When our eyes meet again, I know we’ve silently agreed not to talk about the hardest part of all this, that there’s new pressure there now. Ansel and Mia are married. Finn and Harlow are married. We don’t have the luxury of crashing and burning in a fiery mess.
There’s an unspoken sense among our friends that Lola and I are somehow more together—the store, her comic career—as if we’ve had it all figured out more thoroughly and for longer than they have. But looking at Lola now, I can easily tell she doesn’t trust herself at all in this. As much as I sense she does feel for me, I also know she would rather illustrate a comic for Frank Miller with him looking over her shoulder than navigate emotional territory when a group of friends is involved.
I move to her, giving her a soft kiss. “What brings you to my office today, young lady?”
Wincing, she tells me, “I’m headed to L.A.”
My heart trips over her words. “Today?”
“Yeah. The car is coming for me at five.”
“They sent a car?”
“I think that’s mostly because Austin isn’t sure mine will survive the drive there.”
“You’re still hot shit,” I tease, and then look over my shoulder at the wall clock. It’s three seventeen. “When are you home?”
“I’m staying tonight, tomorrow, and Thursday, back sometime Friday night.”
Well, that blows. “Can we plan for dinner Friday?”
“I’m supposed to go over to Greg’s. Come with me?”
I bend, kissing her again. “Sure.”
There’s tension in her eyes, and I lean back, studying it.
“You okay?”
She swallows, shaking her head quickly as if to clear it. “I’m fine. I have a book due next week and I’ve barely started. We’re supposed to finalize the script this week, but I haven’t seen it yet. I don’t know how I’m going to get everything done.”
“You take it one step at a time.”
She leans into me, resting her chin on my chest as she looks up at my face. “I’m a little distracted.”
“The feeling is mutual.”
She pushes her lips out in a sweet pout. “And I don’t feel like going to L.A. for a few days.”
“I don’t feel like having a girlfriend in L.A. for a few days.”
Biting the side of her lip, she repeats, “ ‘Girlfriend’?”
“Fuck buddy of whom I am rather fond?” I offer instead.
Lola smacks my chest, laughing.
I put my hand over hers to keep it in place, right over my breastbone. “Girlfriend is certainly my preference.”
She stares up at me, quiet, unreadable.
“Want to go to your place for the next hour?” I ask, and I know my meaning is obvious when Lola flushes.
“London is there.”
“London is going to have to get used to me staying over,” I remind her.
Leaning back, Lola levels me with an amused look. “We’re not quiet.”
“She’ll have to get used to the noise then, too.”
“Especially you.”
I shrug, lifting her hand to kiss the center of her palm and still trying to wrap my head around the fact this is a thing I’m allowed to do now. Lola watches with wide, blue eyes as I kiss up her wrist, to the inside of her elbow, sucking lightly at the delicate skin there. “So, we won’t go to your apartment. . . .”
“London doesn’t date much,” she blurts, and I recognize it for what it is: nervous babble now that it’s becoming clear we’re going to fool around back here. It’s so un-Lola to ramble, it makes me smile in surprise. “Like, she gets asked out all the time and always turns them down.”
“Why’s that?” I ask before biting her gently, though to be honest, I’m not really all that concerned with London’s dating life right now. I’m pretty sure we both know this.
Lola blows out a breath. “I don’t know, really. She had a boyfriend for most of college. Not sure what happened.” She pauses. “Anyway, I don’t really want to talk about her right now,” she says, a hint of a smile pulling at the corner of her mouth.
“Oh?”
She watches me kiss her arm again. “No.”
“What would you prefer to do?”
She pulls away gently before walking to my desk, and I follow. Reaching for my belt loop, Lola pulls me closer. “I don’t know. . . .”
My fingers graze her sides and toy with the hem of her shirt. I wait for her to stop me, to give me some sort of sign that she wants to take things slower today. But before I can ask, the fabric is pulled from my hands and her shirt is gone, a blur of blue that lands somewhere in a pile behind my desk.
