Prone to Malarkey Read online

  She’s suddenly on her knees between me and the bed, helping me kick off shoes and clothing. And then her lips are soft on the head of my dick, her hand firm on the shaft, and I’m in heaven. Her mouth is heaven. Hot, wet, the right pressure, it’s so perfect that if I let her do this much longer I won’t get inside her before I blow. I’m panting from the effort of holding back when I tell her to stop, it’s too much.

  “And it’s your turn anyway,” I say, breathing hard. “Here, lass, on the bed.”

  She bends and unties her boots, kicking them off. I yank open her cargo pants and peel them down, finding silky-soft boyshorts under my hands, the bottom curve of her bare asscheeks warm in my hands. I pull her to me, just that silky layer of her underwear between us, the heat of her groin against my eager prick. I let my fingers go roaming between her sturdy thighs, and I am thrilled to feel how damp that underwear is. She sucks in her breath as my fingers slide over the wet spot in the center. I can’t resist slipping it aside, sliding one finger and then two over her slick pussy. She makes a needy little noise, and then she nudges my hand with hers, so my fingers enter her hot core. “Fuck,” she gasps, her head falling back. “Oh.”

  I slide my thumb under the panties to reach her clit, and she makes another noise. By now my cock is throbbing with the intense need to be where my fingers are. “On the bed,” I repeat, and pick her up by the thighs to drop her on her back.

  She laughs. And then she spreads her legs for me, and I lean over to lick at her swollen clit. “Fuck,” she says again. “Holy shit, Mac, that’s good.” I keep licking her clit while I feel around for the condom. “I’ve got it,” she says, and I hear the package tear. I can’t help rubbing my prick against the bed while I’m eating her pussy. “Come here,” she demands. “I need you.”

  Just the sound of her voice pulls me up to kiss her, letting her taste her salty juices on my tongue. We put the condom on me together, and then her hand guides me to her entrance. Even through the latex I feel her heat. “Jennifer, love, you sure? Last chance?”

  “Just fuck me,” she says, and pulls me to her by my shoulders.

  We both cry out when I’m sheathed to the hilt. “You’re so tight,” I say, “perfect, so fucking tight, ah Jen.” I’m too wound up for this to last long, and for just a second or two I worry I can’t please her, but her repeated moans and her pumping hips tell me she’s close. I reach a hand down between us and rub her clit light and fast. She cries out again, her nipple stone-hard under my tongue, and then her cunt’s clenched down on me like a fist, milking me, and I lose control, letting go inside her. We slowly spiral back down to earth, and I pull out holding tight to the rubber, so as not to spill the mess.

  “I’ll go get rid of this.”

  She sits up, watching me go into the hall. I dispose of the condom in my room and fish three more from my night stand. Just in case, you know.

  “Are you coming back?” she asks quietly from next door, and I hurry back in and show her the supplies. “Oh,” she says, and then she smiles.

  “Am I jumping to conclusions again?” I ask, and close her door.

  She turns on the bedside light and pats the bed next to her, shaking her head.

  I lie down, and she lies down with me. I put my arm around her, but we’re silent for a long time while I play with her short curls and she runs her hand over my chest and shoulders, then down my abdomen, tracing the line of each muscle. “Are you sorry?” I ask, finally.

  It takes her a long time to answer. “No. And yes.” I make my hands be still, but she sighs and adds, “I never do this. I never sleep with coworkers. It’s poison, and I didn’t want to poison this.”

  “Poison—what, poison the bar?”

  “In case things don’t go well.” Her voice is serious and sad. “They usually don’t, long term. And I like this place. I don’t want things all strained and horrible because we couldn’t keep it in our pants.”

  I think about Kelly’s Pub, the warm center of my childhood and still the place I feel most at home. “I don’t want it horrible either.” A little laugh comes snorting out my nose. “But I think if I’d kept it in my pants much longer, I’d have exploded.” I look into her dark, dark eyes. “You are . . . incredible, Jennifer. So beautiful.” I drift the back of my hand down over her breast, and mark her tiny gasp as my knuckles encounter her nipple.

  Her voice is breathless. “You’re very good at that.”

