Chapter Seven
This time, as we left the café, JC took my hand in his. I was giddier about the gesture than I wanted to be, which I hated. I also hated that we both were wearing gloves. I wanted skin on skin.
We didn’t have to walk far before we caught a cab. JC gave instructions to the driver to take us to the Four Seasons Hotel. Then he chatted for a few minutes about the traffic and the Mets. After a few minutes, he sat back and removed the glove from my right hand and the glove from his left hand and entwined his fingers through mine.
The ride was about half an hour—not long considering it was rush hour now. Neither of us talked. We’d said all we needed to at breakfast. With words, anyway. Now we spoke through the juncture of our hands, his thumb caressing across my skin, our fingers squeezing where they were laced. It was active fondling, the pressure increasing and decreasing as our hands clenched and unclenched. With his touch, he told me what was in store for the rest of my body. I could tell exactly how he’d grope me, how he’d massage me, how he’d pump me.
It was the most erotic foreplay I’d ever experienced. By the time we arrived at our destination, I was aroused and primed for what would happen next.
I slid out of the cab first while JC paid. He’d paid for breakfast as well. When he joined me on the sidewalk, I said, “I know you have money.” We were at the Four Seasons, after all. “But I can pay for things too.” I didn’t want to offend him—if he was the type of guy who expected to be responsible for the bill then there was no arguing it. I’d met those guys.
If he wasn’t, then we needed to decide how the expenses would work.
He scowled at me as he took me by my elbow and steered me through the doors. “I’m sure you can pay for things. That bothers me though. If it’s important to you to pitch in, I’ll try to deal. I don’t want you to feel like you’re being paid for services or anything.”
I thought about it while he led me to the front desk. There was a couple checking in ahead of us, so I had time to give him my response. “It doesn’t bother me. And I don’t feel like a hooker, if that’s what you’re suggesting.” I’d been offered the role before. It was a rite of passage where I came from. I knew the difference between being paid for something required to survive and enjoying the benefits of a lover’s deep pockets.
JC chuckled. “Good. Because you’re definitely not a hooker. I would have gotten at least a handjob on the ride over if you were.” The couple moved away from the desk, but before nudging me forward, JC whispered in my ear. “Besides, the handjob I did get was even better, if you ask me.”
Then he felt the same about the foreplay. Awesome.
The hotel desk clerk addressed us, disturbing the clouds of my buzz. “And what can I do for you, today, Mr.—”
“Uh, uh, uh.” JC cut him off quickly. “What’s with the Mr. stuff? You know we don’t do that, Joseph.”
The clerk smiled in a way that went beyond customer service. “Sorry, I forgot you asked me to call you JC. What can I do for you this morning?”
I wondered if anyone was immune to JC’s charms. Did he befriend everyone he met? It was so unlike me. It always felt like such an effort to be friendly, but JC made it seem so easy. Made it actually look like an attractive way to live.
JC half-leaned against the counter so that he was facing me. “Well, Joe, I’d like to introduce you to my good friend, Gwen. She’ll need to be added to my room and be given a key.”
“Certainly. Gwen, do you have a photo ID?”
I handed the gentleman my ID. After typing a minute into the computer, he handed me my card back, plus a room key. “Enjoy your day,” Joe said, and JC once again took my hand to lead me through the lobby.
The arousal that had waned to a hum while we’d dealt with adding me to the room notched back up to a buzz, spurred by my palm against his. “That was close,” I said as we waited for the elevator. “I almost heard your last name.”
“No kidding. Joe almost killed all the fun. I’d have had to get him fired then. Would have been too bad, too. He knows where to get the best Cubans.”
“At least now he can identify me if I go missing. In case you’re a serial killer or something.”
“Why do you think I had you check in now instead of later? I didn’t want you to worry.”
I hadn’t been concerned that he was going to hurt me, even though that was probably stupid. I’d been making a joke. JC, on the other hand, was trying to relieve any fears I might have. Again. For someone so laid-back, it was admirable how good he was at thinking of all the details. It was funny how seriously he was taking the task of helping me relax. Really, all I needed was the sex.
