It's Complicated (22 page)

Joy. Joy coursed through the veins that made him so casually authentic, and when the song on the radio changed, his low chuckle made her halt her hand, fingertips enjoying the sensation.

“Dirty Dozen Brass Band,” he said, kissing the hollow of her neck.

Knowing the song—and delighted that he knew the band, because no one she knew ever did—she stroked him twice, then slid her hand along the tight ridges of muscle in his inner thigh.

“‘Don’t You Feel My Leg,’” he said.

“Song title, or command?”

“Song title, of course,” he whispered, eyes closing as she wrapped her hand around him, fingers struggling to touch. The tuba’s deep bass line felt jaunty and joking, a bit out of pace for this moment, and yet it was fitting. Whatever came to them just did, as if life orchestrated what fate poured into the air. He stopped her, opening his eyes and pulling himself up over her, giving her access to all of him. My God. How beautiful he was.

“I want to be in you, Ms. Josephine,” he said, as if he had to ask permission. Yet it wasn’t a question, was it?

“And I want you in me, Dr. Perfect,” she replied, rolling over to open the drawer where she stored the necessary precautions. As she turned, his hand caressed her ass, lips dipping down to kiss her on each buttock, making her laugh. This was intense and frolicking, all at once. The two, it seemed, were not mutually exclusive in Alex’s bedroom world.

“Dr. Perfect?”

“McDreamy was taken.”

The baritone laugh that came out of him, his face morphing from sexual intensity to pure delight, made her fall a little more into something she feared was as close to love as she was capable of feeling. Where was the awkwardness? The self-conscious mental ricocheting of thoughts and worries and suppositions? She and he were two people entwined on her bed, about to make love, and as he took the condom from her and dispensed with the formalities quickly, she found a glee in her that had never been present during sex before. Instead of hiding her emotions, as she normally did, focused solely on the animal nature of the act, on surges and rushes and highs and explosions, Josie allowed Alex to bring her to a new kind of lovemaking. It was almost too easy.

Almost. Tears threatened to fill her eyes, drawn out by a groundswell of emotion that made her look at him—
really
look at him—and see a man she could spend her whole life with, love—

“You are so amazing,” Alex said, interrupting her thoughts.
Thank God.

“You are, too,” she said, her body surprised when he rolled and pulled her on top of him. Oh, he liked it this way? Enjoying the power of having him spread out before her, her hands washed over his chest, up his neck, to his face, tracing his lips with fingers that tried to memorize him. Adjusting her hips, she ached to have him in her. He made her feel tiny and delicate, but also on display as his hands roamed up her belly, over the edge of her ribcage, then cupped both breasts.

“This,” he said, hands now on her hips, guiding her, “is amazing, too.” And then all she needed to do was a small lift with one thigh, a knee placed on the bed just so, and the tip of him filled her, the pressure so inviting that he entered her slowly, the gasp of pleasure as their eyes met, the wordless communication and communion actually bringing those tears out. A shaky smile stretched over her lips as Alex moved inside her, so inadequate to display the vortex of emotions swirling within her, all of them crying out for more, more, more.
This
was what making love was supposed to have been like all these years? What
else
had she been missing out on?

Leaning together for a kiss, their bodies moved in rhythm, her deep core of heat growing, emanating out into her limbs while tightening at the center, her pussy walls clamping down as Alex groaned, lips pressed against hers. At some point, the kiss became lost as each felt the climax form, something shared that could only be fueled by mutuality.

“Josie,” he whispered through gritted teeth, just as she was about to say his name, too. Both felt it, and then he added, “Are you…?”

“Close?” she filled in for him. “God, yes.”

That was all it took as Alex enveloped her hips with his strong, big hands, a conductor of the symphony’s end, setting the rhythm and choosing strokes far more sensual than any she would have found on her own. One, two, three thrusts up and the orgasm slammed into her, grown large by an impossible sense of love and longing that played itself out in an embrace as she wrapped every spare section of skin against his body, holding on for dear life as stray strands of his hair caught in her mouth, ragged gasps her only words now, proving him right. She could think of nothing more than
Alex, Alex, Alex
, his name an infinite loop of pure joy, her body racked with wave after wave of
him
.

Whole body on fire, the heat receded slowly, her awareness of aching hips, and a slightly raw feeling where he entered her, reminders of the juxtaposition of their sizes. Alex was big, she was not, and whatever similarities they shared, in bed he was decidedly all
man
. He made her all
woman
.

A loud
crack
pierced the air, and then the crowd at the baseball field cheered, the sound bursting through the open window.

“Well, I knew I was good, but I’ve never had
that
kind of reaction before,” Josie said, sitting up, her hand cradling Alex’s face. Rich, brown eyes met hers with a kindness and depth that would have terrified her, even a day ago.

“I would give you a standing ovation,” he said.

“You just did,” she said, squeezing a Kegel around him. Laughing, he slid out of her, then rolled her off him, spooning. So much warmth. The man’s entire body was one big heating pad, and she wondered what this would feel like in the dead of winter, cozy in bed with Alex, no longer needing the cats to warm her feet.

That thought made her roll her eyes, the intrusion of cat-lady fears seeping into the afterglow. She and Laura had often mournfully joked about being alone in old age, surrounded by cats. Alex’s steady breath filled her ear, the rasp of stubble against her neck, the slow, layered relaxation of her body against his banishing those fears. They were one right now, and then her stomach gurgled, a horridly intrusive sound that seemed louder than the crowd outside.

“We forgot to eat,” he said, the rush of his breath against her ear a luxury she could become accustomed to making commonplace. As if on cue, his stomach growled as well, sending them both into giggles, their bodies shaking in bed, joy pouring forth in new ways.

