Naked (11 page)

“No, it doesn’t.” He stretched out, too, so we were face-to-face again. “It makes sense. It’s enviable, actually.”

I laughed softly. “Sure.”

“It is.” Alex ran his fingers over my hair again, pulling a few of the locks forward, over my shoulder. “It suits you.”

It seemed like the most natural thing to kiss him then. His mouth opened under mine. His tongue stroked. This time when I let my hair trace a path over his body, I did take his cock in my mouth.

I sucked him slowly. He arched. I gave in to the smells and sounds of his desire. I lost myself in it. I found my clit with my fingertips and got myself off as I made him come. When he did, he twined his fingers in my hair, and I smiled even as I took him down the back of my throat.

Minutes later, his heartbeat slowed under my cheek. His breathing matched it soon after. He snored a little from deep in his throat. It was cute. He went boneless and relaxed under me, and before I knew it, I was out like a light.

I woke to the smells of bacon frying and coffee perking. I stretched under soft blankets and my hands encountered a mountain of pillows. I sat up, rubbing my eyes on a futon in the middle of Alex Kennedy’s living room. And I was naked.

I could see him, beyond the half-wall and arch, in the small, U-shaped kitchen. Well, I could see part of him. The cabinets hanging low over the countertop island that divided the kitchen from the dining area left a couple of feet open for pass-through viewing. I could see him from shoulders to thighs, a nice view of his briefs-clad ass and the apron strings dangling against it.

As for myself, the sheet I pulled up to cover my breasts might’ve made a nifty toga if I’d been talented enough to fold and twist it, but I didn’t have that skill. I scanned the floor for my clothes and saw a sock, a boot, my shirt. A flash of orange told me my panties were hiding just beneath the futon. I reached for them as Alex appeared the archway.

“Good morning.”

“Hi.”

He had a spatula in his hand and the apron I’d viewed from behind turned out to have the cartoon torso of a bikini-clad woman with huge tits imprinted on the front. “Hungry?”

A man who wore Hello Kitty pajamas wouldn’t balk at cross-gender bacon frying, but a surprised laugh burst out of me anyway. “Umm…”

He grinned and smoothed a hand down the apron’s front to fondle the big cartoon boobs. “Nice, huh?”

“You know, my current circle of male friends has skewed me so far that shouldn’t even have surprised me.” I got my panties and slid into them, but couldn’t find my bra. I could go topless, prance around in what my mom had always called
gatkes.
I had the scent of him all over me. I grabbed up my sweater anyway and slid it on over my bare skin. My nipples pebbled immediately against the soft fabric.

I caught his gaze as I used a couple of my locks to tie back the rest at the nape of my neck. His smile had frozen for a second, and if I’d looked at him a moment later I think I’d have missed his expression. “Alex?”

He waved the spatula. “Breakfast is ready, if you want it.”

We faced each other from across the room. The morning after. Here it was. I looked for a reason why I shouldn’t cross the distance between us and kiss him as if we’d been lovers for years. I didn’t find one.

“Morning,” he said against my mouth, and the hand not wielding the spatula rested comfortably on my ass, which he squeezed to pull me closer.

“I’m going to use your bathroom, okay?”

He gave me another small squeeze. The cartoon woman was getting an erection. “Sure.”

I didn’t shower, just used the toilet and sneaked a mouthful of his toothpaste to swish around in lieu of an actual brushing. I caught sight of my reflection and couldn’t stop the grin—my mascara might be a little smeared and my hair a little wild, but damn, didn’t I look satisfied?

Alex had set plates on the island and loaded them with scrambled eggs and bacon. The toaster dinged as I sat, and he pulled out slices of wheat toast. A stick of butter on a plate and a half-empty jar of peach preserves appeared as I sat in one of the wicker bar stools.

The kettle whistled and he lifted it to pour some hot water into my mug, then handed me a box of Earl Grey teabags.

“Wow, this is some service.” I breathed in the good breakfast smells with a happy sigh.

