It hits me in an instant. “I think you don’t like how much you like me,” I say, unable to keep from smiling. “You can’t fit me into your Barfly Box of Shame. You want to dismiss me as a dickhead player, but then you think I’m hot and fun and you like watching me eat nachos.”
London turns her face back up to me, smirking. “Nailed it.”
“Apt phrase.” I pause, tossing another chip into my mouth before saying, “You sort of want to kiss me right now.”
She leans in, studying my face. “You’re thinking too much on this.”
It’s true. I am thinking way, way too much on this. But I also know I’m right. I bend, eating in silence for a minute, but I can feel her eyes on me the entire time.
“What?” I ask, pushing my plate away before wiping my mouth on my napkin.
“I need to head home and shower before work.”
There’s something there. Some . . . invitation? I feel my eyes go wide, wondering if I should gamble here.
“I live about three blocks away,” I remind her.
London stands, carrying her plate to the trash can before turning to me. “Fine. But you still don’t get to kiss my ladybird.”
* * *
LONDON’S COOL IS back in place when she pulls up at the curb behind my car. I watch her climb out and look around my yard as she walks up to meet me on my porch.
“I guess I didn’t give much thought to the fact that you live alone in a house in La Jolla.”
Tilting my head, I ask her, “Where do you live?”
“A loft downtown,” she says. “My grandmother left it to me.”
“Well, that’s something we have in common then,” I tell her, turning to the front door. “This house is Grams’s.” I slide the key in. “She lives in Del Mar now in a fancy retirement community. My sister, Margot, used to live here with me, but now she lives closer to campus with a roommate.”
“Isn’t UCSD, like, four miles from here?”
“Probably less, but she’s in grad school. Biology. She hates to drive and needs to be close to the lab.” I nod to indicate she lead us inside. “Come on in.”
It’s clear London isn’t here for idle conversation. She turns and heads straight down the hall, looking over her shoulder at me when she asks, “Is it okay if I shower in the bathroom down here?”
“Yeah,” I tell her, following. “You want company, or you want to rinse off alone?”
She’s put on a T-shirt for the drive here and turns to me fully, pulling it up and over her head, unties her bikini, and drops it at the threshold to the bathroom. “If I wanted to shower alone, I would have just gone home.”
My brows rise as I stare at her naked chest. “Fair enough.”
This whole thing is weird, and abrupt, but I can get on board with it if it means showering with a wet, slippery London.
She climbs in, turning on the water and watching through the glass door as I undress. I follow her in, suddenly aware of the way my cock grows tight, poking her hip when she turns to kiss my neck.
“I can’t really figure you out,” I admit, closing my eyes when she drags her teeth along my jaw.
“I can’t really figure me out, either, if that’s any consolation.”
It is, actually. She smiles up at me sweetly before turning and picking up the shampoo and putting it in my hand.
“But you’re right: despite my instincts, I sort of like you,” she says, kissing me once and then turning her back to me. “And I bet you give good shower.”
“I like to think so.” I work the shampoo into her hair, piling it on top and massaging her scalp. London leans back into me, and the hot water pounds against my chest. “This sort of reminds me of washing Margot’s dolls’ hair.”
London goes still and then very slowly lifts her head and looks at me over her shoulder. “What.”
I burst out laughing, pressing my face into the warm skin of her neck. “Yeah . . . I can see now that, without context, that was totally creepy. But we used to play doll salon. Being the younger and much-abused brother, I ended up as the shampoo girl. I would bring them to her for blow-dry and style. She would yell at me if I didn’t properly condition.”
“Margot sounds pretty awesome.”
I nod, guiding her head a little to the side so I can massage her neck. “She is. And to this day Sephora is her church.”
“It both thrills and vexes me that you’re a dude who knows about Sephora.”
