How to Tell a Lie (11 page)

She had to give him credit; the whole honesty thing worked quite well for him. She licked her lips, trying to think of an adequate retort but coming up dry. Possibly because all the fluid in her body had raced downward to ruin her panties.

“Allison?”

“Apartment four.”

“Apart…oh. Oh.”

“What the fuck am I even thinking? This is crazy. Top floor, it’s the door to the left of the stairs. This is probably the biggest mistake of my life.” There was no response. “Seth? Hello?”

The line went dead, and Allison listened to the dial tone for a few seconds in disbelief before turning the phone off and reaching for a dishtowel. She dried her hands and then leaned against the counter, trying to take stock of things.

He would be there within a short time. She wasn’t sure how far away he lived, but it was a fairly small town and he would likely drive quickly. Twenty minutes? The apartment was sort of a mess but she didn’t have time to clean. Did she have time for a shower? A bath? The water was already warm.

Was she out of her damn mind? James had left her a mess and she had just gotten things reasonably back together. Now she was flinging that stability out the window because she was horny for some guy she met on the internet? True, he wasn’t really just a random guy from the internet, and he was the polar opposite of James in just about every way. But she barely knew him.

She barely knew him—and she had engaged in both cyber and phone sex with him on the evening of the day they had met. At least, the day they had met in person. How was that wise? How was that even something she would have ever done? She hardly knew herself anymore. This man was simply not safe.

There was definitely not time for a shower. For all she knew, he lived down the street and would be there any second. The bedroom. She could make sure the bed was made, at least. Resolved to do that much, Allison launched herself from the counter and raced through the living room to the bedroom.

A few quick tugs were all it took to tidy the bed, which she had half-made that morning. Allison looked at the quilted red velvet coverlet blankly, trying to figure out what to do next. She looked down at her clothes. Baggy gray sweatpants, cinched and rolled over at the waist because she had borrowed them from Lindy and never given them back, and Lindy was a size larger than she was. A tiny, tummy-baring t-shirt that Tess had given her, in theory for working out. Allison only wore it to sleep in or when she was lounging around. A good four inches of midriff were displayed between the t-shirt’s hem and the low-slung waistband of the sweats.

No time to change. She ran back toward the living room and looked around frantically, trying to decide which part of the disaster to attack first. Finally deciding to reach for the closest thing, Allison gathered the laundry back into the basket and hauled the whole thing into her room. The bedroom closet was just large enough to hold it. She had to lean on the door to make it close.

A few minutes later the knock came. Allison was halfway back through another trek to the living room, this time with an armload of two coats and a backpack. She stopped mid-stride and stared at the door as the sound repeated. Her heart was pounding so hard she could hear the swishing thump in her ears.

“Just a minute,” she squeaked out, and opened the miniscule coat closet just far enough to fling the items inside and close the door again in one swift move. With the next step she was at the door, unlocking it and turning the knob with the same frantic haste.

Seth was on the other side, looking bemused to find her so frazzled. He ducked his head and looked at her over the rims of his glasses, perhaps hoping the change of focus would present a more coherent picture.

“Are you coming in or not?” Allison knew she sounded defensive, almost belligerent, but she no longer cared. The thing was as good as done, or it would be. She would deal with the aftermath in the morning.

“That was my plan, yes.” He looked a little irritated with himself, a little embarrassed, more than a little determined. “Are you all right with that?”

She knew she was giving herself away even as she claimed she was fine. Her nose itched, she was blinking far too much and the urge to rub the back of her neck was almost overpowering. She stepped back, leaving enough room for Seth to come through the doorway, and then closed the door behind with exaggerated precision, using two fingers to turn the deadbolt.

“Do you want this?” Now that he was inside, he seemed reticent to press his case. Allison thought it was possible she looked a bit scary.

“No. This is the last thing I want. I think this is crazy and stupid. Kiss me.”

He smiled, an open grin that made Allison feel
melty
and warm inside. “Are you going to kill me and eat my head in the middle of this?”

