Beautiful Player

“Oh fuck,” he warned, hissing in a breath as he came, warm on my hands. I worked him through it, continuing to pull in slow drags until it was too much and he batted me away, smiling as he pulled me up to him.

“Fuck, you’re a fast learner,” he said, kissing my forehead, my cheeks, the corners of my mouth.

“Because I have an excellent teacher.”

He laughed, pressing his smile to mine. “I can assure you I didn’t learn that from experience.” He pulled away, eyes traveling over every inch of my face. “Stay and have dinner with me?”

I curled into his side and nodded. There wasn’t anywhere I’d rather be.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

It had been so long since I’d cuddled on my couch with a woman, I forgot how awesome it was. But with Hanna, it was borderline blissful to simultaneously enjoy a beer, a basketball game, some nerdy science talk and nice lady with curves at the ready. I finished my drink with a long swallow and then looked over at Hanna, her eyes glazed as if she was on the cusp of a nap.

I was disappointed that I’d backpedaled after seeing her reaction this morning. But as I was quickly learning, I’d do anything for her. If she wanted to keep things casual, then that’s what we’d do. If she wanted us to be friends with benefits, I could pretend. I could be patient, I could give her time. I only wanted to be with her. And as pathetic as it sounded, I’d take what I could get.

For now, I was okay being the Kitty.

“You good?” I murmured, kissing the top of her head. She nodded, humming, and wrapping her hand more firmly around the beer bottle in her lap. Hers was still mostly full and, at this point, probably pretty warm, but I liked that she had one anyway.

“Don’t like the beer?” I asked.

“This one tastes like pinecones.”

Laughing, I pulled my arm out from behind her neck and leaned forward to put my empty down. “That’s the hops.”

“Is that like what they make marijuana clothes from?”

I bent over farther, laughing harder. “That’s hemp, Hanna. Holy shit you’re amazing.”

When I looked over at her, she was smiling and I realized, of course, she’d been f**king with me.

She patted my head patronizingly and I shrugged away from her hand, saying, “I like how I forgot for a minute there that you’ve probably memorized the name of every plant, ever.”

Hanna stretched, her arms shaking slightly over her head as she hummed in pleasure. Naturally I took the opportunity to check out her chest. She also happened to be wearing a totally badass Doctor Who shirt, I hadn’t even noticed earlier.

“Are you looking at the goods?” she said, opening one eye and catching me, slowly lowering her arms.

I shook my head. “Yes.”

“Are you always such a boob man?” she asked.

In what was clearly becoming a pattern, I ignored the implied question about other women, deciding I wasn’t going to address anything about that entire taboo conversation again . . . for now. Beside me, she grew still and I knew she felt the same unspoken question settle back between us: is this conversation over?

We were saved by the bell, or in this case the buzzing of my phone on the coffee table. A text from Max lit up my screen.

Headed to Maddie’s for some pints. Coming?

I showed the phone to Hanna, in part wanting her to see that it wasn’t a woman texting me on a Tuesday night, and in part to see if she’d be up for coming along. I raised my eyebrows in silent question.

“Who’s Maddie?”

“Maddie is a friend of Max’s, who owns and runs Maddie’s, a bar in Harlem. It’s usually pretty empty, and it has great beer. Max likes it for the horrible British pub food.”

“Who’s going?”

Shrugging, I said, “Max. Probably Sara.” I stopped, considering. It was Tuesday, so Sara and Chloe would probably be testing to see if I was with Kitty. It was all probably a quasi-causal ruse to check up on me. “I’m betting Chloe and Bennett are coming, too.”

Hanna tilted her head, studying me. “Do you guys go out to bars on weekdays a lot? Seems strange for all of these serious business career people.”

I sighed, standing and pulling her up with me. “I think they’re trying to track my sex life, to be honest.” If she knew Saturdays had been my nights with Kristy, then she may also know Tuesdays were usually reserved for Kitty. May as well be up front with her about how meddling my friends could be.

