Page 4 of Square Waves (Big Fan #2)

III

When we exit to the parking lot, it’s chilly like it always is in the Bay, even in August. Fog is starting to roll in to blanket the city as the night gets deeper.

Leon nods toward a bike chained up in front. “That’s my ride, so let me call an Uber, yeah?”

I glance toward the CR-V I drove here, brand new and borrowed from my parents. No way do I trust my two-martini, about-to-have-sex-with-Leon self to drive it. “Thanks,” I say as I adjust to the new surroundings, the two of us plucked from our bubble at the bar.

I watch as Leon taps at his phone, biting his lower lip in concentration as he tells it where we are and where we want to go.

My mind wanders to where it is I want him to go.

Where I want his hands, his mouth. The idea of finally touching him—of having all of his attention on me and getting him to do what I want—it’s a little overwhelming.

He puts his phone back in his pocket, rakes a hand through his hair. His shirt slides up so that I can see the cut of his hipbone and smooth skin below his navel.

He catches me looking. My instinct is to deny it—to make a joke—but then I remember that it’s too late for that. So I meet his gaze, defiant.

Leon’s mouth curls into a grin. “Oh,” he says. “Okay. I can work with that.”

Then he walks me back until I’m pressed against the outer wall of the bar. Its stucco is cold against my back. He cages me in with his arms, one palm pressed flat on either side of my head. For a second I think he’s about to say something else, but he doesn’t.

He kisses me instead.

On the rare occasions when I would let myself imagine something like this happening, I always assured myself that it would be terrible.

That Leon would be the stereotypical pretty boy: lazy and self-involved in bed.

He would be too accustomed to women desperate to make him feel good to know how to make me feel good.

But he kisses me like it matters—insistently but with care.

I wind my arms around him and feel more than hear his groan when my fingers tangle in his hair.

I’ve been wet for what feels like hours now, since the second he first touched me, and I arch up into the palm he runs down my neck before he cups my breast with one hand, then my ass with the other.

A hurt little sound escapes me, something pleading and way too raw.

When Leon pulls away, I worry I’ve overdone it already, but then I realize our car is here, a nondescript Toyota Corolla idling at the curb. The driver is looking very hard at his phone.

“Uh...” Leon’s mouth is red; his tongue traces his lower lip, and I wonder if he can taste me there, gin and spit and want. “You ready?”

I’ve been ready for way too long. “Yeah. Yes.” He guides me toward the car with a more gentlemanly flourish than I knew he possessed.

He only lives twenty minutes away, somewhere in Oakland, naturally, but every minute feels like an hour.

I don’t let myself think any what-if thoughts or look at him.

I don’t trust that I won’t straddle him in the backseat if I do.

Instead, I watch the night blur by outside and try to keep my heart from beating out of my chest.

When we pull to a stop, I try to decode Leon’s house, a rambling Victorian that’s way too big for just one person.

“We’re a no-shoes place,” he says in the entryway, pointing to a rack.

A roommate then. Probably more than one.

I kick off my flats while he unties his sneakers and wheels his bike into its corner.

He grabs my hand, silently steering me through a cozy-looking living room and kitchen and up a back staircase. Something about it feels like we’re sneaking around, and I have to admit that only adds to the allure.

His bedroom is cluttered but tidy. Organized chaos.

His bedframe is so low to the ground that for a second, I’m not sure he has one.

The walls are layered with posters and paintings and prints of photographs.

I walk over to take a closer look, but before I can really see much of anything, Leon wraps his arms around me, hooking his chin over my shoulder.

I spin to face him. He hasn’t bothered turning the lamps on, but the moon is full and bright, making the room feel like a pencil sketch of itself. In the shadowy light, it’s easier to imagine that Leon is a stranger, someone with whom I can successfully pull off a one-night stand.

He kisses my neck, and I tilt my head back reflexively, baring my throat.

He’s all heat and tongue and teeth, and my pulse is throbbing, every part of me trying to get closer to his mouth.

He moves lower, kissing my collarbone, then dipping between my breasts through my clothes.

When he sinks to his knees, I suck in a breath.

I’m undone by the sight, by the way he runs his hands up my hips, under my sweater, skating his palms across the skin of my stomach.

“Come here,” he says, hands firmly on my waist. I sink down onto the bed, pulling him on top of me.

Leon kisses me once, twice, before he raises up and pulls his shirt over his head with one hand.

He has a distinct farmer’s tan, his torso several shades paler than his arms or his face; he’s even more muscular than his clothed frame lets on.

Like he puts his body to use. And I can finally see the tattoos I wondered about earlier—a half-abstract design that circles his forearm and winds up his bicep and then across his shoulders before morphing into Hangul letters across his right pec.

I sit up and tug my own shirt off. My boobs are nothing to write home about, but Leon responds with a gratifying grunt and presses me back down, tugging them out of my bra and licking and nipping hungrily.

I gasp at his gusto, his fervor, and my hands are in his hair again.

I am arching into his touch, helpless. I can’t remember the last time I felt this far out of my head and fully in my body. I only have one thought: More .

My pulse is mostly in my clit when I flip us over and start toying with the fly on his jeans. He doesn’t say anything, just watches me. For a moment he looks like a boy again, wide-eyed with wonder. But then he remembers himself and smirks.

I want to wipe any self-satisfaction off his face.

So I open his fly, pull him out of his underwear, and drop my head, licking the beads of precum that have formed on his tip before I take all of him in my mouth.

The thrilling sensation of his dick hitting the back of my throat extends all the way to my toes.

I moan with contentment and feel his body tense in response to the vibration.

Comment-section creeps almost ruined giving head for me.

