Playing the Game (28 page)

“Random Stranger, meet Henry, my fucking coach. Henry, please teach Random Stranger how to touch me properly.” She shed her bathrobe and gathered her clothes.

Henry, of course, would be unfailingly polite. “Certainly. It’s a pleasure to meet you, Random Stranger. Tell me, how did you and Alice meet? If you’d just remove your clothing, we’ll begin. Have you touched many women before?”

Dropping to the futon, she rolled with laughter. “Oh God. That’s too perfect.” She gasped for breath. “Shit, Henry, how the fuck am I ever gonna meet a man who measures up?”

Maybe he considered his attentiveness normal behavior. The appropriate courtesy for sexual partners. He’d probably die before he left one unsatisfied. His parents had probably sat him down for The Talk and handed him a book.

“
Sexual Etiquette for All Occasions
, that’s just the thing, Henry, dear. Do come to us if you have any questions.” She giggled. Every guy should have a copy of Henry’s guidebook.

But if their last night fucking each other was Henry’s basic repertoire–the comforting bath, the tender touching, the snuggling and caressing, the three rounds of fucking and the hearty breakfast afterward–and if the flogging that had sent her brain to a happy, happy place was the intermediate course…

She sighed, half-dressed, staring at her ceiling while her legs hung off the side of her futon.

“Jay, you are one lucky fucking bastard.” By extension, so was she. For now.

Odd to be excited not only by the sex but also by the promise of more of it. Especially after four months.

From the third of August, when Henry had bent her over his dining room table and fucked her while dinner waited on them, to today, the day after Thanksgiving, when she had no idea of his plans and couldn’t wait for seven o’clock to arrive.

“Almost four months, and I’m not bored with them.”

Only two of her real relationships had lasted this long. Maybe Henry had the right idea, with his contracts and his every-two-weeks model. The sex meant more when she had to wait for it and she didn’t feel pressure to perform at the drop of a hat.

He wouldn’t text her at one in the morning on a Tuesday because he was drunk and horny, and he wouldn’t expect her to run right over and blow him. He hadn’t expected a blowjob at all yet. He didn’t treat her like a convenience.

He respected her, because they had a piece of paper. Okay, several pieces of paper. He’d signed them as a promise that he would. She didn’t expect Henry broke many promises. He just made her wait. And waiting built her sex drive in a frenzy of anticipation no matter how many times she got herself off during the time between.

If Jay was a lucky bastard, then Henry was a clever one. He’d held her attention for four months, and he’d only fucked her twice the entire time.

“You’re an evil fucking genius, Henry.”

She finished dressing and hurried out the door. Not needing to shop wouldn’t bar her from spending the day people-watching. Faneuil Hall was bound to be packed. She’d wander for a few hours. Keep an eye out for hot guys who wouldn’t mind getting sex lessons in how to please her from Henry.

What, you mean guys like Jay?

“Shut up, brain.” She headed for the Longwood Station to catch the D train. “If we weren’t friends and the sex wasn’t so hot, I’d have already said ‘so long’ by now. I don’t need all that relationship drama. Henry’s just good at making everything…easy.”

She spent most of the day thinking about Henry and Jay and their nights together anyway. Or, more to the point, their mornings together. Three, now. True, the contract had the option. She wasn’t arguing with Henry’s choices, not when they turned out so satisfying for her own libido. But three. In a row. Their time together was expanding. Was that good? Or did it mean they were rushing toward an end?

What did it mean if she wasn’t ready for that? She’d never had trouble closing the door on a sex partner before. Even with Adam, after two years, she hadn’t felt conflicted about turning him down. When things were over, they were over.

But when she took the train home at five thirty and discovered Henry’s note waiting, the thrill still rushed through her. The jump in her pulse and the desperate need to see what instructions he’d left.

She pulled the envelope from the wood and took it inside.

“It’s okay,” she murmured as she opened the flap. “It’s just a temporary addiction.”

No special instructions tonight. Which meant what she wore didn’t matter, because she wouldn’t be wearing it long.

Shedding her clothes, she stepped into the shower. She resisted the urge to touch herself beyond what was necessary for cleanliness, though the arousal that had simmered in the back of her mind all day was nearing a boil. Touching herself now would be disrespectful to Henry. As if she were telling him he couldn’t get the job done, even if he’d never know.

She would know.

She put on the slate-gray underwear from a set he’d given her and a deep green dress, darker than his eyes, that floated above her knees and bared her back. Flat sandals, because they were easier to slip off at the door. She’d better hope they weren’t playing strip poker tonight. Once her shoes were off, she’d only last two hands.

* * * *

Jay answered her knock at seven. Her body brushed his as she entered the apartment, his dress shirt crisp against her arm. He swayed toward her before he remembered himself and closed the door.

Eyeing him, she toed off her sandals to match his own bare feet. He resembled an elegant party favor, in sharp black slacks and a deep bronze shirt with a tie design she recognized, though she’d never seen Jay wear it. Confetti and balloon glass on a deep red background. A Frank Lloyd Wright design.

She smiled, and he grasped her hands and kissed her cheeks. “Ready, Alice?”

“Boy howdy am I,” she teased.

He smirked. “Can’t wait to see him, can you?” His voice lowered to a whisper. “I get that feeling every day on my ride home from work.”

She almost missed the rhythm of the conversation, fumbling not to blurt something stupid about how she didn’t have that option. Henry wasn’t waiting for her at the end of every day. But she wouldn’t want him to anyway. Too much pressure. Right. Right?

