Catarina

Our driver turns into my apartment building’s parking lot and my heart ka-thumps in my chest. Hard.

Barrett rattled off my address and now here we are, about to say goodbye for the evening before he returns to his own apartment.

“Mind if I take this shit off before I go?” He gestures to his face, painted to resemble a fox. Thick white paint covers his eyebrows and slopes down his nose, ending in a black circle. The artist was very good, choosing colors that complement Barrett’s golden brown facial hair.

“You can’t scrub your face at home by yourself?” I ask, giving him a hard time.

“I can, but I bet you have makeup remover that would cut this job in half.” He arches a foxy eyebrow. “Plus, I can help you take off yours.”

He taps my nose—which is painted bright pink. Since I didn’t have whiskers of my own, my face painter drew them on. I’m a kitty cat. Of course.

“What’s it going to be? You taking him up or am I taking him home?” Our driver, a sixty-three-year-old retiree—he told us—asks with a kind smile. “He seems safe enough.”

“Well, you don’t know him.” But I smile at Barrett. “Come on up.”

“Am I waiting for him to come back down?” the driver asks.

My eyes clash with Barrett’s heated ones. It’s crystal clear what this date is leading to, and even if tonight doesn’t end up with us in bed we both know it’ll end up with us in a knot on my sofa.

“No need to wait,” I tell the driver.

The elevator ride is a quiet one. We press our backs to the wall. Look at our shoes. We do not reenact any of the elevator make-out scenes from any number of books I’ve read or movies I’ve watched.

Inside my apartment, I flip on some lights and toss my purse and keys on the kitchen table.

“Master bathroom is through here.” I lead, Barrett follows. When I flip the light on in the master, he stalks toward me in a way that’s as animal as his face paint.

“Will you do it?” he asks.

“Sure. Sit.” I point to the closed toilet lid and he obediently lowers himself onto it. I shove a brush, a bottle of lotion, and my curling iron into the vanity drawer. Luckily the rest of the bathroom is clean. I grab a pack of makeup remover towelettes and tug one from the packet. Holding his chin, I swipe one over his right eyebrow. “Photo evidence of this will definitely make the column. Mia loves to embarrass me.”

Barrett forked over his cellphone and asked our artists to snap photos of us. Later on he took a few himself, including one of me eating an ice-cream cone.

“I’m so full, I’m no longer buzzed. What a waste of a designated driver.” I’m talking to fill the tense air.

Barrett’s eyes are closed, his reddish-brown lashes shadowing his cheeks, his skin pink from my scrubbing. He looks like a boy, save for the prominent stubble and the masculine angle of his jaw. He’s damn gorgeous.

“All done.” My voice is tight with lust, the innocuous act of removing face paint nearly as sensual as removing clothing. I toss the used towelettes into the wastebasket. When his eyes open I fall into them like pools.

“Anything else?” I clear my throat, suddenly and strangely nervous.

“Your turn.” We trade places and he carefully swipes the paint from my cheeks, forehead, and chin, his eyebrows lowered in concentration. I enjoy the pampering, and the attention.

“Thanks, Fox.”

“You’re welcome, Kitty Cat.” He looks at my mouth with a longing I feel but doesn’t kiss me. I can tell he’s about to leave. I don’t want him to, but it’s the best idea for both of us…Isn’t it?

I don’t know anymore.

“I’m going to go,” he says, those four words as distancing as they sound.

“Can I drop you at home?”

“You’re already home, honey. I’m not making you go out.”

“Well, you shouldn’t go out, either. It’ll take too long to get a car,” I argue. Then desperately add, “Hey, we could brainstorm on what we’ll be writing this weekend.”

At that suggestion he grows visibly tired, his shoulders slumping. “No thanks.”

“Guess I’m the workaholic out of the two of us, huh?”

“Depends on what kind of work you’re talking about.” He offers a palm and helps me stand, then he leads me through the bedroom and (I’m guessing) to the front door.

With each footfall we grow closer and closer to him walking out. I’m racking my brain for an excuse to keep him here. The why doesn’t matter any longer. I’m not interested in whys, only my body’s needs.

“It’s our third date. Technically. If you count both golf dates as one,” I say.

He pauses mere feet from the exit and raises his eyebrows.

“How shall we write that it ended? With face paint removal?” I take a tentative step closer to him and then another. “Or a kiss goodnight?”

His eyes darken to navy, his pupils growing with interest.

His fingers feed into my hair, tearing down my ponytail and coming out with the elastic. He doesn’t take his eyes off me as he drops the band on the floor, lips hitching in interest and, I hope, in surrender.

He arranges my hair over my shoulders, leaving it in a big wavy mess around my face.

My beer buzz has long faded, but my head swims. I might be drunk on Barrett Fox.

“This would be a disaster, wouldn’t it?” I mentally fast-forward past the kiss, the sex, and to the morning after.

