Singe (4 page)

Close, Eli realizes. Shit, she is
close
. She’s so quiet it’s hard to tell. “’Course,” he says, settling back in to kiss her salty neck, bite at her jaw. Her hair is soft when he presses his face in it and there’s the gardenia smell again, strongest behind her ear. He gives her more pressure with his palm, trying to get her there. Her breathing is so fast.

“Fuck,
don’t
stop,” Addie begs. She sounds terrified he actually might.

Eli figured when he finally got her sincere—when he finally got her to the sweaty, gasping point, finally figured out what an ironic orgasm sounds like—he’d feel smug. Joke’s on him though, because instead he feels as desperate as she is. “What is it?” he asks as she strains against his fingers, hips churning. “Come on, Addie, what do you need?” She just shakes her head wordlessly, yanking at her hair. God, Eli wishes he had his mouth on her, he’d get her off for sure then. “Do you need more?” he tries, turning his hand so he can rub his thumb against her clit, fast and focused. “Is that it?”

It is, apparently. Addie closes her thighs around his hand and wails.

“Shit,” Eli says out loud. He half loses it himself watching her, twitching dangerously before getting himself under control, Addie working herself through it nice and rhythmic. Her chin tilts up toward the ceiling, the long graceful column of her throat. Eli can see her pulse fluttering there, quick and thready. She looks like—shit, she looks like
art
.

“Umm,” she says when she’s finished, this audible swallow, the muscles in her throat jumping once. She licks her bottom lip, cautious. Eli brushes her thigh as he pulls his fingers out, and her whole body jumps like an electric shock. “Umm.”

Eli grins.
Now
he feels a little smug, it is possible—or not smug, exactly, but. Pleased with himself. “So, yeah,” he says conversationally, shifting his weight against her. His pants slip farther down his hips. “That was me working for it, doing my thing.”

Addie snorts. “Asshole,” she huffs, head thunking back against the arm of the futon. She closes her eyes and opens them again, those long lashes. Her mascara’s good and smudged, that’s for sure. “
God
, Eli.”

Eli looks back, still smiling. When she reaches up to touch his cheek he turns his head and plants a kiss on her palm, feeling fond of her in a way he maybe wasn’t exactly expecting. It’s not like it’s the first time he’s gotten a woman off—it’s not, honestly, even the first time he’s done it this week—but he just, he wouldn’t have thought Addie Manzella of all people would sound quite so
surprised
, he guesses. He wonders if he ought to be insulted. Could be that’s the ironic part.

Which isn’t to say he hates it, definitely. The expression on her face, one distracted hand drifting down to fuss with the open fly of his suit pants, her knuckles brushing over his cock—Eli doesn’t hate that at all.

Addie squirms underneath him, coming back to herself, impatient. “Take those off,” she says.

Eli grins. “Yes, ma’am.”

Chapter Three

Okay, Addie tells herself. God,
okay
, that was—hmm. That was. “Nice boxers,” she tells Eli, fighting to keep her voice even. Boxer briefs actually, obnoxious blue-and-yellow stripes that stretch across his junk and his solid round ass in a way that reminds Addie of a bumblebee. Bro underwear. Christ. It’s like the idiot was never married at all.

“Thanks.” Eli stands up to fold his pants, fishing his wallet out of the back pocket. Condoms, Addie thinks dazedly, right. There’s a wet spot, she can see it now that he’s standing, one yellow stripe across the front of his fly gone translucent and clingy like tissue. Just looking at it is enough to make it feel like a hand has reached down between her legs and squeezed.

“Hurry,” Addie adds, wetting her dry lips.

Eli’s eyebrows jump. He shucks his boxers with no ceremony and God, Addie has never been this visual in her
life
, but just seeing him makes her want to squirm. “Gimme a sec,” he says, ripping open the little foil packet and rolling the latex down. Addie remembers being fourteen, Aunt Margery teaching her and Jenn with a banana and some Trojans. Aunt Margery was all about safe sex, even if the National Catholic Education Association wasn’t. Their mothers yelled at her when they found out, of course, but Jenn and Addie were the ones who had to go to confession and kneel in the velvet booths. Addie remembers the tacky lube on her fingers, the absolute certainty she was going to hell.

