Chapter 22 #2
“I mean it doesn’t feel like a rebound fling with you,” he whispered. “It doesn’t feel like we’re just fucking our way past her memory. Sex with you—I wasn’t into you because you were a convenient fuck buddy after a breakup.”
Oh. Shit. I didn’t even know how to respond to that. Or if I should ignore the glimmer of hope sparking to life in my chest.
Eric went on, “And I guess after I saw her, that’s when I realized that all the shit I feel because of her—it’s got nothing to do with you.” He met my eyes again. “And the way I feel here, with you, has absolutely nothing to do with her.”
It took work to swallow. “But we are still on the rebound.” God, why was I trying to talk him out of this? I didn’t think I really was. I was just afraid he’d come to his own senses after I’d let myself get in too deep. Better to just nip it in the bud now, right?
“We’re on the rebound,” he acknowledged, “but that doesn’t mean we can’t enjoy something new.
It doesn’t have to be love. It doesn’t have to be serious.
” He swept his tongue across his lips. “But it can be good, and it can feel good, and if it ends up turning into something more, then that’s good too. ”
“Do you think it will?”
“Maybe?” Another shrug. “I don’t have a crystal ball and neither do you.
What I do know is that if we stop, we’ll never know what this could be.
And ever since we stopped, I’ve been kicking myself for letting go of something that felt that good.
” He paused. “I don’t just mean the sex.
Like yes, the sex is great. But living together…
hanging out… going horseback riding…” He exhaled.
“That’s what I mean when I say it feels good. ”
Fucking hell. Was this happening?
“Really?” I whispered.
Eric nodded, and a soft smile broke through. He leaned a little closer, still holding my gaze. “I’m going to feel like shit about her for a while. You probably will too.” His gaze flicked to my lips, then back to my eyes. “But why should we let her take this away from us too?”
I exhaled. “Good point.” God, I wanted to kiss him. I wanted to pull him close, indulge in that amazing mouth, and get lost in everything I’d too briefly tasted.
He wasn’t finished, though. “When I was trying to get Selena to leave, she—I mean, you know how she lashes out when she knows she’s not going to win.”
Scowling, I nodded. That parting shot about our dick sizes was still a fresh memory.
“Right, well…” He stared down at our joined hands. “She was trying to win me back, so she told me that you didn’t mean anything to her.”
I flinched. I supposed on some level, I knew that, but it still hurt. “Glad I wasn’t around when she said that,” I muttered.
“I know. And the only reason I’m repeating it is because as soon as she said it…” He chewed his lip, staring out the windshield as daylight slowly crept in around us. “I told her, ‘Well, it turns out he means something to me.’”
My spine straightened. I didn’t speak—I wasn’t so sure I could, and I had no idea what to say.
Eric swallowed. He drummed his fingers on the wheel, gaze still fixed outside. “I just said it without thinking about it, but…” He took a deep breath. Then he turned to me. “I wasn’t lying.”
“You… You mean…”
“I mean I was telling her the truth. And I’m telling you that truth now.
I don’t know what the hell this is.” He gestured at both of us, and his voice wasn’t entirely steady as he went on.
“I don’t know what this could be, or… I don’t know.
But that one day we ended up in bed was perfect, and nothing has felt right since we went back to being platonic. ”
My heart pounded harder than I thought it ever had. “It… No, it hasn’t.” I fidgeted nervously. “It really hasn’t.”
“I think I was afraid to touch you because I didn’t want to use you to get over Selena. But this…” He let go of my hand and caressed my cheek. “I don’t know what this is, only that it has absolutely nothing to do with her.”
The lump in my throat was almost too thick to swallow past. I could barely breathe, and I sure as hell couldn’t speak.
So I just curved my hand behind his neck, pulled him in, and ended that days-long standoff.
When our lips touched, the relief was instantaneous.
Yes, it made me hot for him, but more than anything, it let me release my breath.
From the way he drew me in and sighed into my kiss, that feeling was very, very mutual.
When we came up for air, he whispered, “I’m so sorry I backed off. I’m so—”
I shut him up with another kiss. “Don’t be. Even if this has nothing to do with her, we’re both still getting over her. Or at least over what she did.” I carded my fingers through his hair. “We can still be into each other, but things are a little messy because of her.”
His shoulders dropped. “They are. I don’t want them to be—I want this to be about us, not her—but she still happened.”
“She did.” I kissed him softly, then let another kiss linger until we were both lost in each other again.
It was ironic that the woman who’d left us with these messy feelings was also the reason we’d met in the first place, but such was life.
The more I kissed and held Eric, the more I was sure I could weather the pain she’d caused because it had, one way or the other, been the catalyst for this.
He was right—we were both still on the rebound, but this? This felt good. It felt amazing. Why in the world would we let it go because of her?
I smoothed his hair and held him closer, loving the way he moaned as I deepened the kiss.
I was uncomfortably hard now, and my back wasn’t thrilled about twisting around like this, but I didn’t care.
