Late-Night Delivery Massage

The rain had started sometime after ten, a thin cold sheet that turned the street outside the Golden Dragon into a smear of neon and wet asphalt. Alastair stood at the counter with his collar turned up, fifty-two and single and tired in the particular way a man gets when the apartment waiting for him is too quiet. The fryers had already been shut down. The last cook was wiping steel. He had come in with four minutes to spare, ordered the usual—kung pao, egg rolls, extra rice—and was already bracing for the walk home when the young woman at the register looked up at him and smiled.

Anjali was twenty-four, Indian, and beautiful in a way that made the fluorescent lights seem less cruel. Dark hair pulled into a low knot, a few damp strands stuck to her neck. Warm brown skin, full mouth, eyes that held his a beat longer than customer service required. She had been working the counter all evening in a black tee and jeans, and Alastair had noticed her the way a lonely man notices warmth: carefully, and then all at once.

“We’re technically closed,” she said, bagging the containers. Her accent was American, city-soft, with a lilt underneath. “And it’s pouring. You’ll be soaked before you hit the corner.”

“I’ve been soaked before.”

She glanced at the empty dining room, then at the door, then back at him. Something decided itself behind her eyes. “I live two blocks past your building. I checked the address on the order. If you want, I’ll deliver it. I’m locking up anyway. You shouldn’t miss dinner because of the rain.”

He should have said no. He heard himself say, “Only if you let me tip you properly.”

“Properly,” she repeated, amused. “We’ll see.”

Twenty minutes later she was in his hallway, rain beading on her jacket, the paper bag warm against her chest. His apartment smelled like old books and the lemon cleaner he used when he remembered. One lamp was on. The couch was worn leather. He took the bag and, before sense could catch up, said, “There’s too much for one person. Stay. Eat with me.”

Anjali hesitated on the threshold, water darkening the cuffs of her jeans. Then she stepped in and shut the door behind her. “I skipped my break,” she said. “I’m starving. Don’t make it weird.”

“I won’t,” he lied, already aware of the space she took up, the scent of rain and spice and her skin.

They ate at the small table by the window, cartons open between them, chopsticks and a shared spoon. Steam fogged the glass. She ate like someone who had been on her feet since four, unselfconscious, licking sauce from her thumb. Alastair watched her mouth and told himself to look at his rice. Conversation came easier than he expected—her night course in accounting, his drafting work from home, the owner who never fixed the register. She laughed once, low and real, and the sound went straight through his chest.

Halfway through the kung pao she rolled her shoulder and winced.

“Long shift?” he asked.

“My neck’s wrecked. I was bent over the counter for hours, and the delivery bag strap cuts right here.” She pressed two fingers into the slope where neck met shoulder. “It’s been like this all week. Stiff. Hot. I can’t turn my head without wanting to swear.”

Alastair set his chopsticks down. His hands were big, the knuckles a little rough from years of pencils and tools. “I can work that out. If you want. Nothing strange. Just the muscle.”

She studied him. The rain tapped the window. Her pulse was visible at her throat. “All right,” she said, and turned her chair so her back faced him. “Gentle. At first.”

He stood behind her and set his palms on her shoulders. Heat came off her through the thin cotton. He started slow, thumbs finding the knot at the base of her skull, circling, pressing, easing. Anjali’s breath left her in a shaky thread. He worked lower, along the trapezius, kneading with the heels of his hands, feeling the muscle fight him and then give. She made a small sound, almost a moan, and tried to swallow it.

“There,” she whispered. “God. Right there.”

He dug deeper, careful, strong. Her head tipped forward. A strand of hair brushed his wrist. The smell of her—jasmine shampoo, chili oil, warm skin—filled the inch of air between his mouth and her neck. His thumbs slid under the collar of her shirt, skin on skin now, and she shivered so hard the chair creaked.

“Alastair.”

“Too much?”

“No.” Her voice had gone husky. “Don’t stop. It’s—your hands. I can feel it everywhere.”

