Chapter 7 #2
“Robyn, I-I’ve got something to say.”
My brow arches. There’s a pinch in my stomach.
“I was really bummed that your schedule got changed,” he says, rubbing the back of his neck. “I let it get in my head.” He exhales slowly and grabs my napkin and folds it. Then he adds, “And I should have talked to you instead.”
“Oh, Nate,” I mutter, sliding closer. The tray wobbles between us, so he moves it aside, making space. I climb onto his lap, knees framing his thighs, and cradle his jaw. He hasn’t shaved, so his facial hair scrapes my palms.
“I get it,” I whisper. “It’s a mess, but it’s temporary. Four more months.”
“Is it?” His voice is a trembling whisper. “It’s you and me after this, right? No other hurdles?”
I almost nod, then think of all the hurdles that could come after this program—no attending job, asking him to move, asking him to wait, the slow erosion of us under the weight of two careers that refuse to bend. I swallow it down before he sees it on my face.
I peck his lips. “You and me, baby.”
He nods, but his hands tighten around my waist, holding me there. “We’re not temporary, Robyn.” His voice thins for half a beat, the word temporary cracking. “Tell me you need us. Tell me you need me the way I need you. That we’ll handle whatever life throws at us—but we stay together.”
I blink at him; Nate’s always solid and confident, so I’m not used to seeing him uncertain.
“Hey,” I murmur, sliding my forehead against his. “Of course.” I lace my fingers behind his neck, keeping him close. “We’re endgame, baby.”
A small grateful smile blossoms on his face, but there’s something behind it I can’t name.
We hold each other until he presses his lips against mine.
I trace patterns on his collarbone; he does on my hips.
I swipe my tongue at his bottom lip, and he opens his mouth to me.
We roam each other’s bodies. He hardens under me, and I take my shirt off, separating from him, just to come back at him with more intensity.
He’s right there with me. I hook my fingers into his boxers, and he shifts his hips to help, then I fall backward onto the bed.
He leans over me, with my head between his arms and our fingers threaded.
Gazing at him, I see the second he spots the chunk of egg next to his leg, the crumbs next to my head, and the trickle of melon juice right below his elbow.
He swallows thick, and I know he doesn’t want to stop, but …
His cheeks turn bright red. “We’re, uh, we’re going to the shower,” he says, laughing at himself.
He’s on his feet in a second, hauling me up by our joined hands, his cheeks flushed and his grin wide. I’m laughing so hard he slaps my ass on the way to the bathroom.
In the shower, the hot water falls over us, dwindling the laughter.
The kiss we share is deep, water mixing into our mouths.
The tile is cold, so when I push him on it, goosebumps prickle over his sides.
Then I trail my fingers down his ribs, and open-mouthed kisses up his chest, licking around his nipples.
Working my way down, I kneel, putting his girth just above my nose.
Looking down at me with hooded cognac eyes, his cheeks redden, and water falls around his head like a halo.
I relax my throat and open up to him, swallowing around the tip of his head when it hits the back of my throat.
The moan that leaves his lips, eyes still on mine, vibrates his chest, and his stomach tenses as I bob on his length.
He moans my name when I massage behind his balls, applying pressure.
His head falls back on the tile, eyes closing, and I press deeper on the same spot, making a circular motion.
He throbs in my mouth, the vein on the underside of his cock pulsing against my tongue.
It makes me drip for him, so I snake my hand between my breasts, down my stomach, moaning around him when I finally rub my swollen clit.
He pulls me by my hair so I’m standing, his dripping cock poking my belly.
“Uh-uh,” he tuts, touching my lips with his fingers. At some point, he grabbed himself, because his thumb tastes of precum and madness. “I get to make you come, you hear me?”
I do, and it gets me wetter. Yanking on my hair, he exposes my throat and licks it, holding me flush against the tile.
The temperature pebbles my nipples. The steam wraps around us, the world narrowing to his heat and breath.
He wraps his hand around my throat, thumb and index finger digging on the sides of my neck.
“Say it, Robyn. Tell me your orgasms are mine.”
I swallow against his palm.
“Tell me nothing makes you come like I do.” He pushes his hips into me, his length nestled against my abdomen, throbbing with each heartbeat of his. “Nothing like my fingers, my tongue, my cock.”
The unspoken challenge hangs in the steam-filled air, a promise and a demand. I smirk. “Only if nothing makes you come the way I do.”
