Chapter Seven
Something shifts in Arlo’s demeanor, and I almost see his internal shutters close before he speaks.
“Anyway, enough talking. I’m horny again.” His tone is light, but something of the seriousness of our previous conversation still lingers.
“And what’s that got to do with me?” I feign disinterest.
“Oh, it’s like that is it?” The cheeky grin is back with a vengeance.
“Like what?”
“You’re going to play hard to get, are you?”
“Ha!” I accidentally snort. “A bit late for that, isn’t it? I seem to remember you fucking me sideways not too long ago. My acting skills don’t run to pretending to be something I’m not, so it’s too late for hard to get. But as much as I’d like to help you out with that”—I motion toward his ever-growing hard-on—”I have to bail.”
“Do you now?” He inches closer to me, still leering wolfishly.
“Yeah, I do. Sorry, I have plans.”
I can see in his eyes that he’s not about to take no for an answer. It’s really not his thing.
“Cancel.” He’s still creeping toward me.
“I can’t.”
“Sure you can.” We’re nose to nose now.
“Okay, yeah, I can. But I’m not going to.” I hold firm.
“We’ll see about that.”
He pushes me onto my back. I can’t help but laugh in surprise.
“Arlo, what are you doing? I just told you I need to be somewhere else.”
“I don’t care.” His voice is slightly muffled as he plants tiny kisses over my neck and shoulders. It feels so good that my resolve fades more with every passing second, which is obviously his plan.
“Well my roommate-slash-bestie will, and so do I. We’re both so busy that we mostly pass each other like ships in the night, but we have a date night once a month. This one’s been postponed about five times already, and it’s too late for me to back out now. Plus, I’m frickin’ starving!”
I don’t know why I’m explaining all this to him. It’s really none of his business—I certainly don’t owe him any kind of explanation.
“Meh. Tell her you got held up.” He keeps kissing me all over.
It feels so good that I arch my back, allowing him better access. He obliges, lavishing my body with ever-more passionate kisses, before moving to my mouth.
“Him,” I say, breathless with arousal as Arlo’s mouth hovers above mine.
“What?”
“Tell him, not her,” I correct him.
“Who?” Arlo sounds confused, and not a little pissed off.
“Marko, my date.”
“What? Wait, let me get this straight. Your best friend and roommate is a dude?”
“One of my best friends. Correct.”
“You live with a guy, and you’re leaving my bed for a date with him?”
He’s really not looking too happy now.
“Wow, literally nothing gets past you, does it, Sherlock?” I roll my eyes. Arlo seems to bring out a sarcastic streak in me a mile wide. “Yes, Arlo, Marko is a guy. Yes, he’s my roommate. He’s also an amazing cook and a great friend, and he’ll soon be waiting for me to come home and join him for dinner.”
“I don’t think so,” he hisses sharply.
“You don’t think so what?”
“Like fuck are you going home to cozy up to some guy who obviously wants you.”
“Oh my God, you’re actually nuts!” I can’t help but throw my head back and let out a huge belly laugh. “Firstly, my dry cleaner and the lovely Armenian lady who does my bikini waxes have more right to say who I can and can’t spend my time with than you do. Secondly, there’s nothing like that between Marko and me. Really. It’s not like you and Marnie. We’ve been friends for forever, danced together for almost as long, and he, Nic and I are friends who don’t fuck.”
“Oh yeah, silly me. He’s gay, of course.” He looks mighty relieved at the thought. Now I’m laughing so hard, I can hardly breathe.
“Not even close.”
“What? He’s a ballet dancer and a great cook. He lives with you, and he allegedly doesn’t want to get into your pants. Of course he’s fucking gay. Either that or he’s in a coma, but I’m guessing that if he’s cooking dinner tonight, he must be at least semiconscious.”
“He’s not gay, Arlo. Trust me on this one. Couldn’t be further from it, in fact.”
I can’t keep the smug tone from my voice.
“Well, if he’s not gay, he wants you. Period.”
“For God’s sake! You don’t even know the guy. You’ve got no idea.”
“I don’t need to know him, I know you. If he’s got eyes, a dick, a pulse, and a love of pussy, he wants you. If he’s danced with you, he definitely fucking wants you. Trust me.”
I don’t trust Arlo as far as I can throw him.
“Listen, I don’t even know why we’re debating this. But for the record, and to end this completely boring conversation once and for all, I know he’s not gay because we’ve screwed.”
