It's Complicated (16 page)

Shutting him up, she slammed her mouth against his, lips pulling his apart, tongue ravaging his mouth, until he involuntarily began to rock against her, the heat between them building into the early signs of climax for her.

As quickly as she’d first kissed him, she tore her mouth from his, lips raw and burning. Catching his eyes, which were unfocused and smoldering, she reached up to cup his face in hers, the hint of dark stubble scratching her palms.
I wonder what that would be like on my thighs?
she wondered, her pussy tightening at the thought, making him groan.

Eyes locked, she simply said, “Alex? Shut up and fuck me.”

That was all it took, his mouth twisting into a delighted smirk, his body thrusting so hard into hers she gasped, his tongue licking her collarbone, going down, one masterful hand pulling her shirt and cotton bra down so he could reveal the nipple, the sensation of cold air and then moist mouth on her nipple pebbling it—and her clit—as he drove into her, hard, ramming her cervix as her hands tried to clutch any part of him that she could hold on to for the ride.

Their twin orgasms slammed out of nearly nowhere, and his cry of “Josie!” mixed with her hiss of his name, the feel of the concrete wall against her bare ass, his body pinning her to the wall with his enormous cock, pushing into her and riding her up, up, up as if she could crash through the canopy of leaves. Her body seized as he groaned and tightened, the sun shining between new spring foliage, her face tipped up to the sun as she received the full offering of luscious, forbidden sex from Dr. Perfect.

His breath came in little pants, his arms slack as he held up her weight, and then—voices.

“Is someone in there?” said a woman from above. Alex moved slowly inward, closer to the thickening of the ivy, crouching down and sliding out of her with a regretful look.

“Sorry,” he said, turning away to slide off the condom. Josie snatched her panties from the loose jeans that hovered around his upper thighs, the edge of the white cotton poking out from the pocket. Out of the corner of her eye, as she scrambled into her underwear, she saw Alex deftly snap and zip up, then toss the condom in a nearby trash can, wiping his hands on the grass.

Ah, romance.

The flush of what they’d just done made her legs shake as she straightened her clothes and ran her hands quickly through her hair, her flesh still on fire and the waves of desire and crested need still pounding through her. Had that really just happened? Did Alex like outdoor sex, too? Her boyfriends had considered her a freak for even hinting at it, and now the guy she met at Laura’s birth turned out not only to accept it, but apparently enjoy it, even revel in it?

Dr. Perfect, indeed.

Slinging his arm around her shoulders, he looked her up and down. “You ready? Laura and the guys must be wondering what happened to you.”

Nodding, she said, “I’m glad we have a bit of a walk ahead of us. One look at me and Laura could guess.”

His eyes surveyed her. “You look exactly the way I like.” A slow, deep kiss at the edge of the leaf umbrella made her toes curl in, turning her wet again, and making her crave a bed, a good Thai take-out menu, and a limitless supply of Barrington Roasters coffee. And a week alone with him.

“Get a room!” a canoer shouted, laughing.

“Too late,” she and Alex whispered in unison.

“This is getting creepy,” she said as they began the walk uphill, Alex’s arm around her.

“Then quit repeating everything I say.”

“Then quit repeating everything I say,” she joked.

“Wait.” He stopped her, turning her to face him, and began stroking the skin of her neck.

“More?” she said, incredulous.

“No. We need to do a tick check.”

“We
what
?”

“It’s that time of year, and we were just under a thicket that could have them,” he answered, serious. “Lyme disease is no joke. I’ll do you and you do me.”

“We just did each other.”

“Ha ha.” His hands roamed through the hair behind her ears, along her collarbone, then under her shirt, lifting it up and brushing against her breasts.

“You know I’m a sure thing, Alex. You don’t have to invent tick checks to touch my boobs.”

He laughed. “C’mon. Check your legs.”

He was serious! She ran her hands down her legs with a cursory touch, and then stroked his neckline. Slipping the yellow polo shirt up, she felt for ticks in the thick thatch of hair at his waistband, then reached down under, playfully, stroking the tip of him. “Hmmm, I might need to get a close view here to see if there are any ticks there.”

He groaned and gripped her hand in his, hard. “You’re killing me.”

