Chapter Fifteen
Jo
You see me, Jo.
I’d heard those words before, from a different man, in a different place, at a different time. The memory was still crisp:
me, eighteen years old, sitting at a booth in the Sheridan Student Center, across from a boy who had just unilaterally declared
himself my best friend.
“Your only friend,” Ezra clarified.
“I think you’re mistaking my disinterest for affection,” I said, trying to flip nonchalantly through my biology textbook even
while my heart pounded in my chest. It had been hard to be cool around Ezra, and not just because of his stupid too-blue eyes
that, at the moment, were too black, or the grin that cracked over his face, unfolding from the corners of his mouth like
I’d coaxed it out. But me and him? We weren’t possible, in any capacity. Not even in the way he was proposing. “I don’t want
to be your friend.”
“Why not?” Ezra said, pouting.
I had a list of reasons, and I didn’t hold back. The girls (many of whom wanted my head on a pike). The parties (so legendary that I, despite having never been invited, heard about them every other week). The drugs.
“You’re literally high right now,” I said. “I’m not getting caught up in your bullshit.”
Ezra’s grin turned feral. “How did you know?” he said conspiratorially.
I’d recently taken up a job as a campus paramedic, a service that paid a whopping thirty dollars an hour for four-hour shifts
three days a week. During our orientation, we learned how to look for the signs of intoxication. To search for clammy skin,
bloodshot sclera, racing pulses. To always check the eyes.
“Your pupils,” I said simply. “They’re super dilated right now. It’s kind of creepy, honestly. You look like a wolf.”
Ezra laughed. “All the better to see you with,” he growled. Then he flopped onto the table, peering up at me with a gaze I
could only describe as soupy. “But you’re proving my point. You’re the only one who’s even noticed. You do see me, Jojo.”
“Don’t call me that,” I said, stamping out the thrill in my chest at his stupid nickname, at his stupid pretty face. “And
no. I don’t. All I see is a brat who doesn’t even know how good he has it, burning up his brain cells so that people will
pay attention to him.”
The fight that we had after that had been something of Elion legend. I’d meant to wound Ezra, and I’d succeeded spectacularly
(“At least I’m capable of fun,” he’d spat, “not always scraping to survive like a creature.”) and for months afterward, students
I’d never met would approach me on my way to class to ask if I was really the one who’d cursed out Ezra Adelman in the middle
of the SSC. But a year later, when I asked him why, of all the kids at Elion University, some who would have given their pinkie
toe to be his friend, he’d chosen me, he repeated the sentiment.
“You made me feel like I could do anything, if I just tried hard enough,” Ezra had said. “Like I would get roles because I was smart and could be good at my job, not just because my parents knew someone who knew someone. And you were so hard to impress, so I was constantly trying to impress you. And I got better as a consequence.”
And now here was Mal, saying the same.
“You see me as the best version of myself,” Mal continued. “And it makes me want to become that. Not just for me. But for
you. Because, as ridiculous as it sounds, I want you to be proud of me.” He ducked his head helplessly. “I don’t know, Jo.
I really like what we have now. I don’t want to mess things up.”
“You think sleeping with me will mess things up?” I asked.
“Maybe,” he said. “I’m not good at being... nonchalant. And, you know”—he smiled sheepishly, stroking my chin with his
thumb—“I want this to be special for you.”
Today, I thought, had been special. Lying in Mal’s warm embrace under a color-streaked sky, listening to jazz on a cooling
summer evening, even the surprise phone call with his parents. I’d experienced so many new sensations, all in one day.
I told him as much. Then, because I couldn’t help it: “Unless what you’re really concerned about is your performance.”
Mal drew back just enough to laugh. Then, without preamble, he pulled me to his chest, and in a clean, practiced swoop, flipped
me onto his lap.
“Oh,” he said, “you don’t have to worry about that.”
Two months ago, when I showed up at Il Latini for Mal’s and my first date, I had come prepared. Dahlia and I had picked out a showstopping lingerie set (“Because if you’re going to do this, you should do it, feel me?” she’d said). I’d trimmed, sugared, and plucked every errant hair on my body, doused myself in the most inoffensive perfume I owned, and spent an hour in front of my vanity beating my face into submission... all for Malcolm Waters to take me to a cooking class and kiss my hand.
