Stranger Read online

  “Six-five.” He snagged open my drawer and felt around inside.

  Too late I remembered that the condoms weren’t the only things inside that drawer. When Sam pulled back with something small and pink, I laughed, embarrassed, and tried to grab it away from him. He didn’t let me. He held up the latex cock ring with the vibrating bullet tucked into it and stared at it with confusion.

  I hadn’t actually ever used it with a partner. I’d bought it from a sex-toy party at a friend’s house because it had been the cheapest bullet vibe available, and I liked the steady, constant buzz along with the triple, flickering “tongues.” Vibrators with flashing lights and multiple speeds intimidated me. I didn’t want to land aircraft in my vagina; I just wanted to get off.

  “Let me show you.” I took the cock ring and mimed sliding it down over his erection, then showed him how the small latex tendrils fluttered.

  Sam’s cock twitched. “Do you want to use it?”

  I looked at it, then at him. “Do you?”

  He got up on his elbows. “If it will make you feel good. Sure.”

  “I’ve never really used it with someone,” I told him.

  He grinned. “All the better. Put it on me.”

  I did. We both stared. The ring disappeared into the fluff of black curls at the base of his prick, but the bullet sat just right. It would hit my clit every time he thrust, and the vibrations would work against me. Just the way it was meant to.

  I slid a condom down him and then eased myself onto his cock. I bit my lip. He groaned. I made the small, subtle adjustments necessary to get everything to fit the way it was supposed to, then reached between us to push the base of the bullet.

  “Oh, God.” The instant I turned it on the vibe started buzzing, fluttering the small latex ribbons against my already swollen clit. But not hard, not constant. Just enough to tantalize and tease and get me close to the edge without sending me over.

  I put my hands on Sam’s shoulders and leaned forward with another muttered exclamation. I couldn’t even think about moving yet. The vibe was taking up all my attention.

  Not that I cared. It was too fucking good to complain about. Already I felt a surge of orgasm building in the pit of my stomach.

  I pushed on my knees to lift my ass a little, giving Sam the room he needed to fuck into me. “Fuck. That’s good.”

  He grunted. His hands gripped my hips, moving me. Every thrust hit me deep inside and every time he filled me, the vibe buzzed my clit. It was different than using it by itself. Better, with Sam’s thickness inside me, stretching. I wanted him to fuck me harder and faster, but he kept the pace steady and slow.

  “Can you feel it?” I asked him. My hair had fallen into my eyes again, but this time he didn’t push it back.

  “Yeah.” Sam licked his mouth, his eyes closed. “Feels good.”

  The sex was less frantic than it had been the first time, and that was fine. We moved together, and my first orgasm rocketed through me like a whip cracking. Only then did Sam speed the pace, pushing into me faster and harder the way I’d wanted him to. I got off again without much effort, the vibe a help but not the only reason. It was Sam. It was thinking about him all day, and smelling and tasting him, and watching the way his mouth grew thin with concentration. I came watching Sam come.

  After, our bodies sticky and aligned, he put his hand on my belly and turned to face me. I only had one pillow, so neither of our heads rested all the way on it, and he used his hand to prop his head where the pillow ended. “Do you always come more than once?”

  I yawned, already edging toward sleep. “Yes. Usually.”

  “Three times?”

  I cracked open an eye. “Usually only two.”

  “Okay.” Seemingly satisfied, he lay back on the bed, looking at the ceiling.

  “Why do you want to know?” I yawned again.

  Sam laughed. “I wondered if it was the cock ring. Or me. Or if you were just lucky.”

  “I don’t think luck has anything to do with a woman’s orgasm.” I reached to my nightstand for a ponytail holder to pull my hair back again for sleep. “I know how to make myself come, but that didn’t happen by luck. It took practice.”

  This perked him up. “How much practice?”

  I pulled the covers up over both of us and wriggled down into my pillow. “I’ve been masturbating since I was in junior high. You figure it out.”

  Sam looked at me. “I’ve never been with a woman who admitted she jerked off.”

  “Sam. Women don’t jerk off.”

  “Rub off. Whatever.”

  “Well, then you’ve either been with a lot of liars or some very uptight chicks.” Yawning again, I reached to turn out the light.

  In darkness it took my eyes a few moments to adjust before the faint light from the street lamp began illuminating the room. The light didn’t shine directly in my window, so nothing was clear. Just bumps and lumps. The same old room, yet different with Sam beside me.

  “I haven’t been with a lot of women at all.” Sam shifted onto his side. He kissed my shoulder and rested his hand on my belly as he drew his legs up, touching my calves with surprisingly icy toes.

  I yelped. He laughed. I wiggled around until we could both be comfortable, which put us in a sort of complicated tangle of limbs and blankets. After a few minutes of silence, I asked, “Is that true?”

  “About the women?”

  I murmured an assent. Next to me, Sam took up a lot of room in my bed. His breath tickled the side of my neck.

  “Yes. It’s true.”

  “How come?”

  “Are you sure you don’t want to ask how many?”

  “No.” I looked at the ceiling, lit with a stripe of silver. “I don’t care how many.”

  “But you want to know why there weren’t more?”

  I waited a beat before answering. “Sure.”

  Sam chuckled again. “It might surprise you to learn that not all women succumb to my persistence, Grace. Only the crazy ones.”

  I laughed. “Gee, thanks.”

  “Don’t mention it.” Sam sighed and shifted his arm, then a leg. “So, you don’t care if I sleep here?”

  “Do you want to?” I had been thinking of it, actually. How it would be for him to come downstairs in the morning, dressed in rumpled clothes from the day before. “Won’t your mom worry?”

  “I am a grown-up,” he said. “But if you don’t want me to, I’ll go.”

  “No.” It seemed bitchy not to let him sleep with me after he’d slept with me. “Unless you want to go.”

  Silence, but for the sound of Sam’s breathing. “Maybe I should go.”

  I sat up and turned on the light. I deliberately avoided looking at the clock, as if not knowing how many hours I had left to sleep would make it feel like more. “Sam…”

  “Grace.” He sat up against the headboard, the covers pulled low around his hips. “What’s up?”

  “I’m a little freaked.” Until the words blurted out of me, I hadn’t known how freaked I was.

  A frown furrowed his brow. “Because of me?”

  I nodded. He held out his arm and I pillowed my face on his chest. “I’m sorry. It’s not you.

  It’s me.”

  “Uh-oh.” Sam pushed me gently so he could look at my face. “This sounds like a three-in-the-morning argument waiting to happen.”

  “No. I don’t want to argue.” I shook my head and sighed, then sat next to him with our backs against the headboard. “I think I just have to warn you.”

  “Oh, boy.” Sam scooted over a bit. “When I told you that only the crazy chicks dig me, I wasn’t kidding. Are you going to tell me something weird? I mean, weirder than the fact you live in a funeral home?”

  He had such a knack of making me laugh, even when my stomach was churning and my eyes felt as if they’d been filled with sand. I didn’t want to know if it was really three in the morning, not when I had to be up by seven. “I just think we need to talk about w