“I’m very good at tick removal there,” she replied, batting her eyelashes in a gesture of innocence. “With my tongue.”

The laugh that poured out of him was pure joy and lust combined, head thrown back and stomach tightening, nearly rippling with the vibration of his amusement.

“Are we done with the tick check, doctor?” she asked, pulling her hand away from his heat.

“You can resume it another time in my bed.”
Whoosh!
Her senses exploded.

The walk back to the hospital made Josie feel like the coffee that they’d had had been multiplied by a factor of ten, which was roughly the number of orgasms she felt like she’d also just had. Alex held her hand, except this time it wasn’t a tentative, beginning-of-a-relationship gesture, trying to feel out where the physical boundaries lay. It wasn’t just an affectionate gesture, either, one designed to send out a beacon, a signal, to point the other in the right direction. This was the clasp of a lover who knows that he has the easy intimacy of reaching out to touch another at will, and she loved every bit of it.

There was a spring in their steps, a jauntiness, a full-on joy. It wasn’t just that they’d had phenomenal, slightly exhibitionistic sex outdoors, with the air perfumed by a nature eager to burst forth in its own explosion of growth and renewal. It was that something drew them to each other and made their hands undress each other, made their bodies press against each other, made this communion a series of touches, and caresses, and reaches, and embraces, and sighs, then moans, then more.

The sidewalk stretched on, their feet pounding the pavement as they walked with purpose back to the hospital entrance, Josie’s entire being in a completely different place than it had been when her feet had stepped out of those same doors. As they entered the hospital and headed to the elevators, they dropped each other’s hands. Alex was now in professional territory, and Josie was perfectly capable of respecting that. Two elevators opened, and the waiting patrons piled into one, Josie following them until Alex grasped her around the waist and pulled her back, holding one index finger up to his lips. He shook his head, then glanced at the open, empty option. She widened her eyes and raised her eyebrows, and marched into the empty elevator. Alex, hot and heavy behind her.

Again?
she wondered as the doors snapped shut, and she felt her body slammed against the elevator wall, knowing that the four flights up might damn well be just enough time for him to take her again. His lips weren’t tender now. Probing and claiming with an intensity that somehow managed to match what they’d just done by the river. It was exhilarating and extraordinary, so all-consuming that she felt herself growing, becoming a bigger, more developed version of herself. His hands were everywhere, on her hips, up her leg, on her breast, wrapped behind her. Searing the flesh on the back of her neck as his hardness pressed into her belly.

Ding!
The elevator stopped with an abrupt jolt, a fitting kinesthetic trigger to make them pull back, to realize that there was, indeed, a society in orbit around them. Others using the machine for far more banal purposes.

Smoothing her hair, she tried to look as nonchalant as possible, nurses and doctors piling in from the first floor. Whatever lipstick she’d put on this morning had been long worn away, either by her own mouth’s activities with eating and drinking, or mingled with Alex’s skin around his lips, his tongue, and other parts of him that she had kissed.

A young woman about her own age, blonde and dour, and disapproving, looked up at Alex and said,“What are you doing here? You don’t work today.”

He gave her an irritated look. “I’m here to visit someone.”

“Is everything okay?” she asked, concern infusing her words.

“It’s fine.”

His clipped responses told Josie that something was off here. This wasn’t the Alex she expected, and whoever this woman was, there was a past.

“Is it a family member?” the woman probed.

“Lisa”—he shook his head slightly—“it’s none of your business.”

His quiet, final sentence made the woman snap to attention and look forward, eyes unfocused, on the hazy stainless-steel wall where the doors bisected the side of the elevator. Her nostrils flared and her shoulders slumped forward. She was angry, and Josie wondered why. Not enough, though, to take the shine off of how she was feeling right now. Laura would pick up on what had just happened in about three seconds, so Josie needed to steel herself for the inevitable grilling that her best friend was about to give her. Nothing, not even Laura’s interrogation, would topple her from the pedestal that she and Alex had managed to put each other on.

Just as Josie suspected, the second that she and Alex walked back into Laura’s room, some sixth sense inside her best friend made her cock an eyebrow and give them a look of appraisal that made Josie blush. To her mild shock, it seemed to put a little pink in Alex’s cheeks, as well.

