Going Down: The Elevator Series (15 page)

Cole sat on the couch and positioned me in front of him. He pushed my skirt up to my hips and ran his finger along the top edge of my panties. “So this is what the color coral looks like? I love it.”

He hooked his fingers in the sides and pulled them down my legs. “I like this color better, though.” He ran his fingers along the inside of my thigh for emphasis.

I unbuckled his belt and went to work on unfastening his pants. I’m not sure why clothing designers find it necessary to create an obstacle course to get to the meat and potatoes. There was something to be said for elastic waist pants. There were no buckles, buttons, or zippers to slow you down.

I finally breached the last layer of protection and pulled his boxer briefs down. Through the streaks of sunlight coming in between the cracks of my office blinds, my prize for the successful completion of the obstacle course stood tall and proud. It was majestic—like watching a bald eagle in flight. I ran my fingertips over the head of his bald eagle, and watched as it twitched under my touch. I nudged him farther back against the sofa, climbing astride him.

There was no foreplay needed, and I sank down onto him immediately, catching him by surprise. I had been ready for this since Saturday morning, and I wasn’t wasting another minute. He guided my hips up and down, gradually increasing the pace. I don’t know if I had always been a moaner while riding the D train before Cole, but I was really struggling to keep quiet. I could taste a hint of blood in my mouth from biting my tongue. I made a mental note to buy some throw pillows or a leather strap so I had something else to bite on.

Cole leaned forward and whispered in my ear. “Fuck, baby, you feel so damn good.” I didn’t want to brag, but I took a lot of horse riding lessons with Maggie during her cowboy phase. I wasn’t out of my element here.

I was so close to reaching my peak. I could feel a president’s name rising in my throat. I angled my hips forward slightly and quickened my rhythm. Within seconds I was screaming a garbled, “William Motherfucking McKinley!” into Cole’s bicep. He was only about a half second behind me, muttering whispered curse words into my bosom.

After the hike up the stairs and the sexual aerobics, I was fairly certain I needed immediate medical attention. I might never walk again, but I had no regrets. “Good morning, by the way.” I chuckled into Cole’s ear.

He laughed right back. “Good morning. How was your weekend?”

“I spent it with my irrational best friend who was looking for her soul mate at a truck stop. It went as expected.”

Cole kissed my forehead and moved me off him. “Point taken. Do you have any other road warrior excursions planned for this week? I would like to see you if you’re free.”

“I’m free tomorrow night. My place?” I reassembled my clothing as best I could. Was it too much to hope I would have a private bathroom in the new building?

“No, it’s my turn to cook for you. Pack a bag. You might get lucky.”

***

Cole had to text me his address since I didn’t have any nefarious ways of obtaining it. My sleuthing skills were on hiatus, apparently. His place was a little more mature than mine, equipped with an elevator and a doorman. The Upper East Side was what the Lower East Side wanted to be when it grew up. The elevator looked very nice and reliable, but I still had trust issues. Besides, a six-floor walk-up in heels would be good exercise.

Three short breaks and one barely dislocated knee later, I knocked on his door. Magical smells hit me as soon as Cole opened the door, and I started to tear up a little. “What is that delicious smell, and what do I have to do to get it?” I pushed past Cole, ignoring him completely to follow the scent like a bloodhound.

Cole cleared his throat. “Good evening. Hello. Welcome to my home. And I hope you like paella.”

My food trance was momentarily broken when I shifted my focus back to Cole. He had changed into more casual attire of jeans and a button-down shirt. I liked it. I liked it a whole lot. Our imaginary future children were going to have the best taste in imaginary future clothes.

The smells from the kitchen were taking offense to being ignored. At least, I imagined they were and I didn’t want to offend them. “You just whipped up some paella after working all day? That’s just a thing you can do?”

“And flan. I hope you like Spanish food. I should’ve asked.”

“No one knows how to make flan. It’s a dessert that magically appears in restaurants overnight. It’s like Santa Claus, but more edible.”

Cole pulled out two glasses and a bottle of wine. “The recipe came to me in a vision. I was hoping for a cool super power like laser vision, but all I got was the ability to make custard.”

