Curvy Girls Read online

  I pushed my feet down hard onto the floor, thrusting up to meet him even, as he pinned my upper body flat with his. “Nice,” he said in my ear, and all the little nerves in my neck and ear danced under his breath.

  “Runner’s calves,” I grunted, moving again, taking him deeper.

  “Strong,” he said.

  I nodded dumbly. I was cresting that wave of an approaching orgasm, that place where my body felt desperate for release, but my mind wasn’t quite ready for it all to end.

  He slowed, as if reading my thoughts. No going faster here. He shifted to a nice easy rhythm that let us both catch our breath—like running, when you give yourself a moment to catch up to your racing system.

  Chuck rocked his lean hips from side to side ever so slightly. I felt the bony knobs of his hipbones rub across my more padded protrusions. My pussy, slick and ready, fluttered. I gasped, biting down on his earlobe so hard he hissed.

  “Cheating,” he said, and pushed my wrists harder. The sharp bite of pain from those small bones grinding together had my cunt tight and my skin slippery with fresh sweat.

  “Sorry.”

  “No, you’re not,” he said, bending his head enough to capture my nipple in his mouth. He moved his hands for just an instant, pinning me by the forearms now as his tongue toured the hard tip of my nipple, his teeth finding me and nipping me there hard enough to steal my breath.

  I brought my legs up and wrapped them around his waist, tugging him in with my calves as I trapped him with my thighs. I clenched my pussy muscles and all of me was tight and demanding.

  “Christ. Fuck.” He puffed out each word as he drove into me deeper, giving up on teasing me. Giving up on a slow leisurely fuck.

  “I’m going to come,” I hissed. I thrust my hips up to meet him, pulled him with my legs. I fought against his strong hands, but he pinned me tight, even as I tugged him forward with my lower body.

  “Shut up and kiss me,” he growled.

  I squeezed him once with my thighs and heard him exhale violently, and then, laughing, I kissed him, as requested. I let my legs relax, let him drive in at his own speed, let him rock those amazing hips once, twice, three times more, and then I came, whispering in his ear. I didn’t even know what I was saying. Nonsense things, dirty things, filthy things, judging by the way he groaned.

  He kissed me silent and went still for an instant, coming hard, yelling loud, gripping my arms with his long, cool fingers.

  “Nice,” I said, once we could breathe again. “And I didn’t break you.”

  “Told you,” he said, his dark eyes studying my face. The morning sun danced across his clear, smooth skin.

  “You lucked out.”

  He shook his head, then stood up and offered me a hand. I got up, and he pressed me to the counter—both of us still nude and hot from our coupling.

  “I’ll admit, you’re strong.” He bent and sucked my nipple into his mouth. His fingers found my pussy, slipped inside to test me already.

  “I am strong,” I said. “I needed your special secret boots just to fit my massive calves.”

  “Runner’s calves,” he said. “Sexy, strong, kick-ass calves.”

  “We need a shower.”

  “Later.”

  “Don’t make me trap you with my super strong thighs.” I tugged him toward the bathroom upstairs, and he followed.

  “Maybe in the shower,” he said.

  “Maybe.” I took the steps ahead of him, and he stayed close behind, stroking the backs of my legs as I climbed, making the muscles dance.

  “I will admit you have some strong thighs, too.”

  “Runner’s thighs.”

  “Strong thighs. Sexy thighs. American thighs,” he said, chuckling.

  I tugged him into the bathroom and started the water.

  “But you underestimated me,” he said.

  “I did. I admit it.” I stepped in and Chuck was right behind me.

  “Are you sorry?” he asked.

  “I am sorry.”

  “Do you want to show me how sorry you are?”

  We stepped under the spray, and I watched the water bead on his skin, his hair. His eyes were impossibly warm, his hands impossibly strong.

  “Allow me to show my regret,” I teased.

  “I accept. Now, spread those thighs,” he breathed, touching me.

  “Runner’s thighs,” I said, and sighed when his fingers found me and slipped inside.

  “Sara?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Shut up.” He kissed me, his hands moving between my American thighs while I braced myself with my runner’s calves.

