21. An Alligator Pit
21
AN ALLIGATOR PIT
Milo
This is the best view in the history of the world—Veronica riding my cock, her tits bouncing, her neck flushed.
I dig my fingers harder into her hips. My jaw is tight, and I fight off the onslaught of pleasure.
But it’s hard, it’s so damn hard when she pushes me down on the mattress, parks her hand on my chest, and says, “I want to use a toy too. Do you?—”
“Do it. Fucking do it,” I say before she can even finish asking do I mind , do I care , would my fragile male ego be hurt if she wanted a little help from a friend.
Fuck. No.
“Can I get one for you? Where are they?” I ask, so damn eager to help send her over the edge.
“Nightstand drawer,” she says on a harsh pant.
I reach over, yank it open, and blink at the overflowing stash of vibes of all sizes. “It’s a battery-operated bonanza,” I say.
“Damn right it is.” She stretches, grabbing one. A tiny black thing. With the finesse of an expert, she punches a few buttons, then slides it between her legs, and strokes her clit as she rides my dick home.
I stand corrected.
This is the best sight ever. Veronica, using my dick as a toy right along with her magic speeding bullet as she trembles all over. Her lips part, and her throaty moans light a match inside me. My vision blurs, and then I’m coming hard with her. I can barely catch my breath it’s so good. She’s moaning for days too, as she falls onto my chest, and we breathe out hard together, the blissful collapse after the finish line.
When I get my bearings, I thread my fingers into her hair and bring her close for a kiss.
She smiles against me, sighing blissfully.
Then, I notice a faint buzzing, and I glance down at the purple duvet. The black bullet is bouncing happily on the cover, still going, so devoted to the task.
As I watch it with a dopey, post-sex smile, the most surprising thought lands in my brain.
I want to see that image again and again, here on her bed, in her home.
But, as I wrap my arms around her, maybe that’s not so surprising. Scary, but not surprising.
Sometimes, you just want to curl up on the couch after sex, skim little kisses along your lover’s neck, and whisper sweet nothings.
Or cook for her, then watch a good flick.
I mean, I think those are all the standard post-sex activities. But I’m a dog person, and so’s Veronica.
I’m in the bathroom after cleaning up when I look down to see StudMuffin staring at me ominously. Tick tock. I tug on my shirt. His big brown eyes are imploring. Oh man, I know that look. I zip up my shorts and drag a hand through my hair, calling to Veronica in the bedroom where she’s getting dressed. “Sunshine, you want me to take the dog out?”
She pops her head out the door, tugging her sundress over a pair of fresh undies as she surveys the scene. “I’ll go too.” Then her brow knits. “What about Trudy? Want to get her?”
My heart gives a kick. “Let’s walk the beasts. Meet you outside in two minutes,” I say, then take off to get my girl next door.
One hundred twenty seconds later, Veronica pushes open the front door of her place and bounds down the steps with her little blond monster. After the dogs give each other a quick hello, we walk them down the block on a summer evening.
Veronica hums happily, and that’s a damn good sign. I always want to make a woman happy, but it’s best to ask “was it good for you” in some form or another.
“I have another question?—”
We each gesture awkwardly to the other. “Go ahead,” I say as the dogs stop at a tree and do their business.
“You go first.” She sounds a little hesitant. Maybe she needs me to be the one to dive into a postmortem. I get that.
I inhale, but when the question forms in my head— was that good for you —it seems callous, something a dude might say to a hookup right before he’s out the door with a dismissive see you around , already knowing he’ll ghost her.
The thing is—I will see Veronica around. Dating might suck more than subways, but I don’t want to make Veronica feel like a hookup.
Clearing my throat, I start over as we resume our pace. “So, if memory serves, we’ve got soap and grammar as two things we both love,” I begin. “Have we found a third?”
Smirking, she steals a glance at me as we turn onto Hudson Street. “Milo, are you trying to get me to admit I, too, love sex?”
I gasp in exaggerated surprise. “Me? Never.”
“Good. I didn’t think that was your style, to fish for a compliment,” she says.
God, she’s adorable, thoroughly and completely.
But . . .
Was I fishing for a compliment? Hell, I fucking was. Screw the games. I turn to meet her gaze and cliff-dive into the dangerous waters of opening my heart. “You’re incredible. Sleeping with you was amazing. I hope you liked it half as much as I did,” I tell her as we slow our pace in front of a trendy bar serving designer cocktails.
