“I work for a non-profit,” I offer, swirling the tip of my finger over the rim of my glass.
Perfect Guy leans forward, intrigued. “That sounds interesting. It’s rare you meet someone who works for a non-profit. In our capitalist society, we—”
I reach across the space with my finger cooled from my icy glass and press it to his lips, halting his sentence midway through. Perfect Guy blinks a few times, stunned into silence. Standing from my barstool, I step toward him so that I’m nestled between the thick thighs of a man who evidently values never skipping leg day. I trail my finger from his lips, past the jut of his chin, to his throat, down to his chest, pausing at the topbutton of his shirt, which I toy with. Perfect Guy’s eyes widen and his throat bobs from this quick change of pace, but he does nothing to slow me down.
I bat my eyelashes. “As much as I’d love to keep talking to you, I have to work tomorrow and was planning on going to bed early.”
Perfect Guy’s brows lower incrementally, ready for me to let him down nice and easy, leaving him to his whisky and the crooning vocals of Jelly Roll.
I bite my lip in a well-rehearsed motion. “Care to join me?”
We decide to go to his place instead of mine since he lives down the street. After paying our tab, he guides me outside the pub with his hand on my low back. Even in my heels he’s taller than me. Around six feet, I’d guess, which is yet another reason why I should have politely turned down his offer to buy me a drink. Every step closer brings a heightened anticipatory anxiety.
It’s not like I haven’t done this before—gone home with a handsome man that I barely know and am essentially entrusting with my life in exchange for generally mediocre sex—it’s the inevitability of everything going wrong. How wrong it can go, however, is still a mystery. I hold on to the little flicker of hope in my chest that I’m wrong and that this night, this person, will be different.
The night air is cool and crisp, smelling like flowers and the promise of summer. Streetlamps illuminate tidy Tudor-style houses, neatly kept front gardens, and well-swept sidewalks whose cracks I avoid with each step. Perfect Guy leads me around a corner and halfway down the next block before turning and gesturing at the house before us.
His home is just as charming and immaculate as he is. It’s two stories high and inset from the street with a small rectangular front yard boxed in with a wrought-iron fence, a coveredfront porch framed by large bushes, and painted a respectable taupe but with the surprising accent of a navy-blue door.
My heels click as I climb the wooden steps to his porch. His keys jingle as he unlocks the door, the hinges squeak as it swings open, and I step inside. Perfect Guy flips on the light and I get a view of his tidy space. Directly to my front is a staircase leading to the second floor. On my left is a fireplace, the television mounted above it, and a bookshelf laden with all manner of texts and novels beside it. In front of the fireplace is a brown suede couch with a cozy-looking throw and a few colourful pillows. The floor is the colour of warm walnut and the walls are decorated with interesting abstract art. Everything is soclean, and not in the way that he hires someone to come in and mop his floors and scrub his toilets—which I’m sure he does—but in the small ways that boasts of a person who takes pride in their home: dishes in the sink washed and stacked, counters void of clutter, shoes and jackets hidden away in a closet.
I have no idea what the hell Perfect Guy does for a living, and I don’t plan on finding out, but in order for him to live inthisneighbourhood in a recently updated home with a backyard means he either makes a lot of money or he inherited some. Once more I remind myself that I should have chosen someone,anyone, else. He is exactly the type of guy I always envisioned myself with, and I’m nowhere near ready to be meeting someone like him.
Perfect Guy sets his keys in a bowl on a side table by the door, the sound jarring me back to the present. “I don’t have gin, but I do have a decent collection of wine. Do you prefer white or red? Or whisky? If you’re a novice whisky drinker, I have a bottle of Gretzky that’s light on the palate and—”
Once more I cut him off, but not with my finger. I launch myself at him like a spider monkey, gripping the lapels of his shirt and pulling my lips to his. He doesn’t react, his body goingstill and rigid. I don’t relent, pressing my taut body against his so hard that he stumbles backward until he’s sandwiched between me and the front door, which spurs him into action. His lips begin moving with mine as they find balance and rhythm together, our tongues tentatively seeking and finding purchase with hot, wet slides. His hands make their way to my waist, then further down until they’re cupping my ass, which he gives a delicious squeeze. A gruff note of appreciation resonates through his chest, and I send a silent prayer of thanks to my favourite fitness YouTuber for teaching me how to do a proper RDL.