“Okay,” Eli says. He flops down beside her on the futon like a puppy, everything bouncing ridiculously. “Now come here.”

“Come where?” Addie raises her eyebrows like a challenge. He means on top, clearly, but it’s possible she’s looking to get manhandled. He’s got good hands, Eli does, though she’d never admit it to him out loud in a million years. They’re big. She wants them on her. She wants never to let him know how much she does.

Turns out he knows it anyway—he rolls his eyes good-naturedly and hauls her up until she’s straddling his narrow hips, legs bent on either side of his ribcage. He makes her feel kind of delicate in a way she’s not really used to. It’s nice, Addie has to admit that much. “Up here, princess,” Eli says, thumbing rough circles on her knees and rubbing her thighs. His hair’s all crazy, dark and mussed.

“Oh, up
here
.” She grins down at him, leaning forward so he’ll suck her bottom lip for a minute—and, okay, also to get her rack in his face. Addie knows how to work for it too. She wants to be close to him now, the full-body buzz of the orgasm she guesses, how she wants to tuck her head under his chin like a cat and sink right down onto him in equal measure. She wants to feel him on her everywhere at once. “Up here’s good.”

“Mm-hmm.” Eli gets his hand around the base of himself and rubs along the length of her once, twice, three times, her whining every time he does it; the fourth time she shifts her hips and he catches, just the blunt press of the head inside. Addie glances down, wanting to see.

“Slow,” she warns. She hasn’t done this with a ton of guys and it hurts if she’s not careful. Eli looks thick.

“’Course.” He rubs his free hand over her thigh, big and warm. “You’re the boss.”

Addie rolls her eyes, but in truth it’s reassuring to hear. Eli’s good to his word, holding himself in place while she works her way down, a little and then a little more. “Okay,” she says finally, pausing. There’s maybe an inch, two inches left, the ring of latex. “Gimme one sec?”

Eli nods, pulse ticking away in his throat. He looks faintly shocked. Addie hopes it’s not because she’s terrible at this.

“Okay,” she says again. She breathes. Shuts her eyes and presses down that final aching bit, letting her full weight rest against him. Thick, God in heaven, he is
definitely
— “Sorry. Thanks. You’re very patient.” He’s completely in now, muted pressure everywhere; Addie wiggles around, testing, but it makes her gasp in a bad way. “Shit, sorry, just one more sec.”

“No problem.” Eli rubs up her thighs, reaching around to squeeze her ass. Guys always like Addie’s ass, her curvy hips that make it impossible to find a nice pair of jeans. Addie goes back and forth on them, herself. “Take your time,” he tells her, but his voice is strained as all get out.

Addie laughs and sits all the way up again, how sometimes it’s easier at that angle. Eli’s eyes nearly bug out of his head. “Christ
fuck
, Addie,” he says quietly, dark gaze raking all over her body. His mouth is open just the tiniest bit, shock or pleasure. It makes him look younger, like the teenager he must have been.

“Yeah?” She grins, feeling some of the stretch ease inside of her as she gets settled—guys, unsurprisingly, always like her boobs too. They’re another part of her body she’s undecided about, most days, no spaghetti straps in the summer without looking totally obscene and a minimizing bra since 8th grade just so her uniform blouse wouldn’t gape. Still, the way Eli’s staring at her right this minute, animal and
hungry
—Addie would be lying if she said it didn’t make her feel kind of stupidly powerful. The hot burn between her legs has dulled into a muted ache that’s almost pleasurable, like the morning after a long shift at work. “That okay?”

“Mm-hmm.” Eli nods, expression on his face like he’s concentrating, the tips of her fingers just brushing the scars on his chest. Then, when Addie tries shifting her weight on him just the tiniest bit: “Shit, you’re
tight
.”

Addie hums. She likes this, she’s finding, the weird reassurance of having him talk to her. Anthony the Big Y manager was always totally silent until the very end. She tries lifting off, slow and experimental. On her way back down he rubs against something insanely good inside her body, some secret electric place. The gasp she lets out then is the good kind, no question about that.

Eli notices. He’s watching her, looking for clues.
You’re the boss
, he told her. “Do that again?” he asks now, licking his thumb and then using it to open her up, rubbing through the hair until he finds what he’s after. Addie squirms. “Addie, baby, please.”

