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  “See?” she shouted. “Easy!”

  I took a deep breath.

  She pointed to a rope wall at the end of the structure. “First you’ll climb the ropes to get to the top perch, where you’ll clip your harness to one of the ropes dangling from the top, using the lobster clip.” Then she showed us how to fasten the clip and how to unfasten it to change ropes at the end of each obstacle. “The most important part of this drill is not only to get across, but to work with your partner. This course is impossible to get through alone. Remember that.”

  My heart was a frantic drumbeat in my chest.

  “First rule,” Julie shouted. “If you come to class late, you have to go first.” She looked at Ryan and me. “You’re up.”

  I followed Ryan to the ropes and tried to keep up with him. He made it to the top effortlessly and hoisted himself up to the perch.

  “Come on, Sarah. You got this,” he called down to me.

  My weight worked against the slack in the rope wall so I had to summon all my strength to get to the top. Alone I couldn’t have done it, but with him looking down, I pushed myself harder. Finally I crawled up to the perch and Ryan secured us to the overhead ropes. Ahead was a narrow wooden beam that led to the next perch.

  “Do you want to lead?” Ryan asked.

  I stared wide-eyed at the narrow beam. “I don’t know if I can do this.”

  “Just follow me.” He stepped onto the beam and stretched his hand out to me.

  I grabbed his hand and felt myself being led to the beam.

  “Don’t look down,” he said. He walked backward so we were face to face and flashed me a smile. “Look at me. You can do this.”

  At that moment, staring into his eyes was less terrifying than acknowledging that my feet were moving along a three-inch beam of wood. I gripped his hand and moved with him. There was a dull screech as the ropes attached to our harnesses dragged along the thin wire overhead. Gazing at his gorgeous face propelled me forward.

  “You’re doing great. Just keep coming, Sarah.”

  Finally we reached the second perch and Ryan switched us to the next set of ropes. With his help, I made it through a few more obstacles. One required us to jump across gaps in a series of boards. Another was made of three ropes pulled tight and running parallel to each other. I did okay until we got to the fourth obstacle.

  The fourth obstacle had more wood beams, strung together with rope. Ryan stepped out first and the board slid down the ropes under the force of his body weight. It caught him off guard and by the time he’d steadied himself, there was a massive gap between me on the perch and him on the beam. We should have stepped out together.

  “I can’t do this,” I said. The ropes were too shaky to walk across.

  “You have to jump,” Ryan said.

  “I can’t.”

  He had one hand on the rope that stretched from the overhead wire to his harness. His other arm was reaching back to me. “I’ll catch you, I promise.”

  The rope that anchored me had a little slack. If I fell, I wouldn’t fall far, but I would be stuck—dangling in the air, helplessly. I had to jump.

  “Come on, Sarah,” he coaxed.

  I leaned forward and pushed off, focusing only on him. As promised, he caught me, wrapping his free arm around my waist. But the force of my landing left the board beneath us unstable. I had to grip him with both arms. Our bodies were clasped together, and we were struggling to get our balance. There was no space between us. My breasts were pressed against his chest, and I could smell the citrus of his cologne. Once we were finally steady, I tilted my head back a little and looked at his face. He made no move to release me. For a second, I was sure I spotted a trace of arousal in his expression. His gaze bore deep into mine like he was going to kiss me. I closed my eyes… and then I felt him pull away. As we moved through the last two obstacles, the idea of him kissing me became ridiculous. Could a guy like Ryan actually be attracted to me? I moved through the rest of the course in a daze. All I could think about was the heat between our bodies when he held me—and that look.

  Did he feel it too?

  Back on the ground, I decided that I’d imagined everything. Instead of talking to me, Ryan stood with a group of guys who’d finished the obstacle course after us, making small talk. At dinner, when he sat at a different table, I started to really feel self-conscious. Had I crossed the line with the way I held onto him? Maybe the look he gave me was really one of rejection.

  I wanted to run away and hide.

  After dinner we got our roommate assignments. Mine was Carol, the woman who’d glared at me on the bus. “I hope you don’t snore,” she said. “I’m a light sleeper.”

