“Yeah.” Her nervousness was lessened by physical desire, and she started to push her pajama pants down over her hips.
Ander helped her slide them off her legs with her panties and then he settled himself between her thighs. Her arousal was hot, wet, and aching—and it made her want to wriggle her hips. But the logistics had given her time to get nervous again and she tensed up.
She felt one of Ander’s hands on her belly, stroking her gently. “Can you loosen up here?”
She tried to do as he said and relax her stomach muscles but she couldn’t seem to manage.
He kept stroking her. “Try to breathe again.”
She took four deep breaths before she managed to relax her clenched belly.
His hands stroked down to her thighs. “Now here.” They did the same thing—Ander massaged her tight muscles as she breathed until she was able to soften the tension. As she loosened up, he parted her legs farther.
She heard him rip the packet open and then squirt out some lubricant. “I’ll rub the lubricant on the back of the dam. It will make it more pleasurable for you,” he explained. “But I think I’ll use my hand first, if that’s all right with you.”
“Yeah.”
She kept concentrating on breathing until she felt his fingers parting her intimate folds and then stroking slowly along the flesh. The touch was warm and slick—so warm she gasped.
“The lubricant warms,” he said, apparently noticing her reaction and reading it correctly. “It will make it better.”
“Okay.”
She reached up to grab the headboard again, needing something to do with her hands, when he smoothly slipped a finger, and then two, inside her channel. She clung—her hands to the board above her and her inner muscles to Ander’s fingers.
“Is it too tight?”
“Um. I think it’s all right.” It didn’t hurt and wasn’t uncomfortable. In fact, as he gently massaged her inner walls, the warming sensation and the skillful stimulation caused ripples of pleasure to spiral out from the touch.
“I’m going to use my mouth now,” Ander explained, his voice so calm and confident in the dark room it was absurdly reassuring. She could see no more of him than a dark silhouette and a faint gleam of his skin from the blue glow of the digital clock next to the bed. “If I do anything you don’t like or that makes you uncomfortable, tell me right away. I’m going to assume you want to do what we’re doing until you tell me differently.” He slid his fingers out of her channel. “To begin with, I’m going to test around to see what you like, so if something feels particularly good, it would help if you tell me.”
“All right.”
She felt him making adjustments farther down the mattress and heard rustling of what must be the dam. Then she gasped loudly when she felt something soft and slick touch her intimately.
“May I start?” His voice came from between her legs.
“Yes.” She clenched her fingers around the edge of the headboard so tightly her knuckles must have whitened. But she managed not to clench up the muscles of her pelvic area.
As soon as he began, she relaxed a little. It was weird but it wasn’t uncomfortable or horribly embarrassing. He must have been using his tongue, because she felt a light stroke rub up the range of her flesh and then flutter briefly at her clit.
“That’s good,” she choked out, as she felt the quick jolt of pleasure.
He played with her clit for a few moments, until it felt so good her muscles started to tighten involuntarily. Then he licked down to her entrance and probed and lapped. For several minutes, he tried out various techniques and the overall effect was quite good. Lori had been quite aroused to begin with, and soon her arousal had taken on an urgency she’d never experienced before.
She pointed out each move she particularly liked—the curl of his tongue into her channel, the circular flutter just at her entrance, the sudden pressure of his lips on one of her folds, and flickering or suction on her clit. As he progressed, he dropped the techniques she didn’t like as much and focused on the ones she did.
As the physical pleasure intensified, she bent up her legs involuntarily so she could press her feet down into the mattress, and she clutched the headboard so desperately her fingers were sore. He was spending more and more time at her clit. And, as he gave it a series of hard sucks, Lori’s spine arched up off the mattress.
She panted desperately, her unsteady inhalations loud and fast in the otherwise quiet room. She knew something was about to happen. The coiled tension below her belly couldn’t tighten much more without breaking.
Then Ander moved his mouth away, causing her to make a disappointed mew.
“I’m sorry,” he said, clearing his throat when his voice came out a little hoarse. “May I make a suggestion?”
“Of course. I told you earlier I wanted some directions. I thought I was about to come.”
“I think you were. But you’re clenched so tight that some of the pleasure is going to get swallowed by the tension. It will be better for you if you can relax a little more.”
She groaned and rubbed at her face with one hand. “How am I supposed to relax when everything starts feeling so good and you just know that something ...?” She trailed off lamely, not quite sure how to describe it. In one of her books, she’d used the phrase “hot, breathless expectation” but even that didn’t quite capture it.
“Your instinct will always be to tense up. But if you fight the instinct, you can enjoy the climax more. I’m going to use my fingers again, and then I’ll use my mouth at the same time. Why don’t you try the breathing again?”
Lori reached up to grab the headboard once more. But her bone-deep irony prompted her to grumble, “You’re big on that damned breathing, aren’t you?”
She heard a brief, choked sound but she couldn’t see his face in order to interpret it. And when she felt his fingers, slick with lubricant and her own fluids, penetrate her again, she forgot to wonder about the sound.
