ROMY MADE IT to the entrance hall—and stopped.
“The stairs on the left.” Matt, behind her.
She hesitated. “Do you really think we can be friends at the end of this?” she asked.
“That’s the idea.”
“It didn’t work out that way for Veronica and Rafael. They haven’t spoken to each other since graduation.”
“Those two weren’t friends to start with, Romy. They were a Molotov cocktail from the night we all met, hell-bent on being in love. But you and I are a whole different ball game. We’ve got our plan straight.”
“Plan B,” she said. What a time to realize that for once in her life she didn’t really have a plan—not for the mechanics of what would happen next. She was far from having an encyclopedic knowledge of the Kama Sutra—whereas Matt, whose sexual prowess was the stuff of legend, probably had his own annotated version.
“What is it?” he asked.
“Nothing,” she said in a small voice.
Pause. “Do you want to stop?”
“No.” Same tiny voice.
“Because if you’ve changed your mind, this would be a good time to tell me.”
“I haven’t changed my mind,” she said, and made it to the base of the stairs before stopping again. Oh God, what if she couldn’t even get him to have an orgasm and he ended up just as sexually frustrated at the end as he’d been at the beginning?
Matt’s hands landed on her hips. She expected him to urge her to go up, but instead he pulled her back against him as though they had all the time in the world. She swallowed a mouthful of saliva as she felt his erection prodding against her back. He’d said he had a very big cock and he wasn’t kidding. If its size really was illustrative of Matt being ten years past his sexual peak, he must have had the penis of a freaking giant at eighteen.
“Romy?” he said, with a tingle-inducing nudge at her ear. “Be certain you want this, because there’ll come a point when I’ll stop asking and you’ll have to tell me if something’s bothering you.”
“There’s no problem,” she lied—because she wasn’t going to ask him if he’d ever been bored enough to fall asleep halfway through sex—and headed up the stairs, only to stop again at the top.
Matt must have reached that point where he stopped asking, because all he said was, “To the left, fourth door, the open one.”
Inhale, step, exhale, step, inhale, step, exhale.
Just the feel of his hands on her hips was making her lust for him in a way she’d never thought possible. What would she do for him when his hands were on her naked flesh? Anything, she suspected. Anything at all. Everything he asked.
Now breathe. Because they’d reached the bedroom. The final frontier.
She stepped over the threshold. Dark floorboards, white walls, a night view of San Francisco Bay in the distance, through curtains opened wide. There was an inner door she assumed led through to a bathroom. Aside from a built-in wardrobe, the only furniture was a gigantic bed and one armchair—a scarcity that amplified the room’s size.
“It’s big,” she said.
“So all the girls say.”
And somehow, that made her laugh as she turned to face him, despite her anxiety. “Are you obsessed with size?”
“Only with what I can do with it.”
“Don’t overpromise, Matthew.”
“Not an overpromise,” he said huskily, and ran his hand over her hair—a sensual stroke that made her breath catch in her throat. “Are you nervous, Romy?”
“No,” she said—but a tic jumped to life at the side of her mouth and gave the lie to that. “Not...really.”
Matt pressed his thumb over the tic. “We’ll take it as slowly as we need to. I’m not going to do anything I think you won’t like, I promise. Stop me anytime. I won’t be angry. I won’t argue. I won’t pressure you. We’ll just find another way.”
She gestured to the bed, so nervous she could barely stand. “Why don’t you tell me what position you want me in so we can get started?”
“Romy! We’re not even naked yet.”
“I’d rather have it worked out in my head before we take our clothes off so we don’t get...you know...distracted.”
“Getting...you know...distracted is kind of the aim. So why don’t we just play it by ear?”
“By ear?” She reached up and touched her left earlobe, the one he’d nudged with his nose, feeling a residual tingle. “No, that won’t work.”
He looked at her for a long, quiet moment. “If you don’t want to touch me, Romy, there’s no point to this.”
“I do want to. But I...I just know I could prepare myself better if I knew where we were headed.”
“You’re overthinking it.”
“But what if I suck?”
“Then that’ll be perfect.”
“Oh!” She laughed. “You know what I mean.”
He sighed. “I want you, Romy. I want you, however this unfolds. I’m telling you that straight. And you know how important you are to me outside this room, which means I have to know this is what you really want. So tell me. Tell me you want me.”
“I already t-told you.”
“Tell me again. Make me believe it. Or this stops now.”
Her pulse leaped—fear, excitement. “I want you.”
“Tell me you want me to not only make you pregnant, but to make you come.”
Another leap. “Oh God.”
“Tell me.”
“Fine. I want you to make me come, and come, and come.” She rolled her eyes at him. “There. I said it. Now can we get on with it?”
“Come and come and come,” he repeated.
“Well...yes.”
He smiled. “Pfft.”
“Pfft?”
“Three orgasms is for amateurs. Let’s make it four.” He turned her to face the bed. “You want to talk positions? This is how I want you. Go and lie facedown across the bed with your hips at the edge.”
Her hands went to her zipper. “Should I—?”
