Suffice to say a date with Mario did not go as swimmingly amazing as I’d talked myself into.

I could have rattled off a whole score of reasons throughout the long as fuck four hours.

He talked constantly to my tits.

He touched my ass whenever he was near me.

He didn’t pick up the check.

Didn’t open doors.

He flirted with the waitress and made a lewd remark about a woman sitting at the bar.

All in all, it was a fucking nightmare of a date and I’d given my excuses and left him in the restaurant.

I was dating doomed.

Woe is me. Where was my tiny violin string quartet of my pity party?

Three more times in the next two weeks I had disastrous attempts at trying to meet someone that I gave up altogether, not least of all to give my poor liver time to recover. I was not a drinker by nature, three drinks my normal limit, but when nervous or on edge I tended to neck drinks like I was in the desert and afraid a camel was about to come along and take my last drop of liquid. Fucking camel.

Not only that I was tired of the tirade of stupid men. Was chivalry dead? I suspected so. When did it become the norm to ask a woman you’d barely said five words to ‘Is your pussy bare?’

I mean, really.

I’d glared at him, my mouth gaping open, unable to find any response to his question because it had taken me aback so much my brain switched off.

And I realized then maybe I wasn’t looking for a quick hook-up after all. I could have easily told him yes, he was a good-looking guy with nice body, I could envision spending a good few hours under him, but the moment his question came out of his pretty lips I was instantly turned off.

I knew then I wanted more and that was just depressing. If only I could transfer feelings into one of those idiots I’d met recently, my life would be a thousand times less stressful on my libido that was for sure.

My brain had given up screaming for my heart to stop wanting the unattainable. It fell on deaf ears.

Indie wanted me to try speed dating. I told her no way, this wasn’t 1995 and I wasn’t up for blind dates either, that always turned sour. With two bad experiences already, which meant I’d had to sit through two dinners with the guy slavering over my tits the entire meal, I don’t think he looked at my eyes once, and the other guy was no better, only he spoke of his seven cats. Seven fucking cats, I was not ready to be a mom, let alone a stepmom to his pampered pussies who I now knew by name and breed and personalities. (FYI: Diamond Daphne sounded like a huge diva, just my opinion)

I was in the middle of cleaning several trojan viruses from a computer when Noah messaged.

 

KingOfManhattan: What do you want to eat tonight?

 

Shit. I failed to remember we were watching a movie at his place. He didn’t go into work until late most nights, which left his evenings free if he wasn’t hooking up and Monday nights were saved for a movie on his 85-inch TV, almost as good as being in the theater.

I didn’t reply right away, when my fingers were figuratively knuckle deep in a motherboard I couldn’t be thinking of kung pow chicken and Noah in sweat pants, it was just not conducive to a peaceful work environment.

Instead, I worked for the next two hours, and decided to grab lunch on my way back to my place since my diary was free now unless someone had a social media emergency. It was while I was chatting to the concierge in my building that I remembered Noah’s text.

Dammit, he hated being kept waiting.

I typed a reply and headed up to my place in the elevator. I dabbled a little in graphic design, nothing big right now, but it was a side dish for when/if work dried up, it had its ups and downs and I hated the down time. My plan for the rest of the day was to finish fixing a website for a local photographer. She was so damn fussy, I’d changed the layout no less than fifteen times. Too big, too small, not enough silver, too much white. I was starting to think the 200-dollar fee wasn’t enough to deal with that kind of creative stifling. But as everyone knew, the customer was always right, even if her website was going to look gaudy as hell.

Her dollar, so I did what she wanted.

Kicking off my Vans at the door, keys and purse found the hallway table, I grabbed a coke and a tube of cashew nuts on my way to my office. It was technically the spare bedroom with a fold out sofa that turned into a double bed I used for my parents when they visited. Nothing compared to the command center. I had a white desk from Ikea with my iMac, MacBook pro, two iPads and my trusted HP laptop for variety. I wasn’t a computer snob, I liked all tech if it worked to the standards I required. My degree was in computer science, so I got a nerd-on for most software and I could talk code compiling, testing interface and gaming for hours if I met a fellow geek.

