Chapter 21
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
ROB
I should probably be thinking about what a grave mistake it is to have meaningless rebound sex with a woman I’m starting to have real feelings for. But she asked me to fuck her. It would be ungentlemanly to say no.
It would also be impossible.
She deserves to be worshipped in bed. It’s obvious from the way she reacted to me feasting on her that she hasn’t been. And I’ll be damned if I’m going to walk away without giving her everything. It doesn’t need to be awkward or weird. She wants a rebound bang; I’m going to give it to her. If anything, it’ll make our fake-dating act more believable for Nelly, Jonah, and anyone else who needs to buy into it.
Besides, my dick is aching to sink into her, especially after feeling how ready she is for me. How needy .
I really hope that kid has condoms. I hope he has hundreds of them, the way I did when I was his age and grabbed hopeful handfuls from every giveaway bowl I came across as if they were Halloween candy.
I take off my socks and my pants but leave on my boxer briefs, feeling like it would be too presumptuous to go fully nude. Even though she’s asked for sex and is seeking out condoms, she might still change her mind.
A grin stretches across my face when she knocks on the door to her own bedroom. At least I hope it’s her.
“Can I come in?” she asks in a voice that’s surprisingly shy given what she’s asked of me. Then again, that’s Sophie for you: sweet and spicy.
I open the door a crack, taking in the multicolor condoms she’s gripping. The sight nearly makes me laugh. It’s a very early-twentysomething stash. “What if I say no?” I ask, raising my eyebrows.
“You won’t get to…” She glances over her shoulder. “Fuck me,” she whispers.
I could never get sick of hearing her say that, her slight embarrassment overridden by the defiance that’s been blooming inside her. Damn. This woman.
“You make a good argument,” I say, tugging her inside.
I close the door, lock it, and press her against it. This time I pull down her little shorts while she loses the shirt, the condoms still clutched in one hand.
“Winner’s choice,” I say, nodding to the colorful row. “What’s your favorite color?”
“I refuse to tell you.”
I smirk. “It’s pink, isn’t it?”
Her answer is to tear off the pink one. Yellow’s next. Then red. Then green. I’d like to use the whole rainbow.
“Will you take off your shorts?” she asks.
“Since you asked nicely.” I push them down one-handed, my other hand pressed against the door above her head, and my dick springs up, very ready for her. Her little gasp is gratifying.
“Put it on me,” I say, leaning in to kiss her jaw, her lips.
She opens the condom and then takes my dick in her hand—the feeling of her hand around me, nothing between us, nearly my undoing—and slowly rolls the condom onto it.
Damn.
Glancing up at me, her hand still wrapped around me, she says, “Can we do it against the door? I was thinking about you doing it, you know, against the lamppost outside.”
Damn, damn, damn.
“How about the wall?” I ask, picking her up by the waist and lifting her, her hair swinging a bit from the sudden motion as I set her back down on her feet. “I’d like to fuck you just beneath your ABBA poster.”
“You have an obsession with ABBA,” she says, sounding breathless.
I’m tempted to tell her that I’m starting to have an obsession with her , but I must still have a thimbleful of blood left in my brain, because I don’t.
Her hand finds my dick again and pumps rhythmically as I back her into the wall, my head bowing to suck on her nipples. Perfect. Fucking perfect. And I have a feeling I know who made her feel like they weren’t.
It makes me want to punch a wall, as much good as that would do.
I reach down to feel her, and she’s still so wet. Pressing my mouth to hers, I capture the little sound that escapes from her lips.
“You still want this dick?” I ask, partially because I want to see her blush for me.
She does, but she doesn’t look away to try to hide it. “Yes.”
“Do you have any high heels?”
Her eyes widen. “The ones…the ones I was supposed to wear for the…well…”
Her wedding.
“ Perfect ,” I say. “Put them on.”
A naughty gleam enters her eyes, and she walks to her closet, nude, and pulls out a pair of sparkly four-inch heels. Not tall enough that I won’t need to lean down, but they’ll do.
I fist my dick as I watch her sit on the bed and put them on.
“Turn around and put your hands on the wall.”
She does what I’ve asked of her, pushing up her butt. It’s a sight I want to memorize, but there are other things I’d prefer to do right now. I run my palms over her butt and her lower back, the arc elegant?—
I can’t wait anymore.
I crouch slightly to get the angle right, and I line myself up, gripping her hip. Slowly, I sink into her. The feeling is so overwhelming it ignites an instant tingling at my lower back that tells me this isn’t going to last as long as I’d like unless I start forcing myself to think dismal thoughts. Using her hip as a handhold, I push deeper and lean in toward her ear, kissing the side of her face.
