I shook my hands out and paced back and forth in the hotel room. I’d splurged on a nice room on a high floor with a gorgeous view of the river. Not that I could see much of it now that it was dark, but it had been pretty before the sun had gone down. Now it was mostly city lights.
I stopped pacing and pulled the curtains closed. No one needed to watch what was surely going to be an utter disaster. Another good reason I’d laid out the no-talking rule. It would hopefully prevent the man from asking what the hell my problem was. Also, I didn’t want him to ask about my experience or lack thereof. My hope was to… somehow cover up my virgin status by acting like I knew what I was doing.
I did not know what I was doing.
Thank goodness for Google. Thank goodness for porn. Hell, thank goodness for Grindr if I was being honest. No matter how much of a fool I made of myself tonight, I wouldn’t have to ever see the guy again and he’d never know my real name. I’d even locked my wallet and other personally identifying items in the hotel safe just in case.
Embarrassingly, I’d also texted Jay and told him where I was in case I was murdered and/or kidnapped. He’d asked me why I’d never used him as a wingman before, and I’d piled on more lies, saying I’d never needed backup until a bad experience the month before. Then, of course, he’d wanted to ask me all about my close call. I’d mumbled something about bad poppers and hung up.
I didn’t even know if guys used poppers anymore, and I sure as hell knew I was too much of a dork to be a popper user. Jay had probably immediately called Chris to ask him about my bad popper experience. Even now Chris could be trying to get ahold of me to make sure I was all right.
I raced toward the closet to get my phone out of the safe, but tripped over my own foot on the way there and sideswiped the TV table with my hip, hard.
“Fuck,” I hissed, looking down at the offending piece of furniture. And that’s when there was a knock on the door.
I slapped a hand over my mouth to keep from yelping. Was it too late to cancel? What if I was so nervous I couldn’t get a hard-on? What if…
He knocked again.
Oh god. It’s happening.
I took a deep breath and strode toward the door as confidently as I could fake being. After shooting one last warning look over my shoulder at the TV table, I reached for the handle and pulled the door open.
My eyes had never before been gifted with such a sight.
I blinked and was surprised to see him still standing there. Tall, broad, handsome as hell. He had dirty-blond windblown hair and was dressed in a dark wool coat over a white button-down shirt open at the collar. I could see darker blond chest hair in the vee of his shirt and a prominent Adam’s apple under dark evening stubble. I wanted to lick it. I wanted to sniff it. I wanted to climb up his large body and beg for him to touch me. My stomach dropped. This was unexpected.
My jaw had also dropped, and maybe drool had escaped too. Just when I was about to tell the man he had the wrong room, he reached out to shake my hand but then pulled it to his lips for a kiss instead. He took his time dropping soft kisses up the inside of my arm until he was close enough to reach an arm around my back and pull me in for a real kiss.
A full-on, lips-on-sexy-lips kiss.
I may have let out a little whimper, just a tiny one before realizing that if he was kissing me—a stranger—without saying a word, maybe he was in the right room after all. And, hell, even if he wasn’t… I was probably okay with that.
I kissed him back with all I was worth, clutching the thick, soft wool of his coat lapels and holding him close. He smelled like winter air mixed with late-in-the-day cologne and something that reminded me of airplanes. Maybe he was a businessman in town for work and had just come off a flight. Or maybe he lived here and had just returned from visiting family somewhere for the holidays. His username was FlyGuy, so it made sense.
Why did it matter? It didn’t. I ran my arms around his neck and threaded my fingers into his thick hair. He was taller and broader than Chris, but had similar hair. I tried to remind myself that’s who I wanted to imagine myself with tonight, but it wasn’t easy. This man didn’t smell like Chris, and he had a different kind of physical presence and confidence altogether. I wasn’t sure how I felt about it, but I was willing to find out.
He moved me into the room and let the door close behind us. I didn’t pay much attention to our surroundings, as distracted as I was by the taste of his tongue on mine. It was minty but with a hint of alcohol like maybe he’d had a drink with dinner. His stubble lightly scratched my face in the best way, and his large hands moved up to cup my cheeks. I noticed one oddly pointy canine tooth that made his imperfect smile perfectly endearing.
He pulled back to stare at me for a beat before smiling wider and leaning in to press the softest kiss on my cheek. And then one on my other cheek. And then one on my forehead.
I stood there and drank in the attention, falling immediately into the simulated boyfriend experience as if it was real. I wanted it to be real, and I wasn’t going to waste a moment of the pretense reminding myself it wasn’t.
He clasped my chin with his finger and thumb before pressing another soft kiss to my lips and then stepped back to pull off his coat, never breaking eye contact with me.
I wanted to babble. My mouth was itching to ask him if this was all right, if he was sure, if I was a disappointment. I had to press my teeth tightly together to keep from breaking my rule within the first five minutes.
As he removed items from his pockets and set them on the table, he continued watching me with a soft smile and warm eyes. It was sweeter than I’d expected. I’d been worried the guy would disregard my plea for romance and just barge in here expecting a straight-up fuck. So the eye contact both put me at ease and made me flutteringly nervous.
Was I supposed to undress? Or… or offer him something to drink? I wasn’t even sure what to do with my hands, so I simply clasped them together in front of me and held on for dear life.
Once his pockets were empty of his phone and wallet, I expected him to begin unbuttoning his shirt or pulling open his belt, but he reached for me again instead, pulling me close and nuzzling his nose and lips into the side of my neck. His hands moved around to my back and rubbed slowly up and down as he nibbled and sucked a path along my throat and down into my collar. I buried my fingers in his hair again and closed my eyes. The sensations swarming me were too good to keep to myself. A few gasps and sighs of pleasure escaped me which seemed to encourage him.
His hands moved down to the top of my ass. By now my dick was hard and leaking. I’d never been so turned on in my whole life. How in the world had I waited this long to have a man’s hands on me? All this time I could have been enjoying anonymous fucks like this while I waited for Chris to come around?
I groaned again. Making out with another man was my new favorite thing.
He turned me around so that my back was against his front and his lips were on the nape of my neck and his hands moved across my chest and abdomen. I placed my hand on top of his and hesitantly moved it down to my aching cock. Was that okay? I wasn’t sure what the protocol was, and I didn’t want to come across as a bossy asshole. But he seemed to take it in stride, grasping my erection and squeezing it firmly. I dropped my head back onto his shoulder and pressed my hips forward into his grip.