It's Complicated (24 page)

“Besides, there is no sex life for me with anyone. You ever try to have sex with a screaming time bomb in the house that shits up its back at any moment?”

“No, but I did see an ad like that on the Craigslist personal section once.”

A slow turn from the large, manly body next to her gave her eye candy to last for months. “Who is it?” he mumbled. “Did my phone go off? Is there an emergency at the hospital?”

“Who’s there!” Laura shrieked into the phone. “Where are you?”

Josie wiped her eyes and cleared her throat. “I’m at home.” The less said the better, as Alex reached up to caress one bare breast. In the daylight, his body was even better than she’d imagined, all feline and protective and big. He buried his head in her hip, cuddling in a way that sent shoots of heat through her.

“Who said ‘hospital’?” Laura asked.

“I did,” Alex replied, chuckling into Josie’s belly.

“Oh my God, is Dr. Perfect in bed with you?”

Time to give up. “Yes.”

Alex grabbed the phone and spoke into it. “No,” he said, kissing her hipbone, then sliding away, his receding warmth nearly making her cry. His muscled ass wandered into the hallway and she heard a door shut.

“
SQUEEEEE
!” Laura’s scream could be heard five houses down by the deaf, ancient labradoodle that wore a diaper when its owner took her for walks every morning. “You’re sleeping with Alex?”

“I am somethinging with Alex.”

“What’s
somethinging
?”

“We’re making it up as we go along.”

“You let him spend the night?”

Silence. This was not an easy conversation.

“Josie? You
never
let guys spend the night.”

“He watched
Downton Abbey
with me last night. We fell asleep in front of Netflix after four episodes.”

“Men don’t watch
Downton Abbey
unless they’re trying to get in your pants.”

“Well, it worked.”

Another
squeee
from Laura. “You never,
ever
let guys stay over,” she repeated, her tone of utter marvel making Josie’s stomach flutter.

“I know, but
he
doesn’t know that, and you’re yelling as if I were your deaf great-grandma, so cut it out.”

“Okay,” Laura whispered with great affect, like someone on stage.

“Why are you calling?” A gurgle in the distance told her Alex was making coffee.

“To complain about my sex life. But yours is much more interesting. Do tell!”

“Tell what?” Josie asked dryly.

“Is he perfect in bed, too?”

“God, yes,” Josie murmured into the phone, cupping her hand around it. “Even better than the other day by the river.”

“What river?”

“Remember the leaf in my hair?”

“You had sex with him the day after I gave birth?”

“Yes,” Josie hissed. More distant gurgling.

“You picked up a doctor at my birth and then fucked him by the river while I was humping ice packs like a bride on a Sybian at a bachelorette party?”

Long pause. “I really can’t go with that analogy, Laura.” Alex sauntered back in, gloriously buff, carrying two mugs of coffee. He handed one to her.

Perfect. Dr. Fucking Perfect. No man had ever brought her coffee in bed. Then again, no man ever had the chance to…

“He just brought me coffee in bed,” she hissed into the phone.

“Did I interrupt sex?” Laura squealed.

“No, but you’re about to,” Alex said in a cheerfully loud voice.

“Byelauragottago,” Josie said in a rush as she turned off the phone. Coffee, schmoffee.

If she needed a little something to wake her up…

Or something big.

“Want to shower?” he murmured in her ear as she took one last sip of her hot coffee, suddenly alert. Shower sex would be a first for her; her nipples tingled at the thought. His hands caressed her belly, one sliding down already as the warmth of his arms around her, pulling her up, made the world melt away yet again.

A nagging thought crossed her mind, intruding. “I have to be at work by ten!” she gasped. Her phone said 8:35 a.m.

“We can have a quick shower.” Yanking her arm, he bent his knees, exerting enough gentle force to make her lose her footing and crash into his wall of muscle.

“Wait! We need a—”

“Condom,” she interrupted, pulling out of his arms and circling the bed, opening the drawer and snatching one—fast. They ran to the bathroom. He’d beaten her by seconds and turned on the shower, the spray arcing over the curtain rod in places and making her shriek.

“You raised the nozzle!” she shouted.

“It was set at the height of a dachshund.”

“Hey!” Standing on tiptoes, she tried to stare him down but was faced with his nipples instead. Playful and goofy, she reached out with her teeth and nipped one. Arms clinched around her and the sense of playfulness dissipated instantly, as if a switch flipped inside her that aroused every sense, making the feel of her bare skin against his hard legs, the push of his erection against her belly, and the lush movements of his hands on her ass turn her from a silly thing to a sultry woman.

Steam rose over their heads as the water heated in tandem with her blood, fire between them evident as his hands went everywhere—hers, too. Bodies tangled in a dance of strokes and sighs. Stepping into the shower, she bent over to set the condom on the edge of the tub and found him behind her, the push of his cock against her thigh.

Oh, my. The shock of so much of him behind her, of the water pounding both their naked bodies, of his arms and hands and thighs and all of Alex pressed against her, slipping and sliding and taking her over made her flush and swell, eager for sex that would be fast and furious. Spinning around, she wrapped her limbs around his body and moaned as the parts matched up in just the right places.

Mouths hungry, the water hot and aimed right over her head, it pounded into his neck and sprayed around, he reached down to find her, one finger sliding in as she gasped, opening her eyes to find him wet and smoldering, as if that were possible.

One last, almost violent kiss and he turned her around, one hand grasping her breast and pinching her nipple so hard she nearly climaxed, and then the telltale sound of the wrapper tearing, a hand against the cleft of her ass, and his voice.

“Put your hands against the wall.”