Also, it was kind of cute.
The elevator arrived and we stepped in. JC pressed the button to the forty-ninth floor, and something else began niggling at my thoughts.
We leaned against the railing and watched the numbers as they went higher. Six. Seven. Eight.
After we’d passed Ten, I couldn’t hold it in any longer. “He thinks I’m a high-priced call girl, you know. The desk clerk.” I really didn’t think I was a hooker, but that other people thought I might be one was a little less easy to swallow.
JC shook his head but didn’t look at me. “He thinks you’re my girlfriend.”
“No way.” Besides the fact that anyone who knew JC at all would know he didn’t have a girlfriend, I definitely did not fit the bill of who he’d be with if he did.
“He really does. I know he does.”
I looked to see if he was pulling my leg. His expression was completely serious. “How can you be so sure?”
“Because he sees me come in and out all the time. And I’ve never introduced him to any of my girls before.”
The elevator came to a stop, which seemed appropriate since my heart stopped for half a second at JC’s statement. The doors opened and I followed him out numbly as I tried to gather myself. My girls, he’d said. How many had there been? What number was I in his vast universe of starlets? I wasn’t comfortable standing out, but I didn’t know if I was comfortable being that anonymous. It also reignited my fears about JC and his decision to be monogamous. Could he really manage that? Could I trust him if he said he did?
But while I wondered at being a drop in a very large bucket, he’d also admitted that I was the only one he’d added to his room, and that was the worst part about what he’d said. That did make me feel special. Made me feel wanted for more than a night. Made me feel good about myself in ways I didn’t want to feel good about myself.
Made me want to reconsider my decision to be in a hotel with this man, heading to his room, and for very different reasons than fear of his infidelity.
I wondered if I could convince myself the doubts and the compliment canceled each other out. That could work, right?
By the time we reached his door, my palms were sweaty and my anxiety was beginning to outweigh my desire. He turned to me, concern in his eyes. “Are you still good?”
I bit my lip and nodded, afraid that if I tried to speak I’d say something I didn’t want to say. Like, I’m totally fine. Or worse, I need to go.
“Let’s make sure your key works.” He winked at me, which helped to ease my fears. A bit.
I pulled the card that Joe had given me from my pocket and handed it to JC. He slid it into the slot and the light turned green. “We’re a go,” he said.
He turned the knob and began to push the door, but before he’d opened it very far, I placed a hand on his arm to stop him. “JC, have you ever done this before?”
“Done what?”
I wasn’t quite sure what it was I meant by my question either, what it was that I was looking to glean from his answer. I knew he’d bedded other women, I knew he’d made at least one—the one that had spoken out at the club the night I’d met him—feel better because of her time with him. But the whole situation—the arrangement part, the monogamy—was that new? And how did I ask that exactly?
I had to figure it out because I was on edge. And I knew, somehow I was absolutely certain, that if JC gave me the right answer to my question, I’d feel better.
So I tried to explain it as best as I could. “A committed sexual relationship that really wasn’t committed at all, I guess is a good way to put it.”
His expression grew serious, but he kept his eyes on mine. “No, Gwen, I have not.”
I hadn’t known it until he’d given it, but it was the answer I’d been looking for. And when he took my hand once again in his, I felt a surge of arousal and confidence and comfort. It overcame me instantaneously, the way a light goes on with a switch, and I knew that whatever happened between us wouldn’t be inconsequential.
And that would be fine.
My smile came easily. “Then I guess we’ll be virgins together.”
He chuckled, pushing the door the rest of the way open. “Hopefully not for long.”
Inside the room, JC took my coat and hung it in a closet by the door alongside his. Then he placed the Do Not Disturb sign on the outside knob. I took the opportunity to look around the room. There was a couch and a couple of armchairs and an oval writing desk pressed against a floor-to-ceiling window that looked out over Central Park.