  “Touching a woman’s body?”

  “Giving compliments.”

  I blink, pulled up short. “It’s the truth, everything I say about you. I saw you walk into my pub and I was finished looking at anybody else.”

  “You can do that some more,” she says. “It’s okay, I don’t need the compliments.”

  “They’re all true.”

  SEVEN

  Jen

  “It’s all true,” he tells me. “Every word.”

  I sigh. “You say so, but you’re a sweet-talker. Everybody says so. Seanan keeps telling me stories of how he’d get you both into trouble, and you’d talk both your ways out of it. Everybody says he’s all shenanigans and you’re all malarkey.”

  “Well. I have talents,” he admits. “I like being nice to people.”

  I feel reckless, having given in to an earth-shatteringly orgasmic fuck. “I hate it that I let you talk me into bed. Even though it was . . .” I stop talking while I consider. “Exceptional.”

  “You were exceptional,” he says.

  “You’re not helping your case here.”

  “Are you always going to see through my malarkey?” he asks, tracing idle patterns on my breasts and belly. I can’t answer when his fingers trail down to my trimmed bush, and then lower, rubbing gently over my clitoris.

  I have to grab his wrist. “I hope I can. I’m afraid you’ve got me hypnotized with sex.”

  “Oh.” He starts touching me again, and I feel his penis start to rise against my hip. “Well, tell me to stop then.”

  “I can’t. I like it.”

  “There’s something else I think you’ll like,” Mac whispers. “I’m not all talk, I’ll have you know.”

  Then he slides two of those long fingers inside me, curling them and rubbing them over the front wall of my pussy while he licks my clit. I’m out of control almost immediately, a deep unlatching feeling sweeping over me, and then suddenly everything is wet and I’m screaming with pleasure. He raises his head, and his face is wet too, glowing with laughter and something that might be pride. “Thought so,” he says. “God, you’re fuckin’ amazing.”

  I pant, “So are you.”

  “I know. Want another one?”

  I gather all my strength and slither out from under him, pushing him onto his back. “No, your turn again.” I straddle his glorious abs, facing his telephone-pole cock and thrilled with this position. He puts his hands on my ass, spreading my cheeks apart. “What are you doing?”

  “Looking at you. So beautiful.” He runs his fingers over my pussy lightly, and I shudder a little.

  “Your turn, I said.” And I take him into my mouth again, loving the feel of stretching my mouth around him. Sure, I’ve sucked cock before, but not this one. And I don’t think my efforts have ever been this appreciated. I let the head of his prick hit my throat as I tighten my hands on his length and let my other hand roam—around his balls and over his taint. Within moments, his thigh muscles tense and his cock swells even more in my mouth.

  “Stop now, or it’ll all be over.”

  “You’re young,” I say. “There will be other times.” I stroke a little faster.

  “Stop it, Jennifer,” Mac says, and smacks my pussy lightly.

  “Mmm.”

  “Ride me, then,” he suggests. “I want you to come first.”

  I’m torn: use my powers for his pleasure, or get my own as well?

  “Please,” he says, pleading.

  I reach for one of the condoms, tear it open, and put it on him. Then, still facing
away, looking at the strength in his legs, I lower my pussy lips on it and slide, letting the base of his shaft rub up against my clit.

  “Ah, that’s grand,” he says, voice low and hoarse with desire. “Touch your tits for me? I want you to feel so good.”

  I play with my nipples, letting my eager pussy set the pace. I look over my shoulder at him, seeing his need in his eyes. He seizes my hips and pushes my pace a little faster. I moan.

  “When you’re close,” he says, breathing hard, “when you’re close, I need to be in you.”

  I’m close now. I raise my hips enough to let the head of his prick catch at my entrance, and then I’m sitting on his beautiful thick cock, pumping my hips on it, rubbing at my clit until I reach that point of no return and cry out, plunging harder on it until my orgasm explodes and I feel him throbbing inside me. This time, I take the used condom and walk on shaky legs to the trashcan by the door.

  “Come back,” he says. “Sleep with me.”

