Falling for the Opposition: An New Adult Enemies to Lovers Romance

by Lola West

  I loved being under his spell. I felt his energy like a palpable thing, like his confidence was caressing me, traveling, circling and stirring desire inside me like I was a fire and he was stoking me. He was everywhere. I felt bare and bold and raw. I wanted to be stripped naked before him, offer myself up for the taking. And there was no doubt he was wild for me. He felt my need for him rolling off me in waves, like I was drowning him in the wanton aching desire to feel his hands on my skin.

  “Absolutely, my pleasure. We’re always here if you need us.” He paused for her to speak. And then finished with, “Take care, Sue.”

  He took the phone from his ear, hit the end button, and put it on the counter without breaking eye contact. Neither one of us moved.

  “Lua?” he asked, his voice deep and calm, unshakeable.

  I nodded my head. My heart was sprinting, pounding in my ears and my chest.

  Quietly he said, “I’m going to make this simple. If you don’t walk away by the time, I finish talking, then I’m going to cross this distance between us, and I’m gonna kiss you. No, actually I think I’m going to fucking devour your face.” He smiled, the big silly toothy grin from the bed in New York.

  I giggled, I think, but I didn’t move. I thought he’d confirm with me, but he didn’t. He took two large steps, and then his hands were on my face and his lips were pressing against mine, but there was nothing virginal about his intentions.

  Kissing Drew was dirty. It was primal and rude. It was always all teeth and tongues and clashing lips. It was panting and groaning and grabby hands. But just like in New York, Drew didn’t seem rushed. Intense, absolutely. But he had this intoxicating way of kissing me like he could just kiss me forever and that would be enough. It was almost spiritual. People always describe kisses as invasive. They say, “His tongue invaded or conquered or assaulted my mouth.” But Drew’s tongue danced with mine; it didn’t feel like he was dominating me. It felt like he was uniting us, igniting us. Our kiss felt like a sacred vow, an oath penned in the power of months of pent-up need, our mutual need. Our kiss was deep and hard, unrelenting, unflinching, and unstoppable. It was desperate and resigned. It was declarative. But it was also us giving and wanting, needing to feel each other, desperate to be connected, to be physically linked. It was like we were claiming each other through this wild visceral animalistic ritual of meshing mouths.

  Over time, Drew shifted his weight forward and backed me up so that my bottom was pressed against the wall behind me. He threaded one of his thighs between mine, putting pressure against my core. The contact was subtle, but it was enough to break me from the rhythm of our kiss. My head dropped back, pressing into the wall, and I moaned. Drew gripped my ass with one hand, pushing me deeper against him, and then he began to kiss my neck. Cool, wild bolts of delight flooded from each spot he kissed, coursing through my body, right to my core, like white-hot lightning. His lips moved toward the nape of my neck, and then he was growling in my ear.

  “Holy fuck, Lua. I missed the taste of you. I missed your hot, wet mouth. Those little sounds you make…”

  A huge smile spread across my face. I longed for him too, hungered for him, really. And there was no doubt when he touched me, I only wanted him to touch me more. I wanted to lose my mind with him. I wanted everything. I wanted hours of hot, sweaty nakedness. I was hard-pressed to admit it, but I’d spent more than enough time daydreaming about touching Drew, feeling his hands on my skin, his mouth on my mouth, his cock buried inside me. My need for him was like a sickness, a parched unquenchable thirst.

  And I wanted to drink.

  Drew kissed me again, achy, voracious kisses. I pushed my hands up under his shirt, running my fingers over his abs. His hips jumped, rutting against me, and I felt his dick, fat and hard, so hard. Knowing how much his body wanted mine made me feel frazzled with need. He had me pinned against the wall so all I could do was beg.

  “Drew,” I croaked out, “Please… I…” I tried to reach for the button on his jeans. I wanted to feel him hard in my hand, feel it surge at my touch, stroke the satin over steel and hear him cry for more. He stopped me. Moved my hand down so that I gripped the bulge beneath his jeans.

