First Times

by Elizabeth Coldwell

Genres: Anthologies; Fantasy Romance

Synopsis

A collection of ten stories by some of Xcite's best-selling authors from the UK, US and beyond. These stories explore what it means to be someone's first, or to take that step into the unknown and act out a cherished fantasy. Vanilla, Kinky and every shade in between, the couples here know what they want and they're going to have fun getting it.

Release date: August 4, 2016

Publisher: Headline

Print pages: 400

Sample

The song of my fingernails rapping on the granite bar top seemed to irritate my neighbour on a nearby stool, banishing her to the seat furthest me. Where is he? I feel like a fool. Anxiety sank in, and I began to wonder why I spent hours primping for our meeting, adorning myself in designer garb head to toe, wearing my hair long like I know he likes it.

A fiery heat flowed through my skin, turning it from milky white to a shade that matched the maraschino cherries atop my glaring neighbour’s cocktail. I felt the restaurant goers’ knowing eyes on me, each of them joined by a partner; judging my solitude and silently sending their sympathies. Pushing my glass of wine to the side, I leaped up from the stool and prepared to make an exit, eyes welling with tears of embarrassment.

‘Brooke, is that you? Where are you going?’ I heard a familiar voice questioning my getaway.

Before I turned to meet his gaze, I already knew it was him. The soothing baritone of his voice filled my ears, the minty-musky scent of him filled my lungs, and a wave of exhilaration filled my body. I fluttered my eyelids in a hurried effort to hide my tears.

Through a melody of nervous giggles, I reprimanded his tardiness with the severity of a Catholic schoolteacher. ‘Cool, Josh, look who decided to show up. I was certain you’d ditched me.’

He had embarrassed me, yes, but upon looking at him, I noticed beads of perspiration across his forehead, dampness on the collar of his shirt, and a heaving chest that he was struggling to hide. He had jogged from his inner-city office to meet me, a gesture deserving of reciprocal effort.

After a few moments of internal debate, I elected to forgive him.

Fearing I’d already set the wrong tone for the evening, I shook my head from side to side as if to start again. ‘But I’m so glad you came to meet me tonight. I miss coming to this restaurant with you.’

‘So are you saying you miss the sushi or me?’ Josh chuckled. ‘It’s good to see you, too, Brooke. You look beautiful.’

I tried to resist, but his smile inflicted me with amnesia, and I couldn’t help but forget the thirty minutes I’d just spent being an object of pity, sipping on my shame-laced Chardonnay.

I tilted my head up in his direction and offered a smile. He looked just how I remembered him: tall and well-built with a rugged face, all set ablaze by two piercing blue eyes. But he looked different all at once: the lines on his face had grown more pronounced, and he had an uncharacteristic air of unease about him. We had been married for seven years and he knew me better than anyone, but today, he felt like a stranger.

Josh cleared his throat. ‘Excuse me,’ he hollered, grabbing the attention of the restaurant’s prim-looking hostess. She showed us to our table, perched next to a window overlooking Sydney’s bustling Crown Street. I took a deep breath in an effort to calm my nerves.

‘First date?’ she asked, as she placed napkins in our laps and handed us two extortionately priced menus.

‘Of sorts,’ Josh replied, winking at me. Unable to conjure a response, the hostess gave a confused nod and marched off. Clearly she was prepared only for meaningless chitchat, a simple yes or no answer. For us, the answer lived somewhere in between.

‘So how have you been?’ Josh appeared to be genuinely interested in my goings-on. His face, still slightly wet, was glistening in the light of the setting sun, reminding me of the Ancient Greek sculptures we visited on our European honeymoon.

‘How have I been? Seriously?’ I soon realised the harshness of my tone and offered an apologetic smile. ‘Sorry. It just feels odd making small talk with you. You’re my husband.’

Josh nodded in agreement. ‘Well, I’m really glad you reached out. Though I must admit I was surprised to hear from you. What made you decide to call?’

