I make a face, and then lean in and kiss him, smoothing my hand down his bare chest and skimming it over the waistband of his boxers. He didn’t bother putting on another shirt after discovering that I confiscated his, and as far as I know, his jeans still lay discarded on the living room floor. I slip my hand inside his underwear and grin against his lips.
Ford laughs, and though he doesn’t pull away, gives me a look. “Again?”
I shrug. If we did indeed go again, this would be the third time tonight.
I, for one, am up for the challenge.
He pops a kiss on my nose. “At least let me feed you first.”
I huff, pretending to be annoyed, though a smile breaks through my tough façade when he levels me with an adorably sweet puppy dog look. “Look at you, ever the caretaker. But I thought dinner was burnt beyond repair.”
He sighs. “I admit, seeing that beef tenderloin in flames was a hard pill to swallow. But, fortunately for you, that’s not the only meal I can cook. How about some fried chicken and waffles?”
“Oh, my God. Yuck.”
Ford laughs. “What do you mean, yuck? It’s, like, the best combo ever. You’ve never heard of it?”
I wrinkle my nose. “I have, but I’ve never gotten the appeal.”
“Well, then,” he says, grinning. “Don’t knock it ‘til you’ve tried it.”
I flop back against the pillows. “Fine, fine. I’ll try it.” I hold up a finger. “But then dessert. Okay?”
Ford springs off the bed. “Not a problem. I made a chocolate trifle.”
I point at him, lifting my brows as I do. “That is not what I’m talking about. And what the hell? You made a chocolate trifle?”
Ford smirks. “Yeah, I’m aware of the type of dessert you want. And as for the trifle? Nah. I was just kidding. I can cook, but I can’t bake worth shit. Something about measuring ingredients down to a T. Way too rigid.” He gives an over-exaggerated shudder, and I’m instantly reminded of earlier on the couch, and then again on his bed, when that shudder signified something else entirely.
I just stare at him.
“You,” he says, walking backwards toward the kitchen, boxers hanging low on his hips. “Wait there, make yourself comfortable.”
I smile. “Whatever you say.” Then, spreading my legs slightly, I lift the hem of his shirt, letting it drape across my hips. He stalls in his tracks, and when I see that I have his undivided attention, I slide it up even more.
The only thing I’m wearing is his shirt, which leaves me bare everywhere else.
His eyes darken in a way that I’m quickly becoming familiar with, and already I’m beginning to love the change in their reflection. It’s getting easier and easier to bring out the beast in him, the animal that needs, wants, and craves pleasure above all else, everything else. Already these first two times with Ford are better than any I’ve ever had with Nicholas, and almost as good as some of my best with Hollis.
“Fuck the food,” he growls, and launches himself at me.
I think I’ve got this whole seduction thing down pat.
Despite the ease with which I seemed to jump straight into a sexual relationship with Ford, I’m not all that sexually experienced. Ford is the third guy I’ve been with…ever. By today’s standards, that’s pretty much child’s play.
Nor, to make it clear, am I a cheater. Well, I mean, I suppose I am now. But I’m not a chronic cheater.
And that should count for something, right?
Despite what Hollis believes, I never cheated on him. Though, when you really look at it, cheating is such a broad term, isn’t it? While I did meet Nicholas when I was living with Hollis, I didn’t sleep with him until I’d officially ended our six-year relationship. But when I look back now, I can see that Nicholas courted me quietly for months (so quietly that I didn’t even really know it was happening), visiting the bar where I tended and engaging me in what seemed to be innocent, superficial conversation. He dazzled me with tales of his travels (which were mostly for work), and then about his job as an architect and how he sat poised to take over the family firm in just a few short years. I grew to anticipate his visits, watching the door for him on Sundays and Tuesdays, the slowest nights of the week. Nicholas held a commanding presence, and he filled the bar with it. Seven years my senior, he seemed larger than life, so worldly and so much more experienced than I was. Than Hollis was. I began to despair about our tiny, shitty apartment, worrying that we’d never make it to true adulthood, able to buy a house and maybe an SUV, eventually add children to our brood. We were adults, yet it seemed that I was the only one of us who was actually adulting. Hollis chose not to work after college so he could focus on writing, and I went along with it, because he was the one with the talent. The one who could flesh out the skeleton of a story in a way I never could. But just the thought of sitting at a reception desk or in a cubicle at a call center while I waited for him to write a best seller was enough to give me anxiety; I couldn’t imagine actually working in an environment like that, every single day for forty hellish hours a week. So I found a job at a ritzy hotel bar, where the clients could afford to tip well, and no two nights were ever the same. My degree in creative writing with an emphasis in poetry was hardly useful, and slinging drinks to rich people in a bar was the lesser of two evils.
Of course, now I find it all oddly amusing, the way I thought I was shunning conformity by working in a bar as opposed to an office. I was, after all, still punching a time clock. It was a precarious balance, this freedom laced with burden, and I know now that I was conflicted. Some days, I yearned for a house in the suburbs. Then, on others, I couldn’t stand the thought of leaving the city – even a less significant Midwestern metropolis like Duluth. One moment, I craved the buzz of the busy streets, yet the very next, I wanted to be alone, holed up in a house with so much land that I never ran the risk of seeing my neighbors when stepping onto my front porch.
I wanted a loud life and a quiet life, a large existence and a small one at the same time. I wanted the freedom to be whatever I wanted to be in the moment, and not be chained to the expectations of others – their needs, their wants, their demands.
Back then, I couldn’t have that kind of life with Hollis. I wasn’t free; I was his meal ticket. And though he treated me like a queen, I was still a queen who served her king, and his needs were more precious than mine.
I grew bitter, and Nicholas’s visits to the bar increased, and before I knew it, we were having drinks after my shift, then dinners on the days I didn’t even work. He knew about my relationship with Hollis; I never hid that from him. At first, he was a springboard for my woes, listening intently and offering quiet suggestions. He told me I was too beautiful, too sweet, too precious to be working behind a bar, serving others while I was the one who should be served. He appreciated my work ethic, but thought I was being taken advantage of by my sponge of a boyfriend (his words, not mine), who did nothing but sit at home writing all day. Nicholas always said the word with a sigh, and sometimes a sneer, letting me know in no uncertain terms that he didn’t respect what Hollis did in the slightest.
Over time, Nicholas and I became good friends. And we stayed that way for months. Things were growing rockier between me and Hollis, and I appreciated having someone to complain to when things in our apartment broke down, or a few missed payments on our credit cards made the new monthly minimums too high to deal with, resulting in creditors calling my phone (not Hollis’s, never Hollis’s) relentlessly.