Right, time to dive into this website and finally…hopefully, this time around miss fussy-pants would okay the job and I could move on.

I worked until my neck ached and the base of my back felt like tiny dogs with clogs had been stomping on me. I pulled off my headphones, switched everything off and headed for a shower, my belly rumbling told me it was later than dinner time, lucky for me an hour later the smell of crab dumplings greeted me as I let myself into Noah’s top floor apartment, the smell so divine I grabbed chopsticks and stuffed one in my mouth in one gulp before I’d even said hello.

Holy hell, heat and vitality came off him in waves, he was so potent.

Like a shot of heroin to my bloodstream.

Or, what I imagine heroin must be like. Having been drug free for my entire life I’m assuming heroin is good shit since so many sell their souls and possessions for a hit. I’d sadly…wisely missed the drug movement in college, my mantra was if I didn’t know what a little white pill would do to me it wasn’t going in my mouth.

Truth was, I was a chicken and didn’t want to wake up dead one night.

I swallowed the crab long before it was ready to be swallowed, and I took the glass of water Noah held out to me with a smile as if he’d been prepared for my greedy guts to attack the spread of food he’d laid out on the kitchen counter.

I locked my knees at the first sight of him, too much handsome all at once was not good for me. He had faint stubble and amused eyes. “You want to grab the noodles?” He asked, leaning around me to reach a plate, his hand went to the base of my spine where my shirt had pulled up a little and he touched bare skin and I swear I tried hard not to moan.

Failing miserably.

“You okay?” He asked, brow pinched.

“Oh. Yeah. Just starved.” I grabbed the bowl of chow Mein noodles and the cutlery he’d laid out with napkins. He stared at me for a second, as if he didn’t believe a word of it, then took the plates.

Noah was a food snob, he never ate out of cartons like the rest of the fucking world did with takeout, everything always needed a plate or bowl and not even paper plates mind you, nope, these things were china, baby. I told him often he was just making more work for his poor maid/housekeeper/cleaner/whatever else she did for him.

Back in the day I’d been ill-equipped to deal with a stubbled Noah.

He was already villainous without adding GQ model to the list of shit I couldn’t take looking at.

Now though, it was a flash hot finger down my spine when I first saw him then I leashed it right up and he was just my friend again, not the man I hardcore lusted for.

Because if I couldn’t control that side to myself It wouldn’t be possible to be around him as often as I was. It was a kid in a candy store being told there was no free samples. I allowed myself that first hot hit, then it was gone.

“Did you get dessert?”

“No. I wanted to face your moody wrath again.” His sarcasm was extra sarcastic. Then added. “There’s cookie dough ice cream in the freezer, but you’ll eat all your dinner first before you can have it.”

“Yes, daddy.”

He rolled right with the punches. “Good girl.” Then flopped down beside me so we could eat and watch whatever movie he chose tonight.

I absolutely loved Noah’s living space. It was a huge room, open planned with the kitchen down the other end, wall to wall windows looking out over Manhattan and high ceilings. He was mister modern with chrome, glass and gray everywhere, but I loathed the sofa.

I first laid one way, then the other.

I sat with my head on the back and my body slouched forward, Noah glancing towards me every time I moved and sighed. This thing was a contraption I’m sure the fucking Nazi’s used back in the day for torture. While the black leather and thin silver legs looked stunning as an art piece, the wide L-shaped sofa was not butt friendly. It had no padding to speak off.

“Ugh. I can’t take this anymore.” I declared popping to my feet. “I’m wearing PJ’s, Noah, that means comfort. This thing.” I glared at his sofa. “Is not comfortable. Pause the movie and switch it to the TV in your bedroom.” With that I flounced off into the hallway and down to the other end to the master bedroom. “And bring the ice cream with you.”