  “I don’t think I do.”

  I changed for bed but I couldn’t fall asleep. So once Carol started to snore, I grabbed my jacket and snuck out of the room. I walked out to a bench behind the cabin. It was dark so I took out my cell phone and started looking at email. After a few minutes, a deep voice startled me from the darkness.

  “Sarah?”

  I jumped and then turned my phone so I could see who was in front of me.

  “I was about to go for a walk,” Ryan said. “Want to join me?”

  “Isn’t it too dark?”

  “No. There are lights on the trail.”

  I followed him into the darkness.

  Once we reached the trail, the trees were illuminated by the faint lights scattered along the path. I could see Ryan’s outline, but his face was darkened by the shadows.

  “Hey,” he said. “I wanted to apologize.”

  “Apologize?”

  “I should have known that we needed to step out to that moving board together. I put you in a bad place having to jump like that. I feel like a jerk.”

  “Don’t worry about it,” I said.

  We walked in silence for a few minutes until we reached the end of the trail and the dreaded obstacle course. Seeing it in the moonlight and knowing I didn’t have to go up there made me feel at ease.

  “Actually,” I said to Ryan. “I thought I’d made you uncomfortable up there.”

  “Why?”

  “I held on to you pretty tight.”

  He laughed. “I have no problem with you holding on to me.” We stopped walking right at the bottom of the rope wall.

  “I was terrified,” I admitted.

  “I know.” He rested both hands on my shoulders and dragged them slowly down the length of my arms. Standing close like that, I could see his face in the moonlight. We stared into each other’s eyes and then he moved his hands to my waist to pull me closer. His body felt so warm. I tilted my head, and he brought his lips to mine.

  The kiss started soft, but it quickly turned frantic. I wrapped my arms around him and held his body the same way I did when we were thirty feet off the ground. When he pulled away, it was to unzip my jacket. Underneath I was wearing only a T-shirt, no bra. He took my jacket off and slid his hands up to my bare breasts. My nipples were hard from the breeze, and his rough fingertips rubbed and squeezed them. Feeling his hands on my bare skin, I started breathing heavier. I moved my hands inside his shirt.

  Ryan’s body was rock hard. I started on his chiseled stomach and caressed him up to his strong chest. Heat emanated from his skin as I explored every inch of his muscular upper body.

  He stopped touching me to strip away our shirts. When we kissed again, our bare chests were pressed together. I felt myself getting wet. My breathing became long and slow. I wanted him like crazy.

  “Come here,” he whispered and turned to the rope wall. He climbed about two-thirds of the way up and flipped around so he was laying on the ropes, anchoring himself with his feet.

  “No way,” I shouted up to him. “I hate heights.”

  “But, Sarah,” he called. “I want you.”

  Still dizzy with desire, I started to climb. I was only wearing shorts, and the cool night air made me shiver. And yet the thought of reaching him was too appealing to stop. I climbed
to him, and then he pulled down my shorts and underwear. I let them slide down my legs and shook them free, letting them tumble to the ground. We didn’t need to talk. All my attention was on him and the ropes—there was no room for words.

  He rolled me over on my back. I gripped the ropes above me with both hands, and pressed my feet against the ropes below. It was too dark to see how high I was, but I trusted him completely. I knew he wouldn’t let me fall. He moved down the ropes until his head was between my legs. He started at my knee and kissed my inner thigh. Up one leg and down the other. Very slowly. By the time he reached my other knee, my legs were spread wide, and I was aching for him. He put his face between my legs. His tongue slid over my lips, parting them and plunging inside. Then his mouth was wrapped around my clit and he sucked it gently, teasing me.

  I moaned. “I want you so bad.”

  He climbed up again so he was on top of me. I felt the bulge of his crotch over my dripping pussy, and I dug my feet into the ropes to free my hands. He stopped me before I could pull down his shorts and reached into his pocket for a condom. As I slid his shorts away, he held onto the ropes with one arm while tearing the condom open with his teeth and then unrolling it over his massive erection. Every movement of his was controlled. He kicked off his shorts and kissed my neck, making me wait before he finally slid inside.

