Chapter Thirteen
America
The steam on the mirror also creates condensation on my palm. My skin is glowing and dewy from the quick shower. I glide my fingers over the lids of my Shea Moisture products lined up on the counter.
Running into Alfie was enough to overwhelm me. Seeing Gray kept the tears at bay until I was alone in the shower.
I cry a lot. I hate that my body’s response to literally everything is to cry. On the one hand it feels like I’m letting go of the stress that piles up on me every day. On the other I always feel like people must think that I am so incredibly weak to need to cry so much.
I try not to let them see me as weak. But Alfie surprised me today. I wasn’t expecting him to show up outside my silks class, and it put real fear into me. I hate conflict more than I hate crying. It makes my stomach turn and my heart pound. I get these crackling pins and needles sensations all through my torso and into my fingertips.
I don’t know what I would have done if Gray hadn’t shown up and driven me home. I don’t want to think about it.
I unscrew the lid on my moisturizer and scoop out a small amount. I hum to myself as I smooth the cream onto my skin.
Gray is in my flat, making himself at home. I think he’s in the kitchen making coffee. Or checking out the book of Britain's greatest popstars we keep on the coffee table. Or snooping at the door of my bedroom to check out whether Everett has left any belongings here.
God, I hope he’s not searching for signs of Everett because it’ll probably end up with us in an argument. He knows where I live now, which means I won’t be able to avoid him if we do. And he really doesn’t like the idea of me and Everett.
Gray’s being overly cautious. Or he’s worried about his job. Or his heartbreak is coloring his opinion, because Everett hasn’t done anything to make me think he’s toying with me.
Of course Everett has a history. I do too. The only difference is that his is plastered all over social media. I’m sure it’s not as bad as Gray is making out.
Unless Gray is seeking me out and starting fights on purpose, knowing they will end with us in a tangle of limbs. Is he warning me away from Everett because he wants me for himself?
No, that’s wishful thinking. Daydreams. Pure fantasy on my part.
Wouldn’t he just say that instead of making a hullabaloo about Everett? It would be so much better than tracking me down to tell me that I shouldn’t be offended that he would never date me.
Except, he also gave me this hickey. I finger the mark on my throat. How does it make me feel?
Confused. Scared. Possessive. Yes, all three, jumbled together.
Could Gray be experiencing those same emotions? Could he be into me despite his denials? He’s not over Indy, but two rival emotions can exist in the same space at the same time. He could be into me and not over her. Just like I’m into Everett but can’t stop this thing between Gray and I.
He’s worried about my being hurt because of his heartbreak. He’s said as much. So how am I supposed to act around him now?
It’s much easier to be mad than vulnerable. It’s easier to have no hope than this thrum in my chest that feels like it could as effortlessly become tortuous as it could become giddy.
Either way, I best cover up the bite. It takes some concealing, but I manage to make it blend in a way that I can pass off as any old bruise if anyone else notices it.
Gray is standing on the other side of the bathroom door when I open it. He has the sugar bowl in his hand, and he blinks hard like he was lost in thought. “I was going to make coffee.”
“Okay.” I tuck the end of my towel more securely at my boobs while he blocks the exit. He looks out of sorts.
“I know how you like your coffee. With that creamer. The almond one with the vanilla.”
“Right.”
“But then you didn’t have any in your fridge, and it made me think that maybe you’d changed the way you take your coffee.”
I have no idea where this is leading. “I—”
“Because people go from two sugars in their coffee to one. They switch the type of milk they like. They change.”
“Yes, but—”
“I’m scared I’m too broken to change.” He drops the sugar container to reach for me. His hand slides around my waist; he tugs me to him and steps in. His lips caress mine. “But I’m starting to want to.”
I yelp when he lifts me off my feet and presses my back to the wall while his tongue is in my mouth.
“Gray?” Coffee? Change? I don’t know what he’s thinking. He tugs at the towel, pulling it apart to expose my breasts. I’m not going to ask when he takes a nipple between his teeth and flicks the tip of his tongue over the metal piercing it.
My head thuds against the wall, a moan slipping out of me as he loves on my breasts. My clit throbs, my pussy growing wetter the more time he spends on my nipples.
“Everett? He your boyfriend yet?” he asks, lifting his lips from one nipple only to suck the other one between them.
“Mmm. No.” I haven’t seen him since we agreed to slow things down. How could I when Gray has preoccupied my time and almost all of my thoughts?
“Good.”
“Good?”
