A Guy Walks Into My Bar

by Lauren Blakely

  “College.”

  I blink, drawing a deep breath. This is almost too much. What he’s giving me is a gift, and I want it to feel extraordinary for him. My hand skates over his erection. “Then I’ll need to spend a long, long time getting you ready.”

  He thrusts up against my fist. “I don’t object to that.”

  Savoring the feel of him in my hand, I kneel between his legs, his naked body on full display for me. My eyes drink him in, from the planes of his abs to the muscles in his thighs, then up to his powerful arms. His tattoos snake along his biceps, all those armbands and sunbursts, the edges of them visible as he parks his hands behind his head. He lets his legs fall open more, and I am undone with desire. It consumes me, even as it fills every cell in my body.

  This man feels like mine.

  Hell, he doesn’t feel like mine.

  Right now, Fitz is mine.

  I tighten my fist around him, the feel of his hot, hard length sending a wicked thrill down my spine. His moans and yeses set alight a dozen fires inside me. After a few more mind-bending moments of stroking him, I let go so I can lube up my fingers and slide them against his ass, teasing him. He groans in anticipation as I push one in while my other hand focuses on his cock.

  “Yesssssss,” he growls as I rub my thumb against him at the same time, right where I know it feels amazing.

  After only a few seconds, his hips roll up, and he’s seeking me out, his body asking for more, more, more.

  I push farther.

  He’s tight and hot, and I relish every shiver and groan as I watch the pleasure ripple across his perfect body. My dick aches, hard and heavy between my legs, but my dick can wait.

  I want to make sure he’s ready.

  “More,” Fitz whispers, a plaintive plea.

  I add more lube, then slide in another finger. His jaw tightens, and his eyes squeeze shut. His cock twitches against my palm, the evidence of his desire on the head of his dick.

  His lips open, and he’s panting. “Fuck, babe, that’s so fucking good. I want you so much.”

  I bend down and kiss the tip of his cock, savoring the taste of him. “The feeling is mutual.”

  Fitz rocks his ass against my fingers. “Give me more.”

  “More mouth, more fingers? Be specific,” I tease, licking his shaft.

  “You cocktease,” he growls.

  “Just the way you like it.” I draw the head between my lips for a delicious suck before I add even more lube then give him the three-finger treatment.

  He writhes, letting loose a long “Oh fuckkkk.”

  The groans he makes as I thrust into him—obscene, carnal, the hottest sounds I’ve heard in my life—make my head hazy, my skin red-hot. I am burning everywhere for this man.

  He thrusts up against me with abandon, with wild need. “Dean,” he groans, his whole body begging me. “I need your cock. Please fuck me. Get in me, babe. Get in me now.”

  I combust into a roaring, five-alarm blaze.

  I pull my fingers out as he shoves the condom at me, desperate, aroused beyond words, and such a sight.

  I sheath myself, adding more lube to the condom, and settle in between his legs again, nudging them farther apart.

  For a second, I wonder if those are nerves flickering across his eyes.

  But no, it’s desire I see. Want. Lust. And so much need. As much as I have. As much as I feel.

  “Just tell me if it hurts,” I say gently. “Promise me, okay?”

  Fitz slides his hands over my chest. “I promise. But it’s not going to hurt. It’s going to feel fucking amazing.”

  I run a hand along his shaft as I press the head of my cock against his ass and push in a little bit. There’s a moment, I swear, when everything stands still. When I’m barely in him, and his eyes are wide, almost shocked.

  “Breathe,” I whisper as I move my body forward, my free hand braced on the bed by the side of his chest.

  He nods, takes a deep breath, then exhales. His eyes stay locked with mine as his hands settle on my abs, his fingers spreading over my hips as I go a little deeper.

  “Ohhh God,” Fitz grunts, and I stroke him again then sink in farther, his ass gripping me so tightly, so intensely, that I tremble all the fuck over. I let go of his length, setting both palms on the bed.

  His fingers curl around my hips, and he’s holding on tight, caught between pleasure and pain.