  He pushed his cock into me slowly, and I felt like I was in a dream. The most beautiful man I had ever seen was fucking me. I moaned again. Reaching up to hold the ropes, I arched my back to force him in deeper. As I did that, the ropes burned into my flesh. Ryan moved faster, and my pain became more intense. Instead of moving away from it, I arched myself further. My hands were raw from gripping the ropes. Somehow all the pain made every sensation more extreme, even the feel of him moving in and out of me. My whole body was electrified.

  The slack of the rope wall echoed his movements. Suspended high in the air, I felt weightless as our bodies rose together and then sunk back into the ropes. I wrapped my legs around him and closed my eyes. The fiery sensation started inside my pussy and kept building until it rocked my whole body. I cried out when I came. My orgasm was harder and longer than any I’d felt before. My body shuddered, which sent him over the top. His motion stopped but the ropes kept quivering beneath us as he groaned into my ear. After he came, he tucked his head against mine and we stayed like that, both trying to catch our breath.

  “Still afraid of heights?” he whispered.

  “Umm…maybe not as much.”

  He lifted his head to look at me. “Good.” He smiled. “Because you know tomorrow they’re going to make us do the top level.”

  I felt a knot inside my stomach.

  He kissed my ear and whispered, “Don’t be scared, Sarah. I’ll be right beside you.”

  I looked up at the highest ropes and my nerves slipped away, replaced by something even more powerful. With him by my side, I knew I had nothing to worry about.

  STARSTRUCK

  by Lazuli Jones

  Oh God, he’s as gorgeous as he ever was.

  The banner hanging above the table was displaying a half-body shot of Tecton, the ebony-skinned superhero who made frequent visits to my young-adult fantasies. In the shot, Tecton wore his muscle-hugging gold costume, the spandex riddled with rocky patterns. His hair was styled into small dreads. From the center of a thin gold mask, Tecton’s sharp black eyes stared down. His gaze was stern, but gentle. Sharp, but soothing.

  The shot was from 1993; I recognized it because I’d had the same picture cut out from a magazine and taped to my bedroom mirror. I’d stare at it until I got hot and weak in the knees and carefully took the picture down to bring to bed with me. How else was a nerdy black girl going to get her sexy kicks in the Nineties?

  Tecton was all muscle and deep rumbling voice but god, the whole premise of his character was that he was a gentle giant. By day, he was Tyrell Jackson, a construction worker with a secret identity. By night, he was part of the titular Elemental Heroes, a six-person superhero team. And, in real life, he was Desmond Kyle, the well-built and deep-voiced hunk who hadn’t acted much since the nineties. Being typecast was a stroke of bad luck.

  Beneath the banner, twenty years older but still radiating sex, Desmond Kyle sat in a muted scarlet dress shirt and smiled and shook hands and signed autographs. The dreads of his youth had been replaced with a short cut, streaked with silver. I stood four people away, holding a glossy eight-by-ten of Desmond and trying to look chill, though my heart was pounding like Tyrell Jackson’s jackhammer. I was surprised to see how short the line was; the only people ahead of me were chunky, nerdy boys. I was the only woman in line. I was the only black person in line.

  I was the only person above age forty in line.

  Did I care? Oh hell no. This was the first time in years Desmond Kyle was making a Comic-Con appearance, and I was going to meet him. I was going to talk to him, shake his hand, get him to remember me.

  The line moved and the guy in front of me, a tall, skinny twenty-something, handed the smiling Desmond a magazine and asked for a dedication. I watched Desmond’s large hand and supple fingers glide his signature across the magazine cover.

  I’d dreamt about those hands. I used to imagine Tecton crushing my ass in those huge hands, lifting me up and pressing me against a wall. He’d be just back from a rescue mission, still in his costume and mask, sweaty, blood pumping. He’d kiss me, and it would taste like salt and earth.