Her expression remained unreadable, and I couldn’t tell if she was irritated, jealous, nervous, or maybe even just listening neutrally. I wanted so much to know what was going on in her head, but I couldn’t possibly start the talk again and have her freak out. I was a man; a man perfectly capable of accepting sex from a woman even under the murkiest of emotional circumstances. Especially when that woman was Hanna.

I bent to pick up both beer bottles.

“Will it be weird if I’m there? Do they know about us?”

“Yes, they know. No, it won’t be weird.”

She looked skeptical, and I put my hands on her shoulder. “Here’s a rule: things are only weird if you let them be.”

As the bar was roughly fifteen blocks from my apartment building, we decided to walk. Late March in New York was either gray and cold, or blue and cold, and luckily the snow had finally disappeared and we were having a pretty decent spring.

Only a block from my apartment, Hanna reached for my hand.

I threaded my fingers with hers, and pressed our palms together. I’d somehow always expected love to be primarily a mental state, so I still felt unaccustomed to the physical manifestation of my feelings for her: the way my stomach would grow tight, my skin would start to feel hungry for her touch, the way my chest would press in, my heart pounding blood hard and fast through my arteries.

She squeezed my hand, asking, “Do you actually like doing sixty-nine? I mean, really.”

I blinked over to her, laughing and fuck, falling even harder for her. “Yeah. I love it.”

“But, and I know you’re going to hate what I’m about to say—”

“You’re going to ruin it for me, aren’t you?”

She looked up at me, tripping slightly on a crack in the sidewalk. “Is that even possible?”

I considered this. “Probably not.”

Opening her mouth, she started to speak and then closed it again. Finally, she blurted, “Your face is basically in someone’s ass.”

“No, it isn’t. Your face is on someone’s c*ck or someone’s p**sy.”

She was already shaking her head. “No. Let’s say I’m on top of you, and—”

“I like this hypothetical.” I kept waiting for her to take charge and ride me. In fact, I wanted it so much that as soon as I pictured it, I had to take a moment to discreetly adjust myself in my jeans with my free hand.

Ignoring my hint, she continued, “So that means you’re under me. My legs are spread over your face, so my ass is . . . it’s like eyeball level.”

“Fine with me.”

“It’s my ass. By your eyes.”

I let go of her hand and reached up to tuck a stray hair behind her ear. “This won’t surprise you, but I have zero aversion to asses. I think we should try it.”

“It’s not awkward?”

Pulling up short, I turned her to face me. “Have we done anything yet that feels awkward?”

Her cheeks went pink, and she blinked down the street, mumbling, “No.”

“And you believe me when I say I’ll make everything good for you.”

She looked back up at me, eyes soft and trusting. “Yeah.”

I took her hand in mine again, and we continued walking. “It’s settled then. There will be some sixty nine in your future.”

We walked in silence for several blocks, listening to the birds, the wind, the sound of traffic in bursts organized by the streetlights.

“You think I’ll ever teach you something?” she asked just before we reached the bar.

I smiled down at her, growling, “Without a doubt.” And then I opened the door to Maddie’s for Hanna, gesturing that she lead us inside.

My friends, seated at a table just to the side of the little dance floor, saw us as soon as we walked in. Chloe, facing the door, noticed us first, her mouth forming a tiny, surprised O that she almost immediately tucked away. Bennett and Sara turned in their seats, each of them deftly hiding any reaction. But f**king Max had an enormous shit-eating grin spreading from ear to ear.

“Well, well,” he said, standing to walk around the table and give Hanna a hug in greeting. “Look who’s here.”

Hanna smiled, greeting everyone alternately with little hugs and waves, and then pulled up a chair to the end of the table. I made Max move down so I could sit next to her, and didn’t miss his amused laugh, and under his breath, a guffawed “Smitten.”

Maddie herself approached our table, tossing down a couple more coasters in front of us and asking what we wanted to drink. She listed the beers on tap, and because I knew she wouldn’t like any of them, I leaned close to tell Hanna, “They also have regular bar drinks, or sodas.”

“Soda is expressly forbidden,” Max chided. “If you don’t like beer, there is whiskey.”