“I’ll be right back. You don’t have to wait.”

I dug into the food while Alex disappeared into one of the bedrooms, to come out a moment later wearing a pair of fleecy bottoms. Batman, this time. The apron, balled in one fist, got tossed onto the counter as he slid into the seat next to mine.

“Good?” he asked, watching me eat.

I nodded, mouth full. Our dangling feet nudged, then our knees. He was touching me on purpose, and it was okay because last night we’d been naked and sweaty and our mouths had been all over each other, and we hadn’t fucked, not technically, but we’d done just about everything else.

“Olivia?” His brow furrowed. “You okay?”

“Sure. You?”

Alex didn’t have an open face, one I could read easily. He
needed a translation I didn’t know him well enough to make. When I looked at him, I saw a story. I saw a picture I wanted to take and capture and keep.

“Yes.”

I poked my fork into the leftover bits of scrambled egg. Then I took a deep, slow breath and steadied myself before I turned on the stool to face him. “Listen. About last night…”

He looked at me solemnly without speaking, his gaze shielded and shuttered. He chewed slowly and swallowed. I watched his throat work and thought of the taste of his skin. I thought about a shadowed room and him in silhouette, a man on his knees in front of him. I thought of the sound of a groan.

“I never actually had sex with Patrick. We dated for four years and we were going to get married, but we never actually slept together.” I cupped my hands around the barely warm mug and cleared my throat. This had to be said. I needed to tell him everything before anything went any further.

Alex nodded, but waited in silence for me to keep going.

“He told me it was because he wanted to wait. Because he was Catholic. And I believed him, because I loved him. He liked getting head from me, though. That was okay.” I laughed again and sank into the cushions, a hand over my face. “God. It’s all so obvious now, but then…I guess I just saw what I wanted to see.”

“Or maybe he didn’t want to admit anything else.”

“That, too.” I sighed. “Anyway, a couple weeks before we got married, I was putting away some laundry in his dresser drawer. I found a box of condoms.”

“Ouch.”

Even now, the memory turned my stomach. The betrayal of it. I knew right away they weren’t for me.

“Yeah. So I confronted him about it. I thought maybe he’d deny it, but he didn’t. I thought he’d tell me about some girl he worked with, something like that. I didn’t expect him to tell me he was fucking his way through the city’s gay population.”

“He came out to you, just like that?”

“Just like that. He said, ‘I’m a fag, Olivia, and I like fucking other men.’ He looked scared when he said it, but he did.”

Alex blinked and looked away for a second. “What did you do?”

“I didn’t believe him for about two seconds, and then it all made sense. It all fit. And I just…lost it. I cried. I threw the box of condoms at him. They spilled all over the floor, and he went down on his knees to pick them up. I remember that…how he got on his knees to gather them up like they were precious. As if I’d thrown down a bunch of jewels and he wanted to make sure he got every single one.”

I looked at Alex’s face. “Then I told him the wedding was off, that I was leaving him.”

Alex looked surprised, then not. “I thought he broke it off after he came out to you.”

Maybe Patrick
had
talked to him about it. I shook my head. “No. That’s what everyone thinks. But what really happened is Patrick begged me to still marry him. Told me his family would disown him, that we’d lose all the money on our deposits. He told me we had to get married. And I loved him, so…at first I said yes. I said I’d lie for him. That I’d live a lie for him.”

“But you didn’t marry him.”

“No. We cleaned up the mess, put away the laundry and then…” I swallowed hard, remembering. The smell of cologne. The taste of Patrick’s tears. “He kissed me. And he put his hands on me. He tried to make love to me. He said he wanted to prove to me that he could be a good husband, too. But I couldn’t look at him that way, Alex. I couldn’t have his hands on me. What he’d done…all I could think was that he’d said he loved me more than anything, and yet he’d lied to me all along. Himself, too, maybe, for a long time. But mostly to me.”