My big sex scandal was getting fucked on a senator’s desk, not giving Oval Office–adjacent blow jobs, but no one can ever remember that when making stale jokes about kneepads and DSLs on Reddit.

And for a while I was worried that stuff like that was all anyone would ever be thinking about in a moment like this one.

But Leon just sighs my name: “Cass.” He’s known me for so long, and it feels completely right to taste him, salt and musk and skin on my tongue. To sink my mouth down and let him watch me swallow him over and over again.

Leon’s thighs start to tremble, and I wonder how close he is. I pull off and look up at him, and I trust I look unbearably smug when I ask, “As good as you imagined?”

He responds by hooking his hands behind my knees and flipping me onto my back so that my head is hanging off the edge of his bed.

I’m about to protest, but before I can, Leon’s hand is between my legs, the heel of it sliding over my flesh, and he can feel exactly how wet he’s made me.

“Fuck, Cass, it’s like that, huh?” he says into my jaw as he slides two fingers inside of me, curling his knuckles and circling his thumb against my clit.

I grip the sheets, but my hold does nothing to quell my shaking.

“That’s it,” he murmurs. “That’s it, baby.” I’m too far gone to bristle at the use of a pet name. “Come on, Cass. Let me see it. Let me see you fall apart.”

Those words bring me crashing back into myself. The orgasm that was starting to feel inevitable recedes like the tide. Falling apart means something different to me than it does to a lot of people, and it’s not for others to see. I can’t let Leon witness me boneless, putty in his hands.

So I wrap my fingers around his wrist, even though it pains me to do it. “Stop,” I breathe. “I don’t want to come yet. I want you inside of me when I do.” I know I won’t get any pushback to that.

Another grunt, the sound involuntary. His jaw tightens.

We pull away from each other just long enough to get completely naked and for him to grab a condom.

Then he kneels over me and gives himself a few strokes before he slides it on.

Watching him is... mesmerizing. His dick is thick, and I can still feel its heaviness on my tongue.

My brain almost skipped the tracks back there, but now it’s reasserting itself, my desire coming back online.

When I bracket Leon’s hips with my legs, he wastes no time, sinking forward, sliding into me, and stretching me open in one slow, perfect thrust that blacks out the concept of thoughts completely.

I don’t know which one of us gasps; maybe it’s both.

“Jesus Christ,” he whispers, strands of his hair framing my face as he looks down at me with an expression of wonder.

I’ve had a lot of sex, but I don’t know if I’ve ever felt anything like this, this simultaneous want for him to move and to have him stay here, as far inside of my body as he can get for a very, very long time.

I don’t have to choose. Leon fucks me steadily, pulling out only to drive back in again. I feel something building low in my gut, the ache of the orgasm I denied both of us earlier.

It keeps growing, getting sharper and stronger with each rock of our bodies.

He reaches down to touch my clit again and smiles softly, his lower lip between his teeth, when he sees how much I like it.

I can’t help my body’s reactions, and I don’t want to.

I can sense I’m being loud, and I’m too lost to care.

But I still can’t quite imagine letting Leon watch me come.

So I dig my fingers into his ass, rolling him to his side and wordlessly rearranging myself on my hands and knees.

I turn to look at him, gesturing with my head to indicate what I want, and as soon as he can, Leon is pressing himself inside me again, hands like a brand on either side of my hips.

I mash my face against his pillow and finally, finally give up on doing anything other than feeling.

I embrace what I’ve always liked best about sex: the ability to stop thinking, to be just a body for a few minutes. Skin and sweat and want.

He slides his hands from my hips up my sides, one landing on my breast and the other wrapping gently around my throat. It’s possessive, almost animalistic, and the fact that it feels so out of character for our dynamic only turns me on more.

When I come, the sensation rakes across me like nails, sharp and stinging.

Underneath that, a more lingering pleasure blooms and aches like a bruise.

I’m pretty sure I shout. I return to myself with my mouth open, panting, against the cotton of Leon’s pillowcase.

My neck is damp, and my body pulses with aftershocks, trembling in time with my heartbeat.

I’m practically limp as he presses into me one last time, his hips stuttering as he comes.

All I can hear is the soft suck of his breath—half a gasp—and I realize that I’ve played myself.

Maybe letting him witness my orgasm would have been worth being able to see his: Leon Park, unguarded, earnest, totally committed.

Maybe next ti— I shove the thought out of my mind. There will not be a next time. This was a little self-indulgent one-off. A question has been answered. It doesn’t have to mean anything other than I needed to feel something, we were both sexually restless, and he’s unfortunately still hot.

I tell myself all of this while I gather up my clothes and reach for my phone to order a ride.

“You don’t—” Leon starts, then stops.

“Hm?” My back is turned to him as I tug on my jeans.

“Oh, just... I don’t know. Do you need anything? Water, or...?”

“Nope. Car’s on its way. Does the front door lock automatically?”

“Yeah,” he says. “It does.”

He sounds almost... dismayed, and I can’t help myself from turning to look at him.

I’m prepared to gloat that we’re ending this interaction with me fully clothed and him with his soft dick out, but his face is open and tired in a way I’ve never seen before.

“It’s been real, Leon,” I say with less edge than I intend.

He laughs. “It’s been very real, Cassidy.”

I bite back a smile. I want to say something else, but everything I come up with sounds like an invitation— See you around —or too corny— Take care .

So instead, I settle for one last look at him.

His hair is a wreck, and his mouth is red from mine.

His dick is soft, but it doesn’t look stupid, somehow; it looks—

I walk myself to the door to leave before I can do anything truly dumb, like ask if I can stay so we can do it again in the morning.