Calendar Girl (18 page)

‘And you’re still going strong,’ I said.

‘Our first
date
was phone sex from thousands of miles away.’

‘But it was so ...’ I floundered for words.

‘Yes, it was
so.
And it will be so if you give me a chance to be with you and take you out. And do those things to you,
with
you, in person.’ His words washed over me like warm water.

‘What things?’ I prompted, smiling against the sofa cushion, running my hands along my belly. A soft thrill worked low in my pelvis, filled my pussy, made me wet.

‘Oh, so you want an update? You’d like to know what I dreamt of last night, would you, missy?’

‘I would,’ I said.

‘Fine. Last night we were in the sunny kitchen of this rental. You had come to Romania to be with me. I was happy.’

I shifted. That statement, simple and unassuming made my heartbeat triple. I sighed. ‘I am sweet that way. Travelling via dreams to foreign lands.’

‘You had those boots on that you described. And I loved them. I kissed the leather like it was our very own skin, burrowing under your short denim dress to push my fingers deep inside your wetness. Push your fingers deep inside yourself for me, Merritt. Pretend it’s me.’

‘I am,’ I said. I pushed my fingers down in my jeans, pushing the fly wide, worming my fingers into my panties. Working them into my slippery opening. ‘I am,’ I breathed.

‘I didn’t put my mouth on you. Mainly because you wanted it. You wanted it so bad, so I used my fingers, fucking you evenly, slowly until you begged me.’

‘But you still didn’t give it to me, did you?’ I said, pulling my own fingers free and stimulating my engorged clit. My hips bucked up of their own accord, my stomach tingling, my nipples painfully hard. I reached up and pinched one. Hard and sharp the way I somehow knew that Penn would.

‘No. I didn’t. I pushed that silly skirt up around your waist and pulled your panties off. Yellow with little blue flowers. So girly and frilly and perfect. I put my cock to the soaked place between your legs and slowly, ever so fucking slowly–’

‘So that I begged and cursed?’

‘Yes. That slowly. I pushed into you. I rocked into you like you were music and I was dancing. I fucked you so your back hit the beautiful tiled backsplash and the heels of your killer boots hit the faded, warped wood of this ancient kitchen table. I slammed into you until I thought I’d leave my own body. You were so hot. So tight. So fucking wet it made my heart hurt and my soul ache. I want you to come for me,’ he said.

‘I will. Will you?’ I worked my fingers in and out of my cunt, making myself pant, straining to hear his hand on his cock, his own orgasm approaching. ‘And just as you were about to come, I pulled free of you.’

I gasped as if it were really happening. As if that were truly my reality even as my fingers flew in slippery patterns at the wet place between my thighs, teasing my clit until I hovered right there, on the verge of coming, but refusing to give it to him – to me – just yet. ‘Why?’

I dropped to my knees and pushed my face to your pussy. So slick and juicy. You tasted like pure arousal. Somehow darker and more intense than when you are not yet ready to be fucked. You tasted like the ripest berry, dark and sweet and intoxicating. I drank you in, Merritt. I drank you like a fine liqueur. I drank you until your little heels beat a victory cadence on the kitchen table and you coated my face and my chin with your sweetness. I drank you until every flicker and spasm and sigh passed and then I came back to you. Buried into your perfect heat.’

I was coming. Sweet spasms that stole my breath and made me gasp and pant like I was dying. He groaned. Joining me. Knowing where I was without me saying. Keeping time with my release. ‘Yes,’ I said.

‘I took you slow then. I took you so slow it was nearly torture. My mouth on your mouth. My hands in your hair and on your perfect breasts. On your waist and cupping your ass and touching you everywhere. All of it. All of you. And when we came ...’

‘We came together.’

‘Yes.’

I smiled. My body giving me little after blips of pleasure that I relished like tiny morsels of the sweetest dessert. ‘I loved that. I love that you can do that to me. For me.’

‘As do I. And tomorrow I come home and then–’

I cut him off and said, ‘I hope you don’t hate me for this, Penn. I know I told you July. I know I said that and I meant it. But I just now realised, how powerful you are to me. Inside me, outside me. In my heart. And my heart ...’

He didn’t sound angry. Intent and curious but not angry. ‘Yes?’

‘It’s been kicked to shit this year. And I’m not bitter. And I’m not confused. But I do need to just sit with myself and figure what I want. I need some time with me. Just me and Merritt. Together.’

Great. I sounded like a crazy woman. I thought the man could almost love me and now I was giving him every reason in the world not to.