“Where’s the bed?” I flushed as soon as I said it, sure I sounded eager.
Thankfully JC didn’t make a big deal about it. He nodded down a hall. “Bedroom, bathroom, terrace—all that way.” He didn’t pull me that direction, however, leading me instead to sit on the couch. “You don’t mind if we hang out in here, do you?” he asked as he sat in an armchair across from me.
“Not at all.” What was I going to say? No, I want to get on with the fucking and I’m only comfortable fucking in a bed, wasn’t going to be believable. Or true. But, God, I hoped that he didn’t want to spend another hour talking. Because I was ready to get it on.
I crossed one leg over the other and bounced my knee.
JC studied me, his arms stretched out comfortably on the chair’s armrests. He seemed like a king on his throne. And what did that make me? “Gwen, relax. You look so tense.”
“It’s why I’m here, remember?”
“But you just got a hundred times tenser as soon as we walked in here. What can I do to make you feel more comfortable?”
I deliberated what to say. “Honestly? I’d feel better if we just got on with things.” He had told me I should ask for what I wanted.
He smirked, and I was afraid he was going to chide me for my impatience like he had at the café.
He didn’t. “Okay, we can do that. Tell me something—do you ever touch yourself?”
“Like, get off by myself?”
“Yes.”
My shirt was a long-sleeved silk peasant, but suddenly I felt bare. “Of course, I do.” Not a lot, but I did. And as much as I hadn’t wanted to admit it, I also didn’t want him thinking I was a total prude. Though maybe my answer made me sound like a perv of some sort. I rubbed nervously at my neck, already warm from blushing.
“Good.” JC seemed to like my response. “I want you to show me.”
I almost choked on my own saliva. “Show you? Like…you mean…right now?”
“Yes. Now. Right where you are. Show me.” He sat back into his chair, and I no longer thought of him as a king but as a judge.
A judge who wanted to watch as I played with myself.
“Um. I’m not sure I’m cool with that.” Except, I wanted to be cool with it. The idea was hot. It just required someone less inhibited than me to pull it off.
“Then don’t worry, you don’t have to do it. But I think that you want to. In fact, I know you do. You’re flushed right now and your breathing sped up as soon as I suggested it. Maybe some of that is fear, but fear isn’t very far from excitement. So if it’s something you want to do, then this is the perfect place to do it. Because you’re safe with me. I won’t judge.”
He leaned forward, his elbows on his knees. “And if it makes any difference, I want to see it.”
A shiver ran through me. “Why?”
“Because you have to be truly relaxed to climax with someone watching you. More selfishly, I already know how beautiful you look when you come, and I want to see it again.”
I couldn’t say exactly what it was that convinced me, and I never actually said yes, but there I was a minute later with my pants unzipped and my hand stuffed down my panties. I rubbed at my clit, and while my body tingled from the effort, I couldn’t get any further than that. “This isn’t working.”
“No, it’s not.”
I shot JC the evil eye. “Fuck you.”
“Not yet.” He ignored the second scowl I gave him. “Is this how you usually do it?”
“No. Usually I have my vibrator.” And no one watching me. Though, the last few times I’d done this, it had been JC I’d thought of. Only in my imagination, he wasn’t sitting across the room, not touching me.
This was too strange. Too detached.
Was this what he’d meant by a detached arrangement? Because if so, then it was going to be a deal-breaker after all.
Maybe I was overreacting. I wasn’t ready to give up.
JC frowned. “You never do this with your hands?”
“Not in a long time.” Not since I’d discovered the magic of Lelo pleasure objects. Talk about magic pussy.
“Shame.” He shook his head. “Okay. Anyway. Take off your pants. That will help.”
I didn’t think it would make a difference, but I did as he suggested, unzipping my long boots first, then pulling off my socks before standing to pull down my dress pants. When I sat again, I leaned into the cushion behind me and slipped my hand inside my panties. I still felt awkward. More so, now that my legs were bared. And I was a long way from an orgasm. I threw the back of my hand over my eyes and concentrated. Or, rather, tried to figure out how long I needed to keep going before faking an O would look convincing.