  “The bed’s trashed,” I point out. “I’ll have to do laundry tomorrow.” I’m not that sorry about it, but that’s the biggest wet spot I’ve ever experienced.

  “We can sleep in my bed.” Then he laughs. “If Seanan was going to strike out, he’d have been home already.”

  I get a towel from the bathroom and we stay in my bed, instead.

  We talk.

  We talk about Mac’s growing up here, his parents busy with the pub but happy together. He tells me what it’s like in Ireland visiting relatives all summer and getting away with all of Seanan’s shenanigans.

  “Did you kiss the blarney stone?”

  He makes a face. “No. Tourists piss all over it.”

  “Are you sure? You talk a lot of blarney.”

  I kiss him to make up for that. He kisses back. “Natural gift. I know how to use my tongue.”

  “You sure do.”

  And then we have another demonstration of Mac’s gift of tongue, and another demonstration of mine, and this time when he reaches for the condom, I grab his hand. “I’ve had my Depo shot. I’m know I’m clean—got tested last year just to make sure, and I haven’t been with anybody since then.”

  He blinks, amber brown eyes glowing in the light. “I’ve never done it without a rubber.”

  “Want to?”

  For answer, he lunges and I wind up on my back, the top half of my body dangling back over the bed and all the blood rushing to my head, so that when I come, I come so hard I nearly black out, returning to the world just in time to feel a hot jet of cum bathing my cunt.

  He finally rolls to his back, laughing the way you do when you’re just happy. “Ah, Jen. Jenny girl, you’ll be the death of me, but I’ll die a happy man.”

  EIGHT

  Mac

  We sleep for a time, and then wake, turning to each other with a fierce urgent need. Strictly vanilla missionary penis-in-vagina sex, and it’s wonderful. She puts her hand between us and flicks at her clit while I suck her nipples, and when she whispers, “Now,” I pound her hard and fast, and she comes, her inner walls squeezing my grateful cock. It feels so good.

  We doze again, and this time I make her talk. She tells me she has no family, which I knew because yesterday morning I rang Da’s friend Billy who runs The Harp in Philly and grilled him for half an hour about her. She’d grown up in foster care, and she’s never had a boyfriend who treated her right, or a good friend who’s stuck with her thick and thin.

  Not like me and Seanan. Who, for all his arseholery, is a good brother.

  I kiss her gently. “Stay. Stay with us.”

  “Us?”

  “Stay here at Kelly’s. Stay with me.” I caress down her lovely body, so alive for me. Every time I touch her, she responds so sweetly.

  “With you personally.”

  “You’re such a skeptic.”

  “Yeah, well, you try getting shat on every time you tried trusting—”

  I stop her with another kiss. “I’m not your old boyfriends. I’m on your side. I’m yours. Stay.”

  “Until June,” she says, and kisses me back.

  Come June, Ainsley’s moved in with Seanan. She cooks every evening. They settle in. They’re engaged and getting married in December. Come June, Jennifer’s settled into the rhythm of life in the Charm City. She teaches an intro to bartending class on Saturday mornings. She likes concerts at the park. We sleep together in her room, and we’d be embarrassed about the noise except that there’s plenty of noise coming down the hall from Seanan’s room.

  Come June, Jen’s said nothing about going back to Philly.

  One Sunday morning in the middle of the month, I catch her looking at all the family photos in the apartment. “How old are you in this one?” she asks.

  I peer over. “Um, about four, I guess.”

  “Your dad let you pull a pint at the age of four?”

  “We were probably closed. He was a stickler for that sort of thing. Would never have served an illegal pint to a patron,” I explain. “He probably dumped it straight down the drain after, too, because that looks awful.”

  She tilts her head, still staring at it. “Well, you were four.” She sighs. “Good thing you eventually had me to teach you how to do it right.”

  “Do you think I still need lessons?” I demand, hands on hips.

  She doesn’t look at me, but the corners of her mouth turn up. “Definitely. You know, I’m teaching a class on remedial mixology.”

  “Reme—oh, you’re gonna get it now!” I pick her up over my shoulder and carry her to our room, and then I give her a remedial lesson on the proper use of hands in the bedroom. And then one on the improper use of hands.

