ROMANCING MO RYAN (11 page)

“Because I don’t tow the conservative line?”

“Don’t tow it?
 
You don’t even consider a different point of view.
 
You mention the other side of the issue, but only in passing.
 
The meat of your stories always tend to draw conclusions rather than offer information.”

Nikki didn’t know what to say to that.
 
But before she could even think about finding the words to respond, the waitress returned with their food.

They ate slowly and awkwardly, and hardly talked at all.
 
EttaMae was back doing her second set, and Mo was grooving to her beat.
 
Until, near dinner’s end, he said: “Charlie Parker.”

Nikki tapped her lips with her napkin and looked at him.

“The Essential Charlie Parker.
 
That’ll be a good jazz CD for you.
 
A good first jazz record.”

Once again, Nikki didn’t know what to say.
 
This man confounded her unlike any other human being ever had.
 
“Okay,” she said, even though she sounded vague and skeptical.

“We’ll swing by my place after dinner and pick it up,” he said as if it were a fact, not a suggestion.

He parked his Mercedes in front of his garage, walked around and assisted Nikki out, and then they both walked around a curved sidewalk to the front door.
 
Mo looked down at Nikki as they stood at that front door and he placed the key into his lock.
 
“You okay?” he asked her.

“Yes,” she said, attempting to smile, although her eyes, as usual, gave her away.
 

It was dark when they entered and Nikki waited in the foyer for him to turn off his house alarm and flick on a light.
 
When he did she was immediately struck by the somberness of the place.
 
It was such a huge home, with vaulted ceilings, brick-lined walls, two fireplaces (one in the livingroom area and one further back, in the dining room), all surrounded by plush leather furniture and beautiful Persian rugs strategically placed along the glossy hardwood floors.
 
But it didn’t look lived-in.
 
It looked more like a showroom, a place the judge entertained his occasional guests, but as for him, he just ate and slept there.
 
It was a home that was so pristine, in fact, that Nikki could only conclude that she had a very hard to please man on her hands. Kind of like Lance McKay on steroids.

“Would you like something to drink?” he asked as he walked toward the bar near the back of the room.
 

“No, I’m fine,” she said as she made her way further into the massive great room.
 

He took off his bomber jacket and tossed it across the arm of a chair, revealing those thick biceps she remembered so well, and then poured himself a drink.
 
Then he walked over to the entertainment center that was built into the wall, and began his search for Charlie Parker’s CD.

Nikki sat down in the nearest seat, which was a small, antique love seat facing the fireplace.
 
It wasn’t the most comfortable of settees, but she tried to relax anyway.
 
But there was yet one problem.
 
That tight ass dress Lance had thought was the perfect dress to wear.
 
Since Mo’s back was to her, she sat on the edge of the sofa and tugged on her dress as hard as possible, trying to miraculously lengthen it, and kept her legs as tightly closed and cocked sideways, to ensure no sneak peeps.
 
But it was hardly a comfortable sitting position. She wondered how other women did it so easily.
 

Mo had said that she was too narrowly focused, and he was right, she thought, as she looked at him, because she hadn’t given the next step a single thought.
 

He stood at that entertainment center searching through a large selection of CDs, his body straight, his ass tight, and it would seem implausible that a man like him wouldn’t have a sex drive out of this world.
 
Women had to want him.
 
He was wealthy, successful, gorgeous as all get out.
 
And the women who wanted him were probably just as experienced as he.
 
Why was he so bent on spending any time at all with a princess, as Lance would have put it, when he could be with a Queen?

“Here we are,” he said as he finally found the CD he was looking for.
 
He walked over and handed it to Nikki.
 
Then he sat beside her, the aroma of his cologne making her too comfortable now.

“Thanks,” she said as she looked at the various song selections.

“It’s been digitally re-mastered,” he said, “which isn’t the best way to enjoy jazz.
 
But it’s a start.”

Their eyes met when he said this.
 
And then he leaned back.
 
She was seated on the very edge of the sofa, just a sneeze from falling off, and she was disappointed that she had done so.
 
Now he could lean back and stare at her with abandon.
 

“When my dad was alive he was really into jazz too,” she said.
 
“But he didn’t go out and buy any records or anything.
 
He just always talked about how he liked jazz.”

“What kind of music do you like?” Mo asked her.

She turned sideways, to at least be able to look at him, but he, in his leaned back, relaxed position, still had the upper hand.
 
“R&B mainly, some rap, some folk.”

He smiled.
 
“Folk?”

“You know, Tracy Chapman, Marcy Gray, shit, I mean, stuff like that.
 
I wasn’t talking about no Joan Baez or Bob Dylan now, I wasn’t going that far.”

Mo laughed.
 
“Just checking.”

“No way.”

“You say R&B.
 
Does that include old school?”

“You mean like Luther Vandross and The O'Jays and Gladys Knight and the Pips, people like that?”

“Right.”

“Not really.”

He laughed again.

“And I don’t have anything against them either.
 
But...”

“Let me guess: they aren’t your thing?”

She smiled.
 
“Right.”

“You shouldn’t limit yourself that way.”

