Clay

When I walk in the front door, my first thought is that I must have left the stove on. I rush toward the kitchen, shocked to see Penny standing behind the stove, scowling. Her hair is tied into a dark knot on top of her head, leaving her slender neck bare.

She looks up when she hears me, shrugging sheepishly.

“What’s going on here?” I ask slowly, feeling the smirk creep across my cheeks.

Over the last few weeks, I have tried again and again to stop teasing her, and failed every time. She’s getting sensitive about my reminders that she used to be a bit of a wild thing, she used to be a bit of a slob, and she used to have really long hair.

That last one isn’t really a tease, but it is something I have a hard time forgetting.

“I thought you were going to quit picking on me,” she sniffs.

“You’re right. I will start again tomorrow, promise. What’s all this, then?”

She spreads her hands, spokesmodel style.

“I am making you dinner!”

I take a quick inventory of the counter and everything on it. Mushrooms, onions, and garlic. Chicken breast on a separate cutting board. Lemons and ricotta.

“Is that quinoa?” I ask carefully, bordering on condescension.

Come on. Quinoa?

“Wanda is doing low-carb,” Penny explains. “Otherwise I would’ve gone straight for rigatoni or something. What, is that not fancy enough for you?”

Stunned, I simply fall into a chair on the other side of the island.

“This is… You know. You cook?”

She raises her eyebrows.

“I do all kinds of things,” she quips triumphantly.

“Yeah, but since you’ve been here, you haven’t even attempted to cook. Are you telling me that all this time you knew how to do this? And you didn’t say anything?”

She wiggles her eyebrows and grins, popping a bit of mushroom between her lips and chewing vigorously.

That’s another thing—we agreed not to date each other. We agreed to even keep flirting to a minimum. And somehow, she just keeps getting more beautiful. It’s like she’s doing it on purpose, I swear.

“You know, that lemon mushroom combination makes an amazing ravioli,” I mention casually.

“Oh, does it really?” she asks innocently.

“You do not know how to make pasta,” I counter. “That is not a thing. That’s not something the Penny I know would ever even try to do.”

She tips her head to the side, placing her fist on her hip and shifting her weight so that the neckline of her blouse slants to one side.

It’s killing me, I swear.

“You know, I’m just going to bet that in fifteen years, I picked up more than a few skills that would take you by surprise,” she sniffs, taking a deep breath that inflates her cleavage.

Okay. Now she’s just doing it on purpose.

I force myself to stand up and turn around toward the back windows, taking a nonchalant stroll around my own living room so I don’t have to see her anymore.

“What’s the occasion for dinner?” I call out.

“Oh… Wanda is coming over. We use to have dinner a few times a week, and it’s been a long time. I think Ethan misses her too.”

Wanda has been a fantastic site manager. I’m pretty sure she’s about a week ahead of schedule, but for some weird reason she will never admit it. Ron can’t get past the fact that she’s gay, so I don’t even think her job skills are getting through his thick skull. But I’ve noticed.

“Actually she just texted me that she’s in the driveway. Can you let her in? My hands have chicken on them.”

“Happy to,” I answer, literally grateful for a reason to stop watching her work her magic. What can I say? I guess I’m kind of a foodie.

“Oh!” I blurt out when I open the door.

Wanda stops, raising her eyebrows at me in challenge. She’s dressed in a coppery wrap dress, her legs shiny as plastic, her hair almost glittering.

“The hell does that mean?”

“I’m sorry... It’s just… I’ve never seen you in anything but jeans and a bandanna, you know what I mean?”

She purses her lips, nodding as she peers past me into the house. “Yeah, I clean up real good. Is Penny around?”

“Yes, please. Come in.”

“Wanda!” I hear as Ethan tears across the living room with his arms out. He captures her in a full tackle, barely moving her at all. That is a strong woman. Stronger than she looks, even.

“Hey there, little monster,” she coos, burying her nose in his hair.

He holds her tight, grinning with his eyes closed. It’s really sweet.

I still sort of in awe that this is even happening and just try to make myself useful, collecting wine from the cellar and getting Ethan to help me set the table. The women chatter in that rapidfire way that they do, finishing each other’s sentences and delivering only the punchlines of their shared jokes. Most of it goes over my head, but I can still feel the affection in the air. It’s like its own atmosphere, filling the room.

“Okay, so tell me again?” Penny smirks, lifting the giant sauté pan up to pour the contents into a serving bowl. “It’s Elsie? Right?”

Billows of steam cloud the air in front of her, frizzing her hair up just around her ears, glossing her collarbones.

“Elise,” Wanda corrects her with a secret smile as she takes the serving bowl and pivots to place it on the table.