And honestly, it wasn’t what I wanted to do anymore. Well, it was and it wasn’t. I wanted to be sexy and unbridled. But I didn’t want it to be hard. I wanted to be the woman in the porn movie that could get off with just a flick of her clit. I wanted to come instantly like that and then move on to the next part where JC pulled out his cock and we played with that instead.
“Gwen, you aren’t trying.”
I let out a frustrated sigh. “Then you do it.”
Next thing I knew, he was perched over me, his arms braced on the back of the couch, caging me in. “Okay, then. I will.”
His mouth closed over mine. I’d been too immersed in my own grief the last time I’d kissed him to pay much attention to the actual kissing. His lips were softer than I’d remembered, but his touch was firm. His tongue moved confidently against mine, licking me with aggressive strokes that made my belly flip-flop and my panties damp. Made me twist and turn as I tried to take everything he had to give. Made me forget what I’d been doing and the failure that I’d met. Made me forget myself all together.
JC cupped a hand around my neck and wrapped a hand around my waist. With some expert move that was lost on me, he sat down on the couch and pulled me into his lap, straddling him. All without breaking our kiss. I liked this position. I could cling to his shoulders for support and squirm against the bulge in his pants while he worked at my bun until my hair fell loose around my face. Then, with one hand tangled in my locks, his other hand stroked my clit through the thin material of my panties.
We made out like this for long lost moments. He didn’t ask to take off my shirt. He simply tugged at the hem until I broke our kiss long enough for him to pull it over my head and toss it aside. Then, while he kissed at the skin above my bra, he unhooked the back—expertly, I noticed—then pulled that garment off me as well.
He pressed his palm against my chest and gently pushed me back so he could look me over. I watched his eyes as they feasted on me. Saw his pupils as they dilated with lust.
“Gwen, you have spectacular breasts. So beautiful. You hide them away behind your shapeless clothes. Are you simply being modest or are you uncomfortable with how gorgeous you are?”
“Uh…”I didn’t know if I was supposed to answer. If I was, I didn’t know what the answer was.
Not seeming to care that I hadn’t responded, he cupped a hand over each mound and squeezed, hard enough to really feel it. He kneaded his fingers into my skin then pulled at my nipples until I let out a soft cry of pleasure.
“Grab your breasts, Gwen.” He moved his hands out of the way so I could put mine in their place. “Yeah, like that.” He covered my hands with his and together we massaged and rubbed my sensitive skin. “Jesus, that’s so hot. One day, while you touch yourself like that, I’m going to slide my cock between your tits. Would you like that?”
“Hmm,” I moaned. It was the only sound I could make out. I was too turned on by his talk and the way he was touching me—the way we were touching me. I thought I might be able to come from this alone.
“That’s not good enough, Gwen. I need you to tell me. With words.”
“I would like it,” I gasped.
“You’d like what? Say it.”
I’d heard dirty talk, but nothing quite like the way JC talked to me. And certainly I’d never been expected to reciprocate.
What’s more, I never knew how much I wanted to reciprocate. “I’d like you to fuck my tits.”
JC rewarded me with a bruising kiss. “I’m going to,” he said when he pulled away. “Not today, but sometime soon. I promise.”
Christ, the idea practically made me explode. It was so base. So primal. So…naughty. It was exactly what I wanted.
There was something else I wanted. Wanted now. “You too,” I said, my breathing labored. “Your shirt off too.”
JC seemed pleased, if with my request or with the fact that I had stated it out loud, I didn’t know. “You want my skin touching yours?”
I nodded more vigorously than I needed to, eager to have him reveal a part of himself when he kept so much else hidden.
“Then let me make that happen.” He took his sweater off. Then the white T-shirt he wore beneath. He stilled to let me study him.
