Want

He glares at me for a moment, not so much from anger but from shock. Then, with a half-smile, he places the cigar between his lips and lets it dangle as he speaks.

"I'll take that as a no."

I go to my door and open it. "Thank you but no thank you, Bart. You can leave now. You can find yourself another little black blow-up doll to fuck senseless when the mood hits you. I'm not whoring myself out."

"That's not what I meant. You know this. When have I ever treated you like a whore?" The way that he said the word whore, his accent never more prevalent, echoed through the apartment.

"You just did. Now leave."

"No."

"What?"

"I don't want to," he states flatly, as if that is going to make some type of difference to me.

"You are old enough for your wants not to hurt you. Buy yourself another toy."

Bartholomew comes closer, but he does not position himself to walk out of the still open door. He places himself in front of me so that I can see nothing but him. He is close and what I see in those usually gentle brown eyes is suddenly frightening.

"I did something. Or maybe, I didn't do something. I don't know."

He takes the door from my hand and slams it shut.

"I'm..." He searches for a word as if his thoughts are suddenly untranslatable.

"I'm not leaving," he finally says, reaching out to wrap his arm around my waist.

I pull back, but he jerks me into him. It is too close and I know what being close to him does to me, so I arch my back to place some space between us.

He leans into me, his displeasure at my response now obvious. There is no smile, just focused intensity and what could only be described as anger. His other hand comes to my neck and he wraps his fingers around my throat, holding it firmly.

A part of me wants him to tighten his grip. I want him to squeeze, to show me his anger and to further invoke mine. Men like him only know what they want, what they feel entitled to take and to use. They do not know rejection, certainly not from someone like me, who has nothing they give any weight to or measure. Do it, I think. Squeeze. I want him to give me something to hate him for, something that will stamp out this need for his presence, his touch—his love. I challenge him with my eyes and set my lips in defiance. I want him to handle me wrong or say the wrong thing just once. That kind of anger I can identify with, I'm used to defending myself. I'm used to that type of pain and what it brings. I'm used to fighting to separate myself from it so that I can survive. My body goes rigid as I prepare to strike back.

"What do you want?" His words are thick and move across my lips as he lingers there searching my face.

Something unexplainable wells up inside of me like a ball and I begin to feel as if I cannot breathe. It is not the pressure from his hand; he has yet to apply any. His hand just sits there holding the length of my neck. I struggle to breathe just the same and I feel my eyes begin to burn. I close them immediately and squeeze them shut, hoping that nothing soft or wet escapes.

He cannot see me like this. No, please, not like this.

"Look at me," he demands. "Now."

His lips are still so close to mine that I feel them move. His hand travels from my neck downward. He feels me. He stretches the neck of my top and lets the palm of his hand feel my over-heated skin. He feels my heart beating in my chest, the expansion of my lungs as I breathe.

When his lips finally claim mine, his kiss is as desperate as my own. He takes me fully in his arms and I feel his hands spread possessively across my back. I touch the curve of his head, his face and the lids of his eyes as I return his kiss.

"This man," it is all I can think as I lose myself in him.

"You want me as much as I want you," he manages. "I feel it each and every time we touch, when you look at me."

If only that were true, I think. I want him more.

He lifts me up and I wrap myself around him as I have so many times. I want to give him the one thing I know he craves, that which allows him to be mine for just a moment, to see that look on his face and in his eyes. I want to hear the sounds he makes when he releases inside of me.

There are only two other doors, the bathroom and the bedroom. He finds the correct one and lays me down on my bed. He practically rips off buttons as he frees himself from his clothes. I slide my top over my head and slip out of my bra. He pulls off everything else. When our lips meet again, the heat of flesh is everywhere. A month without him seems like a year and yet now it seems as if it was only yesterday. His body is so familiar to me and yet still so new. I want to touch all of him, taste him, breathe him in and hold him there.

But, I can't. I can't hold him. Who could possibly hold him? Each time the sex is over, when he slips from within me or his lips leave my skin and the cool air drifts in with a chill, when his eyes lose that wildness and that teasing easiness resumes its place, I feel a little part of myself dissipate. That is why I stop him now. With his face between my hands, I push him away and turn my head. I try to pull back on my hips, my body wide open beneath his weight. He is already poised to enter.

"Bart," I whisper, my voice breaking. "This...I..."

"Woman," he swears, his accent so thick now that his words sound like another language. "Good gracious God, woman, you drive a man insane."

"I'm complicated."

"No shit. That's the fucking understatement of the year."

His words are harsh, but the smile in his eyes is there. He touches his nose to mine, rubs the slight shadow of his cheek against mine.

"You don't do complicated," I attempt to smile. "Remember?"