“Wait, what was that?” Penny intervenes. “Was that a smirk? Are you thinking about this woman and smirking?”

Wanda just shrugs and picks a cherry tomato off the top of the pile of food in the bowl.

“Is smirking good?” Penny persists as she makes her way around to the dining room table. I try not to listen in too closely and keep myself busy opening wine.

“Come on, spill it! Where did you meet her? What is she like? What does she do? Is she from here?”

Wanda holds her hands up, laughing as she sits down and enthusiastically begins serving herself. “Okay, okay, okay! I promise I will tell you everything just as soon as I know, okay?”

“You don’t know where she’s from?” Ethan interrupts, prompting a laugh from both women.

“We’ve only had one date, sweetie,” Wanda explains gently. “I try not to demand a complete autobiography on the first date, you know what I mean?”

Though I am fairly certain that Ethan does not know what she means, because he doesn’t have any dating experience at all, he still nods sagely.

“But I could tell right away. It’s a connection,” Wanda shrugs demurely.

It’s funny to see her batting her eyes and blushing. You would never know that just earlier today she hung a ceiling’s worth of drywall by herself.

“And where did you meet this fairytale princess?” Penny asks sweetly before tucking in to an impressive portion of food on her plate.

“Actually… Tinder,” Wanda mutters.

Penny raises her eyebrows. “Excuse me? You did what now?”

“I know, I know, I know. But it’s not as bad as I thought, okay? I figure, I’m a normal person and I am on there. So I figured there must be other normal people like me, right?”

“Wow, I am amazed!” Penny gasps.

“What’s so amazing about that?” I ask, more curious than I probably should be. “You never tried it? What about eHarmony or Match or something like that?”

“Me? What? No.” Penny shakes her head. “I would be afraid of the kind of guy I would find. Just some stranger? And with Ethan to consider? Just, no.”

Wanda and I exchange a look of understanding. I guess that makes sense. I hadn’t thought about that angle. Penny never had any trouble finding men to date, but she was always sort of cautious. She always asked around, even going so far as to buddy up with the guys’ ex-girlfriends. Her mother had some rough experiences dating, and Penny was more careful because of it. Even with that, jerks got through.

“What about you, Clay?” Wanda winks at me over the top of her wine. “Are you a swipe right kind of guy?”

I swallow carefully, buying a little time to craft an answer that will get me in no trouble with Penny or Ethan or Wanda—or any combination of those people.

“I’ve tried it, but as you can see, I wasn’t really successful, or we wouldn’t all be having dinner together tonight.”

Wanda nods meaningfully at Penny, her eyes comically wide. “Oh, that was a good answer, wasn’t it?”

Feeling like I dodged a bullet, I just continue eating. The food is delicious. It still cracks me up that she has been sandbagging this entire time, letting me make her dinner every night. Still, it has been fun.

“Well… I really need to be going,” Wanda announces, pushing herself back from the table before taking her plate to the sink.

“Have a good time!” Ethan suggests, again acting years beyond his age.

Penny sees Wanda to the door, and Ethan excuses himself to go back to the game room. He has been trying to teach himself ping-pong tricks, with one half of the table in a vertical position. It’s become a bit of an obsession.

“Thank you so much for dinner,” I smile, careful to keep any trace of sarcasm out of my voice. “It was really delicious.”

Penny stops for a moment with dirty plates in her hands, checking me over momentarily before apparently deciding that my comments were sincere.

“I am very glad that you liked it. You can go back to cooking, if you like.”

Actually I enjoy cooking for you, I think but do not say.

I help get the dishes off the table and over to the counter, though I keep an eye on her. Something is on her mind, I can tell. She keeps averting her eyes.

“You know, you could,” she says suddenly, looking up at me with a startled expression. “Date, I mean. Like, Tinder or whatever.”

Again I feel that damn smirk crossing my face. But what am I supposed to do when she’s so fucking adorable?

“Thanks for that,” I mumble. “Maybe later. Right now it doesn’t really interest me.”

She seems to accept the answer and rinses a few dishes, but then shifts toward me again and I can tell we’re not done talking about it yet.

“But, you know, if we are platonic… You probably have, uh, needs or whatever. I don’t want you to lose your social life because of me. That would be terrible.”

I glance around the living room and dining room, sort of confused by her words.

“Isn’t this our social life? Didn’t we just have a instant dinner party?”

She sighs impatiently. “Come on. You know what I mean.”

“I don’t know if I do know what you mean,” I answer, gathering up wine glasses. “You want me to find some slightly less interesting conversations via Tinder and go have those? What if I’m happy where I am?”