  “Do you feel that?” he asked. I did, but I wanted his skin. His mouth was back at my ear. “Do you feel what you do to me? How much I want you?” He moved from my ear and sweetly kissed my forehead. Then he jerked his hips against my hand and shuddered, releasing a rough groan. The sound of his need reverberated straight to my throbbing center and he seemed to know that. His forehead was pressed against mine; he wasn’t kissing me. We were just panting, hard, humid, comingling breaths. First, he cupped my pussy over my leggings, and then before I could think, his hand was under the hem of my panties and slipping between my folds.

  As he felt me, slick, wet, and wanting, he groaned again. Through a smile I teased, “Surprised I want you too?”

  In response he kissed me, chaste this time, and then as he pushed his fingers inside me, he said, “Can I kiss you”—he shifted his fingers inside me to indicate—“here?” There was an ache in his voice like he was desperate.

  I didn’t answer him. I was surprised. I was surprised that he asked, that he didn’t just take. I was surprised how he asked, so gently. I was also surprised that he really wanted to do that. I’d tried oral sex with Lucas; it felt nerve-racking and intimate, and while Lucas had no issue with blow jobs, cunnilingus wasn’t really our thing. Honestly, maybe it was because we were novices or maybe Lucas didn’t know what he was doing, but when I was with Lucas, I didn’t get why women loved oral sex. And yet standing there in that moment, I couldn’t think of anything I wanted more than to see Drew bury his face between my legs.

  He ran the pad of this thumb over my clit and I quaked.

  “Can I, Lua? Can I taste you? Can I feel you come against my tongue?”

  I still didn’t answer. In response, he gently pulled his fingers from inside my pants and brought them to his lips. It should have been gross, profane, or off-putting. But instead, it was shockingly erotic. His eyes fluttered closed and he sucked his own middle and pointer fingers like he was tasting the nectar of gods. A look of utter ecstasy crossed his face. Our lips were still inches from each other, and I could smell my sex on him. Honestly, it was deliciously indecent. My skin flushed from head to toe.

  After that, he didn’t wait for an answer. He dropped to his knees before me and pulled his shirt over his head. I slipped off my flats and tucked my thumbs under the waistband of my leggings, pushed them down, and stepped out of them. The air in the kitchen was cold on my bare legs. I didn’t take off my underwear just yet because even in the moment, naked felt vulnerable. Drew had touched my pussy, but I’d never stood naked before him.

  He sat on his knees in front of me, looking up. We stared at each other again, only this wasn’t the intense eye to eye lock from earlier in the night. This was a perusal.

  He was exquisite, the thick dark hair, the sculpted jaw, his strong, wide shoulders, and the intensity of his insatiable gaze. And I saw that, the raw masculine beauty of him, but I also just saw him, Drew Scott, the deeply complicated man that I was insanely taken with, and I wanted to do this with him, to cross the lines, to be intimate in a way that would complicate everything.

  In a somber and reverent whisper, he asked, “Will you take off your shirt for me, Lua?”

  I nodded, lifting the fabric over my head. When I was standing before him in only my bra and panties, he lifted his right hand and stroked my waist. Then he sat up a touch, closed his eyes, and rested his cheek against my soft belly. His hands stroked my back, my ass, my thighs. I ran my hands through his hair, massaging his scalp, and he held on tighter, pulling my hips flush to his neck and shoulders. A tiny almost sad sound sighed out of him, and then he turned his head and kissed the spot below my belly button. Every one of his movements felt unhurried and almost meditative.

  His hands drifted from my waist to my ass and slowly he rolled my panties down over
my hips. His touch was consistent; his hands never left my skin, dragging my panties all the way down to my ankles. I stepped out of them and he tossed them aside. Then he let his left hand drift up from my ankle, over my calf, gently cascading up my left thigh. The movement was languid, desperately slow. I felt literally swollen with need.