Today, the only makeup I wore was a clear lip gloss and a bit of concealer; I couldn’t remember the last time I’d shaved my
pits, and my lingerie was composed of anti–chub rub bike shorts, an old thong that had Cutie Pie in peeling white vinyl on the crotch, and an industrial-grade strapless bra with four rows of clasps and memory foam cups.
“Gorgeous,” Mal muttered, one hand palming my ass, the other hooking around the back of my neck to keep me close. He kissed
like a man dying of thirst and I was an oasis, like he’d been plotting where to touch and grab and hold from the second we
met.
No wonder Dahlia enjoyed fucking so much. If this was what I’d been missing out on, I had a lot of catching up to do.
And tonight, I was certain that Mal would be down for some fucking, if the length that had formed in his pants was any indication.
He rocked against me, letting me ride the hard ridge of him through his jeans, the room growing balmy with our mounting lust.
His hands reached into my bike shorts, skating blunt nails along the backs of my thighs, and I cried out as a lightning bolt
of sensation coursed into my center. Mal had only been touching me for five minutes, and I was already desperate for him,
something deep inside of me pulsing, hungry, eager to be filled.
Feeling bold, I grabbed for the hem of Mal’s T-shirt, and he didn’t hesitate, chucking it off and giving me barely a second to appreciate the work of art that was his body—those tawny, broad shoulders, the deliciously powerful arms—before helping me out of my dress. Then he paused, holding me firm to him while his eyes roved greedily over my skin.
I’d never assigned much value to the aesthetics of my body. When I was young, I’d heard nothing positive about it—my dark
skin deemed me burned toast, a roach, a shadow , my fleshy thighs thunderous , and so I became more preoccupied with its utility, grateful that it could stand during my long shifts, stay awake for twenty-eight-hour
calls. It was only when I started posting as Dr.Jojobee that I started to factor in its appeal. The Ghanaian hips that Ashley
Biernacki had once declared needed a Wide Load sign now got me envy, BBL accusations, and the occasional brand collaboration.
And this. It got me this: Mal regarding my body like it was something he’d dreamed up, his calloused hands following a reverent
trail up and down my sides. Silently, I reached behind me, undoing the clasps of my bra one by one until it fell, useless,
onto my lap. Mal’s eyes darkened instantly, and I felt his stare like I did his hands.
“You are so fucking sexy,” he muttered, almost more to himself than to me. He palmed my breasts, weighing them in each hand,
circling my nipples with his thumbs. Then he leaned forward, sucked one into his mouth, and released it with an indecent smack . “You know that, Jo?”
If I had been of sound mind, I would have told him, Yes, but in a clinical way, the way that I know to start a statin when someone’s LDL is above 190 , and certainly not the way he was making me feel now, like I was barely real, like I was something to be worshipped. But my forebrain had long ago vacated the premises, and so instead I moaned, pushed into him, whimpered against the friction. Mal’s head fell back against the sofa, his hips rising to meet mine. He kissed me hard, our mouths colliding, then suddenly pulled away.
“That’s enough,” he said haggardly.
“What...?” I started, ready to launch a complaint, but then, to my complete shock, he hoisted me, shrieking, into his
arms.
Mal smirked, tossing me higher in his arms like I were a sack of potatoes. Then, with a deft foot, he guided his bedroom door
open and kicked it shut behind us.
The reporter at HuffPost sent a message over my website’s contact form just minutes after the video that would label me as
the “Virgin Sex Doc” surpassed ten million views. Over our video call, she looked prim, her brown hair tied into a lacquered
bun, matte plum lipstick perfectly even.
“How can you give advice on sex if you’ve never had it?” she asked.
“The same way I can tell someone how to manage their diabetes,” I responded. “By reading the literature.”
“Shit,” Mal said, grasping the sheets as though they would ground him. His grip on my head tightened, caught between not wanting
to let me out of his sight and keeping his eyes from rolling back. “You sure you haven’t done this before?”
I smiled around him, watching him wince as I lapped at his head with the flat of my tongue.
“I have a doctorate, Mal,” I said. “Is it really surprising that I’ve done a little research?”