  “Stay,” I say afterward.

  She sighs, her chin on my chest. “You need a lot of practice. I guess I’ll stay until October.”

  Come October, she’s still threatening to give me bartending lessons, and I’m still threatening to give her lessons on how to have a quickie in the back office during pub hours and get away with it.

  Come October, Ainsley’s begging Jennifer to be one of her bridesmaids. Come October, Jennifer’s Philly accent has slid sideways over into Highlandtown territory, unless she’s upset. Come October, she’s bought a Ravens football jersey, claiming it’s only because purple is her favorite color.

  Come October, she’s picked six fights about nothing and we’ve made up six glorious times in bed, and somehow I can tell she’s still waiting for me to disappoint her. The seventh time she picks a fight over nothing (okay, okay, she thought I was being too nice to a patron at the bar because the patron had nice tits, but I was being nice because the patron had a bad day, and anyway, the patron’s tits weren’t a patch on Jennifer’s, and anyway, tits or no tits, Jennifer’s my lass and no one else), I take her out to the Dumpster behind the pub so she can yell. Once she’s finished yelling, she stands there, arms crossed, glaring at me.

  “No,” I say calmly. “I’m not dumping you.”

  She blinks.

  “You can’t make me,” I clarify. “You can lose your temper and call me names and tell me I’m a total shitarse and a worse boyfriend, not to mention tell me I’m a crap bartender, and I still won’t dump you. Or betray you. Or tell you to go away.”

  Her jaw does not quite drop.

  “You’ll have to leave me. It’d break me heart, my bold lass, but that’s the only way we’d stop being together. D’ye hear me?”

  “You mean no matter what I do you’re keeping me?”

  I nod, slowly. “Believe me. No malarkey.”

  Her chin trembles. Then her arms fall to her sides. “No malarkey, huh?”

  “Not a word of it.” I open my arms and she comes into them, pushing her head into my chest. “Stay,” I plead again.

  She sighs in contentment, and holds me tight. “I’ll stay.”

  Epilogue

  Jen, two months later

  I’ve never been a bridesmaid before. I’m not quite sure what to do, but I keep watching Ainsle
y’s sisters to figure it out. They’re nice, like her, and I’m so glad they’re here because I don’t feel like I fit in. Mac doesn’t fit in, he stands out. “Best man” is the perfect way to describe him, because he is.

  Growing up back in Philly, the foster kid whose mom left her behind could never have imagined this life, where I have an expanding circle of people who care about me. Not just a boss, but all my coworkers.

  Ainsley’s sister hands out our red rose bouquets, to go with our dresses and the Christmas decor. The deep crimson is pretty on all the Parker sisters, with their ash-brown hair and cool blue eyes. But the mirror tells me it’s pretty on me, too.

  At the rehearsal dinner last night, I met Mac’s parents, Finnan and Eileen, plus a slew of their lovely Irish relations that I could barely understand—cousins and aunts and uncles of Seanan and Mac’s. I’m pretty sure some of them had trouble understanding my Philly accent, but the cool thing is that you don’t always have to understand the words to understand the heart. I think they all got the gist of, “This is Macallan’s lass, Jennifer.”

  I managed to catch Mr. Kelly after dinner and thank him for being friends with my old boss Billy. He was very gracious and warm, and he and his wife insisted on hugging me before the night was over. And then I picked up my phone and called Billy himself, to thank him for sending me to Baltimore. Because without Billy believing in me, I wouldn’t be Macallan’s lass.

  The wedding’s beautiful. The reception’s at the downtown hotel is lovely, too, but I can’t help thinking that I’d feel stifled by all this formality. If I were ever to get married, I mean.

  (Well, of course I’ve thought about it. Duh. It’s unlikely, but, you know . . . you have to mentally prepare for stuff like pandemics and zombie apocalypses and weddings.)

  I’ve been living in the apartment over Kelly’s Pub for months now. All my clothes are in Mac’s room, and we sleep in mine because it’s on the end of the building and we’re loud. I love it. Seanan’s fun, even if he does pull practical jokes on Mac. And Ainsley’s sweet. She’s teaching me to cook.