“Will,” I whispered, and closed my eyes. The sensations were too much, much too much. I had told myself to harden my heart, to think of him as nothing more than a plaything, a delightful diversion, a piece of untouchable art. But in truth it was him that I saw when I closed my eyes and fantasized, it was his fingers I imagined bringing me to climax.
So when I felt his lips against mine again I moaned lightly in response, and he took the opportunity to slide his tongue in, and run it over my front teeth, first the top and then the bottom. I opened my mouth further, and he continued in deeper exploration. When his tongue touched mine I tasted him. A light bit of peppermint, a little tang of coffee, but overpoweringly what I tasted was apple. And the thought of the fact that I tasted apple brought the image of him eating one into my mind and I realized that same talented tongue was in my mouth. I groaned as I brought my hands to his shoulders, kneading lightly.
He pulled back, peppering first my lips and then my cheeks and then my jaw and neck with light kisses. He had already trailed his hands down from my face to my shoulders to my upper arms and then had slid them over so that they were lightly holding my rib cage, just above my waist. No one had touched me there besides myself in a long time, and I shivered as I let out a little gasp. I could feel him smile against my neck, and then he moved his mouth lower, one hand coming up to pull down the neck of my t-shirt so he could reach my collarbone, the other moving up and around to my back.
I knew what was there, and I tensed slightly. Like I said, my body is not perfect, and my bra doesn’t fit me like a glove. Consequently, I have just a little ridge, a slight rise of soft flesh where the bra ends and my skin begins.
He felt me tense and stopped. He raised his head and looked up at me.
What?” he asked softly. “Is it this?” And he stroked his middle finger along the seam of my bra before lowering it slightly and caressing the soft skin there. He watched my eyes as he did so. I narrowed them slightly, not sure where this was going.
“Or this?” he questioned, lowering his hand further to run to my hip, then around and up until he cupped my slightly rounded belly.
I wasn’t even comfortable touching myself there, and now the man I had been fantasizing about for four years had his hand resting there so assuredly. I tensed further and pulled away.
“No,” he said sharply, the hand that had been holding down the collar of my shirt moving around to cup the back of my neck, while the other hand still rested on my stomach, fingers stroking lightly. “Do you think this is what you are? Do you think this defines whether or not you are important, attractive, or sexy? Do you think this is the only way to measure your value as a human being?”
I closed my eyes and turned my head away from his penetrating gaze. I couldn’t meet his eyes. I cover my imperfections with wit, sarcasm and a friendly demeanor. Having him here, touching me, revealing my defects with his searing touch was too much.
“I see.” He stood and stepped away from me, but he didn’t move further. I still couldn’t bring myself to look at him, to see the expression on his face. My eyes started to tear and I blinked them rapidly, trying to stop the inevitable flow.
Suddenly, his hands were on either side of my face again, his fingers spread wide and caressing my earlobes and jaw. And his lips, those glorious lips were pressed hard against mine, his gifted tongue pushing through and stroking my mouth with wild abandon; those teeth were scraping against my bottom lip, and then pulling it into his mouth to bite lightly after he had pulled his own tongue back in.
I kissed him back; what more could I do? When I felt those teeth on my lip I responded with a slight gasp, the quick sharpness sending a message straight down to my stomach.
Without warning he had moved his hands under my thighs, shoved them until they were cupping my buttocks, and then he was lifting me up and placing me on my desk, pushing the chair away with his toe. It rolled and then banged to a stop against my bookshelf.
“I’ll have to show you differently, then, won’t I? Shall we discuss the pitfalls of a world with a singular currency? Should we perhaps have a little lively debate about the merits of a society with singular vision? You see, myself, I’ve always found modern art to be a bit banal, two or three colors, no real depth, very little emotion evoked, absolutely no thought process provoked. Instead, I quite prefer Da Vinci, don’t you? His images are beautiful, mysterious, complex; but above all he featured beauty in individual form and function. And always there was an underlying intelligence and depth, in everything he did. Don’t you agree?”
