Chapter 9
CHAPTER 9
SHOW AND TELL
Omar
I should leave, I really should.
But I can’t. She’s on the other side of that door thinking I’m an idiot, and I don’t blame her.
I was planning on going in with her until I saw her door and had a vision of her in a white T-shirt with a fat dollop of chocolate clinging to her unrestrained and jutting nipple. The memory of the sweet and salty flavors on her finger in my mouth made my dick so hard it hurts. And then licking off whatever traces of it are left on her lips, on her tongue.
She’s sweet, and open, and easy while I’m…an acquired taste. Who I am in person pales in comparison to the fantasy people have based on whatever they’ve read about me. And I don’t want to get involved and find out she’s a stage five clinger who falls in love as easily as she breathes. Been there, done that, and once was enough to last me a lifetime.
But I knock on her door anyway, because I simply can’t do anything else.
She’s changed and is wearing a bathrobe that’s gaping open.
Yes?” she asks, cocking her head to the side and watching me, her expression more serious than I’ve ever seen it.
“Ask me in, please.” My voice is tense, tight with the effort it’s taking me not to say more.
Her smile is slow and sexy, and a bolt of lust shoots through me. Fuck, I’m asking for trouble. “I did that when I left my iPad in your car.”
She walks backward into the house, her eyes on me alight with the invitation.
“I’m fucking relieved to hear that,” I admit, my voice finding its legs with every step I take toward her. My chest expands with confidence now that I’ve made up my mind.
She walks until her back is pressed to the door that leads to the sitting room, and I stop mere inches from her.
I glance down at her and smile at her pretty red toes. “You’ve got nice feet.”
She looks down at them. “The things you notice,” she says with a smile before she loosens the belt around her waist so the robe gapes open and slides off her shoulders.
My chest constricts, and my balls ache. She stands before me, naked from the waist up. Her body is beautiful. Her narrow waist is draped in two strings of tiny glass beads. Her skin glows and looks so smooth that I imagine it feels like silk. Her unbound breasts are small, barely a handful, with large dusky brown nipples that are puckered already and begging to be sucked.
I take a step toward her, putting me just an arm’s length away. “You are so beautiful. I want to touch you. Can I?”
“I want you to, so much,” she says and wraps her small hand around my wrist lifting it to her breast. Her nipple, already hard, swells against my hand.
I roll the plump bud in my palm, and she gives a short little moan. “What do you like? You like them sucked?” I lean down and pull her left nipple into my mouth for a quick hard tug. I take the other one in my hand and squeeze.
“Oh,” she cries out, and I lift my head to watch her face. Her eyes are closed, her lip caught between her teeth. I squeeze it again, and she whimpers. Her breath comes in shallow pants, and she rolls her hips.
“Pinched, then?” I ask the obvious.
“I don’t…I don’t know. I’ve never done anything like this before,” she whispers.
My libido clatters over that speed bump and comes to a screeching halt.
“Shit. And I knew that. I didn’t mean to… I just saw you like that and forgot myself,” I croak and then wince at the look of horror and humiliation on her face.
“You knew that? Am I that bad at this?” She crosses her arms over her chest and steps away at the same time I do. “Oh my God, Reena.”
“No, Reena told me,” I say at the same time.
“God, that woman and her mouth,” she mutters.
“It slipped out. And honestly, I’m glad I know.”
I try to meet her eye, but she turns her back to me and tugs her robe back up. Her smooth, shapely back disappears before I’ve had anything close to enough of it.
“Jules—”
She covers her face with her hands. “Oh God, I don’t think I’ve ever been so embarrassed in my life. You can just go if you want. Forget this ever happened.”
I put a hand on each of her shoulders and give her a quick but firm shake. “No. I don’t want to go. Or forget this. I said it all wrong. Please turn around.”
She shakes her head no, but her spine loses some of its rigidity.
“Come on,” I coax and squeeze her shoulders gently. “I promise I’ll make it worth the effort.”
Her whole body sags in resignation, and she spins around to face me. Her eyes focus on a spot on my shoulder, and she blows out a breath. “I’m listening.”
I don’t know what it is about her that has me spilling my guts and being fucking vulnerable. Maybe it’s because she’s so vulnerable and open, too. And I’ve already told her my deep dark secret, this is nothing. “I spent my twenties having sex with women who I found attractive but had nothing in common with. I did it because it suited my lifestyle, and after my parents’ clusterfuck of a marriage, a committed relationship was the last thing on my radar. At the same time, I’m not someone who forms shallow connections. But that’s all I got when I jumped into bed with someone before I found out they were an asshole, or hated animals, or one of my friends, or traveling, or some other deal breaker.”
