I take him as far as I can, my fist sliding over his base, and when I pull hard with my mouth, he inhales sharply. “Coming. God.”
He starts to pull out but explodes before he can, and I wrap my hands around his hips, holding him where he is, taking everything he gives me.
He finishes with a low, delicious groan of relief, the most gorgeous sound I’ve ever heard him make.
He’s breathing heavily as he collapses, his head on my chest.
“Holy shit,” he gasps. “I think I understand why your ex came so fast.”
Before I can laugh, he’s pulled my mouth to his and he’s kissing me hard, urgently, the same way he did between my legs. It’s not what we agreed to, and I just don’t care.
Once. It could mean one time, or it could mean one night. We can’t really make things worse, and...I want more. His mouth lowers, pulling at one nipple and the other. He’s already hard. I can feel him there, swollen against my inner thigh.
“Condom,” I gasp. He reaches toward his shorts, still hanging off his thighs and grabs his wallet. He tears the packet with his teeth and raises above me to roll it over his—predictably huge—length.
“Are you sure?” he asks, positioning himself between my legs. The way he’s looking at me right now—as if this is all he wants in the world, hits me deep in my gut. I feel empty for him, and my hips arch, pressing him into me before I’ve ever answered.
“Jesus, Tali,” he whispers. “I’ve wanted this for so fucking long.”
He thrusts inside me, and I’m suddenly full, so unbelievably full. My gasp is small, almost inaudible, but he hears it.
“You’re okay?” he asks. His voice is tight. He’s not moving, trying to let me adjust to his size.
“Yes.” I’m breathless as a sprinter. “God, yes. The, um, rumors were true.”
He gives a quiet, pained laugh, and then he begins to move. Push in, slow drag out. Repeat. I want to do this for the rest of my life. This and nothing else.
“It’s so fucking good with you,” he hisses, moving faster, his tight control starting to lapse. I love seeing him like this. I love that I’m capable of producing it in him, this lack of restraint. His fingers move to my clit, light but fast. He changes the angle of his hips and thrusts hard, hitting deep and in just the right spot.
“Aahh.”
Something opens up inside me, and no sooner has he begun than heat rushes up my body, my muscles stiffen, everything wound so tight I feel like I might snap in half.
“I’m gonna—” I gasp, and then I clench around him and my head digs backward. My back arches, pushing my breasts into his chest, intensifying my orgasm as I spasm around him, my core gripping him tight.
“Fuck,” he hisses, his thrusts jerky and hard and uneven and perfect. “Fuck, fuck, fuck.”
Finally, he’s still above me, breathing hard. When his eyes open, he looks as stunned as I feel. I’m not sure why. Surely this wasn’t as radically different for him as it was for me.
My God. To think I almost went through life without this. Without even knowing it could be this way.
His lips find mine once more before he flops to my side and pulls my head to his chest.
“I’ll show myself out,” I mumble against his shirt.
His chest rises with a quiet laugh. His arm tightens. “I knew you were going to say that.”
And then there’s silence.
I still want more. But he just came twice in a row, and he’s gone quiet...undoubtedly because he assumes I’m now planning our spring wedding and choosing our children’s names. Any minute now, he’ll say something to place distance between us, to remind me what this was.
The mere thought of it makes my stomach drop. I need to extricate myself before it happens. I don’t want this to be awkward for either of us.
I sit up and fix my dress. “I’d say ‘let’s do this again sometime’ but I know that’s not your M.O.”
“Rushing off?” he asks. “Am I the new Brad Perez?” It’s phrased like humor, but there’s a bite to it. As if it bothers him, when we both know I’m simply saving him the trouble.
“Who will kick me out in the morning if I’m not available to do it?” I ask, climbing to my feet. There’s this desperate thing inside me that wants him to say this is different, I wouldn’t kick you out, I want you to stay.
“I guess I deserved that,” he replies. It makes me feel guilty, like I aimed too low, but it’s not as if he’s stopping me. It’s not as if he can argue I’m wrong.