“A beautiful disaster,” he murmurs.

“You can sleep on the couch.” I step so close my toes bump his. “Sneak out in the morning. Or you can stay and we can spend the morning writing our columns.”

“God, woman. You know how to kill a mood, don’t you?” A rocky laugh leaves his chest and I smile up at him, smitten. Then his expression grows serious and everything around us crumbles to dust when he lowers his lips to mine.

The kiss is sweet. Soft. Then hard and needy.

His fingers return to my hair, sending shivers down my spine. I stand on my toes to get closer, clawing at his shoulders, my will weakened from the long day, from hearing him sing, and by the gentle way he has when he’s not playing famous.

The hand in my hair grips a fistful and he tips my head back so that I’m looking up at his shadowed face.

“I’m not sleeping with you tonight, Kitty Cat.”

“Why not?” I whine.

He grins. In control and loving it. “You saw all the best parts of me today.”

“Yeah, well I’ve seen the worst parts of you already.” I wad his T-shirt in my hand and yank it up to reveal a panel of defined abs interspersed with golden-brown hair. Another whimper edges from my throat.

“You haven’t. Not yet. I don’t want you to regret anything.”

“I won’t. I’m itchy,” I say, harkening back to our discussion about how long it’s been since we’ve each had sex. “Assuming you haven’t slept with anyone since that conversation, I bet you’re itchy, too.”

“Like I’m covered in fire ants,” he says and somehow manages to make that sound sexy. “But the timing’s off.”

Like a teenager who’s been told “no” I pull a sulky expression.

“Ah, ah.” He shakes his head. “I’ll still set you off, sugar. I just don’t have the time to make love to the insides of your knees like I promised. Or tickle that space where your thigh meets your ass with the tip of my tongue.” His kisses my bottom lip, tasting sweet from the ice cream we shared earlier.

A sharp ziiiip! sounds and my dress sags at the front. I snap my spine straight when his warm palm touches my bare skin.

“Let’s see how far we can get you by only taking off your bra.” He wears a predator’s smile as he steers me toward the couch.

“Frustrated. That’s where you’ll get me.” I sit with a graceless whump.

He leans heavily against my body, his lips devouring, his tongue stroking mine. I forget what we were arguing about and kiss him back. He pulls my dress down to my waist, baring my upper half. I arch into him, trying desperately to rub against the erection that has to be there. It has to.

When I reach for his belt, he grabs my hand and pins it over my head. The other follows suit when I move for his shirt.

He rains kisses down my throat and over my bra, biting the fabric and gently grazing first one nipple, then the other. I let out a sharp “Oh!”

His expression is no longer cocky ease, but pointed, desperate longing.

“We can go fast this time, slow the next time,” I say. “Just…Let’s do it. Sex now. Please?”

“She begs.”

I growl low in my throat and struggle against his hands acting as shackles.

He silences me with another kiss, and once I’ve capitulated, slips his hand behind my back and removes my bra. When that pesky material is out of the way, he swirls his tongue over my nipple. My growl of frustration morphs into a pleading moan.

My hips pump, my fingers feeding into his thick, short hair. Wordlessly, I beg for whatever he’ll give me.

But he has no intention of making me wait. His fingers vanish beneath the skirt of my dress and trail up my inner thighs. Once past the barrier of my cotton underwear, he strokes my folds. My cries of delight are lost in his mouth.

When he moves his tongue to my breasts again, I’m panting, gasping, about to explode into a million tiny cosmos. He finds my clit and delivers one debilitating stroke after another. I grip his shoulders and come.

Hard.

My head slams back onto the pillow. My fingers dig into his shoulders and a thoroughly satisfied moan crawls out of my throat. I’m limp, my muscles turning to jelly. My lips tingle, and the very satisfied part of me between my legs thumps happily in time with my hectic heartbeat.

Lazily, I open my eyes. Barrett kisses my nose.

“How was that?”

“Phantasmagoric.”

“Is that a word?” He looks amused and so handsome I can’t stand it.

“It is…though I’m not sure I used it right.”

His laugh is even better. He starts to stand but I cling to his neck, emitting a pathetic “nooooo.”

“You sure you didn’t have too much to drink, Kitty Cat? You’re not typically this wanton.”

“Wanton. Color me impressed on that two-dollar word, Fox.” His posture relaxes and I use it as an excuse to tighten my arms around his neck and pull him close. “Lay here with me for a minute. Or an hour.”

“I’m in no hurry.” He tugs my dress over my breasts.

The sex buzz fades and my eyelids grow heavy.

“Good,” is the last word I say. I’m not sure how much time passes. I’m vaguely aware of Barrett leaving the couch, sliding a pillow under my head, and walking around my apartment. If only I had the strength to open my eyes to tell him not to go.

But I don’t.

Not when the soft flutter of a thin blanket covers me.

Not when I hear my door open and close.