“Oh!” I put my hand on his thigh—still naked, still hot—and shook my head. “No, that’s not what I meant. I just meant that I met you, what, an hour ago?” I swallowed and couldn’t help but laugh. “But yes, that was fast too.”
“I know.” He dragged a hand over his face. His lips were wet and if I’d had the energy I would’ve straddled him to suck on them. But alas, all I did was make what likely resembled blowfish lips at him, imagining it. “I’m sure Finn is less than impressed.”
“He’s probably grateful that you got that monster vehicle out of his driveway, lest he ruin his street cred.”
Ben laughed, and I decided that I wanted to bottle up the sound and bring it out to listen to on special occasions. Like when I went back into sex hibernation.
“You’re funny, Millie.” He dropped his head against the couch cushion and looked at me in a way that made me feel all tingly. “I needed this before I start my new job tomorrow.”
Realizing that I didn’t even know what that job was, I nodded like I knew exactly what he was talking about. Post-coital wasn’t the best time for me to ask him what he did for a living, not when I couldn’t be bothered to worry about the fact that we were inches away from my paper plate of half-eaten nachos. “Are you trying to thank me for the sex?” I asked.
“Well, not in such frank terms. More like I was going to thank you for giving me a night to reflect on when I’m stuck in meeting after meeting tomorrow.”
“In that case,” I said, leaning against him a little bit. “You’re welcome.” I tried not to nuzzle him too much. What was the protocol after great stranger sex? “I mean, you satisfied my thirsty sex demon, so I guess we’re square.”
“Is she satisfied?” he asked with a wicked little lift of his lips. “Because, like you said, we don’t want to disappoint Elizabeth.”
I grinned back at him. “She’s satiated. For now.”
He moved and immediately, I jerked back. Was he trying to tell me to give him space, so he could be on his merry way? But he merely grabbed his phone from his pants and pulled it out.
Oh, even worse. Was he going to ask me for my number only to never call? I didn’t need an obligatory phone number exchange. But instead, he pulled up his web browser and typed in pizza delivery.
“I hate to be presumptuous,” he said. “But I don’t think I can show my face to Finn right now. How do you feel about eating?”
“I feel like that’s the very least we should do, don’t you think? Eat something? Elizabeth would be so disappointed if we skipped her dinner and then didn’t even eat.”
“You’re right. We mustn’t disappoint Elizabeth.” He thumbed through his phone. “How do you feel about pizza?”
“Oh.” I pressed a hand to my chest. “I have a deep and abiding love for dough and cheese and marinara.”
“It just so happens that I do, too. Would you object to splitting a pizza?” His face was so earnest, like he wanted an invite without having to ask for one in a way that put either of us in an embarrassing situation.
He wasn’t running. Not yet, at least.
“I mean, I guess I can be persuaded,” I said. “I had such big plans, though.”
“Oh.” He nodded, playing along, and motioned to the stupid paper plate on the coffee table. “I don’t want to interrupt your gourmet meal.”
“Yeahhh.” I stood and grabbed the paper plate. “I was kind of hoping you wouldn’t see that.” I stepped behind the couch and shoved it and the tiny bit of dignity I had before he’d seen it down as far as I could reach.
“The pajamas are something else, too.”
I wanted to shove my face down into the trashcan too. “Oh, yeah?” I asked, acting totally cool and not at all like the evidence of my sad little singledom was at the feet of this gorgeous man. “You have a thing for chickens?”
“Do you have a thing for cocks?”
“Wh-what?” I snapped up the offending pajama pants and tugged them on.
He wagged a finger at my pants. “The cocks.”
“Chickens,” I corrected.
“Roosters. Roosters are cocks.”
I looked down at the pants, yep, there were indeed a few roosters sprinkled among the many shades of white and brown chickens. “Then yes, I have a thing for cocks. And chickens.” I tried not to look right at his lap as I said it and snatched up my t-shirt, tugging it over my head. This was it. Me in all my pajama-clothed glory. And somehow, he still grinned at me like it was somehow charming.
When the pizza came, we pigged out on equal shares, with Investigation Discovery playing on in the background. “How’d you know what kind of car that was anyway?” he asked me, just as a string of cheese slapped my chin.
As delicately as I could, I pushed the cheese into my mouth. “My dad was super into old cars like that. Making them purr. He didn’t have a ton of money to do so, though, so he took me to a lot of car shows. The fact that you have that car kind of blows my mind. I wish he could see it.” Wistfully, I picked at a piece of pepperoni. I didn’t want to talk about my dad and the dreams he’d never achieve. I handed Ben a napkin when cheese attached itself to his chin. “It’s my dream.”
He stretched his arm behind my head and I snuggled against him, feeling more comfortable than I’d expected to feel in the presence of a man who was still a stranger. A stranger I’d seen naked, sure. But stranger nonetheless. He brushed a piece of hair away from my face and I inhaled his scent deeply, wanting to retain this moment in my memory long after he was gone.
It was getting late and I was tiring fast. I knew I was two yawns away from a deep sleep when his voice rumbled, “Any time you want a ride, just say so.”
Unlike the first time he’d said it, this time his voice was free of sexual innuendos. He was genuine, as far as I could tell, but I just couldn’t imagine that I’d see him again after a night like tonight.
A thought which was confirmed when I suddenly awoke, alone on my couch, with a piece of notepaper on top of the empty box of pizza.
Thanks for the laughs. - Ben
My resigned sigh was followed with the immediate reminder that I had to get ready for work, pronto. I pulled on the leggings I’d worn for all of twenty minutes the night before and grabbed a shirt from the dryer that wasn’t entirely dry yet and ran, like a mad woman, out of the house to work.
It was meeting day. Every Thursday, the owner—George—filled out conference room with bagels and coffee and donuts. People filed in to fill the chairs around the obnoxiously large table—larger now that half of our employees had been laid-off—and since I was late and not wanting to get on George’s radar so early, I snuck in and slid between Joanne from marketing and Patsy from human resources and acted as if I was terribly interested in their conversation about new management and saving the company. Secretly, I was gearing up for a second interview with another firm, hoping they would see my potential and snap me up faster than I’d propositioned a stranger the night before.
After grabbing a cup of now-cold coffee and making sure I avoided sitting next to the office gossip, Felicia, I slid into one of the last remaining seats like this was a game of musical chairs I desperately needed to win.
Luckily for me, it was right in front of the bagels. I grabbed a poppy seed one and started mowing down on it.
Unluckily for me, the seat I’d chosen was directly in front of the lone empty seat.
The door to the conference room opened and the room quieted as George escorted my new fucking boss to the seat directly across from me. He gave me a surprised and sure smile for a minute before giving lesser smiles to everyone else around us.
I wanted to slide right under the table.
When a man was deep inside of you for the first time, his face contorted in that sexy mix of pleasure and determination, one could argue that it’s decidedly not the best time to ask important questions, such as:
Are you single?
Are you a serial killer?
And, most significantly in that moment: what did you say you did for a living?
If only I’d asked that third question, I could have saved myself a lot of awkward.
Because seated across from me was Ben, who happened to be my new fucking boss.