Once the cold night air hit me, I started second guessing myself. What was I thinking? Taking a total stranger back to my apartment? I was 31, not 21; this wasn’t something that I did anymore—not that I’d done much of it to begin with.

But, God, Asher was the hottest man I’d ever seen in my life, and I wanted to climb him like a tree. Even if I wasn’t going to orgasm, the feeling of him pounding into me was going to be almost as good; I just knew it.

“I suppose we should leave the cars,” I told him, remembering the three—or was it four?—drinks he’d just paid for. “Shall we get a cab?”

“Sure. I’ll come get mine in the morning,” Asher said, glancing back at a slate gray BMW parked on the other side of the lot.

He had a really nice car, I noticed—better than I could afford. I wondered what he did—he’d said that he had gone to medical school, but he could be a surgeon or an administrator or anything in between. I guess that profession really did pay off the way people said.

Normally, I didn’t take men back to my apartment, preferring to go to theirs. If I was going to make an idiot of myself or sour the night with my…uh, shortcoming, then I wanted to be able to flee rather than be the one kicking somebody out. My home was my sanctuary and I didn’t like it to be disturbed in that way.

But Asher had been gentle in his flirting, barely doing or saying anything of that nature, instead just winning me over by being a genuinely funny and charming person. I felt like I could trust him.

We stepped out of the cab about ten minutes later, me leading the way up to my apartment. Asher slid a hand around my waist as we walked and I let myself lean into it. It felt more protective than sexual, or at least it did until we got into the elevator.

He was right there, a solid line of heat against me. I’d felt him watching me as I walked alongside him, tapping in the key code to get into the building and selecting my floor on the elevator.

I turned. “I think you said something about doing wicked things to me?”

Asher’s eyes darkened again and he crowded me up against the wall of the elevator. One of his legs—Jesus Christ, his thick, muscled legs—slid in between mine and pressed up. I gasped, my underwear getting soaked as he started to rock his leg back and forth.

“You mean things like this?” he asked.

I would have at least tried to reply, but then he was kissing me and all words fell away.

I grabbed his jacket, thrusting up into his mouth and down onto his leg, feeling trapped between his wicked tongue as it slid against mine and his firm leg as he kept rocking it up into me. I was starting to regret wearing a dress with a flared skirt to the bar. There was no barrier between his leg and my now-soaking-wet underwear, the damp fabric clinging to me and just adding more sensation that made me press up into Asher’s mouth.

His hands were all over me, sliding up my body, squeezing my hips and my waist and skimming along my breasts, feeling my nipples through the fabric.

“Oh, God,” I groaned. I was writhing on his leg, seeking more of that friction. It wasn’t enough, it was never enough, but God, it felt good all the same. “Asher—”

“Oh, look, the elevator stopped,” Asher noted, pulling back as the doors opened.

I was going to kill him. “Why did you stop?”

“You really want your landlord to get mad at you for having sex in your elevator?” Asher said.

Good point. I hurried out and led him to my front door, unlocking it with shaking hands. I wanted to get out of my clothes and to have him all over me. I wanted to finally see what was underneath the well-cut jeans, the pale green button-up shirt, and the fitted jacket.

The moment we were inside the apartment, Asher pressed up behind me, one of his hands sliding up my inner thigh. My legs felt like jelly and I leaned back against him, grabbing onto his arms as they wrapped around me.

“I…” I started to say, but then his fingers found the edge of my underwear and I lost whatever train of thought I’d had.

“You’re so wet,” Asher murmured, his voice rough and low.

He pressed his hips up against my ass and I could feel the outline of his erection. I ground back against him, rolling my hips, grinning as I felt him grunt in surprise and pleasure.

“I’m getting you onto your bed,” Asher promised, “And then I’m going to make you scream for me.”

Oh, fuck yes, I liked that idea. I loved that idea.

“Please,” I asked, not even sure what I was asking for.

Asher ran a finger lightly over my underwear, and I made a kind of whimpering, wailing sound that I didn’t even know I could make. The teasing, knife-edge feeling of it had my hips arching up, searching for more.

“Anybody ever thought to do that to you before?” Asher asked, doing it again.

I cried out, then moaned into his neck as he started to rub the pad of his finger against my clit, slowly and determinedly.

“I’m guessing not,” Asher noted.

How the hell could he be so composed when I was practically a shaking mess?

I whirled around and grabbed him by his jacket, shoving it off of him and kissing him deeply, nipping a little at his lips. Asher made a noise of surprise and his arms wrapped around my waist, pulling me in close.

I pulled back just long enough to demand, “Take me back to my room and fuck me,” and then went back to kissing him.

“Yes, ma’am,” Asher breathed.

His two large hands slid to my thighs and then, with a slight grunt from him, I felt the ground beneath me vanish. I squealed and clutched at him as I was lifted up, wrapping my legs around his waist to hold on. He’d lifted me just like it was nothing.