“I’m going to take you to bed, Rica. And you’re going to ride my face. If he was your boyfriend then we couldn’t do that.” He carries me out of the bathroom and into my bedroom. That answers the question of whether he snooped. He tosses himself backward onto the bed with me still in his arms. “Climb up on my face now. Be a good girl and give me what I need. Your sweet pussy, dripping on my tongue.”
I scramble up until my knees are next to his ears. I’ve put on weight since I’ve been in the UK. Stress coupled with being homesick added some pounds. I have a flat tummy but my thighs are as meaty as my ass and as juicy as my breasts. I’m not the tiny, slender type he was used to.
“I said sit.” He wraps his hands around my waist and pulls me down firmly. “Don’t hover.”
“Mmm.” The first lick is exquisite on my sensitive flesh. It makes my hips roll involuntarily.
“That’s it. Grind down on me.” His words are muffled by my thighs, but they make my brain empty of anything but the way his tongue is exploring every nook and crevice of my pussy.
He thrusts it inside me and my eyelids flutter down. I need this. I grind my clit against his lips. When he catches it between his teeth and sucks, I rock on his face harder, chasing that pleasure with an obsessive need.
My body floods with heat.
“Play with your tits,” he growls. “You’re so sexy from down here. Show me how dirty you want to be for me.”
“God, I’m such a little slut for you.” I massage my breasts, pinching and rolling my nipples while he stares up at me with those heated blue eyes. His grip on my waist guides me as I grind over him, until I’m hovering on that edge. One more swipe of his tongue sends me tumbling into the abyss. Falling forward onto my hands I cry out for him as I ride him and my orgasm to completion.
I scramble off him as soon as I’m done. My insides tingling, but not as pleasantly as they were in the heat of the moment. I act like a wanton little freak around him more often than not. But maybe… am I taking it too far?
He grabs my wrist and tugs me onto his chest. “You like being my little slut, don’t you? You like it when I talk to you like that? That’s something you want from me?”
I bury my face in his chest. “I do.”
“You know I don’t think that you’re a slut or a whore. I don’t think that you’re any of the things—”
“No. I know that. It’s not about.” I glance at the iron bars of the headboard. It’s hard to put it into words. “I like it,” I admit. “Perhaps that’s weird because I’ve heard it all in a negative way from people I don’t know or don’t trust. It’s humiliating. Even today. You heard what he—”
He lifts his hand. His knuckles are bruised. One of them is grazed. “I did. It was wholly unacceptable.”
“But ordering me to sit on your face like that… and when you call me filthy things… it gives me a rush and makes me feel sexy.” Sexier than I think I’ve ever felt in my life. It sounds stupid to not feel super sexy when everyone goes on about how fuckable you are, but most of the time it makes me want to hide my figure under bulky clothing. So feeling sexy for real… I could get used to that. I crawl down his body and unbutton his suit pants.
He lifts his hips so that I can pull them down and free his erection. We’ve fucked a few times, but this is the first time I get to explore. He has a beautiful cock. It rides tall against his abdomen, blushing a pretty color that shows off the veins.
He’s hot and hard as I take him in hand and stroke him. “It makes me feel like those things aren’t negative. They aren’t the judgement they usually are. It makes me feel incredibly powerful in my sexuality.”
Sucking my cheeks in, I gather saliva and spit on his cock before taking him all the way between my lips.
“Rica, fuck…” His hips jag as he thrusts in my mouth. “Damn, woman. I was not expecting…” I run my tongue along the underside of his shaft. He arches his neck and groans. “That. Oh God.”
I moan and let the vibration rumble up his shaft while I take him to the back of my throat. He made me feel so damn good, I want to make him feel good too.
He presses his palm to the back of my head and fucks my mouth without restraint.
“You’re the most beautiful little whore for me, aren’t you, Rica? You… taking me… I can barely control myself. Come up here and let me feel your pretty pussy clenched around me. I want to fucking fill you.”
Like he’s given them a command, my insides clench. I’ve never been so obedient in my life as I sit on his cock and bounce up and down. Gray makes me want to do whatever he tells me to. Makes me feel special in a way that I haven’t before.
“Fuck.” He grunts as he rolls me under him. Hiking my leg up to his shoulder, he forces his way in deeper, thrusting with such ferocity, scraping against all those sweetly achy places inside me.
My second orgasm is intense and overwhelming. It steals my vision. “Gray. Oh God. Oh fuck.”
“Fuck.” He groans and spills inside me, flooding me with his cum in hot, heady spurts. “Fuck. Fuck. Fucking fuck.”