He sprinkles me with soft kisses, the caress of his tongue, and the threat of his teeth as he moves down my body. My hands move from his face to the top of his head.

"If that were true I would not be here," he whispers into the skin of my torso, causing the muscles there to ripple, "watching your apartment and lingering in halls."

He moves further down.

"I wouldn't be here now, begging."

"Begging," I moan.

"Please," he says dragging the word out and breathing it into my body as his lips descend on my pussy and my body rises up to meet him.

He holds my hips firmly, with his body positioned just right to leave my legs open and ready, prepared for how I twist and buck under his assault. He kisses and nibbles and sucks my tender, engorged clit like a pro, trained in driving me out of my mind with pleasure.

"Bart...Oh..." I purr, pulling at my own hair as my thighs began to tremble beyond his or my control.

Even after I come, he lets his tongue and lips continue to torture me as he laps at my juices.

"You see," he picks up the conversation as he moves up my body, "The man you say I am would not have done that. That man would only be after his own pleasure."

"It's less..." he says plucking at my dark nipples with his tongue, "complicated...that way."

I feel the whirlwind inside of me slowly subsiding, eyes half closed. I am fully aware of every detail of his movement. We are right back where we had begun. I feel him pressing against my swollen, still pulsating, lips.

His eyes are serious as he looks down at me. My hands are held above my head, his fingers entwined with my own. We just stare at each other, not daring to move.

I think about saying no, but I do not want that. What I want is to feel him deep inside of my hungry body. I had come thoroughly, but I know that it is only a little of what he gives. Also, there was the fact that he was giving me the opportunity to say no.

"I want to stay with you," he says finally.

His lips crush mine as he enters me. His thickness stretches me, the pain of it causing my body to exhale in relief as he pushes his cock into me, inch by inch, torturously slow. He lifts himself slightly. I both feel him and see him bottom out. The look on his face causes my heart to ache. This is one of the moments I want to capture, to hold him close and never let go.

He does not start to work himself out, only to plow back in again. He does not start the hip movement that makes me cry out for more. He just watches.

"You stay the night, you be with me, take me, please me, but in the morning..."

I speak without thinking of how I must sound to him.

"Yes," he encourages me, his eyes questioning.

"In the morning, you leave. I'm just the girl you fucked last night. I need more. I know that was not part of the plan, not what you want or need. Somewhere my want for your unapologetically selfish ass became a need. I need more. I need more of you."

His expression is unreadable and my heart begins to sink.

"What's wrong with being the woman I fucked last night if I give you pleasure? You want me just as badly as I want you. What could be better than that? What can be better than this?"

He moves just enough to make the head of his cock dance against the bridge of my cervix and create a surge that shoots through my body.

"Get off me please," I beg, on the verge of losing what little I have left.

Neither of us move.

"No," he whispers. "This is where I belong, here with you and inside of you."

"I can't think when you are inside of me."

"Then don't think. Feel!"

He starts to move, slowly withdrawing himself only to push back in. As always, his movements are so measured and certain.

"You make me so weak. It's so embarrassing."

"Be weak, embarrass yourself on me."

Pushing and pulling, his hips move. Each time, he hits my spot so perfectly and then drags himself across my sensitive clit to heighten the pleasure even more.

"I don't want to just be the girl you keep around to fuck."

His thrusts begin to quicken.

"I don't want to be the man that gets so taken by a woman that he loses control. I don't want to miss sleep or business opportunities. I don't want to get desperate, calling, knowing she is looking at the phone, looking at my number, listening to my pitiful messages and not answering. I don't want to be that man that lurks in halls, or waits in the dark watching this building, hoping to see you, praying that you are alone. I'm too old for that shit."

With each sentence, his strokes become more forceful. The sound of our flesh meeting echoes through the room, along with my sharp cries and sensuous moans. He was pursuing his pleasure now, finding it within me.

"I'm not impenetrable. I hear you," he continued as he pushes in so deep, driving me into the mattress of the small bed and then suctioning out. "I'm inside of you and I hear what you are saying and I feel you."

"And you are inside of me too, taking over."

"Yes," I cry out before being reduced to grunts and short breaths.

His fucking is fierce, withholding nothing. Just as that wondrous feeling envelopes me and I feel I am about to lose consciousness, his whole body tenses.

"You," he says, his voice strained and hot on my lips, "make me weak."

His kiss absorbs my sounds as we come together.

***

Later, with him lying on his back between my legs, his arm thrown possessively around my thigh and his bald head propped against my torso, he smokes his cigar. The sweet smell of it mingles with our sex and curls upward. I smooth my fingers over the curve of his head, so comfortable in our nakedness.

"Well," he says, his accent playing with my senses, "if I'm going to be sleeping here, we will be needing a better bed, love."

"Careful old man."