All of this had been mumbled silkily against my neck, sentences punctuated with licks or nips or kisses as he spoke. My heart was playing pitter-patter in my chest, and there was a deep furling in my belly that couldn’t be ignored. His hands had moved to my hips, massaging the flesh there. One of them began an ascent up my belly, over my ribs, until it was splayed just below but shadowing the curve of my breast.
“Will,” I protested again, breathless this time.
“Take your voice, for example,” he whispered, while the hand not at my breast inched up until his fingers were just sitting under the hem of my shirt, “so low, so seductive, and yet so fantastically feminine. It makes my heart skip every time you say my name.”
The fingers under my shirt began to stroke lightly, and the hand under my breast moved up to slide across my nipple, followed by a few quick flicks of his thumb on that same sensitive part.
I groaned in response, arching my back and tipping my head back.
“Or, oh God, that groan. I’ve never heard it from you before now, but I can see myself becoming addicted to it. It makes me wonder what other things will illicit it, what other mysteries you hide that I must discover.” The hand on my breast was kneading, and the fingers under my shirt moved up to span my ribs, spreading and then moving lightly. It almost tickled, but not quite, and I let out a small gasp followed by a chuckle.
“And that chuckle, so full of wonderment, self-deprecation and appreciation of the world and its irony...well, I’ve already told you what that chuckle does to me.”
And with that he moved in between my legs, spreading them to the width of his hips. His lips met mine again, softly first, and then demanding, and what that tongue was doing to my insides is something I have never felt before. I noticed his hands were moving to grasp the bottom of my shirt, and I was powerless to stop it. I couldn’t focus on much more than the sensation of his lips on mine, the feel of his tongue against mine, the taste of apples overwhelming my senses. Oh, God...apples...
And then my shirt was up and over my head and on my office floor, followed shortly by his. It was the first time I had seen him without clothes, seen anything more than his arms in short sleeves, or his legs in shorts, and I took what time I could to admire the definition in his chest, his abdomen. He, in turn, was studying my torso.
“So beautiful...” he murmured, pressing himself between my legs once again; harder, more intimately. “What’s this?” he asked, fingering a dark mark on my right side, just below my ribs.
“Not sure, weird combination between a birthmark and a mole.”
I gasped as his chest met mine for the first time, forcing the rest of the air out of my lungs. His flesh was on fire, and though the air conditioner was on high, my body was instantly aflame due to his half naked presence.
Our lips met again, and this time I hungrily devoured his, my tongue reaching out forcefully to taste him, feel him; our hands claiming parts of each other’s bodies in eager grasps.
“Janie,” he gasped, and then he moaned lightly. “This body, this body that you seem so ashamed of, this body that you are afraid to share, this body encompasses and carries a brain and wit and personality so dynamic as to render all women worthless; you are a woman more potent than any I have run across. You supersede even my mother in your grace, your charm, your intelligence. It’s a wonder I was able to resist you for this long...”
With his words his hands had been traveling up and down and over my skin, making my hair stand on end and goose bumps rise upon it.
I was gripping his upper arms tightly, my mouth laving kisses over his jaw and neck, suckling slightly, learning the taste of him. His hands had moved to push up my skirt, pull it into a bunch around my waist. His fingers were on the waist band of my underwear, and that warm flesh against my hips and then lower made me come to my senses.
“Will,” I said sharply, pulling my mouth away from his neck, “this has to stop, we can’t do this. We just can’t do this here. I mean, we don’t even know each other’s phone numbers.” As I spoke I was clasping at his hands, holding them prisoner between us and looking into his eyes. There was no way I was sleeping with him now, not moments after he had told me how he felt. I had been taken in by charm and hormones before; pretty words weren’t enough any more for me to be suckered by guys like him.
“We’re not going to,” he said, and his tone was honest, earnest. “I am going to show you how beautiful I think your body is. Just trust me, please.”
We looked at each other for a moment, eyes trying to read each other, breaths trying to be caught. What I saw in those honey brown and green eyes was enough, and I nodded once to indicate that I believed him.