“Is this okay?” I ask.
Her response is to push back, taking in more of me. “You feel so good,” she says, her voice shaking slightly. “So good.”
She angles her head to the side and kisses me as I slowly thrust the rest of the way in, giving her time to adjust to me. The feeling of her body squeezing my dick while she kisses me is so intense I can barely stand it, but I need to move. I start to thrust in and out while she balances on those sparkly, spiky heels, her hands still raised on the wall for me. Because I asked her to put them there.
I swear into her mouth, her hair. I kiss her. And I slide my other hand between her legs, making sure I’m giving her what she needs, because she is definitely giving me what I need.
“Does that feel good?” I ask as I thrust in hard, her tits swaying with it.
“Yes,” she says, her voice breathy, “but I want to see you when it happens. I want to see your face.”
I pull out and turn her around. Something in my chest melts as I take in the sight of her, completely naked except for the heels she bought to wear for my brother.
I lift her up by the hips and back her into the wall. Her mouth parts as I adjust myself and thrust in deep. And she wraps her legs behind my back as I bottom out. Holy hell. I’m not going to last, so I’m relieved when I feel her clench around me.
I capture her lips with mine and thrust in again, and again, and I can feel myself going over the edge as she releases a sweet gasp into my mouth. I come so hard my knees go weak, and I barely manage to carry her over to the bed, still inside of her, before collapsing onto it, with Sophie on top of me.
“Oh goodness,” she says as I finally pull out.
“That’s one way of putting it,” I say, my voice ragged. “You’re extraordinary.”
She smiles, shaking her head. “I’m incredibly ordinary.”
“Nope. And if you keep denying it, I’ll definitely write a song about it.”
“You wouldn’t.”
“Oh, but I would. Someone keeps telling me that all the stuff I write is too depressing and pissed off. Blissed-out would be a nice change.”
I kiss her shoulder before getting up to deal with the condom in the en suite bathroom. Thankful as hell there is one, because I don’t want to face Otis right now. I come back with a damp cloth for her and help her clean up. Then I pull on my underwear and pants. My shirt. And she tugs on her Buchanan Brewery shirt.
“Are you leaving?” she asks.
I don’t know if I’m imagining it, or if there’s really a thread of sadness in her voice. But I’m supposed to leave, aren’t I? That was the deal. Rebound sex isn’t cuddling and sweet whispered words. It’s hard and fast and good, against a wall.
“Yeah,” I say. “I need to get something to eat.” Her eyes widen, but I put up a hand. “You don’t have to take care of me, Soph. I can feed myself. Get some rest. You deserve it.”
She has a compulsion to take care of everyone and solve their problems, and I don’t want to be one more person she can be of service to.
Her lips purse. “Do you have anything in your fridge?”
Probably some seltzer water and stale bread.
“That’s a little intrusive, don’t you think?” I tease.
“Well, you could make yourself a sandwich in the kitchen downstairs. You did say you’d raid the fridge.”
I smile at her. “You can’t help yourself, can you?”
“I’m just providing you with the information. What you do with it is up to you.”
She sounds a little pissed, though, and I don’t want to leave her like that, so I decide to give her my gift.
I pull them out of my pants pockets—a bunch of folded-up scratchers, just like Ann said to bring.
“Scratch-off lottery tickets?” she asks, clearly confused.
I shrug. “I had a pretty weird experience with Dottie and her friends this morning.”
“Uh, you’re not getting away with just saying that…”
I was going to leave, I should leave, but I sit on the side of the bed. I tell her nearly everything, leaving out only Dottie’s conviction that I’ve got a thing for her.
“So you got me lotto tickets?” She’s grinning now.
“The drugstore had some temporary tattoos, but I wasn’t sure Hello Kitty would be sexy to a twenty-eighty-year-old woman.”
“You downplay the influence of Hello Kitty on women of my generation.”
I smile at her and run my open palm across her bare thigh, needing the feel of her again. I’m allowed that, aren’t I?
“You think you’re unlucky, but luck’s a game. It doesn’t care who you are. I figured you’d probably at least win a couple of bucks off ten scratch-offs. It could be our luck fund.”
She gives me a look that reaches into my chest and holds on tight, and it feels like I’m in some trouble here. Maybe deep trouble. She gets up on her knees, still naked aside from that shirt, and says, “Do you have a coin?” Her eyes are bright with excitement, like a kid on Christmas morning.
