He took her hand and led her down the short hallway, pointing as they went. “Andres’s room, bathroom, and here’s the master. And no, I’m not. I like your directness, and also you’re really sexy. The bra is delicious.”
“I didn’t wear it for you.”
“Never said you did.” He shucked off his jeans and socks.
She stopped unzipping her shorts and ran her palm over his bulge. He throbbed at her touch. “Okay. I lied. I thought you might like it.”
He pushed down her shorts, lifted her to wrap her legs around his hips as she kicked free of them. It brought his cock to her center, her breasts within reach of his mouth. Rachel reached back to unhook the bra, which thrust her that much closer. He stumbled towards the bed, too caught up sucking at the tight whorls of her nipple to be aware of things strewn in his path. The bed wasn’t far, and they bounced onto it, landing with momentum that slid him along her body.
She yanked the bra off and tossed it aside, and he sat up, straddling her waist, loving the view of her flushed and open and eager between his legs. Loving even more the way she went straight for his erection, peeling down his boxers so she could wrap her fingers around his girth. Licking her lips as she stroked him.
Damn, he was a lucky man.
“How much time do I have?”
She squeezed. He moaned. She bit her lip, acting like she was considering the question. “Oh, I guess you have time to get through with me.”
He reversed them, propping her up and tugging her hips forward so he could nuzzle at her core.
After that, it was all limbs sliding and plenty of panting and all his nakedness touching all of hers. She ended up straddling him again, gripping his headboard, as he licked and explored and massaged and sucked her clit until she came. Crying out his praises, her pleasure, his name. The way she vibrated above him had his hips bucking in the air, ready to sink into her.
She grabbed a condom from the side table and pressed his shoulders down, kissing his jaw and neck and taking a bite at his chest that served to ensure his cock was rigid with need. All he wanted was to pump into this amazing, ferocious woman and find his release. He held it together while she smoothed the sheath over his length, but as soon as she set him free, he rolled them onto their sides and lifted her thigh over his hip so he could thrust in deep. Her eyes widened and he had no choice but to bracket her cheeks with his palms and kiss her, tender and triumphant at the same time.
Her arms roved his back and his ass as he pulsed into her, each thrust driving them each a little higher, winding them a little tighter. He slid a hand to her pelvis, fingers gripping to anchor them together, thumb straying back to her clit to pick up the circular rhythm that made her moans high and desperate and keen with need.
His own need was overpowering. It took staring into her eyes, stroking back her sweat-damp hair, forcing himself to realize she was on the edge of another orgasm to give him the strength to hold off until he earned the high of her shattering around him. And she was close. He could wait, because she was close, and her breasts pressed close against his chest, and her clit was wet and wide, and she threw her head back and panted out his name, and she came.
And she came, and his cock was buried deep and intimate inside her. And she came, and her muscles pulsed tight around him. And she came, and his balls pulled up tighter as she gripped him. And she came, and he came, their pleasure sounding around them.
His head crash-landed on his pillow, his arms tangled slack with hers. They both panted for so long, drifting on the bliss, and every time she opened her eyes, she laughed to find him watching her, and when he opened his, the bright joy of her sprawled flushed and sated beside him sent shivers up his spine.
“Hi,” she almost-whispered.
“Hey.”
“Hey.”
He aimed to form a full sentence. “How’re you?”
“Mmm.”
“Not a bad answer,” he said, smoothing her hair off her forehead. Every deity help him but she was beguiling.
“Not a bad fuck,” she said, and seemed to crack herself up. The laughter jarred their legs into a bigger tangle. He pulled her up tight against him, unwilling to lose the connection just yet. She played with his hair, sobering a little, and he took his chance.
“So can I take you for that coffee tomorrow?”
“Theo.”
“Rachel,” he said right back, but teasing instead of scolding. “It’s coffee. I’m not saying we should go announce our relationship to Sergei and the world.”
“Jesus, I hope not.”