“I’m so disgusted by you and turned on at the same time. Why do you get to throw off the balance of the universe by being smart, handsome, and a good cook? How is that allowed?”

He paused while filling the glasses. “Is there a right answer here?”

“No.”

“I would like to pass then, please. Let me pull this off the stove, and I’ll give you the grand tour.”

I could see most of his apartment from the kitchen and it was impressive. While I considered my decorating style to be like a blind person at a high school band rummage sale, Cole’s seemed to be more along the lines of a functioning adult. Everything coordinated with each other and lacked a light dusting of cat fur. Like I said, impressive.

He grabbed my hand and pulled me behind him. “This is the media room.” He gestured to the tiny living area. “That door over there leads to the master suite. And that concludes our tour today, ladies and gentlemen. We appreciate your patronage.”

I turned and wrapped my arms around his waist. “It’s very nice. Did you decorate this all yourself?”

“I did.”

Of course he did. He’s flawless. Next, I’m going to find out he does volunteer heart surgery for impoverished children in South America.

“And then my sister came to visit and tossed most of my stuff and redecorated because I, quote, ‘have the design skills of a baboon with cataracts’.”

“Ouch. That’s oddly specific.”

“She’s been honing her insults since infancy. I can’t complain though because she’s much tougher on John.

“She has good taste. Leroy decorated my apartment and you really get what you pay for.” I slowly inched my way back to the kitchen, trying not to be too obvious. “Did I hear mention of the food being ready?”

***

Cole ventured back to my apartment two days later. Leroy wasted no time circling Cole’s lap to find a comfy place to lick his anus. It was clear this was his new favorite past time.

“I can’t get over how friendly your cat is,” Cole called to me in the kitchen.

“Oh yeah, he’s a real angel.” Leroy picked up on my sarcasm and narrowed his one eye at me.

“Have you ever thought about getting him an eye patch?”

I brought the pizza box and a bottle of wine into the living room. It’s not that I wasn’t a good cook; I was just out of practice. I worked all the time, and I never really saw the point of slaving over a nice meal for my cat and me. I cooked on occasion for Maggie, but that was about it.

“He has an eye patch, but he hates it so I only make him wear it on September
19.” Cole stared at me blankly, so I added the obvious, “Talk Like a Pirate Day.”

He slapped his palm against his forehead. “Of course! How could I have forgotten that age-old religious holiday? It’s right up there with Christmas, Easter, and Hanukkah. I feel silly.”

“You should. People might have died for the right to celebrate it. I mean, probably not, but they might have.”

“My sincerest apologies.” Cole momentarily stopped scratching under Leroy’s neck, so Leroy gave him a gentle reminder by sinking his fangs into Cole’s hand and drawing blood.

“Ow!” Cole grabbed his hand and ran to the kitchen sink. “Do you have a Band-Aid, or possibly a suture kit? He has unnaturally sharp teeth.”

I pulled out the box containing a wide assortment of bandages from under my bed and brought them to Cole. “I know. I think he sharpens them with a steel file while I sleep. Let me see your hand.”

He held out his freshly cleaned hand sporting two deep puncture wounds. I gently patted on a bandage that read
SHARK BITE
across the top. Cole opened his mouth to speak, but I stopped him. “It’ll give you some extra street cred,” I explained.

“A shark attack is manlier than a cat attack. Thank you.” Leroy hissed from the couch. “Do you have something in the oven?”

I scowled at the disaster that was my itty bitty kitchen. “Yes, I’m making an apple pie to go with our pizza. I thought we would keep everything in the pie category this evening.”

“It smells delicious. I can’t wait to try it.” He kissed the top of my head. “Now let me get my shark cage, and we’ll go back into the living room with Jaws.”

I interlocked my fingers with his. “Don’t be afraid to use me as a human shield.”

“Oh, I’m not.”

We ate pizza until I thought I would have to be pulled from my apartment with a crane. “I’m never moving again,” I moaned.

“Never?” Cole raised his eyebrows at me.

“Never.” I lay the couch with my feet in Cole’s lap and one arm slung over my eyes.