Hanna laughed, making a face. “Would you drink a vodka and 7-Up?” she asked, anticipating our usual routine where she ordered the drink and I was the one who actually drank it.

I shook my head and made a face, leaning into her, our foreheads practically touching. “Probably not.”

Humming, she thought about it some more. “Jack and Coke?”

“I’d drink that.” I looked up at Maddie and said, “Jack and Coke for the lady, and I’ll have a Green Flash.”

“Ooh, what’s that?” Hanna asked.

“It’s a really hoppy beer,” I told her, kissing the corner of her mouth. “You wouldn’t like it.”

Once Maddie left us, I pulled away from Hanna and glanced around the table, finding four very interested faces looking back at us.

“You two look rather cozy,” Max said.

With a little wave of her hand, Hanna explained, “It’s our system: I’ll only have a few sips of my drink and then he’ll finish it. I’m still learning what he orders.”

Sara squeaked out a tiny, thrilled noise and Chloe smiled at us as if we had turned into a photograph of two cuddling baby sloths. I shot them a warning look. When Hanna asked where the restrooms were, then headed in that direction, I leaned in toward the group, meeting each of their eyes.

“This is not going to be the Will and Hanna show, you guys. We’re in a weird place. Just act normal.”

“Fine,” Sara said, but then narrowed her eyes. “But for the record, you two look really cute together and since we all know you guys have been hooking up, she’s really brave for coming out with the entire group tonight.”

“I know,” I mumbled, lifting my beer when Maddie had delivered it and taking a sip. The sharp bite of the hops mellowed almost immediately into a warm, malty finish. I closed my eyes, moaning a little while the others began chatting.

“Will?” Sara said, quieter now, so only I could hear her. She turned, looking behind her before turning back to me. “Please only do this with Hanna if you know it’s what you want.”

“I really appreciate the meddling, Sara, but stop meddling.”

Her face straightened and I registered my mistake. Hanna was a bit older than Sara had been when she started dating the douchebag congressman in Chicago, but I was exactly the same age he had been: thirty-one. Sara probably felt it was her duty to look out for other women who could fall into the same situation she was in for so long.

“Shit, Sare,” I said. “I get the meddling. Just . . . it’s different. You know that, right?”

“It’s always different at first,” she said. “It’s called infatuation, and it will make you promise anything.”

It wasn’t as if I hadn’t been infatuated with a woman before; I had. But I’d always kept my head about me, knowing how to let myself take as much as I could physically, while taking the emotional side more slowly, or pushing it aside entirely. What was it about Hanna that made me want to shed that model and dive straight to the bottom, where things were the most tender and terrifying?

Hanna returned, smiling at me before sitting down and taking a sip of her drink. She coughed and looked up at me, eyes wide and watery as if her throat were on fire.

“Right,” I said, laughing. “Maddie makes the drinks on the strong side. I should have warned you.”

“Keep drinking,” Bennett advised. “It gets easier once your throat is numb.”

“That’s what he said,” Chloe quipped.

Max’s laugh boomed across the table, and I rolled my eyes, hoping Hanna stayed oblivious to their banter.

She seemed to be, taking another sip and coming out of it with a more normal reaction. “It’s fine. I’m fine. Holy crap, you guys must feel like you’re watching someone have her first drink. I promise you I drink sometimes, just—”

“Just not very capably,” I finished, laughing.

Below the table, Hanna’s palm covered my knee and slid up to my thigh. She found my hand there and curled her fingers around it.

“I remember the first drink I ever had,” Sara said, shaking her head. “I was fourteen, and I went up to the bar at my cousin’s wedding. I ordered a Coke, and the woman next to me ordered a Coke but with some kind of booze in it. I accidentally took hers and went back to my table. I had no idea what was wrong with my drink and why it tasted so funny, but let me tell you it was the first time this white girl ever tried to bust out some break-dancing moves.”

We all laughed, particularly of the image of sweet, reserved Sara doing the robot or some spin drunk. Once our humor died down, it seemed as though our thoughts all drifted to the same topic, because we all turned to Chloe almost in unison.