Avoiding the question, I sat taller in my seat and ran my hands along the curve of my pinched-in waist. ‘Do you like my dress?’ I lowered my head, offering my best come-hither stare, testing whether he recalled the garment’s origin.

He had always been a sucker for my seductive advances. ‘You look amazing, Brooke, as always. Didn’t I give that to you?’ Josh leered at me from across the table, his eyes trailing along the deep neckline of my skin-tight dress.

‘Yes, for my 24th birthday. It still fits,’ I boasted, wiggling my shoulders in a subtle shimmy. He had given me the dress, an Hervé Leger, just as our marriage began to disintegrate. I suppose throwing two thousand dollars at something with only two feet of fabric is of no consequence when you’ve just made partner (before thirty, he often reminded me). Josh was a corporate lawyer, something I found to be both sexy and insufferable. I admired his sharp wit, his drive, his take-charge attitude; but hated the way he got sucked into the vortex of his work, putting blinders on, passing  everyone off as a mere distraction. Forgetting about me. I pondered whether any of that had changed.

Josh’s eyes lit up and he bit both of his lips, as if trying to stave off a bout of laughter. ‘Do you remember your 24th birthday party?’

A grin painted itself across my face as I knew precisely where this was headed. Josh went on to describe my surprise party, beginning in an elegant establishment with things like caviar and Dom Perignon on the menu, and somehow ending in a smoky, vomit-stained karaoke bar in the red light district. It was the best birthday I’d ever had.

Still working to contain his laughter, Josh persevered, ‘Do you remember when you were onstage, shouting the lyrics to 50 Cent’s In Da Club, when the middle button of your blouse popped open? You had a diamond-shaped hole right in the centre of your cleavage.’

I shot him my signature eye roll, causing his contagious guffaw to grow louder. I couldn’t help but take part.

‘Yes,’ I said, recollecting the most comical bit, ‘and do you remember when those drunken rugby players in the front row started throwing bar nuts at my top, hoping to score a “goal”?’ We were both cackling uncontrollably, becoming a sort of spectacle at the refined sushi bar.

‘I remember undressing you that night and finding a pistachio lodged in your bra.’

I felt a hot tear of laughter snake down my cheek, my abdominal muscles sore from overuse. But mention of me in a state of undress seemed to shift Josh’s focus, trigger some kind of primal instinct to inspect my body. I, too, felt an instinctual desire, commanding me to study his exposed flesh, forcing me to remember what the rest of him looked like underneath that perfectly fashioned suit.

‘I really miss you,’ exclaimed Josh, as if he had been preparing to utter those words for the entirety of our year-long separation. His pupils dilated as he looked upon me with the hunger of a starved animal.

‘I miss you, too; this is nice.’ As the corners of my mouth turned upward, I lent him my touch, grabbed his hand with mine, and rested our enmeshed fingers in the centre of our table. Suddenly my behaviour felt completely out of my control, every chemical in my body running high. It had been a year since we last touched, and now I was at the mercy of my own desire.

Startling the both of us, our waitress interjected, ‘Are you two ready to order?’ I tilted my head up at her, cowering at the sight of this modern-day Brigitte Bardot. She was blonde and beautiful and dolled up like a porn star, but Josh didn’t even take notice. He seemed entranced by me, looking at me with the adoration of a teenager in love and the arousal of a dog in heat.

‘Uhh, well we haven’t really looked at our menus,’ I confessed, turning to Josh. ‘Should we just get what we always do?’ My task-orientated question awakened him from his trance.

Still oblivious to the waitress’s beauty, Josh took charge of the order. ‘Yep, so we’ll have two miso soups, two spider rolls, two plates of ahi sashimi and an order of the Wagyu steak to share. Medium-rare.’ The waitress nodded and spun around to reveal the skin of her back, proudly displayed by a skimpy halter dress. But Josh’s eyes remained fixed on me, ogling the skin above the neckline of my similarly scanty getup.

