Chapter 13 #2
The sound of her fast breathing fanned his flame as he pulled the zipper of her skirt down with shaky fingers.
Staring at her face and down at her hands as she unbuttoned her blouse, his mouth watered.
The condom still clenched in his fingers, he managed to pull the skirt from her hips.
She squirmed and made impatient noises as she pulled her blouse off.
Before she had a chance, before he bothered to remove her bra, he lowered his head to the pulsing round mounds of her breasts and buried his face there, sucking and breathing in the soft flesh.
Shifting his weight so that he held himself over her in a one-armed plank, he held her breast, squeezing and teasing the nipple until it protruded, inviting his mouth to suck on it.
The movement and touch of her hands on his hips, pulling his shorts down, pulling him closer, tilted him. He raised his head from her flesh, pulling his mouth from her with one last swirl of his tongue.
“F—ck. You taste too good. Like sin and heaven.”
She shuddered a breath. When she put a hand on him, a sure warm grip with her fingers and palm enveloping his shaft, it was his turn to shudder. He almost convulsed with the strain to hold on, to steady himself in her grip.
“You do this.” He pulled his hand between them and gave her the crumpled condom package.
“Let me get on top of you.” Her voice sounded like raspy velvet in the dim glow of the night.
He felt his cock jump at the sound, which was more alluring than her natural siren voice.
Obliging her, he rolled to his back, lifting her luscious body over him.
She was naked now except for her bra. But the sight of her plump breasts spilling outside the confining cups, pressed close to form deep secretive cleavage, enticed him, titillated him, so he made no move to remove her bra.
As he stared at her over him, felt her settle below his cock, her fingers slid up his shaft, her thumb unerringly sliding across the damp slit, spreading the escaping juices over the sensitive tip. He held his breath, making him dizzy with the need for release.
“Do it. Don’t take too long.”
The soft wicked laugh matched the heightened color in her aroused face as she sat over him, studying him, alternating her attention between his face and his cock. She unwrapped the foil like a pro, like a surgeon, unrolling the moistened condom over him and down.
“It’s a shame,” she said. He wasn’t sure if she spoke to him or herself.
Struggling to breathe, as if he was running for his life, as if everything rode on the next minute, as if the world would explode soon, he put his hands on her hips and lifted her onto him like he’d practiced the move.
She slid onto his cock and he pressed her down with fierce satisfaction until her ass slapped against his balls and their bodies suctioned together and he could feel the tip of his cock come up against the dark secret of her womanhood.
“Goddamn, Charlie.” The words strangled from his throat. She panted, her only answer.
She leaned forward, tantalizing him with her nipples rubbing across his chest as she moved her hips up, almost losing her tight hold on him before he gripped her hips and slammed her back down.
There was no restraint in him now as he released the caged animal of his desire and held her, his fingers digging into the flesh of her ass and her hips as he pistoned her up and down, felt her squirm and vibrate, heard her panting and moaning escalate into that high-pitched orgasmic scream that sounded like his name being called from an angel in heaven.
Everything in him seized up then and he shouted and held her down as he pumped his hips, releasing everything he had, pouring himself into her, feeling the writhing, gut-clenching, soul-shattering spasms of ecstasy quake through him.
After, he was left shattered and empty, but still wanting in spite of the strange and euphoric satisfaction, like there was a wisp of something out of reach, a whiff of nirvana that he couldn’t grasp.
They sat up in bed, light dawning through the dominating window overlooking the city from his bedroom. He felt no guilt about keeping her overnight in spite of her protests. She’d been willing in the end. He’d made it worth her while.
He’d made her forget she was anything but a woman, a woman before all else.
“What’s so special about this party on Saturday? You could skip it—since your date bailed. Why invite me?” He felt a quiver in his chest as though he’d asked a brave question.
“Other than the fact that we’re now engaged to be married?”
He raised a brow.
She sighed.
“Hogarth insisted. He has some crazy notion that I’m a nun. He’s spread rumors.”
“What?” he scoffed. “You’re joking—you have to be joking.” The look on her face told him she wasn’t. “Why?”
“He’s made a point of tormenting me. Ever since my research grant was approved by NIH.”
“Professional jealousy?”
“Worse. He wants to discredit me and claim credit for himself.”
“Power.”
“What do you expect? He’s an alpha dog with not enough talent to back up his ambition. So he keeps people under his thumb and steals credit from others.” She said it matter-of-factly, as if Hogarth were a bad piece of body tissue that needed to be dealt with, a sample in a petri dish.