He kept going. Down the sides of her neck. Across the tops of her shoulders. His fingers slipped beneath the straps of her bra and eased them aside so he could get at the tight band of muscle underneath. She squirmed, thighs pressing together under the table, a soft involuntary roll of her hips that she couldn’t quite hide. When he dragged his thumbs in long firm strokes from her nape to the middle of her back, a real moan broke out of her, low and filthy, and she clapped a hand over her mouth too late.

“Sorry,” she breathed. “I didn’t mean to—”

“Don’t apologize.” His own voice was rough. He was hard in his pants and not bothering to pretend otherwise, his body close enough that she had to feel the heat of him. “You sound like you need this.”

“I do.” She turned her face, cheek flushed, eyes dark and wet with wanting. “I love your hands. I didn’t know a massage could do that to me. I’m—” She laughed, shaky, aroused past embarrassment. “I’m soaked, and you haven’t even gone below my shoulders.”

He stilled, giving her the choice. She reached back, caught his wrist, and held his palm flat against her chest, just above her breast, so he could feel how fast her heart was beating.

“Deliver my dinner every night,” he said quietly. “Same time. And I’ll make the massages better. Sexier. Whatever you want them to become.”

Anjali’s smile was wicked and a little dazed. “Then I’ll take a meal to you every night. And I’ll keep hoping you stop being polite.” She stood, turned in the circle of his arms, and pulled him down into a kiss that ended the careful part of the evening.

Her mouth was hot and greedy. She tasted like ginger and spice and rain. Alastair groaned into the kiss and she answered with her tongue, licking into him, fists knotted in his shirt. He walked her backward until the table edge caught her hips. Cartons rattled. An egg roll rolled onto the floor and neither of them looked.

“Yes,” she said against his mouth, clear and certain. “I want this. I want you. Don’t ask me if I’m sure again unless I tell you to stop.”

He stripped her slowly because he had promised himself, somewhere between the first press of his thumbs and that moan, that he would not rush a woman who had walked through the rain to feed him. The black tee came off over her head. Her bra was plain nude cotton, straining over full breasts. He unhooked it and let it fall. Her nipples were dark, already tight, the color of ripe figs against her brown skin. He cupped her, weighed her, and bent his head.

The first suck pulled a cry out of her. He drew the nipple deep, tongue flicking, then sucking hard enough to hollow his cheeks, one hand rolling the other peak between finger and thumb. Anjali’s fingers sank into his hair. She writhed against the table, back arching, offering herself. He moved from breast to breast, licking, biting just enough to make her gasp, soothing with his tongue, until she was panting and her jeans were a problem neither of them could stand.

He opened them. She kicked them off with her sneakers, panties going with them, and stood bare in the lamplight, curves soft and strong, a neat triangle of dark hair already glistening. Alastair dropped to one knee like a man at an altar and slid two fingers through her slick folds. She was drenched. Hot. Swollen. He circled her clit once, watching her face, and when she nodded—hungry, wordless—he pushed those fingers inside her and curled them.

“Oh—fuck—” Her head fell back. He worked her steadily, thumb on her clit, fingers stroking that tender front wall, his mouth returning to her nipple so she had nowhere to hide from the sensation. She rode his hand, shameless, hips jerking, the wet sound of it obscene in the quiet apartment. “Harder. Please. I’m close, I’m so close, don’t you dare stop—”

He didn’t. He sucked her nipple deep and fucked her with his fingers until she broke, clenching around him, a soaking orgasm that spilled over his knuckles and down her thighs. She cried out his name, thighs shaking, one hand slamming flat on the table for balance. He stayed with her through it, gentling only when she whimpered from the aftershocks, kissing the sweat at her collarbone.

Anjali looked down at him, wrecked and shining, and dropped to her knees on the rug before he could stand.

“My turn,” she said, and opened his pants with quick sure hands.

His cock sprang free, thick, flushed, already wet at the tip. She made a hungry sound and wrapped her fingers around the base. For a moment she just looked, tongue wetting her lip, twenty-four and bold and kneeling for a man more than twice her age because she wanted to. Then she took him into her mouth.