I’d hooked it up with his media systems that whatever was played on the main TV played on the others throughout his apartment and his iPad if he wanted it to. I found the remote on the bed side table, flicking it on there was Idris Elba paused on screen.

Noah’s bedroom was much like the rest of his apartment, styled to within an inch of its masculine life. The bed being the central point taking up most of the room along one wall, the headboard crawled up half of it and it was in muted gray and white colors. What I liked about it most was the pillows. Pillows for days.

I was sacrificing the huge TV for a slightly smaller one hung on the bedroom wall but when I crawled up onto the mattress and sank into softness it was all worth it.

I moaned like I was being fucked.

A bed so soft it should be illegal to feel this good, don’t you tell me there is no god in this world somewhere, because Jesus, I loved this bed.

He followed a minute later, trekking bare foot into his bedroom, laying his phone and my ice cream on the bedside table and then he sprawled himself down on the other side of the bed.

I wondered if all my parts were connected to the little smirk he wore because everything flared awake for a second before I gave my body a good damn talking to. Not tonight, Satan.

We had a good four feet of clear mattress between us and yet I felt like we were skin to skin, convinced his heat was crawling out of his body and tickling mine I rubbed my arm distractedly.

He settled, hands behind his head and the movie un-paused, the action began to play again, we talked about our respective days while I ate half pint of cookie dough ice cream. He wasn’t going into work until 1am, the life of a nightclub owner.

“I would really do some damage to him.” I purred, eyes glued to Idris holding two guns and looking badass from head to toe. “You can really tell a lot about how a guy will be in bed by the way he holds two guns.” Anyone knew that.

Beside me, Noah snorted. “Should I get two guns then?”

I switched my head on the pillow to face him, found his grinning blue eyes on me. No one should be that sexy, that virile, that fucking masculine. Jesus.

Maybe I’d give blind dating another try.

I mean, how bad could it really be. Maybe third time's the charm.

I could meet my Mister Right who’d bang my brains out and make me realize I didn’t lust for my best friend’s gay dick after all, it was all just a clever mirage waiting for my one true love to come along and whisk my panties off and climb into my heart and evict Noah from there.

Yeah, maybe I’d call India tomorrow and tell her to set me up with a raging god of a man.

I laughed because that’s what Noah was expecting me to do, but all I could think about was the two guns metaphor and him in bed.

The same bed we were lounged on top of and suddenly I was kicking myself for not staying on the uncomfortable sofa.

“Are you trying to brag about your competence, lion?”

He gave me that dirty boy smirk, the one that curled my intestines into horny knots and made me lock my legs together for fear of a sudden gush of moisture. Just that small twitch of his mouth and I’m rendered into a randy mess of womanness wanting to climb on top of him and do the nasty-nasty.

And when he said; “I haven’t had any complaints about my two-gun action.”

I am dead and fighting to hold back a groan of both arousal and annoyance because I don’t want to hear of his long, long list of past lovers.

I knew some of his former lovers, some of them had been complete bitches to me simply because I was in Noah’s life. Not that I interfered when he had a partner, I wasn’t that fag-hag but having friends around was a normal thing, wasn’t it? You introduced them and hoped they got along.

None of his lovers liked me much, like they could sense my vagina wanted Noah too and it put them on the defensive back foot.

I always wanted to scoff and tell them it was they who had the dick Noah wanted, my equipment was sorely lacking in balls.

I could quite believe none of those whores complained.

Who would with a man like Noah in charge of banging them.

And I had no reason to believe that Noah was anything other than a top.

I couldn’t envision him bottoming for anyone.

With Noah, you took and if you were lucky you begged him to give.

Maybe I’d been in my own musings too long, because his hand touched my forearm, scorching me.

The briefest contact. Nothing really. And yet it’s everything. The small brush of his fingertips burned, rippled outward along my skin with lightning fast intensity, and my breath hitched, locked in my throat.

Calm down, it’s nothing.

He’d touched me thousands of times before, but this felt different, almost like he was testing me.

But that wasn’t right.