  Before the Autumn Queen

  BY ANGELA CAPERTON

  Betsy tugged downward at her ironed blue blouse, closing up the peekaboo gap that had arisen between the second and third buttons. It was just a temporary fix for a continual problem, but she had long abandoned embarrassment about the issue. She did everything she could to maintain a professional, neat appearance, but she accepted that little could be done with the blouse. It was part of her docent’s uniform, and she had stopped fretting about it. Besides, no one had complained—at least no one had said anything to her about it—and she always wore a camisole under the blouse, so it wasn’t like she was flashing skin around the museum.

  She’d been working at the museum for three years—first as a volunteer, then as a paid employee. Her docent’s uniform consisted of a navy-blue, knee-length skirt or slacks; the problematic light-blue blouse; and a navy-blue jacket, which bore the museum’s crest above the right breast, like a little advertisement designed to draw every eye toward the ever-present pucker between her blouse buttons.

  She hated the uniform—hated the way it looked, hated the way it felt. But she overcame her hatred of her mandatory outerwear with the help of private sexy underwear. She’d made her first Soma and Torrid underwear purchases impulsively, out of complete rebellion. She’d spent a lot, and as a result had to endure minimal lunches for the rest of the month. After that, she carefully planned every sexy, silky purchase so that she could fully enjoy it.

  She might be the victim of the Blue Pucker of Disgrace, but she rebelled deliciously by wearing silky panties and lacy bras that hugged her curves and flattered her full figure. The creamy satin against her skin, the web of lace over her hips—they restored her identity, helped her regain her femininity. Feeling beautiful was important in a place as full of beauty as the Freiberg Museum of Art, and Betsy’s intimate garments were her secret badges of identification with the painted goddesses and iconic images of classic beauty.

  She’d been working at the Freiberg only six months when the head curator assigned her to the Boyton wing, her favorite. It housed the nineteenth-century European paintings and associated art—a Rosetti, a Dicksee, and a Collier, among others. But the true treasure was the large collection of paintings by the foremost American pre-Raphaelite, Corso. When Miller Boyton donated his twelve Corso oils in 1980, the Freiberg, though a small museum, became a minor shrine in the art world.

  Born in Boston in 1825, August Corso was the eldest son of a successful merchant. August’s father proudly sent him to study art in England, and there, the young man fell under the spell of John Ruskin. He lived for a time with the Morrises, and (according to rumor) once challenged Rossetti to a duel over a model’s favors.

  While other American artists were working to find an identity, Corso embraced the revival of classical romanticism and brought that passion back with him to the United States, where his paintings created an uproar for their sensuality, their depictions of full-figured partial nudes, and their rejection of the stodgy conventions of the day. He painted sixteen known works before joining the Union army and dying under a surgeon’s knife after the Battle of Antietam.

  Miller Boyton had gone on a personal crusade to collect Corso’s paintings, and a pair of high-ceilinged halls named in his honor exhibited them, the crown jewels of the museum’s holdings.

  Betsy knew every
brushstroke in the paintings and had almost come to think of them as living creatures, each with a personality and a story to tell. One in particular, Autumn’s Queen, had come to hold a special meaning for her. The woman in the painting (perhaps the model Corso and Rossetti had argued over) resembled Betsy: fully fleshed, wide-hipped, and full-breasted under a veil of red, yellow, and golden leaves.

  And she had a companion in her admiration. At least once a week, a young man named Fred Zims sat on the wide bench that faced Autumn’s Queen, his lean face frozen in intent study—though in unguarded moments, when he seemed to forget he was not by himself, Betsy had seen an expression on his face that looked like lust.

  Betsy had only talked to Fred a few times, but she had come to look forward to his visits. Sometimes they would be alone in the gallery—just them, the Queen, and the other five paintings—and could study the painting in quiet rapture. The lush gold and brown leaves seemed to move with the wind, and the Queen’s round face—with her tranquil, half-closed eyes—almost seemed alive. The Queen stretched, ecstatic, upon an elaborate fainting couch made of vines, bent limbs, and the glowing heart of a fallen oak. She stretched, arching into the rain of leaves, her lips parted in what Betsy thought was an eternal sigh of fading bliss, her maple-red hair flowing around her face, tickling her whisper-covered breasts, blending into the autumn-littered forest floor.