We collapse onto the mattress, a pile of sweat slicked limbs. He rests his forehead against my breast. “Why couldn’t I have met you first?”
I don’t remind him that he met me and Indy at exactly the same time. Or that it was so long ago that if he’d wanted something with me then it would have been beyond criminal, and I could never have felt this way about that kind of person. I’m not even sure that I was supposed to catch his words at all.
An alarm goes off. “What is that?”
“It’s my phone.”
The noise cuts out and is followed by multiple email notifications rapid fire landing in his inbox.
I find my breath. “You better check.”
“Yeah.” He glances up at me for a long moment before he climbs off me so he can access his phone. His eyes crease in the corners as he reads his screen. “I need to cancel lunch. I’m sorry. There’s a problem. Mikey Valance is in a signing year. And the Bears just picked up Luke Rooney instead.”
“It’s okay.” I’ve watched him work deals like magic tricks for years. He works his ass off to get the best contracts for his players. Sometimes things go south, and then all his focus needs to be on fixing them.
“It was supposed to be a done deal,” he says darkly while he tugs his pants over his hips. “This is the last thing I need.”
I pull on a fresh thong and some yoga leggings while he checks his appearance in the mirror inside my closet. Grabbing a bra, I cover up the girls and pull on the sweater hanging on the end of the iron bed frame. “Perhaps we can meet up later for drinks or dinner.”
“I’d love to, but if I can’t salvage this…” He narrows his gaze at my chest, and the light in his blue eyes dies. “What is that?”
I glance down at the sweater with the Cardinals logo on the front. “A sweater.”
“Show me the back.”
“Excuse me?” I frown. What on earth is his problem?
“Rica, turn the fuck around.” He stalks toward me. “Does that have Everett Mann’s number on the back? Are you wearing his number?”
“I guess.” I turn and show him the back, glancing over my shoulder to try and see it too. Everett gave me this sweater. It would make sense for it to be one with his number.
It still has a hint of his cologne, actually. It’s faded, but still there to my overly sensitive nose. Under the stronger tones of cedar, lemon, and cloves of Gray’s fragrance.
“You said he wasn’t your boyfriend.”
“He isn’t.”
“You’re wearing his fucking jersey.”
“You’re being ridiculous.” I stand my ground. He’s acting territorial. The independent woman in me balks at that, but a part of me wants him to tear my clothes off and throw me back on the bed even though he doesn’t have the time for what I want to do. Again. I hug the sweater to my body. “I just grabbed the closest thing.”
He reaches for the hem of my sweater. “Take it off. Or I’ll take it off for you.”
“No.” I step out of his reach.
He opens his mouth, then snaps it shut before reaching up to tug on his hair. The intensity in his eyes dissipates. “Fine. You’re right. Wear whoever’s clothes you want.”
“Fine.” I grab the hem and drag the sweater up over my head. “It’s off.”
Everything with him seems to be just another layer of confusion that I don’t know how to navigate. I can speak a half dozen living languages and can understand several extinct ones. My IQ is too high for this bullshit. I should be able to make sense of it. “I don’t understand why it’s such a big deal.”
“Because…” He wraps his hand around the side of my neck and holds me in place. He brushes his thumb over my pulse point. He finally takes a deep breath that loosens his chest. “I want—”
A barrage of sounds come from his phone.
“Shit.” He walks away while answering his phone. “Mikey…”
I grab another top and pull it over my head. Push the arms up to my elbows and watch him prowl my bedroom while speaking in a tone that takes no prisoners. His presence is commanding, his body language dominant. Watching him control all the elements—how confident he is— makes me want to sink to my knees for him. Again.
He hangs up.
His gaze settles on my sweater, which is stretched so tightly over my rose-gold bra that it shows through. His pupils dilate.
“Better?”
He rolls his bottom lip with his teeth and swallows whatever thought is on his mind. “I’ll call you once I’m done.”
“I’d like that.”
“Okay.” He hesitates until his phone beeps with yet another message. “I’ve got to go deal with this.”
“I’ll walk you out.” I follow him through the flat to the front door.
It feels like we didn’t really talk about whatever was bothering him before we crashed into bed. The stuff about change. It feels important in a big, big way.
I watch him search his pockets for his keys. “What did you mean you’re scared you’re too broken to change?”
“I just…” He takes a deep breath and dispels it. “I’m sorry, Rica. We should talk, and we will.” He kisses my cheek. “But I really have to go. Later. I promise.”
“Okay.” I’m a little disappointed as we step outside, but of course it can wait.
Everett smiles wide while walking up the garden path. “There’s my girl.”