Chapter Twenty-Three Soraya #2
“Thwarted by too much trust.” He smiled, and she tried to ignore how hard her heart was beating.
He was dangerously attractive. There was an interesting energy around him.
He was authoritative, comfortable with himself, and if she would’ve been asked what she thought he did, owning a store that specialized in tabletop games wouldn’t have been her answer.
He didn’t have a geeky vibe to him at all.
He was tall and muscular, broad chested.
His dark hair was long, pushed back out of his face.
He wore glasses, which did make him look slightly studious, but it was kind of Clark Kent–ish in nature.
Like the glasses were a costume, and if he tore his shirt open, it would reveal the superhero underneath.
Well. There was a thought.
There was no reason for him to linger in the apartment. There was no reason for her to ask him to stay. There was definitely no reason for her to move closer to him. But she was.
She was in her magic.
His expression went deadly serious, the grooves by his mouth deepening as he looked down at her.
She was so much shorter than he was—she was only one or two inches shorter than David—and Declan was tall.
She just came to his shoulder, and it made her feel small and pretty.
She reached up and touched his face before she could think better of it. Before she could second-guess herself.
He made a short, masculine sound and gripped her wrist, wrapping his fingers tightly around her. “Be careful,” he murmured.
“I’m kind of tired of being careful, actually.”
Before she could think better of it, she stretched up on her toes and wrapped her arms around his neck. He bent quickly, kissing her, hard and fast and deep.
She was dizzy.
When was the last time she had been kissed like this?
Maybe never. Because when they had been dating, she and David had tried not to kiss like this, lest they fall into temptation, and then after they’d been married, he was so excited to get her naked, to get inside her, that kissing wasn’t really the point.
But right now, kissing felt like the point.
His lips and teeth and tongue were hungry as he wrapped his arms around her, enveloping her completely. She clung to his shoulders, her toes lifting off the floor as he took the kiss even deeper.
She didn’t want to think. She didn’t want to overthink it, she didn’t want to moralize it. She didn’t want to decide if it was a mistake or growth or a step toward a future. She just wanted it to be. Not right or wrong, but just something that felt indescribably incredible.
She was the one who started tearing his clothes off. As she propelled them both through the living room, she stripped his shirt up off his body, gasping when her palm made contact with his muscular chest. Yes. Yes. Yes.
She wasn’t sure if she was saying that out loud or if she was only saying it in her head. If it was just a chorus playing over and over inside her or if it was overflowing into the moment. It didn’t really matter. She was beyond shame.
She couldn’t remember the last time she had wanted something because it felt good. That she had surrendered to pleasure.
Maybe never. Just like these deep, long kisses, maybe the answer was never. Maybe this was the first.
She was only dimly aware of him taking her shirt off, undoing her bra and leaving it somewhere in the hall as they stumbled to her bedroom. He growled, curses on his lips as he drew back and looked at her body, as he lowered his head and started to kiss his way down her breasts.
She pushed her fingers through his hair as he sucked one tightened bud into his mouth, and pleasure exploded in her midsection.
This was losing control. This was giving in to temptation. This was that fast and furious roller coaster of desire straight to hell.
But she wasn’t afraid. This was it. She finally knew. She finally understood. What it was to be reckless. What it was to want beyond the limits of your own propriety.
What a gift.
She had been wandering in the desert for way too long.
She had thought everything was okay. She had thought that the number of days she and David had sex a week spoke to the health of their marriage. That lying down and giving him what he wanted was the secret to a happy life, but she hadn’t been enough. It hadn’t been enough.
This felt like more than enough. It wasn’t about sacrifice or duty or doing what she was supposed to. It was just about desire. Her desire. It rocked her world; it remade her into something new.
There was no sound in the room but their breathing, rustling clothes, his belt being whipped through the loops on his pants.
The zipper came down, but she only managed to push his pants partway down his hips.
He had her lying on her back, totally naked, his hands between her legs as he teased and tormented her, heightening her arousal to near-untold proportions.
Then he replaced his hand with his mouth, and she went up in flames, his hold on her bruising as he forced her hips down onto the mattress, forced her to surrender to the never-ending pleasure he was showing her.
It was about her, this moment, and yet it was clear he was enjoying it. It wasn’t a sacrifice. It wasn’t something he was doing to just try to get her off easily, a once-a-very-special-occasion act that existed only to trade for the reverse.