Our fingers were still intertwined, the space between moistening with sweat. I attempted to wriggle out of his grip but he wouldn’t allow it, latching on like he refused to lose me again.

I had originally planned to meet him here, shower him with myriad angry insults, and make him feel how much his leaving hurt me. But desire overwhelmed me.

I racked my brain, working to summon a sentence other than, ‘Please ravage me now,’ and taking a sip of wine to buy myself time. My mind drew a blank.

‘I’ve never seen your apartment,’ I blurted, hoping he’d catch on.

‘Are you saying you want to go back to my place?’ His smile widened. I bit down on my lip, giving him kittenish side-eye like a frisky Betty Boop, expressing my positive answer without uttering a word.

‘Good enough for me,’ Josh said without any deliberation. My heart was pounding with such force that I was convinced he could hear its rhythm from across the table.

Josh caught our brash waitress’s attention and asked for the bill, gesturing a signing motion into his palm. She appeared perplexed, reminding us that we hadn’t yet been given our sea slug amuse-bouche. ‘The chef’s specialty,’ she boasted. Josh and I turned to one another, each shaking our heads and souring our faces like children in protest of dinnertime vegetables. Once she realised that a tip was a definite impossibility, she submitted with a snotty, ‘Whatever,’ and showed us to the nearest taxi stand.

As I scooted into the cab, my dress rode up just enough to expose my partially transparent panties. Like a magnet to a refrigerator, Josh’s eyes immediately fixed themselves on the space between my legs, trying to catch a glimpse of my sex through the delicate lace. He clenched his jaw and balled his fists, struggling to restrain himself from ripping the panties off me right then and there.

Fighting against every impulse, Josh turned away from me and toward our cabbie. ‘Twenty-five Point Piper Street, please.’ The driver, oblivious to our sky-high arousal, gave Josh a nod and pressed his leaden foot on the accelerator.

Josh turned back toward me, leaning in so I could feel his steamy breath on my neck. Saying nothing, he brushed his fingers along the inside of my knee, trailing upward until he reached the lace that he had been eyeing. The sweet, familiar feeling of his caress caused me to break out in goose bumps, and I let out an involuntary gasp.

‘You all right?’ the cabbie asked, assuming I had been frightened by his maniacal driving.

‘Oh yep, I’m good,’ I replied with breathy conviction. He was completely unaware of the goings-on in the backseat of his pristine town car, but I was fairly certain my wetness would leave behind evidence of our encounter.

Summer wind poured through the cab’s open windows and tousled my hair, but I could hardly feel it. Josh’s silence teased me, blocked out every other stimulus, forced me to focus on the physical sensations that he was so readily giving me. I drew in a breath, inhaling the aroma of the cab’s leather and the sugary musk of my own wetness.

Still brushing his hand on the exterior of my barely-there underwear, Josh leaned in and brought his lips to my ear, tongue trailing along its exterior, hot breath causing goose bumps to rise once again. Josh’s silence was infuriating and stimulating all at once, and I could barely withstand the pressure building inside my body.

‘We’re here,’ the cabbie announced. I took a moment to reorientate myself while Josh opened his bulging wallet to pay our driver. In a hurry to continue what we had started, I leaped out of the cab, adjusting the hem of my dress on the way out.

My eyes scanned the street, speckled with palatial mansions and sea view apartments. Each home was perfectly manicured, custom designed from the colour of the front doorknob to the size of the swimming pool in the backyard. Flashy sports cars sat in front of owners’ homes, shining like immodest trophies, passively bragging to passers-by. I suddenly felt ill at ease, like I was somewhere I didn’t belong. My job at a charity provided clean water to villages in Africa, education to women in the third world, and vaccinations to people across the globe. It was good work, but my modest salary wouldn’t afford me a blade of grass on any of these properties.