“And Chico’s,” I tell her, enjoying how easy this all is—even when we’re talking like this in the shower. “Also a place not often frequented by men, but Chico’s is my Grams’s jam. Come to think of it, Mom is a huge fan of Coldwater Creek.” I pause, sudsy fingers deep in her hair. “Jesus, my weekends are dominated by chauffeuring the women in my life.”
“A nice counterbalance to the weeknights dominated by chauffeuring the women in your phone.”
I feel the way we both go still under the water. Just when I think it’s easy between us, just when we’re both unwinding, she goes there.
“Did I say that out loud?” she asks, turning her head but eyes squeezed shut against the slow drip of suds down her forehead.
“You did.”
“And are you glaring at me?”
“No.” But I won’t lie to myself and pretend her impression of me doesn’t sting a little. I put my hands on her shoulders, guiding her around to face me. I wipe the soap from her brows, murmuring, “Rinse.”
I can see in my peripheral vision that she’s watching my face while I coax the water through her hair, rinsing away the suds, but instead of meeting her eyes, I focus on my hands.
“Logan?”
She smiles. “Yeah?”
“Why did you come over here again?” I ask her quietly.
She reaches for the soap and I shiver when her hands press to my stomach and slide up over my chest. “I’m not sure.” She meets my eyes and gives me a sweet, tiny grin. “Sorry I was rude.”
“You were taking your self-loathing out on me, I think. But then, you didn’t have to come over here.”
Her grin turns into a wide, dimpled smile. “You’re not going to goad me into becoming one of the girls in your phone who insist they never do this kind of thing.”
“I’m not trying to goad you. It’s just that in your case, it seems to be true. Even if you hadn’t told me our first night together, I would bet you never do this kind of thing. Not that there would be anything wrong if you did.”
She nods, and watches her hands as she lathers up my chest, my shoulders. I can barely hear her answer over the pounding water: “The sex was good. And I figured you were the kind of guy who can keep it just about sex, which is all I want right now.”
“I can.”
I think.
I mean, it’s never been a problem before, but I’m troubled by how much I want her to like me. “I’m going to be honest, though. You sort of suck at it.” Her mouth drops open when I say this, and I quickly add, “Not the sex part—you’re very good at that part, if memory serves—but the part where it’s just about having fun sex together.”
Her blue eyes flash up to mine. “What do you mean? I’m not getting emotional on you.”
I laugh at her quick defense, tickling her sides. “I mean, you’re sort of a jerk to me.”
She giggles. “I’m sorry! I swear I’m not a jerk. I just . . . I don’t want to date, and the kind of guy I would date anyway is nothing like you, but here I am . . . for sex. So yeah, maybe some self-loathing . . . which makes me into a jerk.”
I’m trying to ignore the insult in there. “What kind of guy do you date?”
She looks up at me quizzically. “I don’t.”
I sigh in exasperation, squeezing conditioner into my palm while she washes my arms. I slide my fingers into her hair, saying, “I mean, you’re saying I’m not your type. What is your type?”
“Bearded. Laid-back. Tattoos.”
“Mustard yellow cord-wearing craft brewer
?” I ask, and she laughs. “The kind of man who is heavily invested in his mustache wax, so he can get the upturned points just right?”
“Something like that.” Her hands move back to my chest, down my stomach again. With her eyes on my face, she reaches lower, sliding a soapy hand down my cock.
Her cheeks flush and I shiver, eyes rolling closed as I jump in her palm. I want to tell her it feels good, I want to kiss her, but I’m immediately so consumed by the feel of her touching me that I’m stuck in place, water running down my face.
She lets out a little moan when her hand slides over the head of my cock.
“Not your type at all,” I tease.
Her mouth presses to my collarbone. “Nope, not even a little.”
She works her hand over me, slowly squeezing, and then stretches to kiss up my neck.
I cup her face, tilting her to look up at me. “We don’t have to do this.”
London stares at me, breathing in, breathing out. “We don’t?”
What? “Of course not.”