“I’ll stop when you tell me,” he whispered, and then he gave me a quick intense kiss before leaning down to kiss the curve of my breast and then take one still clothed nipple into his mouth. His fingers were stroking between my legs, the cloth of my panties growing warm and wet, and his tongue was doing amazing things to my nipples, first one and then the other, back and forth.
I was lost in the sensation of him, alternating between closing my eyes to let the sensations wash over me and watching his tongue and lips on my breasts.
Finally, I felt his hands at the waist band of my panties again, pulling them down and then gently over each still shod foot. He placed them delicately on the desk next to me, and it didn’t escape my notice that he hadn’t carelessly tossed them across the room.
He kissed and licked a fiery trail down my belly, blowing lightly on my belly button and making me giggle. His hands were kneading my hips, and then he was blowing on that molten juncture between my legs. I gasped, and my hips lifted just a bit as I leaned back, my head making contact with the wall behind my desk, my body flat on its surface. The angle of my head allowed me to see everything he was doing.
His hands moved down to stroke my thighs, and he looked up at me before he spoke.
“Sometimes, when I would stand next to your desk and eat an apple, I would imagine that you were watching me. With that thought in mind, I would eat the apple the way I wanted to eat you, taste you. I wanted to nibble and suck here, kiss here, until your juices were flowing like the fruit’s would, and then I would lick you clean before licking my lips. I have wanted to be here for a while now, right here.”
I groaned in response to that, as he lifted one finger and ran it down my center, before his lips and teeth were on my flesh, teasing and sucking and licking in the most fantastical manner. I couldn’t look anymore; I couldn’t do anything except close my eyes and feel.
After what seemed like an eternity of pleasure, I felt him insert two fingers, and they rapidly developed a matching rhythm to his tongue on my clit. I was going to fall, I was so tense inside, on fire. The feelings were overwhelming me, each wave of pleasure growing incrementally stronger. I was almost there, almost there. And then suddenly, I was.
“Will!” I gasped out, as the waves of pleasure turned into one torrential downpour. I swear I saw sparks behind my eyelids as my climax hit me.
As I came back down, I felt him stroking there lightly, having stilled his actions during my orgasm, and then pulled away slightly when I was coming back to him. Our eyes met and he kissed me lightly there, between my legs.
He smiled at me, then said, “Don’t move.” He stood, retrieved my panties from where he had placed them on the desk, and then put them back onto my body. Following this, he pulled my skirt back down, smoothing it lovingly over my legs. He kissed me lightly on my breast, and then delicately, sweetly, kissed me on my mouth. Vaguely, through the fog of post-orgasmic bliss, I tasted myself, myself and apples. I sighed softly, smiling gently at him.
“Let me get your shirt,” he said, moving across the small room to retrieve both his and mine. He handed mine to me and then pulled his own over his head.
After I had pulled mine back on, he wrapped one arm around my waist and kissed me again softly.
“Mmm...” he said, “every part of you tastes so good.”
“Will, what now? Where does this go?”
“Well,” he said, “you give me your number, and I give you my number, and then we get to know each other, really know each other. Then, after a respectable amount of time, I give you a ring and you buy a dress, and then we get a house. Does that answer your question?”
“Right,” I said, jotting my home number on the back of one of my business cards, “how about dinner and a movie for now?”
“Sounds good.” He grinned and then wrote his number on a pad of paper on my desk. “I’ll see you soon.” He kissed me softly again, and then walked out the door.
I spent the next two hours finishing my work and thinking about what had just happened. I tried not to get my hopes up, but he had been so sweet, seemed so truthful. It was as I was packing up the last of my things that the phone rang.
“Lab office, Jane speaking,” I answered absentmindedly.
“Jane, there’s a delivery for you on the front desk.” It was Lisa, the lab attendant.
“Thanks, Lisa, I’ll be right out.” I hung up the phone and grabbed my bag. After locking up the door, I headed down the hall to the lab. When I got to the desk, I was absolutely shocked.
There, sitting next to Lisa, was a glorious bouquet of two dozen roses; red, yellow, white and pink. I slipped the card out of the envelope and read it.
“Here’s to men like me and women like you. I’ll call you tonight.”
I just smiled.