Chapter 32
32
Theo
T here’s a woman pressed up against me. Not unusual for a weekend morning. But this woman is Cat, and that makes all the difference.
Don’t move. Don’t even think about moving.
I wasn’t kidding when I told Cat she turns me on more than anyone ever has. I can’t even put my finger on why. It’s something about the shape of her legs, the way her breasts are smallish but her ass is round and her waist is high and small, but her stomach isn’t flat. Maybe it’s her face, with those full pink lips and that tiny, naughty freckle and her big eyes with sooty lashes. It’s an intoxicating combination.
My body agrees, need climbing and spiraling through my groin and sinking spikes into me. I’m hard against my stomach, where Cat’s lower back has trapped my erection. She sighs in her sleep and settles closer to me.
Because I’m a masochist, I catalog all our points of contact. Her leg between mine. My hand on the silky skin of her stomach. Her hair draped over my arm. Her scent in my nose. I take a shallow breath and close my eyes. I won’t wake her. I’ll just pretend for a minute. It’s a well-worn fantasy, but it starts with reality. A memory of my last summer back from college and her first.
She’d snuck out again. I met her at the back of the house, and we pelted down the lawn to the lake. The lake was secluded, but, it turns out, not secluded enough. Our aim was innocent—swimming in the lake at midnight—but something about the stormy night and the rain sluicing down turned innocent to arousing. At twenty-one, I liked girls a lot. I’d kissed plenty, had fooled around with a few. I was just starting to realize there was something about me that drew women in. But no one looked at me like Cat did. Like she saw me. And that was hotter than anything. Well, nearly anything. When I tossed her into the lake, and she came up shrieking with laughter, the breath left my chest. She was a fantasy come to life. A wet, dangerously beautiful woman, with slight breasts, an ass the perfect size to fill my hands, and absolutely no knowledge of how lethal she was.
Of course, she wrapped her leg around mine.
Of course, she looped her arms around my neck to keep her steady in the water. I was the stronger swimmer, after all.
But when she pressed close, with the intention of dunking me, we both realized how dangerous close could be.
She sucked in a breath. Her lips parted.
My blood rushed in my ears. I’d wanted her for so long, and I was leaving after this summer and never coming back.
So I kissed her. And it was everything.
Her lips were cool and delicious. Her body trembled when I spanned her waist with my hands. In reality, I stopped as soon as I hardened against her in the cool water.
In my fantasy, we’re in my bed, and she’s not nineteen anymore. She’s twenty-eight and she’s wearing my T-shirt. She looks at me like she wants to kill me most of the time, and fuck , it turns me on. In my head, she’s riding me, just like she does every single time I fantasize about her—so I can watch her. It starts this way every time. Sometimes I come in my hand before we can switch positions in my head. Sometimes I make it all the way through to the delicious part when I flip her, press her into the mattress, and wrench her hands behind her back. When I make her take me, and she loves it.
She might have started things back then, but if we were together today, I’d finish them.
Cat shifts, pressing that perfect ass into me, and I tense. I should not be fantasizing about her. I need to escape. I need to get the fuck out of here and work out and try to forget about her. Just another minute. Just another minute pretending Cat Peterson wants me.
I let my fingers splay over her stomach and my mouth drop to her neck. I want her so badly, and she’s right here. Just one taste. I press my lips to her neck, right at the juncture of her shoulder. The perfect divot. She smells like warm skin and sleep and the fancy body products I stock. She uses my body products. Right. She showers next to me, and we use the exact same soap. Why am I so turned on by that? I suck lightly on her skin, trying to draw her very essence into my body.
“Theo?” She says my name sleepily.
I freeze, then I roll onto my back. This was a mistake. I put an arm over my eyes and try to calm my body.
Cat shifts until I can feel her staring at me.
“Go back to sleep,” I say. “I’ll be gone in a minute.” I need to work out, maybe call Jonah to box. He’s probably with Callie, and he’ll kill me for bothering him. Cole, then. He’s always up for a brief skate after practice to cool down. I can meet him on the ice. I reach for the bedside table, scrabbling for my phone, but finding…very much not my phone.
“What’s this?” I ask. The smooth device in my hand is long and pink, and there’s a box on the table next to it. G-spot vibe , it says on the side. “Is this new?”
“Hmm?” Cat sits up, and I finally let myself look at her. Her hair is tumbling around her shoulders, her eyes are sleepy, and the strap of her tank has dipped so low that her nipple is almost popping out. I’ve never hated a shirt more.
“Oh no.” She reaches across to grab it, but I jerk it away.
She lands on my chest .
“Theo, give it here.”
“When did you get this? I haven’t heard you using it.” And I’ve been listening. Because with the amount of jerking off I’ve been doing, I’ve hoped that Cat was similarly afflicted.
“The walls aren’t that thin,” she huffs, sitting up and sliding the strap of her tank back up. “Besides, I used it in the shower.”
