Chapter 6
SIX
All of Me – Billie Holiday
He could have slowed things down. Asked if she was over Theo. Asked her what, exactly, she wanted from him. But he didn’t.
Dallas didn’t want to end up in some Pretty in Pink sequel, if one had ever been made, with him as Duckie, returning ten years later to finally win the girl.
But bad idea or not, Gabi Wilder was still the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen.
She had a stunning smile and a body that made it hard for him to breathe.
The fluttery skirt didn’t help, soft and long, skimming her hips.
Neither did the newly lightened hair curling around her face, different from the night at the festival in a way he had no business noticing and, as a guy, couldn’t begin to describe.
And then there was everything else. She was kind. A terrific mother, which hit him right in the heart. He genuinely liked her. Just as he had at sixteen, only this time he had facts to back up the attraction.
Dallas didn’t move fast. He couldn’t, not with the ankle.
But he grasped her hand before she could change her mind and pulled her around the piano.
Three uneven steps back, his good leg doing the work, until his back hit the wall beneath a poster of the circle of fifths.
“Hold me up, Sparkle,” he whispered, already lowering his mouth to hers.
Gabi cupped his jaw and rose to meet him, her lips parting beneath his.
The kiss caught fast, heat and urgency turning reckless, until they were pressed hard together in a classroom that smelled of chalk and floor wax. Not giving a damn where they were, Dallas wrapped an arm around Gabi’s waist and dragged her closer, using the wall for balance.
He only knew he needed to sate twelve years of hunger.
“I’m going to ruin you for anyone else,” she whispered, the dare sounding like a promise.
Then she made good on it, taking his earlobe between her teeth and biting down—and he was lost.
His hand found her waist, partly to steady himself.
Any intention of being careful lasted about half a second before his palm slid higher and closed over the plump curve of her breast. She made a sound against his mouth, one hand braced on his hip, the other fisted in his shirt, pulling him closer, shaking his precarious balance.
He should have been thinking about how little he really knew her.
That he was leaving in two months. That applause was rolling down the hallway, signaling the end of the play.
Instead, Dallas thought about the tiny freckle above her lip, her fingers hooked in his belt loop, and the way she pressed her nipple against his palm as if she’d been waiting for him to touch her there.
Gabi’s unleashed passion stole his words, and he never lost those.
The distant murmur from the auditorium, their increasingly ragged breaths, and the hum of the fluorescent lights gave way to the current racing between them. Her heeled boots gave her just enough height to tuck into him, and when she rocked closer, grinding slow and deliberate, his body went tight.
It occurred to him as he was about to pop his button-fly that she might not have been with anyone since her divorce. That he might be going too fast. “Have you…since?” he asked against the curve of her neck.
Her head tipped back, and she hummed a reply that tunneled beneath his skin.
He took it for a no.
But then—
“Only one.” The words skimmed his lips.
Lust surged through him, blood rushing south.
“Your first was…?” she whispered, her hand sliding between them.
She moved before he could answer, and his thoughts scattered, blown apart by the stroke of her hand over his cock. He still held her breast, thumb circling the tight peak of her nipple, and she uttered that soft, wrecked sound again.
“Nineteen,” he managed, his vision blurring. “College.”
Her eyes lifted to his, dusky brown in the fluorescent light. “So if we’d…that night on the bleachers, I would have been your first.”
“Yeah,” he murmured, the sweet, cruel ache of that nearly undoing him as his fingers tangled in her skirt and hauled it up, bunching the soft fabric at her hip. “And before you ask, I would have said yes.”
She caught her bottom lip between her teeth and worried it for half a second. “I’m guessing you’re way past two.”
“Stop thinking,” he murmured, sliding his hand beneath her skirt.
Her panties were damp, and the catch in her breath when he touched her burned through him.
He trailed his lips along the curve of her neck, stopping at the frantic pulse beneath her ear.
She smelled like vanilla and something spicy he wanted to commit to memory.
Later—tomorrow, when he remembered this every two seconds—it would strike him how much the experience suited the setting. School choral room. Bad lighting. Breathless need. The kind of reckless desire he hadn’t felt in years.