Her bra is black and covered in white polka dots, her tits pushed up so the swells are full and round. She pulls my shirt up over my head and then stretches, brushing her chest against mine, and even though I know what’s about to happen, I could never anticipate the way it feels when her hands move down to the front of my pants, gripping me over the denim. Her thumb moves back and forth along the tip and my head falls forward, forehead resting on hers as I force myself to hold still, not to rock into her palm or rush this.
Lola pulls my head back down to hers, her warm lips opening against mine. I want to figure out how to go faster and slow down all at once, how to spend an eternity feeling everything. We kiss, lips and the slippery slide of tongues, vibrations of noise, and tiny explosions of realization that seem to pop like flashbulbs in my mind over and over again. I’m an amnesiac: I still can’t believe this is happening. Twenty-four hours ago we didn’t kiss or touch—we definitely didn’t see each other naked—but here we are.
My heart is racing, and when I pull back for breath, I see that Lola’s mouth is red and swollen from the drag of my day-old beard. She looks up at me as her fingers move to the fly of my jeans and unbuttons them one by one. I can feel each teasing pop. I bite down on my lip and try to stay quiet, knowing that if I let myself make even a sound it will be the tiny crack that shatters my control. I’ll throw her down and fuck her, unprotected, messy, half-dressed.
She stretches to suck on my neck and then steps back, bunching her skirt in her hands and pulling it up her thighs. I watch the slow reveal: milky skin, soft curved hips . . . She’s not wearing underwear. Still, she’s fresh-faced, eyes carrying a clear innocence I’m sure she has no sense of whatsoever. Never in my life have I felt more like I’m doing something very naughty with someone very, very sweet. Sliding onto my desk, she spreads her legs and leans back, giving me a rather perfect view of her pussy.
Heat slides through my veins and I step between her thighs, desperation licking at my skin. I slide my hand up the inside of her legs, wondering idly about how many men she’s been with. It could be one or one hundred and I wouldn’t begrudge her any of them, but something tells me this type of relationship is new for her. I know from overhearing her with her friends the past few months that she has no compunction about sex, no sense that it should be held off for some larger declaration, no issue with one-night stands. But I also get the sense that for Lola, it takes more than a momentary desire to let someone into this secret, honest place.
She shivers as my fingers trace the shape of one breast, the pad of my thumb brushing over the taught peak of her nipple until she arches, wordlessly begging for the pinch I know she wants. I lean down and run my tongue over the sheer fabric before I take her between my teeth. Her back bows, pushing her chest to my mouth, and I use the opportunity to reach around, slipping the hook free. I pull the fabric away and watch as she’s unwrapped like a fucking present.
With my gaze locked to hers I drag the tip of my tongue over her skin. She sucks in a breath, reaching to part the denim of my jeans and pulling my boxers down just enough to take me in her palm. I almost bite through my lip when she swipes her thumb across the head, and then reaches up, sliding her fingertip into her mouth.
Her hand returns, thumb even wetter now, and I blink down to where she holds me between our bodies. There
’s the flat plane of my stomach and the soft curve of hers, and my cock, hard and swollen at the tip, jutting straight up between us.
I’m almost too warm, and feel the prickle of sweat at the back of my neck as Lola leans in, lips brushing over the shell of my ear. “Do you have a condom in here?”
“Yeah. Middle top desk drawer. Brought some in today.”
She gives me a triumphant you’re-a-genius grin and then lies back, stretching an arm over her head to reach to the other side of the desk and open the drawer. It would be easier for me to do this, but there’s no fucking way I’m missing the chance to look at her stretched out and almost naked on my desk.
When she sits up, I step forward, taking her face in my hands to press my mouth to hers.
“I want you to put it on,” she says against my lips.
“Yeah?”
“Watching you roll that thing on in the middle of the night might have been one of the sexiest things I’ve ever seen.”
With my cock in one hand and the condom in the other, I pause with the latex poised just over the tip, and look up to make sure she’s watching.