“Okay… I’m not an asshole, I love cats. I love the one friend of yours I know, and even though I haven’t done much of it, I love to travel.”
I laugh at the expectant look on her face. “I was just using those as examples. But what I’m trying to say is no matter how many nights that chocolate on your nipple haunts my dreams, I don’t want to rush this.”
She blinks rapidly at her chest where her nipples press against the thin fabric, crosses her arms, and runs her narrowed, assessing eyes over me. “Are you serious? Or is this…a nice way of letting me down?”
I laugh. “I’m serious. Is that so strange?”
“It’s just… Reena told me you were a complete commitment-phobe. I’m not looking for a relationship, either. I thought this would be perfect for you.”
“So in other words, you want to use me for sex.”
Her eyes widen in horror. “That’s not what I meant. God—I just?—”
“I’m joking.” I laugh, but she doesn’t. “Jules, I’ve had a crush on you for months.”
“You have? On me?” She points at herself like there’s someone else here.
“Yes. At first, just because your smile lit up the room. But then, because of the way you treat your coworkers and regulars like family. You’re kind and funny and really, really forgiving. And did I mention your smile?”
She chuckles quietly. “You did. Thank you for saying all of that. I’m glad you like me for me.”
I take her hand. “I do. I’m not looking for a relationship either. I’m going home. My first time was such a disaster, and it took me a long time to find my confidence as a lover after it. I wish I’d been with someone who knew what they were doing. And someone who cared about me. I don’t want you to have any regrets I was your first.”
She frowns. “Okay.”
I turn her hand over in mine and inspect it while I try to find the right words to answer that. “I know the package I present. But I also know the way we see people changes once we know how they think. I come with a few warning labels that you need to be aware of.”
“Okay, tell me,” she demands.
“I’d rather show you.”
She tugs her hands free and snatches a notepad off the small console table in her entryway and hands it to me.
“So write them down and show me now.”
I snicker and take the notepad from her and put it back on the table. “I mean by spending time together.”
Her smile peeks back out, and she bites her lip. “I like the sound of that.”
“Great.” I step back before I do something crazy like suck her neck until I leave a mark.
Fuck me.
Please let her be real.
Her eyes dart away from me and down the hall, and I discover a new shade of Jules—shy and uncertain. “Do you want to come in?”
“Yeah, I’d love to see your place.”
“Okay.” She walks through the thin swinging door that separates the kitchen from the rest of the living area. “Sorry for the mess, I’ve got a shipment of candles going out.”
“You make candles, too?” I call as I walk into her sparsely decorated sitting room.
“My dad taught me. It’s a side hustle. But my kitchen is too small to make more than a couple dozen at a time.”
She waves her arm toward the small sitting room. “This is where I do everything but sleep and cook.”
I glance around her living room. She has one wall entirely covered with photos. Mainly of a much younger her. Some of her with a man I assume is her dad. And interspersed with those are pictures of Aretha Franklin, Chaka Khan, Tina Turner, Madonna, Janet Jackson, Beyonce, and several of Alison Hinds. “You like music?” I ask when she comes out of the kitchen and joins me in front of the pictures.
“I love music. And concerts and these women, man—I could watch them perform and never get tired.”
“You sing?”
“I wish,” she sighs and then grins. “But if I could the way I do in my head? Darling, the world would be like Beyonce who ?”
“You’re funny.”
“I’m not trying to be.”
Which only makes it better. We plop onto the couch, and she tucks her legs under her and leans forward to touch the chain of pearls I wear around my wrist. “These are beautiful.”
They were my mother’s, but I don’t want to bring that up again. “So are you. Broken nose and all.” I brush a lock of hair off her shoulder, and her lips part. I want to slip my tongue in there and see if her mouth is as sweet as her finger was. But if I do that, I won’t be able to stop. She leans closer, her eyes dropping to half-mast.
I stand so suddenly she yelps and leans back. “Sorry, I just realized how late it is. I’ve got the flooring people coming at eight in the morning.”
“Oh, okay. Cool. So I’ll see you tomorrow for dinner?”
“Yeah. I’ll text you in the afternoon after I make the reservation. And I’m driving this time.” I lean down to kiss her cheek and then get the hell out of there.