Yet, there was nothing adolescent about Gabi. Her leg rose high on his hip, making it easier to push aside the thin strip of what felt like a thong to reach her. The way she sucked the end of his tongue between her lips when he thumbed her sex almost ended him right there.
He was overcome, overwrought, every rational thought lost beneath sensation.
She whimpered softly, and that was when he had to ask.
“Are you sure, Sparkle? We don’t have much time.”
“I’m sure.” She caught his jaw, dragging him into a convincing kiss. “It’s been two years and—”
“Come for me, then,” he said, stealing a glance at the door to make sure they were alone.
Considering his delicate balance and the fact that Gabi still had her hand over his dick, Dallas did the best he could, sliding a finger inside her while he kept pressure on her clit. This was not the time for finesse.
His erotic payback: he watched her beautiful face the entire time.
So he knew when she was close, lids fluttering, kiss broken, conversation finished. It was devious—but he was worried about getting her into trouble if they were found—to growl: “I want to fuck you standing up, go so deep we scream.”
It was also true.
In reply, she nipped a sensitive spot above his collar and shattered in his arms. She came hard, forcing him to catch the back of her head, press her mouth to his chest to muffle her cries.
And he did the one thing he suspected other guys missed: he stayed with her until the shuddering, gasping end, until she begged him to stop.
Only then did he remove his hand, let her skirt fall to the floor.
Footsteps sounded in the hallway. “Shit,” Dallas whispered, catching her hand as he hobbled into a small room off the main space, cluttered with folding music stands, instrument cases, and stacks of photocopied sheet music.
“I must be out of my mind,” he said, peering around the doorway. Mostly to himself, because Gabi’s crooked smile had gone dazed. “My crutches are out there.”
She giggled, her breathing uneven. “Don’t worry, I’ll make up an excuse if we get caught. This town thinks I’m a good girl. It’s a curse.”
“They have no idea how wrong they are.” He eyed the distance to his crutches, swallowing against the chalk dust in the air. “Don’t bother with the hair,” he said as she fluffed it. “Trust me, you look undone.”
“Undone,” she repeated in a dreamy purr. “Such a writer, Hotshot.”
He had no more control over himself than he did over her. Turning, Dallas cradled her face in his hands and kissed her until they were both shaking.
“My cast is coming off on Thursday,” he whispered against her lips.
“And that means?” she whispered back.
He shrugged, not sure what it meant beyond the fact that he’d be more agile in a boot.
Gabi trailed a finger down his chest, her eyes glowing in the dim light, sending a jolt of longing straight through him. “That thing you whispered at the end.”
I want to fuck you standing up, go so deep we scream.
Dallas exhaled softly, hoping he hadn’t shocked her. It seemed he had a tendency to talk dirty in the moment with her. “I remember.”
“Sam is with his grandparents Saturday night.”
Two things hit him at once. Well, three. Fondness, terror, and furious, all-consuming lust.
“What’s going on up there, Dallas True?” She gently tapped his temple.
“You’re going to make me tell you, aren’t you?”
“I have questions, yes,” Gabi said with a knowing smile. “Lucky for you, I also have answers.”
The noise in the hallway grew louder, teenage laughter drifting closer.
The last stragglers, lingering long after the theater crowd had cleared out—the exact kind to go looking for trouble and talk if they found a certain couple in a compromising position.
But Dallas was trapped. With crutches, he’d only slow her down.
“My cottage. Saturday. Dinner.” Dallas gave Gabi a little shove toward the main room. “Believe it or not, Sparkle, I’m an excellent cook.”
He pointed to the door he remembered leading to the senior parking lot and waited until Gabi slipped out, one hand pressed over her mouth to smother her delighted laugh. Her cheeks were rosy from her ride on his fingers, and her scent was all he had left.
Damn, but he liked that.
In the hallway, the voices drew closer, sneakers squeaking on tile, laughter bouncing off the lockers. Probably clustered around the payphone he needed to use to call for a ride.
Dallas glanced at his crutches, then at the fire alarm beside the door.
“My therapist also says I have issues with impulsivity,” he murmured to no one, and pulled it.