‘When can I see you, Merritt? You just say. And until then, I’ll make do.’

I blew out a big breath, feeling both entirely sane and like a lunatic all in the space of one breath. ‘August,’ I said. ‘I need those weeks. I need to just exist. August. Can you do August?’

‘I can do whatever you ask me, Merritt. You’re worth the wait.’

God. I hoped so.

Chapter Twenty-eight

‘W
INE
,’ L
ISA SAID
, handing me a bottle of really good Cabernet.

‘Thanks,’ I said and waved her in. Before I could even close the door, the two ‘J’s showed up.

‘Wine,’ Jeffrey said, handing me a 1.5 L bottle of Merlot.

‘And wine,’ Jack said, handing me a Syrah. ‘I’m detecting a theme here.’

‘We’ll need it,’ I said. I pointed everyone to the dining room. There’s wine and wine and wine and cheese,’ I said. ‘And some fruit to round it out. It’s a damn act of God that you were all free tonight.’

‘Go figure. A Saturday night and we all had nowhere to be,’ Lisa said, giving me a wry smiled.

I sat as Jack opened the Cab first. Ah, it was good to have family. They knew what your favourites were. ‘I have called you all together because you know of the great experiment. Being a calendar girl, so to speak. Fucking, flirting, fun. A guy a month, tons of sex, and especially, say it with me ...’

No strings
, everyone said in unison. I smiled.

‘What of it, Merritt?’ Lisa asked holding up her glass as my big brother, festooned in turquoise, pink lip-gloss and yes, eye shadow, poured her a glass of wine. He poured for everyone,
being mother
, as Drake would have said. He poured me the biggest glass.

‘I’ve failed,’ I said and spilled it all. Every bit of it. Matthew and the long goodbye. Penn and my odd pull to him. The phone sex. Mom showing up, Drake. My big advice to my ex and how I thought I had to do it myself. Not just talk the talk, but walk the walk as well.

‘So you think you failed,’ Lisa asked.

‘Yes and no. I set out to take a year to find out about me. Turns out I only needed half that time. But ... well, I want to make sure I’m making a good decision for me. So, I’m going to be alone with it until August. Mom’s birthday is in August. August 3
^rd
, if all goes well, I’ll have a date for her birthday party. Or ... I’ll totally be going stag and be fine with it.’

‘Wait, wait, wait, you crazy bitch,’ Jeffrey said, nibbling cheese and crossing his legs. Clad in sparkly black denim capris, his calves looked phenomenal. The man had the best calves in the world. Taut, muscular, but not too bulgy and not too stringy. ‘You called us all here together on a Saturday night to tell us you’re going to be alone?’

‘You gathered everyone to announce solitude?’ Jack piped in, laughing softly and covering his mouth when I frowned at him.

‘Yes! I am not going to be alone like some damn monk in the mountains,’ I snapped and they all laughed. ‘I mean, men. I am going to be sans men.’

‘But phone sex–’ Lisa started.

‘No. No phone sex. That would be cheating. Right? Well, maybe – no! No, no, no! No nothing. I need to just be with me and sit with my decision. Remember that’s how G-G said it,’ I said to Jack. Our great grandmother, G-G, had always counselled us for difficult decisions to
just sit with it
.

Jack nodded. He knew what I meant. ‘I got it.’

‘So, we will all be seeing a lot of each other now.’

‘You mean we don’t now?!’ Jeffrey yelped.

‘Oh, zip it. We will be seeing a lot of each other and you will be keeping me on the straight and narrow. No men. Just me and my decision that I need to find out where this thing with Penn is going. Will you help?’

‘Christ,’ Jeffrey said. ‘First we were helping you get laid and get it all out of your system, now we’re helping you not get laid and keep to yourself. Our work is never done.’

Jack laughed and leaned in, kissing Jeffrey on the throat. I swear if Jeffery could blush, he just had. ‘Show offs.’

‘We cannot help our predestined love affair,’ Jeffrey said and turned his face to kiss my brother for real.

‘Bah!’ I said, turning my head and shielding my eyes. ‘Oh my God. Stop, stop, stop it!’

‘Actually, they look pretty right with each other,’ Lisa said calmly.

I put my hand down and looked at them. And yes, those sluts were still kissing! I refused to see my brother and my best friend. I just saw two men who had the hots for each other. And damn if she wasn’t right. They did look pretty perfect.

I once had a friend in college named Maria. She met a Spanish exchange student and it began a whirlwind love affair. Three months of fucking, drinking and eating his family’s recipes because he loved to cook. Maria had called it the lost summer. From first of June to late August she was caught up in the twister of fresh attraction.

