variety. Don’t worry, lots of us go through it, but honey, he is high maintenance, did you know? And–’

I hit the mute button.

Matthew smiled at me. It was one of those wise, calm, Zen smiles. The kind of smile I doubt I’ll ever see in the mirror. ‘Why’d you do that?’

I stood on tiptoe and kissed him softly on the lips and then turned to attend to my toast. ‘I’m being compassionate to myself.’

‘Good for you. You deserve it. Now help me load up that toast! I’m starved.’

My stomach growled and grumbled. ‘Yeesh, as you can tell, much to my chagrin, so am I.’

His warm lips found the nape of my neck as his hands twined my freshly smoothed hair around and around like a rein. He kissed me there for a moment and then said, ‘I think we burned some calories.’

I turned and yelped, my hair still looped around his fist. ‘And we could–’

‘Merritt,’ Matthew said warningly.

‘Damn! Well, look at you, you can’t blame a girl for trying.’

We polished off a bottle of red wine and our fancy toast snack. Kissed and cuddled and I did my damndest to get him to have another go with me. As we watched a late night screening of
The Princess Bride
, an all-time favourite, I moved my head around his lap. The evidence of his arousal pressed to the side of my face, rested under my ear, trembled just a bit under the back of my head. It went through my mind to unzip his jeans and simply suck his cock until he couldn’t refuse me. But Matthew was on to me; he pushed his hand in my hair, his thumb finding the base of my skull, his pinky tickling at my temple. He touched me this way until my whole body seemed some ludicrous mix of intense arousal and supreme relaxation.

I was guessing Matthew liked hair a bit. Mine was long and normally a chaotic toss of waves and sleep crimps. I dozed off with my head in his lap and only woke when he was carrying me to bed. He stripped my jeans off, left me in my panties and tee and climbed into the bed with me. His arms fixed around me and he spooned up behind me, his cock still hard but comforting as I drifted back down into sleep.

Morning was another story. Morning came and when I opened my eyes, I saw a swaying hump of movement under the sheets. Fingers hooked in my panties and pulled. I almost protested that no! I had to pee! I had to brush my teeth! But then his mouth came down on me and my body filed all that away for later. He licked and sucked my clit until I danced under him like the bed was hot and burning my back.

Matthew pushed a finger into me, testing me, pressing my g-spot and high up in my cunt so that the echo of the urge to pee came back. It only served to heighten the feeling that I would come in the blink of an eye. His lips came back down again and he sucked my hard, little clit so that I yelped but I was coming before I could focus on that sweet rush of goodness. I moved faster under him, his fingers still in me so I felt like his puppet. Impaled on his perfect fingers, slave to his talented tongue.

I heard the rip of a condom wrapper and thought about joking that he must have been a Boy Scout as he was always prepared, But then I felt the hard length of his cock brush my thigh as he rolled on the rubber and all jokes deserted me. I arched up and spread wide, brandishing my pussy for his use.

But he flipped me, easy and sure like I was a toy. I came up on my knees for him and Matthew rose up from under the covers, throwing them off. Reminding me of some mythical god emerging from the ocean and tossing off the waves like an old coat. He wound my hair, now bed head central, around his hand and pressed the head of his cock to my wet slit. ‘Ready for another round now?’ he laughed.

I nodded though he had me caught up. I couldn’t really talk. The words, the breath – it had all died in my throat, smothered by my urgent need for him. I bore back to make him move and he did. Thrusting into me gently at first. His hands in my hair not as gentle, but his cock moving into me with a slow ease so that I could take him all. When I had, when I groaned and moved, he started to fuck me. His free hand pressed to my lower back in a claiming gesture that made me that much closer to coming again.

He feathered his fingers along my lower spine and my nipples pebbled and I rubbed them to the pillow crushed under me. I reached down to touch my still thumping clit and the pressure of needing the bathroom added to it all. Added to the intense crush of physical sensation.

Matthew yanked and thrust, nearly in tandem but not quite. Keeping me off balance and immersed in the intense second sexual encounter. ‘I’m not much more good,’ he said gruffly. ‘I went to bed wanting you, woke up wanting you. Hell, I dreamed about fucking you. So I was past ready a half hour before you woke up.’

‘Come,’ I said.

‘Come with me,’ he countered.

He liked that rush. So had I. It was immensely satisfying to share the flood of sweet pressure of orgasm with another person. My slick fingers flew over my clit and I pushed back to help him hit that prime spot in my cunt. ‘OK. You say when.’ Even I heard the smile in my voice.

He chuckled darkly, boring down on my lower back like a king claiming his right and said, ‘When.’

His body all pounding sex and kinetic energy, he groaned deeply and I was coming again with him. Wetly spasming around his cock as he released my curtain of hair and grabbed my hips to hold me still so he could empty into me and feel me tremble.

‘I like that shudder that goes through you when you come,’ he said softly, kissing me between the shoulder blades.

‘Me too,’ I admitted. Then I bolted for the bathroom and tempted Matthew to shower with me. Hot soapy water, kissing, touching, followed by good dark roast coffee and more kisses.