A Weekend Alone With His Memory

Hugo's suitcase clicked shut in the bedroom, and I felt my stomach do this ridiculous little flip. Not because he was leaving—I love the man, I do—but because the moment that door closed behind him, my entire evening was going to open up in ways he absolutely could not know about.

I leaned against the kitchen counter, pretending to scroll through my phone while he shuffled around gathering his charger, his reading glasses, that stupid ties he insisted on packing even though the conference was business casual. His beard was freshly trimmed, the collar of his suit jacket slightly askew, and I straightened it for him because that's what a good girlfriend does. A good girlfriend who also happens to have another man's number pinned to the top of her messages.

"You sure you don't mind me going?" Hugo asked, slinging the bag over his shoulder. His chest looked broad under that charcoal fabric, the hint of dark hair visible at the V of his shirt. Hugo kept himself well. I'll give him that.

"Mind? I'm thrilled," I said, grinning. "I'm going to drink wine in the bathtub and watch reality TV without you commentating through every single scene."

He laughed, kissed my forehead. His lips were warm and familiar. "You're terrible."

"I'm honest. Go. Your flight's at seven and traffic to the airport is a nightmare this time of day."

He gave me one more kiss, this time on the mouth, and then he was gone. The door clicked. The deadbolt turned. His footsteps faded down the hall.

I counted to thirty. Then I texted you.

"He's gone."

Three dots appeared immediately. You'd been waiting.

"On my way. Ten minutes."

My heart actually hammered. I'm forty years old, and a text from a Moroccan guitar player with ridiculous curly hair and a mouth that should be registered as a weapon still makes my pulse race. I tossed the phone on the couch and looked around my apartment. Candles? No, too obvious. Music? Maybe. I pulled the curtains, dimmed the kitchen light, and changed out of my jeans into something I knew you'd appreciate—a black slip dress, thin straps, low cut across my chest. No bra. My breasts are large enough that going braless is a statement, and I wanted that statement read loud and clear.

I spritzed perfume behind my ears, between my breasts. I let my long wavy blonde hair down from the clip I'd been wearing all day and shook it out. The mirror in the hallway showed me flushed already. I looked like a woman about to do something she shouldn't, which was exactly accurate.

The buzzer rang.

I pressed the intercom. "Come up."

Your voice came through static and warm. "Elevator or stairs?"

"Elevator's slow. Take the stairs. Third floor."

I opened the door and waited. I heard your footsteps before I saw you—quick, deliberate. Then you rounded the corner of the stairwell and there you were. Dark curly hair pushed back from your face, a worn leather jacket over a t-shirt, that grin that started slow and ended somewhere devastating.

You stopped in the doorway. Your eyes moved from my face down to the dress, the way the fabric draped over my chest, my bare legs.

"Hi," you said.

"Hi yourself." I stepped back to let you in. "Lock it behind you."

You did. The click of the lock was loud in the quiet apartment.

You turned around and I was closer than you expected. I could smell your cologne—something cedar and warm, mixed with the leather of your jacket. Your eyes were dark, attentive, the way you look at me like you're memorizing something.

"How was the drive over?" I asked, which was a stupid question, but my mouth needed something to do while the rest of me decided whether to drag you to the bedroom immediately or let this build.

"Fast. I may have run a yellow light."

"You're a terrible influence."

"You say that every time."

"And it's true every time."

You laughed, low and quiet. You reached out and touched the strap of my dress, just the tip of your finger running along the fabric where it sat on my shoulder. Not pulling it down. Just tracing it. My skin prickled.

"I've been thinking about this for two weeks," you said.

"Two weeks and three days," I corrected. "Since the last time Hugo went to his sister's for the weekend and you showed up with that guitar."

"I didn't show up with the guitar. The guitar was already in my car."

"And you brought it up. And you played for me on the couch. And then you didn't leave for three hours."

You stepped closer. Your hand moved from the strap to the side of my neck, your thumb resting against my pulse. You could feel it, I'm sure. Fast and obvious.

"Your boyfriend's going to be gone how long?" you asked.

"Four days. Conference in Denver."

"Four days." You said it like you were doing math, calculating hours, positions, possibilities. "That's generous of him."

"He's very generous. Shares everything. His apartment, his girlfriend—well, not intentionally on that last one."

You raised an eyebrow. "Should I feel guilty?"

"Absolutely not. Hugo's a wonderful man who wears beautiful suits and trims his beard with precision and has never once made me come so hard I forgot my own name."

