The Hating Game: A Novel

We’ve never played the Staring Game with you inside me.” His hips flex a little, and my eyelids start to flutter.

I was expecting the pleasure and pressure, given that he’s huge and I’m small, but it’s emotion now tightening my throat until I can’t reply. It’s his eyes, and the expression in them as he begins to roll his hips, slick and easy. There’s no hard impact, no teeth-chattering thuds. He moves against me with measured control. This is the hottest moment of my life. I can’t process each sensation. A feeling similar to freaking out is beginning to fill my chest.

I can’t keep my composure under his eyes. Passionate eyes. Intense, fierce, fearless eyes. He wants me to hand over everything. He won’t take anything less from me.

“Talk to me.” He touches my nose with his. His breath is heavy and even.

“You were right . . . you fit me, somehow. Oh, that’s so nice.” I can barely speak. “I’m freaking out slightly.”

“Nice, huh?” He looks at me with amusement. “I can always do better than nice.”

He lets go of my fingertips, slides a hand under each of my thighs and lifts me a few inches off the bed.

“Nice is good, nice is good,” I babble. My next sound is a groan.

Joshua Templeman really, really knows what he’s doing.

My eyes roll back into my head. I know they do, because he smiles a bit and moves his hips again. The blankets fall away, and I’m front row, looking up his gorgeous flexing muscles, to his face.

“I’m not nice,” he tells me. Slowly, we begin to stretch against each other, and it’s more rolling friction. I’ve never felt anything like it. It confirms that no guy I’ve ever been with has done it right. Until now.

He’s frowning a little in concentration. It’s got to be the angle he’s created so easily that seems to nudge a little switch inside my body.

“Hey.” He hits it again, and the pleasure is so intense a sob catches in my throat. Again and again. I’ve never played this game before.

I have no strength to raise my arms to his shoulders. Every distinct slide of his body into mine is taking me one step closer to something I’m fairly sure will kill me.

“Are you tired?” I try to be considerate but instead he picks up the pace.

Sweat begins to mist my skin. My hands scrabble for purchase on the sheets. If I’m a deadweight, it doesn’t seem to bother him. All I can do is press my shoulders against the mattress and try to survive this.

“I’m dying,” I warn him. “Josh, I’m dying.”

Josh lifts one of my ankles to rest on his shoulder. His arm hugs my leg, and he studies my face with interest as he increases his pace further. His eyebrows pinch together. The Staring Game is the absolute best when Josh is hitting my lifelong nonexistent G-spot. The one that exists now.

“Holy. Holy . . . Josh.”

When he laughs in response it’s nearly my undoing.

Here’s my problem. This doesn’t happen. First sex with someone is awkward and you take turns and try to work out each other’s likes and dislikes. There’s no simultaneous wet dirty screwing and trying to delay your orgasm. But I am. And he knows it.

“Lucy. Quit holding off.”

“I’m not,” I protest, but for my lie he increases his force. I babble a thank you.

“You’re welcome,” he tells me and angles me higher. I have no idea how he’s not tired. I will write a thank-you card to his personal trainer. If my hand can ever grip a pen again. I bite my lip. I can’t let this end. I tell him so.

“Forever, do this forever,” I beg. I’m near tears. “Don’t stop.”

“Stubborn aren’t you, Shortcake.”

“I can’t let this end. Please, Josh. Please, please, please . . .”

He presses his cheek against my calf in such a sweetly affectionate gesture.

“It won’t end,” he tells me.

I can see he’s starting to lose himself a little. His eyes are lit in a bright haze, and I see him raise them to the ceiling, praying for something. His gorgeous skin is glowing gold in the lamplight.

It’s a smooth, deep rolling thrust like any of the others, but I break.

It’s not a sweet, tame thing sweeping over me. My teeth snap together, I grip on to him and wring myself out. The anguished sound I make probably wakes every single person in the hotel, but I can’t hold it in. It’s violent. I nearly kick him in the jaw but he grabs my foot and holds on to me. The pleasure boils over, my body twists, squeezes, shakes me out, and I’m out-of-my-mind crazy for Joshua Templeman. He’s right. This will not be enough. I need days of this. Weeks. Years. Millions of years.