But she’s teasing me. With a little smile, her lips part as she presses her mouth to mine, tongue sliding inside, warm and slick. Everything in me unravels. I find her breasts with my hands, press her to the tile and deepen the kiss, groaning into her mouth as I make tiny circles over her nipples with my thumbs. When I reach between her legs with one hand, finding her already silky with need, she pulls back from my mouth, letting her head fall back against the tile. I watch her—eyes closed, mouth soft and open, pulse thrumming in her throat—as my fingers move around, around, down, around. Fuck, she’s sexy, and it’s easy to figure out how to make her feel good: she likes being touched on the outside, quick and hard. I bend, sucking the water from her chin, her lips.
Her body slides against mine and I chase her mouth when she pulls back, giving me a tiny brow raise before whispering, “Condom?”
I lean out of the shower, fumbling in a cabinet drawer for one, and somehow manage to stand back up and hand it over without slipping.
She curls it in her fist and reaches for me with her free hand, stroking me, stretching on her toes for a kiss. My mind goes warm and shapeless when I return my fingers to her, and hear her relieved little gasp.
London tears the packet open with her teeth while my fingers stroke and stroke and stroke. I can feel how close she is in the tension in her thighs, so I don’t need her to tell me “I’m close,” but hearing it anyway pushes an electric charge into my blood.
It goes off like a bomb inside my chest when she adds: “I want to come with you inside.”
London looks up into my eyes, smiling almost apologetically for asking for that sort of physical connection with me. “Is that okay?”
I nod, unable to reply aloud because
something
is breaking
wide-open in me.
I rub her bottom lip with the pad of my thumb, nodding again and again.
We’re no longer headed toward a fun fuck, the rutting, confident sex I’ve been enjoying for years. I suddenly can’t muster the out-of-focus tenderness I give so easily. This isn’t even like the other night with her—two people experiencing something completely different, together.
Here, I’m peeled bare.
I want to make love to this sweet, distrustful girl.
It’s confusing to need the reassurance of her mouth on mine, but I bend, taking her lips, sucking and pulling and opening her so I can taste her tongue and draw out those tight, hungry sounds.
She pulls away to focus, and I can feel her breath on my neck and the weight of her attention where her hands work the condom down my cock. Sounds seem to fall away one by one; even with the pounding of the water we’re in a silent room, breathing in, breathing out. She reaches lower, cupping me, and at the sharp grate of my grunt I feel her eyes turn up to my face, taking stock of every detail of my reaction.
You’re so hard. I don’t hear her say this, but I see her mouth form the words, and stare at the water running down her face, tripping from her top lip.
I imagine what she sees: the tightness in my brow, my jaw. I swallow before trying—and failing—to form words. I don’t even know what I would say right now, and everything rising up in me feels too intense to voice anyway. Her blond hair is plastered to her cheeks and down her neck. Her eyes are these enormous circles of turquoise lined with dark blue, lashes clumped together. Impossibly red, her lips are swollen from me. But it’s the way that the caution has melted from her expression that makes something inside me ache.
She’s making me want something I haven’t considered in so long. Connection, stability, something familiar and just ours.
“I like this,” she says quietly, and the way her eyes linger on mine, I know she’s saying more. She’s admitting she likes me.
I groan, knowing there’s no filter remaining in my eyes, nothing hiding the way I’m impatient and needy, breathing so hard I’m panting. I reach for her thighs, pulling her legs up and around my waist and it’s so easy to slide into her, wet like this, soft for me. I could slam deep with one push, fuck us both to satisfaction in a few sharp jabs, but it’s an inch at a time that I want.
I want to feel that slide, the slow easing in.
I want to watch the relief take over every feature one by one.
I want her to see me.
A tiny flash of pain crosses over her face—a twitch of her forehead, a tight gasp—and I bend to kiss her, whispering, “Okay?”
“Yeah,” she says, nodding. Her fingers move up my neck into my hair as a sly smile takes over her lips. “I just never do this sort of thing.”