My tread is heavy as I enter the house, like I’m fighting my way through mud. I wish I hadn’t rushed off. All I want in the world right now is to be curled up against him, and I just walked away from my only chance to do it.
As Matt said at the end, maybe I’m not as smart as I think.
I open my eyes to the sky alight with the colors of the sunrise. The soft bed sheets wrap around my legs from a restless night’s sleep. I can still remember the feel of him above me and in me, the sound he made when he came. The way he looked—mouth open, eyes squeezed tight, head thrown back. One day, the memory of him like that will dull, and it’s probably for the best because right now, it’s almost too sharp to bear.
My skin smells like him. My lips, and other areas, are sore from him. I feel him everywhere, and the only way to recover from this is to wash it all away and start fresh.
I shower, lathering my sensitive skin in soap to disguise his scent. Once I’m dry, I pull on shorts and a tee, throw all my shit in a bag. As much as I love this house, I just want to leave now. I need to move forward, as soon as possible, and I don’t think I can do it here.
He’s already in the living room, already showered. I don’t think he’s ever woken before me in his life, which means he’s probably as desperate as I am to get through the awkwardness of our trip home.
“Aren’t you the early bird?” I ask. My good cheer sounds as forced as it feels. “Sex with me transformed you into a new man. I assumed it would.”
His jaw tightens. “I didn’t figure you for the type to be so...uncomplicated the morning after.”
I go to the kitchen and start unloading the dishwasher, clanging flatware and pans as if I don’t have a care. “Best just to put it out there. Otherwise, it turns into The Thing That Shall Not Be Named.”
He comes to the other side of the counter. “I did figure you for the type to work a Harry Potter reference into any given conversation, so that lines up.”
I can tell he’s watching me. I continue to focus on the dishes, as if the task requires all my attention. If our eyes meet, he’ll see every single thing I’m feeling. He’ll see I’m the stupid girl who wants more when she should know better.
“Now I just have to decide what I should say on the flowers I send myself.”
“And you’ll want breakfast, too, I imagine. Will Starbucks suffice?” he asks, tying off the trash bag. “Probably not. I’ll get you a gift card. Applebees? That seems like a place a person from Kansas would enjoy.”
I started this, but I’m a little stung that he’s replying in kind. The dumb teenage girl inside me wanted him to hold my face lovingly and explain how much it all meant to him. And maybe if I stopped being so offhanded about it, he would. But I feel too raw for that. I just can’t. I need to protect my heart.
“I’m deeply impressed by your thoughtfulness,” I reply. “I’ll frame it as a permanent reminder. Although testing positive for syphilis in a few weeks will probably be permanent enough.”
He sets the trash by the front door and returns. “As far as I can recall, we were careful. And I’m clean.”
“That you just referenced a sexual encounter with ‘as far as I can recall’,” I reply tartly, “indicates my concern is valid.”
The kitchen is spotless. I’m forced to meet his gaze at last. His eyes are dark, and his face is drawn. I wonder if he ever went to sleep at all.
“I remember, Tali,” he says, his voice quieter, more earnest, than normal.
<
br /> I swallow. “Yeah, me too,” I whisper, reaching for my bag.
This is precisely what I didn’t want—the awkwardness of I know you want things from me I can’t give. It’s not how I pictured our trip ending.
The drive home is fine. He doesn’t seem to mind my running commentary on every car and building and view we pass, which I find absolutely necessary. If I’m silent, I start looking at his profile and remembering the scrape of that jaw against my thighs, the way he’d push in hard and drag out slow, eyes shut as if I was expensive scotch, meant to be savored. The sounds he made as he came. Oh, God, I hope I always remember the sounds he made.
We finally reach my building. As uncomfortable as the morning has been, I don’t want to leave his car. I’d take discomfort over being apart from him, hands down.
I force myself to open the door, and he climbs out too. The air no longer smells like him. Santa Monica suddenly seems like it’s nothing but pavement and reflective surfaces, and I’m not sure I’ve ever felt more alone.