Josh grabbed my hand, jostling me out of my daydream. ‘Come on,’ he said. ‘I can’t wait to get you inside.’

‘Which one is it?’ I asked, but instead of providing me an answer, he continued to pull me by the arm like a tugboat toting a ship. Struggling to remain upright, I teetered atop my heels as I followed him, until we arrived at a pair of glass-panelled double doors.

‘This one,’ he replied.

I took a step backward, doing my best to absorb the magnificence of this place. His apartment was more like a modern palace, perched on a cliff above the sparkling Sydney Harbour.

‘Are you kidding?’ I exclaimed in disbelief. ‘This is your temporary apartment? No wonder you didn’t come back to our little house on the North Shore,’ I joked, but my attempt at humour wasn’t well received.

Josh furrowed his brow. ‘Come on, I want to show you inside.’ As soon as he opened the door, my nose was greeted by the scent of cinnamon and sugar, lingering from what I guessed was this morning’s baking. As I stepped inside, my eyes were treated to a delight just as sweet: the walls were festooned with one-of-a-kind art pieces, and his floor-to-ceiling windows, spanning the entire length of his apartment, showcased the harbour’s jaw-dropping beauty.

The amazement must have been written on my face, because Josh said with confidence, ‘I’m glad you like it. Come on; let’s get a closer look at the view.’ He took my hand in his, and pulled me nearer the window.

With the enthusiasm of a small child, I exclaimed, ‘Oh look! I can see the Opera House! I’ve never seen it lit up at night like that.’ We both turned our attention to the window and marvelled at the harbour’s astonishing beauty, but only for a moment. Josh grew impatient and turned toward me, pulling me toward him.

Tucking a piece of hair behind my ear, Josh whispered, ‘I’m really happy you’re here.’ He lowered his head to kiss me, holding me tighter with each flick of his tongue. The space between our bodies shrunk into nothingness, and I felt a pleasurable pulse electrocute my clitoris as his rock-hard erection pressed against me.

A wave of dizzying heat engulfed my body as his mouth moved from my lips, down onto my neck, and down again onto my collarbone. His hot breath, the inhale followed by the exhale, left an icy-hot sensation on my skin that was difficult to endure.

‘Josh –’ I began, but his touch rendered me speechless. He impatiently pushed the straps of my dress down, exposing my breasts, allowing his mouth to have free run.

My skin tingled as he explored me with his mouth, whispering sweet lusty nothings in between each lick. I was so overwhelmed with arousal that my knees involuntarily buckled, forcing Josh to tighten his already firm embrace.

As my body hung limp, Josh was still enjoying my chest when I noticed something bright, lacy, and red nestled under his couch.

‘What is that?’ I asked.

‘What is what?’ Josh replied with a worried tone.

‘That,’ I repeated, as I pulled the straps of my dress back over my shoulders and moved to retrieve the frilly mystery object. I walked over to the couch, crouched down onto my knees, and pulled out a pair of sexy women’s panties. I held them up. ‘Oh my God, Josh, how long have these been here?’ Blood disappeared from the vessels in his face and his eyes bulged out of the two circular cavities in his skull. ‘Ew, and they’re dirty!’ I said sassily, flinging them to the ground. ‘I doubt they’ve been here for long or you would have noticed.’

Josh lost his ability to speak, stuttering, ‘I – I’m really sorry, Brooke, I didn’t know you’d be coming back here.’ Much to Josh’s surprise, I found his clumsy explanation to be nothing short of endearing, and I walked back over to join him at the window.

‘Josh, it’s OK,’ I reassured him. ‘You didn’t do anything wrong. I didn’t even call you until yesterday. We weren’t – I mean aren’t – together.’ I pecked him on the lips.

‘I know, but –’ Josh’s speech broke. ‘So you’re not mad?’

‘No!’ I said, almost too loudly. ‘I’m actually a bit curious. Who is she?’ The pink tinge failed to return to his face, and I sensed he was still hiding something.

