Chapter Nine
Some strange man’s rather muscular thigh trapped her to the bed, her arms swimming to reach shore. A ringing in her ears pierced her fuzzy consciousness and she realized it was her phone ringing, and Alex, naked, was sound asleep, half on top of her.
The phone slipped out of her hands twice until she finally pressed the glass and shoved it in the general direction of her ear.
“’Lo?”
“I’m living with a squid who eats my body fluids!”
Laura. What time was it? She pulled the phone away from her ear and squinted. 8:22 a.m. “I don’t want to hear about your sex life with Dylan,” Josie hissed.
“I was talking about Jillian!”
Josie cleared her throat and said nothing.
“Besides, there is no sex life for me with anyone. You ever try to have sex with a screaming time bomb in the house that shits up its back at any moment?”
“No, but I did see an ad like that on the Craigslist personal section once.”
A slow turn from the large, manly body next to her gave her eye candy to last for months. “Who is it?” he mumbled. “Did my phone go off? Is there an emergency at the hospital?”
“Who’s there!” Laura shrieked into the phone. “Where are you?”
Josie wiped her eyes and cleared her throat. “I’m at home.” The less said the better, as Alex reached up to caress one bare breast. In the daylight, his body was even better than she’d imagined, all protective and big. He buried his head in her hip, cuddling in a way that sent shoots of heat through her.
“Who said ‘hospital’?” Laura asked.
“I did,” Alex replied, chuckling into Josie’s belly.
“Oh my God, is Dr. Perfect in bed with you?”
Time to give up. “Yes.”
Alex grabbed the phone and spoke into it. “No,” he said, kissing her hipbone, then sliding away, his receding warmth nearly making her cry. His muscled ass wandered into the hallway and she heard a door shut.
“SQUEEEEE!” Laura’s scream could be heard five houses down by the deaf, ancient labradoodle that wore a diaper when its owner took her for walks every morning. “You’re sleeping with Alex?”
“I am somethinging with Alex.”
“What’s somethinging?”
“We’re making it up as we go along.”
“You let him spend the night?”
Silence. This was not an easy conversation.
“Josie? You never let guys spend the night.”
“He watched Downton Abbey with me last night. We fell asleep in front of Netflix after four episodes.”
“Men don’t watch Downton Abbey unless they’re trying to get in your pants.”
“Well, it worked.”
Another squeee from Laura. “You never, ever let guys stay over,” she repeated, her tone of utter marvel making Josie’s stomach flutter.
“I know, but he doesn’t know that, and you’re yelling as if I were your deaf great-grandma, so cut it out.”
“Okay,” Laura whispered with great affect, like someone on stage.
“Why are you calling?” A gurgle in the distance told her Alex was making coffee.
“To complain about my sex life. But yours is much more interesting. Do tell!”
“Tell what?” Josie asked dryly.
“Is he perfect in bed, too?”
“God, yes,” Josie murmured into the phone, cupping her hand around it. “Even better than the other day by the river.”
“What river?”
“Remember the leaf in my hair?”
“You had sex with him the day after I gave birth?”
“Yes,” Josie hissed. More distant gurgling.
“You picked up a doctor at my birth and then fucked him by the river while I was humping ice packs like a bride on a Sybian at a bachelorette party?”
Long pause. “I really can’t go with that analogy, Laura.”
Alex sauntered back in, gloriously buff, carrying two mugs of coffee. He handed one to her.
Perfect. Dr. Fucking Perfect. No man had ever brought her coffee in bed. Then again, no man ever had the chance to…
“He just brought me coffee in bed,” she hissed into the phone.
“Did I interrupt sex?” Laura squealed.
“No, but you’re about to,” Alex said in a cheerfully loud voice.
“Byelauragottago,” Josie said in a rush as she turned off the phone. Coffee, schmoffee.
If she needed a little something to wake her up…
Or something big.
“Want to shower?” he murmured in her ear as she took one last sip of her hot coffee, suddenly alert. Shower sex would be a first for her; her nipples tingled at the thought. His hands caressed her belly, one sliding down already as the warmth of his arms around her, pulling her up, made the world melt away yet again.
A nagging thought crossed her mind, intruding. “I have to be at work by ten!” she gasped. Her phone said 8:30 a.m.
“We can have a quick shower.” Yanking her arm, he bent his knees, exerting enough gentle force to make her lose her footing and crash into his wall of muscle.
“Wait! We need a—”
“Condom,” he interrupted. She pulled out of his arms and circled the bed, opening the drawer and snatching one—fast. They ran to the bathroom. He’d beaten her by seconds and turned on the shower, the spray arcing over the curtain rod in places and making her shriek.
“You raised the nozzle!” she shouted.
“It was set at the height of a dachshund.”
“Hey!” Standing on tiptoes, she tried to stare him down but was faced with his nipples instead. Playful and goofy, she reached out with her teeth and nipped one. Arms clinched around her and the sense of playfulness dissipated instantly, as if a switch flipped inside her that aroused every sense, making the feel of her bare skin against his hard legs, the push of his erection against her belly, and the lush movements of his hands on her ass turn her from a silly thing to a sultry woman.
Steam rose over their heads as the water heated in tandem with her blood, fire between them evident as his hands went everywhere—hers, too. Bodies tangled in a dance of strokes and sighs. Stepping into the shower, she bent over to set the condom on the edge of the tub and found him behind her, the push of his hardness against her thigh.
Oh, my. The shock of so much of him behind her, of the water pounding both their naked bodies, of his arms and hands and thighs and all of Alex pressed against her, slipping and sliding and taking her over made her flush and swell, eager for sex that would be fast and furious. Spinning around, she wrapped her limbs around his body and moaned as the parts matched up in just the right places.