No, he was acting like this was the journey and the destination all rolled into one.
She came on a harsh cry, and he kissed his way up her body, draping her leg over his hip as he thrust into her, and she clung to his shoulders as he carried them both to the finish line. As he brought her to the peak yet again just as he cried out his own release.
“Oh, dammit,” he said, his voice rough. “I didn’t use a . . . a condom. I’m sorry . . .”
“I’m on the pill.” She felt slightly dizzy.
There were other considerations to think about when you hooked up with people you didn’t know.
Considerations that had never been a part of her life, never been a part of her reality except .
. . Well, she had been sleeping with a man who was sleeping with other partners, so the truth of the matter was, if David hadn’t been practicing safe sex . . .
She swallowed hard. “I’m fine, I think. My husband . . . He was cheating. But I saw a video of him screwing somebody else, and he was wearing a condom, so at least there’s that.”
“Oh, Soraya . . .”
“Yeah. So, as long as you don’t do this all the time . . .”
“I don’t,” he said. “That’s why I didn’t even think of it.”
They looked at each other for a long moment, and she wondered. She wondered if he was like her. If he had come out of a long-term relationship. But he didn’t offer the information, and she didn’t feel like she could ask.
“I never really did the irresponsible-teenage-behavior thing, so I guess this was my moment.” She had expected to feel more embarrassed. But she wasn’t.
He smiled just slightly, lifted his hand, and touched her face. He didn’t run away.
“Are we still on for dinner?” she asked.
“Oh, definitely.”
She looked away. “We did this backwards.”
“I hope not, because that implies that this won’t happen after dinner too.”
She bit her lip and waited for an avalanche of guilt to drop on top of her, but it wasn’t there. It wasn’t there.
“I would like it to. As long as you do.”
“I definitely do, Soraya, make no mistake.”
“Good. Me too. I . . . I’ve never really dated. So I’m sorry if I’m bad at this.”
“What exactly do you think you’re bad at, because that was great.” He actually looked like he’d been hit over the head, and she couldn’t have received a nicer compliment.
“I was the good girl in high school. Boys weren’t really knocking down the door to get to me because they knew I wasn’t easy. Though it turns out I kind of am. All they would’ve had to do was carry a bag of groceries for me.”
“Here I was hoping I was a little bit special.” That made her chest feel tight.
Did he want this to be something other than just sex?
She had been so conditioned to believe that men who wanted sex like this, early and without strings, didn’t want a relationship.
That they didn’t want anything more than an orgasm and to forget your name.
“Well, you are,” she said. “I made my husband wait until he married me.”
He laughed, and she couldn’t tell if it was a shocked sound or an amused one. Maybe both.
“I should let you get to dinner,” he said.
“Yeah.” She was glad he didn’t want to stay.
Because she didn’t want him to spend the night, oddly.
She wanted her own space. She couldn’t .
. . The idea of spending the night with him made her feel claustrophobic.
She was just now figuring out living on her own.
She was figuring out sex for the sake of it.
It had been great sex. She was glad they were going out.
But it didn’t need to be more than that.
Not right now.
“Okay. I’ll see you in a couple of days.” He said it affirmatively, not like a question.
“Yes. See you then. If I don’t run into you in the hall first.”
Just thinking about that made her heart rate pick up. Because if they ran into each other in the hall, maybe they would kiss each other. Maybe they would end up back in bed.
The excitement, the open-ended nature of it, the spontaneity, all of that was so foreign to her, and it really excited her.
They both got dressed, and he kissed her before he walked out the front door.
She shut it and leaned against it for a moment, looking wistfully up at the ceiling.
She waited for the guilt to descend, and eventually it did, while she was cooking, along with a healthy dose of fear.
There were consequences for behavior like this.
She’d always been told there were, and she believed it.
It’s okay. You had sex. The world isn’t going to end. It’s not like you were a virgin.
No. She hadn’t been a virgin. But until tonight, she’d only ever been with David.
He was with other people.
If a video of her with Declan were to be played somewhere? Well, he wasn’t anyone’s husband. She wasn’t anyone’s wife. It might be embarrassing, but it wouldn’t break anything.
She’d wanted him. She had him.
If David got to behave that way, why didn’t she?
Well. She had.
Whatever the consequences were, they would be hers.
Whatever the consequences were, she would gladly accept them.
They would be a small price to pay for the best sex of her life.