“Leave your clothes on. We’ll do this first orgasm fast so you can relax.”
Romy went to the bed and took up the position Matt had instructed her to take, her heartbeat now at a gallop. Oh God. Oh God, oh God, oh God, this was going to happen, it really, really was. She was about to find out why all those girls had followed him all over campus, why so many women since had put their lives on hold waiting for him to come back to them even though history told them he’d never do it. She’d know the secret to being the one for him, and she didn’t care that it was only for one night, she wouldn’t care, wouldn’t stop to think, wouldn’t stop at all. She’d waited too long for this.
“And don’t worry, you don’t have to prepare yourself,” he said, coming up behind her, “because I’m going to prepare you.”
Next second, he was easing her slightly backward and opening her legs. She felt a rush of moisture between her thighs, readying her for what would come next.
“Good,” Matt said, as though he’d seen that gush, and Romy wanted him to see it, wanted him to feel it, wanted him to taste it. The anticipation was already better than anything she’d actually experienced.
He raised the skirt of her dress, hissed in a breath, slid his hands around the bands of those black socks that suddenly seemed erotic rather than fashionable. “These stay on,” he said huskily.
“Whatever you want.”
“You have no idea how much I wish...”
“You wish...?” she breathed, doing some wishing of her own—that he’d finish what he’d been about to say so she could tell him yes, do it, do anything, do everything; it was one night and she wanted it all.
But he didn’t complete the sentence. Instead he moved his hands to the bare flesh of her upper thighs above her socks, and Romy lost interest in anything but his stroking fingers.
“You are so absolutely perfect,” he said, his voice a raw note off an actual throb. “Now open your legs a little more.” She obeyed, only to be told, “Wider, I need room to kneel behind you so I can get my tongue in.”
Tongue. She started to tremble, and bit at her bottom lip, determined not to moan. Tongue. God help her, she was going to come the moment he touched it to her. She gripped two handfuls of his duvet in preparation.
“Ordinarily I’d suck you through your panties before taking them off,” he said, causing another gush. It was a reflex action, to close her legs and contain it, but he laughed, low and strained, and said, “Oh no, you don’t,” and pushed her thighs wider apart. “But I want my tongue right on you, so I think...yes, I think I’ll leave those snug panties of yours on and just move them...” sliding his fingers under the crotch “...so I can see them as I lick you. Win-win for me.”
He grazed her with his fingers, only just touching her, making her gasp before she could catch it back. Then one quick tug, and Matt hissed in another breath, groaned this one back out. How did she look from back there, with the soaking-wet crotch of her lilac panties shoved aside? What was he thinking, seeing her like that—half on display, half hidden, swollen with need? Ah God, who cared what she looked like or what he thought, as long as he touched her.
“So pretty—more than I could have imagined,” Matt said, and next second he was kneeling between her open thighs. “Better than I deserve.” That was added so softly, her heart thumping so strongly, Romy wasn’t sure she’d heard him correctly. It didn’t make sense, that he could not deserve her. Not when she was so sure she didn’t deserve him, when she’d somehow tricked him into this.
“Wh-what?” she asked, but his answer was to tug the crotch of her panties still farther aside.
His answer was to lick all the way along her sex with the flat of his tongue so that she jerked and cried out, her hands twisting in the duvet, her leg muscles quivering, and she cared about nothing except that he keep going. He licked her again, and again and again, until she was pushing herself against his mouth. Harder, harder. She screamed it only in her head, but it was as though Matt heard her, because he settled into a rhythm, directing his assault at her clitoris now, alternating the flat of his tongue with the tip. Strokes and flicks, changing the pressure from hard to soft and back, increasing speed. Faster, faster, faster. It was coming, she could feel it, she didn’t even have to reach for it, didn’t have to will it. She had no control. One, two, three harder licks, and he sucked her clit into his mouth. He kept sucking until she was ready to bang her head on the mattress, so great was the effort it took not to humiliate herself by begging him to finish it. Her breaths were ragged, hips thrusting convulsively back and forth as though he were actually fucking her and she was meeting each lunge of his cock, but his mouth stayed with her, winding her tight like a key in a toy. His toy.
Something had to give. Something had to break. Something had to—
“OooohhhhhmyyyyyGooooooood.” The cry wailed out of her as the orgasm slammed into her, crashed over her, zigzagged through her like burning, bright, hot lightning.
Matt had to know she was coming, she was rigid with it, pulsing under his mouth, but he didn’t stop. He kept tonguing her, going at her until her twitching body went limp. She was still gasping for air as he slowed and finished with one opulent lick. And then...hold, hold, hold, his fingers still on the panties he’d dragged out of his way. He was looking at her, she knew he was, and she had neither the strength nor the desire to stop him. His labored breathing, rough and fast, made her long to know what he was thinking.
But one more lick, a quick kiss, and his thinking was over. He turned brisk, repositioning the crotch of her panties, pulling her dress down to cover her, standing.
“Two minutes and twenty seconds,” he said. “Was that fast enough for you, Romy?”