Mouths hungry, the water hot and aimed right over her head, it pounded into his neck and sprayed around, he reached down to find her, one finger sliding in as she gasped, opening her eyes to find him wet and smoldering, as if that were possible.
One last, almost violent kiss and he turned her around, one hand grasping her breast and pinching her nipple so hard she nearly climaxed, and then the telltale sound of the wrapper tearing, a hand against the cleft of her ass, and his voice.
“Put your hands against the wall.”
The order made her knees tingle, palms slapping against the white fiberglass wall. Splayed out, her hands bore witness to his arm wrapped around her waist, his hand roaming wherever it damn well pleased, his thighs sliding against hers as his other hand took his thick self and slowly centered the tip right where she wanted it most. Backing up, she helped him to enter her, the water’s spray on her back now, thin rivers pouring over her breast, waterfalls cascading from her nipples.
Never a fan of sex where she couldn’t be face to face, this was something completely different. Filled with an erotic uncertainty, she tingled and faltered, thrilled by his new dominance. The power of Alex’s thrusts behind her, how one hand now rested on her shoulder, the other strumming her clit, made her lift one leg and brace herself against the tub edge, the new angle so exquisite she felt the rush of orgasm right then, her inner core muscles tightening with breakneck speed.
“Oh, God, Josie,” he said behind her, the tension palpable in the wet air, his voice like gravel. And then—both tightened, hard, and she exploded into a million tiny fragments, slamming her backside against him, wanting to take in as much as possible, needing him to fill her and touch that thin line of flesh inside her that made everything whole and disintegrated everything, all at once.
Face down, she inhaled ragged breaths, the water pooling at her lips and dripping down, all senses focused on the muscle contractions that fueled a supernova of need and release. Slowly, Alex’s deep thrusts receded, his hand on her red nub at a standstill, the sandpapery shift of his cheek against her shoulder blade a sign that both were done.
Sometimes it felt good to just be fucked. A quickie could reset her entire mood and make the world make sense. Bright eyed, she lowered her leg and he pulled out, taking the hint, as she leaned back against him, and the two stood, silent, in the downpour. Ear against his chest, she waited through each breath to hear the pounding go to normal, Alex peppering the top of her head with kisses.
Josie took a deep breath, exhaled, and said, through sputtering lips overcome with shower spray, “We should actually shower.”
“I’ll soap you up,” he said, reaching for the bar.
“I’ll end up against the wall again if you do that,” she answered, dodging his hand as it traveled down between her legs.
“And the problem is…?”
Laughter poured out of them both, but, as if they were old hands at doing this, each split off to a separate section of the tiny shower and did a quick wash and shampoo, trading places under the spray to rinse off. Weak and completely wrung out, Josie climbed out and toweled off, enjoying the view as Alex did the same as he walked to the bedroom. He must have dispensed with the condom at some point, though she had no idea when. The man was a condom Houdini.
He returned to the bathroom dressed. She pouted. He shrugged and walked into the kitchen. The beep of a microwave was her soundtrack as she dressed, too, choosing a simple white button-down and khakis for work.
“I heated our coffees,” he said as she waltzed into the kitchen. Coffee. Ahhhh. She used to say it was better than sex, but she couldn’t say that anymore. Grateful, she sat across from him, playing footsie.
“You working today?” she asked.
“No. I need to catch up on sleep. My shift starts tonight. Twenty-four hours.”
Awkwardness set in. Avoiding his eyes, she wondered what she could say next without sounding too needy. Part of her wanted to see him every day possible, to schedule their next date so that it was set in her mind, a firm joining that would allay her insecurities.
Another part wanted to fade out and avoid. Already at the brink of what she could handle emotionally, she felt fragile inside and ready to snap.
Living with both feelings was like an interminable sentence.
A quick check of the clock told her he needed to go—now. How could she ask him to leave? It felt rude. Wrong. Abrupt. And yet this was the longest she’d ever let a man spend in her apartment. He didn’t know that, of course. Whatever was stirred up inside her would settle down eventually, she reminded herself.
The particles of chaos suspended in her every molecule right this moment, though, showed no signs of settling any time soon.
Alex stood, putting his mug in the sink. “You need to go, so walk me to the door and make love on the porch and I’ll let you.”
She stood, too. “I must have Stockholm Syndrome, because that sounds appealing.”
“If anyone is the abductor here, it’s you.”
She snorted. “Right. Because someone who aims the shower nozzle at dachshund level could totally kidnap you.” They reached the front door. Crackhead appeared out of nowhere, nuzzling Alex’s legs.
Alex looked down at the cat. “Crackhead?”
Josie nodded.
“He? She?”
“It.”
“It likes me.” Tugging on her ass, he pulled her close.
“It’s not the only one,” she said against his neck as they embraced.
One last long, slow kiss from him and she nudged him out the door, needing the last few minutes to get ready and clear her head. While her body was back in alignment and utterly sated, her brain needed to refocus in the idea of work, that there was a life and a structure outside of her and Alex’s genitals, tongues, hands, and mouths.
Unfortunately.
He turned the corner and she sighed, restraining an impulse to run to the window that paralleled the road he walked on now. Coffee. A quick blow dry and another giant mug of coffee would get her on her way to work, where what she faced was about as diametrically opposed to the past twelve hours as could be.
Relief and disappointment flooded her simultaneously as Alex’s absence sank in. A quick march to the bathroom and she plugged in the hair dryer, snapping it on and furiously tousling her wet, brown mop of hair, the white noise of the machine helping to clear her thoughts. Inhaling deeply, she felt the air leave her body, as if it contained Alex and now he were being purged from her body.