Addie feels her eyebrows quirk. “‘Baby’?” It’s not entirely bad, coming from slutty Eli Grant. She rolls her hips obediently, trying to find the spot again. He’s got good fingers, Jesus H. Christ. Big Y Anthony always used to rub too hard.

“Shit.” Eli grabs at her thigh with his free hand as soon as she starts rocking, sweat-sticky palm. When his chest flushes, his burns stand out even more, Addie notices, silvery against his pink skin. “Uh-huh, you heard me. Are you one of those girls who doesn’t like it?” His voice sounds shredded, like what they’re doing is running it through a cheese grater.

Addie wrinkles her nose, still smiling. “You figure it out.” She rocks faster, interested in his expression. She’s just inching really, little thrusts, but Eli’s face suggests he’s feeling them in a big way. “That good?”

Eli squeezes his eyes shut and opens them again, gulping. “God, yeah,” he says, eyes raking her body. “Too good.” The thumb between her legs rubs harder, enough to make Addie flinch. “How you doing?”

“No such thing as too good,” she declares, ignoring the question and reaching down to collect his hand. She grabs his other one too, lacing their fingers together and pulling until he locks his elbows to give her some leverage. “Now,” she says, sitting up and getting ready to bounce. It’s her party trick. It ends guys in a flash. “Say ‘baby’ again. And ‘please’.”

Eli’s lips twist like he thinks she’s making fun of him—which okay, she kind of is, but not in a mean way. God, the last thing she’s feeling toward him is mean. Still. “Come on, Eli,” she prods, rocking a bit harder, liking the way his eyes are glued to her body. It hurts, yeah, with her so sensitive and swollen and him as (all right, yes) big as he is, but it’s not a bad hurt at all and it’s not nearly enough to stop her. She’s competitive, Addie. She always has been. She wants to beat him at his own game.

It’s working too. The harder she rides him the tighter he squeezes her hands, this helpless look on his face like she’s wrecking him a little. More than a little. “Jesus, Addie—” he starts, but she shakes her head like
not good enough
and his skull drops back against the futon for a second, the vulnerable jut of his Adam’s apple and the tendon in his neck. It makes Addie want to bite.

“Wait wait wait,” he says next, trying again, but Addie doesn’t wait at all, picking up the pace even more until she hears him inhale sharp and ragged. He says it then, just before he loses it entirely: “Baby,
please
.”

And—yeah. Addie is definitely not one of those girls who doesn’t like it.

It’s gratifying, watching him come apart underneath her—more than anyone else she’s been with, truthfully, his open, handsome face and his quiet groan. “There,” she tells him, rubbing both thumbs along his knuckles as she works him through it. “There you go.” When he finishes, Addie leans over to kiss him impulsively, just a soft press against his bottom lip.

Eli squirms a hand free of hers and fists it in her hair, holding her face against his. He’s breathing too hard to kiss back. “Addie-girl,” is all he says.

Addie Manzella, it turns out, is the type who has her underwear back on before Eli even finishes chucking out the condom. He guesses he should have expected that. “You want more water?” she calls, bouncing up off the futon to root through her dresser. A cotton T-shirt gets dragged over her head without the benefit of a bra. “We probably need some more water, you and I.”

“Sure.” Eli watches her tear around the apartment, neatening the mess—magazines into a pile on the coffee table, clothes into a plastic pink hamper—before heading toward the kitchen. He rubs the back of his neck. “Got a bathroom around here?” He needs to pee, plus he can’t find a single garbage can out in the main studio, and this condom is not going in his pocket. He did that once, one of the very first dates he went on after the divorce, an assistant professor at Williams College named Sue. He was nervous.

“Through the back,” Addie calls, running the tap. She’s just as pretty from behind, that long tangle of curly hair. It frizzed up where she was lying on it, a dark corona around her head like a devil’s halo. She put her cross back on too. “Don’t forget your pants though, if you’re planning on a fire escape getaway.”

“I never forget.” Eli detours through the kitchen to squeeze her ass, getting a look that could freeze water for his troubles. Still, he’s pretty sure she smiles at the sink when he walks away.