I’m falling, completely falling, and I look up as he falls too.

He leans down against my leg and I feel him shaking in release. He looks down at me, eyes suddenly shy, and I raise my hand to stroke his cheek.

He lowers me down carefully. I can’t imagine how I’ll let him go. I wrap my arms around his shoulders and press my mouth to his eyebrow and my chest has a cleaned-out feeling like I’ve run a few miles. He must feel like he’s done a triathlon.

He looks up at me. “How You Doing?” he whispers softly.

“I’m a ghost. I’m dead.”

“I didn’t know I was lethal,” he says and begins to pull away from me, achingly slowly. I beg and plead and say, No, no, no. I’m an addict, completely hooked, already wanting my next fix while the current one is still running brightly through my veins. My body tries to hold on to him but he kisses my forehead and apologizes.

“I’m sorry, I gotta,” he says and walks away into the bathroom. I watch his backside and drop back into the pillows.

Best sex of my entire life. Best backside I have ever seen.

“Is that a fact?” he says from the other room. Seems I said it aloud.

I lay my forearm over my eyes and try to regulate my breathing. I feel the mattress dip and he pulls the blankets up over my chilling skin, and turns off the lamp.

“Now you’re going to be unbearable. But goddamn, Josh. Goddamn.” I’m slurring.

“Goddamn, yourself,” he says, and I’m tugged into the cradle of his arms. I press my cheek against him, delighting in his sweat.

“Let’s work out a game plan for when we wake up. I can’t handle it if you go weird on me.”

“We’ll say good morning politely, then we’ll do it again.” I sound like I’ve had a stroke. I fall asleep with my ear pressed to his chest, listening to him laugh.

I SOMEHOW SURVIVE until morning. I’m washing my hands when I glance up at the mirror.

“Oh, shit.”

“What?”

I open the door a crack. The room is dimly lit by strobes of light through the heavy curtains.

“I forgot to take off my makeup. I look like Alice Cooper again.”

My eye makeup is smudged black and it makes my eyes look milky-blue and lurid.

“Again? You’ve looked like Alice Cooper before?”

“Yeah, the morning after I was sick, I nearly screamed when I saw myself.” I brush my teeth and get my hair into a bun.

“I like you when you look a little wrecked.”

“Well, you’d like me right now then.”

I’m in the shower and trying in vain to get the tiny packet of soap open when I hear the door creak and he’s joining me, calmly, like we do this every day. Lust electrifies me; the strangest mix of joy and fear.

“It’s a Shortcake-sized soap,” he comments, taking it from me and biting the package. He pinches the little coin of soap out and holds it up between forefinger and thumb.

“I am going to enjoy this.”

I am so dazzled by the sight of his velvety gold skin being streaked with water I can’t do anything for a few minutes except stare, my tongue peeking out the corner of my mouth like a hungry dog. The water channels down between each muscle, before overflowing and sheening the flat planes.

The shading of hair begins in the center of his chest, fanning outward to his nipples, and moving downward in a thin line toward his navel. After being bombarded with a million billboards of shiny men in their underwear, I nearly forgot men have hair. I follow the water down, the thicker hair, the imposing jut of his erection. All of it wet. Beautifully veined, enough to make my knees lose their strength. He was inside me. I need it again. I need it so many times I lose count.

“You are . . .” I shake my head. I have to close my eyes, to remember how to speak English. He’s too much. I can’t have possibly captured this big golden creature inside a glass hotel shower, and he’s looking at me with those eyes I love so much.

“Oh, no, I’m hideous,” he whispers, mock tragic, and I feel the soap press against my collarbone. It starts to swirl in a little circle, sticky then slick.

“My personal trainer was so sure this disguise would help with women. What a fucking waste of time and energy.”

I drag my eyes open, and they must look like I’ve been in an opium den because he laughs.

