Chapter Twenty Saylor #2
“So damn much fun.” The slow slide of his fingertips stilled for a second. “Among other things.”
I pushed myself up on my elbow to look at him. Even with his eyes closed, the devil played in his smile. “Cash, I’m serious.”
He blinked open one eye. “Yeah? About damn time.”
“Argh! I mean we aren’t anything serious.”
Now he trained both eyes on me.
“Right?”
“The only playing I do is on the field. This”—he waved a hand between us—“I’m committed to.” Tugging me back down so my cheek rested on his chest, he added, “I’m patient enough to wait for you to figure out you’re committed, too.”
While I wanted to argue with him, assert myself, I also wanted to snuggle into the warm afterglow of the most mind-blowing sex of my life.
That second part was exactly the reason I needed him to see sense.
“We have wildly different dreams, wildly different goals. Plus, we’re really young.
There’s no reason to tie each other down. ”
Shifting so he could tuck me in even closer to his side, he asked, “Out of curiosity, have you ever asked your parents if they feel tied down?”
“Of course not. But even if I did, I already know the answer.”
“Mm-hmm.”
The noncommittal response along with the mesmerizing sensation of his calloused fingers gliding up and down my arm ticked me off, and my words came out harsher than I intended.
“They shared the same dream, and they have the same career in the same firm. Stop acting like a know-it-all.”
He kind of choked and cleared his throat.
“Are you laughing at me?” I planted my hand against his side and pushed, but he tightened his considerably bigger and stronger arm around me and kept me right where I was.
“No, babe. But has it occurred to you that maybe they supported each other’s dreams and goals? That maybe they’re still doing that?”
A conversation Mom and I had shared last Christmas flashed into my memory, deflating some of my pique.
“My parents met when my mom was a traveling nurse. Dad was finishing his MBA and working for a major trucking firm in SoCal. He’s now the CFO of that firm, while my mom is a pediatric nurse.”
“So your mom gave up her dream of travel to settle down for your dad’s dream of running a company.” My tone only emphasized my point.
“Not even close. Mom didn’t stop traveling until she became pregnant with me five years after they married. She lived and worked all over the US, even doing a three-month residency in the US Virgin Islands.”
“How did they stay together?”
“Tolerance for a massive phone bill.” He chuckled. “Plus, Dad usually managed to find a three-day weekend here and there to visit her. And writing letters.”
I picked my head up. “Like old-fashioned pen-and-paper letters?”
Cash chuckled again. “Yep. Mom said in those days, depending on where she was, the internet wasn’t always reliable or available for email, but they could count on the post office.” For a few seconds his fingers stilled on my skin. “She still has those letters somewhere.”
I grinned into his chest. “If that’s how they were keeping their marriage together, I bet those letters are steamy.”
“Yeah.” Beneath my cheek he shuddered. “I hope she burns them before my brother and I have to do something with them.”
Gasping, I rested my chin on his chest. “No! That would be terrible.”
Shooting me a knowing smile, he said, “The point is, if both people support each other, then both of them can follow their dreams. No one is tied down.”
I pushed against him again. “Let me up. I have to whizz.”
He barked out a laugh. “Whizz?”
Rolling to the edge of the bed, I shot him a silly grin over my shoulder. “Would you rather I be vulgar?”
Standing beside the bed, I stretched and looked around for my clothes. Then Cash was there, extending one of his T-shirts to me. “It’s too early for you to leave yet.”
My brow shot up, but I couldn’t resist his shirt. It covered me from my shoulders to mid-thigh and probably hung on me like a sack, but the banked fire in his eyes said he liked seeing me in his clothes. Giving him a little shimmy, I flounced out the door and down the hall to the bathroom.
When I stepped back into the hallway, I heard soft feminine giggles followed by the low tones of Taco’s voice coming from the closed door across from the bathroom.
My face heated at what they might have heard coming from Cash’s room a short while ago.
As I hustled back down the hall, I hoped they’d arrived at the house after the fireworks of mine and Cash’s reunion.
The thought hauled me up short, and I leaned my head against the bedroom door, my hand on the doorknob. We’d spent the summer texting and making the occasional phone call. Our situation was eerily similar to his parents’ back in the day.
This is not good, Saylor Cherise Davis. This is not good at all.
A whiff of Cash’s scent—woodsy soap and musk—wafted up from his shirt, and my body tightened at the memories that smell invited.
“Saylor. Get in here.” The humor in Cash’s voice drew my head up. How did he know I was stalling outside his door?
“Taco is home. With a girl,” I whispered as I slipped back into his room. “What if they heard us?”