“Are you?” she asks me suddenly. “Are you happy where you are? Don’t you have greater needs than this?”

Walking around the other side of the kitchen island to put the wine glasses into the dishwasher, I allow myself to almost brush against her.

“Well, don’t you?” I counter.

I see her grab one corner of her bottom lip between her teeth. She shrugs slightly.

“So, what if we, um,” she begins, tracing a circle of moisture on the granite counter, “you know, explored some of those… Benefits.”

I reach across her to pluck a dishtowel off the ledge, so close to her I can feel her heat.

“Benefits?”

She’s getting a little frustrated with my teasing, I can tell, but I like watching her face change with every emotion. I like it that I know her so well, that I know her buttons.

“Benefits,” she finally declares, turning around to look at me directly, suddenly rendering me helpless.

“Okay, tell me more,” I begin carefully. “Because I don’t want to have any confusion. I don’t want us to be getting in each other’s way, you know what I mean? I feel like life around here is pretty good, don’t you?”

“I feel like we are adults who can handle a little physical interaction from time to time,” she counters, shifting her weight to her other side.

I have to admit, I love the way her body has changed. I love the handfuls of her.

“We can go slow,” I suggest reasonably.

Her eyes dip, tracing from my knees to my shoulders, giving me the thrilling sensation that I’m getting a body scan.

“Sure,” she agrees. “We can go slow.”

But it’s just too easy. My hand slides underneath that round ass, lifting her in one motion as she wraps her thighs around my hips. Already I am rock-hard and dripping as I rush her across the living room toward the stairs. I would fuck her on the countertop if I didn’t have Ethan in the back of my mind. Maybe he will go to summer camp or something.

Her lips are so soft. I can’t get enough of them. I roll her bottom lip between my teeth, careful not to bite too hard. She lets me suck her tongue into my mouth, moaning breathlessly as my fingers slide between her pussy lips, spreading her open so I can feel the slick channel there.

When we get to my room, she pushes away with her palms on my chest, directing me toward the leather armchair by the window. She falls to her knees between my feet with a sly smile on those sweet lips.

Flipping her hair over one shoulder, I watch in awe as she slides my pants over my hips, her eyes widening when my cock bounces free. She takes the base in her fingers, ringing it tightly, making it unbearably hard as her pink, shining tongue darts over the head. My fingers dig into the armrests and I try to keep from groaning too loud. I want to come right now, to cover her face in my jizz, but I don’t want it to be over yet.

Her lips stretch over the head of my cock and she sucks me again, her cheeks caved in, her nostrils flaring as she takes a deep breath and throats my throbbing dick. I could feel her swallowing me, and it’s almost too much.

“Okay, you have to stop,” I grunt urgently. “Turn over. Get on your knees.”

She gasps a little when I order her around, her expression eager and pliant. I love it that she trusts me to boss her this way.

Flipping that hair again over the other shoulder, she looks back at me as I nudge her knees apart and spread open her ass cheeks, licking her from her clit all the way back to the dimples at the back of her spine. Every inch of her tastes like honey and I take time to enjoy her fully.

“I’m going to make you come so hard,” I whisper against her neck when I push up behind her, tempted to take her ass. I want all of her. I want every bit of her to be mine.

But right now, I want to make her explode. Her thighs tremble as I tease the head of my cock around her pussy, sliding through her wet lips, tapping the head against her pulsing pearl. I can tell by the way she trembles how much she wants me. I can hear it in her sighs. I know I can make her scream, just as soon as I can get her to open up a little bit further.

Reaching around to the front of her, I pinch her clit lightly and enter her pussy from behind at the same time. She’s tight all over again, bringing me to the brink of coming before I even get all the way inside her.

Her hips grind in circles as she opens up, pushing back against me while I suck on the back of her neck and flick her clit gently.

“Unnnnnnngghhhh,” she groans deeply with every thrust, each a little harder than the one before it, her knees coming up off the carpet.

It’s a race to get her off before I lose my load inside this perfect pussy. I don’t know why, but it’s almost impossible to control myself. I ram into her, pistoning hard and steady, working her clit a little too hard so I can get her there. When I feel her begin to gush and shudder, I know I only have to hold on for a few more seconds. She cries out, curling her toes and pushing up and I can finally slip out, just in time to shoot all over her creamy backside, watching the iridescent white smear dribble between her ass cheeks.

I fall to the floor and she falls on top of me, curling against my chest and breathing heavy. Her hair slides over my arm, gently stroking me with each breath.

“I guess those are benefits?” she jokes sleepily, brushing her toes against the top of my feet.

“I’m not really sure,” I shrug. “Maybe we should try again tomorrow to confirm?”

“You promise?” she says, grinning.