No. Impossible. Her skin burned with his touch, her nether regions completely fulfilled with the last few hours of sex, and her hips carried her with a jaunty saunter that felt mature and primed, as if she were somehow more a woman now for having found a partner so fine. The Josie she had become in the past day had stumbled into a secret society; she as a full-fledged member of a group with a single requirement—being yourself.
He hadn’t flinched, had he? Finishing up her hair and dragging a comb through it, she let the relaxed waves frame her face. No makeup. She rarely wore it to work anyhow, so if she did today, people would tease.
Melting into the background of her ho-hum job was what she wanted most for this day.
Any more excitement and she would implode.
*
Two days had gone by and she’d texted with Alex, who was finishing up a grueling twenty-four-hour shift. As her phone beeped, she hoped it was him.
Nope. The phone number showing on Josie’s screen made her stomach drop into a hole in the floor. If she had balls they would have crawled up into her abdominal cavity and pressed against her throat.
It was her mother.
A phone call from Marlene meant only one thing. She wanted money. Money for her alcohol, money for her drugs, money for cigarettes, and money for her men. Josie had ignored the last two calls she’d had, abrupt and perfunctory voicemails Marlene always left when she was determined to get something. “Josie, it’s your mom. Call me. Click.” She knew that Marlene would persist, though, so against her better judgment she pressed the answer button and said, “Hello?”
“Heeeeeey, it’s my baby girl.” The smoker’s rasp rattled so deeply in Josie’s ear she could almost smell and taste the cigarette smoke. Her mom and her Aunt Cathy had plenty of things that were different about each other, but on this one, they were united. Chimneys who filled their homes with the ever-present houseguest of nicotine residue.
“What’s up, Mom?” Josie tried to keep it light. If she engaged in any possible way, this could get nasty.
“I was just thinkin’ about you, and you didn’t answer my voicemails.”
“I was on shift, Mom.”
“Oooooooh, okay.”
From the tone in her mother’s voice, Josie could tell she wasn’t drunk or high. It was a rare moment of getting what was left of the real Marlene, one to one, and a thin tendril of hope allowed itself to unwind inside her. Maybe she’d get one good conversation, after all.
“I hope you’re not overworking yourself. You know how hard that…” Marlene stumbled, and Josie could imagine her, cigarette in her right hand, waving it, as if the smoke could somehow coordinate to form the word that her stuttering brain couldn’t find.
“Yeah, nursing can be hard, Mom,” Josie helped.
“That’s right.” Marlene’s voice became more confident. “That’s right, nursing is hard, but I’m proud of my baby.”
Josie’s teeth felt like steel edges grinding against each other. “Thanks, Mom,” was all she said. She wasn’t going to fall for it and ask, “So what are you calling for?”
Josie knew her mother’s monthly income. Between working a couple of pity shifts at the local bar, where Jerry let her work mostly to work off an ever-increasing bar tab, and survivor’s benefits from her father’s death, she knew that there was enough to at least pay the mortgage, cover utility bills and basic food.
There wasn’t, though, enough to cover cigarettes, booze, and pills. When Josie had come home from college in her senior year she’d found the stash of Percocets, a hundred or more, in her mom’s top drawer. She knew enough not to ask, and she knew enough to realize that her mother was probably going to multiple doctors to get that much. Traumatic brain injury, and neck and back muscles that were permanently twisted as she recovered from the accident, gave her the perfect excuse when it came to getting pain meds. Josie’s problem was that teasing out how much of it was legitimate and how much of it was bullshit had driven her crazy for years.
“When you comin’ home next, Josie?” Marlene asked, the question a formality; she knew damn well that Josie came home once a year, typically in August.
“Oh, you know, same time.”
“You’ll be here for a week?”
“Yep.” She would spent most of that week with Darla, hanging out and chatting, and trying to convince the younger cousin to come back to Boston with her. This would be a different trip now, wouldn’t it? Because Darla could be out here soon, if Josie took the job with Laura and asked to have Darla be her assistant. Darla had a natural acceptance of the surreal that made Josie think she’d be perfect for the very unconventional dating service Laura and her guys were proposing.
The rattlings of the implications of getting Darla to move out here made her teeth hurt even more. Marlene would ask the inevitable question, If Darla can move in with you, then why can’t I? and that was a whole conversation that Josie didn’t want to have.
“Mom, how are you doing?” Josie asked, giving her the entry that she needed.
“Ah, same old, same old here,” Marlene said. “You know, I’ve been having a hard time with the house, though.”
Here it comes, Josie thought.
Sometimes it was the car, sometimes it was her health, sometimes it was Darla and Cathy. When they were brought up it was easy to give Darla a call and say “My mom tells me your cat died,” and Darla would say, “Oh, the fifth one this year?” and they’d laugh, because who else can you call when you need to talk about your crazy mom, and nobody else has a crazy mom. Aunt Cathy wasn’t quite crazy, but she was depressed, and it meant that Josie and Darla could commiserate.
“What’s up with the house, Mom?” she asked.
“Oh, the gutters, there’s this problem with ’em, and they’re rotting, and they’re saying it’s gonna cause all this roof damage and it could be thousands and thousands if we don’t get it fixed now.”
Familiar. Josie figured it had been about two years since she’d used that one. Back then it was the gutters were being ripped off the house by angry squirrels, and that she needed to have all of the leaves that had built up in there cleaned out, and that that was going to cost $600. Josie paused to see whether Marlene was recycling entire stories.
“What’s wrong with the gutters?” she finally asked.
“Oh, it’s these damn squirrels!”
Closing her eyes and rubbing her forehead, Josie hated to be right. “How much will it cost to fix, Mom?” she said, haltingly, mentally running through her own savings, wondering how much she could manage without putting herself in jeopardy.
