It's Simply Sex

The foyer was alive with the Brownian motion of thirteen to thirty Lego-crazed primary schoolers and several obediently hunched parents. I thought fondly of the carnage that would be left in the activity room -- re-organizing the space was a pleasant, almost meditative task to end my Saturdays with. Half of my attention was taking note of the reading corner, where the corner sofa's pale blue marl was receiving lots of friendly interaction from lots of adventurous shoes. The other half was trained on the newcomer.

It was rare to see a new patron here, let alone a really cute one around my age. His eyes were wide, taking in the sea of children, mapping the safest route to my desk from where he stood at the entrance, holding the glass door open for any child-parent clusters leaving the muddle. He was relieved from doorman duty with a tight smile by a burly dad--his wife, arms full of sleepy daughter, cruising in his wake. The newcomer picked a satisfactory current and sailed on through the crowd, docking at my desk with a conspiratorial chuckle.

"Hi g'dafternoon, I-" he paused as his brain registered me properly. His eyebrows flicked upwards... and his eyes flicked downwards. A scoop neck top and blazer were my choice for today, intended to flatter the noticeable amount of bosom I carried. Affect achieved clearly. He caught himself and hastily cast his eyes further downwards to the floor, fumbling in his satchel. I fidgeted at the attention, but I didn't mind the glance. Not in the slightest.

"Hi! Yes! I'd, uh, like to join the library please if you don't mind."

"I do mind, actually. We don't do that here."

"I...sorry?" He looked up in surprise with those wide eyes again. Seeing my grin, he relaxed and chuckled. That was better.

"Sorry, I just thought you looked a bit tense. We can absolutely do that for you," I said. "Do you have any ID on you?"

"Uh...yes! Yes, here." He withdrew his driver's permit and carefully handed it over, gripping it at its furthermost edge from my outstretched hand.

Séan. He was seemingly mid-word in his picture. I held my face carefully neutral to disguise the wild delight this photo awakened. I issued his card and explained the library policies to him, taking note of his resolutely neck-up gaze even while he made pleasant, charming banter. He gestured with his new library card.

"Okay, right, yes! I only popped in to get this started, so, I'll see you...around then!"

"I hope so, Séan," I replied, daring to take this step into the realm of familiarity.

His face brightened even more, "I hope so too...uh?"

"Charlotte," I supplied.

"Charlotte." The shape his mouth made around my name was utterly bewitching. He rapped his knuckles with his card, pointed it at me and smiled as he backed away towards the exit. "See you soon."

I really hoped so.

***

Weekdays are usually low-activity, and I get to spend most of Monday morning quietly reshelving returns. This library serves a pretty small town, so I only have a single cartload to handle most Mondays, if that.

Around 9:30am, I rolled my empty cart back to its home next to the entrance, and in came Séan. He was dressed in business casual wear -- white, short-sleeved button-down shirt tucked into black jeans, burgundy tie, light brown hair neatly parted and brushed. Simple, smart, and distractingly attractive. He smiled as he saw me, and I was smiling back before I realized it.

"Morning!" We chorused and simultaneously giggled. He headed over to one of the study booths and unpacked his laptop from his satchel, throwing quick, "covert" looks at me at the front desk as he set his things out. I caught them in my periphery, pretending to be focused on my desktop screen where the database I was working on was steadily becoming garbled, uninteresting nonsense. Once, I met his glance full on and winked.

He could really make a coughing fit look cute.

***

"Your files should be fine, the machine is just old and very very slow. See? All there."

"Oh my god, thanks ever so much. I was so late today that I sprinted out the door without my laptop, exceedingly stupid of me." He smiled at me again in that effortlessly charming way, grey eyes crinkling at the corners, and I returned it easily.

"Yeah, I know those kinds of mornings." I rolled my eyes dramatically in fellow feeling. I was quite sure it was actually deliberate absent-mindedness, but I liked this game. Let's play.

"Oh, to be safe though, you're going to want to..." I placed one hand on the back of his chair and cupped the other over his hand holding the mouse. This move lowered my chest to an inch away from his right ear. He was suddenly very, very still.

"There. I've cast my librarian magic on this old beast, and autosave's now been enabled. That works for you, right?" I stood upright and looked to him for a response. He was staring fixedly at the screen. "Yeah?"

"Yeah!" he squeaked, in a pitch as high and bright as the red rapidly colouring the tips of his ears. He coughed.

"Lovely!" I let my fingers brush against his back as I walked away. Yellow sparks danced in those fingertips that made contact.

