What She Needs Read online

  What She Needs

  Anne Calhoun

  When Jack calls and tells me to meet him at the hotel bar, I know two things: he wants to sleep with me, and I will let him.

  That’s the rule. If I meet him, I do what he asks, when he asks. I’m free to decline his invitation, but if I accept, I’ll do what I’m told.

  I always accept.

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  When Jack calls at 6:00 p.m. on a Saturday and tells me to meet him in the bar at the Embassy Suites, I know two things: he wants to fuck me, and I will let him.

  But because he knows my answer even before he calls, I make him wait. A little. I shower, locate my sexy underwear at the back of my drawer, put some effort into my makeup and hair. When I get in my car and drive downtown, the knowledge of what I’ll soon be doing, and with whom, sharpens the colors visible through the windshield, the verdant leaves vivid against black-shingled roofs and a Wedgwood-blue sky.

  As I walk through the lobby my stride must project a confidence I don’t feel; either bravado or my sheath skirt and tight sleeveless blouse have drawn attention from a cluster of loosened-ties-no-jackets businessmen waiting by the front desk. I ignore their appraising looks, pretending engrossment in the brass railings, plush patterned carpet and abundant plants working to create a tasteful atmosphere. What I’m about to do could easily take place in a rundown motel next to the interstate. Jack, however, likes comfort and couldn’t care less about the two-hundred-dollar room rate. The bar is at the back of the large atrium and the waterfall doesn’t quite mask the click of my fuck-me heels against the tile floor. He knows making this walk by myself heightens my nerves and leaves me to do it anyway.

  There is always that moment, standing in the doorway to the bar and looking for him, when I torment myself with the impossible. I imagine he’s found someone equally willing and right at hand, that he’s disappeared upstairs in the time it took me to prepare myself and come to him. But then I see him, a half-full glass of beer next to the Heineken bottle. Tonight he is wearing dark navy jeans and an olive cotton sweater, the sleeves pushed up to his elbows.

  The sight of his forearms, tanned and dusted with blond hair, sends a shock of lust straight to my pussy.

  The rest of him is nothing special. Muscles don’t strain the seams of his sweater. Despite the absence of a ring, the other women in the bar don’t eye him with obvious interest. He’s of average height and build for a man, with sandy-blond hair. He doesn’t look like a man who can make a woman lose her mind.

  But he is. With a woman, on a bed stripped to the bottom sheet, when there is nothing else to do and nowhere else to be, he is gifted. That’s why I’m here.

  I stand next to him. He acknowledges my presence with a slow once-over, the kind that stays just this side of insolent. A nod indicates his approval.

  “You want a drink first?” His voice, unlike his eyes, is smooth, calm. His eyes, however, are melting, dark chocolate.

  I consider his offer, then indicate acceptance by boosting myself onto the seat next to his. When the bartender comes around he asks what he can get me.

  “White wine,” I say as he openly eyes me. I’m not wearing a ring, either, and I know from experience that despite Jack’s presence, I am fair game. Jack doesn’t stake his claim in front of the bartender, but when he leaves to pour my wine, Jack leans to whisper in my ear.

  “Nice blouse.”

  I tip my head slightly to indicate interest, but keep my eyes on the condensation sliding down the green beer bottle. I never use that color in my work. It’s too recognizable.

  “Undo one more button.”

  My breath stops in my throat at his command, but I lift one hand to the front of my blouse and flick open the button just above the swell of my breasts. This button keeps me from being slutty. Jack wants it undone. I obey him.

  That’s the rule. If I meet him, I do what he asks, when he asks. I’m free to decline his invitation. If I accept, I’ll do what I’m told.

  I always accept.

  The bartender returns with my glass of white wine and a flirtatious smile on his face. I don’t smile back. When he left my collarbone was visible, my appearance demure but appealing. Now he can see cleavage and the edge of the red lacy cups of my bra. His eyes flash to my chest, then over to Jack, who rests one arm on the back of my chair.

  I don’t need to look at Jack to know what his expression is. A grin too hard to be pleasant will tell the bartender he should look elsewhere for his night’s entertainment. That doesn’t stop the bartender from taking one last, long look before he moves away.