I press my thumb into the smile line on his cheek. “You’re gorgeous. Beautiful. I can’t believe you.”

I back away until I’m pressed against the tiles, to get a better view, and now it’s his turn to look at every wet inch of me. My arms ache with the effort it takes to not cover myself. His perfect muscles make me look very squishy in comparison. His eyes darken as he looks at me from head to toe.

“Get over here,” he says faintly. I take his hand when he holds it out.

What a way to start the day. Showering with my colleague and nemesis.

As soon as the thought materializes, I know it’s so outdated I can’t keep lying to myself. He tugs me away from the freezing tile and faces me toward the spray, rechecking the temperature before he pushes me under. Then he puts his arms around me from behind and gives me what can only be described as a cuddle. I press back firmer against his arousal to feel him groan.

“How You Doing? Not weird? Freaking out?” He smoothes lather under my breasts, down my ribs. He lifts my arm to inspect it, and we compare hand sizes.

“No, I’m fine. How come we don’t have to worry about you getting weird? Most girls have to worry about guys making up an early-morning training session so they can escape. And in this case it’s not implausible.”

“I’ve been ready for this for a lot longer than you have,” he says. He seems to know I don’t want to get my hair wet, and turns us a little. His slippery hands coast along my hips.

“Oh.”

“Yes.”

“How long?”

“A very long time.”

“I never guessed.”

“I’m very secretive.” He is gently amused.

I capture the soap, which is fast on its way to becoming a translucent sliver. I stick it to my palm, and it gives me a good excuse to stroke over his body, while his tongue licks at the water droplets on my jaw.

We look at each other, nose to nose, eyes half shut, and everything spirals out. The edges are nothing but cold air, but underneath this spray we get hotter and hotter, until I’m sure I’m nearly sweating. It’s this kiss.

The minutes and hours fade away when I’m kissing Josh Templeman. There’s no arc of the sun rising into the sky, no emptying hot water tank, no checkout time. He takes his time with me. He’s a rare man; achieving the almost impossible. He kisses me into the present moment.

It’s something I’ve always had difficulty with in past relationships: turning off my brain. But here, it’s only us. Our lips find a rhythm; the gentle upswing of a pendulum, dropping away to the lightest curve, again and again, until there’s nothing left for me in this world but his body, mine, and the water spilling over us, destined to refill a cloud.

He makes words like intimacy seem inadequate. Maybe it’s the way he uses his thumb to tilt my face, the other fingers splayed behind my ear, into my hair. When I try to gasp a mouthful of air, he breathes it into me. My head rolls to the side, dreamy and heavy, and he cups my jaw. I look up at him, and a starburst of emotion expands inside me. I think he sees it in my eyes, because he smiles.

Nothing reminds me of how big his hands are like having them on my body. He cups my ribs in his palms, then slides up to show me how perfectly I fill his hands. When I can’t handle much more, he turns me to the wall and his fingers splay wings across my shoulder blades.

Nails scratch down smoothly and he’s whispering against my neck.

He’s telling me I’m beautiful. The most delicious strawberry shortcake. I’m the taste he’ll never get out of his mouth. And that he wants me to be sure, completely sure, before I make a decision about us.

He’s licking the water from my shoulders as he eases one broad palm in between my thighs. I feel my foot slide across the tiles an inch. Two. I shiver and he puts an arm across my collarbones.

At the first touch of his fingertip, I hear the sound I make echo around us. He begins to wind me tighter with each gentle circle he draws, and I reach behind me, capturing him in return. Our joint moan creates a cavernous buzz against the tiles.

“Give everything to me,” he says into my ear. I repeat it back to him. I’ve got nothing but wet, hot muscle against me, all around me, his mouth nipping at my earlobe and his strong thrust into my inadequately small hand. He doesn’t seem to mind; in fact, he’s starting to groan.

I’ve got problems of my own. Like trying to not make so much noise people outside our room can hear me. It’s surprisingly difficult, given the heavenly amount of friction he is giving me. Shush, Josh half laughs. I begin to teeter, and his teeth scrape the nape of my neck. I tighten my grip on him. We both stretch taut and snap at virtually the same moment.