Or as she put it: One too many cervezas, two too many empanadas and a whole lot of hot monkey sex. It can make a girl forget herself.

Part of me spent those weeks forgetting myself, part of me spent it seeking. I had dreams about the men I’d been with. I had dreams about the one I wanted. Always happy when I woke up having dreamt of Penn, realising that I still looked forward to seeing him once my own self-induced time line had ended. Thrilled that I woke dreaming of his mouth on my mouth, his body in mine. Beyond happy that I still got goose bumps when I thought of him.

I threw out the toys from Eli and the tee that Matthew had left at my house that smelled of him. I cut my hair by eight inches and donated it to a charity. I considered sending a lock to Matthew but let sleeping dogs lie.

I spend many evenings with the ladies at The Drunken Flamingo and I even did another backup stint for Jack’s rendition of
Tell Him (Right Now)
. July 30
^th
the phone rang. Penn had left me messages, I had answered when they were work related. We still weren’t on the books until September and he didn’t push me to change it. It would all work out or it would simply implode and turn to dust.

The good news was I did not feel panic. I felt calm and curious and still very attracted to the man with the vampire accent.

‘Tomorrow is August,’ he said simply.

‘I know.’

‘Will you see me then?’ There was that smile in his voice. And knowing it was coming right across town as opposed to thousands of miles away made my body ripple like a wave. I wanted him so bad still and it truly was a joyous feeling.

Celibacy and silence and time alone with friends and self had not faded that need for him. He called to me. His voice resonated and when I closed my eyes I could see his dark good looks and the crooked way he smiled.

‘I will. I will see you then,’ I laughed.

‘I have to admit. I’m very nervous now.’ His laugh was self deprecating and endearing beyond belief.

‘You? Why?’ That floored me. It never occurred to me that he’d feel that way.

‘Because it’s been so long. Since we met, since we talked. Since we, um, well you are aware,’ he said, clearing his throat.

‘Had phone sex?’ I asked.

He chuckled and simply said, ‘Yeah, that.’

‘Were you there to meet a girl?’ I blurted.

‘I was. And I saw her.’

‘And?’

‘And the whole time I was speaking with her, my mind was full of you. You. A woman I had met twice before that.’

I blushed and said, ‘Oh.’

‘I thought it was a sign that maybe there was nothing there for me anymore. You know?’

‘I do.’

‘I look forward to tomorrow, Merritt,’ he said and then, ‘I’m going to go paint now.’

‘So fast?’ I asked.

‘Talking to you,
hearing your voice
makes me want you. Makes the need for you big and toothy for me. So it will have to be short and sweet. I’ll go paint and wait for tomorrow to come. I’ll call and we’ll figure out our meeting?’

‘Sure,’ I said. I said goodbye and hung up.

Then I pulled on some worn denim cut offs, a pair of Vans, a swing top and I put my hair up in a clip. I was going for a drive. To Penn’s cabin.

I drove up that long and winding drive. The cabin came into view and it took my breath again. So gorgeous. Very much my dream home since I was a little girl. I parked but didn’t get out. I sat and watched the arching window on the second floor that I knew was his loft. Penn was up there now. Painting, waiting for tomorrow. Waiting for
me.
That fact set my nerves to tingling and my heart jumping. Why me? Why in the world would a man like that be interested in a girl like me?

That’s a shitty thing to think to yourself ...

I shook my head. Pretty true. Why wouldn’t he feel that way about me? Why not? I was ... ‘I am fabulous,’ I said out loud. Shit. Even I didn’t believe me. ‘I AM FABULOUS!’ I roared in my little blue SUV. I banged the steering wheel to get my energy up. The way Jeffrey jumped around and sang death metal music before a show. But when I hit it, my hand slid and I hit the horn.
Bwoop!
Said my car.

I imagined Penn inside, pausing, looking out the window to see what lunatic had come up his long private driveway to honk the horn. I blew my long bangs out of my face and hiked my boobs up in my bra. The girl equivalent of adjusting your equipment. I climbed free of the vehicle, grabbed my tote and stomped up to the front door. I was trying to be brave, but I feared I appeared rabid.

I knocked. I knocked so hard my knuckles sang and I hissed. But I kept knocking until the door swung open and a very surprised, flustered looking Penn Fratila said, ‘Merritt! Merritt what are you doing here?’ And then he scooped me into his arms and hugged me like he hadn’t seen me in years and had counted every second.