Ouch. Her words, the way she jerked away from him. The wild look in her eyes. “Okay, okay. I said I wasn’t about to announce it.”
“Well, hell, Theo. I know Depy suspects something, but this isn’t—you’re not—I’m not looking for a boyfriend, okay? I’ve had a ton of fun.”
“That much I noticed.”
“Don’t be a smart-ass while you’re still half-hard inside me.”
He squeezed his eyes shut. Faced her again. “Okay. Fair point.”
Sighing, she pat at his chest in a way more patronizing than erotic. “You have clean towels? I should shower before we head back.”
He nodded and together they disentangled.
It wasn’t until they scooted to the edge of the bed that he noticed the broken condom.
They were overlapping echoes. Carbon copied racing pulses and wild looks and swiping at messes as if their hands could undo what their bodies had done.
“What the ever loving fuck?” she asked.
He asked, “How the hell?”
“This is so wrong,” she said.
He said, “I can’t believe this.”
By the time they’d showered and dried and dressed, they were moving almost in slow motion, though she at least felt like her brain was on double-speed. She joined him on his sofa. He had a little fenced yard, all landscape paths and containers and a patio set and a little pool. They stared out at it.
“I need to get back.”
He nodded. She saw the motion in her peripheral, and it somehow helped restore her balance.
She swallowed, and he leapt up to fetch her a glass of water, as well as one for himself. “Thanks.”
“Sure.”
He dropped his head to the back of the sofa, and it triggered her slump. She let the cushions encompass her.
“Okay, so first off, I’m clean. I know I told you that before, but in case you need. I don’t know. Reminding. Reassurance. I can go get a screening, though.”
His words removed another barrier to her drawing a deep breath. “Okay. That’s fine. I—me, too.”
When she looked at him, the furrows in his brow smoothed and he exhaled slow, almost smiling. “Right. Yeah, thanks, that’s good. We’re good there.”
She nodded. Ran her fingers up and down the cool ridges of the water glass.
“So I’ll drop you back to get Hannah, and swing by a drug store. Let me know when you’ve got her to bed, and I’ll bring over emergency contraception.”
She nodded some more. It was a sensible plan. It made sense. It was the fix they needed.
“Have you taken it before?”
“No. Have you?”
He chuffed out a laugh.
“I meant have you bought it before? Been with someone who needed it?”
“Oh. No. I have seen it on the shelf. I know what to get. I’m sorry, I should have asked. You don’t already have a pill at home or anything, right?”
She shook her head. “Nope. Never needed it. I’d knock on wood, but it’s too late for that now.”
Theo leaned her way, wrapped an arm around her. “No making jokes about wood now. Too soon.”
“That wasn’t what I meant.”
“I know. I’m off-kilter. So, listen. From what I know, the over the counter is fine, since we’re getting it right away. But if you’d rather get the prescription, I can go the pharmacy for you once you talk to your doctor.”
“I work at a hospi
tal.” She forced the wry note into her voice, but only so she wouldn’t burrow into his shoulder. “We have pharmacies on site.”
“Right. Sure. Of course.” His head shook once, swift. “Off-kilter. Is that better for you?”
“No.” She stood away from his dangerous comfort and warmth. “I’d rather take it tonight.”
He snagged his keys from the table by the door. She put their glasses on his precious kitchen countertop. It wasn’t until they were pulling back into Elixir’s parking lot that he disrupted her trance with a curse. “Fucking Sergei.”
His eyes were narrowed, and she got suspicious. “What does he have to do with it?”
He put the car in park, gripped the steering wheel. Let out a long sigh. “It’s not him. I’m throwing blame away from myself and that’s the first place it stuck.”
All the hard-earned chill that came with having a plan fizzled out. “Because without him you’d not have met me?”
Whip-fast, he shook his head. “Fuck no. That’s worth thanking him for, except it would be questionable at best and sexist as hell at worst. It’s the condoms.”
“Sergei gave you condoms?”