“I don’t think I limit myself.
 
I just like what I like.”

“But have you ever really listened to old school to render an opinion?”

“I heard some of that stuff, yeah.
 
It just doesn’t turn me on, that’s all.”

She could tell that she had hit a chord with him because he suddenly crossed his legs and laid his hand on her bare arm.
 
She shivered when he did.
 

“Just what turns you on, Nicole?” he asked her.
 

She looked at him.
 
She didn’t know a lot about love, but she knew a lust-filled brother when she saw one.
 
And Mo Ryan, at that very moment in time, was off the chain.
 
The moment of truth, she thought.

“Many things turn me on.”

“Such as?”
 
He slowly began rubbing her arm.
 
If she was really true to herself, she thought, she would snatch away from him and tell him to hold on, not so fast, she wasn’t practically a virgin for twenty-five years for nothing.
 
He wasn’t about to hit and run on her again this easily.

But she didn’t pull away from him at all.
 
She, in fact, started leaning more in his direction than away from him.
 
His slow massage felt good, like a warm bath, like a splash in the pool on a hot, summer day.
 
She actually wanted to close her eyes and enjoy the moment.
 
“Food turns me on,” she said.

“What else?”

“A good book.”

“And?”

“A good story.”

“Always the journalist.
 
And?”

“And, I don’t know, good music.
 
My kind, anyway.”
 
She said this and smiled.
 
But he was too far gone for smiling.
 
His rubbing intensified, and when he exhaled, it sounded more like a lustful, almost plaintive grunt, than a sigh.

When Nikki looked at him, he smiled, touched the side of her face, and pulled her against him.
 
She leaned back, with her head on his shoulder.
 

They stayed that way for a long time.
 
Nikki felt so wonderful, so protected, that she wanted to cry.
 
But she didn’t shed a tear.
 
She had to maintain some control, she insisted.
 
She wasn’t ready to let go.

But Mo was.
 
He was past ready.
 
And he told her so.
 
“You know what I need to do, Nikki,” he said in a barely audible voice.
 
“Don’t you?”

Nikki couldn’t lie, even though she didn’t want to admit it.
 
“Yes,” she replied.

He kissed her hair.
 
“Do I need to be blunt the way you insisted the last time?” he asked her.

She wanted to be bold the way she was two years ago and say that it depended on what his intentions were the day after.
 
But she’d changed since then.
 
She had missed him so completely, for months after their departure, that the idea of turning him down now was almost something she didn’t think she was capable of doing.
 

“No,” she said and as soon as she said it he lifted her chin, looked into her face, and kissed her with an endearing kiss.
 

He wrapped her into his arms and couldn’t stop kissing her.
 
He pulled her onto his lap and couldn’t stop kissing her.
 
By the time she felt it too, and was smooching as passionately as he was, and was just wrapping her arms around his neck, he stood up, lifting her with him, and carried her upstairs.

He unzipped her dress, and then lifted up her bra, as he carried her upstairs.
 
He moved from her lips to her breasts, kissing her passionately, as they entered his mammoth master bedroom.
 
He laid her on the bed and finished undressing her.
 
Then he slipped his shirt over his head and stepped out of his pants and briefs.
 

Nikki’s breath caught when she saw his penis dangling before her.
 
She remembered it as clearly as if it was yesterday, she remembered every inch of it.
 
And she suddenly wanted to touch it, to feel the massiveness of it in her small hands.
 
So she sat up and placed it, not only in her hand, but took him in her mouth.

Mo lifted his head and let out a grunt so passionate, so erotic, that Nikki knew she had made the exact right move.
 

He knew it too, as he placed his hands on the side of her soft hair, and moved her head back and forward in the rhythm he wanted.
 
Every muscle in his body felt relaxed as she did him, and her touch, her lick, her suck was so precise that his penis began enlarging almost to the point of no return.
 
Before he came in her mouth, he pulled out, and knelt down.

“Lay back for me, sweetheart,” he said as she laid back.
 
“I want to taste you, too.”
 
He then removed her panties, opened her legs as wide as they could go, and began giving her the kind of head she had given him.

Nikki’s small body arched at his touch, as it did that night in
Cleveland
, but this time it felt even more intense.
 
Mainly because this wasn’t as casual to her.
 
This wasn’t some one-night fling for her that she had thought at the time would be quickly forgotten.
 
Because it wasn’t quickly forgotten.
 
And that history, coupled with those feelings for him she couldn’t seem to control, made the experience of his tongue licking her, biting her, tasting her, almost too heady to bear.
 

“Like it?” he asked as she squirmed where she lay.
 

“Yes,” she said.
 
“I . . . absolutely . . . love it.”

“I love licking you, and tasting you, too, baby.
 
I love it, too, Nikki,” he said between tastes.

And soon he couldn’t bear it any longer, either.
 
That was why he stood up, lifted her, pulled back the covers, and placed her between his sheets.
 
Then he lay on top of her.
 
He kissed her on the lips.

“Are you taking any birth control, Nikki?” he asked her between his kisses.

“Yes,” she said.
 