She is. In fact, I’m not sure she blinks or even breathes the entire time, her eyes glued to me while I slowly roll it down. I love the way she looks at my cock: eyes a little wide, lips parted.
I reach up, cupping her breast. “You look surprised.”
“I think I’ll be surprised every time you take your pants off,” she says absently. “Your cock is unreal.”
Hearing Lola say my cock is unreal will never get old. Never.
She slides her fingers between her legs, slipping them back and forth along either side of her clit. I both see and hear what this does to her, in the way the muscles of her stomach flex and her thighs squeeze my hips, in the soft sounds she makes.
“Wet enough for me?”
Lola nods, bringing her hands from between her legs to my mouth, where she slips them between my lips. I can feel for myself how wet she is, can taste it. My eyes nearly roll out of my head with how good this is, how dirty I want to be with her and all the things I want us to do. I moan and Lola pulls her fingers away with a quiet pop, staring up at me with a hunger I’ve never seen in her before.
I wish I could pinpoint why her expression tugs at a tender part of me, what feels off.
It isn’t the way our hands trip over each other in their quest to touch every inch of skin, or the way she digs her fingers into my hair, exhaling in relief when she feels me slip barely inside her. It isn’t the way her head falls back, the way she pushes her breast into my hand, or how her legs spread wide to take more.
But maybe it is in the way she won’t let her eyes hold mine for too long, the way it feels like she’s holding her breath. It’s the same thing I do before I tilt my bike over a steep hill and barrel down.
I ease into her—in, out, in deeper, out a bit more—and she’s with me, fuck I know she is, I can feel it in the rocking of her hips, the curl of her fists in my hair—but the hot film of protectiveness won’t leave me. Every move she makes screams that she’s new to this, that this type of intimacy is different, blissful, and terrifying.
I’ve had sex with many women, and have had loving, intimate sex with some of them, but I’ve never felt for them what I feel for Lola. Still, the depth of the emotion is a relief, not at all disorienting. Last night was the perfect combination of making love and fucking, but here I wouldn’t dare be so rough with her as I’d been. She feels like blown glass in my hands, looking up at me almost as if she needs to know what to do.
So I give her a task. My lips press to her cheek, teeth bared. “Don’t make a sound.”
I feel her exhale in relief against me, and she nods, turning, seeking my mouth, but I pull away.
“Stay quiet, be good, and I’ll kiss you.”
She nods again, quickly, urgently, and it can’t be that simple, but it is. The drifting tension in her eyes is replaced by focus. But now that I’ve said it, there isn’t a thing on this planet or any other I want as much as I want her mouth, open and wet against mine while we fuck.
I fill my hands with her tits, suck at her neck, and grind my body into hers until I feel her sweat under my lips, and she’s tight everywhere.
Growing tighter, still quiet, breaths shallow and sharp.
“That’s it,” I tell her. “I can’t hear you. I can only hear the fucking.”
I love her sounds, but right now her silence means so much more. Her silence and the begging in her eyes is the admission that she needs me to ground her, to help her focus down on this and only this. Not L.A. Not the book she needs to write. I always suspected she looked to me to center her, but to know it so surely right now, when we’re making love, pulls at a tight band in my chest.
Lola’s skin is creamy and pale, even paler against the dark of her hair. Her ponytail has come undone and now strands fall forward over her shoulders, brushing along her nipples, the ends curling over her breasts. A sheen of sweat breaks out on her chest, her upper lip, and around me her cunt squeezes tight . . . she’s close. Her breaths come quicker when I thrust up with just a little more force and I bare my teeth on her jaw, feeling my own control fraying, growling, “Not a sound. Not one fucking sound.”
I find her wrists, draw them behind her back, and plunge so deep, grinding where she likes it. Her mouth goes wide, expression nearly pained, and then it’s like tapping the first domino down and watching in wonder: She squeezes her eyes closed, head back and teeth clenched with the effort it takes to hold in her cries. Around me, her body comes with a series of wild, tight spasms. Lola flushes red and her pulse is a wild animal in her throat—but my girl doesn’t even let free a tiny gasp of air.