“So, what have you two been up to?” Laura said with a cagey tone. The baby was lying in Laura’s arms, eyes wide, alert, and roaming, searching her mother’s face and taking in the pinpoint of the world that Laura’s features represented to her. As if she had been doing this for decades, Laura shifted the baby from one arm to the other, and then reached under her hospital gown to unclasp her bra. Josie watched, transfixed, as her best friend held the baby’s mouth, pulling it gently open, then squeezed her own breast, shoving it into little Jillian’s perfect, rose-petal lips. And then the unmistakable sound of sucking and breathing through the nose. It was a steady beat that you could almost dance to.
Suck suck, inhale, suck suck, inhale, suck suck, inhale,
with little gulps in between. Funny little noises and tones coming from the baby’s throat.

“Sweet relief,” Laura groaned, and Josie shot her a look of confusion. “Do you have any idea what it’s like when your boobs are filled with milk, and they’re rock hard, and all you want to do is go down to the nursery and grab two random babies ’cause yours is sound asleep and won’t latch on, and just get the milk out of there?”

“No, I can’t say that I know what that’s like,” Josie answered.

Alex walked over to the bedside table and picked up the mauve plastic pitcher, pouring a glass of water and handing it to Laura. “Here, drink this, you’ll need it.”

“The last thing I need is more fluid in my body.”

He smiled. “No, actually, that’s the
first
thing you need. The only way you’re going to keep up your production is if you keep hydrating.”

Josie watched the two of them, her head bobbing from one to the other. It was as if they spoke Mandarin Chinese. There was a language of parenting, of procreation, lactation, attachment, that she didn’t speak. Laura was quickly becoming not just fluent in it, but accentless. Soon it would be as if it were her first language. Alex was like an immigrant into that world, living there long enough to understand every single word said to him, but occasionally having moments when his accent, or a slightly misused idiom, tripped him up.

To Josie, what they were saying sounded like gobbledygook, and again it alienated her in a way that pierced her even more than it had a few hours ago, to be on the fringes. Knowing that Alex was closer to Laura, and Mike and Dylan, in some ways, than even she was, took the wind out of her. She couldn’t show that right now, of course. It was unfair to Laura, and to the baby, to keep thinking about herself so much. Pushing aside those thoughts, she sat down on the edge of the bed. Her hand instinctively went to stroke the baby’s head, until she realized it was attached to Laura, and that that was probably a boundary she ought not to cross.

“Where’re Mike and Dylan?” she asked.

“Oh, they went out to get some food. I’m really jonesing for some sushi.”

“And you know…
all that
?” Josie said, spinning her hand around in the general direction of Laura’s crotch.

“Well,
all that,
” Laura said, quietly mimicking Josie’s gesture, “is the equivalent of putting my vagina in a juicer. Whoever invented crotch ice packs is my new best friend.” She closed her eyes and sighed. “Sorry, Josie. You’ve been replaced.”

“Oh, God!” Josie said, “Did you really have to go there? The words ‘vagina’ and ‘juicer’ should never be spoken together!”

Alex just laughed, a sound of understanding, and abandon, and amusement, and acceptance that took away Josie’s sense of alienation.

“You’ll be…
here
,” Laura said, spinning her wrist over her pelvis, “someday. You’ll understand.”

“The only way any of these parts are getting anywhere near a juicer is when I cozy up to the bar and lean into it a little too hard to get my fifth pomegranate margarita.”

Alex slid an easy arm around her shoulders and squeezed her upper arm, a playful, affectionate gesture that made Laura raise her eyebrows even higher. “I’m sure you will,” he said, and then dropped his arm, walking over to the base of Laura’s bed and grabbing the chart.

Laura mouthed
Oh my God
to Josie, and Josie mouthed back
I KNOW
, and crossed both sets of fingers.

Leaning over the baby, Laura hissed, barely audibly, “I can’t believe you picked a guy up at my birth!”

Josie just shrugged.

Laura pointed to Josie’s belly and whispered, “You’re having one of these someday,” pointing at Jillian, then at Alex, then her.