  Corso’s works were sometimes compared to Rubens’s, and though Corso’s reputation was only a shadow of the old master’s, Betsy understood the comparison: both had a lushness of form and color. But Corso’s nymphs and goddesses were more openly sensual, even carnal. How many times had Betsy imagined herself arching against some unseen passion, kissed by the dying leaves, made love to by the mists of a tired sun? And while Betsy’s hair wasn’t the same fire-rich auburn as the Queen’s, her reddish-blond locks sometimes flashed with the same golden highlights.

  Today, for the first time ever, Betsy half-dreaded Fred’s arrival, though she knew he would certainly come. He must have heard the news.

  When her young man entered the hall, he stopped before the Queen, as he always did. This time, however, his face didn’t shine with dreams or desire, but with a sorrow that bruised Betsy’s heart. She stood at her post by the door and divided her focus between Fred and a few college students who cruised through the wing with impolite speed. Fifteen minutes later, only Fred remained. This time, he was not on his bench, but standing, like a Buckingham Palace guard—unmoving, almost catatonic, staring at the painting as if he could devour it with his gaze.

  She approached him carefully, just to his left, careful not to obscure his vision but within his line of sight.

  “You know?” she asked quietly.

  “Yes. Yes, I do,” he whispered.

  “She’ll be back. It’s only a year, and the Met will take good care of her.”

  He looked at Betsy, blinking as if trying to clear his eyes of dust . . . or fantasies. “I’m going in June.”

  He looked back at the painting, the intensity in his eyes hot enough to bore holes through marble. What would it feel like to be burned by such a gaze?

  “You’ll be here tomorrow for the opening of the Waterhouse exhibit?” she asked, just to buy a moment. She needed to be part of his worship, to understand the aura of love that flowed from him like rich cream.

  “I might go to the reception tonight, but I don’t know. Waterhouse is all right, but he’s not Corso.”

  “No, he’s not,” Betsy agreed.

  Fred didn’t say anything more, and Betsy’s stomach tightened with the discomfort of the silence. She turned to leave him to his communion.

  “You could have been one of his, you know.”

  Betsy’s mouth suddenly went dry. “I’m sorry?” she said, turning back to him.

  His cheeks flushed with embarrassment. “I mean, you could have been one of his models. He preferred generous models.”

  Betsy blinked twice, then grinned. “Generous. I like that.”

  Fred turned to the painting. “Me, too. Look at her. Look at the light on her skin, the softness and grace of it. She is full, a complete woman. I see such truth in her curves.”

  “Truth?”

  “You know what they say: ‘Art shows us the things we desire.’” He was quoting a brochure, which featured a quote from the museum’s founder, Samuel Freiberg. She finished the quote: “‘Art shows us the things we can be.’ Listen. Come to the reception tonight? You won’t be sorry.” A giddy, girlish excitement blasted through her. Her belly warmed, and between her thighs, a slow, promising wetness flowed.

  “All right,” he said, and she felt his gaze as she crossed the gallery to resume her vigil. She had to struggle not to giggle at the silly, romantic image in her mind: Fred challenging Rossetti to a duel.

  That night, in the east corner of the hall, music rose from a small quartet, its understated strings weaving illusions of mist. Betsy wore the knee-length skirt and kept her blazer buttoned up to reveal only a little of the pucker-prone blouse beneath. She mingled with the guests and enjoyed the energy of the crowd—artists, patrons, a few minor celebrities, and the guest of honor, Reginald Foster, the head curator of the Brightman, where the Waterhouses usually resided. Foster was charming everyone with humorous stories of masterpieces lost and recovered, but Betsy’s attention repeatedly returned to the door.

  When Fred finally arrived, only a few minutes remained before the unveiling of the first Waterhouse. Betsy politely disengaged herself from a conversation with a steel-haired woman wearing a large diamond broach whose weight seemed to pull her upper body downward into a perpetual hunch. She skirted the crowd and reached him, smiling.

  “I’m glad you made it, Mr. Zims. They’re about to get started.”