“Not too bad, there’s some guys in the neighborhood who say they can do it for four hundred.”
“Four hundred.”
“Well, maybe $300 if, you know, I flash ’em some tit and flirt with ’em a little bit.” Marlene’s throaty chuckle made Josie’s own throat tighten, choking her on a ball of disgust and resentment, anger and embarrassment. And sorrow.
“I can get a check for you for three hundred, Mom, it’s a little tight here.”
“Oh, it’s tight here, too, Josie. If you’ve got it tight then it must be a virgin asshole here,” she cackled.
“No problem, Mom,” she said, smiling. It was a sick grin, one that came from her out of a place of security of knowing that Marlene couldn’t see it. Her phone flashed, some number she didn’t recognize. “Hey, Mom, I gotta go, there’s somebody on my other line, it might be work.”
“Okay, hon, well, you take care and I’ll just look out for the check.”
“Yep, bye, Mom.” Click. She flashed over. “Hello?”
“Josie,” said a warm, deep voice.
Oh, how she needed this. It was as if he had read her mind and called to rescue her at the exact perfect moment. Gratitude flooded her, along with desire and need. “Alex,” she said, “how great to hear your voice.”
“That’s the kind of welcome I like.” The sound of him was filled with a smile, a happiness that infused her. “How are you doing?” he asked softly.
“I would be doing a lot better if I were with you,” she said, the words coming out effortlessly. No anxiety, no nervousness, just a drained sort of honesty that she found very appealing within herself.
“I would love to be with you, too,” he said quietly, a pensiveness to his words. “Do you want to go for a walk?” he asked.
“A real walk, or a walk?”
A boisterous laugh filled her phone, forcing her to pull it away from her ear a few inches. “I don’t know…you tell me what I should say.”
“How about we start with a walk and then see if later on we could go for a walk.”
“I’d like that, Josie. I like you.”
Seconds ticked by. Finally, she said, “I like you, too.”
She could hear the smile in his words as he said, “Want to come over? We can have a glass of wine here and then go for a walk.”
“We will never get to the actual walk part, Alex, if I come over.”
“And that would be a problem because…?”
“Because you invited me for a walk!”
“Then I am uninviting you. There. You are not invited for a walk. Come over for a glass of wine instead. 34 Windsor. C’mon.”
“You really do live close to me!” By her calculations, his apartment was about two blocks away.
“I know. If I squint and get a pair of u-bend binoculars and angle seven mirrors with SETI-like precision, I can see in your bedroom window.”
Silly. She needed silly right now. Silly drove Marlene’s acidity away. “And you know that because...?” she replied, yawning.
“You tired?” he asked, avoiding the question. The sound of ice cracking filled the phone, then water pouring. “I have a bed you could sleep on.”
“If I am in your bed, sleep is the last thing we’d do.”
“Yes, it is. The last thing after plenty of others.”
Was this an invitation for sex and for an overnight? Could Dr. Perfect be calling in a booty call? Or had the relationship shifted, a casual approach to dating evolving into a more relaxed way of meeting up?
“On the count of three,” she said.
“Oh, God, I have to chase you again, don’t I?” he groaned. “Let me put on my shoes.”
“On the count of three,” she repeated, “let’s run and see where we meet.”
“You’re not wearing panties, are you?”
“Yes, I am.”
“I meant only panties.”
“No. Why?”
“Because the last time you sprinted away from me, that’s how you were dressed. Now—GO!” Click. He hadn’t waited for her count of three!
Completely unnerved, she ran to the front door, grabbing her keys off a hook next to the door, sliding her feet into Crocs. Josie ran with about as much grace as a zombie in a 5K run. Only slower. Alex was practically at her doorstep by the time they met in the “middle.”
“Half a block? That’s the best you could do?” he asked, laughing. She wore a short camisole that was stretched taut against her middle. He patted it, palm flat against her ribs and belly, the gesture affectionate and thrilling. “You have a runner’s body,” he said, his face screwed up in a puzzled expression as she glared at him. “Don’t you run?”
“Only when the ice cream truck passes by.”
A big, slow grin spread across his face. One hand staying on her stomach, the other sliding around her waist, their torsos pulling together inch by inch as they stood on the sidewalk, a welcoming embrace slow enough to savor. On tiptoes, her heels popped out of her Crocs and her calves elongated, all so she could bury her face in his shoulder and inhale. He smelled like soap and spice, and as he pulled back to kiss her, tension from her call with Marlene melted out of her fast.
This was a kiss between boyfriend and girlfriend, an assumption of access that seemed so natural, as if they’d been dating for months and of course they would greet each other so effortlessly with an embrace and a kiss. Gentle caresses of her waist and back twinned with a not-so-tender kiss, tongues dancing, increasing in urgency and desire.
“Get a room,” an old man muttered, a rattling sound accompanying the jarring words. They pulled apart to find a homeless dude pushing a bent shopping cart, the metal frame overloaded with twenty or so overloaded bags filled with five-cent returnable cans. Sidestepping the cart, she and Alex wiped the kiss away, taking a deep breath as the guy passed.
“We should take his advice,” Alex said, looping her arm through his, leading her away from her apartment.
“Do you always listen to homeless men?”
“Only when they give me sex toy tips,” he deadpanned.
“Oh, dear,” was all she could respond with. “You make going back to your place so appealing.”
“I have wine. Netflix. A bed.”
“Sex toys?”
“Uh…well…there’s me.”
“Even better,” she answered, stopping to pull him in for another kiss. Smiling through the touch of their lips, she felt something soar inside, an energy that was all-pervasive.
“Why are you smiling?” he asked, running his hand through her hair, pushing it off her flushed face.