Alex rubbed my shoulder, his fingers squeezing gently. “I’m sorry, Olivia. It was a shitty thing for him to do.”

I put my hand on top of his, but not to remove it. I squeezed back. “Yes. It was. And it was even shittier when he told everyone I’d cheated on him.”

“And you didn’t tell anyone the truth?”

“I’d promised him I wouldn’t. I thought that was fair, that he should come out to them himself. And I’d have been there for him, probably, if I hadn’t been so angry…”

“It wasn’t your job to hold his hand.” Alex sounded angry himself.

“I know that now. But I’d have done it. Instead, he told everyone it was because of me. No wedding. No marriage. And he didn’t come out to any of them for close to a year. By that time I’d come to terms with it, or so I thought. And by that time…

“By that time I’d been pregnant with Pippa, carrying a child I knew I couldn’t raise, for a couple who would, and wanted to. My mother had disowned me, not because of the pregnancy, but because I was giving up the baby she thought I should keep.

“Well, by then a lot had happened. I’d heard from some friends that he’d finally come out. So one day, I called him up and asked him to meet me for dinner, which he did. We talked. We sort of…fell on each other’s neck and sobbed, I guess. He’d always been my best friend, you know? It’s hard to be in love with your best friend when you know it can never be more than that.”

“Sure. I know.” Alex squeezed my hand again and dropped his to his lap.

Now was the time to tell him what I’d seen on the porch and what Patrick had told me. I drew in a slow breath but didn’t quite find the courage to do it. Alex leaned forward and for several long seconds did not brush his lips over mine. When he did, I felt the touch in every inch of me. Yeah, it’s cliché, but it was true.

His hand cupped the back of my neck, his strong fingers pressing just right at the base of my skull. I shivered, my eyes closing in anticipation of a deeper kiss, which he didn’t give me. I licked my mouth and tasted him.

“Alex…I have to tell you something.”

He pulled away and let me go. “Okay.”

And once again I didn’t tell him the truth. Blame my body, which he’d played so well. Blame my heart, that stupid thing, which thought it could handle this. “I think you really need to get some condoms.”

Alex blinked. Then he laughed. “I thought you were going to say…Never mind.”

I touched his knee to get him to look at me. “What?”

He shrugged and drank his coffee. “I just thought you were going to tell me it was a mistake. Or something like that.”

It might have been, but it had been such a damn long time
since I’d gone to bed with anyone that I wasn’t going to ruin it with regret. The almost-sex had been great. I had no reason to think full-on fucking wouldn’t be equally fabulous.

I stroked his knee a little higher, up to his thigh. “Do you think it was a mistake?”

He twisted my hair around his finger for a moment before letting his hand fall to his side. “No.”

“Good.” I took another breath, feeling lighter. “Alex, look…I’m not sure what this is or what will happen, but I don’t like to spend time wishing I didn’t do things after I’ve already done them. There’s no point in that.”

He nodded after half a second. “Agreed.”

“Good.” I leaned close, not quite kissing him but offering my mouth if he wanted to take it. “So what do you say we go buy some condoms?”

I
t’s a law of nature that when you’re buying something embarrassing you will run into someone you know. Tampons, yeast-infection cream…condoms. Add a post-orgasm glow, clothes that had clearly been worn two days in a row and what I was sure was the smell of illicit sex hanging over me, and there was no way I was getting out of Wal-Mart undetected.

Today it was Father Matthew from St. Paul’s. He had a cart full of cold-care products and a very red nose when he passed me in the aisle, heading toward the pharmacy. It had been months and months since I’d gone to church, and I’d never been a full member there, but of course the condoms in my hand meant he recognized me right away.

“Olivia! How are you?” Father Matthew blinked behind his thick glasses. His hair stood up all over his head and he looked as if he should be in bed.

“Fine, Father, how are you? Got a cold?” The box in my
hand felt as if it might catch on fire any second. I gave myself a mental slap to the forehead for thinking I didn’t need a shower before making the ten-minute trip to the store.