I laugh at this, but it melts into a groan as she turns into my neck, sucking, biting. When I’m deep in her I stay there and just push deeper, deeper, deeper, rubbing all over her until she’s scratching at my back, pushing against me, slicing these tight, sharp noises straight into my ear.
I knew she was close but I didn’t realize how fast it would be.
I pull back to look at her right when she breaks: her mouth falls open, her pussy goes tight, and shards of sound tear from her throat.
With my face pressed to her neck, something in me falls apart and I’m gripping her, fucking her, sucking at her skin and taking as much as I can get. Her orgasm goes on and on until she comes down, gasping for air and just watching me.
Watching me climb, watching me give in, watching me topple over and come with a rumbling groan.
Fuck, I can barely breathe. My arms are shaking and she’s so slippery I have to adjust my grip so that I don’t drop her. But her hands cup my face, her mouth searches for mine, and then we’re kissing.
We’re kissing and it’s better than anything and I’m still inside her.
Everything is soft, drenched in water and these unwound, relieved touches are making it hard for me to imagine ever turning off the shower. It’s such a simple thing—kissing after sex—but it’s not. If it were simple it would be routine. I wouldn’t roll off right after, take care of the condom before taking care of anything else. I wouldn’t be thinking how long until we can get up, or whether she wants to stay over or whether I should offer her something to eat.
But London isn’t done with me yet and I don’t want to pull out. Not yet. Not quite. I like the feel of her, all pliable in my arms. I like the way it feels to come down in her.
I like the way it feels like we just did something rare together.
She tilts my face in her hands, kissing my jaw, sucking water from my bottom lip. Her blue eyes are bright and glassy, so close to mine. “You okay?”
I nod, whispering, “I think you’re going to wreck me,” before going back in for more of her mouth, but she ducks to the side.
“You’re going to run out of hot water soon.” She stretches, shifting her hips back, and I slide out of her before carefully setting her back on her feet.
It’s been years since I felt the odd sense of ownership over a body, and the awareness jerks through me like a reflex. I run
my hands down her sides to her hips. I smooth my palms over her ass when she bends to turn off the water. I let my hands slide back up her sides and to her breasts when she straightens with her back to me. Bending, I suck at her shoulder, biting, wanting to leave a mark that lets everyone else know that I was here. I like the way she fits against me, front or back, it doesn’t matter. We fit.
“Where are your towels?” London looks at me over her shoulder, and she tries to hide a shiver.
“Shit, sorry, hang on.” I climb out, wrapping the only towel on the rack around my hips before jogging to the linen closet to get her a fresh one.
She’s climbing out when I return and hand it to her. I watch her dry off from her feet up her body to her hair. I’m reeling from the sensation that she was my girlfriend only ten seconds ago.
“Believe it or not,” she says, “that was the first time I’ve showered with someone.”
I bring the towel up to my hair, rubbing it dry. “Really?”
She looks up and freezes before coughing out a laugh. “Oh my God, your face. You look so proud.”
“It’s not a huge mystery that guys like to be the first. Discovering America. Inventing shit. Showering with London.”
“That’s pretty sexist. Women also like—”
I interrupt her gently with one hand up. “Yeah, yeah. But maybe not in the pathological way guys do.” I stare at her until she meets my eyes. “Settle down, I’m just happy to be the first. I’m not planting a flag or anything.”
Finally, she gives me a smile. Her eyes soften, take in my whole face before she looks into my eyes again. Fuck me, her expression is so sweet, so . . . happy, and I take a step forward—
She blinks, gaze cooling, and there it is: she remembers that we’re naked under our towels and she’s not supposed to like a guy like me. “Can I borrow some clothes? I need to drive home and change for work but don’t want to put my sandy stuff back on.”
“Didn’t plan very well, did you?”
Her eyes narrow and she tries to look annoyed but totally fails. “I planned on showering at home.”
She follows me to the bedroom, watching as I pull a pair of basketball shorts and a T-shirt out of a drawer.