Any potential retorts were cut off when I tried out a move I’d read about in Paul Joannides’s Guide to Getting It On , which had been an exceptional resource, if I did say so myself. And effective, judging by the way Mal’s hips were rocking off the bed. First attempt at fellatio, and I’d give the experience a solid seven out of ten. A bit rough on the jaw, sure, and there had been that brief snafu when I’d grazed him with my lower teeth, but overall, good. I was already feeling new, exciting sensations, like the rush of want that flooded my body when he lowered his pants and unveiled himself to me, the way my mouth watered with a Pavlovian need to have him in it. The satisfaction of watching Mal struggle beneath me, his chest heaving, his skin glistening, his core tense from the effort of keeping himself from thrusting down my throat.
Sublime. Nothing I had ever conjured in my mind could compare.
I was pretty sure that when Mal threw me onto the bed, he’d intended to get to me first. But he should have known that there
was zero chance that he was going to get away with carrying me into his bedroom without getting his dick sucked. Virgin I may be, but I was still a grown woman, and I knew that that type
of behavior had to be rewarded. Besides, now that Mal had finally given me access, I had a laundry list of tests to run. How
long would I last riding him before my thighs cramped? Would I enjoy being eaten out? Doggy was supposedly good for G-spot
stimulation, but how was I going to convince this very nice man to go face down ass up with me on the first encounter? I swallowed
him down, and he quivered, his grip on my hair tightening.
“Stop stop stop stop,” Mal hissed, reflexively pulling my head back. I released him with a pop, and he dragged me up his body
to kiss me, catching his breath. When we pulled back, he smiled brokenly, bowing his forehead against mine.
“Is that what you spend your time doing when you’re alone? Reading dirty books and taking notes?” he asked. His voice had become husky, low. “Touching yourself?”
“Sometimes,” I confessed.
Mal grunted, then, in a quick motion, flipped me under him and slotted himself in between my knees.
“Show me,” he said.
His gaze was direct, unblinking, and for the first time, I felt shy. It hit me, suddenly, that I was naked, all of the bumps
and crevasses I’d taught myself and my followers to love suddenly on full display. I guided my hand in between my legs, turning
away as if to hide, but Mal’s firm hand on my chin guided me back, his eyes jumping greedily from my face to my moving fingers.
I watched him too, the ardency of his arousal feeding mine. Silently, Mal brought a hand to my lips, requesting entry. I gave
it, sucking his fingers into my mouth and watching as something wild flickered across his face.
“You nervous?” he asked softly, trailing his wet fingers down to join mine.
I laughed, breathless. “A little,” I confessed.
He nodded, serious as sin. “Don’t be,” he said. “I got you.”
Then he slid down my body, lifting my thighs onto his shoulders.
“Wait, Mal—” I started, alarmed, but I didn’t have time to be shy, to warn him that I might be sweaty from our evening running
around the city, to wonder if I should have found an excuse to run into the bathroom for a quick rinse before things got hot
and heavy, because his mouth was already on me.
Holy shit. I should have suspected that Malcolm “acts of service” Waters would be a cunnilingus connoisseur. This was not a man who considered eating pussy a chore, or a means to an end. No. For Mal, it was very clearly a privilege. Right now, I was a delicacy, and Mal the starving man on a desert island presented with a feast that he dived into face-first with no hands. Over the rush of blood in my ears, I could hear him talking, muffled fuck s and you taste so good s that I could feel against my lips, and I threw an arm over my eyes, overwhelmed, oversensitized. My hips roved against him
restlessly, the ache in the pit of my belly becoming a yearning. I could feel the pressure inside me building like a pot about
to whistle, and I arched out of his reach, desperate for a break, only to be yanked back down onto the bed.
“Where do you think you’re going?” he crooned, pinning me in place.
“Please,” I whimpered, delirious. I was throbbing, squeezing, the space where Mal wasn’t aching with the urge to have him
in it.
“Please what?” Mal teased, lifting my legs higher to give himself better access. He sucked my clit into his mouth, and I cried
out, too far gone to be embarrassed by the naked longing in my voice. “Come on, Jo, use your words.”