“Because I’m with you.” A lump in her throat competed with her speedy pulse. She didn’t say things like that to men. With Alex, though, it just spilled out.
“Then I hope to make you smile more.” A kiss. A squeeze. And then—
“Home, sweet home. Welcome to the castle,” he joked, gesturing at the front door of a building that was pretty close in age and architecture to hers. Same locked main door, same entryway with mailboxes, same hallway with apartment doors. Alex lived on the first floor, and as he unlocked his door and let her enter first, she burst out laughing.
Bikes. Three of them. And helmets, pant straps, and assorted other bike accessories. Of course he and his roommate were Cambridge bikers. Of course.
“What’s so funny?” he asked.
“The bikes. It’s so stereotypical.”
“Of what?”
“The urban young doctor who is a fitness freak.”
“Not!”
“You’re fit,” she said in an incriminating tone, running her hands along his washboard abs, trying and failing to find fat to pinch at his waist. She reached around for a squeeze of his ass. Solid muscle.
“Okay, so I’m fit. Doesn’t make me a freak.”
“I’ll bet you compost, too. And in the backyard you have some cherry tomato plants, plus you use a solar charger for your phone, attached to the backpack you wear when you bike.”
His jaw was on the floor.
“See! I was right!” she crowed.
“Wrong on all counts.”
“What? But…”
“Although you just described my roommate to a T.” With that, Alex laughed and marched ahead into the carved out living room corner that served as the kitchen. A partial wall formed a counter for two bar stools, leaving a full view of the cooking area. The place was decorated in shabby chic thrift shop furniture, like hers. A dining table from the ’70s, a slim, steel gray IKEA bifold couch, a few halogen lamps, and posters from classic rock concerts ranging from Pink Floyd to The Doors.
Photographs of everyday locations in Cambridge peppered the walls, all black and white, with intriguing composition. Josie wandered around looking at them closely. A bike tire. The foot of John Harvard’s statue. A crest on a building from Harvard University. An espresso cup on a laced-steel table top. “Who’s the photographer?” she asked as Alex opened a bottle of something he pulled from the refrigerator.
“My roommate. John. He’s out of town for a few more weeks on a fellowship.”
“Medical?”
Pop! Alex used a manual corkscrew to open what she now discerned was a white wine—Chardonnay, from the looks of the label—and he poured a glass for each of them into very nice, if mismatched crystal wine goblets.
“Yes. He’s a lab rat. Oncology.”
“MD and Ph.D.?”
Alex nodded, sipping his wine. He seemed nervous, a bit rattled. Being on his turf was a change, and it gave her a touch of comfort to know that Dr. Perfect cared about what she thought.
“Nice,” she said, holding the wine glass out after taking a sip.
He shrugged. “It’s wine.” The two shared a smile and Josie looked around. Dark wood baseboards and trim. Wide doorways. Tall ceilings. The heating bills were probably a nightmare in the winter, like hers, but it beat the tiny little modern apartment buildings with crazy-high rent, or the brick cubes that sardined people into cookie-cutter apartments.
“How long have you lived here?”
“About a year.” His sentences were clipped. He was really nervous. What a change! Usually she was the nervous one on a date. Was this a date? He’d invited her over for a glass of wine, so she would count it as a date, even if she was dressed in a tank top and wore Crocs. Was he awkward because he wanted to hurry up to the sex part? If this was just a booty call, maybe she was reading his signals wrong. Indecision set in.
Awkwardness from one person was one thing; when both were being weird, it compounded the feeling by a factor of eight. Finally, he broke the silence.
“This feels really weird.”
“Yes,” she conceded. But why? she wondered.
Placing his glass of wine on an end table, he turned and put his hands on her shoulders. “I feel like a geeky eighth-grader because you do that to me, Josie. Like a stumbling teenager with his first crush. And now that I invited you over, and you’re here, in my apartment—my space—I don’t quite know what to do next.”
Josie brought her glass of wine to her mouth and drank it down in two gulps. Alex’s serious eyes remained on her the whole time. “You what?” she squeaked.
“I said that I like you when we were on the phone earlier.”
She nodded.
“What I should have said is this.” Bending his knees slightly, he made a heartfelt attempt to come eye to eye with Josie, but it didn’t quite work, so he dragged her by one hand to the blue couch, pulling her in for an embrace. Curling her legs nimbly around his waist, her ass nestled into his lap, she studied him from an angle, heart thumping, wondering what the hell he was going to say next. The room was silent, with the faint hum of a fan in the background and the distant, slow whoosh of cars driving down the small street. Wine loosened her up, and whatever weirdness had descended between them earlier faded as he opened up about his own weirdness. It felt good to be weird with someone.
That was new.
She liked it.
“I haven’t really dated a woman in a long time. Not like this. And I realize,” he said, his voice going low and hushed, “that it’s been a very short time, but this isn’t just…casual for me.”
Blink.
“I’m really enjoying spending time with you. I don’t get much free time. I have to be at work in twelve hours or so, and then I don’t have another day off for three days. But whatever time I do have off, I want to spend with you.”
“Why?” she blurted out. Even as the word passed over her tongue and between her lips, she regretted saying it, knowing it sounded so plaintive and disbelieving.
Those chocolate eyes turned pensive. “You don’t realize how smart and funny and”—he growled a bit, squeezing her into him, one hand playful the other stroking her arm—“how sensual you are. You’re the whole package, Josie. Let me in,” he whispered, nuzzling her neck.
“Let you in?” The leer in her voice was evident.
“Not like that,” he objected.