Fuck. Now all I can think about is Cat, her body slick with water, muffling her orgasm with a hand over her mouth.
“Was it, uh, good?”
“It was fine. Nothing to write home about. I got it at the lingerie store, if you must know.”
I turn it over in my hands. “It looks high quality. What’s the problem?”
“The problem?” Her voice comes out strangled, and I look up at her. She’s flushed, and her nipples poke against the silk of her top. Her eyes in the morning look like melted chocolate.
“Yeah,” I say hoarsely. “A G-spot orgasm should be the best orgasm you can imagine, especially if you touch your clit too.”
“Please stop talking,” she says.
“You must have been doing it incorrectly.”
“Theo.” She shuts her eyes. “I’ll get a new one and try again. Don’t worry, it’ll get checked off.”
Realization dawns. “This is on the list. You’ve never had a real G-spot orgasm, and you want one.”
“I have had one.”
“One you didn’t give yourself?” I ask, even though I don’t really want to know.
“Please just divorce me and leave me here to die,” she responds, which I’m going to take as a no .
“That’s a crime, princess. You deserve one.”
She groans in response, looking pained. I laugh softly and place the vibrator on the bedside table. “I could give it to you.”
Bad idea. My heart gives a hard kick of acknowledgement. But I want to be the man to do this for Cat.
She cracks one lid. “Give what to me? ”
“A G-spot orgasm. It’ll be better than a vibrator. You might need me to curl my fingers more.” I try for casual, but my voice comes out like gravel. I’m incredibly turned on and desperate to touch her.
“We said no sex.”
This is the road to perdition. I’ll touch her and I’ll be right back to fantasizing about her constantly, and hating myself for it.
Walk away.
“This isn’t sex,” I say. “Besides, I saw the way you were looking at me last night.” She stared at me like she couldn’t get enough, and I wanted to shout my triumph. She’s never looked at Grant the way she looked at me. “I’ll make this good. You can check it off the list.”
She lets out a shuddery breath. I wait, my fingers curling into my palm, my body taut.
“Just this once,” she finally says. She lifts her eyes to meet mine. “Show me. Tell me what to do.”
I blow out a breath. She trusts me. My chest expands with something warm and buoyant.
“Take off your shorts and straddle me,” I say.
“I thought you’d want me on my back.”
“Who’s giving the orders here? You or me?”
“Fine,” she huffs, before she lands on my lap, and my whole body comes alive.
I thought I wanted Cat before. It turns out I didn’t know what desire was. Because as she looks down at me, nervous and needy and trusting, with those melted chocolate eyes and those sinful lips, I think I’m going to combust. I slide my hands up her thighs, where I’ve never touched her before, her soft skin like silk against my palms. I drink in each shudder as I reach the hem of her shirt.
Her palms land on my thighs as mine reach the skin of her stomach. It’s so hard to go slow, and Cat must agree, because she says “Theo” with breathy urgency and grinds down on my cock.
Sparks zip through me at the contact, and I fist my hands in her shirt. “None of that,” I say.
“You’re taking too long,” she mutters .
“Oh, did you want me to rush?” I ask, as I tug her forward. “I’ve heard the best orgasms are rushed,” I tease.
“Of course you’d be like this in bed,” she mutters, but she’s smiling.
I swirl my tongue over her nipple through the silk. “We’re doing this my way,” I respond. If I only get to have Cat once, I want to make the most of it.
“Tell me how it feels,” I say, before I pull her other nipple into my mouth.
“Why?” she asks.
I drop one hand to her ass and squeeze. “Because then I can do more of what you like. That’s the point, princess. Or did no one ever tell you that before?”
She doesn’t respond, just lets out a breathy moan when I bite gently at her nipple.
“I like that.”
“Tell me more,” I urge her, as my hands work to tie her shirt in a knot at her back.
She sighs her pleasure as I switch to the other nipple and then blow on the wet fabric. She arches into my hands. “God, I’ve wanted to do that so many times,” I say raggedly.
“You have?”
“Every time you wear one of these shirts.” My hands drift between her legs, brushing over the soft hair there, the even softer skin.
“I wear these shirts a lot.”
“Exactly,” I say, as I press seeking fingers to the wetness of her pussy.
She jolts. “Oh.”
“Oh what?” I still my hand.
“You feel good,” she says.
“I do feel good, don’t I, baby? Better than a vibrator, right?”
She nods, her breath hitching as I circle her clit, her lids fluttering shut.
Pride buoys me at her reactions. She wants me. She’s drenching my fingers as I stroke her. I draw needy gasps from her throat and make her hips buck, even as my own body tightens with desire.
I watch her face as I push one finger inside her. She sighs and melts over me. “Oh, Theo,” she moans.
My cock jumps against my stomach at the sound. I grit my teeth at the pleasure making my groin heavy. It’s destined to be unfulfilled until Cat gets off.