Your thumb pressed slightly harder against my pulse. "And I have?"

"You know you have. Don't fish."

I put my hands on your chest, felt the warmth of you through the t-shirt. You were solid. Different from Hugo, who was broad and hairy and soft in all the right places. You were leaner, the body of someone who'd been playing guitar and moving through the world with a kind of restless energy for decades. I slid my hands up to your shoulders, pushed the leather jacket off. You let it fall to the floor behind you.

"Stay for dinner," I said.

"I didn't come for dinner."

"Good. Because I didn't make any."

I pulled you toward me by the hem of your shirt and kissed you. Your mouth opened against mine immediately, no hesitation, your tongue sliding against mine with a confidence that I've always found staggering. You tasted like coffee and something sweet. Your hands went to my waist, then lower, gripping my hips through the thin fabric of the dress, pulling me against you. I could feel you getting hard through your jeans. The length of you pressed against my lower stomach, and I made a sound into your mouth that I couldn't quite control.

"Bedroom," I said against your lips.

"Lead the way."

I walked, and you followed, your hand on the small of my back. The bedroom was the way I'd left it—bed unmade from this morning, the lamp on the nightstand casting warm light across the sheets. I turned to face you at the edge of the bed, and you pulled me in again.

This kiss was slower. Deeper. Your hands found the zipper at the back of my dress and dragged it down inch by inch. I felt the fabric loosen, go slack. The straps slid off my shoulders, and the dress pooled at my feet. I stood in front of you in nothing but a pair of black underwear, my breasts bare, my skin prickling in the cool air.

You pulled back and looked at me. Really looked. Your eyes moved from my face to my chest, and I watched your expression shift—something hungry settling over your features.

"Fuck," you said quietly.

"Like what you see?"

"I always like what I see. It's a problem."

You reached for me, both hands coming up to cup my breasts. They filled your hands and then some, heavy and soft, and I watched your fingers press into the flesh, watched the way your brown skin looked against my pale. You leaned down and took one nipple in your mouth, and I gasped. The heat of your mouth, the wet of your tongue circling, then your teeth grazing just enough to send a sharp jolt straight down between my legs.

"Yes," I hissed. My hand came up to the back of your head, fingers tangling in your curls, holding you against me. You sucked harder, your tongue working my nipple in slow circles while your other hand kneaded my other breast, thumb rolling the nipple until it was stiff and aching.

You switched sides, mouth moving to the other breast, and I watched you. Watched your lips close around me, watched the way your eyes flicked up to meet mine while your tongue worked. It was obscene and beautiful, and I could feel myself getting wet, the fabric of my underwear clinging.

"I want your mouth on me," I said. "Lower."

You pulled back, your lips wet, and grinned. "Patience."

"I've been patient for two weeks and three days."

You pushed me gently back onto the bed. I sat, then lay back against the pillows, my blonde hair fanning out around me. You knelt on the floor between my legs, your hands running up my thighs, thumbs tracing the crease where leg meets hip. I was trembling. Actually trembling.

You hooked your fingers into my underwear and pulled it down, over my hips, past my knees, off. I was bare from the waist down, and you looked at me—looked at my pussy, already wet, already swollen—and let out a breath.

"Gorgeous," you said. Not to me. To yourself. Like an observation.

Then your mouth was on me.

Your tongue ran flat up the length of me, and I moaned, loud, unguarded. Hugo was always careful, always quiet during sex, and I'd trained myself to be quiet too. With you, I didn't have to be. I let the sound out, let my hips roll up toward your face.

You found my clit and circled it, slow, deliberate. Your hands gripped my thighs, holding them apart, and I could feel the stubble on your jaw scratching against my skin in a way that made everything sharper. You sucked gently, then harder, your tongue flicking in a rhythm that made my back arch off the bed.

"Right there," I said. "Don't stop. Don't you fucking stop."

You didn't. You kept your mouth exactly where I needed it, your tongue working me with a precision that bordered on musical—of course it was musical, you were a guitar player, you understood rhythm and pressure and the way a single repeated note could build into something overwhelming.

I could feel it building. That tightening, that gathering. My thighs shook against your hands. My fingers gripped the sheets.

"Mahmoud—"

You hummed against me, the vibration of it sending me over, and I came hard, my hips bucking, a sound ripping out of my throat that I didn't recognize. You worked me through it, tongue slowing as the waves subsided, and when I finally went limp against the mattress, you pressed one last soft kiss to my clit before pulling back.

