Tempted

“Alex.”

James made a muffled, snorting sort of noise into his pillow. “What do you want to know?”

I stared upward, into darkness, and imagined stars. “What’s he like?”

James was silent for so long I was certain he’d fallen asleep. At last, he rolled onto his back. I couldn’t see his face, but I pictured it as he spoke.

“He’s a good guy.”

What did that mean? I rolled onto my side, facing him. Between us, heat stirred. Reaching out, I could have touched him, but I tucked my hand beneath my pillow instead and found a cool spot on the sheets.

“He’s smart. He’s …”

I waited but couldn’t stand the hesitation. “Funny? Nice?”

“Yeah, I guess so.”

I sighed. “You’ve been friends since what, the eighth grade?”

“Yeah.” He no longer sounded sleepy. He sounded like he wanted to be sleepy.

“So … you have to have more to say about him than he’s smart and a good guy. C’mon, James. What’s Alex like?”

“He’s like the lake.”

“Tell me.”

James shifted, the bed dipping as he moved and tugged the covers with his feet. “Alex is … he’s deep, Anne. But he’s shallow in places, too, when you don’t expect it. I guess that’s the only way to put it.”

I pondered this for a moment. “That’s a very interesting description.”

James didn’t say anything. I heard him breathing. I felt his breath on my face. I felt the heat from his skin, inches from mine. We weren’t touching but I felt him all over me, just the same.

“Okay, how about this? Alex seems easy to know.”

“But he’s not?”

James drew in a breath. Let it out. Took another, a slow, easy pattern that nevertheless didn’t sound relaxed. “No. I’d say not.”

“But you know him? I mean, you were best buddies for a long time, right?”

He laughed, then, and the twinges of unease his answers had stirred in my gut fled. “Yeah. I guess we were.”

I reached for him then, to run a hand through his hair. He moved closer to me. His hand found just the right spot on my hip, nestled into my body’s curve. I lined myself up along him.

We were silent for a while. I let myself melt against him, breast to chest. He wore a pair of boxers. I had on a tank-top and a pair of panties. There was a lot of skin contact. I wasn’t about to complain, even though the night hadn’t yet begun to cool, and we stuck to each other.

He got hard, which made me smile. I waited, and after a moment his hand began its slow, easy path up and down my side. The thump of his heart quickened, but so did mine.

I tilted my head. His mouth found mine without effort. Our kiss was sweet and slow, without urgency.

“Don’t you have to be up early tomorrow?”

James pressed my hand to his thickening cock. “I’m up now.”

“I feel that.” I gave him an experimental squeeze. “Whatever shall I do with this?”

“I have a few ideas.” He pushed his groin against my hand, his fingers sliding between the edges of my tank top and panties. “Why not suck it?”

“Oh, that’s subtle.” My voice sounded dry, but I was grinning.

“Never claimed to be subtle,” James murmured. He dipped his head to taste my throat.

I hitched in a breath. My hand bore down. James groaned. I smiled. I pushed him back, just a little, just enough for me to slide down his body and take his penis out of the boxers. I didn’t have to see it to know every ripple and curve. I closed my fingers around the shaft and bent closer to lip the sensitive flesh around the rim.

James made a happy sigh and rolled onto his back. He put a hand on my head, not pushing me down or hurrying me along, just stroking my hair a little. His fingers snagged and tangled. A discomfort so slight it didn’t qualify as pain sparked against my scalp.

I licked him, savoring the salt-musk flavor. Even fresh from the shower, this part of him always smelled and tasted different from, say, an elbow or a chin. His cock, lower belly and inner thighs all maintained a deliciousness I could only describe as male. And unique. Blindfolded I might have faltered at identifying him by the slope of his nose or bulge of muscles, but that smell and taste would prove him to be mine every time.

“If I were in a dark room full of naked men and had to find you, I could,” I murmured before sliding my mouth over his erection.

“Do you often fantasize about being in a room full of naked men, Anne?” James lifted his hips to push inside my mouth. I curled my fingers tighter around the base of his prick to keep him from surging too far.

“No.”

His laugh was brief, breathless. “No? Never? That’s not your fantasy?”

“What would I do with a room full of naked men?”

He sighed as I sucked him. I cupped his balls, soft, and stroked my thumb along the tender seam in his flesh. “They could … do things … to you ….”

I used my mouth and hand in tandem until he groaned aloud, then stroked him up and down and gave my jaw a rest. “No. I’m a maximum two-input girl, James. All those men would just go to waste.”

I put my mouth back on him, taking him in as far as I could go. His cock throbbed against my tongue. Silky precome mixed with my saliva and made him slippery. Easy to stroke. Easy to suck.

James put a hand to my hip and tugged me gently, until I spun without taking my mouth off him so I straddled his face. It was my turn to moan when he gripped my ass and pulled my clit onto his tongue. He flicked me lightly with the tip. In this position I could control how close or far my body got to his. I could hover over his lips and tongue, move my pelvis, stroke myself along his mouth.

I loved it.

My orgasm rose fast. It became difficult to concentrate on sucking him while he licked me. We got a little sloppy. I don’t think either of us cared. We both came within seconds of each other, our cries mingling in the dark. After, when I’d turned around and lolled in sated content on my pillow, I noticed the air had grown cool enough I wanted to be under the blankets.

I pulled them up over both of us, though James was breathing in the just-about-to-snore way I found alternatingly endearing and excruciating, depending on how tired I was. He snorted into his pillow. I lay back, tired but not quite ready to sleep.

“What did you fight about?” I whispered into the darkness hanging between us.

The sound of his breathing changed. An indrawn breath. Silence. James didn’t answer and after a few moments, I forgot to ask again, so taken up was I in dreams.

Things changed, as they are apt to do, without warning. I’d spent the morning running errands, and I was playing reluctant hostess that evening to James’s family, all of them. Parents, spouses, nieces and nephews. I planned something simple, grilled chicken and salad, fresh rolls. Watermelon and brownies for dessert.