The regular charity group was due to arrive for their Tuesday meeting soon, so I scuttled back and forth preparing Meeting Room 2 for the next hour. In that time, whenever I saw Séan, he was either rubbing the back of his hand or pulling at his right ear as he continued his work.

***

"It'd been sitting in my grandad's collection for years; never wore it himself, I found it rummaging through his stuff when I was probably 8, and he let me have it. Worn it every day since it finally fit proper."

"An heirloom! Sort of!" I grinned. "Let me see?"

Séan splayed his right hand over the counter to model the silver band on his middle finger. He continued, "I don't think it's actually Celtic, but my grandad scoops up anything vaguely traditional-looking. I think he got it the one time he visited Ireland."

As he explained, I slid my hand under his. God, his skin was soft. The silver ring's Celtic-style weave was smoother on the index finger side, right on the spot I would see him rapidly flick his thumb on whenever he was deep in thought. His sentence drooped into silence, and I was now handling a doll; completely silent and compliant to my manipulations. I peeked upwards to see his mouth frozen in the shape of his last consonant, tip of the tongue between his teeth. I raised my eyebrows enquiringly, teasingly.

"It is lovely, regardless of whether it's "authentic" or not. It suits you..." I pressed my fingertip to his ring, rubbed the smoothed-out spot. My other fingertips came to rest gently in the soft webs between his other fingers, and slowly, I slid them forwards, lacing our fingers together. I coyly met his eyes, circling my thumb around his. The doll reanimated at this, and bent his fingers, enfolding my palm into his. He squeezed. The smile that danced into life across his wide mouth was disarming, and I buried my face in my shoulder at the unexpected sneak attack.

"...uhm...sorry," came a voice from outside our gently crackling amber bubble. His hand stiffened and he squeezed quickly again before letting go.

"Sorry!" he smiled awkwardly at the patron waiting behind him, nodded at me shyly, and set off towards the door and Wednesday evening air, his right hand flexing hard.

***

I absently nibbled at the spinach leaf pinched between my fingers. My bench sat in a cozy corner of the small courtyard, partly shaded by a scraggly teenaged sapling. A brick wall partially enclosed this corner of the courtyard, with the main road leading to the town centre on the other side. The place was quiet at midday -- only a few patrons absorbed in work or reading, or a quiet pensioner group having their Thursday knitting meetup. But lately, our new regular had been using this bench around this time. I usually lunched inside, but today, when I'd seen said patron head out to grab lunch, I'd hastily told Cheri I was taking my break and blindly grabbed a tupperware from my bag to station myself here. It'd turned out to be my salad, sans fork. Ah well, I wasn't actually hungry. Chewing the soft, limp leaves left my hearing unimpeded, and I was listening intently.

At the click of his approaching Oxfords, I straightened my posture, arching my back perhaps a little too unnaturally, and dusted my chest for spinach crumbs, a known and bothersome byproduct of eating salads, of course. He rounded the corner and hesitated at seeing his usual spot occupied, but he smiled when he saw that it was me.

"Charlotte! A lunchtime picnic?"

"It's kind of nice out for once!" I dusted the space next to me and patted it. "Care to share your spot for today?"

"It'd be an honour, madam," he dipped in a mock curtsey, the comic effect of the motion enhanced by the pyramid of a sandwich in one hand and the absurdly small shot of juice in the other. He sat down at a polite distance and dug in to his lunch.

Shit was his profile gorgeous. A sweeping, pointed nose over shapely, protruding lips. It was a tough task not to stare solely at them as we ate and chatted. Here, outside of the muted cocoon of the library, I got to hear him laugh loudly and heartily. I could get addicted to that sound. The conversation eventually circled around to his work.

"I'll be up late tonight I think, to sync the docs I've worked on. The internet's a little slow here," he popped the rest of the sandwich into his mouth and crumpled the packaging, absently staring at the library door. His brow twitched.

"Huh. So, doing your work here makes your workday longer?"

He swallowed thoughtfully. "Well, not a whole lot. It's only an hour or two extra maybe. But it's worth it to...uh...get out of the flat! And um. Be around...other people who...are working."

He kept his eyes on the library entrance, though his ears were reddening by the second. There was a beat of silence.

I drummed my fingers on my half-empty tupperware, steeling myself. "I agree with you, and it helps when there's an absolute stunner around every day."

At that, he whipped his head round and met my gaze. I inclined my head pointedly at him, gave a coy half-smile. "It makes my day, seeing you come in every morning."

