The Do It List (The Do It List #1) (19 page)

 
Audrey pointed me in the direction of the basketball courts. “Downstairs and left—just keep heading toward the northwest corner.”

“Thanks.” I called over my shoulder and dashed away.

 
I found the courts and watched Bradley for several minutes from afar. He appeared to be a decent passer. Nice lay-up. I caught his rebound, as I took a seat on the bench.
 

Bradley ran past and held up two fingers. The puffy brow meant he’d taken an elbow to the eye. And there was evidence of a skinned knee. With this level of players, I wasn’t surprised.

They made their two points and the game broke up. New players moved onto the court while others moved to the sidelines. Several brothers took notice when Bradley grabbed a towel and joined me.

 
The taller player approached us. “Sunday mornings, Thursday nights, if you’re interested.”

“Thanks, man”
 

The brother offered a backhand bump, which Bradley answered. The six-foot-five ball player grinned at me. “You with him?” He pointed to Bradley.

I added some attitude to my nod.

“Damn, girl, break a brother’s heart.” He grumbled, backing away.

I turned to Bradley. “He’ll get over it.”

Wrapping the towel around his neck, he pulled me close for a quick kiss. “There’s a juice bar out on the deck—can I buy you a glass of green slime?”
 

I nodded. “Meet you there.” I followed Get Juiced! signs to a pleasant indoor-outdoor eatery on the river. Besides kiwi, pineapple and wheatgrass, the juice barista added kale, parsley, lemon and ginger to the extractor and out poured…green slime.

Mother would call this a badass detoxifier. Four years clean and sober, she credited her juicer for getting her through the tough times.

Bradley set his bag down and sidled up close. With his hair still damp from the showers, he appeared relaxed with great color in his face. “Hey—how’d it go?”
 

 
“Audrey or the yoga?” I examined the redness around his eye.

“Whichever one you want to talk about.”

“Yoga was amazing. Audrey was Audrey.” I changed the subject and returned to his eye. “Looks like you have to up your game.”

He grinned. “They were pretty cool about it.”

Gently, I pressed his ice-cold smoothie against the swelling. “Hold it there a minute.”

 
He rolled the cup over the injury.

“I don’t imagine there’s much pick up ball in London.”

“I’m rusty—more than I thought I’d be.”

“You’ve got some moves.”

Bradley slung my bag over his shoulder. “For a white boy.”

I slanted a look at him. “Did those brothers give you a hard time about me?”
 

He nodded. “So black girls are off limits to white guys?”

“They’d like to think so.” My gaze narrowed, irritated. “My father and mother raised us to see everyone as beautiful shades of beige and brown.”

“Do you ever go out with black men?”

“Of course—not so much lately.” I caught his eye. “Am I your first mocha chocolata ya-ya?” His lopsided grin made me laugh. “I am, aren’t I?”
 

My fingers brushed his and his hand closed over mine. “Gimme some of that gitchie, gitchie, ya-ya.” He yanked me close and kissed me on the lips.
 

On the walk home, I mulled over the revelations of the last few hours. First, the specter of the ever-present Audrey. Then Bradley’s troubled marriage story which included accusations of sexual addiction, the new name for serial cheater. A scary combination that pushed all my buttons.
 

Weirdly, I wasn’t feeling any of the usual crazy dread or angst. I credited the crisp cool air and dappled sunlight for my clarity of mind.
 

Instead of assuming the worst—that Bradley was a lying cheat. I saw him as an easy target. And the charge of sexual addiction had been made by an angry, unfaithful partner.

As for myself? I hadn’t really tried with Derek. The moment Audrey entered the picture I’d kept the relationship flirty-casual with the occasional sport fuck thrown in just for fun.
 

That kind of casual sex wasn’t going to be possible with the man walking quietly beside me, the silence between us broken only by the crunch of golden-brown leaves underfoot.

Amazingly, this felt comfortable and natural—not scary.

And I didn’t want to overanalyze us. For years, my issues and insecurities had sabotaged my relationships. But they were not going to fuck with me now.
 

Not this afternoon, anyway.
 