As I fondled my breasts, my eyes raked across his torso. He was trim and sculpted, not overly toned, but still sporting a washboard. His pants hung low on his hips. I couldn’t decide what to focus on first—the creases that shot down in a V below his waistband or the tattoos that decorated his skin. One on his bicep, a compass just above the pit of his elbow. Another, words written in a grid on his opposite forearm. A third, Chinese lettering running down one side of his ribcage.
Before I’d gotten a chance to examine much of him at all, he turned me so that I was laid out on the couch. Then he climbed over me. “I love the way you look at me, Gwen. And I hope to give you more time to explore all of me later on. But I’m playing selfish today. Today I’m exploring you.”
With a hand on each side of me, he held his weight so that he could brush his chest against me, back and forth across my nipples, which burned and stung from the too-gentle touch. I pushed my breasts closer together, trying to get better contact with his skin.
“That’s so good, Gwen. So hot. Now keep touching yourself like that, okay? I need to suck on you.” He pushed himself back on his knees and lowered his head to my breasts and drew a taut nipple into his mouth.
I sighed at the near brutal way he sucked and tugged at my tender flesh. His total attention was on this one breast, his hands cupping it as he worshipped it with his lips, his tongue, his teeth. Subconsciously, my fingers mimicked his ardor on my other nipple—pinching it to a peak, pulling it to the brink of pain.
I didn’t even realize I was gasping until he said something.
“I love those little sounds you’re making, Gwen.” He licked a trail from the breast he’d been feeding on, down the valley in between, and to its twin. “I need to hear them louder. Can you make them louder for me?”
As he gave the same attention to my second breast, I tried to be louder. It wasn’t easy for me. I wasn’t in control of them in the first place, and now that he’d called me out, I felt awkward.
Fortunately, JC was patient. He worked me up again, kneading me with his hands, devouring me with his mouth until I was panting noisily.
When his lips eventually left my chest, he returned to my mouth for another deep, urgent kiss. He stretched his legs out behind him, settling between my thighs so that I could feel the stiff ridge of his erection through his pants against my crotch.
“Ah, fuck, I’m so hard for you right now. I’m steel.” He ground his hips into me. “Can you feel that?”
“Yes, yes. I feel you.” My voice was tiny and quiet, so I bucked my pelvis up to let him know how well I could feel him, how much I wanted to feel him more, in case he didn’t make that out from my small statement.
“Now I want you to put your hand in your panties. Rub yourself like you did before.” His tone gave me no room to deny or to question. He wasn’t demanding or even coaxing. He simply held the command, and I wanted to do what he said.
I slid my hand down where he wanted it. Immediately, he covered mine with his, and together we massaged my clit, circling and pressing until my entire nervous system was on fire.
“Yes, that feels good, doesn’t it? Can you let me know how good it feels? You don’t have to use words this time. Just let me hear your moans.”
The sound fell out of my mouth without any thought, followed by another. Sounds that were part groan, part sigh, part gasp. As each one left my body, I felt like a weight had fallen from my back. It was like crying—cathartic and releasing.
“Yes, like that,” JC encouraged me. “Keep rubbing yourself like that. Keep letting me hear you.”
JC’s hand left mine, but I kept stroking my nub as he’d instructed while he sat back on his knees and tucked his fingers around the elastic band of my underwear. When he gestured for me to lift my hips, I did, and he pulled my panties down my legs and tossed them behind him.
I was naked now. Completely revealed. My instinct was to curl in—hide my most private parts from his gaze. But I fought against inclination and kept one hand caressing my breast, the other rubbing my clit, my knees parted so his view wasn’t obscured.
He inhaled appreciatively at the sight of me exposed. Before our encounter the other morning, I’d neglected things down south. There wasn’t much need to trim and shape. Then—after—I decided to tidy up. I pretended it was simply time, but in all honesty, it was because I’d wanted to be ready in case of a moment like this one.
I hadn’t gone completely bare. Close though.