Proper malfunction. He spluttered incoherently, then took a deep breath and rubbed the back of his neck.

"Wow. I think...you're beautiful. And so...lovely just generally. I feel fantastic just talking with you. I uh..." I saw his eyes dart breastwards again, as they had done every day this past week, each time chased by a quick, tortured, guilty expression. He closed his eyes quickly and whispered sharply, "Fuck! Sorry sorry sorry that's...so inappropriate."

I blushed harder than I expected. I slid closer and nudged his arm with my shoulder. "I...don't mind when you look. I like it when you do, actually."

In the silence that followed, the sliver of space between us grew magnitudes warmer than the balmy afternoon air around us.

Séan's hand twitched in the direction of my hand resting on my knee, but it stayed put, clenching and unclenching nervously in place atop his own. Restraining. Why? I reached over and softly brushed my pinky finger over his fist, testing. He slowly unclenched and scooped my fingertips delicately over his fingers, like an Edwardian gentleman leading a lady to the dance floor. He chuckled quietly and addressed my fingernails.

"I uh, I'm a bit rusty at this, sorry. I haven't been with anyone for a few...years." Those gorgeous lips folded inwards with tension.

"That's alright, you're doing great," I said gently. "It's been a while for me too, but I think we're already at third base?" I squeezed his hand.

"HA!" He let out a single bark of laughter, but then slid into loaded silence. I waited, stroking his fingers with my thumb. The library doors swished and someone exited, chatting animatedly into their phone. We listened to their voice fade in the direction of the town centre.

"My last girlfriend," he began slowly, "we ended because she said I didn't act like I...wanted her. Like, WANT...But I really did, I'm sure. I just thought I had to...I don't know, tone it down? To be respectful somehow?"

Ah. I remembered talk of his family. It all started to click together. "Catholic?"

His face crinkled with the weight of the implications. "Oof. Yeah."

I pressed his hand to my cheek. "There's nothing wrong with wanting. It's normal, neutral, even. You're so allowed to want." I lowered his hand, letting it brush my chest on its way down. "In fact, I'd really like it if you wanted to...want...together."

He swallowed visibly, then nodded. "...yeah...yes. Yes," he breathed. He was staring at my lips with an extremely welcome hunger. Golden sparks raced down my spine. I turned my body to face his, and my tupperware clattered to the brick pathway. The sharp sound startled us out of our stupor. He looked sharply to the ground and dove to retrieve my container, while I laughed lightly. As he straightened up, I cupped my hands around his reddened cheeks.

"I'll take that as my alarm, I have to get back to the desk. But I'm off Saturday. Let's do something after work tomorrow."

***

Séan leaned against the front desk, hands in pockets in a conscious effort to look at ease. His eyes followed me as I pushed in chairs and turned off desktops. I could swear he was quivering. The windows out front showed a darkening sky, the panes bejewelled with tiny raindrops that shone thanks to the bright white streetlight.

"We might get caught in a shower, looks like," Séan noted. He was leaning on his elbows on my desk as I powered down the clunky main computer.

"That's always a threat around here," I murmured, packing my things briskly. The system notified me of a wretched update it needed to do before it could shut down completely. I huffed and mirrored Séan's stance on the desk, bringing us eye to eye. For a moment at least -- then it was eye to breast, volumized when pressed against my forearms. This time, though, he let his gaze linger before meeting my eyes again with a bashful smile.

"Nice," I congratulated him, and tapped my finger lightly on his nose. He caught my hand and took it in both of his, softly inspected my fingers and palm, and slowly brought my wrist to his cheek. He looked at me with almost overwhelming warmth, and pressed his lips to my wrist, where my increasing pulse was almost leaping out of my skin. I exhaled shakily and extended my fingers, weaving them into his hair.

The monitor went dark, the whir of the fans ceased, and we were cast into semi-silent semi-darkness -- the rain had made up its mind to be a proper shower, and drummed self-satisfied on the roof of this single-storey holding. We both looked out the glass doors of the entrance, observing the sheets of rain.

"Ah," I said.

"Hmm," Séan mused. I saw the self-consciousness creep in at our evening having taken an unexpected detour. He was so close! I cupped his face to keep him in place.

"Well, drinks are off the agenda for now, but...we could skip to stumbling back to my flat."

He looked at me quizzically, and I gathered my bag, walked around to his side of the desk and linked my arm with his. I pressed my chest into his upper arm.