The look on Arlo’s face is priceless. He’s fuming. He looks as though he’s going to swallow his tongue and then kill a dead thing. I don’t bother to explain the finer details. He doesn’t need to know that due to the chemistry we had when we danced, people always thought there was something going on between us. So much so, that we did give it a go once, but it just wasn’t right. It was like getting off with my cousin. Neither of us has been even vaguely tempted since, and it was a very long time ago.
Obviously the concept of spending time with a woman and neither fucking her, nor wanting to fuck her is completely alien to Arlo. In many ways, he and Marko are cut from the same cloth in that sense. Marko is ballet’s enfant terrible. I love him to death, but it’s no secret that he’s a raging man-whore who has women flocking to him like flies. He takes his pick, leaving a trail of destruction in his wake. In fact, you could say that he is to ballet what Mr. Jones is to music.
“Fuck that asshole.”
I can see the cogs of Arlo’s mind turning. He’s looking at me intently, as though he wants to ask me something. Instead, he remains silent. Maintaining eye contact, he leans in to kiss me slowly. It’s a deep kiss, laden with intent. The air between us is so charged with electricity that we could power the house with it. I return the kiss eagerly, feeling like a teenager again—I could do this for hours, and it’s fast becoming addictive.
I allow him to turn me around so I’m lying on my front, pulling his robe off me as he does. He spreads my legs as far apart as they will go, stroking up and down my back lightly with the tips of his fingers. It’s a deeply erotic sensation. After a few moments, I’m literally quivering with anticipation. He hasn’t so much as brushed his hands between my legs, yet already I’m throbbing. Knowing what’s coming next, I’m getting wetter by the second. I lift up slightly and move my hand down toward my happy button, intending to get things moving, to release some of the pent-up tension.
“Oh no, you don’t, Tog—patience is a virtue.”
He grabs my arm just as my hand is about to reach its intended destination.
“Don’t even think about getting yourself off. I want that pleasure to be all mine.”
His voice is low, barely audible, and sexy as hell.
“But I need—”
He cuts me off before I can finish.
“What you need is to let me make you come like a train, and to skip the ‘date’ with the ballet douche.” The commanding alpha male routine is scorching hot. Who knew?
Arlo’s hands have moved down to my butt now and are squeezing and massaging my buttocks. It’s exquisite and torturous all at once—it feels amazing, but it’s not what I’m craving so badly. I want him inside me. Desperately. I raise myself off the bed a little more—partly offering myself to him, enticing him to enter, partly because feeling the sheets brushing against my clit is driving me completely nuts, and I need to dial it back a notch.
“Fuck me. Hard,” I whisper.
He’s still holding my butt, and as the words leave my mouth, he drives into me from behind. I didn’t even notice him putting a condom on, but he obviously did—I can feel it. He grabs a handful of my hair, pulling my head backward as I push myself back toward him, grinding against his dick, wanting to feel him even deeper inside me. He moves his hands to my hips, thrusting harder. I’m so wet. He’s so hard. We’re so hot.
Yet again, this level of intensity is beyond anything I’ve felt before. I want him with every fiber of my being. I want him so deep inside me that I can’t tell where I end and he begins. On the other hand, I don’t want to come just yet. I pull away abruptly, taking him completely by surprise.
“What—?”
Before he can finish the sentence, I’ve maneuvered onto my back again and am underneath him, taking him into my mouth. Hard as he is, he grows harder and larger as I close my lips around his cock. Christ, he really is huge. It’s all I can do not to gag as I deep-throat him. Arlo slows his pace a little, but keeps the thrusts as deep as I can handle. I feel him throbbing against my lips. I grip his dick in my hand and squeeze, so that with each thrust he rubs against my hand and my mouth. It drives him wild.
“Christ, L—keep that up, and I won’t last too much longer,” he warns me, pulling out of my mouth.
He reaches down and grabs both of my breasts, squeezing, and tweaking my nipples. Crap. I thought switching things up would turn the heat down a bit for me, so that I could delay my climax for a while, but if he carries on like this, I’m going to be the one finishing first. An involuntary groan escapes my lips. I pull back to speak.
“I don’t want to come yet,” I pant out breathlessly.
“I know, babe,” he says, continuing the nipple play for a moment. A sexy smile plays on his lips as he brings his cock back to my mouth.
