11. Friday
CHAPTER 11
FRIDAY
D aniel was in the final round of a heated game of HORSE at the archery range when his phone buzzed in his back pocket. Unfortunately, the vibration startled him just as he loosed an arrow, ending his game and bestowing on eleven-year-old Elijah the eternal bragging rights concomitant with beating the Oak Ridge Director in a head-to-head competition. Daniel was not particularly competitive, but he preferred to lose fair and square, as they say. When he had formally congratulated his final opponent and commiserated with the other four defeated challengers, he pulled his phone from his pocket to see which app alert was to blame for the indignity.
Maggie: Truth or Dare?
As a child, Daniel had consistently chosen Truth. He was no dare devil, and he had no interesting secrets for other children to ferret out. As a counselor, he always chose Dare, because he was happy to do the chicken dance or jump in the lake fully clothed if it made a camper laugh.
And now? Never let it be said that Daniel Becker didn’t understand the assignment.
Daniel: Dare .
He waited, rapt, as the little ellipsis appeared and disappeared while Maggie typed.
Maggie: Cottage tonight. 9pm. Come hungry.
Surely she wasn’t inviting him to a late dinner. Which meant that what she was inviting him to was…well, sex. He felt very suddenly aware of all of his limbs (where did he usually put them?), of his breathing (which was supposed to be involuntary!), and of an almost ticklish sensation swirling in the pit of his stomach.
Daniel was a little out of his depth with regard to the etiquette here. As Drew had said, he was a serial monogamist. Not on purpose, exactly. Or, not on principle. He just liked sleeping with people he liked who also liked him. And then getting drinks or sometimes dinner beforehand, and maybe watching an episode of Top Chef after, and making breakfast in the morning, and, you know, one thing led to another.
But he liked Maggie McArthur and, despite her best efforts, she seemed to like him, too.
And oh boy did he want her (despite the best efforts of that bandana and fringe monstrosity Goodwill had misleadingly labeled a “dress”).
So, he was in.
Except, how did you RSVP to a bootycall? Did you “thumbs up” react? Thumbs up emoji? That seemed anticlimactic. No pun intended.
Well, a little intended.
Surely he couldn’t “heart” the message.
Eggplant?
He may have been taking a little too long figuring it out, because his phone lit with a follow-up message.
Maggie: (Not for dinner. I don’t cook.)
Daniel laughed, and it shook him out of his spiral enough to type back I got that, thank you . And then (it was so obvious!): Looking forward to it.
Daniel hugged the shadows as he made what suddenly felt like a trek from the Blue Harbor parking lot, around the Main Lodge, across the green, past the docks, and up the hill to what had been Miss Peggy’s cottage. He was, he knew, doing something that very closely approached skulking, like a teenager sneaking out after curfew. Not that, as a teenager, he’d ever actually done that, but he assumed he would have felt a little like he did now. Sheepish. Nervy. Electric with anticipation. And like the volume on the world around him had been turned up to eleven. How were his footsteps on soft summer grass so loud? How could he possibly hear the campers whispering from bunk to bunk in one of the darkened cabins he passed?
There was no reason he shouldn’t be there, no reason to avoid being seen by any counselors or staff who might be grabbing a late-night snack from the camp kitchen. He had, in fact, been at Blue Harbor just the other night and had felt not at all like the whispering of the breeze through the trees was somehow about him personally.
Daniel made it all the way up the cottage’s porch steps without being greeted by an enthusiastic howl, which he hadn’t quite realized he’d been expecting until it was absent. But when Maggie opened the door before he could finish his quiet knock, he saw that she’d taken steps to disarm her Alert Dog with a peanut butter-filled chew toy. Always thinking ahead, Maggie McArthur.
Daniel slipped inside and crossed to the open kitchen in two strides, slinging his backpack down on the table as Maggie closed the door behind him. He felt, suddenly and all at once, very off-balance, as though the full reality of the moment had crashed over him in a wave, washing away some of the sand beneath his feet. He didn’t know how these things went. These…casual things.
He unzipped the backpack and pulled out the local craft brew he’d swapped in for a bottle of wine at the last minute. That had definitely been the right call. Casual. So now he was just going to channel the energy of the Daniel from half an hour ago who’d correctly realized that wine was not the move. When he turned, he saw Maggie leaning back against the door, eyeing him curiously. Shit. He’d been standing there for a weirdly long time hadn’t he?
“Hey, Becker,” she said, the epitome of Casual, and Daniel felt the knot of lust that had been lodged beneath his ribs for nearly a week, if not longer, pull itself tighter.
“McArthur.” God, she was something else. A mass of red curls framing sharp cheekbones and bold eyes, long, elegant neck, bracketed by a sharp clavicle. It was almost embarrassing that he couldn’t stop himself from staring. Except who could blame him? Her white tank stretched tightly across her small breasts, and denim shorts emphasized the way her natural waist flared into narrow hips and long, long legs. The kind of legs that a hard-bitten detective in noir fiction would describe as “going all the way to the ground.” Her feet were bare, and the sight of the red polish on her toes felt somehow illicit.