  “Say the word, and I’ll stop,” I say, calm and soft, letting him know I’ll listen to his needs, what he can take, what he can’t.

  “Don’t want you to stop,” he mutters. “Just give me a sec.”

  I bend my head, brushing a kiss across his jaw. He lets out a deep breath.

  Then another as I kiss his earlobe. “I’m not going anywhere,” I whisper.

  I can feel him relaxing under me a little more with each breath.

  My body heats, and I’m dying to move in him, but I’ll wait till he gives me the word.

  I raise my head, and I do wait for him.

  Until he’s ready.

  Fitz lets out a low moan, easing me closer with his hands. “I need you so fucking much,” he says, answering me with words then with actions. In a split second, his hands take full control of my hips, and he jerks me close, driving me deeper into him. More than halfway now.

  “Oh fuck, babe. That’s so fucking good,” he rasps.

  I can’t even speak. It’s more than good. It’s out of this world. It’s in another solar system, as his ass grips my cock in the most intense sensation ever.

  Pleasure sizzles across my skin, and I’m a live wire, burning and sparking.

  Fitz breathes out hard, then meets my gaze, his lips parting. “All of you. Gimme all of you.”

  As I sink inside him, his legs wrap around me. I lower myself so I’m inches from his chest as I bottom out in him.

  Nothing exists but him and me and us.

  And this.

  This intoxication of a long, slow slide into him and the look in his eyes as he takes me all the way at last.

  The sound on his lips . . . Yes.

  His body lifts, rolls, and arches against me. He’s so fucking sexy, so beautiful, his cock thick and long, jutting between us.

  Reaching down with one arm, I hook his right leg tighter around my body.

  As I start to thrust into him, reality slams into me—I won’t last long. It feels too good, too perfect.

  He is too much of what I want. He is all I want.

  He is it.

  The shattering truth of that clobbers me. There is no more falling. The falling is done, and I’m here.

  I’m in love with James Fitzgerald, this man I didn’t even know a week ago. And now he’s the only one I want.

  Desperately. Everywhere. In my body, in my mind, and, inconveniently, in my heart.

  Focus on the physical, I tell myself as I stroke in, out. I try to form words of sex, so I don’t stupidly blurt I’m in love with you in the middle of fucking him. My voice comes out rough, gravelly. “Everything good for you?”

  “You’re good for me,” he murmurs, so open right now, so vulnerable, and it’s cracking open something inside of me, a piece of my heart that I can’t afford to lose to him.

  But I lost the battle.

  Days ago.

  I didn’t want to feel this, but this couldn’t be stopped. I feel it all. I feel everything, even as I try my damnedest to focus on the physical.

  On the heat. On the burn. On the tightness of his viselike thigh muscles wrapped around me. I focus on the hard planes of his abs, his chest, the thickness of his cock between our bodies.

  The way his body seeks me out. Asks for more.

  And his hands too, gripping my ass as I rock into him, squeezing like he needs me deeper in him, so much deeper.

  I rise a bit, sliding a hand between us to take his shaft in my palm. The second I touch him, he’s moaning and groaning, but shaking his head too. “You can’t do that yet. I’m going to come s
o fucking hard if you touch me. Want this to last, babe.” Fitz shoves my hand off him, then pushes up on his elbows, getting closer to me. “I need to kiss you. Kiss me while you fuck me.”

  Wildfire spreads through me from the intensity of his words, his gaze. How can I resist him? I’ve never been able to. Even when I tried, I couldn’t. I can’t resist anything with him, with this man who strutted into my life and insisted on me. Who chased me, challenged me, found me.

  And found my heart too.

  As my hips swivel, my cock throbs inside him, aching for release, but I fight it off as he grabs my head and pulls me to him. He attacks my mouth ferociously, fucking me with his tongue as I fuck him with my cock.

  His pulsing shaft is hot and hard, pre-come slicking between us. The feel of him like this, near the edge, sends bolts of lust down my spine.