She took birth control, not because she was sexually active, but because it helped with her monthly menses.
 

He looked her in the eyes, the seriousness in his look giving her some pause.
 
“I want to go in raw, Nikki,” he said to her, moving down and kissing her breasts.
 
“I want to feel you wrapped around me so tight I feel as if I’m suffocating.
 
Will you let me?”

Nikki arched her body as his mouth captured her breasts.
 
She hated being so weak, but she couldn’t help herself.
 
This man made her weak with lust!
 
And she had to believe him.

“I’ve been wearing condoms for years now,” he continued.
 
“I’ve worn a condom with every woman I’ve been with.”
 

What he didn’t mention was that this included his wife, at least after the first few months of their marriage when her erratic behavior made it clear to him that he had to protect himself, and to avoid bringing a child into that relationship at all costs.
 
But he wasn’t about to sing that long ago, broken down, sad song to her.

He rubbed her hair out of her face.
 
Nikki represented hopefulness to him, the future, not the past, a sense that there was still genuineness in this world.
 

“I want to enter you raw, Nikki,” he said again.
 
“I want to feel you raw.”

He kissed her with a hard, passionate kiss.
 
“May I, Nikki?” he asked her breathlessly. “I want to fuck you raw.
 
Please, Nikki.”

“Yes,” Nikki said.
 
“I want it too.”

And he did it.
 
He entered her with an urgency that bordered on panic.
 
And she felt so good, so tight, so damn unusually fantastic that he was at that point of no return.
 
He couldn’t stop now even if she begged him to.

He tried to maintain his cool as he entered her, but the feel of her, the ideal of her, the sweet, soft smell of her made him lose all control and he thrashed into her.
 
He, Mo Ryan, a man every woman who had ever been with him knew was always in control, was so out of control with the need to fuck Nikki that he didn’t even realize the monumental event when it happened.
 
His eyes were closed, and his head was on the side of her face, and he was fucking her with such an abandon that all he could think about was the act itself.
 
And the fact that Nikki was the one in the act.
 
No woman had ever made him feel this way.
 
Not like this!
 
And he was riding Nikki harder than he’d ever rode a woman in his life.

“Oh, Nikki,” he said as he fucked her, “you make me feel so good!”

He said this over and over as the feelings continued to intensify.
 
And it was only then, when the feeling wouldn’t ease up even for a second, was he able to tear away from his complete focus on those feelings to make sure she was feeling it too.
 

And it was only then did he realize that she was in pain.

Severe pain.

He stopped all movement.
 
“Nikki,” he said, alarmed.
 
“What’s the matter?”

Her eyes were tightly shut and a grimace was on her pretty face.
 
“Nikki, am I hurting you, baby?”

She opened her eyes and attempted to smile.
 
“It hurt initially, yes.”

His heart dropped.
 
He had been so wrapped up in his own feelings that he completely failed to notice hers.
 
The one woman he most cared about was the one woman he had so completely disregarded.
 

“Oh,
Nikki
,” he said.
 

“Don’t stop.
 
I’m okay now.”

“But you said it hurt.”

“It did initially, but it’s okay now, Mo.
 
Please don’t stop.
 
I need to get past this.”

“Past what, honey?”
 
And then he understood.
 
Completely.
 
He stared at her.
 
“You’re still .
 
.
 
. Nikki, are you telling me that you’re still a virgin?”

Nikki felt so young and so inexperienced and so vulnerable at that very moment.
 
And she hated that she was all those things and more.
 
She nodded.
 
“I was, yes,” she said and looked him dead in the eye.
 
“But not anymore.”

Mo thought that he was going to die where he lay.
 
Tears were in his eyes.
 
“Oh, Nikki,” was all he could say.

“Mo, it’s all right,” Nikki said, touching the side of his face.
 
His reaction surprised her.
 
“Please continue.
 
I’m fine now.”

But Mo wasn’t about to just continue.
 
He slowly pulled out of her, feeling the friction for what it truly was, and then he laid on his back, and pulled her on top of him.

He held her tightly and smoothed down her hair.
 
How he could have been so overcome with passion that he didn’t realize what he was doing to her astounded him still.
 
“I’m an asshole, Nikki,” he said to her.
 
“I am such an asshole.”

But Nikki would have none of it.
 
What did he think she was, some fragile innocent?
 
She grabbed hold of his moist penis and slid it back into her vagina.

“Nikki,” he said, frustration of what he had done and the fact that, once again, there was no completion with her, all over his face.
 

“Ride me, Mo,” she said to him. “Or I’ll ride you.”

Mo moved his head from side to side.
 
“Nikki, I hurt you and was too wrapped up in my own feelings to even realize it.”

“You were fucking me, what are you talking about?
 
This wasn’t some therapy session.
 
When you fuck that’s the way it goes, doesn’t it? You have to be wrapped up in your own feelings or what’s the damn point?”

But Mo was still too disappointed in himself to act.
 
So Nikki acted instead.
 
And she began to ride him.
 
Lance told her how that was all sex was about.
 
“It’s like a bicycle,” he once said to her.
 
“Just get on and ride.”