When he flicked his eyes back to her face, she was watching him. She looked almost unaffected, her face impassive. But he could see from the rise and fall of her chest that her breathing was shallow.
“Can I offer you one of your beers?” she asked dryly.
Apparently bringing a hostess gift to a hookup was not the done thing. Noted. “Uh, not unless you want one.”
“No, thanks.”
Daniel swallowed. He felt pinned to the spot.
“Come here.” She said it so comfortably, with such confidence. The command slid like silk. This was Maggie in her element. Now that he’d seen her like this, it was so obvious how not in her element she’d been the entire time he’d known her.
Daniel did as she said and felt himself relax as he crossed the distance between them. He was glad for her to take the wheel. She knew how to get where they both wanted to go.
As soon as he was close enough, Maggie reached out and grabbed a handful of his cotton tee, pulling him toward her. Daniel went. But the moment before his forward momentum trapped her, she deftly flipped their positions, and all at once Daniel was pressed up against the inside of the front door, Maggie’s heartbeat drumming against his chest, her hips grinding against his rapidly hardening erection. She took his mouth with a controlled ferocity that sent a vortex of lust and pleasure twisting through him, sucking in every thought, every feeling that wasn’t the sweet bite of her teeth on his bottom lip or the slide of her rose lip balm against his tongue or the minty freshness of her breath where it mingled with his own. (She’d brushed her teeth for him, he realized, before that thought, too, was swept away by pure sensation.) She had stormed his senses, completely occupied his consciousness. And he wanted to stay exactly like this, and he wanted to let himself melt into the solid door, and he wanted to feel her bare skin against his, and he wanted and he wanted and he wanted until, finally, she pulled away. And he wanted more.
She was breathing hard. He’d apparently forgotten about breathing entirely until that very moment and was taking in shallow gulps of air as his lungs struggled to relearn the process. His eyes met hers. They were still that sharp blue, now a little dulled with lust, sparkling with that fullness of self-possession he hadn’t seen in them before. He wondered, vaguely, what she saw in his. He caught her glance along the wall to his right toward the front window, which was covered by a floral curtain sun-faded to near translucence. If they moved any further into the living room, they’d be easily visible to passersby. Not that there were likely to be any at this hour, but Daniel didn’t like the idea of risking an R-rated show. Before he could say as much, Maggie reached past his right shoulder and flicked off the wall switch for the main lights. Without them, they were in near total darkness. Moonlight filtering in through the curtain gave Daniel’s eyes something to adjust to.
In the silver-black, the room was, somehow, much quieter. Maggie’s voice was a raspy whisper. “Bedroom.” She turned and strode toward the door at the back of the living room, confident in the knowledge that he would follow. And he did, toeing off his shoes and making a brief detour to the backpack he’d left on the kitchen table.
Daniel closed the bedroom door behind him just as Maggie pulled the chain on an old, shaded floor lamp. They both took a moment to blink against the low golden light.
“You brought condoms.”
Daniel thought she sounded a little surprised. He looked down at the box in his hand and worried, for an impossibly long moment, that he’d somehow entirely misjudged the situation. That maybe they were here in her bedroom for some completely chaste reason. She needed help hanging new curtains. And he’d brought condoms.
But then Maggie said, “Thank you,” and held out a hand, palm up. “I’ll take those.” He passed her the box, and she laid it on the bedside table behind her, then opened the drawer underneath to put a very similar box away. Ah. “I’m also on the pill.” Daniel nodded.
“Now,” she said, stepping into Daniel’s personal space. She was so close, her chest would brush against his if either of them breathed deeply. But she didn’t. And he couldn’t. He felt the static buzzing across the gap. Maggie was tall, maybe only an inch shorter than him, and when she stood this close, they were nearly eye to eye. The look she gave him could have sparked a fire in a downpour. It made him burn, and she hadn’t even touched him. This was…not normal. In his experience. Maybe it was always like this for her. “About last Saturday…”
She lifted a hand and touched the tips of her fingers to his chest so lightly that he was surprised he could feel them at all, except that the moment she made contact, they were all he could feel. His senses zoomed into tight focus on the five pinpricks of contact. Then she pressed, ever so gently, and he knew that she was guiding him, turning him so that his back was to the bed. And he let her. Of course he let her. He wanted her to.
She walked him backward until he felt the comforter brush against the backs of his knees, and when she added the slightest bit of pressure, he sank down onto the bed. She stepped into the space where his legs had fallen open, so that he had to look almost directly up to see her face. “Take this off, please,” she said, briefly hooking a finger into his collar. He shivered, literally shivered, when she brushed the skin of his throat, and he promptly reached back over his shoulder to pull the shirt off. “Good. Now, lie back.” Daniel leaned on his elbows and scooted somewhat inelegantly until his body was fully on the mattress. “Better.”
He watched as Maggie unbuttoned her jeans shorts, unzipped the fly, and shimmied them down her long legs. Her underwear was plain white cotton, matching her tank top and the bra he could see just a hint of. And he’d known, obviously, that underwear could be sexy, but he hadn’t ever considered that it could be sexy quite like this. This was…nonchalant. That was the word that came to mind. Hot and unbothered. The woman wearing this underwear could take him or leave him. And god did he want her to take him.