Reclining against the pillows on his bed, Cash patted the mattress beside him. “So what if they did? Probably inspired them.” The wicked gleam in his eyes promised more “inspirational” shenanigans.
I wasn’t a prude, but contrary to what my friends thought sometimes, I wasn’t an exhibitionist either.
Taking a tentative step toward my clothes scattered beside the bed, I said, “I should probably go.”
Lifting the blanket covering his lap, Cash said, “And leave me like this?”
In the low light cast from his bedside lamp, I’d only concentrated on his face and maybe on his perfectly sculpted shoulders and hard pecs.
After playing half a football game and engaging in two intense rounds of sex, I would have thought he’d be ready to crash.
The impressive erection he revealed implied I had a few things to learn about Cash’s stamina.
“But Taco—”
“Is busy getting busy. They won’t hear us over their own good time. Come here.”
“Cash.”
“We’ll be quiet.” The unholy gleam in his steel-gray eyes belied his words, but like a magnet, the desire staring at me drew me to the bed.
When I climbed onto the mattress, he pounced, rolling me beneath him as I let go a squeal of surprise.
“Shh! We’re trying to be quiet, Saylor,” he teased before he lowered his head and devoured my lips in a soul-searing kiss.
One second I was trying to maintain some distance and maybe a level of privacy, and the next, his fiery kisses had reduced me to mewling pleas and writhing hips, my hands skimming over every inch of his skin I could reach as I grasped him to me.
Somewhere in there, I lost his shirt, so when he trailed his lips down my neck and across my chest, my nipples were on peaked display for our mutual pleasure.
Teasing one turgid tip with his tongue, he laughed darkly deep in his throat when I moaned his name loud enough to echo off the walls.
Immediately, I clamped a hand over my mouth, which he apparently took as a challenge because he palmed his way down my belly on a single-minded mission to tease me with his long fingers.
Slapping my other hand over my mouth, I bucked and rolled as he sucked my breast and fingered my slit, his thumb adding delicious pressure to my clit.
Without warning, an orgasm rolled through me at his naughty play, and though I desperately tried to keep it down, his name tore from my throat on a scream.
After petting me through the aftershocks, he sat up. Staring directly into my eyes, he slowly and deliberately licked my climax from his long fingers, and I gritted back another long moan.
Grinning wickedly, he reached for another condom. As he sheathed himself, he said, “You were doing so well right up till the end, babe,” in the same tone one might use to discuss an upcoming class assignment.
I reached for a pillow to smack him with, but he intercepted me, circling my wrist with his fingers and guiding my hand to rest on the pillow beneath my head.
“You are so full of yourself,” I hissed.
“In a minute you’re going to be full of me too.”
I should have called his ass out for his unapologetic smirk, but the promise of him filling me was so irresistible, I let him get away with it. And then he was there, slowly pushing himself into me, stretching me with a series of shallow thrusts that left me panting beneath him.
“Please,” I whispered.
“That’s it, babe. We’re being very, very quiet.”
Right as I thought those shallow thrusts were going to be the death of me, he plunged in, bottoming out inside me in a glorious push that made me gasp in delight.
“Oh, fuck, Saylor. You feel so fucking good.”
As though he couldn’t help himself, he started moving, each thrust deeper and harder than the last. I desperately wanted to cover my mouth, but he entwined our fingers as he moved over me.
“Cash!” I hissed through my teeth.
A tiny tug at the corner of his mouth told me he knew exactly what I was saying.
Then he leaned down and covered my lips with his, our mouths mimicking what our bodies were doing, and the whole world telescoped in to the spot on Cash’s bed where he took me to heaven with the press of his body over mine.
When it was over, our lips were still locked together, and I smiled against his mouth. “Well, that was an adventure.”
A laugh barked out of him. “Saylor Davis, you’re the best time I’ve ever had.” He rolled off me, again taking me with him, cuddling me to his side. “Will you stay?”
Beneath his warm palm on my hip, I tensed.
“Please.”
By rule, I didn’t spend the night with a guy.
Aside from the inconvenient embarrassment of the morning walk of shame, waking up in someone else’s bed was plain awkward.
But that soft plea—one I knew he didn’t make lightly—weakened my resolve.
That and the delicious warmth of his body pressed to mine in his luxurious bed.
Seriously, I’d never stretched out on anything half so comfy as Cash’s king bed.
Yep. That was what I was going with. Comfort.
Nodding, I said, “Okay.”
At my acquiescence, his big body seemed to melt into the mattress.
He wrapped his other arm around me, and a minute later, soft snores broke the silence.
I marveled at how quickly he fell asleep.
My next thought was, whose idea was it to shine a bright light in my face hours before it’s time to wake up?