More Than a Man (18 page)

Realization bloomed, a sweet addition to her
desperate hunger. This was what he’d meant when he’d told her to
let go. He wanted her to let go and trust him to catch her.

Her eyes locked with his.

She let go.

The orgasm overwhelmed her. Massive crests of
sensation rolled her under, held her down, threatened to drown her.
Oh, Deity, had there ever been such pleasure?

Blackness swept in from the edges of her
vision and swamped everything. She fought to keep her hold on
awareness, fought to stay with him. Then everything slammed into
heart once. No more counterpoint. Instead, he stuffed every part of
her at the same time, ground his hips into hers.

His body pressed against hers, his mouth
finding the curve of her shoulder. He muffled his hoarse shout of
completion against her skin, and she could do no more than absorb
his final, bucking thrusts.

Long moments passed. Noelle’s skin began to
chill and the sounds of the party below started to filter through
the post-orgasmic haze. She’d just been ravished by a tentacle
monster on her balcony with a house full of guests downstairs.

She wanted him to do it again.

He slid free of her body, tentacles snaking
free of her mouth and ass, releasing her arms. Slowly, gathered her
close, dropping an affectionate kiss at the point of her chin.

“Thank you, baby. Thank you.”

She didn’t mistake his meaning. He didn’t
mean the sex. No, he meant much more than that.

Her lips twitched. A tiny giggle escaped.

Aya blinked down at her. “What?”

“Deity, Aya, what fantasy could I possibly
come up with to top that?”

“Open the door,” he whispered, his tongue hot
on the arch of her ear. “We’ll find out.”

Noelle shivered, leaned back into him, and
shook her head. “Open it yourself. You’re my husband. Your ID is as
valid now as mine.”

The End

Dear Reader,

I hope you enjoyed the possibilities inherent
in the idea of Manporium. I first conceived of the concept a few
years ago when I was months past deadline on a short story due to
Freya’s Bower for DREAMS AND DESIRES 3, a charity anthology
dedicated to women realizing their hopes and dreams. My
mother-in-law had recently given me the quilt she began stitching
when my husband was born. I realized I was almost a year into my
marriage and I didn’t even have an official wedding album put
together, let alone a hope chest in which to store a future for my
(future) children.

Thinking about the hope chest made me realize
what a dying practice it is, that preparation for a home and a
family. We modern women think of our futures in terms of financial
security—as long as we have financial security, we can simply buy
any bed linens or pot holders we might need. Why would we take the
time to craft them?

I realized the hope chest of the future might
not contain items like christening gowns, afghans and cookbooks
comprised of recipes our grandmothers and great-grandmothers used.
If not those things, what
would
be in a hope chest of the
future?

And my brain, which sometimes heads off in
directions I don’t expect, replied, “Ingredients for the perfect
man.”

Aya isn’t the first “perfect man” to come
from Manporium. That original idea first developed in “Wednesday at
the Manporium,” a short story about a young woman who, like Noelle,
got a little more than she bargained for out of her
carefully-generated list of ideal traits. After “Wednesday,” I
didn’t intend to write a second Manporium story but Elise is a
clever and persistent nag when she wants something, and she wanted
to revisit that “perfect man”. I’m glad she didn’t let me forget
Manporium and I’m glad she pushed me to come back to MORE THAN A
MAN even after long breaks of following my muse in different
directions.

Elise and I wrote a “thank you” page at the
beginning of this book, but I’d like to take the opportunity to
here to personally thank her for hanging on to Aya and Noelle and
jabbing me with her sharp stick over the course of the last year.
It’s my hope she’ll show up with her stick again and give me
another poke toward more Manporium ”success stories”.

It’s also my hope that you enjoyed MORE THAN
A MAN enough to want to revisit as well.

Regards,

Emily

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