  As he reached the apex of my thigh, I leaned back against the wall and dropped my head back. Looking up at the ceiling, I sucked in a nervous breath. I was scared. I was scared of this act, scared that I wouldn’t like it, scared that I’d like it too much. I was scared of what this moment meant, scared that I wanted this intimacy with him, knowing full well there were no guarantees for us. I was scared that I was losing myself in this un-thrive-like world, but most of all I was scared that this moment would pass. I was scared that Drew and I were only a moment, that life was going to be a series of achingly broken beautiful moments like this one and that I would be so afraid of the pain that I’d miss them. Because when it came right down to it, for whatever reason, Drew was etched into my skin. Even if was just a fleeting moment, it was sacred. So, screw scared. I survived my last tussle with Drew. I’d survive this too.

  “Lua?” Drew questioned, an echo of my anxiety in his voice, because somehow, he always read my fear like that. “We don’t have to do this.”

  I tipped my head back down, reached out, and ran my fingertips down his jawline. “I want to. I’m nervous, but I want this.”

  He stood up abruptly and kissed me again. Only this time it was really gentle, soft, buttery, closed-eyed, bare-chested kisses. When we stopped kissing, I thought he was just going drop down to his knees again, but he pressed his forehead to mine one more time and said, “I’m literally shaking, Lua.” He lifted his hand to show me his trembling fingers. “This is the scariest moment of my life to date.”

  I knew I mattered. Since the first moment, I always mattered to Drew. But when it came to moments like this, he always seemed so solid, so secure. Sometimes I forgot that he spent his whole life being trained to hide everything he felt. Whatever we were, we mattered to each other.

  Rather than drop to his knees, he licked, kissed, and caressed his way south. Each swirl of his tongue left a trail of goose bumps in its wake, over my collarbone, dipping into my cleavage, down my ribs, a circle around my belly button. I could hardly catch my breath. When he reached my pubis, he ran his hand under my right thigh, bent my knee, and lifted my leg so it draped over his right shoulder. The anticipation of what was about to happen sent my pulse hurtling. He kissed the inside of my thigh, dragged his tongue flat and thick along my skin, and reminded me of the ice cream incident in New York. I giggled and then nervously looked down at him.

  He smirked at me. “Am I funny?” he asked.

  I started to answer but lost my train of thought when he parted my labia with his left hand and then made a slow circle around my clit. That first stroke of his tongue was slow, but once he had a taste, he seemed to lose control. His left hand curled over my hip and gripped my ass cheek and he pulled me toward him. My back was still against the wall, but my pelvis was angled toward his mouth. He licked me with the flat of his tongue from top to bottom, and then he took my clit into his mouth and sucked.

  I think I died. Like for a few seconds, I lost contact with my conscious mind. And then I heard myself. I wasn’t screaming or anything, but I was panting and whimpering. I had my hands buried in his hair and I was rolling my hips against his chin. Pleasure was coiling in the pit of my stomach; my nipples were hard; all the muscles in my pussy were pulled taut, and I could tell what was coming for me was more than I had ever known before. I wanted him to know.

  I gasped his name. “Drew, oh God… Drew. Drew.”

  My voice mewing his name must have pleased him because he hummed in response, and the vibration intensified the rush of his mouth on me. I gasped again, and he drove his fingers inside me and dragged the edge of his teeth against my most sensitive peak. The pressure started to crest. Right before I lost all restraint and drove my hips against his fingers and his face, I looked down. He was watching me, and it was his eyes on mine that drove me over the edge.

  I had orgasmed in my life. I understood why people used metaphors like fireworks and explosions to describe coming. But this was something different. It was physical; there was a contraction and a release, but it was more than that, almost like I felt it on an atomic level. A flood of complete euphoria, like I connected to my body in a way I never imagined before. I knew all my neural pathways, felt the network of them spindling through my body. This orgasm wasn’t like fireworks; it was like grace. For a few moments everything ugly I’d ever known lifted, and all I knew was pleasure. Drew gave me that.

  29

  Drew

  Lua.

  Lua.

  Lua.

  Lua everywhere.

  Lua laughing.

  Lua moaning.

  Lua shivering.

  Lua gasping.

  Lua in my hands.

  Lua in my mouth.

  Lua on my tongue.

  Lua coming.

  Lua coming so hard that I think I literally broke her.

  Lua so exquisite that I know I broke myself.