“Not any of that?” Deflecting was easier than directly saying what her heart was screaming. A stark boundary that she’d drawn around herself long ago, fortified against calls like the one she’d just had with Marlene, was rapidly disintegrating with each second she spent with Alex. She could almost feel it, fading away inside her. A diffuse sense of trust seeped in layer by layer as she inhaled him, let her fingertips trace his jaw line, smiled a musing little grin of acceptance.
“Well, some of that,” he backpedaled.
Her smile spread to a full-on grin as she leaned into him and kissed, inhaling deeply, breathing him in, making him part of her.
“You’re nervous,” she murmured, their lips still together.
“Yes.”
“You don’t seem like you’re the nervous type.”
“I’m not.” He shifted one hip and their bodies touched in new places, his rock-hard shaft pushing up under her. A swell of need raced through her, forcing her to control her breathing. Just having sex would be easy.
Suddenly, Josie didn’t want easy. Pulling off her clothes and fucking him right here on the couch, or on the floor, or in his bed—hell, the shower—would be easy. Staying for dinner and ordering Thai food in between sex sessions would be easy. Getting tipsy on wine and exploring each other’s bodies would be easy.
Spending time together, getting to know one another, without using sex as a tool?
Hard.
“Let’s go for a walk!” she announced, jumping off his lap and bouncing on her toes like a six-year-old eager to go to the park.
“A walk?” He moved slowly, as if dazed. And then she realized this really was hard. Or, at least, he was.
Stifling a snort, she walked quickly towards the door. “Yes—a walk. Remember? You invited me over for one.”
“But I—”
Giving the guy a break, she called back, “Do whatever you need to do to go for a nice, long walk—the sunset will be gorgeous!”
Without a single clue of what she was doing, she marched out onto his porch and waited.
*
The agony. His dick felt like one of those party balloons you blow up and twist into a dog. He had a fucking latex poodle in his pants. And a frog in his throat. His body was a zoo during a full moon, howling and frustrated.
A walk? After starting to pour his heart out and fumbling through it like a complete idiot, she wanted to take a walk? Calling her after a difficult shift at work had seemed so natural. Few births stayed with him for very long, but this one he couldn’t shake. A mother who wanted a vaginal birth after a cesarean. Preserving her VBAC had been hard, but it had worked—insofar as she’d given birth vaginally. But the baby had had complications. The attending OB warned him there would be a review, and it hung over him like a storm cloud. If something had happened to that baby because his instincts and judgment had been wrong…
Coming home to his empty apartment, he’d picked up the phone on a whim and found himself dialing her number, as if on autopilot, as if this was what he did every day after a tough shift.
He turned to Josie.
No other woman had ever filled this role.
Maybe no other woman ever will. Whatever triggered that thought shocked him, made him stop cold as Josie hung out in front of his building, waiting impatiently.
Where in the hell did this huge case of nerves come from? And on his part. She was the nervous one, the person in this—relationship?—who deflected and held back. Not him.
And that was it.
Wedging the door to her heart open with a toe, he’d pried inside her by being the one to share first. Like stripping naked before sex, if he went first, she would follow. That was why this felt so unsure. Because he couldn’t read her signals.
His signals? His were easy to read. Just look for the deflating poodle.
“Alex?” Josie called out.
Shake it off. Shake it off. A few deep breaths and he made his way outside. Thank God he was wearing jeans. Lycra running shorts would have made his erection stand out like a drunk Jets fan at a Pats game.
“You okay?” Josie asked, an impish smile twisting her lips.
“I am,” he said, throwing an arm around her shoulders. A walk? Fine. But on his terms. “So where are you from?” He’d held off on the standard “getting to know you” questions but now he was just going to go for it.
“Ohio.”
“And your parents…?”
“My dad died years ago. My mom’s still alive.”
“Oh.” He cringed. “Sorry.”
“What? No. It’s fine.” Her voice was tense. “He died nearly eighteen years ago, so it’s not like it’s fresh.”
Something in her voice said that was a lie, but he wasn’t going to pry. “And your mom’s back in Ohio?”
“Yep. What about you?”
“I don’t have a dad, and my mom lives in Watertown.”
“You’re a medical marvel. Did they inject the Y chromosome into you using nanotechnology?”
He laughed. “That’s why I’m an OB. So I can understand this whole reproductive thing.” Explaining this was always hard. “My dad left before my mom even knew she was pregnant with me. I never met him.”
“Oh.” They were strolling toward the park as dusk settled in, the air cool enough to keep the mosquitoes at bay. No baseball games tonight, it appeared. A pink line in the horizon faded to nearly gray as the sun dropped out of the sky.
Thinking it through, he asked, “How old were you?”
“When my dad died?”
“Yes.”
“Eleven.” She wasn’t giving him anything more than he asked. Still waters run deep. The way she sidestepped any additional information, and yet continued to answer what was asked directly, made him decide to push it.
“How did he die?” he asked gently, stopping and making eye contact. Her eyes were wide and yet guarded, the brown irises closed off, but the whites of her eyes seemed bigger, a contradiction of nonverbal signals.
“A car accident.” The words slipped out of her mouth so simply, and yet he knew they were packed with hundreds of layers of meaning.
“I am so sorry. Were you—” He started to ask whether she was in the car but stopped, feeling like a jerk. Her chest rose and fell with shallow breaths and the hand he held in his trembled. The topic clearly upset her and he felt like an ass for bringing it up. And yet, it meant something special. If he could just understand her better…
“Was I in the car? No.” For the first time in the conversation she added something he hadn’t asked. “But my mom was. And my aunt and uncle.”
“Your mom’s still alive, you said.”
“Yes. My dad and uncle died, but my mom and aunt lived.”
“Oh, Josie.” Emotion filled his voice as the impact of what her childhood must have been like hit him. “That’s horrible. Were your mom and aunt okay?”