  I drink my wine, the slow pound of my heart making me lightheaded long before the alcohol enters my bloodstream. We sit in silence as Jack finishes his beer. Small talk is not part of this ritual. I once asked him what he was thinking about while we sipped our drinks before going upstairs.

  “Fucking you,” he’d said.

  He didn’t ask what I was thinking about.

  I replayed those two words, the tone of his voice when he said them, every day until he called me again. The next time I met him I shook my head when he asked if I wanted a drink. He escorted me to a room on the seventh floor and within five minutes of entering the hotel I was naked and under him. I wanted him badly that night. Tonight I want a glass of wine first, and Jack humors me.

  I stretch it out, because the Chardonnay is decent. The cotton of his sweater almost but not quite touches the bare skin of my shoulder, his body heat evoking the possibility of his skin in contact with mine. Without meaning to I shift ever so slightly on my stool. The movement makes the edges of my blouse gap open, revealing my breast all the way to the front clasp of my bra.

  Jack doesn’t miss this little drama playing out mere inches from him. With two long swallows he finishes the rest of his beer, pulls a bill from his pocket and tosses it on the bar, then stands. He holds out one hand to me, palm up, a command, not an invitation.

  “You’re done.”

  With those words, I am. I slide my hand into his, the tips of his fingers cold and a little damp from the condensation on his glass. In my heels I’m an inch shorter than he is. My skirt clings to my curves from hips to knees, shortening my stride. He matches my pace as we leave the bar. There’s no need to hurry.

  Because we are not boyfriend and girlfriend, as we walk through the lobby his warm palm leaves mine to slide under my hair at the nape of my neck. As I walk I focus on the brass doors to the nearest elevator but feel strangers’ stares pressing against my skin. Neither Jack nor I usually garner stares, but his hand under my hair, guiding me, broadcasts his primal intentions. People look, then glance away. I move docilely, my hands holding my dark brown clutch purse at my waist. The heat of his palm radiates through the tender skin at my nape, slipping down my spine to gather in my pussy. My panties are wet before the elevator door closes behind us.

  He pushes the button for the third floor. Once, when our room was on the top floor he fucked me in this elevator, up against the doors, just eight measured strokes before the bell dinged and he stepped away. I felt each purposeful thrust from tip to base and back again. They left me soft and aching, unable to walk steadily without his hand at my waist. That night was all about little tastes, teasing me with a few thrusts, then pulling out to lick or suckle or caress, again and again, until I shamelessly begged him to fuck me.

  Tonight, though, he simply leans back against the wall, arms folded across his chest, and looks at me. Opposite him and a little to his left, I see myself in the mirrored doors, my dark brown hair shoulder length and tousled, my eyes more vivid than usual, bright with excitement and longing. My eyes are the same color as his sweater, my lips parted above the dark rose of my blouse, my legs long and
enticing in the tight brown skirt and high heels.

  While he looks his fill, I think about all the different kinds of sex I’ve had. New love sex, when it lasts for hours and every movement is imbued with meaning and emotion. Relationship sex, that later stage when fucking is as much maintenance as it is pleasure. “Getting an oil change,” while crude, is an apt analogy: it has to be done on a regular basis or the engine of your relationship breaks down.

  Sex with Jack at the Embassy Suites is an adrenaline rush, one that peels away layer after layer of the film clouding my vision and turns me on to the point where my skin feels too tight, when I am quite literally out of my mind, awash on pulsing waves of pleasure.

  I don’t know what these nights mean to him. I’ve never asked. Although well acquainted with it, he’s not here for my sparkling conversation.

  The elevator doors open and with an expressionless face he indicates I should precede him. I put a little extra into my hips as I walk, knowing he is watching. After a moment I feel the heat of his body behind me and his large hand cups my bottom, part copping a feel and part guiding me to the right room.

  He backs into the door as it’s closing behind us, pulling me to him for the kiss I’ve been thinking about since he called. The first kiss of the night is always slow, intense, aching and, when his lips slide over mine, his mouth open, I let out a little gasp of longing. He doesn’t kiss like a man desperate to fuck. He kisses like a man who knows I am his for the taking.