My heart melted a little right there. ‘I came to ... to see you. I came because I wanted to see you today and now, now that I am here, I am afraid,’ I said quietly.

He pulled me inside and shut the door. His mouth was so close to mine I could feel his energy, but he didn’t kiss me. ‘Why are you afraid?’

‘I’m afraid now that I’m here you’ll change your mind. Realise you were wrong. Hell, realise you had the wrong girl! All of the above.’ My heart beat so hard I felt sick. Tears pricked my eyes. Weeks I had put this off and here I stood and the man was more handsome, hell,
more beautiful
than I remembered. And here I was. Me. Just regular old me.

He was laughing softly and it was so nice to see him laugh and not just hear it. He leaned in, pressed his soft, warm lips to mine and pulled me in. His tongue brushed mine and seared me with heat. My body slammed tight to his hard length and I felt his cock ridging the fly of his jeans. I sucked in a breath but there was just more kiss behind that.

‘Does that feel like I’ve changed my mind? Like I’ve come to my senses? You are more beautiful than I remember, even. And trust me, I’ve thought of you, imagined you, pictured you every day since I left. Not just that, I’ve thought of, imagined and pictured you doing very dirty things to me. For me.’ He tugged me tighter, sliding his big hands up and down my back so that I hummed. ‘With me.’

‘Yes,’ I sighed. ‘I mean, yes?’ I laughed.

He kissed me again, but didn’t push it. He took my hand and tugged. ‘Let me prove it to you. Follow me.’

‘You don’t have to prove anything,’ I said. ‘I just needed ... time. And I got it and I don’t want to wait until tomorrow for the first. I wanted to see you tonight.’ But I followed him up the steps to the loft, already running what would be needed for starting his job in September through my mind.

When we got to the top, he pointed. I was confused at first. There was so much to see beyond a single point. But when my eyes found it and I bit my bottom lip to keep from crying out. It was like a mirror, but better. A mirror that showed the me I wanted to be. Or better yet, a mirror that showed the me that Penn Fratila saw. ‘Oh my God.’

‘I had to do something to help keep myself patient.’

I moved toward it. Not as big as his first canvas I saw. Probably roughly a foot and a half by two feet. And it was me. Back bared, nude, hair sliding along one side of my curved waist. Just the hint of an eye, a cheekbone. A beautiful midnight sky with the hint of a full moon. I looked surreal and sexy and beautiful.

‘That’s not me,’ I said. ‘That’s some idealized version of me.’ I moved to it.

‘Don’t touch you. You’re wet,’ he said, and chuckled, tracing my spine with his fingertip so that I shivered.

Yes. I was wet. On canvas and in my cut-offs.

‘Wow.’

‘And it is you, Merritt. I did it by memory and it is you. You just don’t see it. You’re too close to you to see your beauty.’

I stood before it and shook my head. His lips came down on the back of my neck, his hands floating up, sliding, moving under my swing top. I shut my eyes, let my body go haywire. I let him cup my breasts and then peel my bra cups down and run his thumbs over my nipples. ‘I’ve waited a really long time to touch you for real,’ he said in my ear. ‘Not just touch myself and
pretend
it’s you.’ He laughed softly and I smiled.

I turned in his arms, stood on tiptoe and licked his lips before kissing him. ‘I’m afraid that now that I’m here, you won’t want me,’ I said again.

He licked my ear, my neck, my collar bone. Put my hand on his hard-on and said, ‘Does that feel like the erection of a man who does not want you anymore?’

The mix of his words and his accent had me smiling. But I ran my hand along the length of him, wanting so bad to feel him bare. To feel him inside of me. To have him take me right here in full view of me as a work of art. Me as he saw me. ‘I want you,’ I said. ‘I want you really bad and right now and I want you to want me. God, Penn, I want you to want me so bad my head is swimming.’

I was as honest as a woman could be without simply dying on the spot from embarrassment.

And he already had me out of my cut-offs. I danced in place as the sun shone like bright rays of diamond and gold through the tall windows. I shimmied out of my panties, I raised my arms to be relieved of my swing top. I shook my shoulders to help get out of my bra, I bared my neck and my breasts to his mouth and tugged his jeans button like I had a grudge against it.

‘Out of these,’ I said. ‘And you have to help me because I’m clumsy as shit.’

He was out of the jeans before my heart beat a full beat again. He stood there, big, dark haired, leanly muscled – smiling. Male perfection at its finest. He put his hand over my heart and said, ‘Your heart is racing.’