“Thanks for bringing me,” I say, swinging my bag over my shoulder. “It was fun.”
“I’m glad you came,” he replies. Our eyes meet. “That wasn’t meant to be a double entendre.”
I laugh. He beat me to the joke.
By the time I reach the stairs, he’s driven away, probably eager to put this behind him. I get to my apartment, collapse face-down on the bed, and cry like a child.
How is it possible I got over ten years with Matt more easily than I did ten minutes with Hayes?
29
Latte? Check.
Smoothie? Check.
Stomach in knots? Also check.
He looks like garbage when he gets downstairs—either tired or hungover—albeit garbage I would eat with a spoon and lick thoroughly afterward.
His eyes flicker to me and rest there for half a beat before he forces a smile. I know it’s forced because his mouth curves upward on both sides, the way a normal person’s might, but his lips are tight. No dimple. No teeth.
“Advil?” I ask.
He gives a small shake of his head. “I don’t drink before surgery days. You know that.” There’s a sharpness to his tone that takes me aback. He hears it too. “Sorry. I couldn’t fall asleep last night.”
I slide him the schedule just as he reaches for his vitamins and our hands brush. I snatch mine back as if I’ve been burned.
He sighs and runs a hand through his hair before he grabs the smoothie. “I’ll drink this on the way,” he says.
Well done, Tali, I think. You’ve driven the man out of his own home. As if I needed further proof it should never have happened. People only recover from what Hayes and I did in movies. Otherwise, they’re exactly as we are now...slowly backing away from each other until a safe distance has been established, until they’re far enough apart to pretend it never was.
Our trip to San Francisco next weekend is promising to be the most awkward two days of my life.
He doesn’t text me all day, and I don’t text him. I watch for it, of course, like a lovesick teen, wanting even the smallest hint that we haven’t ruined everything. When he finally calls that afternoon, just as I’ve finished up his errands and am nearly back to his house, I want to weep with relief as I answer.
“What are you doing?” he asks.
“Busy serving your every whim as always,” I reply. Awkward silence falls in the space where he’d normally growl you’re not serving all of them or if every whim is on the table I have a new list.
And my heart stutters in its absence. “This is why we shouldn’t have slept together,” I tell him as I reach his street. “You’re holding in all your dirty jokes. You probably don’t even know what to say instead.”
“Sorry. It’s hard to revert to mild sexual harassment now. I’d kind of need to go straight to major, lawsuit-worthy harassment at this point.” I turn into Hayes’s driveway and slow when I see a bright yellow Ferrari sitting there.
I stop entirely when Matt climbs out.
“What the fuck?” I gasp.
“What?” he asks. “What’s wrong?”
“Matt’s in your driveway,” I croak.
“Your ex?” he demands. “Stay in the car, Tali. He has no right to show up at your place of employment. I’m calling the police.”
“Don’t do that,” I reply, easing off the brake and pulling up to the front of the house. “It’s not like he’s dangerous. Let me get rid of him.”
I end the call and climb out, more irritated than nervous. It was bizarre, unexpected, to run into Matt at that party, but that he’s here on purpose is…a little creepy.
His mouth slips up into that lopsided grin I used to love. I don’t smile back. The part of me that once hoped he’d at least apologize is long gone. Now I just want to get rid of him. “What are you doing here?”
He leans back against the Ferrari, untroubled by the lack of welcome. “How else was I supposed to reach you? You’ve been blocking my calls. I was worried.”
“Worried?” I repeat, slamming the door shut behind me. “Your concern is coming a year too late. But I’ve never been better, so I guess you can be on your way.”
He shoves his hands in his pockets, pretty brow furrowed. It’s almost comical how childish he now seems, in contrast to Hayes. “Look, I thought you were just working for this guy but fuck...you went away with him for the weekend? What the hell are you even thinking?”
I freeze. I didn’t tell a soul about this weekend. Not my family, not even Jonathan. “How do you know about that?”