This one is an unfurling bloom. His cheek is resting on the tile above me, and we wordlessly look at each other as we shake. It’s a strange thing, watching each other come apart. I have a feeling I could get used to this.

There’s no possible way to adequately end a moment like this. How does one transition back to reality? This hotel room needs a commemorative plaque.

“Oh shit! Breakfast is soon. We gotta hurry. I need to pack my bag.”

“Let’s skip it.” His hands toy with the curve of my waist and hips. Up, down. In, out.

“Your mom’ll be waiting. Come on.”

“No,” he yowls unhappily, and his hands slide up my shoulders.

“No,” I tell him in return and get out of the shower, evading his hands. I wrap myself in a towel and check the time beside the bed.

“Come on, fifteen minutes. Hurry, hurry.”

“I’ll book the room for another day. We can stay for hours. We could live here.”

“Josh. I like your mom. And I don’t know if I’m lame for wanting to make her happy, and I don’t know if I’ll ever see her again after today. I know she misses you. Maybe that’s my role in this whole weekend. To force you to be with your family again.”

“How sweet. Forcing me to do things I don’t want to. And of course you’ll see her again.”

“Fine. Put it this way. I was invited to breakfast and I’m going. I’m starving. You sexed all of my energy out. You do what you want.”

I manage to get some mascara on and half of my top lip done in Flamethrower. Then he eases up behind me and I look at us in the mirror.

The differences between us have never been more stark, or more erotic. The contrast of me against his large, muscled glory almost breaks my resolve. He gathers my hair away from the side of my neck and drops his mouth in a kiss. We make eye contact in the mirror and I let out a broken breath.

I want to tell him, yes, rent this room for the rest of our lives. If I had more time, I could make you love me. The realization has me by the throat.

I’d have to be blind to not see the light of affection in his eyes as he wraps his arms tighter and begins kissing the side of my neck. I’d have to be a thousand years old to forget the way he kisses me. It’s the fresh new bud of something that could one day be something remarkable, but I have severe doubts that it could survive in the real world. This bubble we’re in? It’s not reality. I wish it was, and I wish we lived here. All of this, I should say out loud to him, but I don’t have the courage.

I close my eyes. “We can have breakfast and then drive back to your apartment at warp speed.”

“Fine. Nice lipstick, by the way.”

I manage to get the rest done and I blot once. He takes the tissue before I can scrunch it up. He holds it up to admire it.

“Like a heart.”

“How about you buy a little white canvas and I’ll kiss it for you. Something to remember me by.”

I give him a cute wink to keep the tone light. The sarcastic rejoinder that I am expecting never eventuates, and instead he turns and walks out of the bathroom. When I come out a few minutes later with my makeup bag under my arm he’s dressed in jeans and a red T-shirt.

“I’ve never seen you in red. How come every color in the flippin’ rainbow suits you?”

He puts my cell phone near my purse, and the white rose he saved from his lapel.

“You just think they do.” He zips his bag and stands at the window, looking out at the water.

I dig in my bag for my own jeans and the black cashmere sweater I’m glad I packed. The air down here is colder, fresher than I’m used to. I’m getting dressed and he’s not watching. I hop slightly to get the jeans zipped up and he doesn’t turn. I loudly squirt perfume into my cleavage and he doesn’t even flare a nostril.

“Breakfast is going to be fine.”

“Yeah, sure,” he says faintly.

I stick my feet into some flats and decide to leave my hair in its big messy damp bun. I walk up behind him and hug his waist, resting my cheekbone against the lower curve of his shoulder blade.

“Tell me what’s wrong.”

“I’m a one-night stand. This is everything I’ve been trying to avoid. I’ve been trying to build something, not give you some sense of closure.”

“No! Hey. How have I made you feel this way?” I tug on his elbow until he faces me.

“You’re constantly talking like it’s already over. A lipstick kiss to remember you by? Why am I going to need reminding, exactly?”