She snorted, shaking her head. “Define ‘okay.’” The smirk that crossed her face was like a door slamming shut between them.
“I’m upsetting you.”
“You’re not doing anything. I just…I’ve never talked about this with a guy before. Ever.”
His heart melted as it pounded against his ribs. Now he was getting somewhere. “If you don’t want to talk, I understand.”
“What about your mother?” she asked.
“She’s a clinical psychologist. Alive. Forty-six.”
Josie appeared to do the math. “And you’re twenty-nine?”
“Eight.”
“Oooo, I’m older than you.”
“I like my women mature,” he joked.
“Then find another woman, because ‘mature’ and ‘Josie’ definitely do not go together.”
I doubt that, he thought, but said nothing, just smiling. The silence between them was comfortable. Warm. Tentative.
Josie broke it. “So she had you…”
“Had me two days after she graduated high school.”
“And she earned a Ph.D.?” A low whistle of appreciation escaped her lips. “Smart woman.”
“Determined woman. You have no idea,” he added.
“No one wants to date a guy whose mother is an overachieving psychologist. You know that, right?” she teased.
“Before you decide that, what does your mom do?” he joked back.
The look on her face made him regret it. “She’s…”
“You don’t have to answer.”
Squaring her shoulders, Josie seemed to struggle with how to answer. The pink straps of her tank top faded to light gray in the waning sunlight, the moon peeking out behind a cloud. Tipping her face up to meet his eyes, she seemed ethereal. Like a fairy, the edges of her brown hair glowing slightly, the shine of the low light on her eyes making them more aware than usual.“We’re being open, right?”
“We’re trying.” You’re trying. Alex was already open.
“She’s a barfly.”
“Oh.” What the hell do you say to that?
“Not quite a Ph.D.” The acerbic tone was back. “And my dad was a librarian.” She said it defensively, as if it counterbalanced her mother’s behavior.
“I’m not judging.” And really, he wasn’t. Whatever made Josie the woman she was—a nurse in a well-respected clinical trial—had been through grit and determination. Just like him. Just like his mom. Scratching the surface of Josie’s shell took some time and hard work. Fortunately, he had both at his disposal, though plenty of the latter. The former depended on her.
“She wasn’t always like this. The head injury in the accident…” Her voice trailed off. “You know, can we talk about something else?”
“Absolutely.”
“How about air fucking?”
*
Way to change the subject, right? The look on Alex’s face made Josie laugh out loud, the sound and feeling so desperately needed after getting that deep with him. Never before had she talked to any man she’d dated about her past. Her niece, Darla? Of course. Laura? Sure. Those two, and…
No one.
Not true. There was the therapist she saw during the last two years of college. Her lifesaver.
Talking about her parents with Alex felt like having someone reach into her chest, through bone and sinew and muscle, and wrap their palm around her heart, squeezing it until all the blood dripped out. His reaction allowed the blood back in.
Restoring basic respiratory and circulatory functioning would take a while.
Danger sex could provide a shortcut.
He leaned in and put his lips right next to her earlobe, making her shiver. “Are you serious?”
“I never joke about air fucking.”
He inhaled sharply. “Neither do I. Shall we go for a walk?” he asked, gesturing toward the park. Their path had taken them in parallel to it, a block from Josie’s apartment, and they needed to cross the street. A thrill of heat flooded her. Changing the subject had been easy enough—mention sex to any guy and it was like that dog in the movie Up.
Squirrel!
Truth be told, she was struggling with the whole emotionally open thing and wanted to get back to her comfort zone. Except that wasn’t possible; once she crossed over into the touchy-feely baggage-sharing phase, she couldn’t stuff it all back in.
And that was okay, because Alex could stuff something else in her.
Their pace didn’t change, still a slow stroll, but the connection between them had altered from the moment she took the leap, and now the air between their bodies crackled with the forbidden. They crossed the street; Josie noted how few cars were out. By the time they reached the park’s outer edge, she found herself scanning the area with danger sex in mind. The baseball lights weren’t on. Sign #1 that this was meant to be.
Her eyes landed on a small garden on the far side of a building that typically blocked the view from her apartment. On the occasional walks she’d taken over the years, she’d registered it, but now, as they rounded the building, she realized it was perfect, made for what she and Alex were seeking. Sign #2. Add a trash can and a soft layer of moss and—
Whoa. Signs #3 and #4 screamed out to her, as if nature (or the Cambridge Parks and Recreation department) had read her mind.
What a wonderful world.
Were they really going to—
Thump. Alex pulled her down on the mossy ground, her nose filling sharply with the rich scent of oregano, the heat of his body against hers a pleasure she would never take for granted.
Wait—oregano?
“You smell like Italian food,” he whispered, nuzzling her neck, one hand cupping a breast, his tongue licking right at the base of her earlobe, sending a full-body shiver through her.
“It’s not me,” she whispered back, fingering the ground cover. “It’s this.” Crushing some of the greenery between her fingers, she held them to his nose, his body pressing onto hers.
Alex inhaled deeply and said, “We’ll have to try out all the herbs. Oregano today, tarragon tomorrow, and then we need to find a bed of lavender. And…”
His mouth crushed into hers, hands flying up her camisole, hot and fevered. The sidewalk was not five feet away, their bodies hidden by a small hedge and a bench, the chance of getting caught reasonably high. It made the blood pound between her legs, her breasts swell with excitement, and her mouth match his in intensity, the kiss transmitting a racy need to slam against him, to have his hands claim her, his hips hammering her, all under the open night sky as they took each other’s bodies as nature intended.
With the stars as the audience.