Damn. I should have suspected that Mal could throw down from the second he kissed me at the carousel. That had not been a kiss from
a man who stumbled over his words and got flustered when I poked fun at his old-man Instagram. Clearly I had been had. Hopefully,
I would be had again. Repeatedly.
“Put it in,” I whimpered.
Mal hummed.
“Put what in?” he asked. He slid two fingers inside of me, curling them in a beckoning motion. “My fingers?”
“No,” I said, arching against pleasure that still, somehow, was not enough. “No, Mal, you know what I want—”
“No I don’t,” Mal teased. “Maybe... my tongue?” He slid that inside of me next, and I sucked in a stuttering breath.
“Your dick, you asshole,” I managed finally. Then, just in case he decided to punish my impertinence by prolonging my misery:
“Put your dick in me. Please.”
Mal nodded sagely, then finally released me, wiping off his mouth with the back of his hand and rocking back on his heels
to reach into his nightstand. I watched, entranced, as he tore a condom wrapper with his teeth and rolled it on. Looming over
me like this, his dick seemed huge, bobbing like it had a mind of its own. I remembered how heavy it had felt on my tongue,
how substantial it felt rocking between my legs, and, for the first time since we’d started this, my anticipation was laced
with a ribbon of fear.
Mal caught me watching, then lowered himself to me, kissing me sweetly.
“We can stop here, you know,” he said. “Or do something different. Just tell me what you want, and I’ll give it to you.” His
eyes were burning coals in the dimly lit room. “Anything.”
His consideration set me aflame, my skin tingling with every part of me that he had touched.
“I want this,” I said, angling my hips for him.
Mal smiled like I’d given him a gift. Then, pressing his mouth to mine, he slowly, carefully, eased into me.
Even with all my education, I expected pain, tearing, something to signify that the label that I’d held for twenty-nine years
had been ripped away. But instead, there was pressure and pleasure, an indescribable fullness. Mal’s firm body against mine,
his slow, sighing exhale into the side of my neck.
“You good?” he said, trembling with restraint.
I smiled, then pressed a heel into his ass to egg him on.
“ Move , Mal,” I begged, and Mal grunted, then hooked my legs over his arms for leverage. I let him take charge, gasping against
the sensation of him driving into me over and over again, watching the shift of his expressions in the dimly lit room, his
lips parting as he gasped for air.
“I can’t believe—” he started, brokenly. “You’re so beautiful.”
“You too,” I said, tilting my hips up to take more of him in. Mal’s jaw tightened, something dark passing over his eyes, and
then, without warning, he pulled out, flipped me onto my stomach, and drove back into me in a smooth, purposeful motion. I
let out a sound that was somewhere between a gasp and a cry, stunned by the feeling of him so deep inside of me, the pulsing
pleasure of being stretched to my limit. Behind me, Mal was a force, his grip on my waist almost painfully tight, the echoing
slap of my ass against his hips so obscene that I could hardly believe that we were creating it.
“Fuck, Jo,” Mal groaned, and I realized just how delectable my name sounded falling off his lips like this, like he was losing
control and I was the reason why. “ Fuck. You feel so good.”
I opened my mouth to respond but found that I couldn’t. My voice had been stolen by someone else, some wild, wanton woman
who produced the kind of melodramatic moans that I’d once considered theater. No way could it feel that good , I had once nitpicked, only to discover now that yes (“Yes, yes, yes !”) it could.
Suddenly, there was heat: Mal’s chest a furnace against my back, his hand slipping between my legs, the pad of his finger
worrying at my clit just as his mouth closed over my shoulder. He let out a final, ragged groan—my name, repeated like a mantra
as he pushed into me in short, final ruts.
All at once, my body seized. My orgasm crashed over me in waves, pleasure starting in my center and rippling to my curling toes, to fingers that clenched around sheets. God, I’d come before, but never like this, never from such unconscionable heights. My vision blurred, then came back in Technicolor, and finally, sapped, I collapsed forward onto the mattress.
Mal came down with me.
“Good?” he asked after a minute, having transformed from sexpot back to golden retriever. His weight on top of mine was crushing
but comfortable, and I looped an arm around his neck, using the last of my energy to pat him on the cheek.
“Good,” I managed.
And then, with an ease that I thought impossible for someone who constantly chased sleep, I promptly passed out.