I’d been losing my damn mind for him since we’d agreed to pull back, and he was kissing me like he’d been losing his too.
I did get some relief when we shifted around a bit. I was against the back of my seat now, Eric leaning across the console as he demanded access to my mouth. My jeans were still too tight and my back was still complaining a bit, but whatever. This man’s hungry kiss was well worth it.
I rested a hand on his thigh, then slid it higher. The helpless little sound he made? Oh God, that was sexy.
Then he took my wrist and guided my hand the rest of the way up, and we both groaned as I rubbed his hard dick through his pants.
Fuck. We needed out of these clothes. We needed to be someplace with more room to move so we could get naked and stop holding back.
I broke the kiss, panting hard. “I can’t wait to get back to the cabin and—holy shit!” I yelped.
“What?” Eric’s head snapped up. “What’s—whoa!”
Then both of us just stared.
Because there in the early morning light, watching us through the thin fog on the windshield, was the biggest goddamned moose I’d ever seen.
Chewing lazily, some weeds dangling from its weird mouth, it watched us, dark eyes peering out from beneath an enormous rack of antlers.
“Holy shit,” I repeated, whispering this time.
“Uh-huh.” Eric sounded a little dazed. “That thing is…”
“Big?”
“Big. Really big.”
We looked at each other. Then we burst out laughing at the sheer ridiculousness of the moment.
“Well, you finally got to see your big moose.” He slid his hand up into my hair. “Mission accomplished.”
“Moose?” I let our lips graze. “What moose?” And then we were kissing again. I had no idea if the moose wandered off or if he stayed for the show, and I didn’t care. All I wanted was this amazing man and his sexy kiss and his gorgeous fucking body.
“Let’s go back to the cabin,” he said between kisses.
“Uh-huh?” I grinned against his lips. “And what are we gonna do when we get there?”
Eric slid his hand up my thigh, and when he squeezed my hard-on through my jeans, I broke the kiss with a gasp. It was his turn to grin as he said, “How do you feel about fucking me?”
I gulped, momentarily speechless from both his touch and the thought of being inside him. “I, uh…” I cleared my throat. “Back—back to the cabin. Sounds like a really good idea.”
His eyebrow rose. “Is that a yes to fucking me?”
I grabbed his wrist and pressed his palm harder against my erection. “What do you think?”
He bit his lip and shivered. “I think we should get the hell back to the cabin.”
“Good idea.” We shared another kiss before we reluctantly returned to our respective seats. The windows were still fogged and the moose was still there, now grazing a few feet away.
“You want to get a picture of him?” Eric asked as he put on his seat belt. “Before I start the engine?”
“Might as well.” I took out my phone, and I chuckled as I cleared some fog off the windshield so I could snap a couple of pictures. “I think when I post these, I’m going to leave out the fact that I had a raging hard-on.”
Eric snorted. “Uh, yeah, without context, people might think that’s a bit weird.”
“They’ll think it’s weird even with context.” I took another picture of the moose, and as I put my phone on the console, I added, “Though a story about getting busted by a moose while making out in a car is pretty funny.”
He scoffed as he started the engine. “It’s a Jeep, Jesse. Not a car.”
“So, an SUV?”
He stared at me with mock indignation. “You take that back.”
“Or what?” I inclined my head. “You won’t take me back to the cabin so I can fuck you?”
He gulped.
“That’s what I thought. Drive.”
He drove. I could barely sit still, and I got the feeling he was struggling to do the same. How far were we from the cabin? It had seemed like miles and miles, but that might’ve been because the silence had made the drive feel much longer than it was.
Hopefully. Because I wasn’t so sure I could wait. All those fantasies about putting him on his knees and—
“Oh, wait,” I said. “Before we get there—should we get condoms?”
Eric glanced at me, chewing his lip. “I mean… We can?”
I swallowed. “Do you think we need them?”
“Do you?”
We exchanged glances again.
After a moment, I quietly said, “We’ve both got some trust issues. We’ve both been cheated on recently. I… It won’t hurt my feelings if you’d prefer to use them.”
He shifted in the driver seat. “Yeah, it won’t hurt mine either.” He adjusted his grip on the wheel. “For, uh… For the record, I got tested for everything under the sun after I found out about…”
“About me?”
He nodded.
“I did, too.”
“Yeah?”
“Mmhmm.”
Silence set in again. It was as if we were both waiting for the other to make the decision.
And wasn’t he the one who’d finally worked up the nerve to break that silence earlier? When he’d been risking a hell of a lot more than an awkward conversation about condoms? Maybe it was my turn to take the reins.
I cleared my throat. “If you’re comfortable going without, so am I.”
He glanced at me, eyebrows up. “Are you?”
“I am, yeah.” I fought the urge to squirm. “I’ve, um… I’ve never been with someone bareback. But this time—not gonna lie, the idea is seriously turning me on.”
Eric pushed out a ragged breath. “Me… Me too.” Another glance. “You’re sure?”
“Completely.”
He didn’t say a word.
He just drove faster.