Despite her words, she did as Ander suggested and started taking slow, deep breaths. The erotic pressure built back up with startling speed as he massaged her, and then he lowered his mouth once more to suckle at her clit through the dam. “Keep breathing,” he murmured from over her flesh.
As soon as the sensations had swelled up, she’d started her frantic panting again. But now she made herself inhale as slowly as she could, pushing down against the mattress with her feet. Then she exhaled, feeling a sudden, intense surge of pleasure as some of her muscles relaxed.
Suddenly understanding the purpose of the breathing, she focused on it even more, allowing the growing sensations from Ander’s ministrations to take care of themselves. She breathed deeply several more times, and on each exhale the pleasure leapt forward.
“Good,” Ander murmured, rubbing at her clit with something other than his lips. His fingers sustained a steady, stroking rhythm in her wet passage. “That’s perfect. Breathe one more time.”
Lori breathed in and felt all the carnal tension at its breaking point.
She breathed out and the tension finally broke.
It wasn’t a screaming, earth-shattering orgasm from a romance novel. She didn’t cry out in ecstasy or experience wave after wave of endless bliss. Her eyes blurred over and her back arched up. And she made no noise except a few thick, ragged gasps.
But it felt really good—much better than any orgasm she’d had before—pleasure pulsing out at the sudden release of pressure. Ander kept thrusting his fingers against the contractions of her channel, and she vaguely heard him murmuring, “Good. Ride it out. Just like that. That’s good.”
When she collapsed back onto the mattress, letting her arms drop down to her sides, she was astonished by how immediately relaxed she felt. She also felt a little embarrassed. And overly warm.
“Do you want a few minutes before we move on to intercourse?” Ander asked, straightening up. His voice sounded a little different—thicker or something—but she couldn’t conne
ct a mood with the slight alteration.
“Yes,” she said, still breathless from her orgasm and feeling a jolt of raw fear at the idea of having intercourse right away. “Thank you.”
“I can hold you, if you want,” Ander offered. When she just stared blankly at the dark outline of his face, he added, “A lot of my clients like that afterwards.”
“Oh.” As she processed her feelings, she realized it would be nice to be held. But by someone who actually cared about her. “No. That’s all right. Thanks. I don’t want to pretend anything. I’m not trying to fool myself.”
“Understood.” He stood up off the bed. “I’m going to throw this away and clean up a bit then, if that’s all right.”
“Yes. Good.”
He turned the light on in the bathroom when he entered. She heard the water running in the sink. Realizing she was lying on the sheet half naked, she fumbled around until she found her panties and pajama pants and pulled them back on.
Ander left the light on as he returned, illuminating the room enough for her to see him more clearly as he returned to stand next to the bed. At his questioning look, she admitted, “I don’t think I’m ready for the rest of it yet.”
“Would you like another glass of wine?” he asked, smiling his urbane, sensual smile.
Jumping at this suggestion, since it might provide her a way to get past her strangely embarrassed afterglow, she said, “Yes, please.” She reached over to turn on the light beside the bed so Ander could see more clearly to pour the drink. “You have another one too,” she added. “If you want.”
She noticed he walked a little stiffly as he came back over to hand her the wine. “You’re really good at that,” she said, smiling at him with real appreciation. Despite her emotional discomfort at the moment, she was deeply relieved to know she was capable of having an orgasm like that. And Ander’s professionalism really had made the whole process as easy as possible and quite pleasurable. “The oral sex, I mean, not the wine. Thank you.”
“You’re welcome,” he said mildly. There was a slight sheen of perspiration on his face, and she wondered how much effort it had taken to get her off. The whole process must have taken almost forty-five minutes, since it was now nearing ten o’clock.
As he walked over the few steps to pour himself some wine, she studied him carefully. His clothes were barely even wrinkled, the expensive fabrics and tailoring standing up well to even this sort of activity. But he definitely was missing the cool grace that had always possessed him before. His shoulders looked a little tense.
As he faced away from her, standing in profile against the expanse of windows, Lori suddenly realized what it was. The sleek, urban cut of his trousers left little to the imagination, and she could see the bulge at the front of them quite clearly.
He was aroused.
Lori blinked and looked away quickly, her cheeks burning at the realization. It made sense, she supposed. He’d been engaged in an intimate activity. And maybe he had some sort of mental thing he did to get himself ready for intercourse. It wasn’t like with women—who could take it whether they were aroused or not. He had to be erect in order to do this part of his job.
It probably had nothing to do with her.
But still...the knowledge that pleasuring her had left him physically aroused made her feel kind of strange.
For once, she was able to hold back her wayward tongue. She didn’t mention it, not even to make the snarky joke that came to mind.
Ander seated himself on one of the chairs next to the table and they drank their wine in silence for a few minutes.
“That was a good orgasm,” she said at last, wanting to speak and shaping the first words that came into her head.
Lifting his eyebrows slightly, Ander said, “Good.”
“I mean, I had my expectations pretty low. I knew it wasn’t going to be like a hot love scene in a book. But still it was really good. I liked it.”
“I’m glad.” To her surprise, she saw the little twitch at the corner of his mouth. For some ridiculous reason, the unexpected sight of it was like greeting an old friend.
