Page 70 of What I'm Looking For

“Yes, ma’am.” He jogs over to dig around in a gym bag. “I even have a condom.”

“Shut up,” I growl. “You sound too much like a Boy Scout.”

After dropping the condom and then his shorts on the floor, he strips me of my underwear and bra. After taking me in for a breath, he pulls me in so that my back’s pressed against his front. I catch his gaze in the mirror, happy to find his eyes dilated with desire.

Gasping, I grab the ballet barre in front of me. He covers my back with his slick, muscled chest, and I can’t help but moan when his mouth brushes the skin of my neck, his teeth grabbing hold, possessing me.

Lost in sensation, my hips grind into him greedily as his fingers and mouth play over every sensitive spot I knew about and some with which I haven’t previously made the acquaintance. Before I know it, pleasure’s rocketing from my core all the way up my spine. Strange sounds emanate from my mouth, but I don’t care. No one can hear.

He pounds into me, and my mind floats up, up and away, my body taking charge until it, too, is blown to pieces.

Very, very happy little bits of me must be littered all over this place.

* * *

The warm bodynext to me shifts, reaches over me.

I’m in one piece after all, sprawled on a gym mat, buck naked, covered in sweat. I’ve been plundered. And it feels better than the NASDAQ going through the roof on a Friday afternoon.

“Hey, princess. The madding crowd shall return any minute now. We need to get decent.”

“Madding… huh?” I don’t want to come back down from this hormone high. But then his words line up. My head, suddenly clear, pops up from its chest pillow. “People are coming back?”

“Yeah, we have dance rehearsal at two.”

“Oh my god,” I squawk, scrambling up and scrabbling for my clothes, which I don’t remember tossing every which way. “Where’s the bathroom?”

Laughing at me, Will grabs his shorts and sweeps me into his arms and over his shoulder, smacking me on the butt as he jogs across the studio.

I’ve never felt so alive.

Or so naked.

* * *

The following morning,the phone ringing drags me up to the surface of the waking world. “Who is calling me at”—I slit my eyes open to peek at the clock—“beforeeight a.m. on a Sunday morning?”

Will groans and covers his head with a pillow. Frankie, now awake too, jumps onto my chest to headbutt me. The ringing finally stops, but I can hear the voice on the answering machine all the way from the kitchen.

BEEP.

Kate, this is your mother calling. Sweetheart, I need to know your plans for Rachel’s wedding. We’re trying to figure out the sleeping arrangements. And have you booked a flight? Call me when you get up. Why aren’t you up? Maybe you’re exercising. All right. Bye now.

I flop onto my stomach, ignoring Frankie’s yowling. “Ugh. I am so in denial about this wedding.”

“Who is Rachel?” Will asks from under his pillow.

Rolling to face him, I pull my own pillow over my head. I feel like we’re in one of the forts I used to make when I was a kid. “She’s my cousin. Not the gyno cousin. She’s the pageant-winning-but-went-to-law-school cousin. She’s getting married in a couple weeks.”

Will wiggles his head partway out. “Do you have to wear a horrible bridesmaid dress or something?”

“No, I just hate weddings.” I sound like a whiny little brat but I can’t help it. “People always ask when I’m going to get married and try to introduce me to supposedly ‘eligible’ men I’ve known I’m not interested in since kindergarten. My mom criticizes my wardrobe, my makeup, my hair, my whatever. The list goes on.”

He yawns and stretches before stuffing the pillow behind his head. “I like weddings.” Seems he’s unimpressed by the clear sunk costs. “Free food and drink and cake, and you get to dance with all the pretty girls.”

I hide under my pillow. “Well, you can go and tell me all about it.” I hit him with the pillow. Maybe a little too hard. “But no, you can’t because you’re in a show. Lucky you.” I sit up. “Hey. Can I have a walk-on role so I can skip the wedding? Is that a thing in plays?”

“When is it?”

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