‘No one,’ he replied, cementing my suspicion.

His secrecy maddened me initially, but I soon remembered the secrets I had kept from him only a year ago, all while we were still living under the same roof. We were separated when he had Miss Frilly Red Panties over to his bachelor palace, and I was in no position to judge him.

Besides, anger fuels good sex.

‘Fine, you don’t have to tell me,’ I acquiesced, lightly pinching his arm. ‘But I do have an idea. It’ll be fun,’ I asserted, but Josh appeared unconvinced. ‘I want you to tell me stories.’

I had successfully grasped his attention. Josh asked, ‘What kind of stories?’

‘From the past year. Tell me about the girls you were with.’

He took a step back. ‘You’re kidding?’

‘I’m not,’ I said, moving closer, grazing my fingers against the substantial bulge in his suit pants. ‘I want you to tell me naughty stories from the past year, and I want you to do to me what you did to them.’

Josh shook his head in disbelief, growing harder underneath my fingertips.

‘I feel like this is a trick,’ he said.

I shook my head from side to side, rejecting his assumption. ‘It’s not a trick. You don’t believe me?’ I took his hand and guided it underneath the skirt of my dress, pushing my panties to the side, allowing him to feel my liquid sex. ‘Do you think this would happen if it were a trick?’

Josh smiled and kissed me, more sloppily this time, indicating his agreement.

Wasting no time, Josh took me by the hand and guided me up a floating staircase like the ones I’d seen in expensive home decorating magazines, more flash than function. I wondered for a moment whether the wood panels had been adequately secured to the wall, but entrusted him to keep me safe.

‘Where are you taking me?’ I beamed.

He looked back at me with a grin. ‘To the massage room.’

‘You have a massage room?’ I asked, soon remembering the success he’d seen as a corporate lawyer, the same success that tore us apart. ‘Of course you do.’ He looked back at me again, this time with an air of pride.

We meandered through a series of long hallways, ornamented with lavish light fixtures, until we arrived at the massage room. Josh flung the door open, allowing me to admire the pseudo-spa’s setup as he scurried about lighting the room with candles. Josh instructed me to lie face down atop the massage table, situated in the centre of the room like my own pedestal.

‘What about my dress?’ I asked, eyes begging for its removal.

‘Not yet.’ Josh smirked, pointing to the massage table. I positioned myself on it, wondering how many girls had enjoyed it before me, the thought of it getting me hot.

I lay on the table for a moment, staring blankly at the lushly carpeted floor, noticing the silence that had fallen between us. I waited.

‘Her name was Crystal,’ Josh began.

‘Crystal?’ I interrupted, laughing vulgarly. ‘What was she, a stripper?’

Josh breathed a heavy sigh.

My jealous disposition had overshadowed my desire to move forward with our racy little experiment, but only for a moment.

‘Sorry,’ I whispered, ‘I shouldn’t have said that. Tell me about her, please,’ I begged. I removed my head from the hollow in the table to look up at him, checking his expression.

He had a candle, lit, resting in his palm.

‘What are you doing with that!’ I exclaimed, muscles tensing in involuntary self-defence.

‘It’s OK, Brooke, it’s just a massage candle. Lie back down and let me massage you.’

‘OK,’ I said, choosing to trust him. The adrenaline from being startled was still shooting through me, heightening my senses and switching on every nerve in my skin. Josh proceeded to tip the candle onto the back of my thigh, allowing the melted oil to trickle out. I held back a scream as the oil scorched my skin, cooling as Josh smoothed it over my leg.

‘Her name was Crystal,’ Josh recommenced. ‘I met her online a few days after we separated. I was missing you and needed a quick fix, so I logged onto my laptop and found a girl – slender, long, licorice-coloured hair, big green eyes, busty – a bit like you.’