Unlike the languid, luxurious night in her apartment a few days ago, this was fast and furious, her hands on his pants, unsnapping and unzipping, his fingers nimble with her shorts, pulling down, the cool night air smacking against skin that typically didn’t touch outdoor breezes. His fingers slipped inside her, in and out, making her hips buck against them. Her Crocs flew off her feet, one settling under a hedge, the other next to the only park bench in the little garden.
Preliminaries be damned—she wanted him in her.
Now.
He didn’t need to be told, fumbling in a back pocket for his wallet. A condom appeared out of nowhere.
“You planned for his?” she gasped, his fingers out of her now, her body aching to be filled by him.
“Yes,” he chuckled, rolling it on as she laced her legs around his hips.
“God, I love y—” she blurted out as he entered her, the last word gurgling to a screeching halt in the back of her throat as he thrust nice and deep, filling her with everything she needed at once, her eyes taking in the shadows from the greenery about them, the handful of stars she could catch in the city sky, the blinking red light of a jet overhead…
Oh, no.
No, no, no, no, no.
She did not just say that.
She did not.
She did—
“I love this, too,” he murmured in her ear, his arms on either side of her head, his face hidden by the inky darkness. A quick kiss, and then a hurried thrust as she quickened her own movements, the swollen need inside her clamping down as her orgasm rose up, stretching tall, elongating, ready to strike.
An out. “I love this so much,” she answered, speaking slowly, as if that’s what she’d intended to say all along. “So much.”
Their kisses disintegrated into simple connections, heated presses against each other as her body went rigid, all her nerves in concert as she hissed, “Alex, I’m—” Colored clouds exploded behind her closed eyes as she groaned and pushed up into him, her inner core tightening so hard her diaphragm seemed to spasm, her slickness and his enormity working together to make some third wave between them. She bit his earlobe as he bent down to change the angle, her hands grasping his waist, pulling up against him as a moan caught in her throat, the urge to cry out muted by the need to be quiet, to avoid being caught.
Alex’s body went tight, a growl in his throat as she bit him, his own climax evident in the way his hips stopped moving, how his thighs halted, their bodies trapped by their own heat and fire burning through and, now out, as they each finished. A dog barked, the sound too close for comfort, and the two of them scrambled apart. Alex turned away as he dressed, and Josie hiked up her shorts with one hand while the other combed bits of oregano out of her hair. Her body still humming from what they’d just done.
Maybe she really was starting to love him. The thought remained a thought, thank goodness, her mouth firmly closed. She could think it as much as she wanted, right? As long as she didn’t say it.
Because who actually has danger sex and likes it?
Dr. Perfect. Of course.
As if nothing had just happened, Josie parked her ass on the bench in the little garden, whistling an off-key tune. Alex went around the corner to a water fountain, the sound of running water her clue. He came back and sat next to her, stretching an arm across the back of the bench, looking up at the night sky, whistling with her.
They burst into laughter.
A little corgi came around the corner, sniffing right where Josie and Alex had just had sex, the oregano apparently not enough scent to throw it off track.
“Oh. Hello!” A young guy, high school age, wearing a Red Sox cap and a matching Sox t-shirt, pulled on the dog’s leash.
“Hi!” they said in unison.
“C’mon, Daisy. What’s gotten into you?” he asked the dog as she bore down on the spot, sniffing furiously.
“Must be trying to claim her turf,” Alex said in a gee whiz voice.
“G’night,” the kid said, walking off, practically dragging poor Daisy down the street.
“That was close,” Josie muttered.
“That was fun,” Alex countered, kissing her.
Bam! The Klieg lights came on, bathing them in a flash of blinding light.
“What the hell?” Josie shouted.
Headlights began streaming in and parking in the small lot behind a community center, directly behind them. Adult voices. People on the baseball field.
“Holy shit,” Alex said under his breath, adding a low whistle of shock.
“Danger sex, indeed,” she whispered in his ear, giving his lobe a nip. “That was really close. Next time we should try this little garden off the library over in – ”
“I know that one! With the giant Rose of Sharon bushes?” He stood, extending a hand to her. She took it and the two scurried around the non-baseball-field side of the park, avoiding people. By the time they found their way across the street, they were in front of Josie’s building, and Alex checked his phone. She was still stunned that he knew the exact library garden she was talking about. Eerie. How? She started to ask, but he spoke first.
“I have to be at work in the morning, but we can go back to my apartment and finish that wine…” He snuggled up to her, hips against her navel, arms around her shoulders. His embrace felt so inviting.
“You need your sleep.”
“You sound like my mother,” he said, smiling. “Who you should meet sometime,” he added.
A huge lump formed in her throat. “Uh…” she drawled. “The clinical psychologist?”
He began to guide her down the street to his place. She stopped him. “I actually have to be at work in the morning, too, Alex. So…”
Uncertain, he stopped, studying her carefully. “I don’t want you to think I just called you for sex.”
“I’m offended.”
“I was worried about that!” he exclaimed, running a hand through his hair.
She swatted at a mosquito on her shoulder. “I’m offended that you wouldn’t call me for just sex.”
“Huh?”
“I’m not good enough for a booty call?” Joke with him. Catch him off center. Step away from the mother talk. Dear God, you told him you loved him during sex. Get the hell out of here, Josie. The voice in her head was screaming at her.
“Ah. I get it.” Smiling, he pulled her in for a toe-curling kiss. She could get used to this. Very used to this.
Too comfortable.
“I’ll call you tomorrow?” he asked.
She nodded. As they parted, he made it halfway down the block and then ran back, an arm snaking around her waist and cinching her to him, the final kiss deep and exploring.
“It’s not just sex.”
“No. It’s not,” she replied.
And that’s the problem.