“We’re not working together much longer.”

“I haven’t wanted you this long, and gone through so much, and given up so much, to have you for one night. It’s not enough.”

He’s right, of course. The interview result hangs over us like a scythe. A flash of impatience hits me.

“Can I stay at your place tonight?” It’s all I can think of to say. “Can I sleep in your bed?”

“I guess,” he says sulkily, and I tug him by the loops on his jeans over to his suitcase.

I look back at the bed. How so much could have changed in one space? Maybe he’s thinking the same thing. He kisses my eyebrow so gently I feel tears begin to prick behind my eyes.

I catch a glimpse of the receipt when we check out. It was roughly a week’s rent for this magical hotel room. He slashes his signature like Zorro onto it, and hugs me close. My cheek presses against his perfect pectoral.

“And did you have a nice stay?”

The elegantly groomed receptionist is smiling a little too widely at Josh as she processes the checkout. She seems to be willfully ignoring my presence, or maybe she’s just dazzled. I look at her slicked-back blond-coil hairdo. Her chalky pink lipstick is too bright against her tan. Hotel Barbie.

“Yes, thanks,” he replies absently. “Great water pressure in the shower.”

I look up at his face and watch the corner of his mouth quirk, the little smile line deepening.

The receptionist is definitely imagining him in the shower. Her eyes stray from bicep to computer screen. Screen to his face. She staples and folds and searches for the perfect little envelope for his receipt, even though the customer at the next counter didn’t get one.

She fiddles and does a dozen other little things so she can look at little segments of him. She tells him about their loyalty program and how his next check-in will be with a free bottle of wine, and probably her, draped across his bed. She reconfirms his address and phone number.

I’m gimlet-eyed with annoyance. He doesn’t notice, and begins kissing my temple. Who can blame her, though?

A man built like this, with a face like this, being so ridiculously sweet and tender? I’d die a little too, watching this, and I’m the one on the receiving end. It’s like seeing a bruised nightclub bouncer cuddling a tutu-clad toddler, or a cage fighter blowing a kiss to his sweetheart in the front row. Brute, raw masculinity contrasted with gentleness is the most attractive thing on earth.

Josh is the most attractive thing on earth.

I watch her eyes harden speculatively as she glances at me. I spread my hand across his chest. It says, mine. The tiny jealous cavewoman in me can’t resist.

“Shall we bring your car?”

“Yes,” Josh says at the same moment I say, “No.”

“No, we’re having breakfast. Can we leave our bags here?”

“Of course.” She checks Josh’s bare left hand. My bare left hand.

“Thank you, Mr. Templeman.”

“I need a fake wedding band on you if we ever came back,” I grumble as we walk through the lobby to the restaurant.

Josh nearly trips over his own foot. “Why on earth would you say that?”

We walk past the ballroom and I can see cleaners taking down the huge bunches of Mindy-pink balloons.

“The receptionist wanted to jump on you. I can’t blame her, but sheesh. I was standing right there. What am I, invisible?”

Josh looks at me sideways. “How primal.”

We push through the glass double doors and he pulls me to one side. I crane around the doorframe. I can see his family. I raise my hand to wave but he tugs me back and scolds me unintelligibly.

“It’s a buffet.” My delight is evident in my voice. “Look at those croissants, plain and chocolate. Quick, there’s not many left.”

“I am going to appeal to you one last time. Let’s just go. Things went pretty well yesterday, family-wise. Let’s cut our losses.”

“And what, screech out of here like Thelma and Louise?”

“They all loved you.”

“I’m immensely lovable. Josh, come on. Croissants. I’m here with you. No one will hurt you as long as I’m here. I’ve got my invisible paintball gun. Take me in there, feed me pastry, and then drive me back to your pretty blue bedroom.”

He presses a little kiss to my lips. I look over my shoulder at the reception desk.

“Come on, be brave. Forget about your dad and focus on your mom. Be a gentleman. I’m going in.”

I weave through the room and I have no idea if he’s following. If he’s not, this is going to be a little awkward.