Alastair’s hand found the back of her head, not forcing, just holding. She worshipped him the way she had promised with her eyes: slow at first, lips stretched, tongue swirling under the head, then deeper, saliva slicking her chin, cheeks hollowing as she sucked. She moaned around him like his cock was the meal she had actually come for. One hand pumped what her mouth couldn’t take. The other cupped his balls, rolling them, tugging just enough to make his thighs lock.

“Anjali—Christ—your mouth—”

She pulled off with a wet pop, strings of spit connecting her lip to his shaft, and grinned up at him, filthy and pleased. “Every night,” she said, and swallowed him again, taking him until her throat fluttered and her eyes watered and she didn’t care. He lasted as long as a man who had been hard since the first moan could last. When his hips started to jerk he eased her off, breathing hard.

“Table,” he said. “Bend over. I need to be inside you.”

She was already moving. She planted her palms on the wood among the half-eaten cartons, ass tipped up, back arched, looking over her shoulder with her hair coming loose. “Fuck me. Hard. I’ve been thinking about your hands on me since you started, and I want your cock now.”

He lined himself up, the head nudging her soaked entrance, and pushed in one long stroke. She was tight and blazing and so wet he sank to the hilt with a groan that felt torn out of him. Anjali’s fingers scrabbled at the tabletop. “Yes. Yes. Fill me. Don’t be gentle anymore.”

He wasn’t. He gripped her hips and fucked her from behind the way the night had been building toward—deep, heavy strokes that slapped his hips against her ass, each one driving a broken sound out of her. The table jumped. A carton tipped and rice scattered. He reached around and found her clit again, rubbing in rough circles while he pounded her, watching her breasts sway, watching the place where his cock disappeared into her over and over.

“Look at you,” he growled. “Taking it. Soaked all over my cock. You came here to deliver dinner and now you’re bent over my table getting fucked like you need it.”

“I do need it,” she gasped. “Harder. God, Alastair, harder—right there—I’m going to come again if you keep—”

He kept. She came with a sharp cry, pulsing around him, slick gushing down her thighs onto his balls. He didn’t stop. He fucked her through it until his own control frayed, then pulled out, turned her, and walked her the three steps to the couch.

She fell onto her back, legs open, chest heaving, hair a dark fan on the cushion. He climbed over her and slid back in, missionary, deep as he could go, her knees hooked over his arms so he could pound her open. Her dark nipples bounced with every thrust. She grabbed his face and kissed him, messy, teeth and tongue, then broke away to beg.

“More. Don’t slow down. I want to feel you tomorrow when I’m standing at that counter. I want to be sore. Come in me. I’m on the shot, I want it, please—”

He drove into her, the couch creaking, sweat dripping from his chest onto hers. She met every stroke, heels digging into his back, chanting yes, yes, yes, her cunt clutching him in rhythmic pulls as another climax started to take her. He felt it build in his spine, brutal and bright. She locked eyes with him, mouth open, and came again just as he did—both of them breaking together, his cock jerking deep, flooding her in thick pulses while she sobbed his name and ground up to take every drop.

They stayed locked together, shaking, until the aftershocks eased and the rain seemed loud again.

Anjali’s laugh was breathless and filthy. She didn’t curl in and go soft. She reached between them, fingers sliding through the mess leaking out around his softening cock, and smeared it up over her clit with a shameless little rub.

“Tomorrow night,” she said, voice wrecked, eyes bright. “I’ll bring dinner. And I’ll be even hungrier for your hands. And for this.” She squeezed him, still inside her, and smiled like a woman who had found a new habit. “Don’t you dare be polite.”

Alastair kissed her once, hard, and she licked his lower lip, tasting salt and herself.

She would be back with the bags still warm and her panties already damp, bent over his table before the rice went cold, begging him to massage her neck and then fuck her sloppy cunt until she squirted on his cock and swallowed every drop he pumped down her throat.