  After she came, Lua started shaking. She slid down the wall, fell into my lap, and then I realized she was crying. Not like weeping but there were tears running down her face and they weren’t stopping. I cradled her in my lap, her arms draped over my shoulders, her face pressed into my neck. I held her, and then I cried too. Not like wailed, I just knew it was sad. That she was sad. That I made her sad. That we were sad. And also that it was bigger than that. Lua carried sadness, and it was heavy. Her sadness was maybe even as heavy as mine.

  I gently rocked her, pressing my lips to the hair on the top of her head. The phone on the counter rang. The trill of the phone startled her and all the soft, open, safe feelings of her body in my arms vanished, replaced by tension. She cleared her throat, untangled herself from me, and stood up without making eye contact. Still naked but for her bra, she reached for the phone that I had left on the counter. I took a deep breath, told myself that I had earned this, that the way she was acting was normal considering our history, my behavior, and that when she hung up the phone, I’d fix it.

  I stayed still on the floor and watched her move about the kitchen picking up and putting on her clothes with the phone pinned to her ear, listening and helping even while she must have been reeling inside. She still hadn’t looked at me. But I was sure I could fix it. I was different. She had changed me. She had made my world bigger. She had made me someone better. I saw everything through her eyes now and I wanted to be like her. I didn’t know how I was going to balance my father’s views and Lua’s, but I wanted to try. I wanted to fight for her. Maybe I even wanted to fight for myself, for the right to have my own thoughts, for my mom to have hers and Molly and James. I didn’t want to be Drew Scott, the senator’s son. I didn’t care about that anymore. I wanted Lua. No matter what.

  Someone was knocking on the S.A.F.E.’s front door, which was weird. In our previous fifteen nights together at S.A.F.E., no one had ever knocked on the door. Still on the phone, Lua stood on the opposite side of the kitchen from me. My back was to her. I stood up, pulled my t-shirt over my head, and faced her. I expected her to be dressed, and she was, sort of. She had her shirt wrapped around her midsection, covering her bra and her belly, leaving her back bare. Her hair, which had been tied up in a bun earlier, was wild now and it cascaded over her bare shoulders and made me want to kiss her there. She was talking, too fast, like she does when she’s nervous—and I was betting she just hadn’t had a chance to put the shirt on yet.

  The banging on the door intensified, punctuated by voices hollering. Lua looked up at me for the first time. I didn’t speak because she was on a call and wouldn’t want me to, but I smiled. I took a step toward her. She shook her head no and pointed in the direction of the doors and the banging. I felt sucker punched. I couldn’t help it
. I would have fucking died for her in that moment and she wouldn’t connect with me at all. I took a deep breath. I thought I could fix it.

  I made the effort to smile at her again, and then using my thumb, I pointed over my shoulder in the direction of the banging and shrugged a bit, trying to silently say, I’ll get the door, but I don’t want to get it. I want to be here with you. She looked away.

  The kitchen was tucked in the back corner of the S.A.F.E.’s first floor. Basically, I turned a corner and then walked down a long hallway to the front doors, which had large glass panes in them, so literally thirty seconds after I turned my back to Lua and stepped out of the kitchen, I knew who was at the front door fucking up my life—Conner and Pete.

  Even behind glass it was clear that were rowdy, and by rowdy, I mean drunk and possibly dangerous. I’m not implying that they’d hurt people per se, but definitely if they were at a pool party best leave your cell phone in the car, because these assholes were not going to consider the inconvenience of a drowned phone when pushing you into the pool. Even once they could see me coming, they continued to bang on the glass and shout my name like they were encouraging me to do a keg stand or win a food eating contest.

  “Drew… Drew… Drew… Drew… Drew…” When I turned the knob and opened the door, they erupted into cheers, clapping and dancing. You would have thought I’d just won the Super Bowl or something. They were ridiculous, and they smelled like ass. Really not good. They smelled like Cheetos, beer, and maybe rotten leaves. A part of me knew that they were just being my friends, but I was pissed. The last thing I wanted to deal with was these turds on my doorstep.