The taunt hangs in the air. He tightens the hold on my throat and laps at my lips.
His hand goes to my jaw, and his thumb traces the line of my chin then meanders to my stomach and down my leg before hooking around my knee and spreading me until my thigh is pressed against the tile.
His cock slips between my folds, jerking against my entrance with as much need to fill me as I have to be filled.
He leans in to kiss me, his eyes staying locked on mine, and his other hand coats his cock with my arousal before he positions himself at my entrance, tilting my hips to account for our height difference.
“Nobody but you, my love,” he murmurs.
We’re lost in each other’s gazes. He dips his tongue inside my mouth and dances with mine at the slowest rhythm, then he thrusts in. Not hard, but there’s certainly a contrast to the softness of his kiss. My eyes widen and my cheeks heat.
“You’re most gorgeous when my cock’s lodged inside you.”
Fucking each other languidly, he pulls back slow, and I meet him halfway.
We’re in no rush, his eyes half lidded, lashes damp, gaze heavier and more unfocused every time I roll my hips against him.
Heat spreads across my chest and cheeks every time his tip pushes against the perfect spot inside me—right above my clit.
His muscles bunch in his neck, his pace picks up, and his pupils dilate, and I can’t tear my eyes away from him, even as I bite my lip and contract around him.
“Robyn, fuck, I’m not gonna last.”
I hold his face and lick his lips. “Come, come with me.”
He rests his forehead against mine, staring into my eyes while our hips become frantic.
I’m still rolling mine so he keeps hitting that spot.
His jaw tenses as his cock swells inside me.
Then his hand’s right there, cupping my center, feeling the way his cock slides in and out of me, thumb on my clit.
With the first spurt of his ecstasy, I topple over, pulling his cum into my pussy.
He moans my name, never closing his eyes, refusing to miss a single detail of what our lovemaking does to me. The pleasure he brings me. I get it; I don’t want to miss a single thing either.
I sag into his hold, then we wash each other and stay under the stream until it’s no longer hot and the bathroom’s fogged up. He steps out first so he can get my fluffy robe. When I get out, there’s a heart drawn on the mirror.
The day drifts by in a haze of nothing in particular—half-finished coffee, lazy stretches across the couch, slow kisses and caresses.
By late afternoon, Nate’s getting twitchy.
It takes a lamp that most certainly did not look like cake—“The thing was shining, Robyn, shining”—for him to rush to the bedroom, finally losing his internal battle of wills over crumbs being on his sheets.
I follow him, laughing. “Run, run, Nate, that hot sauce stain might never come out. Sheets dead on arrival, you know?”
“Killer bedside manner, Robyn.”
I kiss his shoulder as I pick a new bedspread, then say, “I’m proud of you for making it through most of the day with dirty sheets. Progress.”
“Ha-ha, very funny,” he states, wrestling with the fitted sheet.
I grab the other end and help. “Why did you even suggest breakfast in bed?”
He pauses to squint at me. “I was trying to be romantic.”
I smirk.
“I like cleanliness; there’s nothing wrong with that.” He shrugs.
“Are you sure? How’s your emergency stash of coasters doing?”
I toss a pillow at him, which he dodges with a grin, pretending to be annoyed but losing the act.
When we finally get the sheet in place, he smooths a hand over it, checking for wrinkles.
He could audition for a freaking linen commercial.
I lean against the wall, arms crossed, teasing him, and I can’t stop myself from smiling. “Are we good?”
“Almost,” he says, glancing toward the nightstand. “You didn’t use a coaster this morning.”
I gasp in mock horror. “The scandal.”
He pulls me by the wrist until I stumble into his chest. “You think I’m joking, but this is why you can’t have nice things.”
“Uh-huh.” I press my cheek against the coarse hair on his bare chest, breathing him in. “I don’t know, I think you’re pretty nice.”
He laughs quietly, vibrating against my temple. “Pretty nice, yeah? I may need to up my game.”
“I wouldn’t be against that,” I murmur, smiling into him.
We head back to the front room and drop next to each other on the couch. His arm tightens around me, gentle but sure, and for a long moment neither of us moves. The TV hums faintly with the show we’ve been watching for hours, soft voices and clinking dishes filling the space between our breaths.
His chuckle rumbles against my forehead. “Did you lose the remote again?”
“I didn’t lose it. I just misplaced it. It’s all part of my diabolical plan.”
His arm tightens around me, and he presses a kiss into my hair. “You know I’m proud of you, don’t you?”