Behind me, Alex snorted laughter. He’d been fooling around just a moment before, comparing the brands and trying to do a price per orgasm comparison. I didn’t dare look at him.

Father Matthew blinked, his voice like a foghorn. “Oh, yes, a pretty bad one. I won’t shake your hand.”

He looked over my shoulder at Alex and then back at me, clearly expecting an introduction.

“Um, Father Matthew, this is my…friend, Alex Kennedy.”

“Nice to meet you, Father. I won’t shake your hand, either.”

The priest laughed, then sneezed and fumbled in the pocket of his heavy coat for a handkerchief. He honked into it and sighed. “Nice to meet you, Alex. I should get going. I want to go home and get into bed.”

“Sounds like a great idea,” Alex said, and if stepping on his foot wouldn’t have been so obvious, I’d have stomped him into silence.

As it was, I put on a fake, bright smile and kept the condoms tucked close to my side. “Sorry you don’t feel well, Father. Get better soon.”

“Oh, thank you. And, Olivia, you know you’re always welcome to come back to Mass.” Father Matthew grinned and his gaze dropped momentarily to the box in my hand before he flicked his gaze to Alex. “Both of you could come. Are you Catholic, Alex?”

“Yes, Father, as a matter of fact.”

Surprised, I turned to look at Alex, who’d put on a choirboy smile.

“With a name like that, I was pretty sure you were. Come to Mass,” Father Matthew said. “We’d be happy to see you there. Happy New Year!”

He didn’t push it more than that or wait for an answer I knew would probably be a lie, anyway. I liked him for that. I’d liked him when I went to church, too. It was the rest of it I didn’t care for.

As Father Matthew ambled off toward the pharmacy, Alex pulled me against him so he could nuzzle my ear.

“Wow, I haven’t had a close call like that since I was in high school.”

I laughed and turned to poke him in the chest. “What happened in high school?”

“I was in the drugstore buying rubbers when my mother showed up in the next aisle. She wasn’t buying rubbers, thank God. Epsom salts.” He shuddered, then imitated a woman’s voice. “‘A.J., what are you doing here?’”

“What did you tell her?”

“I said I was buying bubble gum.”

“And she believed you?” I laughed.

He shrugged. “She didn’t ask any questions. That’s all I cared about.”

I studied the box in my hand, then tossed it into the basket he held. “Let’s get out of here before the rabbi shows up. Do we need anything else?”

Alex grinned. He hooked another box of condoms off the rack and tossed it in. Then a bottle of silicone lube. The big one. I raised a brow.

“Let’s hit aisle four,” he said.

“What’s in aisle four?”

“Snacks,” he said matter-of-factly.

“You think we’ll need…snacks?” I had to try hard to keep a straight face.

“I think you’re going to need to keep your strength up,” he told me with another smile that shot a bolt of liquid excitement right between my thighs. “Definitely.”

He waited until we were back in his car before he asked me about the priest. “Do you go to church a lot?”

This was a conversation that would take a lot longer than ten minutes. “Not really,” I said anyway.

“Huh.”

I looked at him. “Huh, what? Do you go to church? Or were you telling Father Matthew a lie about being Catholic?”

He laughed. “No, I wasn’t lying. If you call being born a Catholic, raised a Catholic and confirmed a Catholic being Catholic.”

“But you’re not, now?”

He shrugged. “I’m not anything now.”

“Huh,” I said.

Alex glanced at me, his mouth still curved in a smile. “What did you tell me before? It’s complicated. But really, Olivia, it doesn’t matter to me what you are.”

I watched the fields turn to houses. In another minute he made the turn down the alley and into the lot behind my building. I picked at a piece of lint on my gloves. “I don’t know what I am.”

Alex turned off the car and twisted in his seat to face me. “Well, that’s okay, too.”

He kissed me when we got in the back door. It was the same place he’d kissed me the night before, still as cold, just
brighter in the daylight. Alex was warm, though. Mouth and hands. The bags crushed between us.