Perfect Guy pushes against me, taking charge. Suddenly it’s me with my back against the door, and he’s hoisting me up by the thighs and wrapping my legs around his waist. Our lips unlock for a moment as we regard one another, panting shallow breaths, noses nuzzling, pupils wide and wild. He’s asking me if I’m sure, if I want to proceed. I respect him for his consideration. In response, I kiss him once more, unrelenting in my ferocity, and he matches my pace. He twists around and carries me up the stairs, and it’s incredibly sexy that he’s not even winded when we get to the top. Not skipping leg day,orcardio, apparently.
We manoeuvre down a hallway until I’m pressed once more against a door. Perfect Guy grinds against me, his hard length so close to where I need it—but not close enough. He lets go of my ass with one hand to turn the knob beneath it, and the door swings open so quickly that he almost stumbles and falls. I squeal, preparing to hit the floor. He finds his footing, saving us just in time.
“That was close,” he murmurs as he unlocks his lips from mine and moves them down my neck.
Too close.
“The bed,” I suggest, hoping there’s less chance of injury once we’re horizontal.
Perfect Guy obliges, carrying me to his well-made bed witha sharp navy duvet and several pillows propped against a walnut headboard. He lays me gently down, and I take my eyes off him for a moment to scan the room. Just like the main floor it’s tidy and well-kept, though there is more evidence of masculine energy up here—his dresser is in mild disarray with a few bottles of cologne out of place, his laundry hamper overflowing and spilling to the floor, an empty whisky tumbler on his nightstand next to a wineglass. Is that lipstick on the rim?
Doesn’t matter.
I look back at Perfect Guy, who stares down at me in a dominating position. One of my thighs is on either side of his, and he towers atop me as I’m sprawled out on his bed. His eyes are wide, mouth slightly agape, and his hands have stilled on my knees, pausing as if uncertain.
“Your shirt,” I suggest with a nod of my chin.
His hands leave my legs and move to the buttons, undoing one at a time, taunting and slow. Too slow. I sit up so that my chest is flush with the tent pressing at the seam of his pants and look up at him through my eyelashes. I take over the buttons, undoing them much faster, revealing each bump of his abdominal muscles that meet at a delicious V-shape disappearing into the waistband of his slacks, along with a delightful trail of short, coarse brown hair.
I peel his shirt off and toss it in the general direction of his laundry hamper. Forget leg day and cardio day; this guy must be doing HIIT training or some shit, becausedamn. I didn’t think men like this existed in the wild. Don’t you need to be in some sort of ridiculous calorie deficit to have your abs pop out like this? It’s not just his abs, but his arms, too. He has all those fabulous veins and tendons coiling around his forearms up to biceps so thick I don’t think I could wrap two hands around them.
Generally, I’m not shy when it comes to getting naked in front of another person. I have an ass and tits and usually that’swhat men like to see in their heterosexual partnerships, but I didn’t expect to be stripping in front of a swimsuit model.
Perfect Guy takes over, as if sensing my uncertainty. His long fingers deftly trace the line of my abdomen where my shirt ends, alighting my skin with tingles. He peels my shirt up and off, then drops it to the floor near his nightstand.
His eyes are drawn immediately to my cleavage, pressed together by the best bra I own, all black lace and crisscrossing straps. I went to that pub for one reason and one reason only, and I’ll be damned if I wasn’t going to put my best foot forward with my expensive matching lingerie set.
“May I?” he asks, his hands hovering close to my breasts.
In response I take his hands and press them against my skin. He sucks in a shallow breath as his thumbs stroke over my nipples, watching them harden beneath the fabric of my bra.