  In these heels I don’t have to tilt my head back to kiss him, nor does he have to bend all that far to capture my lower lip in his teeth. He has one arm wrapped around my waist, the other hand back on the nape of my neck. I palm his butt through the back pockets of his jeans, and while I wait to feel his tongue, I push against the erection straining at his zipper.

  My reward for my eagerness is the slow slide of his tongue over mine. He likes me eager, but my willingness doesn’t guarantee immediate response, let alone satisfaction. This knowledge makes me soft, pliant and so very, very hot. Without conscious thought I grind against him in time to the flickering licks. His fingers flex, then release, against the nape of my neck, and heat surges through me at this evidence of his desire.

  Whatever loss of control I’ve wrested from him is momentary. His hands smooth down my back, over my bottom to my hips, where he tugs the tight fabric of my skirt up just enough to expose the lower curve of my ass. His fingernails scratch gently, once, twice. I shudder at the rough sensation, then he shimmies my lacy high-cut panties down to my upper thighs. One hand stays on my bottom while the other trails over my hip, through my trimmed curls, and into my cleft.

  “Oh, Jesus,” he whispers against my mouth.

  I feel not one ounce of shame at how wet and swollen I am for him. My pussy lips spread easily and his fingers glide through my slick heat, up into my vagina. I muffle my cry against his neck, lick at the faintly salty skin just above his collar, feel his pulse pounding against my lips. He smells like Jack—like Heineken and summer sun, clean sweat and some indefinable male musk that is his alone.

  His nose bumps my cheek as he turns his head; I open my eyes to see our reflection in the full-length mirror so thoughtfully placed by the door. I watch his hand move, slight shifts I feel inside me as well, as he presses the base of his thumb against my clit. My knees wobble in reaction to the sensation streaking through me. I am heat and light, wetness and aching desire, and right now the only thing keeping me on my feet is his firm hand on my bared ass.

  He’s going to get me off right here, in front of this mirror, against the hotel room door. Pulses of sharp heat zing ever faster from my clit to my nipples and back again, making my hips rock as I push, push, push against his hand. It’s the most erotic thing I’ve ever seen, my red lacy panties stretched taut around my thighs, my skirt hiked up just above my mound, his tanned hand moving between my legs.

  I brace my hands against his chest and let out a whimper at the sight, but he gentles me with a “shhhh” and then closes his teeth around my earlobe. A gasp huffs out of me at the pressure, the pain, so he bends his head and does it again, this time on the spot between my neck and shoulder. The fierce sting sends lightning arcing through my body, every nerve alive with electricity, and I come.

  He holds me through it, his mouth open and wet just inside my collar, while I watch mirror-me shudder, open-mouthed, eyes half-closed, with each spasm around his fingers. Orgasm usually brings relief, a return to clarity, but not tonight. The ache subsides a bit, true, but the demand remains.

  His tongue slides along my collarbone to the hollow of my throat, then up over my chin. He kisses me, his fingers moving again in time to his tongue in my mouth, and I moan.

  “That wasn’t enough,” I whisper against his lips. They curve in response, but somehow I know it’s not a smile, but the same fierce bared-teeth look he gave the bartender.

  Slowly, achingly slowly, he pulls his fingers out of my body and unfastens the remaining buttons on my blouse.

  “You want more?”

  I hesitate, the taut expression on his face catching me off-guard.

  “I’m waiting,” he says, his voice a low, rough warning.

  “Yes,” I reply as he pushes my blouse off my shoulders and down my arms.

  He considers my red lacy bra, and I know he’s evaluating the visual pleasure of the boldly sexy lingerie versus my bared breasts. He doesn’t continue the conversation, such as it is, while he unbuttons my skirt and reverses the progress it made, pushing it down over my bottom to pool on the carpet. In a move so surprising it hits me like a slap, he crouches at my feet and looks up at me while he pulls my panties back up my legs and returns them to their place on my hips.

  The message is clear. I’m not getting fucked, at least for a while.