“It’s good, right?” I need to know she’s enjoying herself. I can’t bear to be like the other assholes who’ve touched her so ineptly that she thinks she needs a bucket list to get off.
“So—” She sobs a breath, then continues. “So good. You’re hitting it just right. How did you know?” Her eyes fly open, and she watches my face as I crook my finger inside her and circle her clit with my thumb.
I’ve wanted this for years.
I’ve thought about you moaning my name a hundred times.
I’m glad I’ve done this before, so I can be good for you.
Instead, I smirk and say, “Don’t ask questions you don’t want the answer to.”
She rolls her eyes, but she’s smiling.
And she’s still smiling when I begin to fuck her with my hand, pushing in and pulling out in a rhythm that mirrors how I’d take her if she were on my cock.
My body agrees, priming and tightening for an orgasm I won’t have.
Cat’s face twists, and her body clenches around my hand. She’s going to come, and I’m going to be the one to give it to her. I can’t look away from her face, even though I want to see every part of her body as she flushes and twists with pleasure. Her back arches. Her hips jerk. She’s so fucking hot.
“I’m going to come like this. How—”
“That’s it,” I tell her. “Come for me, princess.”
Her eyes fly open. In the pleasure-drunk depths, emotions swirl. Then her lids fall shut again. She moans something that sounds like my name .
I have a new fantasy now—Cat moaning my name as she comes.
I don’t stop moving until I know by the way her loud sob turns into a satisfied sigh that she’s done.
Her eyes open slowly. I pull my hand away, and still my hips where they’re rocking against the air, seeking friction enough to finish.
“That was amazing,” she says.
I grin at her while I rub my thumbs over her hips. “Yeah?”
“Oh yes. Wow.” She laughs, sounding surprised. “Wow.”
I’m about to tell her we should do this every morning when I hear a muffled ding . And then another. And another. My phone isn’t on silent then. She leans over to reach under the pillow.
“I guess you tossed this in the bed last night.”
“Guess so.” I was a bit distracted by the thought of Cat joining me, but I don’t tell her that.
“Oh.” She drops the phone. “Someone, uh, misses you.”
Oh no. I grab the device and flick through the messages. Carly, a woman I met and slept with after a Royals game a few months back, sent me a tasteful nude. Annabelle sent me a kissy-face emoji. I get these texts every weekend, but with less and less frequency now that I don’t respond.
And now Cat has seen them.
“Cat, I don’t text back.”
She’s already scrambling off me. “I know. I believe you. I mean, even if you did, it would be okay. This is fake.” She won’t look at me. She unknots the shirt, and it falls down to cover her. “This is fake,” she repeats, almost to herself. “We can’t—”
My stomach pinches uncomfortably. “I know, Cat. It’s okay. It doesn’t mean anything.”
“It doesn’t. Right.” She blows out a breath. “It was just for the list. It doesn’t mean anything.”
“Don’t worry, princess. I’ve done this a lot. I’m not going to read into anything. The offer still stands to do the rest of the list with you.” I smile at her, my normal grin. The one she’s definitely called cocky in the past. It feels entirely forced. What did you think, idiot ?
“Right,” she says dully. “Of course.” She scoots to the edge of the bed and stands. “Right,” she says again. “This was just…an orgasm. Checking a box. I mean, you do it all the time, right?” She gestures toward my phone.
“All the time,” I confirm.
She gives a jerky nod. “Exactly, and I’m not interested in you. So it doesn’t matter if other women are texting you. And you’re definitely not interested in me.”
“Definitely not,” I confirm, even as something grinds in my chest. “Definitely not interested.” I grab my pants from last night. Better not to be interested in Cat.
She’s using you. She’ll never love you.
“It was inevitable, really,” I say, turning to face her. She still looks stunned and sexy. Her hair is tangled and her legs are bare.
“It was?” Her eyes slice to mine.
I shrug. “I mean, there was tension between us. We let the pressure off. It’s a good thing.” I swipe my sweatshirt off the chair. I need to work out. “And you checked something off the list.”
“Yep.” Her teeth sink into her lower lip. “Thank you for the orgasm. It was really good.”
“No problem,” I say, shrugging on my shirt and avoiding her gaze. It sounds like we’re discussing the weather, and this is officially the strangest conversation I’ve ever had.
“Okay, so, this changes nothing?” She wipes her hands down her shirt.
“Nope,” I agree, even though all I want is a repeat. “I’m not going to be weird about it. And if you want to forget?” I shrug. “Consider it forgotten.”
No problem, really. I shove my feet into my slippers, and Cat disappears into her bathroom. I’ve forgotten plenty of women. I’ve done this enough that it should be muscle memory. Work out, shower, see my brother, maybe do some boxing, and I’ll forget about Cat Peterson and the sounds she made in bed.