“I’d say it’s a possibility you shouldn’t rule out. But right now your best bet is to distract me from myself. Okay? Please? Do you think you can just do that for me?”

“I can certainly give it the old college try.”

“Just shut up and—”

He had crossed the narrow entryway with two strides and backed her into the nearest wall, attacking her mouth with a ferocity she should have expected but somehow didn’t. If distraction was the goal, he succeeded brilliantly. For an indefinite stretch of time, Allison’s world was reduced to the elements of Seth’s lips and tongue, none too gently demanding admission, and his hands seeking and finding hers as if to keep her from escaping.

She wasn’t trying to escape. She was too enthralled by the swirl of his tongue around hers, the way he coaxed her to reciprocate. When he finally let her hands go and wrapped his fingers around her bare waist, she arched even closer and wound her arms around his neck. It was distraction. It was bliss. It was only what it was and nothing else, just mouths and bodies and tacit mutual agreement that the outcome would be sex, and that it would happen soon. The only real question was the route they would take to get there. Consequences flew out the window.

Allison was far gone enough that it took her a moment to realize Seth was whispering in her ear.

“What?”

“I said ‘which way is the bedroom?’ This wood floor doesn’t…seem like…it would be too comfortable.” He kissed her in between each phrase, as if he couldn’t bring himself to draw away long enough for a full sentence. She found herself inordinately pleased at that.

“It’s through there. Oh…”

He had pulled back just far enough to tug her shirt up and out of the way, and then without preamble wrapped his lips around one of her nipples, sucking firmly and flicking his tongue over the plump nub until Allison thought she might climax from that contact alone. She wrapped a leg around his hips and squeezed him closer, and was treated to the feel of the large bulge in his jeans pressing against her core. She worked her hips shamelessly against him until he drew back with a moan and stood looking down at her, eyes heavy, lips darkened from their efforts. He seemed undecided about whether to look at Allison’s face or down to where his own hand was still wrapped around her breast, thumbing her nipple in a rhythm that matched the pace of her hips.

“Through there?” He pointed down the short hallway and Allison managed to nod. She didn’t expect him to linger in the entryway any longer, but he did. Patiently, and with something like tenderness, he pulled her shirt off and took it from her hands when she seemed inclined to hold onto it. He stood for longer than she would have liked, weighing her breasts in his hands—large hands, she noticed, and strong looking, with long and agile fingers—and occasionally bending to kiss one nipple or brush his tongue against the other. Then he suckled more deliberately at one tight pink knot until Allison whimpered and flexed against him again. Her fingers were wrapped in his hair, her head flung back, lost in the sensations his mouth was evoking.

“So responsive,” he whispered against her flesh. “Could you come just from this?” He licked a lazy circle around her areola with just the tip of his tongue and spiraled inward, making her strain to get closer in anticipation of feeling his mouth on her nipple again.

“I don’t know…I never did before,” she said breathlessly. If computer time counted then Seth had already spent more time on foreplay than a year’s encounters with James might have yielded, and she thought she might have to make some fundamental changes in her previous assumptions about things like whether she could climax just from having someone play with her breasts. “I thought we were going to bed.” She tugged at his shoulders, but he had shifted a hand to hold her leg up at his hip, so she was unable to get very far.

“We’ll get there. I just think you should be naked and incoherent with lust when we do.”

She was unable to think of a good argument against that plan. Seth dropped her leg and, with a few swift motions, had her sweatpants untied and down around her ankles, leaving Allison standing in only a sheer pink mesh and lace thong. It hid nothing, and it earned an appreciative lift of the eyebrows from Seth in the instant before he dropped to his knees and pressed his mouth to the tiny triangle of fabric. He worked his lips down to the point of the
vee
and breathed hotly through the diaphanous silk. Allison’s legs were spread just enough that her clit and pussy were both warmed by the rush of air, and without thinking about it, she pulled one foot loose from her sweats and lifted it to Seth’s shoulder, trying to get even closer to his mouth.