I was seeing things, projecting my dirty wants and twisting his every action into something it wasn’t.

Sometimes having a pretend fake boyfriend sucked.

Realizing I was looking at him like a slack-jawed idiot I snapped my mouth shut and made like I was deeply into the movie, where I didn’t take in another thing for the rest of it.

I ended up flipping channels once it was finished.

The bed seducing me, I really should head home, climb into my own bed, choose a vibrator, give myself a happy reason to sleep soundly. But there I laid, Noah messing with his tablet, dealing with work emails, fielding work calls, the man never shut down. It was true what they say about rich men, the more they had the harder they strived for more.

Now me, if I had a little bit of money I’d be happy to sit on my ass and scroll through my kindle and never work another day again.

Noah was the quintessential workaholic.

Moans emitted from the surround sound TV, bringing my head up off the pillow so fast I worried about whiplash. The dirtiest sex scene I’d ever seen.

Jesus, did I flip to the porn channel by mistake?

Where the frick was the remote?

The bed was a sea of blankets and pillows and ninety feet wide, that remote was lost forever.

I heard Noah snicker, eyes still on the tablet he was cradling.

“Jesus.” I muttered. The actor going to town between the actress’s legs, she was moaning like she hadn’t received head before. Seriously, no one moaned like that or body popped.

Was she being electrocuted?

The sex scene went on and on and thank god when it ended. I got into the movie, some spy thriller, but then another fuck scene began to play out.

Jesus on stilts, weren’t these people meant to be looking for a serial killer?

Who had time for fucking when murders were taking place?

They had their priorities all wrong.

This time the rugged detective was banging the actress in an alleyway in the pouring rain, their clothes were soaked. I surmised murder amped up their libido.

As much as I wanted to laugh, watching sex on Noah’s 60-inch TV with the man himself laid at my side was affecting me.

My skin prickled to a temperature I wasn’t comfortable with, I puffed out air, blowing up my bangs.

Hells bells. The detective pumping harder, the actress, I think she was a housewife or something, why was she even on the hunt with a cop anyway? I’d missed details along the way, but she was digging her nails into his butt and moaning for him to give it to her harder. Bored housewife liked it rough.

And so, did I.

God. I was turned on.

“Where’s the damn remote?” I asked finally. I couldn’t take this fuck-fest, couldn’t people just stick to good old-fashioned murder in movies nowadays? I was about to die of hormones and embarrassed to boot. “Are you hiding the remote?” I accused, finding him watching me as I flung pillows off the bed.

Go home. It was so time to go home.

“It’s right there,” he stated grinning, chin jutted to the bedside table. “You all hot and bothered over a little movie fucking?”

It’s hard really to be annoyed at his playful attitude, even though I tried with my scowl and blush that I was sure was pinker than my PJ pants.

“What? No. This is boring is all.” Oh, the lies we tell. I was so turned on it was ridiculous because the movie was crap, but seeing the actors bang together in the pelting rain, the erotic way he’d grabbed the woman and slammed into her.

I wanted that.

I needed that.

“Come on, Sena. Tell me.” Suddenly there wasn’t four feet between us any more, I was brushing my elbow against his arm, the remote forgotten, all I could see was oceans worth of sea gazing down at me with the backdrop of humping noises blasting from the speakers.

Churning air, I forgot how to talk, what with my instincts on raging alert, to lean across that slither of space now and bite his earlobe, to tell him to stop teasing me, that it wasn’t nice to pick on the horny woman who hadn’t had any in what seemed like a decade and to leave me to my shame and—

“Has watching them fuck got you wet and aching?”  

Someone made a strangled choking noise and I belatedly realized it was coming from me.

My gaze clashed with Noah’s, and for a second, it’s a look of understanding, or maybe my addled brain was just all hormones and not enough logic because I flushed to the roots of my hair and turned my face away, the only thing I could look at was the fucking TV —Jesus, did those actors never stop—and ignore him. My wetness was no one’s business but my own and my vibrators in about five minutes when I slinked off down to my own apartment.