He didn’t bother responding. Waited a beat, then said, “You sure you want me there? You up to playing the role?”
“There won’t be media there. It won’t be much different than any date.”
He snorted.
“I mean it—this isn’t your usual football-crazy crowd. It’ll be the trustees and the research committee members and major donors and hospital brass. They’re all about medical research. Live and breathe it.”
“If you say so.”
She stroked his back idly. He felt the easy affection in her warm hand and let it seep into his muscles, roll through his tension and disarm it.
“I can keep up. I was a premed undergrad, you know. A well-hidden secret. A long, long time ago. But I had ambitions once.” He hadn’t admitted this, hadn’t even thought about his lost ambition since he’d first made his choice.
It felt strange, like opening up the door to a forbidden attic room where he wasn’t supposed to go, to see himself, a foreign self, inside.
“You wanted to go into medicine?” She raised her head to look into his eyes as if measuring his seriousness.
“Yes.” The confession cost him. It shouldn’t have.
But he rarely gave away the deep parts of himself, never indulged thinking about dreams and the past, let alone talking about them.
The decision had been made. He and his dad had made a pact never to look back, to go whole hog into the thing he’d chosen and never stop until he hit the pinnacle. And he was almost there.
“Tell me about it? What happened? What changed your mind?”
He heard the unspoken question, the part she didn’t say, loud and clear. Why the hell did you choose football over medicine?
He didn’t want to answer her, didn’t want to talk or even think about it.
Useless waste of energy and will, the kind of thing that undermined success on the path taken.
Those were the words of wisdom from his father and his father had been right.
He’d lived his life by those words ever since he signed to play with the Boston Minutemen.
It was the best damn decision he’d ever made. Hadn’t it been?
But as he tilted his head to glance at her, he saw the circumspection and he felt compelled to explain, to justify. Needed to make her understand.
“I thought long and hard about whether to play football or go to med school.”
“You’d never know it, the way you’re committed to football.”
“Once the decision was made I never looked back.” Until this very moment.
“Did your family influence your decision? What about Tammy?”
“My family never doubted what I’d do. Tammy thought the premed major was to raise my stock for the draft and for good PR. I played it down and no one ever thought I was serious.” But he had been. His father had known it.
“But you were serious,” she said. He saw the excitement, the questions lighting her eyes.
He shook his head before she could ask or prod out any more confessions and said, “Water under the bridge.” He made his voice a final command and backed it with a shut-door look.
He needed to change the subject and took a long cleansing breath. “What about your New York doctor? Is he going to mind—all this?” Trent waved his hand in a circling motion to encompass everything, not even sure what everything was.
“I don’t have any special understanding with him, if that’s what you’re asking.”
“Does he know that?” Trent would bet his father’s farm Dr. New York City was at least hoping for something special and working on it.
“Funny question.”
When she didn’t elaborate, he decided to go for broke. They’d already ditched their own rule about giving in to their physical attraction. With his game face in place, he asked, “What about us?”
She stared. Her lips trembled. He wasn’t going to let her off the hook. He would wait her out.
She shook her head and her eyes took on that troubled weight-of-the-world look that she was given to. “I . . .” She looked away as if it caused her pain to look into his eyes, and shook her head again.
Somehow his silent insistence on her answer made him feel like he was torturing her and he couldn’t keep it up.
“I know. It’s complicated,” he said into her ear, leaning closer over her, snuggling in like he couldn’t resist reminding her that they had something—special or not.
She glanced up at him and smiled that serious smile.
He gave her his man-about-town smile, the one that insulated him from real connection, from connecting with too many people who would drain him of all he had if he let them. He had to protect himself even from Charlie. Maybe he had to protect himself from Charlie most of all.
Watching her look at the clock on his nightstand, he wasn’t surprised that she sat up in alarm.
“I have to go. I need to get back to my mother and Suzette.” Without waiting a beat, without a glance, let alone a kiss goodbye, she flung off the covers and tumbled from the bed.
“I hope you don’t mind—I don’t even have time for a shower.” She spoke without facing him as she gathered her clothes and put them on.
He didn’t bother responding, didn’t want his disappointment to show, didn’t want to be disappointed. What the hell? She’d be back. He knew it. She knew it. This thing wasn’t over. Not by a long shot.
Whatever this thing was that they had.
He only hoped it didn’t destroy them in the meantime.