Pride swells so fast in my chest I’m covering her mouth with mine, fucking her fast and shallow, and she’s wrestling free, finally crying out at the feel of my tongue on hers. Her hands dig into my hair, eyes open so she can watch me.
“It’s so fucking good.” I hear myself grunt on every shove, the sounds of sex making me harder—the wet slide, skin slapping, the creaking of my desk.
“Fuck!” I can’t help but yell. “Fuck!”
I’m grateful to the traffic on Fifth, the constant bustle of the shop for muting the noise we must be making.
Harder, faster, she’s gasping and clutching me at my neck, nails digging into my skin. Her legs are wrapped around me, sweat making us slippery, and I grip her ass to pull her onto me at the same time I shove as deep as I can, going off with a hoarse yell, in a flurry of wild thrusts. Light bursts behind my closed lids, bliss racing down my spine, tiny explosions of pleasure spreading across the map of my entire body.
I slump against her, pressing my teeth to her neck as my hips slow and eventually stop. It’s a miracle my desk is still in one piece.
Lola catches her breath against me, holding me tight. Her legs don’t let up; she doesn’t want to let me go, and, fuck, I don’t ever want to leave the warmth of her body.
The room is suddenly so quiet, and I can’t seem to pull in enough oxygen. My breaths feel too fast, too loud. Lola slumps forward on my chest and I wrap my arms around her. She feels tiny in my arms: willowy and delicate. I feel like I’m made of nothing but basic instincts—fuck, breathe, sleep—but I manage to remain upright. The pleasure slips away gradually, and I run kisses up her neck, pausing for a breath so I can tell her how fucking good it was.
Before I can get the words started, I stop, listening.
An odd stillness seems to have surrounded us, and I’m hit with a restless awareness: the magnitude of the quiet is nearly dystopian, almost as if the world outside ended while we were in here wildly fucking.
Lola’s eyes meet mine and I know the thought hits us both at the same time.
I close my eyes, waiting for the explosion. “Oh sh—”
Suddenly Def Leppard’s “Pour Some Sugar on Me” blares from the front of the store. It’s so loud it may as well be playing in the room with us.
; I look at Lola, who is still flushed from her orgasm. She claps a hand over her mouth to keep from laughing. “Oh, my God,” she mumbles.
Motherfucking Joe starts yell-singing along with it: “Demolition woman, can I be your man?”
Finally, I pull out, quickly tying off the rubber and dropping it in the trash bin. Together, we start putting our clothes back on: I pull my pants up my legs, tug my shirt over my head. Lola slides from the desk, straightening her skirt, locating her bra and shirt.
“Television lover, baby, go all night!” Joe sings.
At least four other voices join in for the rest of the chorus.
Lola hooks her bra behind her back, adjusts the straps, and then presses her hands to her face. “Oh, my God. Oh, my God.”
The music dies down and Joe proclaims, “Show thyself, mighty stallion!”
Laughing, I call out, “Shut the fuck up!” I help Lola get her shirt back on as laughter trails through the door.
Pulling her hair into a bun, she says, “I guess that answers that question.”
“The soundproofing in here?” I ask.
She nods, rubbing her face again, but behind it I can see her smile. “Is there a secret way out or are we doomed for a walk of shame?”
This makes me laugh. “Shame? I’ll be strutting. We nearly broke that fucking desk fucking.”
“Seriously.”
I cup her face, kissing her once. “Sorry, pet, we can only escape through that door, right there.”
Lola nods against my hands, eyes holding mine.
“Was it good?” I ask quietly. “Did you like trying to be quiet?”
“So good,” she whispers, stretching to kiss me again. “I don’t want to go to L.A.”
My arms come around her, and I feel the warmth of her breath on my neck. “I’m not wild about this plan, either.”
She’s shaking, and I want to look at her face, but she has it determinedly pressed to my shoulder.
“Look at me,” I say. “Let me taste that pretty mouth.”
She tilts her face up to me, lazily sliding her lips with mine: warm, heavy, wet.