Chapter 20
Chapter Twenty
S unny woke from a sexy dream about Gabe to find his stubble rasping against the inside of her thigh. The red glow of dawn that came in at the edge of the window blind gilded the unruly tips of his hair.
“What are you doing?” She stretched, lazy and catlike. Her abdominal muscles squeezed in anticipation.
“I figured you wouldn’t mind my morning breath down here.” His words puffed over her pussy, making her gasp.
“Is this okay?” He shifted closer to where she wanted—needed—him.
“Yes, please.” The please came out as a whine.
“So polite.” His chuckle made her squirm.
“Do it fucking now, Gabe.”
“That’s more like it.” When he closed his lips over her clit, she lost the power of speech. He sucked her higher and higher until she fell apart, trembling and groaning his name. Not only had he ruined her for all other men, but he’d ruined her for her favorite vibrator. When she got to LA, she’d have to find a new one that was more Gabe-like.
He wiped his face on the sheet and prowled up to the pillow. His erection bumped against her hip as he lay beside her in the queen-size bed that wasn’t quite big enough for the both of them, considering Gabe took up so much space.
Sunny took his cock in her hand, smearing the precum at the tip down his length. “One more for the road?”
“Not if you’re sore,” he said.
She was, a little. It’d been too long since she’d had a partner, and Gabe was big. Not that she was complaining, but after the marathon session they’d had the second time, she was feeling a little stretched, and all the orgasms had given her abs a workout.
But her pussy wanted what she wanted, and she wanted Gabe again. Her center was already pulsing, needy, at the thought of being filled.
“I think there’s a condom somewhere…” She patted the bed.
He tugged it out from under the pillow. “Got it.”
He rolled it on and then lay back on the bed, lifting her by the hips to straddle him.
She resisted, curling a hand around his shoulder. “Come here.”
“I’m too heavy for you,” he said.
“Not if you prop yourself up on your elbows. I want to feel you on top of me.”
Carefully, doubt crinkling his eyes, he settled between her legs, holding himself up in a plank her former trainer would’ve died to see. She was dying a little at the way his biceps and pecs bulged.
“Relax.” She smoothed her hands over his shoulders and tucked her legs around his, tugging him closer.
He lowered himself to one elbow while he guided himself inside with his other hand. When he entered her, they both sighed, two halves completing the whole.
Slowly, he raised and lowered his hips. “Okay?”
She’d learned last night that this was his M.O.—check in first, and then take over. She didn’t know why that’d surprised her. He was that way out of bed, too. But most guys she’d been with wanted Sunny to take charge. Some, attracted to her forceful personality, assumed it carried over to the bedroom. Others wanted to dominate that force and snuff it out. She never slept with those guys again. Gabe was different. He checked that she was on board, and even took requests, but after that, there was no question about who was taking care of whose needs.
“Is that smile a yes?” he asked. “I want you to say it.”
He was sunk to the hips inside her, lighting up nerves she didn’t know she had. “Yes, Gabe. Please fuck me now.”
He reached between their bodies and tweaked her clit so she gasped. “Less sass, more crying out my name.”
He didn’t have to tell her twice.
After, they separated to shower. She’d have suggested that they shower together, but she was starting to worry that she’d need ice for the two-hour drive. Not to mention that the little things she was learning about Gabe when they were naked were blurring her purpose.
Like this trip. Once she got back to LA, she’d reboot her acting career. Sure, she’d had a setback in New York. Despite what her parents thought of her, she’d have done it again. She was proud of herself for standing up for Odile. And if the role for her mother’s project didn’t work out, she’d shake it off and go to another audition and another until she landed a job.
But the longer she stayed on the road with Gabe, the less she wanted to get to LA. Gabe was real. When he told her he loved her singing, it wasn’t so she’d tell him she loved his or to get her to do something for him. It was because he truly enjoyed it. And, unlike some of her former friends in New York who stopped speaking to her when she got herself blacklisted, he cared about her. From making her car safe to keeping her from falling on her ass to the heating pad, he showed her he cared in small ways. And not-so-small ways.
The look he’d given her when she’d offered to check out his family…it was full of hope, and longing, and something more. Something she wouldn’t name because it’d tempt her to change her dreams. And she’d vowed never to do that. Not for love, which wouldn’t last.
So, yes, she’d fulfill her promise. She’d even do long-distance if he still wanted that. Her mouth watered at the thought of phone sex with him. She could watch his enormous hand fist his gorgeous cock for hours. But it didn’t mean she had to give him her heart. If she even had one to give at this point.
When she was dressed and packed, she rolled her suitcase next door and knocked.
Gabe came to the door wearing khakis with a razor-sharp pleat and a white T-shirt that clung to his muscled torso. He kissed her, the taste of mint toothpaste on his breath. “Sorry, I just need a minute, and then I’ll be ready to go.” He returned to the ironing board set up beside the bed and passed an iron over the front of a blue dress shirt.
The way his muscles bunched while he gripped the handle made her core give a hopeful clench. She blinked, hard.
“Oh, my God. You’re ironing?” She tried a laugh, but it came out as a yip. “You’re just going to get wrinkled in the car.”
“Mm-hm.” His tongue stuck out between his lips as he guided the iron between the buttons.
He lifted the shirt from the board and held it up, inspecting it. Satisfied, he slipped into the sleeves. His hand trembled as he fumbled for the button at the cuff.
The sharp pleats. The trembling fingers. They were meeting his siblings today, and he was fighting a massive case of performance anxiety. That, she could work with.
She grabbed his hand to still it. “Let me help.”
When he nodded, she buttoned the still-warm cuffs for him, then she moved to the front buttons and fastened them all the way down. She smoothed her hand across the placket, over his flat abdomen. “It’ll be fine, you know. They’ll be just as sweet and kind as you are, and they’ll love you.”
“Yeah?” His brown eyes searched hers.
“Yeah.” She wrapped her arms around him and squeezed. “Oh, oops.” She released him. “I don’t want to wrinkle you.”
His smile was gentle before he kissed her. “I don’t mind.”
Sunny blinked hard and told her lady parts to stand down. Breathless, she said, “No more stalling. Time to go, tiger.”
His face paled a little before he turned away to unplug the iron.
When they got to the car, he protested he wasn’t hungry; still, she made him sit down in the nearby diner to eat breakfast. He’d be friendlier with a full stomach. As long as he didn’t do his big, scary, gruff act, she knew they’d love him. Just like?—
She took a sip of the scalding-hot coffee. No. Not like anything. She and Gabe were friends who’d fucked. Who were oddly sexually compatible, considering it’d been their first time together. And who’d be separating in a couple of days, as soon as she knew his family wouldn’t hurt Gabe’s soft, squishy heart.
And before Sunny could do it herself.