  The tug of lace over my clit coupled with the slick pressure of his tongue up the midline of my body makes me shudder as he stands, back once more against the door. I’m still wearing my dark brown open-toe heels. My pale skin gleams in the setting sunlight streaming through the room’s window, turning the lingerie into vermilion streaks on my skin.

  He’s fully dressed, the shadow on his jaw dull, raspy gold. When he looks into my eyes, his hand firmly cupping my chin, I see no sign of the man I know in his gaze.

  “Earn it.”

  His words make my heart stop, then slam against my ribs before regaining rhythm. I know what he means. I reach under his sweater for his belt buckle, but he stops my hand.

  “On your knees.”

  The command, no less authoritative for being almost soundless, slices into me like a cutting wheel along a sheet of glass. With a crack my mind splits, eradicating all thought from my brain.

  I get on my knees, the industrial carpet leaving imprints in the skin. Heat flares in his eyes as he pulls his sweater over his head and drops it to the floor, then looks down to watch me unbuckle his belt, slide down his zipper. Forget men with guns or clenched fists; if there is an image more symbolic of male power and control than a man looking down on woman kneeling in front him, I haven’t seen it. His eyes flicker from my face to my image in the mirror and back again. I slide my palms into the waistband of his white cotton boxer briefs, the faint, familiar scent of detergent released by the heat of his body as I slide his shorts and jeans down just far enough to free his cock. As I do this he braces one forearm against the wall at shoulder height and threads the other hand into my hair. His thumb rubs over my temple. Our eyes meet. His are hard and fierce. Whatever he sees in mine makes him growl, “Fuck, yeah.”

  Earn it, he said, and earn it I will. The hot, dry skin stretched taut over his swollen cock brushes my cheek as I press a kiss into his lower belly, then his upper thigh, then his scrotum before I lean back and part my lips.

  “Tongue first,” he says.

  My eyelids quiver and close helplessly before I drag them open again and use the flat of my tongue to paint his cock with broad strokes. I concentrate on the sensitive stre
tch right under the head, but neglect no portion of his rigid length. I lay my palms flat on his upper thighs. When the muscles there and in his abdomen tremble under my fingertips with each lick, I open my mouth and take him all the way to the back of my throat, the press and release of his fingers against the back of my skull setting the rhythm. As the pace quickens I look up at him, note his hand now fisted against the wall.

  He guides my pace and makes it last, taking his pleasure from my lips and tongue, the warm, wet suction of my mouth, with a single-minded focus that makes me crazy with longing. Eventually, however, he rests his head on the rigid muscles in his forearm and, with a low groan, begins to thrust into my mouth. I back off just enough to keep from gagging, but the tightening fist in my hair keeps me close. In response, I moan around his stiff shaft.

  He goes rigid under my hands, swells on my tongue mere moments before the first pulse of semen hits the back of my throat. The harsh grunts and the involuntary jerks of his body only intensify the electric hum in my head. When the tension ebbs from his body, leaving him loose limbed against the door, I let him slip from my mouth and look up at him. My eyes are wet.

  His fingers possessively caress my jaw before his thumb applies a slight pressure to my lower lip, then slips inside. I lick the pad of his thumb, listen to his breathing slow and soften.

  “Very nice,” he says. “Get on the bed.”

  I step out of my shoes, the uninspiring furnishings nothing but background chatter as I watch him yank the comforter and top sheet completely from the bed to create a wide playground of soft white cotton over a firm mattress. He points, and as the air conditioner emits its low hum, I stretch out on my side to watch him undress, a process that takes less than five seconds. Loafers kicked off, unbuckled belt and jeans shoved down, along with underwear, and he is naked before me.

  Each time I see his body, all lean lines sculpted not by heavy muscles but rather by sinews under a thin layer of skin, I am reminded of how unnecessary physical size is to establish male power. I have yet to meet a man with Jack’s presence, the commanding aura compelling and seductive. Until tonight, the air of command he radiates has been implicit, humming under the surface of our hotel liaisons. I’ve gone on my knees for him before, but never with such explicitly dominant overtones. Tonight, as the lingering musk on my tongue reminds me, I serviced him.

 
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