The room had darkened enough that she reached forward to snap on the bedside table light. Still nude, their bodies were a series of legs and hips and arms, all mixed together like a bouquet of flowers. Peeling away, she searched the floor for her clothes, spotting each piece and cataloging. Whatever happened next was random, so she was uncertain. Get dressed? Slide under the covers? Hop in the shower? Boil the pasta?

Alex made a quiet exit from the room, his ass an inviting sight as he padded out into the hallway. Ah. The condom. How base and embarrassing it often was to have a guy deal with the aftermath of what had been hot and frenzied. Here it was just something to be done, like putting on shoes, or combing one’s hair. By the time he returned she had located her panties and sat on the edge of the bed, feeling a bit unmoored.

Joy resumed as he stood before her, completely nude and utterly self-composed.

“I’ve never—” they said in unison, making Josie burst into laughter. Alex smiled and reached down for his underwear, slipping into them. Symmetry.

His face was solemn as he said, “You, too? You mean you were a virgin until just now?”

She snorted, a decidedly unfeminine sound. Again, fifty different wisecracks flooded her. As he leaned in for a kiss, she decided that saying nothing was the best course.

He’d known that the sex would be amazing, and it had been. He knew that Josie would be playful, and fun, and adventurous in bed. Nothing they’d done had gone beyond vanilla, getting-to-know-you lovemaking. But what he hadn’t expected was how loving he would feel toward her, not just during the act, or as part of the act, but now, curled up behind her, chuckling at her joke, his entire body sunk into the soft, pliant flesh of her body. The rhythm of their joined laughter amplified by the combination of two becoming one. Being nude with her felt natural. With most women, sex was about relief; sometimes it was more than that, but mostly it was to relieve tension, to relieve awkwardness, to relieve and answer lingering questions. His longest-term relationship had been about a year and a half, back in undergrad. Lauren had given him something close to what he was feeling right now, and he’d given it back. The union had ended when he went off to UMass Medical School, and she had received a Fulbright to teach English in Indonesia. Nothing serious, and yet it hadn’t been casual. Now it seemed like play acting, like a child’s tea service compared to afternoon tea with a full set of silver at Buckingham Palace.

The scent of her, the way that Josie’s elbow bent to reach down and tug his hip, how they rested on top of the covers, dusk turning to dark, the klieg lights at the stadium across the street casting a strange glow. When their stomachs rumbled he realized how much he had shut out the world, how she had allowed him to be nothing more than Alex, at his core, sharing and exploring with her. Their joining hadn’t just been enjoyable, and he certainly hoped that he’d given as much as he’d received. In bed he subscribed to Dan Savage’s advice to be good, giving and game with partners, and it had done him well throughout the years. The Three Gs. Josie matched it and more.

Hungry, and well aware of the necessities of dispensing with the condom that both had effortlessly, seamlessly really, decided was part of everything, Alex stood and walked out quietly, assuming he could find her bathroom without assistance. He did, a little cubbyhole with a tiny tub, like so many bathrooms in Cambridge. One wall was painted in chalkboard texture, and decorated with a series of ridiculous sayings. It reminded him of a cheap bar’s bathroom, but in here it seemed homey, and his fingers itched to write something pithy with the stub of chalk on the windowsill.

Cleaned up, and still quite nude, he walked back into her bedroom to find her already dressing, his heart tugging a bit at the idea that they would put back on their disguises and stop being quite as real as they’d been for past few moments. This certainly wasn’t the end, though—in fact, it was still the beginning, if dinner was still an option. The way she stared at him made him reasonably certain that she wasn’t about to kick him out, but the feeling of comfort and combination with her faltered a bit, the edges fraying as he struggled to understand whether this meant as much to her as it did to him.

“I’ve never…” he said, as he slid on his boxer briefs regretfully, wanting to walk around in the nude with Josie in a similar state for the rest of his life, as unrealistic as that may be. When she said the same words, he laughed, though her laughter was louder. “You too? You mean you were a virgin until just now?” he said, deadpan. As he leaned in for a kiss, she stayed silent. He took her solemn look as an invitation to continue being real with her. Their lips met and the kiss lit him on fire, made his legs tense, and yes, he was hard again. Josie seemed to trigger that condition twenty times an hour when he was around her. She shifted just enough that her breasts were soft and yielding against his chest, as he bent at the knees to press into her, to really kiss her in a way that he hoped would make her toes curl. Yet again their stomachs gurgled, like chirping birds desperate for a meal. He pulled back and she held three fingers up to his lips, mimicking his earlier gesture from a few hours ago. It seemed like a lifetime. Time had escaped him and for all he knew he was marking the minutes and the hours all wrong. She had that effect on him.

“Let’s get dressed and let’s eat.”

“How about we eat and then get undressed,” he said.

She laughed, reaching for her shirt and pulling it on, leaving the bra untouched.

A good sign
, he thought,
of things to come
. By the time he’d pulled on his pants and his unbuttoned shirt, she was down the hall. He heard the sound of the refrigerator door opening, cupboards open and shut. As he reached her in the kitchen, she was in front of the stove, turning the stove up under the pot of water.

“More wine?” she asked, her hands slipping on the wine bottle, condensation having formed around it.

He’d brought it chilled, and now, based on the temperature as he took a sip of his poured wine, he could guess how long they’d been. Not long enough. Her nervousness began to rattle him. This was the awkward part, wasn’t it? Perhaps he should have waited, but he couldn’t, unhinged by her. Small talk seemed so trite, and yet it was a kind of social lubricant that made whatever needed to come next that much easier.

She took the lead. “So, what in the hell do we talk about after
that
?” she asked, nudging her head toward the door to the hallway to her room.