“I have to go upstairs first. I want to take a shower,” I said.

His eyes flashed in the light from the windows facing the street. “Do you want me to come up?”

Did I?

I faltered at the question, thinking of spending another few hours on his futon in the middle of his living room with the full light of day doing nothing to hide anything I might want hidden. My bedroom had dim, soft and romantic lighting and a nice comfy bed. It was also
my
bedroom, and I’d never had a lover in it. Somehow, that seemed to make all of this suddenly more intimate. More important.

“No?” he asked.

He was perceptive, scarily so. Why did he seem to see every thought I ever had, while I could only guess at his? I shook my head.

“It’s not no, it’s just…I won’t take long. I’ll come back down. Okay?” A kiss was supposed to soften the words, but I couldn’t tell if it had or if he was just that good at faking. I thought maybe the latter.

“I’ll leave the door unlocked.”

I nodded and left the bags with him. In my apartment I closed my eyes, but could see only his face, the way he looked when he came. Deep, gray eyes, unreadable. His smile.

I lifted my arm and ran my nose along it from the elbow to my wrist. I could smell him on me. Taste him on my lips. My heart skipped, my thighs squeezed together involuntarily, and I actually made a sound of longing.

I wanted Alex. It didn’t matter about anything else. My reasons. His. I’d meant what I told him about not wanting to
regret, but now I understood I hadn’t quite meant that, exactly.

I was sure I would regret this, sometime.

I simply didn’t care.

He’d left the door open, just as he’d promised. I knocked, anyway, before I swung it open. I peeked around it, suddenly nervous and not knowing what I’d see. Naked Alex, waiting for me? I could only hope.

He wasn’t naked, but his wet hair showed he’d showered, too. I’d put on a pair of jeans and an oversize button-down shirt over a cute camisole top. He wore jeans, too, and a pink button-down shirt with a very frayed hem. He hadn’t tucked it in or even buttoned it all the way, and I got to see quite a bit of flesh as he turned from the counter, where he’d been setting out a bowl of pretzels.

“You’re going to feed me again?”

“Strength, Olivia. I told you.”

My mouth and throat went dry. It’s one thing to know how to be a modern woman, full of confidence in her sexuality and totally okay with the casual fuck. It’s another to actually be that woman.

“We should talk about something first, though,” he said seriously, before I could reply.

“Uh-oh.” I shook my head and took a step backward. “That doesn’t sound good.”

He didn’t let me escape. He took my hand and led me to the futon, where the sheets and blankets and pillows were all tidied. We both sat. He didn’t let go of my hand. He turned it over in his and traced the lines on my palm until I shivered. Then he looked at me.

“We don’t have to do this.”

It was the last thing I’d expected to hear. I almost yanked my hand from his. “If you don’t want to—”

“I want to. I want to,” he assured me, pulling me closer. “Believe me, Olivia. I do.”

I scanned his face, which looked sincere and open, though those mingled expressions did nothing to help me figure him out. “So why did you say that?”

“Because…” He cleared his throat and shifted. I could see his bare chest inside the pink shirt. I could smell him.

He smelled good. I leaned closer, just a little. “What?”

“I haven’t been with a woman in…well, a while.” He said it as if it was a relief to get it out, all in a rush.

A woman, he’d said. It could have been a lie, but he’d made the distinction. If he’d said “anyone” I’d have turned around and walked away. That’s what I told myself, anyway. That if he’d lied to me just then I’d have left.

“Me, neither,” I said lightly.

His eyes searched mine and he smiled half a beat after I spoke. “You’re funny.”

“Sometimes.”

His thumb traced a random pattern on my palm. “I just wanted you to know.”

“Thank you.” Our knees bumped. I toyed with one of the two buttons holding his shirt closed. When it came undone, I took care of the other and spread open his shirt to get a better look.