With the dog leash curled tight in her hand, she leans in close, dusts a kiss along my jaw, rubbing her face against my beard. “I did love it,” she says, no teasing, no sarcasm. “I want it again.”
“Me too.” I kiss her, then tip my forehead to the bar. “Get a drink with me. They have good tapas too.”
She narrows her eyes. “Are you trying to get out of making me a sandwich?”
I drape an arm around her shoulders. “Only because I want to sit outside on a summer night with you.”
I don’t say I want to have a date with you . She’s a smart woman. She can figure it out.
Ten minutes later, we’re drinking mojitos and noshing on quesadillas at an outdoor table, dogs at our feet.
She holds up a pepper quesadilla. “If you think about it, this is really a tortilla sandwich.”
“Does it count, then, toward the price of admission?” I ask, taking a bite of another one.
“It seems you’ve fulfilled your paper airplane promise,” she says.
I smile, enjoying New York under a hot summer night sky with the virgin next door who’s not a virgin anymore. That deepens my smile, but reminds me she’d wanted to ask me something too. “We never got back to your question earlier?”
She looks me square in the eyes. “When did you figure it out? That you’re Mister Sexy Pants?”
I’m happy to share. I think she’ll appreciate the story. “I told some friends about you over the weekend when we were playing Skee-Ball. One of them happens to read your column, and since I mentioned our dog-meets-bike-meets-your-devil-butt incident, he figured out I was the guy in your columns.”
Her eyes flicker with wonder, perhaps. “One of your friends reads The Virgin Club ?”
“He said it’s required reading for dudes who like chicks,” I say.
“That’s awesome. I didn’t know I had many male readers,” she says. She takes a drink, her expression still one of delight. That makes me happy—that I gave her that little boost simply by letting her know she has a fan.
“And Drew made it clear he thought it was ridiculous that I didn’t read it. But I went on a dating intel blackout after my ex,” I say. We’re going to have to talk about the ex situation at some point, and it might as well be now.
“The one who tried to steal StudMuffin’s new crush?” Her eyes drift down to my brown and tan girl, lounging under the table. Veronica’s little dude is making heart eyes at Trudy while pawing at her, all look at me style.
Such a typical man.
I tear my gaze away, returning to the unpleasant but important topic.
“Callie and I split up almost a year ago when I found out I was one of not two, not three, but four boyfriends of hers.”
“Wow,” Veronica says, awestruck.
I’m still a little embarrassed. Maybe I always will be. “I guess I got hoodwinked,” I deadpan keeping my tone light despite that whole clusterfuck. “She scammed money out of her exes and me. Some of them assumed I was in on her lies and got revenge by leaving nasty online reviews for the shop. By the time I got out of the relationship ten or so months ago, I was surly and unhappy.”
“I don’t blame you. That sounds terrible,” she says.
“It was not a good time in my life. On top of losing Trudy for a while,” I say, shuddering. “Bryan suggested maybe I needed to take a good, long timeout from dating. Who knows how long. But I removed all apps. Everything but the store’s social media. My mom said the same thing—to take some time to heal,” I add.
“That’s solid advice. Moms are good like that,” Veronica says with a smile.
“I think so, but it also comes from her experience,” I say, and wow, I did not plan to dive headfirst into the how-did-your-parents-mess-you-up convo, but here I go. “My dad cheated on her a bunch of times. She told me later that when she finally found out, she’d needed some time to detox . Her words.”
“That makes a lot of sense,” Veronica says, full of understanding. “Sometimes we need to lick our wounds.”
“Yeah, it takes a while. I’m still working on it,” I say. It’s best to share the score, and I could go on but I’ve said enough. It won’t do any good to add that I still don’t know if I can trust my radar. I’d completely missed any signs from Callie, and look how that played out. I nearly lost my little cutie. I bend down and give Trudy a necessary pet. I missed her so much.
“Online dating is supposed to make things easier, but it makes it harder in some ways,” I say. “Since it’s easier to lie.”
“It’s a swamp out there, isn’t it?” Her gaze turns thoughtful as she stirs her drink. “Honestly, I think that’s why I stayed a virgin so long.”
Oh, yes. Keep talking, honey . This is so much more interesting than my year off the market. “Because dating is another word for disaster?”