“No. Well, yes, but not just me. He keeps a stash of them for employees to grab. Or whoever.” Even in the near-darkness he must have seen her reaction. “It’s not as sketchy as it sounds. We’re not condoning whatever. Sex at work. He says it’s better to have them around, in case people make. You know. Hasty decisions.”
“Like we did.”
Theo thumped his head on the steering wheel. “It wasn’t. Well, yes, it was. I wanted it, but if I’d planned better....”
“Better?”
“Planned more carefully,” he amended. “If I’d gone about asking you out a little more gracefully, maybe I’d have remembered to buy some condoms of my own.”
“And instead you took from my ex-husband’s clearly dodgy supply.”
He closed his eyes.
Damn and hellfire. She hadn’t questioned their origin beforehand. It was on them both. She reached across the console to pat his shoulder. Breathed herself towards calm, ordered thinking. “Okay, look. It’ll take me an hour maybe to get her down. See you after that?”
When he leaned in to kiss her, she leaned in return. Kissed him back. And then she hustled out of his car, because she was only sure about one thing: her need to grab her daughter and retreat to the safe, familiar territory of home.
Chapter Fourteen
What trickster gods sent him on a quest for emergency contraception when it was not yet sunset?
Theo wasn’t ashamed. Frenetic, full of adrenaline kites swooping up and down his limbs. Still hanging on to his orgasm bliss. Sure he should rein it all in and settle down to the serious business of fixing the problem. After-dark feelings, all. Yet the horizon was barely orange, the clouds as white as they were pink, as he walked into the pharmacy.
It wasn’t his usual store, and he wasted ridiculous minutes pacing the aisles near the dispensary before he figured out that the family planning—ha—section was over by cosmetics instead. The sealed plastic boxes of levonorgestrel perched on the top metal shelf, up where they normally kept overstock. Only visible because he’d done an image search before going inside, and knew what he was looking for. He retrieved one. Name brand, because it would embarrass him to show up at her door looking like he was willing to risk conception by buying generic. Another item going into his basket: unexpired condoms. And because he was looking out for Rachel, not because it put him on edge to head to the checkout with nothing but items from the personal hygiene aisle, he grabbed some pain relief, some anti-nausea pills, a couple of cool bottled drinks. His phone search told him she might throw up and get headaches and dizziness and bleeding and tender breasts. Damn.
As if he could make up for his lack of preparation by getting all she might need after the fact. Well, all except for whatever she’d need for the tender breasts. His phone had no advice about treating those.
It was dusk, and the mosquitos sprang out of the shadows as he mounted the stairs to her apartment. He texted instead of knocking, hesitant to disturb Hannah’s bedtime. She wrote back “5 ok,” which he took to mean the bugs would get their fill of him before she unlocked the door. A pound of flesh taken out in milligrams of blood.
Her steps, approaching the door he leaned against. He knew they were hers, which added a layer of pathos to everything else. It wasn’t that he heard an adult tread and deduced it was hers; he recognized the firm and fast way she walked. He’d cataloged it, unaware of the data going into his brain’s ‘Rachel’ file. It ate at him that he didn’t know if the broken condom was the straw that would collapse the bridge they’d been building towards each other.
“Come on in.”
He toed off his shoes in her entryway. “She down?”
“Yeah. It’s okay; she’s good about staying in bed. I’m going to turn this on, though.” She clicked on the news, the volume high enough to disguise that the anchors weren’t the only ones speaking.
He looked towards the sofa, then the kitchen, and back at her. She tilted her head at the breakfast bar, so he set the bags there and began unpacking.
She took over one of them, and snorted as soon as she opened it. “Really?”
Of course the tricksters fixed it so the condoms were the first thing she touched. “I didn’t mean, you know, right now. I didn’t know if the other expired or wore out from heat or what. It seemed like a good idea to have some fresh. I left mine in the car.”
“You know if you leave yours in the car they’ll have the same problem with degrading.”