  He nodded, taking a glass of wine from a waiter’s tray. “It looks like quite an event.”

  “We’re proud to have the exhibition. It will be a nice draw while the Queen is away.”

  At the mention of his icon, Fred’s color retreated a little, but he nodded. “Will you continue to work the Boyton wing, or will you move here?”

  “No, I’ll stay with the remaining Corsos. I like Waterhouse well enough, but . . .”

  Fred smiled for the first time that evening. “He’s no Corso.”

  Besty grinned. She glanced around the room, watching as the crowd slowly shuffled toward the far end of the hall, where a red velvet curtain hid a wall of treasures. She slid her hand into Fred’s and felt him stiffen, then relax into formal wariness. She couldn’t blame him for reacting that way. She spent her days discouraging people from touching things, yet here she was, holding his hand. She had broken a wall between them. Perhaps she had made a mistake? As though he understood her worry, his hand tightened around hers reassuringly, showing acceptance of the breach.

  “Come with me,” she breathed.

  He looked into her face, his strong jaw clenched in a line of thought. He took another sip of the wine, set the half-full glass onto a passing waiter’s tray, and then turned to Betsy and nodded. She led him by the hand, and he followed, out of the lights and music and into the shadows of the museum.

  As they approached the floor-to-ceiling glass doors that sealed the Boyton wing, she slipped her hand free and opened the security panel. She punched in a code, and the green light acknowledged her clearance. She opened the glass doors just enough to admit the two of them, and she led him through the first Corso room—lit only by security lamps, dim as candlelight—and then into the chamber of the Queen.

  “You planned this,” Fred said, his hand warming in hers.

  “Yeah, I did. I know how much she means to you.”

  The low, smoky light shadowed the edges of the Queen’s frame, but as Betsy’s eyes adjusted, the rich flesh and golden leaves—vivid in memory, but now muted into darkly romantic tones of mahogany and sienna—seemed to glow with their own illumination.

  Betsy turned her back to the Queen and faced Fred. She didn’t think, ba
rely heard the distant violins, as she unbuttoned her blouse to expose ample breasts cupped in a lacy black bra—the plunge deep in restraint, the globes held in place by delicate silk and strong satin.

  Fred’s gaze bathed her, and a blush of warmth effervesced in her toes and rose through her body like steam. She was terrified at her own boldness, but also excited and slick with wanting this, so she forced herself to relax. She wanted to leap at him, pin him down, and show him what a true earth goddess was all about. Instead, she shrugged off her blouse, her skin blooming in the sudden adoration, her mind alive with the actuality of revelation.

  “She would approve,” she whispered in the golden gray light, extending her hand to him. Fred didn’t blink, didn’t move, a gorgon’s prize as he assessed her against the exquisite background of a windy autumn night, in the court of the Autumn Queen. Suddenly, the fear of rejection needled her breasts and hollowed her belly. Her extended fingertips ached with want, pulsed with her blood’s wild flow, but when he extended his arm and clasped her hand, her knees began to tremble. In that moment, she didn’t care if the world disappeared.

  It wasn’t gentle or romantic—his pull was possessive and strong, and her pussy dripped, soaking the thin slice of material between her legs. His lips claimed hers, branded her with such lust, she didn’t know if her heart could take the force. His tongue pressed hers into submission as his hands kneaded her back and waist, cupped her ass, and pulled her tight against his hips, the impressive line of his cock a rod of jumping life against her thigh.

  He broke the kiss and pushed Betsy out to arm’s length. He looked around the dark hall, then up at the Queen, his face a mosaic of conflict.

  “She drops her leaves, golden and rich, and gives herself to an invisible lover,” Betsy said. She unbuttoned and unzipped her skirt, let it drop, and stepped out of the puddle of blue. She stood straight, the sheer stockings held up by garters, the belt low on her round hips. She didn’t shrink away from his appraisal, her nipples hard bumps within the cups of her bra, her belly a soft swell. He looked at the painting, then back at Betsy, and she glowed at his comparison. When his gaze held, Betsy blushed all over. He reached out and traced a finger along the outline of her bra, stoking the skin to thin lines of fire.