“I’ve been having him followed,” he says without a trace of guilt. “I didn’t trust his intentions.”
I release the air I was holding in a single, dumbfounded laugh. “Holy shit, Matt. Are you serious right now? You cheated on me while I was burying my father.”
“I cheated once, Tali, because I had too much to drink. I let the fame go to my head. I can admit that. But this guy...it’s what he’s known for. And maybe I didn’t catch him at anything, but have you seen how many women’s homes he enters over the course of a day? You really think he’s not fucking someone in one of them?”
I’d probably have said the same, last winter. Now I know better. “I’ve never seen him be anything but unfailingly honest and level with every single person he encounters, myself included,” I reply. My arms fold across my chest. “And what you don’t seem to get is that I didn’t end things with you because you cheated. I ended them because you never fucking believed in me. You told me I wouldn’t have gotten the book deal without you, remember? And the minute I started to struggle, you told me to give up. I would never have done that to you.”
He hangs his head, ashamed of himself. Or perhaps merely pretending to be. He’s an actor, after all—I imagine he’s relatively good at faking emotion by now. “You’re right, okay? I shouldn’t have said it. But you know what? If you’d ever told me to give up, I wouldn’t have dumped you over it. I’d have argued. The real problem is you don’t believe in yourself, and you were scared I was right.”
My stomach sinks as the words hit home. I’ve spent a full year thinking I need to prove him wrong about me without ever asking why I cared what he thought in the first place. Maybe it was never his mind I was trying to change.
“I didn’t come here to fight,” he says softly. “I miss you.”
“I don’t miss you,” I reply. I’m not even saying it to hurt him. It’s simply the truth. I missed the idea of Matt and the security of having someone, but I’m not sure I ever actually missed him. And I’m certainly not missing him now. This conversation is just making me ashamed I stayed with him as long as I did.
He laughs, incredulous. The arrogance that seemed to take hold in New York has clearly flourished here. “I don’t believe you. What could this guy have that I don’t?” he demands.
“Brains,” I reply. “And morals.” Height and a big dick, too, but I manage to keep those to myself.
His response is cut o
ff by the man himself, who flies into the driveway, stopping beside us with a screech of brakes and a haze of dust.
He jumps from his car and moves toward Matt at a pace that would scare almost anyone.
“This doesn’t concern you, asshole,” says Matt.
I hear more than a little false bravado there. On screen, Matt looks every inch the superhero. In real life he’s five ten, a hundred and sixty pounds, and Hayes looks like he could break him in half, one-handed.
“You come onto my property to ambush her and want to tell me it doesn’t fucking concern me?” asks Hayes. “Think again.”
Matt’s mouth twists. “Oh, so you’re the big hero now? I know exactly what you are, and on your best day, you’re still not good enough for her.”
“I’m well aware I’m not good enough for her,” Hayes growls, pushing Matt against the Ferrari, “but this stops now. If I ever hear of you approaching her like this, in public or in private, I will fucking ruin your life, and don’t think for a minute I can’t.”
Matt feigns boredom, even though he’s very clearly outmanned. “Tali, call off your watch dog.”
Someone once told me hatred isn’t the opposite of love...apathy is. I get that now. Because I don’t want revenge or anything else. I just want him to leave.
“Please go,” I reply. “I’m not interested in anything you have to say.”
“Are you serious?” Matt asks. “You think this guy is a better option? He’ll have dumped you in a week.”
Before I can reply, Hayes’s fist flies into Matt’s face.
I’m as stunned by it as Matt clearly is, wide-eyed, blood pouring from his nose. I’d have thought Hayes more the type to wound with a few cutting words, or a well-timed lawsuit.
Matt pulls his T-shirt up, trying to staunch the flow of blood. “If my nose is broken, the studio will take you for everything you’re worth.”
Hayes releases him with a shove. “You’re on my property, asshole. Good luck explaining how you’re the victim.”
A Deal With The Devil: A Steamy Enemies-to-Lovers Romance Page 20