“I know.”
Her look was all kinds of skeptical.
“I did lots of googling while I was in line. I left my box in the car for now, but I’ll store it in my bedroom as soon as I get home.”
She held up the package of plain crackers. “Hungry?”
“It said you might get sick.”
She snorted. “Lovely.”
“Or headaches.” He gave her the boxes of meds. “You should take nausea meds now, then the contraception pill after your body has time to absorb it.”
“This gets better and better.”
“I can’t tell how mad you are.”
“I—” She closed her mouth and drew a long breath through her nose. “I’m not assigning blame. It’s just not how I expected to spend my evening.”
Theo glanced out the window above the sink. Finally, nightfall. “I know. It’s weird.”
She opened the crackers. “Want some?”
He shook his head, then changed his mind. “I forgot. Dinner.”
Her smile was more of a relief than he’d expected. “Don’t expect me to make you anything.”
“I won’t. I don’t.” He pointed towards her living area. “But, can we sit for a minute?”
She nodded. Nodded again. He stopped himself from gnawing his cheek as he followed her to the couch.
A breath to organize himself, then he plunged in. “I don’t want to—okay, I was about to say I don’t want to intrude, which seems weird given the situation. I’m trying to ask, can I stay with you tonight? On the sofa, or whatever you want. I got pretty anxious when I read up on the side effects and all, and I don’t think you’ll have any problems, but, in case.”
“Theo, that’s—”
“I know, you were already trying to brush off my attempts to get romantic before we went to my place. I’m not oblivious. And I’m not trying to be a creep. It’s got to be clear I want more than just a physical relationship with you. And if it’s not, I’ll be explicit—bad word choice. I’ll be plain about it.” He should stop rushing his words forward like they would dissolve if he couldn’t say them all at once. But it was impossible. “I like you, Rachel. I like you in a maybe too-intense way. I know you are trying to keep me at arm’s length. Emotionally, anyway. And maybe that’s not going to change for you, and maybe that means I have no chance for this to turn into something mor
e.”
He stopped long enough to trace back to the start of this soul-baring speech. He’d had a point, and was grateful she didn’t interrupt while he located it. “So all of that aside, is what I’m saying. I hope we can talk about it later on. But for tonight, knowing I’m not looking to push it towards anything else, can I stick around and make sure you’re okay? It would—I would really appreciate it.”
He made it hard for her to harden her heart, she’d give him that. Rachel ate a couple of crackers, downed them with a sip of sports drink. The snack, banal as it was, settled her nerves along with her stomach. “I called my friend Gillian on the way home. She’ll be here in half an hour or so.”
He straightened in a way she read as displeasure. “Oh.”
“She’ll stay tonight.”
He was nodding, though looking only at the television. Too glazed to be reading the news crawl or hearing the panel discussion.
Nothing about this situation meant she should rush to defend herself, or her friend. Still. He’d voiced all manner of feelings she didn’t want to address, and logistics talk was a good way to bury all of that under details.
“She’s bringing me some soup. She said soup was a good thing for me to have. Goes well with the crackers, huh? And she can take Hannah to daycare in the morning if I’m not feeling up to it. I was worried about that, you know? My neighbor, my friend, Mary Lynn. She lived next door. Once when I got real sick, a few times Hannah wasn’t well enough for daycare, she’s always the one I call to pitch in for a few hours. Called. Right next door, and Hannah loves her. But she moved, lives out of town now, and it’s okay.” What a pile of nerve-fueled rambling. “Gillian will come over. Her summer class doesn’t meet Thursdays. Or Tuesdays, either one. So we’re covered.”
“Do you think you won’t be? Okay in the morning, I mean? I can....”
“I’m sure I’ll be fine. But if there’s a problem, Depy won’t ask questions. She’ll pick her up after school and take the bonus night as if my being sick was the answer to her prayers. That’s what she usually does, anyway. Trust me, it doesn’t take much for her to jump in and take over.”
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