I curl my toes in the hope that the tension in my body will help to slow my descent toward orgasm. I’m shuddering and trembling all over, feeling out of control. His breaths are short and jerky, matching his movements, and I know he’s close too. Just as I think he’s about to come, he pulls sharply away from me, out of my mouth, and rips off the condom.
“I want to come in your mouth, and over your face. I want to come in you, and on you.”
Those words alone are enough to finish it for me. I come loud and hard, the pleasure knocking me sideways. I’ve never come just from a guy’s words before, but with Arlo, it’s definitely a thing.
“Yeah, babe, come for me.”
He flips me onto my stomach, coming all over my back.
“Fuck, I love your back, especially when it’s covered in my cum.”
He flops down onto the bed beside me, grinning like a schoolboy who found his dad’s porn stash.
“When we fuck, it’s something else. Just the sight of your taught muscles writhing beneath me is enough to make me come. There are so many things I want to try with you, and do to you, it’s crazy.”
Talking dirty has never been my thing, but the way Arlo is so crude sets me on fire. In fact, I’m constantly surprising myself with the things I do, say, and think around him. It’s almost like I’m a different person, some girl I don’t even recognize.
He props himself up on his elbow, still breathless. “After I took the condom off I got the urge to feel you around me, skin to skin. So fucking weird, because I’m always really careful with that stuff—I’ve literally never even thought about going bareback with anyone before. Ever,” he pants out.
“What’s with that?” From his tone, I think the question is directed more at himself than at me, so I don’t answer. Damned if I’d know what to say, anyway. What is with that?
I’m well and truly spent, collapsed facedown into the mattress as Arlo wipes my back with a warm, wet washcloth. When he’s done, he lies back down on his side, facing me. I shift to face him. His hand is roaming my body again, almost absentmindedly, brushing past my ribs, my nipples, my cheeks.
“So fucking beautiful,” he mutters, as though still thinking aloud, then seems to remember that I can hear what he’s saying.
“Your body is amazing. You’re tiny, yet so toned and strong and flexible. I could watch you move for hours. I love seeing you glide around the house with that ballet dancer’s grace. I wanna test your flexibility to the limit in bed.” He seems deep in thought again. His gaze is locked on his hand, still distractedly tracing over my body.
“Stay with me tonight? We can order food and watch a movie.”
I half think I hear a note of uncertainty in his voice, but I brush it aside. He’s one of the most supremely confident people I’ve ever met. Uncertainty isn’t in his vocabulary.
“Don’t, Arlo.”
“What?” He seems genuinely confused.
“You’ve made it amply clear that you don’t date, and relationships are a dirty word, so don’t worry, you don’t need to pretend that this is something it isn’t. It was a few awesome hours screwing each other’s brains out. I’m not expecting hearts and flowers, or even Netflix and chill.”
A strange look crosses his face. I forge on regardless.
“Besides, I’ve got dinner waiting for me at home, remember? Shit! That, reminds me….” I grab my phone, and quickly bash out a text to Marko, briefly explaining why I’m going to be a little late. I spare him the gory details, but I’m sure he’ll get the idea, and coax the rest out of me after we’ve sunk a bottle of wine together. When I look up, Arlo is glaring at me. What the fuck is his problem?
“Yeah, well, don’t let me keep you, you’ve clearly got more important things….” He sounds pissed, but I’ve got no clue why. Sheesh—keeping up with his moods is a full-time job!
“It is important to me. So yeah, I gotta run—my friend is waiting.”
I start moving to the edge of the bed so I can retrieve my hastily removed clothes— and get out of there.
It’s only then that I look up and notice the look on Arlo’s face. You’d think I’d just slapped him. Again. I thought letting him know that I don’t expect anything from him would have pleased him, but it seems to have had the opposite effect. I feel the need to elaborate.
“We’re on the same page. Neither of us is in the market for anything serious, so there are no unrealistic expectations on either side. That’s a good thing, right? Anyway, I really do have to go, or I’m going to be in the doghouse.” I’m suddenly keen to get out of there, and just want to bring the conversation to a close.
“Umm… I’ll see you tomorrow, bright and early, as ever,” I chirp, trying to sound as carefree as possible.
I back into the bathroom to straighten myself up. My hair is now an unsightly mess of crazy curls, having been manhandled by Arlo for the past few hours. I also need to get dressed, of course.
“Yeah, cool,” he deadpans, turning his back on me. Clearly I’m dismissed.