“Bedroom?” Asher asked, panting the word into my mouth.

“This way,” I breathed, directing him from the entryway through the living room into my bedroom.

Luckily, I lived in a one-bedroom apartment, so it wasn’t all that difficult to figure out the layout, even if it was dark and he had a writhing brunette in his hands.

Not that I was—okay so I was writhing, a little. But oh my God, anyone would have been writhing when he was curling his tongue in my mouth like that and keeping his hands on my ass so that he could grind it against his cock while he carried me to my bedroom. I wanted his hands and his mouth everywhere. I wanted him inside of me.

Asher deposited me gently on the bed, then pulled back so that he could get his clothes off. Generally, I liked a slower tease when it came to getting clothes off. Building the anticipation usually helped my partners get into the mood, and I could focus on giving them pleasure and try not to worry about my own.

But right now, I was feeling as desperate as Asher was. I didn’t know what it was about him that made me feel so lightheaded with lust, but it felt like I was going to die if I didn’t get my hands and mouth on his bare skin.

I stripped off my dress, underwear, and bra, making a mental note to throw said underwear away the next morning. It was ruined, now.

Asher finished stepping out of his pants, and my jaw went slack again. I’d figured out that he worked out, thanks to his ability to lift me while his eyes were closed, but I still wasn’t expecting how chiseled he was going to be.

“Oh my God, I’m going to lick your abs,” I blurted out.

Dammit, still a little tipsy.

Asher laughed at that, crawling up the bed to settle between my legs and kiss the corner of my mouth. It was oddly sweet.

“You can do whatever you want,” he promised me.

I liked that idea.

I shoved at his shoulders until he rolled over and I could straddle him, bending down to run my mouth over his broad chest and six pack. It was like he was carved from marble, except his skin was so much softer and warmer than marble could ever be.

Slowly, I made my way down his body, savoring every bit of it—the salty taste of his skin, the way he groaned when I lightly bit at his hipbone.

I hadn’t planned on giving him a blowjob, but then, I hadn’t planned on not giving him one, either. I nosed at the hair at the base of his cock, grinning at the rumble in his chest. Like I said, I enjoyed doing this. It was the one place where I was guaranteed to please my partner.

“Feel free to tug on my hair if you want,” I told him, and then I licked a long stripe up the underside of his cock.

Asher swore, loudly, his hands fisting in the sheets.

I grinned. This was intoxicating.

I took the tip of him in my mouth, swirling my tongue around the head before I sank down slowly, as far as I could go. Asher swore again and one of his hands came up to slide into my hair, his fingers getting tangled up in my locks so that he could tug lightly if he wanted to.

I sank down again and again, slowly, keeping the rhythm steady but not speeding up. Every so often, I would pull back to lick up the underside and then tease his slit, which always produced a strangled sound from Asher’s throat. Before long, he was tugging at my hair.

“C’mon,” he groaned. “I don’t want to finish like this; I want to be inside you.”

Now it was my turn to make a strangled noise. “Okay.”

I let Asher turn me so that we were on our sides together, but instead of kissing me, he ducked his head down to suck at my breast. I gasped, and then I was the one threading my fingers through his hair, arching my back to try to get more of my breast into his mouth as he sucked with just a hint of teeth.

“Asher,” I gasped. I wanted him inside of me so badly. “Asher, please, I want—”

“Eager little thing,” Asher growled, the dark, sinful tone of his voice making a fresh wave of heat pulse through me.

A part of me just wanted to wrap my legs around him and grind mindlessly while he whispered dirty things in my ear, until I was too exhausted to move anymore. Asher took one of my breasts in hand, his thumb swiping over the nipple, then pinched it lightly. I gasped up into his mouth.

“Get inside of me,” I begged. It felt like all of me was on fire. “Please, Asher, I want you inside of me.”

I didn’t care that I wasn’t going to get off, I just wanted to feel the beautiful stretch of him inside me, to feel him filling me up and fucking me until he came. I wanted him to come, wanted to make him lose control. It wasn’t an orgasm, but by God, it would be the next best thing.

Asher reached back down for his pants, pulling a condom out of his wallet. I wanted to make a joke about him planning on getting lucky, but here he was, getting lucky, so I held my tongue.

Asher rolled the condom on, scattering kisses down my neck and over my shoulders while he did it.

“You’re gorgeous,” he whispered, his voice raw. “I want to kiss every inch of you.”

“You can do that.”

Honestly, at that point, he could have told me that he wanted to eat dinner off my stomach and I wouldn’t have even batted an eye.

“After I make you scream,” he reminded me.

His hand slid down to draw a finger through my folds, circling my clit but not touching it quite yet.

“So wet, you’re dripping,” he murmured.

My cheeks started to burn with embarrassment, but Asher sounded genuinely pleased. He slid a finger inside of me and I gasped, almost missing the way his eyes were trained on the spot where his finger moved in and out of me. It was like it entranced him, how my body was taking him in so readily.