“That would be a real shame if you never moved again, Cici.” Cole lifted my feet off his lap and shifted so he was hovering over my legs. He raised one of my feet and kissed his way from the inside of my ankle to my knee.

“What are you doing, Mr. Danvers?” He had my attention now. Who was I kidding? He always had my attention.

“Just hoping for a miracle.” He continued kissing up the inside of my thigh until his nose brushed against my favorite place for his nose to brush against. “I want to heal you.” He wagged his eyebrows like Groucho Marx.

“I swear to everything that is good and holy that I will kick you off this couch if you start singing “Sexual Healing”.”

He hummed a few notes with his face pressed against my shorts. I laughed in spite of myself. He pulled my shorts and panties down my legs. He kissed so gently back up the inside of my left leg that it was tortuous. Just when he reached the area that most wanted his attention, he moved his mouth to my right knee and licked up the inside of that one, followed by a cool blow of air that nearly brought me to the brink of orgasm all by itself.

My libido was painting poster boards with arrows pointing to my hoo-hah, saying, “Go there!” He started back down by my left knee again. His kisses were firmer this time. When he reached the top of my thigh at long, long last, he nipped at my skin. I yelped and jumped, surprising both of us.

“Looks like someone is getting some movement back.” He winked at me and hummed a few more notes of “Sexual Healing”. Cole went back to my right leg, licking his way back up. At the end of this ascent, he slowly licked across my finish line. I nearly yelped again.

Then he said the words you
never ever
want to hear when a man has his face in your pink panther.

“What’s that smell?”

“Excuse me?” I sat upright so fast I got lightheaded.

Cole knocked my legs out of the way before sprinting the few steps to the kitchen. I probably should’ve noticed the apartment filling with smoke, but between the pizza food baby gestating in my tummy and Cole’s mouth on my naughty place, it was easy to tune out everything else.

The smoke detector added a new element to the sensory overload parade. Cole opened the oven door. The apartment immediately darkened with the cloud of black smoke that issued forth, like a monstrous genie from a bottle. I was most definitely not getting my money back on this place. I pulled my shorts back on and fumbled through the smoke toward the window, banging my shins twice on every single piece of furniture I owned. Opening the window didn’t seem to make a dent in the dense smoke.

I could make out Cole coughing and screaming something about the front door over the deafening screech of the smoke detector. Like a pinball, I ricocheted myself back across the room. The blackened, forgotten pie churned out a black cloud like a coal factory. Cole pulled me into the hallway when I got close enough, where we both gasped at the clean air. Leroy, not possessing a heroic bone in his body, was already in the hallway licking his backside.

We only had a few seconds of rest before the main smoke detectors for the entire building added to the din. Yep, that equity money might as well have burned up with the pie. We filed down the stairs with the rest of the residents, Leroy none too happy to be tucked under my arm like a football. There was a lot of grumbling from the crowd about being pulled from their beds on a weeknight. I tossed in a couple of loud innocent comments like: “Oh my God, who could’ve done this?” and “I can’t even believe this is happening to me.” I could tell Leroy was rolling his eye without even looking at him.

The fire truck pulled up right as we exited the building, which was fantastic since I was hoping the evening would get more humiliating. I sat down on the curb, as far away from the other angry residents as I could get. Cole sat down next to me and put his hand on my thigh.

“I’m sorry I didn’t get to eat your pie. Either one of them.” He winked.

“I would slap you if I weren’t trying to restrain an irate cat right now.”

“Too soon?”

“Too soon.”

After my culinary arson, we decided it was best to change the venue of our trysts for a little while. I secretly thought Cole was worried about me leveling his apartment, but he very politely suggested we spend the night in a hotel for a staycation. He rented a room at The Gregory, where I wasted no time slipping into one of the complimentary bathrobes. I half expected him to sweep the room for sharp objects, but he didn’t. We ordered room service and never left the bed until morning. It was bliss. I almost cried when it was time to get ready for work the next day.

Cole was fixing his tie in front of the bathroom mirror while I was spending an inordinate amount of effort to create effortless-looking waves in my hair. He gently pulled the curling iron out of my hand and set it on the counter before wrapping his arms around my waist.