JC pushed my hand away so he could see me better. “This is nice, Gwen.” He ran a finger over the small patch of hair I had left, sending a jolt down my spine, even as he danced around the spot that yearned for his returned attention. “I have to say, I didn’t mind before, but this is even sweeter. I can see you better. I can see your clit right now, and it’s so swollen and pink. I can’t wait until I suck you off there.”
Please, I begged inside my head. I’d lost my voice again, too paralyzed by his stare, and all my invocations remained silent. I could almost feel his lips on my skin, just from the way he looked at me. Could tell how he’d go down on me. Could imagine it so vividly that I was already writhing from the pleasure.
Despite his words, he didn’t move to take me in his mouth. Instead, he shook his head. “Not right now, though. And not because you won’t ask for it, but because I have other things in mind.” He took one of my legs and raised it so my ankle was on the back of the couch. Then he nudged my other farther apart so that my foot touched the floor, spreading me wide. “And also because you won’t ask for it. If you want me to lick you there, Gwen, you’ll have to learn how to tell me.”
He sat back on his knees and swept his eyes over every part of me. “Jesus, you’re gorgeous. Don’t stop touching yourself, Gwen.”
He slid a finger down my slit and circled the rim of my hole. He repeated his circle one more time before plunging it inside me. I was wet. Embarrassingly wet, but JC didn’t seem to mind in the least. He dragged some of my moisture up to help me swirl against my clit and then dipped back down, adding two fingers this time. He finger-fucked me like that, bending his stroke just so that it hit me in exactly the right place.
I could feel my orgasm on the horizon. Like how the sun casts a glow around the land before it hits with his full rays. I had that glow. But I couldn’t quite get the rays.
JC continued to work me. And as he worked me, his other hand undid his pants and released his cock. It was thick and hard as steel. A bead of pre-cum lay on the tip. I watched him as he took his hand from inside me and rubbed my juices down the length of his shaft. Then he returned to probing me while at the same time he began to pump his cock with long strokes.
It was so hot, so intense, so unbelievably erotic. Watching him pleasure himself as I pleasured myself. Knowing that the thing getting him off was the sight of me. Knowing that I wouldn’t be dangling on the edge like this if it weren’t for him.
Still, I couldn’t fall off the cliff. Couldn’t let my orgasm overtake me. It stayed at bay no matter how hot the scenario was. As JC started to pump himself in earnest, I started to fear he’d get there before me.
But, as always, he guessed my thoughts. He met my eyes full on. “You can’t imagine how hard it is for me to keep control of myself. But I’m going to do it. So you don’t have to. I’m going to hold all the control so that you can let go. Let go, Gwen. Let me hear you. Let me see you. Let everything go for me.”
Then, there it was. It came on so easily, as if it hadn’t been hiding at all, streaking through my limbs until I was white-hot and shaking. Every cell, every fiber of my body glowed and shone, my every molecule quivered with the brilliance of my orgasm.
I was only somewhat aware of JC coming with me. He groaned and twitched, his knees knocking against my thighs as his cum shot onto my lower belly and trailed down to where my fingers still shook against my clit. I felt him fall sideways against the sofa, and I briefly wondered if he was as devastated as I was before my mind drifted into the oblivion of my climax.
I kept my eyes closed as I recovered, unable to look any longer at the man who’d brought me to such a state of wreckage. He was magnificent—was that the climax talking?—and the stars that shot across my closed lids seemed fitting after staring at someone so bright. Someone so penetrating that he could see right through me, right into me. See what I needed, what I so desperately wanted to be feeling.
He didn’t even know my full name. Yet, he knew me. A part of me, anyway. A part that no one had bothered to try to know for quite a while.
When I settled, I lay limp and boneless, a smile tickling my swollen lips. He’d done it. He’d relaxed me. He’d taken away the tension and eased the constant knot that resided in my stomach.
JC had unwound me so completely, in fact, that I didn’t even let it bother me that he stirred other emotions in me too. Emotions that I hadn’t bargained for. He made me feel beautiful. He made me feel wanted. He made me feel something other than boring.
He made me feel. Period.