“Coins. Condoms. What do you take me for? A convenience store?” I joke.
“I don’t think I have any,” she says, her expression crestfallen. “I get cash tips sometimes, but no one leaves coins.”
“I’ve got something you can use.” I pull my wallet out of my back pocket.
“You kept the bad luck penny?” she guesses.
Yes, actually. I’ve kept it tucked away in my wallet. I can’t bring myself to spend it or throw it away. It feels like it’s become part of this thing with Sophie. But I don’t tell her any of that. “I have something else in mind.”
Releasing a breath, I pull out my lucky guitar pick. I’m not a man for superstition, but Travis got me this one when we first started the band. I don’t use it for its intended purpose anymore, but I carry it around always. “It’s my lucky pick,” I admit.
“You believe in luck,” she says, her tone almost accusatory.
“Right now? Hell, yes, I do.”
I can tell this, at least, was the right thing to say. She takes the pick from me, our fingers brushing, and leans over the side of the bed to the desk, pressing the scratcher onto the flat surface. She looks up at me, her eyes eager. “Do you think luck can change, Rob?”
“Yeah,” I say, feeling a little choked up. “I’m starting to think just about anything can happen if you keep your mind open to it.”
She looks lost in thought for a moment, but then she leans down to scratch the ticket. Her lips form a pout. “I think I lost, but it’s a bit confusing.”
I scoot over next to her, our thighs pressing together. “Oh, you definitely lost.”
We make our way through seven of the tickets before we get to a winner.
She glances up at me, her eyes huge. “We won ten bucks!”
I laugh as she gets up on her bed and starts jumping around, clutching the winning lotto ticket in her hand. Her hair dances around her face, and her joy is infectious. Ten bucks. Less than what I paid for two of them, but totally fucking worth it for this. I’d spend hundreds to see her this happy.
“Come on,” she urges, reaching down to pull me up with her.
“I’d rather break your bed for a different reason,” I say with a grin.
“I might take you up on that,” she says in a singsong as she keeps dancing around.
The last two tickets are losers, but it’s hard to care. We’re still riding high from the ten-dollar win. Sophie tosses all the losers in the trash and then makes a big show of attaching the lucky ticket to the metallic side of her desk with a smiling-face magnet. It seems like a good note to end on, as much as I don’t want this night to end. But it’s time.
“I’ve gotta go,” I say, dropping a kiss on top of her head. “But first, I really, really want to know which ABBA song you love so much you got that poster.”
She scrunches her nose. “It’s embarrassing.”
“You did just dance on your bed after winning ten dollars off a lottery ticket. I think embarrassment flew out the window long ago.”
She swats my arm playfully but then holds onto it, her fingers wrapping around my bicep. “You have such incredibly nice arms.”
“Stop trying to distract me.”
She sighs. “Fine. It’s ‘I Have a Dream.’”
Not a dance song, then. A wistful song for my Pollyanna.
“Here I was thinking you were about to say ‘Dancing Queen.’” I stroke her hair with the gentlest of touches, feeling a tenderness toward her that surprises me. “I can’t make fun of you for that. I like your dreams.”
She smiles at me. “It’s a bit lame, but it used to make me feel better when I was…you know…”
When she was struggling. I’d like to ask her why, but it’s her secret to keep or share. “It’s entirely lame,” I say, leaning in to kiss her head again, “but it’s also cute. Goodnight, Sophie.”
I get to my feet, feeling her watch me. Liking it.
“I’m pretending you’re definitely going to make yourself a sandwich downstairs.”
“I probably will.”
“When am I going to see you again?”
“When do you want to? We can spend our ten dollars like high rollers.”
She beams at me. “I’d like that. But can we go see Emil?”
I nod slowly, trying to figure out how I feel about that. I’m not totally sure. I don’t want to lie to the kid, so I’ll have to tell him she’s just a friend—no need to mention with benefits —who offered to help us out.
Her smile is slipping, and I definitely don’t want that to happen, so I say, “Sure. They have him walk the dog on weekend mornings, so we might be able to catch him at the park tomorrow. I usually hang out with an extra guitar so we can get in some playing. It’s the only way he gets to practice these days.”
“You’ll let me come?”
“Yes, light of my life. I’ll even play a song for you.”
I’m halfway out the door when she calls my name. When I look back, she’s holding the pick out to me. “You forgot this.”
And I do something that surprises me. I say, “You keep it, Pollyanna. I want you to have it.”