We settled into Sunday afternoon like an old married couple. Me in my soft, lace teddy and cut-off sweatshirt. Bradley in sweatpants and sloppy-loose V-neck tee.

I had my routines. He had his.
 

We headed straight for the bedroom and took up our stations. He piled pillows behind him, stretched out long, muscular legs, and opened his computer. I sat cross-legged on the opposite corner of the bed surrounded by the Sunday paper and my laptop, ready for a bit of online sale shopping.

I conditioned my hair, read my favorite sections of the Times, and posted an Instagram of Hannah in hip-hop class. I also checked out Bradley’s Facebook page. His Timeline photo was a shot of him in the boxing ring. A number of graphic piers set up around the arena read, FightKlub UK. I examined his handsome face, gritty and determined, and the motion-blurred glove that slammed into a blurrier opponent’s face.
 

I exhaled a sigh. “Now I don’t have to worry about your sparring match with Derek. I can see that you know how to take care of yourself.”

He glanced up from his spreadsheet. “Social networking?”

“M-mmm. I just friended you.”

I scrolled down his page. He’d made one entry since arriving in New York. A lopsided picture of Times Square taken from inside a cab, and a brief message: Just arrived NYC, missing my UK friends. There were several likes and a couple of well wishes. I was in no mood to view pictures of him partying with drinking buddies or flirting with fan girls, so I clicked out of Facebook.

Something about his page triggered a concept for the Héros campaign. Just a snippet of an idea—moments with a hero. Scratch that. More like moments with an everyday hero. I typed a few lines of voice-over copy and some thoughts on images. I glanced over at my new lover.

Bradley was working on the man-on-the-street interview questions. Merging lists—editing and sorting until he got the right mix. Mid-afternoon, he turned the Knicks game on and kept it low while he read the paper.

I returned to the bedroom with my hair a mass of newly conditioned soft curls.

Bradley looked up and smiled. “Much better than that plastic bag on your head.”

When the Knicks game went into overtime, he turned up the volume. I typed out a few more snippets of voice over. This spot would not be about war heroes, or fireman heroes—but everyday heroes. I picked up my phone and grabbed a few seconds of video footage. Bradley yelling over the top of his newspaper at the flat screen. “Oh, come on—there’s no way that was a charge. He wasn’t set!”

After the game, he reached over and stole a few sections of the paper from me, including Book Reviews. “Finally—the next installment of the Xi Tauri Chronicles.”

I raised a brow. “You read science fiction?”

He put down the paper and crawled over to me. “And what do you read?”

“Time-travel fantasy, contemporary erotica—anything by Tolstoy.”

He snorted softly against my throat. “Now, if you were the high priestess Galatea, you would emit pheromones from your navel that would cause my android tongue to vibrate at twenty-one thousand megahertz per second.” He set my laptop aside and lifted off my sweatshirt.

I moved back onto my elbows, as he pushed up the lace teddy. He licked a trail of kisses down my belly, setting off tiny tremors.

 
“I would instantly be in sync with your primary pleasure center.” He slipped off my panties, and his tongue slid lower, parting labia and laving my clit.
 

 
“Oh, Bradley,” I moaned, arching upward.

His licks were pleasantly unhurried, as he made his exploration. He used flicks of his tongue and long, slow circles to build my arousal.
 

He sat back on his haunches. “I think you might also enjoy sex with a tricyber simitaur.”

“Ooooh, and what’s that?”

He reached over to the nightstand drawer and found the anal toy and lube. One at a time, he lifted my legs over his shoulders.

“This won’t hurt?” I was maybe the tiniest bit fearful.

 
He smiled down at me—part handsome sex partner, part lusty tricyber simitaur.

“It is against my programming to ever hurt you. I must only bring you pleasure. I am known as the only creature in the Akkadian Archipelago with two dicks and a tickler. This tickler is a slippery flange that massages.”

He squeezed a good amount of lube over two fingers and then coated the anal toy, which consisted of a string of beads, which gradually grew larger. The last bead appeared to be an inch or so in diameter. “This is perfect. You chose well, my lovely anal novice.”

He pushed up the lace teddy so he could cover my nipples with his mouth, sucking them into hard points. His unhurried tongue flicked over each rigid tip, leisurely pleasuring me as he gradually worked one anal bead in after another.

