That did it.
“Fuck, Talia.”
I came hard enough to feel it in my stomach, my fist still moving through it because the image in my head had not let go yet. Her mouth. Her thighs. Her pussy gripping down on me in my imagination like it already knew what to do with me.
Afterward, I sat there breathing in the dark with my sticky hand slack around myself and no real relief in it.
It helped my body. It did nothing for the wanting.
I cleaned up, got into bed, and stared at the city for a long time before sleep finally showed up.
I woke up with her still there.
Not in some dreamy, romantic way.
In the practical, male, aggravating way desire stayed in the body after you’d already tried to handle it and failed to make it leave.
The first thing I thought about was her laugh.
The second was the way she had pressed into me in that booth.
The third was what her pussy might feel like around me once I finally got the chance to stop imagining and find out.
That was enough to get me out of bed.
I threw on shorts and a black performance tee, then headed downstairs to the gym before I could lie there acting foolish.
Sunday mornings in the building gym were usually quiet. A couple on treadmills. Somebody half committed to stretching. One man lifting like his ex had started dating a trainer and he needed the world corrected.
I put my Bose headphones on, started with the bike, and tried to sweat her out.
That didn’t work either.
By the time I moved to weights, all I had managed to do was give my body another reason to think about how she’d looked in that dress. The hem high on her thighs. The denim hugging her ass. The gold at her throat. Her mouth going soft right before I kissed her.
A woman from the building I recognized in that loose, elevator-small-talk way smiled at me from the cable machine.
I nodded back and kept moving.
A week ago, I might have noticed more. This morning, she barely registered.
My phone buzzed twice on the bench beside me between sets. I checked it, grateful for anything that wasn’t my own imagination acting like it had a right to ruin me before breakfast.
Ciara in the family group chat, sending blurry pictures from the night before.
My niece, Ari, holding a sparkler with the expression of a child one second away from disaster. Mama in a lawn chair. Somebody’s plate balanced on their knee.
Then a separate text from a woman I’d gone for drinks with once in May.
Tish: You ever plan on taking me to that steak place or you retired? lol
I looked at it for a second, then typed the first honest thing that came to mind.
I’m off the market for the moment.
I stared at the message after I sent it.
That was stronger wording than I usually gave people who hadn’t earned it.