His laugh became a hiss when I circled a finger around one of his nipples. He buried his hands in my hair when I kissed his mouth. I moved onto his lap, straddling, cupping his face
to hold his mouth to mine. We kissed that way for a while until I had to break for a breath.

I felt his erection under me and rocked forward on it. My clit rubbed the seam of my jeans as my crotch pressed his belly. I wore no bra beneath the camisole and my nipples rubbed the soft fabric. I wanted them to rub his bare skin.

He’d let go of my hair to grip my ass and pull me harder against him. He licked his mouth, then dipped his head to find my throat. My collarbone. His tongue left a wet path as he moved lower to the curves of my breasts.

He looked up at me. “Can we take this off?”

My shirt, he meant. “Only if you take yours off, too.”

“Take it off me.”

Such a sexy voice, all rough and ragged, but smooth as well. I slid the shirt over his shoulders, down his arms. It bound his hands behind him for a moment when it caught on his wrists, and I didn’t push it farther right away.

“I can’t use my hands like this,” he murmured into my mouth.

My fingers had been inching the fabric down, but I stopped. “Maybe I like it that way.”

It was only talk. I’d never tied up a man, or been tied up myself. The semi-sex Patrick and I’d had was certainly, in retrospect, not normal, but it was absolutely vanilla.

Alex tipped his head to look into my eyes. “Oh, yeah?”

I paused, straddling his lap, my arms around him and him unable to move his hands. “Do you like it that way…?”

“I like it any way I can get it.”

I didn’t take the shirt off his wrists. I kissed him a little harder, thinking about this. My breasts rubbed his bare chest
with the thin camisole between us, and when I broke the kiss he was breathing hard.

This wasn’t really the time to get into the game of “did you ever.” But there’s nothing sexier than knowing you’re turning someone on, and with his cock so hard I could feel it throb through two layers of denim, Alex was definitely turned on. I tugged at the shirt, but didn’t pull it off.

“What do you like about it?”

He blinked, then swiped his tongue along his lower lip, narrowing his eyes in thought. “Sometimes you just want to give it all up, you know?”

My voice cracked a little when I answered. “Give what up?”

“Control,” Alex whispered, and closed his eyes.

He breathed out. I breathed in. He opened his eyes.

“Then again, sometimes you don’t.” He tugged the shirt off the rest of the way and grabbed my hips. He rolled us until he was on top of me, between my legs, his cock pressing me just right and his belly smooth and hard and hot on my skin where my shirt had pulled up. He cuffed my wrists, pulled my arms slowly over my head and pinned them there with one hand while the other went to the snap of my jeans.

“I could get away.” Any fierceness I’d intended was ruined by my voice shaking with each word.

“You could,” he said. “But you don’t want to.”

I did not, and so I didn’t move when he opened my jeans and slid a hand inside. Over my panties, lace this time, chosen for effect more than comfort. He rubbed my clit and my hips moved.

One-handed, he managed to get my jeans down to my thighs. I couldn’t help him, not with my hands pinned above
my head, so I don’t know how he managed to get them down farther than that. He used a foot, finally, pushing at the denim crotch until the jeans tangled around my ankles.

“Dammit,” he said in a low voice.

I laughed, arching my back as his mouth found my belly. “So much for that.”

He shoved the jeans off the rest of the way, nuzzled my skin and moved up my body to lean over me and stare into my face. His grip on my wrists loosened. “Put your hands together, palm to palm. Lock your fingers.”

His hair had fallen forward, making him look rakish and impossibly sexy. He hadn’t shaved and the subtle glint of stubble had me shivering, thinking of how it would feel on my belly when he kissed me again. I did as he said.

His breath soughed out as he looked at my clasped hands. “Fuck. That’s…fuck, Olivia.”

I arched again, offering my body to him without words, wondering just what he’d do. And what I would do when he did it.

“Don’t let go,” he cautioned, his voice dark and deep. “I want to see how long you can last.”

A little alarmed, I stopped moving. “How long I can last before what?”

His smile soothed me. “Before you have to touch me.”