It felt too good to be believed. The silk was so thin that she felt his breath keenly, the faint stubble on his chin and insistent press of his nose above where his lips were busy driving her insane.

When he stopped and swung her leg off his shoulder to get to his feet again, Allison moaned in complaint.

“This way?” Before she could answer, he grabbed her hand and pulled her after him down the hallway to the bedroom. She didn’t have time to feel relieved that she’d managed to tidy it. Seth maneuvered her to the side of the bed and turned her by the shoulders to face away from him, urging her with his hands to bend over. Allison grasped the red velvet with both hands, abandoning herself to the sensations of the fabric beneath her and Seth at her back. She felt as though every nerve ending from her waist down was alive and prickling with anticipation. She could feel his gaze like a tangible heat. His gentle, deliberate motions as he slid her panties off were enough to set Allison trembling again. She wondered if he was planning to keep his clothes on indefinitely, then stopped wondering when she felt his hands again, running from her hips down the backs of her thighs to her knees.

“Beautiful,” he whispered. His lips brushed against the back of one upper thigh, and she had to bite her lip to stifle a moan.

He stroked his hands slowly back up her legs and let his fingers come to rest in a loose frame around her sex, which was throbbing with anticipation. When he started stroking his thumbs slowly along her pussy lips, spreading the delicate folds wider, Allison
did
start moaning. She felt his breath before his tongue, hot and eager, warming the space between his hands. Warming her entire body. By the time he started to lick her, a long, slow exploration of each fold, each taste he encountered, she was shivering with need.

He curled his tongue around her clit once, a concentrated dose of suspenseful bliss, then went back to his torturously slow study. A few strokes later, another deliberate lick around the tight, aroused bundle of nerves, and Allison whimpered.

Seth chuckled at her distress. “I’m so torn,” he murmured against her, his lips never stopping their restless motions. “I want you so much I’m dying, here. But I really, really want to find out what you taste like when you come.”

“Decisions, decisions,” Allison muttered, arching her back even more. Her voice cracked, embarrassingly enough. She just needed to come, she no longer cared about the method. “Either way. I’m open.”

“Yes, you are,” Seth confirmed, and spread her open even wider before placing a series of soft, affectionate kisses over her pussy. It was a brief diversion. He shifted without warning and plunged his tongue inside her channel, building a steady rhythm that pushed Allison even closer to the climax she was now craving desperately. Then he moved his hand to her mound and started toying with her clit, flicking his fingers over her flesh only enough to tease, not to send her over the edge. His next question, though, threw her off.

“If you come now, will you come again later, when I’m inside you?”

“I don’t know.” She was too startled, her guard too far down, to think of anything that sounded better. With James, coming once had been enough of a rarity. Coming twice had never been an option on the table.

“You don’t know?”

“Um…”

“Oh, well, that settles it then. Now it’s all about research.” He shifted his mouth, wrapped his lips around her clit and flicked his tongue against it relentlessly while he slid two fingers in and out of her cunt with a rapid, steady pace that soon had Allison crying out and writhing closer to him. He never slowed, never let her stop to think, until she felt as though her whole body was screaming with the need for release. Where he had teased earlier, he forced the point now, pushing her higher and higher.

She had never been handled that way, never felt she was being forced to come whether she was ready or not. It was almost frightening, how easily he drew from her the precise reaction he wanted. She felt her climax approaching and couldn’t have stopped it if she’d tried. When it hit her, long and powerful, Seth kept going, milking every ounce of her response with an approving hum. The vibration set off another chain of exquisite tremors, racking Allison’s frame with pleasure.

She had never known anything like it. Even when the movements of his hands and mouth started to slow, she kept rolling in a haze of ecstasy. When she started to ache from the overload of sensation, she slapped her hands against the quilt in frustration. She could have happily let Seth go on forever, and the notion that her body was betraying her in this was absurdly offensive. She knew it wasn’t quite a rational viewpoint, but growled out a protest anyway when he eased away.