I took a moment to consider whether his romp with my doppelganger was sweet or tragic, but was soon distracted by his oily caress, starting at the soles of my feet and moving upward, gliding over my legs and skimming the curve of bottom. My eyes, closed, rolled backward as he ran his rough hands over my sensitive body.

Josh continued, ‘We were both just looking for a one-night fling, so I invited her to stay the night with me at my hotel.’ With his words ringing in my ears, I closed my eyes and imagined myself as Crystal, sprawled out on the hotel bed, leaving Josh, a handsome stranger, to have his way with me.

‘I cannot describe to you the anticipation I felt as I sat waiting for her. As soon as she walked through the door, I knew I had to touch her. Her skin had been kissed by the summer sun and she smelled of cocoa butter.’ Josh’s hands continued to trail up and down my thighs, inching higher with each stroke. His hands slithered up underneath my dress, grazing the edges of my outer labia, causing the muscles in my sex to involuntarily spasm. My whole body followed suit as I shook atop the table. The anticipation was killing me.

‘As soon as I got her on the bed, I pulled off her dress to expose all of her supple, tanned skin. I wanted to see everything.’ Josh flipped me onto my back, excitedly tearing at my dress.

‘Careful,’ I said, ‘we don’t want to rip the dress you gave me.’ But Josh seemed too overwhelmed with lust to care.

After a sticky, oily struggle, the dress finally slipped off. I lay there before him, completely naked, body glistening in the candlelight. He took a step back, pausing for a moment to admire my bodily form.

After only milliseconds, Josh grew impatient and continued to explore my body. Circling his thumb around my rosy-pink areola, Josh took my breast in his hand and my nipple in his mouth, humming with hungry pleasure. ‘Her breasts were perfect,’ Josh divulged. ‘They were bouncy and pert, with nipples that tasted like cotton candy.’ He could barely form the words without drooling. The growing bulge in his suit pants was moistening with precome, soaking through the fabric.

Josh reached for the massage candle once more, pouring the blazing oil directly onto my sensitive nipples, forcing them to harden. He spread the oil across my breasts, trailing downward to my tummy, stopping for a moment, then continuing until he reached the skin just above my clitoris. ‘She was smooth, perfectly waxed, allowing me to admire every part of her anatomy.’

Two of his fingers brought the oil down to my swollen clitoris, fingering it with perfect skill, causing me to heave my hips upward and down again as I begged for more. The slippery massage oil, mixed with my own lubrication, allowed his finger to slide into me with minimal resistance. He pushed one, two, three fingers into my sex, and I purred as I neared orgasm.

Josh, now speaking in a low, sexually charged tone, went on, ‘I could feel her clit hardening as I stroked her perfectly smooth pussy. I could tell she was about to come, but I didn’t let her, at least not yet.’ Josh removed his hand from my body, depriving me of orgasm, confusing every one of my senses.

I lifted my heavy eyelids and looked up at him, panting. ‘Why did you stop?’

He offered me a wicked smile. ‘We’re not done with story time yet.’

Fighting against every impulse, I submitted to his rules for our game. As I struggled to catch my breath, Josh circled the room, blowing out the candles, leaving a smoky, sexy, speakeasy scent in the air. He knelt at the side of the massage table and scooped me up.

‘Eeek!’ I bellowed, ‘Where are you taking me?’ I secured my arms around his neck, giggling as he carried me out of the room. The gentle breeze chilled my skin as we moved down the hallway to his master suite, pushing through a set of double doors to reveal a bedroom fit for a king (and queen).

Josh threw me onto the bed, telling me that he would “be right back”, leaving the room more quickly than I could respond. My oily skin stained the silken coverlet, leaving a greasy outline of my figure. Pushing myself off the bed, I perused the room. Floor-to-ceiling windows made the walls of this master suite, allowing me to appreciate the harbour’s beauty from a new angle. I stood at the window for a moment, watching boats’ blinking lights drift slowly across the water, disappearing into the distance, perhaps to make their return some. . .