Page 29 of The Match Faker
“Like kissing was the point.” I brush my lips against the corner of his mouth, shivering at the sensation of lip balm softness against rough stubble. “No one’s ever kissed me like I should enjoy it.”
He clutches my hand tighter against his stomach, our fingers intertwined. The position is a little awkward, but I couldn’t imagine letting go right now. His grip on my shoulder tightens too.
“Jesus.” His voice is harsh, almost angry; whether it’s at me or the people who’ve kissed me before, I can’t tell. “How the fuck were they kissing you then?”
His eyes are closed. A deep line mars the skin between his brows. He licks his lower lip, and his chest expands in bigger and bigger breaths. Without his hands as a guard between us, he’s hard against my hip, straining against the fabric of his underwear. If I looked down right now, would the tip be wet? Leaking through cotton-Lycra blend?
“Like it’s a box to be checked? A means to an end.”
He opens his eyes, his dark irises swimming with outrage, and walks me back until my lower back hits the kitchen counter. “Absolutely the fuck not.”
Nick kisses me. This time it’s nothing like the experimental contact I tried before. He cups my jaw, and with his thumb, he tugs gently at my chin to open my mouth. He kisses me bodily, his arms and hands holding, his legs bracketing mine, his hips a gentle force against mine.
“You know this,” he says between breaths, “is what you deserve, right?”
I try to nod but am stopped by a hand at my jaw, his teeth as he mouths at the side of my throat.
“I know.” I gasp.
“You ask for this from now on.” He kisses me like a command. “You demand only the kisses you want, okay?”
“I will.” I feel chastened for not demanding better in the past, even though I didn’t know I could or even what it was I should ask for.
Nick lowers his hands. The click of the washing machine, the signal that the cycle is done, the load ready to be flipped, cracks like a gunshot through the house. He’s barely moved away and though he’s the one without any clothes, a chill creeps over me like he’s left me alone and exposed in the middle of a blizzard. I loop my arms around his neck and pull him close. I nuzzle my face into the space between his neck and shoulder. He lets me. He doesn’t resist. But rather than touch me in return, he grips the counter on either side of my hips.
“Do it now,” he says, softer. “Demand what you want.”
My instinct is to defer to him, to take my best guess at what he wants me to say. In the past, that would have been what I wanted: to please him. But with Nick, it’s clear that molding and shaping myself to make him happy wouldn’t make him happy at all. The only way to make him happy is to put my happiness first. Which is actually kind of confusing.
“Jasmine,” he whispers, like he can feel me thinking too hard about it. “Please.”
“I want…” I say, unsure of what to ask for.
He kisses me again, soft, like a reward, and I’m overwhelmed by the sudden, concrete knowledge of what I want.
I open my eyes. “I want you to kiss my pussy the way you kiss my mouth.”
8
NICK
Idon’t know how I got here. I came to tell her that I think she made a mistake, that I am not the Nick she thought I was. Instead, I’m on my knees in her kitchen, pulse thrumming, dragging her black athleisure pants down her legs.
It wasn’t supposed to happen like this, but I can’t stop. Not now. Not when she told me what she wanted. She said pussy for fuck’s sakes. French cab sauv drinking, hand sanitized, bullet listed wardrobe requirements Jasmine said the word pussy and told me to eat hers.
Her underwear is black, cotton, a little faded. A few short, dark hairs are visible against the fair skin of her upper thigh. I don’t know how I got here. I shouldn’t be here. But look at her. God, look at her.
The heat she ignited in me when her lips touched mine is burning hot now. I rub my thumb along the hairs at her panty line, relishing the prickle against the pad of my thumb.
That’s all it takes for the horny haze she’s floating in to burn off. With a gasp, she clamps her legs together, and her body goes stiff. Jasmine strikes me as the kind of woman who keeps a regular bikini or Brazilian waxing appointment, and apparentlyI must strike her—wrongfully—as the kind of man who fucking cares about body hair.
I should put a stop to this. Ineedto, but if I do, then there’s a good chance that she’ll assume my reluctance has something to do with her body.
With my hands splayed on her thighs, I hold her gaze and lean in, pressing my nose, my mouth, against her body. I don’t close my eyes until I’m enveloped by her, her scent, her warmth. I take a deep breath, just to make a point.
“Sorry,” she says, a little breathless. “I didn’t think we’d be…”
“I like it.” Though I’m unsure of whether she’s apologizing for the not-traditionally sexy lingerie, the pubic hair, or something else entirely. “And please don’t ever apologize for letting me anywhere close to your pussy.”