She gives a humorless laugh but nods. “I was at a bar with Ellie a few months ago, watching a Comets baseball game, and some guy next to us made a comment about how he was surprised I knew sports. I asked, ‘Because I’m a woman?’ And then he said, ‘You don’t have to be a bitch.’ Boom, just like that he went to the name-calling. But then he picked up some other woman afterward, someone who didn’t care he’d called me a bitch, and took her home. My sister writes romance for a living, and she’s always talking about characters’ emotional wounds, and I’m telling you, modern dating is one giant emotional wound,” she says, shaking her head like she still can’t believe what a mess the world is.
“I’ll drink to that,” I say, knocking back some more of the cocktail. “Dating is an alligator pit. So that’s why you waited?”
“Yes, but there are other reasons too.” She takes a drink, giving me flirty eyes over the top of her glass. When she sets it down, she finishes with, “I’m picky.”
Her words thrum through me, making the hair on my arms stand on end. “And you picked well,” I say, then I dip my face to hers and brush a soft, barely-there kiss to her minty, mojito-y lips. When I pull back, I add softly, “Good thing we met in real life then, instead of online.”
It’s flirty but true. We click so damn well in person.
But she sits up straighter like I said the wrong thing. “Do you think I lied to you about my column?”
With a pang of sympathy, I shake my head. “Sunshine, you’re not a liar. It was hot, the way you kept your secret identity on the DL.”
She laughs, clearly relieved. “Just like Wonder Woman, only I was saving the world one sex column at a time.”
“Seriously. You have no idea how unbelievably sexy it was to discover what was in your columns. I kind of went up in flames. I was like a GIF of a man on fire.”
She lifts her glass and clinks it to mine. “It was pretty sexy writing about Mister Sexy Pants. The times I got off thinking about you . . .”
I groan. We’ve got to get out of here ASAP, but first things first. “I noticed you had a list of fantasies in your columns,” I say, having memorized all those gorgeous lists.
She runs her finger along the rim of her glass. “I did.”
A serious relationship is a no-go. But tackling a sex list of fantasies with this fantastic woman who loves all the same things I do?
“Want to work through some of them?”
Please say hell yes.
“With you?” she asks, all innocence.
I roll my eyes. “I’ll spank you for that.”
“That’s on my list somewhere. Among other things,” she says, then leans in close to whisper in my ear.
Twenty minutes later, we’re back at her place. I’m on her couch, my knees spread, her face between my thighs. I spear my fingers through her messy chestnut locks.
Her lips are Come to Bed Red . She applied lipstick on the way home, and I’m wiping it off with my dick.
“Fuck, you look good, sunshine,” I tell her, grunting as she runs her tongue along my shaft, then draws my cock back into the paradise of her mouth.
I’m this close to coming again.
Then Veronica slinks a hand between my legs, tugs on my balls and presses a finger against my ass.
Holy fuck.
It’s a blizzard in my brain. I go blind with pleasure as my hips jerk up and I growl, coming down her throat.
I’m panting, buzzing, and not sure my feet will touch the ground for days.
But eventually, when I come down to earth, she’s smiling at me like the devilish angel she is. “Told you I’d make it up to you,” she purrs.
“You’re right. You’re always right,” I say, then I catch a glimpse of Trudy, since the door to the bedroom’s open. My girl’s made herself at home on Veronica’s bed, sleeping soundly on a pillow.
“I think my dog wants a sleepover,” I say, hope bouncing around in my chest as I wait, like a dog, for an invitation.
I’m desperate to curl up with Veronica and feel her against me all night long. And in the morning too.
“Is she the only one?” she asks, that same hitch of hope in her tone.
I gently tug her up and onto my lap. “No. I do too because then I can wake you up with my mouth on your delicious pussy,” I whisper, sweetening my invitation.
“Good thing tomorrow is National Have Peaches for Breakfast Day,” she says, and I crack up.
After we brush our teeth and say goodnight to our pets, I haul her into bed.
We dim the lights, and she shifts to her side. “You’ve already knocked off three items from my original top five.”
I count on my fingers. “I made you laugh, I made some noise, and I told you I’d thought about you all day. So we’ve only got two left?” I ask, offering all the prayers to the dirty gods that she’s got an endless list somewhere.
“Please,” she scoffs. “I made a new list.”
And I’ve got a new temporary lover.