“You don’t think I’m weird or unnatural, do you?” she asked, “For having gone so long without having a decent orgasm before?”
Ander shook his head and answered with cool sobriety, “Not at all. It’s more common than you’d think. Some women are too self-conscious to let themselves climax. And others only have experiences with men who don’t know how to please them. With all the erotica in popular culture now, many women have unrealistic expectations about what sex should be like. So when their actual experiences don’t match with the fictional fantasies, they think something’s wrong with them. But the reality is it doesn’t happen magically, and a lot of men don’t know how to please a woman’s body—even if they genuinely want to. You might be surprised by how many women come to me for that very reason.”
Lori thought about that and decided it was very comforting knowledge. Not that so many women were unsatisfied but that she wasn’t the only woman who’d somehow missed out on the orgasm-train. “You should give lessons,” she said at last, glancing back over to him and catching him studying her closely. “Teach men how to do a better job.”
For the first time, she heard him laugh. It was just a low chuckle, brief and a little bit bitter. “I’ll consider it.”
“Maybe a seminar or workshop,” she added, kind of pleased that she’d managed to amuse such an unflappable man. “Or better yet a webinar. Stream it internationally.”
This earned her an even longer chuckle.
His laugh faded as he finished off his wine and glanced at his watch. “If you want to move on to intercourse, perhaps we should get started. We’ll want to leave time to try different things, if necessary.”
Lori swallowed and stared at the clock next to the bed. She’d just been feeling relaxed and kind of pleased with herself for the evening’s accomplishments. And the thought of having sex now made her stomach clench sickeningly.
And she realized that she’d done everything she was emotionally ready for at the moment. She knew herself well enough to know that if she tried to have intercourse now—having lost her resolve and erotic momentum—she’d be too scared and uncomfortable to have anything close to a good time.
As if he read her mind, Ander said mildly, “If you don’t think you’re up to it tonight, we can schedule another engagement and focus on intercourse then.”
Lori exhaled in intense relief. That was exactly what she wanted to do. And the relief mingled with her sense of irony to push her into spontaneous speech. “Ha! What a sneaky way to sell a second evening. You should have been businessman.”
When he arched his eyebrows at her, she bit her lip. “Sorry,” she mumbled. “I know you are a businessman. I just meant at some big multinational corporation. But I didn’t mean...Sorry.”
Ander shook his head. “Lori, you don’t have to apologize.”
Despite his bland reassurance, she felt like an ass. “I didn’t mean to make it sound like you weren’t a professional. And I do think a second evening would be the best idea.”
“We’ll arrange it then.” Ander stood up. “Did you want to do anything else this evening? We still have an hour and a half.”
Since sex was off the table, she wasn’t sure what she’d do with him for that long. Some women hired male escorts simply for companionship, but that felt too weird and unnatural for Lori. She had friends. All she needed was sex.
She shook her head. Then she remembered his physical condition. “Oh,” she began, stiffening on the bed, “But you were...I mean, did you need to ...” She waved her hand toward his crotch and reddened deeply again as she remembered she wasn’t supposed to know he was aroused.
Ander met her eyes evenly. “I’m fine, Lori. It’s nothing for you to worry about.”
“Oh.” She hated the thought of sending him on his way when he was still erect. “You can, uh, take a shower or something if you want.”
> “Thank you. I might do that.” He hesitated, as if he weren’t sure whether she wanted him to take the shower now or not.
“You can go ahead. I’m not going to be up for anything else this evening.”
She stretched out more comfortably when Ander shut the bathroom door. She heard the shower running and she figured he’d take care of his erection under the spray. Then she remembered the pile of cash in the envelope on the table. She got up to recount it, pulling out the amount she’d included for intercourse and putting that back in her purse.
She was in bed again when Ander reemerged, looking composed, relaxed, and suavely dressed once more. To her surprise, he didn’t grab the cash and run. Instead, he sat down and leaned forward a little, clasping his hands. “Did you have any other questions I can help you with? Other concerns?”
She thought for a moment, taking the offer seriously. How often would she have the benefit of such an expert? “Do you have any suggestions for getting myself off more effectively?”
Ander frowned, but she could tell it was because he was reflecting on the question. “What have you tried?”
“Just my hand. Rubbing, mostly. I can get there, but it’s never all that good. I figured I was just doing it wrong.”
He gave her a few, detailed suggestions about techniques for manual self-stimulation. Then he added, “You should get a vibrator.” At her expression, he gave a half-smile. “They’re not nearly as tacky or embarrassing as you’d think. I can bring you a good one next time if you want.”
“Thanks,” she said, smiling in surprise at the offer. She’d considered buying one herself—she’d even found discreet websites through which she could buy one—but she’d been worried she’d be too self-conscious to actually use it. “How far in advance are you booked up?”
“Usually at least three weeks. Beyond that, it depends on the day.”
“Three weeks?” She’d been hoping to meet up with him again a lot sooner than that.
Obviously catching the disappointment in her voice, Ander tilted up one corner of his mouth. “I occasionally have cancellations. I can let you know. Otherwise, I think my first available evening is two weeks from next Wednesday.”