 
“Ahh—” I whispered, as he twirled the last large slippery round bead against my reluctant sphincter muscle.

 
“Push against the bead, love.” He coaxed me, patiently. The largest sphere slipped into me, filling the forbidden place.
 

With the same, patient, methodical slowness, Bradley pulled on the string of beads and something unbelievably pleasurable happened—a wave of exquisite arousal rushed through me as he slowly removed the beads.

 
“Again, love.” He pushed the beads back in. Easier now, almost ticklish.

His one hand played an in and out game with the large bead while the fingers of his other hand worked my clitoris. Every part of my body began to quiver and tingle. The deeper, darker arousal from yesterday was back—the one that created those explosive orgasms.

 
“I’m going to come,” I gasped.

“No.” His eyes narrowed. “You’re not.”

 
He taunted me by drawing me closer and closer until my hips bucked and thrust in the air. He held me at that delicate threshold—working his cock into me thick and tight, filling me with his velvet hardness.

“You’ve got to let me come. I swear I‘m going to—”

“Don’t, Gracie—or I’ll spank you again.” His command nearly sent me over the edge.
 

For the first time in my life, I growled during sex.
 

“So greedy and impatient—wait for me.” He rocked up hard against my bottom. With every thrust, his balls slapped against my ass, sending hot spikes of need through me.
 

He studied his pounding, glistening cock, and growled as if he were some sort of unearthly creature. “Now, Gracie—come with me.” He reached down and pulled the string of beads.
 

Desire rose up like a giant wave and crashed through my body. I had never experienced orgasms like this—deeply satisfying pleasure that continued to ripple through my entire body.

Bradley bellowed his climax like a creature in the wild. Hot sperm shot into me. “Jeezus, Gracie I haven’t come that hard since”—his eyes swept the ceiling above— “I’m not sure when I’ve ever come that hard. He lowered my legs and curled up beside me,
 

I rode the rise and fall of his chest, listening to the strong beat of his heart. When I could speak I managed a weak, “Did we just reach orgasm together?”
 

A sexy grin widened on his face. “Must have something to do with those slippery flanges.”
 

“I’m not sure how to compliment such a talented creature. That was mega orgasmic, my tricyber simitaur.”

Bradley’s kiss ended in a cute, loud smack. “Tricyber is hungry—famished, actually.”

“Earthly sustenance?” I propped myself up on an elbow. “I would have thought you just plug that tickler into a USB or Firewall port.”

I ordered from Mariella Pizza—half spinach and feta cheese, half meat lovers. We decided on a take-out run instead of delivery. I stuffed my lace teddy into a pair of baggy boyfriend jeans and slipped on a raspberry-red cardigan sweater. Before leaving the apartment, I tied a red bandana through my curls.

Bradley opened the door. “You look darling.”

On the way home, we stopped by the corner market and bought two six packs—his and her beers—Stella Artois for me and real beer, or Newcastle, for him.

Exiting the market, he held the door open for two women coming in. They both smiled at him and blushed slightly. This was how it was going to be with this man. He was a head turner, and yet he didn’t seem overly aware of the effect he had on women.

Outside, he shifted the grocery bag under one arm and reached for my hand. “Mother is having a dinner party Thursday night, she asked me to invite you.”

I stopped dead in my tracks and stared. “You’ve talked about me to your mother?”

“Nothing too personal. She asked if I was getting on with anyone, making few friends, that sort of thing. I told her about a copywriter—a lovely young woman I’d just met and was hoping to get to know better.”

Respectful and charming turned out to be wonderfully effective, and of course I said yes.

I could not shake the thought that something big had happened this weekend. Three days of mind-blowing marathon sex, and yet the do-nothing, everyday moments with Bradley were just as satisfying. Lazing around my bedroom, for instance, had been easy, sensuous, and affectionate.
 

A chilly breeze caused a shiver. I checked the time on my phone. Just past four on Sunday afternoon, and for the first time ever in my life, I hadn’t thought about when my weekend date would leave. How soon I could get back to the comfort of my single-girl routines—like doing laundry and conditioning my hair.