The order made her knees tingle, palms slapping against the white fiberglass wall. Splayed out, her hands bore witness to his arm wrapped around her waist, his hand roaming wherever it damn well pleased, his thighs sliding against hers as his other hand took his thick self and slowly centered the tip right where she wanted it most. Backing up, she helped him to enter her, the water’s spray on her back now, thin rivers pouring over her breast, waterfalls cascading from her nipples.

Never a fan of sex where she couldn’t be face to face, this was something completely different. Filled with an erotic uncertainty, she tingled and faltered, thrilled by his new dominance. The power of Alex’s thrusts behind her, how one hand now rested on her shoulder, the other strumming her clit, made her lift one leg and brace herself against the tub edge, the new angle so exquisite she felt the rush of orgasm right then, her inner core muscles tightening with breakneck speed.

“Oh, God, Josie,” he said behind her, the tension palpable in the wet air, his voice like gravel. And then—both tightened, hard, and she exploded into a million tiny fragments, slamming her backside against him, wanting to take in as much as possible, needing him to fill her and touch that thin line of flesh inside her that made everything whole and disintegrated everything, all at once.

Face down, she inhaled ragged breaths, the water pooling at her lips and dripping down, all senses focused on the muscle contractions that fueled a supernova of need and release. Slowly, Alex’s deep thrusts receded, his hand on her clit at a standstill, the sandpapery shift of his cheek against her shoulder blade a sign that both were done.

Sometimes it felt good to just be
fucked
. A quickie could reset her entire mood and make the world make sense. Bright eyed, she lowered her leg and he pulled out, taking the hint, as she leaned back against him, and the two stood, silent, in the downpour. Ear against his chest, she waited through each breath to hear the pounding go to normal, Alex peppering the top of her head with kisses.

Josie took a deep breath, exhaled, and said, through sputtering lips overcome with shower spray, “We should actually shower.”

“I’ll soap you up,” he said, reaching for the bar.

“I’ll end up against the wall again if you do that,” she answered, dodging his hand as it traveled down between her legs.

“And the problem is…?”

Laughter poured out of them both, but, as if they were old hands at doing this, each split off to a separate section of the tiny shower and did a quick wash and shampoo, trading places under the spray to rinse off. Weak and completely wrung out, Josie climbed out and toweled off, enjoying the view as Alex did the same as he walked to the bedroom. He must have dispensed with the condom at some point, though she had no idea when. The man was a condom Houdini.

He returned to the bathroom dressed. She pouted. He shrugged and walked into the kitchen. The beep of a microwave was her soundtrack as she dressed, too, choosing a simple white button-down and khakis for work.

“I heated our coffees,” he said as she waltzed into the kitchen. Coffee.
Ahhhh
. She used to say it was better than sex, but she couldn’t say
that
anymore. Grateful, she sat across from him, playing footsie.

“You working today?” she asked.

“No. I need to catch up on sleep. My shift starts tonight. Twenty-four hours.”

Awkwardness set in. Avoiding his eyes, she wondered what she could say next without sounding too needy. Part of her wanted to see him every day possible, to schedule their next date so that it was set in her mind, a firm joining that would allay her insecurities.

Another part wanted to fade out and avoid. Already at the brink of what she could handle emotionally, she felt fragile inside and ready to snap.

Living with both feelings was like an interminable sentence.

A quick check of the clock told her he needed to go—now. How could she ask him to leave? It felt rude. Wrong. Abrupt. And yet this was the longest she’d ever let a man spend in her apartment. He didn’t know that, of course. Whatever was stirred up inside her would settle down eventually, she reminded herself.

The particles of chaos suspended in her every molecule right this moment, though, showed no signs of settling any time soon.

Alex stood, putting his mug in the sink. “You need to go, so walk me to the door and make love on the porch and I’ll let you.”

She stood, too. “I must have Stockholm Syndrome, because that sounds appealing.”

“If anyone is the abductor here, it’s you.”

She snorted. “Right. Because someone who aims the shower nozzle at dachshund level could totally kidnap you.” They reached the front door. Crackhead appeared out of nowhere, nuzzling Alex’s legs.

Alex looked down at the cat. “Crackhead?”

Josie nodded.

“He? She?”

“It.”

“It likes me.” Tugging on her ass, he pulled her close.

“It’s not the only one,” she said against his neck as they embraced.

One last long, slow kiss from him and she nudged him out the door, needing the last few minutes to get ready and clear her head. While her body was back in alignment and utterly sated, her brain needed to refocus in the idea of work, that there was a life and a structure outside of her and Alex’s genitals, tongues, hands, and mouths.

Unfortunately.

He turned the corner and she sighed, restraining an impulse to run to the window that paralleled the road he walked on now. Coffee. A quick blow dry and another giant mug of coffee would get her on her way to work, where what she faced was about as diametrically opposed to the past twelve hours as could be.

Relief and disappointment flooded her simultaneously as Alex’s absence sank in. A quick march to the bathroom and she plugged in the hair dryer, snapping it on and furiously tousling her wet, brown mop of hair, the white noise of the machine helping to clear her thoughts. Inhaling deeply, she felt the air leave her body, as if it contained Alex and now he were being purged from her body.

No. Impossible. Her skin burned with his touch, her nether regions completely fulfilled with the last few hours of sex, and her hips carried her with a jaunty saunter that felt mature and primed, as if she were somehow more a woman now for having found a partner so fine. The Josie she had become in the past day had stumbled into a secret society; she as a full-fledged member of a group with a single requirement—being yourself.

He hadn’t flinched, had he? Finishing up her hair and dragging a comb through it, she let the relaxed waves frame her face. No makeup. She rarely wore it to work anyhow, so if she did today, people would tease.

Melting into the background of her ho-hum job was what she wanted most for this day.

Any more excitement and she would implode.