  Fitz slows the kissing for a second, murmuring against my lips, “I love kissing you so much. Gonna miss it so much, babe.”

  “Me too,” I whisper, feeling too much, wanting too much.

  I’m on the edge of the world right now. My body is nothing but pleasure, nothing but bliss.

  My mind enters a wonderful, ecstatic haze as I move in him, rock my hips, stroke deeper.

  “I love fucking you,” Fitz says with another hard kiss. “But I love this too. You fucking me. Want it again and again.” His hands grab me harder, while his legs grip me so damn tight. “Just love it all,” he whispers between bites and deep, hard kisses.

  He’s not saying certain words exactly.

  But it hardly matters. I feel them deep in my chest. And I know in my heart, I absolutely know what’s happening. I hate it, and I love it too. I love it so much.

  This connection.

  This incredible, intense intimacy that’s physical and so much more—more than two bodies smashing into each other. It skates far past chemistry and molecules and organs.

  We are in this.

  And I don’t know how we turn back.

  His face shifts with pleasure, like he’s breaking.

  “Babe,” he grunts. “I need to come.”

  He drops his hand from my head, grabbing his cock. The moment shifts back to the physical plane as I swat his hand away.

  “I’ll get you there,” I say, feeling possessive, needing to take him over the edge. Wanting to be the only one to ever do this to him, for him, with him.

  And I do. I stroke him as agony twists his features—mine too, while I try to stave off my release. But it’s pointless because he’s growling and grunting, and his sounds unleash my own pleasure.

  “Yes. Coming,” he says, and I watch as he explodes with desire, come spurting in jets over his stomach, up his chest. The sight of it pushes me over the edge. My own pleasure detonates, searing my blood, torching my veins, and taking over my whole being.

  I groan, as my climax blinds me in an electric neon haze until both of us are gasping for air.

  I sink onto him as he kisses me.

  “I love kissing you,” he whispers again and again, like he can’t not say it, like he can’t stop doing it. “Love it so much.”

  It’s all he’s saying, but I know what he’s not saying. I know what he’s feeling because I’m feeling it too.

  “I love it so much too,” I tell him, and he loops his arms around my back.

  And we know.

  We both know what happened in such a short time in London after the night he walked into my bar.

  Trouble is, I have no clue what happens tomorrow when he gets on that plane.

  But I have to figure it out.

  In the middle of the night, while Fitz is sound asleep and I’m unable even to nod off, I look up flights. I look up details. I run through scenarios.

  I chase every possible permutation, and I make a list in my head of pros and cons.

  I feel both hopeful and ridiculously foolish.

  And then hopeful again as I look at Fitz, his chest rising and falling, his breath coming in that steady, peaceful rhythm.

  Softly, without waking him, I run a hand over his hair, flashing back on the last few days, remembering Sunday at Fortnum & Mason when we laid down the law.

  This is just a fling. Nothing more, I’d told him.

  I’d believed it fervently that afternoon. It had felt like a fact, like nothing would change it.

  We could police our emotions.

  We could make the rules and never break them.

  I shake my head, silently laughing at the two of us. How little it took for us to bend.

  I set my phone down, trying once more to sleep.

  But then I remember what he said that day. It slams back into me with the force of a hurricane.

  My job is everything to me because it means I can take care of my family. Make my mom’s life easy. Give her all the things she never had when we were growing up.

  That’s the heart of the problem. I care about him too much to get in the way of his everything.

  THURSDAY

  Also known as the day we say goodbye.

  36

  Fitz

  Dean keeps his word.

  He makes breakfast the next morning—a mushroom omelet with fresh-cut strawberries on the side—and my stomach is in heaven.

  “I will never mock you for cooking club again,” I say as I sit, setting down my coffee.

  Then I wince.

  Dean arches a brow above his cup of tea. “A little sore?”

  I laugh lightly. “Yeah. Someone I know is kind of well-endowed.”

  He sits across from me, smirking. “Sorry. Not sorry.”

  I tap my left pec. “No regrets, babe. No regrets. It’s a good sore.”