“C’mon,” I told him, arching my hips up. “I want, I want…I can take more.”

Asher made a choked noise at that and slid another finger inside, curling them up just right and making me almost sob with pleasure. Oh, God, it felt so good—it felt so, so good—and best of all, Asher seemed to like my reactions.

He didn’t seem to be so absorbed in his own pleasure that he couldn’t even really notice mine, the way most of my previous partners had been. He was looking up at my face now, like every twitch of it fascinated him.

“Think you can take a third?” he asked.

I nodded. “I want you,” I told him. “Please, I’m ready. I want you.”

“If it hurts, you have to tell me, okay? You don’t have to rush into this.”

“Either get inside of me,” I told him, “Or I’m going to flip you over and do it myself.”

Asher scrambled to get in between my legs, positioning himself.

“Maybe next time,” he said, and my brain got caught on the idea of next time, so I wasn’t prepared when he started to enter me.

I gasped, my body tightening instinctively around him. It felt so good—I had forgotten that sex could feel this good. Or, maybe it hadn’t ever been this good before.

“Yes,” I sighed, relaxing and taking in more of him, letting him know that this was good. “Yes, like that.”

Then, I pulled out my favorite trick. I’m pretty flexible, thanks to frequent yoga classes, and so I reached my legs up and pulled them back so that they were over my head. I locked my ankles together, just in case.

The movement made Asher slide into me completely, bottoming out, and I saw his eyes go wide. At the same time, he let out a strangled sound, his mouth dropping open.

“What—how did you—”

“Don’t hold back,” I told him. I grabbed at his shoulders and pulled him in to kiss me through the open V of my legs. “C’mon.”

There was a moment where Asher’s forehead wrinkled and his eyes closed, as if he was trying to regain his composure, and then he was moving—fast and hard, just like I’d asked. I could look down and see him moving in and out of me, and it made me almost lose my mind.

I sank my fingers into the sheets to keep from dragging my nails down his back too hard. This felt so good, so incredibly good. It was like I was coasting on this feeling of a good burn. It was just on the edge of pleasure-pain and I loved it.

It wasn’t climax—I knew that—but it still felt good. If sex didn’t feel good except for the climax, then nobody would ever do it, and I especially loved that I got to watch Asher come apart. He was sweating, pounding into me, keeping up a steady rhythm for God knew how long.

It felt like time was no longer a thing that existed, that this one moment was just stretching on and on, where I was in a cloud of just pleasurable, good old-fashioned fucking. It had been so long since I’d felt that way about it that I was starting to doubt I’d ever felt that way about sex at all.

I could sense that Asher was getting close, his thrusts becoming more erratic and his hand sliding down to finger my clit again, making me give out a little yelp at the increase in stimulation. He grinned at that, so I did it some more, letting loose with the sounds, gasping and crying out at the sensation of his fingers on my clit and him being inside of me.

I hooked my ankles up around his neck and used them to pull him closer to me.

“Let go,” I whispered, right into his mouth. “I want to see you come.”

Asher thrusted even harder at that—one, two, three times—and I was actually screaming up into his mouth, kissing him because he liked it and because I made him do that, I was making him come, and come hard.

Asher collapsed to the side, panting as he tied off the condom and tossing it in my wastebasket. “You are amazing,” he told me. “Did you—it seemed like maybe at the end there, but I wasn’t sure. Also, you seem remarkably composed for someone who just climaxed, if you did.”

I wondered if I should be honest with him. It would be easy to lie. I’d gotten very vocal at the end, screaming up into his mouth the way that he wanted, but there was a look in Asher’s eyes that told me he already suspected the truth—and I was a horrible liar.

“No,” I admitted. “But I still really, really enjoyed it, and I’m up for more if you want.”

“I definitely want,” Asher said determinedly, like I’d set a challenge before him.

He leaned in, kissing me gently, cradling my face in one of his hands. It was sweet and gentle and made me feel precious. It was an odd feeling, not one that I was used to, and it made my heart ache in a strange way.

“Give me your number; I definitely want to do this again.”

I hadn’t had an orgasm and he wasn’t upset? It felt like I had stepped into an alternate universe.

Smiling, I got up to search for my phone. It looked like maybe my luck was finally turning.

Then, the niggling doubt crept in. Asher was the hottest guy I had ever met. Ever. He’d turned me on like crazy, far more than anyone else ever had, and he’d certainly known what he was doing when it came to pleasuring a woman. If I was any other girl, I bet I’d have orgasmed so hard I would have been unable to move afterwards.

But I wasn’t any other girl. I was me. And I hadn’t orgasmed. If I couldn’t do that—even during the best sex of my life, with an amazing guy that I liked for his personality as well as his body—then what did that say about me?

Maybe I should have gone to that Dr. O guy after all, I thought.