"Séan, I cleaned my flat specially for you," I declared, waving towards the door of Meeting Room 1. "You simply must come over, I insist."

He caught on immediately. "I certainly wouldn't say no to a coffee, thank you kindly, I'd be delighted to pop in." Only a faint quiver in his voice, good.

"Smashing!" I led us to the door, laughing as Séan pulled us this way and that in a mock drunken sway.

Another LED streetlight cast white light through the high window of the meeting room, shadows of trailing droplets softening its harshness. The room was otherwise dim, just light enough to see Séan's features. I closed the door, tossed my keys and bag casually onto the "counter" (the floor).

"Make yourself at home," I smiled and gestured grandly to the four unremarkable grey chairs around the long meeting table. He glanced around the room approvingly.

"You've got a good eye for design. Beige on cream, how daring."

I said nothing, but stepped close and watched his mouth move. Broad mouth. Warm puffs of his breath caressed my face. He stopped speaking, looked down at me, eyes dancing with anticipation.

I leaned upwards. His warmth met my face before his lips did -- spicy, amber, swelling and honey-thick in the millimetres of space between us. A gentle brush, his soft lip on the bridge of my nose, a quick, gentle press on my cheek, exploratory, curious...nervous. Restrained. I sensed his approach to my mouth and closed the gap. He tasted warm, too, how could he do that?

I felt three light points of pressure on my waist. Slowly, a fourth joined them, still light, and uncertain. I slid my hand over his and stepped closer, pressing myself into him and guiding his hand to the curve of my ass. I broke the kiss, smiled encouragingly at him and I puppeted his hand, made it give me a quick squeeze. Breathlessly, he squeezed unassisted. And grasped tenderly. And kneaded eagerly as our kiss intensified.

I worked my way down his shirt buttons and parted the fabric by sliding my hands underneath each half, dragging my hands up his torso and over his shoulders, letting the shirt drop to the carpet. He tensed and twitched under my touch, exhaled heavily against my neck. I stepped back, flushed but steady, and pointed at his thin grey undervest. I flicked my fingers in an upwards motion.

"Off."

He pulled it up immediately. When his vision was obscured, I dragged my palm across the area where his trousers were stretched taut. "Oh jeezus," came his excited whimper, and his face emerged from his vest with a guilty smile. He was clearly gearing up for an apology, so I quickly derailed it with my tongue against his. When he'd sufficiently melted into me, apology forgotten, I whispered into his mouth:

"...good boy..."

Fuck did that make him harder.

I grasped his zipper and got on my knees, unzipping his trousers in the same movement. I hooked my fingers into the waistband of his briefs and looked up at him, nuzzling his bulge, looking for any sign of resistance. The man was dazedly ecstatic, and I almost laughed.

"You should see your face right now," I murmured, letting my lips brush over his hardness.

"You should see yours," he breathed, caressing my cheek.

Molten warmth pooled between my thighs and I blushed so hard I nearly headbutted his cock. I quickly yanked his waistband down to cover for it, and buried my face under the hard shaft that bounced out to greet me. I stroked him gently as I kissed and licked his balls, and I could hear his muted moans. His thighs twitched and he almost buckled when I took him into my mouth, and I watched him slap his hand over his mouth to silence his almost-shout. Holy shit, he really hadn't been touched in ages. I made sure to give him as much wet, intense treatment as I could, licking, circling his head, sliding him back and forth inside my mouth, moaning gently. I felt him shakily tap my shoulder and I drew back, a thread of drool still connecting us. His expression was more of a hot, hungry mess than my face must've been. He tugged wordlessly on my blouse and I stood up, and his mouth was instantly on mine, kissing me deeply and ravenously, his soft hands cupped around my jaw.

They didn't stay there for long. He slid them down my chest and grasped my breasts, shuddering as he squeezed them. I trembled with him, reached to undo my buttons, but he beat me to it, quickly unbuttoning, sucking on my neck, he mimicked my move on him earlier, and slid his hands over my shoulders underneath the shirt, pushing it off my shoulders and arms. He leaned back, and a quiet "wow" dripped from his lips. I didn't need to try to hide my blush because the only thing in the world to Séan right now were my tits. He dove face-first into my cleavage enthusiastically enough to push me into the meeting table, and I gasped as he kissed and sucked on the soft flesh and reached under my bra to get a direct handful of me. He seemed to have four hands with the speed and fervour that he unclasped and removed my bra while cupping me and fondling my nipples all at the same time. And it was all so, so tender. I was getting lost in sensation.