Free Skin on Skin by Jami Alden, Sunny, Valerie Martinez

where the primitive, domineering urge came from. He’d never felt it with anyone but her. “I want you to look at me. I want you to know who’s making you come.” Her sharp cry echoed through the room as she spasmed and shuddered, shaking the bed with the force of her climax.
    “Oh, God, you are so beautiful when you do that,” his hand pressed against her mound, sending aftershocks through her limbs. He rained kisses on her flushed face, not sure what he loved more: the sweet startled look on her face as she came, or the vague, immensely satisfied expression that immediately followed.
    A sharp knock interrupted his musings. Lauren’s eyes went wide. “The food!”
    Tony stole one last kiss and slipped from the bed. “You get the door while I go clean up. Although,” he paused, bringing his hands up to his face, and made an exaggerated sniffing sound. “I don’t know if I ever want to wash my hands again.”
    “Gross!” she shrieked and beaned him with a throw pillow on her way to the door.
    By the time he got out of the bathroom wrapped in his own robe, she had set the tray bearing a fruit and cheese plate, shrimp cocktail, and an enormous chocolate sundae on the coffee table. He snagged a bottle of red wine from the minibar and snuggled down next to her on the sofa. She smiled up him uncertainly, and he knew she was having a hard time taking this all in stride.
    He poured them each a glass of wine and held his up for a toast. “Cheers.” He watched her sip her wine and leaned in for a kiss. “I’m really glad I came with you this weekend, Lauren.”
    “I’m glad, too,” she murmured, then sat back, face flushed with color as though worried she’d admitted too much.
    They ate and watched TV, and thankfully she loosened up after the first glass of wine. He poured her another and asked the question that had nagged him before he got completely distracted by sex.
    “So what’s the deal with you and Brandon?”
    Her glass paused halfway to her mouth as she turned to look at him. He watched as she deliberated whether or not to tell him.
    “Do you really want to hear this?” she asked, buying time.
    “I wouldn’t ask if I didn’t.”
    “I may not have your experience, but even I know not to discuss old lovers with new ones right after you’ve had sex.”
    Bingo. “So you were lovers.” Jealousy, uncomfortable and unfamiliar, gnawed at his belly. As a rule, he didn’t care who his lovers had slept with and who they were going to sleep with, but the thought of Brandon running his perfectly manicured metrosexual hands all over Lauren made him physically ill.
    She grimaced, realizing what she had revealed. She took a fortifying sip of wine and sat back on the couch with a derisive snort. “As if you could call it that. Brandon was my first. It was uncomfortable, it was awkward, and it was over in about two minutes.”
    “On behalf of all men, let me offer my apologies.”
    She smiled at that, but her eyes were a little sad. “It was my fault, really. I crossed a line I shouldn’t have.”
    His confusion must have shown because she continued. “Brandon was my best friend in junior high and high school. As you can imagine, with everyone knowing about my mom, I didn’t exactly play up my femininity.”
    “You didn’t want everyone to think you were like her.”
    “Right,” she grimaced. “So I became a total tomboy. I was big and tough anyway—”
    “You’re not nearly as big as you seem to think,” he interjected.
    “In high school I was, comparatively, but that’s not the point. Point is, guys just saw me as one of them, and I liked it that way.”
    “Until?”
    “Senior year. I decided I was in love with Brandon. I think it was more that everyone around me was having sex and dating and I felt left out. Anyway, I actually bought a skirt and a tight tank top, borrowed my mom’s makeup and went over to Brandon’s and seduced him.” She threw her head back with a wry laugh. “Poor