  I’d imagined those huge hands cupping my pussy, ripping my panties off, finger-fucking me deep inside while I screamed his name. I would come so hard that I’d rip the spandex from his shoulders. “You’re a goddess,” he’d tell me while I tore the rest of his costume off, stroking his bobbing cock and holding on to his shoulders while I impaled myself.

  He’d hold me by the hips with his huge hands—he was just that strong—and bring me down hard, making me scream and thrash and come again and again. And then he would lift me up using his strong hands, bend me over the bed, and plunge his big, rock-solid cock inside me until I came another half-dozen times.

  I was nineteen and still a virgin, with a tenuous grasp of how sex actually worked. But it was still a hell of a fantasy.

  Back in the real world, I was still standing a few feet away when Desmond looked me straight in the eye and beckoned me to come to him. The moment he smiled at me, I forgot my carefully rehearsed spiel and stumbled forward, holding out the glossy photo of him like a giddy pre-teen.

  “Well hello,” Desmond said. His voice was like velvet smoke. “What’s your name?”

  I used to masturbate to pictures of you.

  “Angela,” I blurted. I’d practiced looking poised and sexy—I’d even worn a classy little black dress with my vintage Elemental Heroes necklace—but now I felt like a babbling fool. “I love you! In the show, I mean. I loved Tecton.”

  “Thank you, Angela,” he said. The way he said my name made me flush from head to belly. I was a funny combination of nervous and aroused. I was nervroused. “It’s great to meet a real fan from back in the day. What was your favorite episode?”

  I spent my early adulthood thinking about your cock.

  “Oh, you know!” I said dumbly. I could smell his cologne from across the table; it was earthy and spicy, exactly how I’d imagined him smelling. The frantic hammering in my chest turned into a pulsing want deep between my legs. “I loved everything you did. Just…everything!”

  His large fingers wrapped around the Sharpie as he signed the photo I’d handed him. I imagined what those hands would feel like wrapped around my arms, my legs. One of Tecton’s powers was super strength; Desmond looked like pure muscle poured into a gentle, relaxed frame. Like he could break you, but he’d rather cuddle.

  “It was very nice meeting you, Angela,” Desmond said. He handed me back the signed photo; I’d planned all along to shake his hand, but I only smiled when our fingertips brushed.

  You gave me the best imaginary orgasms o
f my life.

  I walked away from the table. And just like that, the liquid heat pulsing in my veins and between my legs grew cold. I hugged the photo to my chest, shivering as I squeezed my breasts together, feeling like a fool now in my sad little black dress and my sad little pendant with the multicolored iris. I’d spent an awfully long time picking out an outfit for my drooling-moron act in front of Desmond. Suddenly, I wasn’t a grown-ass, sexy, confident woman anymore. I was the dorky little thing I was back in the nineties, with my stupid box braids I never knew how to style, not like the other stylish girls, and my clothes that always fit weird on my awkward teenage body.

  I needed a fucking drink.

  I got lucky; the Comic-Con was taking place in a big hotel with an attached restaurant/bar. After walking around the con for another two hours to get my entry fee’s worth, I decided to retreat there and drown my sorrows.

  I stared at Desmond’s face on the eight-by-ten, and at his cute handwriting: To Angela. Thank you for being a true fan!

  I wondered what he thought of the nervous old chick, as the bartender served me my gin and tonic. I handed him his money but he paused.

  “Hey, you like that guy?” he asked, nodding toward Desmond’s photo.

  “Yeah,” I said, taking a sad sip. “Big fan. I saw him earlier.”

  “Want to see him again?” the bartender said. I frowned, and he pointed toward the back of the restaurant. “He came in and sat down a half hour ago. He’s still there. By himself.”

  Oh fuck. I think my younger self wrote a fanfic that started like that. “Oh…I don’t want to bother him. But thank you.”

  The bartender nodded and walked away. I jumped to my feet. What the hell. You only live once, and you only get one chance to show your idol how much you admire him. Okay, two chances in my case.

  I tossed my drink back, gave the top of my dress a quick adjustment, and walked around the bar.