His words settled into her fried brain. Lodged there, stuck there...stung there.
She got off the bed, brushed at her dress with an unsteady hand. Saw that he was...smirking? Oh no. No, no, no! No smirking allowed. This wasn’t going to turn into an octopus hickey moment.
“Yes, that was fast enough,” she said briskly, “but that wasn’t the deal.”
Up went Matt’s eyebrows. “I said we’d make the first one fast. You didn’t complain.”
“About the orgasm, no. But there was no semen, therefore no sperm inserted. So although it was good in terms of elapsed time, it was also a waste of time.”
“Elapsed time? Wow! How...technical. Okay so I’ll be technical back and tell you that happy though I am to oblige your demand for multiple orgasms, men have to pace themselves through four orgasms when they’ll only get to two or three for themselves.”
“Yes, but in this instance it’s not like you need to recharge since that was all about me.”
“Nooo, but think about it like...well, like a restaurant meal. Appetizer, main course, dessert, petits fours. Cunnilingus is the appetizer. Good to start with, not going to fill me up.”
“But what you just did could have been the petits fours—not everyone gets to them, and they’re hardly essential to a satisfying meal.”
“Er...you know, I’ll try almost anything once, but there’s one thing I won’t do: drink my own semen. Not going to happen. Hence...appetizer. Gotta get the order right when you’re not wearing a condom.”
A laugh exploded out of her before she could stop it.
Matt grinned. “I see you understand.”
“I’d offer to drink it for you, but it would be a—”
“Waste of sperm. Sad but true. For now, though, you can taste yourself.” And he stepped right up to her and cupped her face in his hands.
Why hadn’t she ever noticed how big Matt’s hands were? How big he was, compared to her. She was a woman who liked food and she was no twig—so why did she suddenly feel like a twig? Small and snappable. She wanted to fold into him but at the same time pull back, run away, protect herself. Because she was already in danger of wanting more than he was willing to give, and it was hard to remember that whatever was happening now wasn’t real. Reality would come roaring back later. Outside this room, outside this moment. When this night out of time was over and they were just friends again.
He tilted her head back so she was looking into his eyes, which had gone dark, the pupils having taken over almost all the green. One of his thumbs moved to her mouth, dragged roughly across her bottom lip. He was going to kiss her. She stiffened, afraid to risk the intimacy of a kiss, wanting to hold herself back from it. She tried to form a phrase with the word no in it, one that wouldn’t betray her confused sense of truth. But all she could find to say was, “Kissing isn’t required.” A stupid, mood-shattering thing to say.
“I thought we had a dare going.”
“D-dare?”
“Octopus kiss.”
“You said you weren’t interested in my forehead.”
“I’m interested in every part of you.”
“If that were true you would have kissed me back then.”
“Ah, but if I’d kissed you back then, where would we be now?”
“I think...” she whispered. “I think we’d be nowhere.”
“Nowhere...” he repeated, and the way he looked at her was as melancholy as a goodbye, even though they’d barely begun. “I don’t like that thought, Romy.”
“Neither do I, so let’s not think,” she said, wanting to take away that look. “Go ahead and kiss me. Do it.”
“Forgive me for it first.”
“For what?”
“Just...say that you do.”
“I’ll forgive you anything, always, you know that.”
She looked into his eyes as he smoothed his thumbs across her cheeks. And then he gently rested his mouth on hers, and even though he went no further, the moment felt more serious than anything he’d said or done so far. She was balanced on the knife edge of that line she could not blur, and one wrong move would slice her in two. Friend...lover. Which was more important to her? Which would Matt choose to be if he couldn’t be both? Which would she want him to choose?
“Romy,” he breathed against her mouth, and she wound her arms around him, held on to him, as though she’d save him from whatever it was that was chasing him. She wished she could pour herself through his skin and comfort him from the inside out, but all she could do was let him take whatever it was he needed from her, the forgiveness she didn’t understand.
She knew then there was no choice to be made. She might not know what she’d end up being to him after tonight, but at this moment she would be whatever he wanted her to be.
He tightened his hands on her face and rubbed his mouth across hers, side to side to side, and she catapulted over that damn line into something that was more than friendship and way more than sex.
She parted her lips, inviting him in, expecting a swoop of tongue, a conquest. Instead, he licked at her top lip, then sucked it into his mouth. She opened wider, desperate now for his tongue against hers, and at last he fitted his mouth on hers, tight as a seal. And there it was, his tongue, inside her. Heady, heady moment, the taste of him at last. Unfamiliar—and yet as right as though she’d been expecting exactly this forever. He made a sweep of her mouth, and while her senses were still absorbing the feel of that, he came in hard, his tongue demanding a response from her so that she clung to him and kissed him back, wanting the moment to go on and on.
When he eased away from her and looked down at her, any hint of gentleness was gone. Something in his eyes she couldn’t decipher made her skin prickle all over with heat.
“Orgasm number two coming up, Romy,” he said, and there was the promise of something wild in his voice. “And this time, by God, you’ll get the sperm.”