myself off while getting fucked and watched by a beautiful man was so far off the scale of hot I had no words for it.
I tried to wait, to keep breathing through the pleasure that rose up through me, to stretch out that delightful moment before I came, but at the sound of Kyle’s broken groan of my name, I couldn’t hold off any more. He arched up under me, nails biting my skin, eyes closing. The pulse and clench of him brought my own orgasm, a quiet rippling sweetness that spread outward on threads of pleasure, until I could feel them all the way to the tips of my fingers.
We stayed like that for a moment, me still on top of him, our breaths catching and releasing, kissing softly. He felt different after sex, his lips softer and fuller, his touch gentler, and I relished the changes in him for a moment, knowing they’d been brought about by a pleasure similar to my own.
‘You’re awesome,’ he said with a sigh.
‘You’re awesome too,’ I said. ‘But I have to run. Have a bookstore to run and all that.’
‘We can’t do this again? I’ll be quick.’
‘I wish,’ I said, with a true sense of wistfulness. Maybe it was the fact that I was quickly approaching thirty or maybe it was just that my life had slowed down to a steady routine lately so I had more time to think about sex, but it seemed like my lust clock was always in overtime these days. My uterus didn’t want kids, but my clit wanted sex. Pretty much all the time. Even with Kyle around a couple of times of week, I’d made pretty good friends with a whole community of vibrators in the last year. Turning down sex these days was akin to turning down coffee – something I only did with a great deal of reluctance.
I kissed Kyle’s nose, with a sigh of regret.
‘Sadly, if I stay I really will be late, which Lily will certainly hold over my head all day long if she can. Maybe longer.’
‘You’re afraid of Lily? Just threaten to mess up her hair.’
That made me laugh, as Kyle often did. My best friend did have perfectly coiffed hair. The kind that’s so perfect you have to hate her, just a little, for having it.
‘No go,’ I said, as I pulled myself from the bed.
Getting dressed was me rushing and tumbling while Kyle watched me from his sprawl under the covers. Too late to do more than pull on whatever was closest, I grabbed a simple black dress from the closet and threw my dark hair into a messy ponytail. My store key on its red ribbon around my neck for pseudo-jewellery, my little librarian glasses, and I was calling it good.
When I sat on the bed to pull on a pair of knee-high boots, I caught Kyle’s glance. He looked oddly serious for post-sex reverie, his usual grin replaced with something far more contemplative.
‘Are you OK?’ I asked.
He reached out and touched my arm. ‘I just got fucked by a beautiful woman. How can I not be good?’
‘Good.’ I grinned at him before I kissed him, letting my lips linger against his for a long moment. ‘You know how to get out, right?’
He nodded, reaching out to run his hand along my arm as I turned away.
I was at the bedroom door, mind already turning to work and the bookstore, before he spoke again.
From the depths of my bed, he said in that sexy, post-orgasm voice that never failed to turn me on, ‘Janine. Marry me.’
The heel of my boot caught on the area rug, sending me sprawling against the doorjamb.
‘Funny man.’ Laughing, I turned to shake my head at him, at his impossible joke.
And in that moment, standing there in the doorway, I saw that he was serious. That he was, really and truly, asking me to marry him.
Shit.
* * *
Shit. Shit. Shit.
That was my refrain the entire fifteen-minute walk from my house to Leather Bound. What the hell was Kyle talking about, marry him? We had a perfect, lovely, sexy thing. Get together a couple of times a week, have dinner, get hot and heavy. Good fun sex on the kitchen floor. Or the couch. Or behind the couch. Then he went home and I curled up with a cup of coffee and a couple of books.
Lust. Not love.
Marriage. Was that why he’d been so quiet all night? Who the hell asked a girl to marry him from bed anyway? From her bed, no less. And, more importantly, why?
I was still turning a million questions over in my brain when I reached the bookstore. The door was locked – we didn’t open for fifteen minutes or so – but the back lights were on, letting me know that Lily was already inside. Webster, the store cat, was snoozing in the big front window display, his grey striped tail tick-tocking, probably in time to some mouse-hunting dream.
I fished my skeleton key from where it hung on the long ribbon around my neck. Lily and I’d had them custom made when we opened the store, and I loved the heft of mine, the curled metal J of the bow.
Even when I was in a rush, even on a morning where I felt my world had just been turned upside down and carelessly shaken, unlocking the front door to Leather Bound felt like entering a far-away universe. Or someone else’s story, right at that point where it all comes together and you know the ending is going to be fine. Everything dropped away in the seconds it took to slip the long metal key into the ancient lock and turn it.
As I stepped inside and shut the door behind me, I closed my eyes, inhaling the scent of paper and leather with a pleasure that I reserved just for this place. Yes, the bookstore was work, and sometimes it was hard and thankless work at that, but it was also a sanctuary. A little corner of bookworm heaven, made just for me.
‘You, Miss Janine, are late,’ Lily said.
I opened my eyes. From where I stood, Lily had her back to me so I couldn’t see her customary smirk, but I could see the back of her legs, the black tattoo of the word read curled up the back of one calf, the red curlicues of the word lips scrawled up the other. She had lots of tattoos – most of them words – but I bet none of them got as many questions as that missing my. I’d seen it, of course. Kyle had done it for her. But I’d promised never to tell anyone just where that particular piece of lettering was situated.
‘I’m sorry, Lil,’ I said. I meant it. My co-owner worked her ass off at Leather Bound, maybe even more than I did, and we were supposed to share everything half and half.
Lil stretched to tuck a book into the upper shelf, tsking her tongue teasingly. As her black pumps lifted off the ladder, I caught a glimpse of one tan sole covered with hand-written book titles. Being book geeks was one of the few things Lily and I had in common, but it was a big enough thing that it had kept our friendship thriving for nearly ten years. Not to mention convince us to go into business together. It was a decision I’d never regretted.
While she finished shelving the books in her hand, I tugged at my buttons with cold fingers. My coat and scarf were collaborating to kill me, getting caught in my hair and glasses while I tried to get them off. ‘I got stuck –’ I started.
‘Not stuck. Fucked. You got fucked, Janine.’ Lily’s laughter floated down at me. ‘Don’t lie. I