She dug deep for a smirk of her own. “That’s because you’re a horny devil.”

“Nope.” He led her down the hall toward Henry’s bedroom. “I am, but that’s not why.”

He ushered her into the doorway ahead of him. They both stopped a step over the threshold, Jay’s right hand resting on her right hip.

Henry stood at his dresser with his back to them. He wore black pants and a dress shirt similar to Jay’s, but in a creamy white. Surely he’d heard them coming down the hall. His shoulders flexed as he straightened.

Alice and Jay inhaled as one breath.

“That’s why,” Jay murmured. “I love that feeling.”

If what Jay felt was anything like what she felt, it was an exquisite mix of comfort and desire, of the certainty that her entire being rested securely in Henry’s hands.

When Henry turned, he held three half-filled glasses of wine. “Come here, my dears.”

Though she wanted to scamper to his side, she held herself to a slow walk.

Henry’s tie matched Jay’s, the same Frank Lloyd Wright confetti and balloon design but on a cornflower blue background. Festive. Playful, within a structured pattern.
Like me? Us?
Her fingers rose on instinct, hovering in front of his tie as he handed a wineglass to Jay and pecked his lips.

Henry drew her attention from the tie with a tip of his head. “It’s all right to touch, Alice. You like the ties, I take it?”

She ran her fingers down the center. Soft. Silky. She nodded.

“Wonderful. They reminded me of you, dearest. It seemed an appropriate choice for such a festive occasion.”

Were they celebrating? Treating Thanksgiving as if it were a New Year’s party seemed strange.

Henry handed her a glass. The wine held a strong golden color, a shade lighter than her hair. It smelled of Christmas, a sweet and spicy mix of nutmeg and citrus and candied apricots. Henry nudged her chin up with his free hand and gently claimed her mouth. His fingers brushed her hair back when he let her go.

“A toast to the birthday girl, hmm?” Henry lifted his glass.

“You remembered.” Her pleasure was obvious in her voice. In four days, she’d turn twenty-eight. His remembering didn’t surprise her, but his mentioning her birthday tonight did. It seemed to belong in the friend sphere.

“And would have done so last year, had you been so kind as to inform us before rather than after the happy occasion.” Henry smiled as he chided her, and she looked away.

He and Jay had taken her to dinner last January upon learning they’d missed her birthday. Henry had seemed to consider it a personal failure that he hadn’t asked sooner. Of course, she’d been dating Brandon in January, and he hadn’t been thrilled about her going out with two male friends. His reaction had precipitated their breakup. Too territorial. God forbid she let him hang around through Valentine’s.

“But it’s no matter now, Alice. We’ll simply make this birthday a more memorable one.” He tilted his glass, and she and Jay raised theirs. “To a life filled with many memorable birthdays for our dear girl.”

The glasses chimed as they touched. The wine was deliciously sweet, a dessert in itself, like pears or peaches coated with honey.

“Good enough to taste again,” Henry said, his voice low and rolling.

His tongue swept across her lips and inside as though he chased the flavor. The kiss hardened her nipples and made her thighs clench.

He urged her to take another sip. “Jay ought to have a taste. It’s traditional to kiss the birthday girl.”

She took another sip of wine, the flavor intensified by the knowledge of what would come after. Jay lapped at her lips before he deepened their kiss. Her body ached with want by the time his taste ended.

Henry handed off the glasses to Jay and took her hands in his. He rubbed his thumbs across her knuckles.

“We’ve a long night of traditions ahead of us. Let’s begin with this one, shall we?” He squeezed her hands. “Tell me your safeword, Alice.”

“Pistachio.”

“Excellent. And when will you use your word?”

“When I’m feeling too unsure to continue.” Henry was scrupulous about ensuring she never reached that point, though.

“Lovely. And will you hesitate if that moment comes?”

“No, Henry.” She shook her head. “I’ll tell you the truth and trust you to understand.”

“My beautiful girl. You learn so well.”

Henry embraced her, his hands stroking her bare back. Jay placed the glasses on the dresser.

“Thank you, my boy.”

Henry stepped back to stand beside Jay, the two of them studying her in silence. Henry was appraising her, perhaps, assessing the drape of her dress or the play of light across it. Jay stared with a hunger she felt herself.

“There’s a rhythm, Alice, to birthday parties.” Henry circled her, closing in until his nearness warmed her back. “A sense of give and take.”

His hands spanned her back, palms splayed, and his fingers slipped under the sides of her dress. She forced herself to stillness, but it was hard, so very hard when she wanted to beg him to take her. He stroked upward. His fingers lifted and spread the straps of her dress, dropping them to her arms, where they shifted and slid as she breathed.

Two feet in front of her, Jay pined for her breasts, undoubtedly waiting for the breath that would send the fabric cascading past her nipples and bare her to his view. For a gayboy, he was quite the breast man. She smothered a giggle.

Henry’s lips grazed the left side of her neck, and a small gasp escaped as she tilted her head to give him more access.

“We’ll start with a bit of unwrapping, hmm?” He rubbed her upper arms as if he sought to warm her, dislodging her dress. Her hips were all that held it up.

Jay half stepped forward before he stopped himself, his gaze fixed on her breasts.

Henry’s voice lowered to a whisper. “Jay’s rather fond of the unwrapping. And it’s only fitting for the birthday girl to be in her birthday suit.”

Closing her eyes, she shivered at the promise in his tone. He took his time lowering his hands, avoiding her breasts and holding his body away from hers. Close enough for heat but not touch. He did seem to love making her wait.