Maggie leaned forward, placing one hand deliberately on either side of Daniel’s thighs, and climbed up onto the bed, so that she was straddling his knees, and he was looking directly into the shadowy dip between her breasts. He flicked his eyes to her face, and she sat back on her heels, smiling a knowing smile. He was suddenly very aware of how tightly his thin nylon shorts stretched across his hips. He looked down his body at the veritable tent he had pitched and had an immediate sense of deja vu, of living two moments on top of each other. He was here now, and he was back last Saturday night outside the Oak Ridge gym.
When he met her gaze a second time, her smile widened. “Something wrong?” Daniel’s throat had gone so dry, it took him two tries to say no.
“Good. But I said on your back.” Her eyes raked across his chest and down his stomach. Now she was the one who looked hungry. And she was looking at him like he was a buffet. “Arms over your head, please.” Daniel’s chest tightened, and the fingers on his right hand twitched. He wanted to reach for her, to touch her, to pull her down to him. That was how this sort of thing usually went. But, at the same time, he found that he wanted to do what she asked. He wanted to impress her with how with well he could listen. So he summoned what remained of his will power and lay back, stretching his hands up toward the slatted headboard.
“Good.” Something in Daniel’s stomach swooped at the simple praise as Maggie leaned forward again, pressing her hands to the bed and crawling up his body. “I think…” She straddled his hips. “…it was something…” her fingers interlaced with his own, pressing his hands into the mattress. “…like this?” Her face was inches from his. He could feel her warm breath on his lips as she half-whispered the words. But she was so careful not to touch him. Their hands were the only point of physical contact. It was exquisite torture.
This time, Daniel knew he wouldn’t be able to get words out, so he nodded slightly, careful not to bump her forehead with his own.
“Good.” And she ground into him, the suddenness of the pressure and the friction sending a shock of pleasure through every nerve in his body. He groaned, as his hands clenched around Maggie’s, and his hips bucked involuntarily. He almost missed the sound she made, like a strangled whimper she’d failed to entirely hold back. God, he wanted more of that sound.
He wasn’t going to get it.
Instead, when Maggie pressed into him again, she coaxed a sound from his chest that could only be described as a moan. Her lips quirked up, ever so slightly, like he’d given her what she wanted.
He liked it.
When she bent to kiss him, it felt like she was trying to devour him. She didn’t savor, she consumed—licking, scraping, biting, swallowing down his groans and whimpers, fierce in her confidence that there would always be more.
Daniel had no idea how long she rode him like that, both of them still mostly clothed. He was lost in the excruciating sweetness of surrender. It was a fantasy made real. A fantasy he hadn’t even realized he’d had.
But he could only take so much. He was going to come. But not in his shorts. “Wait,” he managed to grit out. And she did. Immediately. She let go of his hands, scooted back, and sat up, weight on her heels so that she hovered over his thighs. She was panting, but her expression had otherwise turned bland. His body instantly missed the warm press, the soft cage, of hers. He was breathing like he’d just summited after a serious climb. “I can’t…I want…you,” he ended, somewhat lamely.
Maggie tilted her head, translating. “You want me to fuck you?”
Daniel groaned, nodding. God, she had effectively rendered him incoherent.
“All you have to do is ask.” Her grin turned wicked. “Nicely.”
Daniel had never felt farther from nice. At that moment, he was probably closer to feral. But he grunted out a choked “Please.”
“Please what?”
“Pleasefuckme.” It came out as a single word. He would have been embarrassed, but his need felt so pressingly urgent, so desperate, that there wasn’t space for anything else.
Maggie took a beat, and then, in a deft motion, the specifics of which seemed to slightly bend the laws of physics, pulled his shorts and his boxer briefs down his hips far enough that he was able to kick them off while, still straddling him, she reached for the box on the bedside table and unwrapped a condom.
Daniel focused intently on a fascinating crack in the ceiling plaster as she rolled it on.
He hadn’t realized his fingertips had wrapped around the headboard until Maggie leaned over him and pressed her left hand onto his right wrist. With the other, she reached between them, pulled her underwear aside and positioned him right where she wanted.
He’d expected her to wait, to smile coyly, to slide slowly, teasingly onto him. He should have known better by now. In an instant, she slammed down, and his cry of surprise and pleasure mingled with hers in the space between their lips.
And then she closed that gap, taking his mouth like it was money owed, and did as he’d asked.
It took him a while to resurface, having nearly drowned, boneless, under a wave of sensation so sweet that it stung. Maggie lay on her back next to him, self-satisfied and almost soft, an arm thrown indolently across his bare chest. He eventually managed to drag himself off the bed and over to the small connecting bathroom to clean up. He was gone for less than a minute and had every intention of curling right back into Maggie on top of the cloud-like blankets, but when he returned, she was out of bed, shorts back on, leaning casually against the dresser.
Which answered one question about her position on the relevant post-bootycall etiquette.
Daniel would have preferred to drift to sleep in the afterglow, but he could take what, from Maggie, presumably counted as a subtle hint. So he went to grab his shirt and his shorts from where they’d landed at the foot of the bed.