  His fork dives into his breakfast, and he takes a bite, chews, then swallows before he adds, “You know, there’s one surefire way to deal with that predicament.”

  My nose crinkles. I don’t want to hear about weird remedies. Call me suspicious. “And what is that?”

  Dean leans a little closer. “Do it again.” He takes another bite. “And again.” One more bite. “And again.”

  Admittedly, I could go for that. “There’s only one little problem with that cure.”

  “Your incessant need to top?” he asks with an arch of his brow.

  “No,” I say emphatically. “Also, hello? It’s not incessant at all. Do I or do I not recall your dick in my ass last night?”

  Dean pretends to consider this deeply. “What do you recall about it?”

  I move closer to Dean. “I recall loving every single second of it,” I say, and his eyes darken, locking with mine.

  “Every second?”

  “Every single second,” I repeat, a little surprised at the strength of my own reaction to him topping me, at my own desire to try that again, to explore that possibility with him in bed, something I honestly never wanted with anyone else. “I did.” I slide my hand over his, running my finger over the veins, a spate of nerves reappearing briefly in my chest. But fuck them. Fuck those nerves. I shed them like I do in games—there’s no place for nerves in my world. “I want to again.”

  “You do?” His voice sounds raspy.

  I swallow, then nod. “I do. With you. Only with you. It felt fucking incredible.” I run my thumb along his knuckles. “But I don’t think it was just the physical.”

  “It wasn’t . . .” he says.

  I have to finish the thought. I’m the one who set that rule— of how we would be in the bedroom.

  I required control.

  I’ve needed control in the bedroom because it gave me control of my identity, control over how I was seen, some kind of control over my career.

  But I don’t need to control everything with Dean, and there’s one reason for that. “No. It wasn’t just physical. It’s . . .” I stop, breathe in, dig deep into my fears, but face them anyway, speaking from the heart. “It’s because I trust you.”

  He turns his hand over and holds mine. “You should trust me.”

  I do. More than I expe
cted to. And it feels damn good. “So what are we going to do about it?”

  Dean’s lips quirk up. “Of your newfound interest in switching?” He grins wickedly. “Explore the fuck out of it.”

  I laugh, shaking my head. “Dickhead.”

  “You’re so sweet, Fitz. Don’t let anyone tell you you’re not sweet. Because you’re the sweetest.”

  “Switching is easy. I’m talking about the big issue.” I gesture broadly, like that can encompass the endless miles between London and New York. “The nearly four-thousand-mile thing. Because that’s the real problem with your proposed cure for my new affinity for switching,” I say, then take another bite of this decadent meal. “Also, dude, you can cook.”

  “Thank you.” Dean takes a bite too, then finishes before he adds, “And it’s three thousand, four hundred, and fifty-nine miles. To be precise.”

  I murmur my appreciation for his due diligence, then do my favorite imitation of him. “Is that so?”

  “And about six hours and fifty minutes by plane,” he adds.

  I set down my fork, raise my coffee cup, and take a long drink, then give an appreciative hum. “Someone has been doing research.”

  “You said it yourself. I’m the thinker.”

  “Did you make a pros and cons list too?” I return to my breakfast, but as I lift a forkful of strawberries, I have the strangest sensation—sort of like déjà vu, but not quite. It feels like I’m remembering something that is going to happen. Or rather, that I can start to see it lying ahead, like when I envision the trajectory of objects on the ice.

  “Sometimes I make pros and cons lists,” Dean answers. His voice is distant as my mind latches onto this image. It’s hard to make out—the picture is hazy around the edges—but it feels like something I want.

  I shake my head, trying to make sense of my brain. “Do you ever have forward vu?”

  “Come again?”

  I make a rolling stay with me here gesture. “Like déjà vu, but for something that’s going to happen.”

  His brow furrows. “That’s a premonition. Are you having premonitions?” He sounds concerned.

  I shake my head adamantly. I probably sound crazy. “No. It was more like a feeling, a sensation of something that could happen.”