I lay there breathing, staring at the ceiling. You wiped your mouth with the back of your hand and smiled at me from between my legs.

"Two weeks and three days," you said. "Worth the wait?"

"Shut up and take your clothes off."

You stood, and I watched you undress. The t-shirt first, pulled over your head, revealing the lean lines of your chest, darker skin, a trail of hair below your navel. Then the jeans, the belt buckle clinking, the denim pushed down. Your cock was hard, pressing against the fabric of your briefs, and when you pulled those down too, it sprang free—thick, circumcised, the head flushed. I reached for you.

"Come here."

You climbed onto the bed, over me, and I wrapped my hand around your cock. You were hot and hard in my grip, and I stroked you slowly, watching your face. Your eyes half-closed, your lips parted.

"I want to taste you," I said.

You shifted, positioning yourself above me, and I turned, pulling you toward my mouth. I licked the length of you, base to tip, tasting the salt of your skin. Your breath hissed through your teeth. I took the head in my mouth, swirling my tongue, then took you deeper, feeling you against the back of my throat. I pulled back, then down again, setting a rhythm, my hand working what my mouth couldn't reach.

"Fuck, Iris," you groaned. Your hand found my breast, squeezing, rolling the nipple between your fingers while I sucked you. The dual sensation—your hand on me, your cock in my mouth—had me squirming again.

I pulled back, gasping, and looked up at you. "I want you between my tits."

You didn't need to be told twice. I pressed my breasts together, and you slid your cock between them, the wetness from my mouth making it slick. You groaned, your hips moving, the head of your cock emerging from the top of my cleavage with each thrust. I tilted my head forward, catching the tip with my tongue each time it appeared, tasting the precum that had started to leak.

"God, that's—fuck," you said, your rhythm faltering.

"Come on them," I said. "I want to see it."

You pulled back, stroking yourself, and I held my breasts up, presenting them. Your hand moved fast, your breathing ragged, and then you came—thick ropes of white across my chest, striping over my breasts, pooling in the hollow of my collarbone. I watched your face as you came, the way your jaw tightened, the way you said my name like it was the only word you knew.

You sat back on your heels, breathing hard, and I looked down at myself. My breasts were covered in you, warm and wet. I scooped a finger through it, brought it to my mouth, and licked it clean. Your eyes went dark watching me.

"You're going to be the death of me," you said.

I smiled, collecting more from my chest with my fingers, licking each one slowly. "Probably. But what a way to go."

I wiped the rest with the edge of the sheet—there was no saving that sheet anyway—and pulled you down beside me. You curled around me, your arm across my waist, your breath warm against my shoulder. We lay there in the dim light, the sounds of the city filtering through the window, and I felt a satisfaction so deep it was almost funny.

"So," you said after a while. "Four days, you said?"

"Four days."

"What are you doing tomorrow night?"

"Same thing I'm doing tonight, if you're available."

You laughed against my shoulder. "I think I can clear my schedule."

I rolled over to face you, my breasts pressing against your chest, and kissed you slow. "You know, Hugo gets back Saturday."

"Is that your way of telling me to behave?"

I traced a finger down your jaw. "It's my way of telling you Friday night is our last chance, so bring your A-game."

"I always bring my A-game."

"Modest, too."

You grinned, and I felt you stirring against my thigh again. My eyebrows went up. "Already?"

"You did that thing with your tongue."

"I did a lot of things with my tongue."

"The one at the end. When you licked—" You stopped, shook your head. "Yeah. That one."

I laughed and pushed you onto your back. "Give me ten minutes."

"You've got all night."

And we did. Four days of it, technically, but tonight felt endless in the best way—the city noise outside, the tangled sheets, the smell of you and me and the candles I'd pretended I didn't light. Hugo was probably somewhere over the Midwest right now, reading a spreadsheet in a suit that fit him beautifully, completely unaware that his girlfriend was about to spend the next several hours doing things that would make his precisely trimmed beard fall off.

I kissed your chest, your neck, your mouth. "Round two," I said.

You pulled me closer. "Round two."

And somewhere in the back of my mind, I made a mental note to change the sheets before Hugo got home. The man might not be a detective, but even he'd notice the sheer level of destruction we'd managed in this bedroom. Some things, after all, require a certain discretion.

The rest? The rest was ours.