“See how much you want this? I knew you did.” Suddenly, I remember something important. Thinking fast, I work the question I need to ask into the scene. “Are you still going to want it when I tell you I don’t have a condom with me?”
“I don’t want it,” she squeaks, but at the same time, she nods.
It’s the green light I need. “Oh, you want it, little girl. Don’t lie to me.”
It’s not easy, but somehow I manage to pull her underwear down one-handed. Then I tackle my belt. Then my zipper. All the while, she writhes below me, hissing, protesting, never using the one word that will end this.
And then my cock is out, and I’m shoving inside of her, and Jesus, it’s ecstasy how tight and warm she feels around me. She gasps as I fill her, her character breaking as she lets out a soft, “Yes.”
“That’s it,” I tell her, driving into her again. “I knew you wanted it. Hard to fight me now, isn’t it?”
She grunts in response, shifting beneath me, but this time instead of struggling, she’s reaching her hand down to rub her clit, and goddamn it’s so hot how she wants this as much as I do. How she wants it the way I do.
I find my pace quickly, and while it fits the scene, I’m not playing anymore, uttering dirty, vulgar honest truths as I rut into her. “I fuck you every day,” I confess. “Did you know that? In my head, with my hand. I fuck you in so many ways. In your mouth. On your knees. By force. Willingly. So many ways I fuck you, but it never feels as good as when I’m inside you. Your pussy is so tight, Genny. So, so good.”
I’m crazed with my lust. I’m barely restraining her now, but the illusion of the scenario has set fire into my veins, fire that won’t be smothered until I’ve given her everything I have. Until I’m making her fall apart beneath me. Until I’m spilling my release inside of her.
She’s the one to get there first. “Oh god, oh god, oh god,” she says as she starts to clench around me. “Oh god, like that. Harder.” Then, “I’m coming! I’m coming so hard.”
I pick up speed, racing to my own finish. And when I cross that line, I explode like never before, ramming so far into her, I’m not sure where she begins and I end.
I’m not sure I want to know ever again.
She’s breathless and panting when I roll off her and gather her into my arms. I study her closely. Her face is dirty and her dress is rumpled and she has a bruise forming on her upper arm, but she’s smiling, and her expression appears happy and sated.
Still, I ask, “Are you okay? Was this okay?”
She nods. “I should be asking you the same thing.” She rubs her hand gently over my slapped cheek.
“Very okay.” I kiss her, wishing this would never end. Wishing I could find the way to make this thing between us last. Wishing she didn’t live in another country and that the power to keep her here were in my hands and not my brother’s.
As always, though, I hide those wishes behind a landscape of charm. “You can ask me to make you anytime you want,” I tell her, and I mean it.
But all I’m really thinking is how much I wish she’d ask me to make her stay.
13
Later, it’s my turn to be vulnerable.
We lie wrapped around each other naked in bed, and in the dark, I tell her about Gwen. Tell her how I fell in love. Tell her how I got my heart broken.
“So her ex had been gone for how long when you started seeing her?” Genny asks after I give her the basic gist of the story.
I rub a hand up and down her back while I talk. “About nine months maybe?” I don’t remember the exact timeline really. JC had been in witness protection without any contact with Gwen. “But they hadn’t totally broken up. He said he would come back.”
“And yet she still got involved with you?” I can’t see her face in the position we’re in, but from the tone of her voice, I suspect Genevieve is frowning.
I get it. It was a situation that once made me frown too. A lot.
It makes me happy that she cares enough to have that reaction.
“I think she thought he’d be back by then,” I tell her. “I was just supposed to be a distraction while she figured out what she did next.”
Genny tilts her head up toward me, and this time I can see she’s frowning. “That doesn’t sound very nice of her. You’re just her plaything while she decides if she’s waiting for her real lover to return? That’s a load of tosh.”
“Well.” Once upon a time I would have agreed. Now it doesn’t bother me like it once did. “I actually didn’t mind being a plaything.” Gwen had been ten years older than me. The sex had been hot. The whole situation had been hot, whether she had feelings for me or not.
But back then, it had stung more. “I did mind not knowing her heart was already spoken for. Even when she’d always been clear it was just sex, it would have been nice to know.”
Genny sits up and stares at me, her eyes aflame. “I can’t believe you’re so cavalier about it. ‘It would have been nice’? She should have told you. Plain and simple. That she didn’t is just mean.”
Jesus, I love it when she’s feisty.
“And how could she expect you not to develop feelings for her? It’s natural to fall for someone you’re intimate with. Especially when it’s repeated intimacy. No matter what our culture tries to make us believe, it stirs things. How could she not have fallen for you as well?”
Our eyes meet, and in unison, we both realize what she’s said. How it could apply to our current situation. Genny’s cheeks turn beet red, and she lowers her eyes, and all I can think is Oh my god, is she really falling for me?
I want to know so badly that I almost ask.
But in the end, I’m chickenshit, and instead I only make allusions. “That is the burning question, really,” I tease, trying to lighten her embarrassment. “How can anyone not fall for me is an even more accurate question.”
She gives me a lopsided grin and settles her head on my chest without remarking on my comment—maybe she’s chickenshit too. “I’ve decided I don’t like her,” she says after a beat. “I’ll be nice to her in person, of course. But she’s heartless.”
I chuckle, stroking my hand through her hair. “Gwen isn’t heartless. We’re friends now. Good friends.”
Genny harrumphs, her finger drawing lazy circles over my chest. “Doesn’t mean I have to like her.”
I love how good her touch feels on my skin, and I almost miss her subtext. But then it hits me—“You’re jealous!”
I love that she’s jealous.
Her hand stops mid-circle. “Do I have a reason to be jealous?”
I shake my head then realize she can’t see it. “I don’t have any feelings for Gwen any more beyond friendship. I told you that earlier.”
“Then I’m not jealous.”
“Well. You are. But that’s cool. I like it.”
She sits up and scowls playfully at me, but she doesn’t deny my accusation a second time. Is it fucked up how much I love her attitude toward my ex? Because I love it a lot.
When she lies down again, it’s on her side, facing me. I move toward her until our noses are inches from touching and wrap my arm around her waist. She fits so perfectly against me. Like we were made to be this close.
With her eyes pinned to mine, she asks, “Have you ever been the way you are with me with anyone else?”
I squint, trying to understand exactly what she’s asking. “Like what way that I am? Like where I hold you all night? I’m holding you all night, by the way.”
“We’ll see.”
“I’m holding you,” I say with an authoritative tone I know she won’t refute.
Goose bumps sprout up on her skin. “Like that—like bossy and…I don’t know.”
“Dominating?”
“Yeah. And rough. And primal.”
I bring my finger up to trace the line of her lips. It gives me an excuse to look somewhere other than her eyes when I answer. “I told you before that I haven’t.”
“I want to hear it again. You’ve never tied someone up?”
“Nope.”
“Pushed them to the ground?”
I shake my head.
“What about spanked them?”
“Not like how I spanked you.” Not with a belt. Not so hard it left marks. My gaze flickers up to hers, suddenly worried. “Can you tell?”
“No,” she says softly. “And yes.”
I stay silent, waiting for her to expand, and she does. “When we’re like this, it feels like you’re never anything else. Like this is who you are. Kind and gentle and kind of cocky but also goofy.”
“There you are with the goofy again…”
She ignores my interjection. “It doesn’t seem at all like you’d be the type of guy to strap a belt around a woman’s wrists or shag her in a bathroom or pretend to force her in the backyard of your parents’ summer home. But then, when you’re doing that, it seems like there’s no other way you’d ever fuck. You’re natural at it. And the only reason I suspect that it’s new to you is because of that first time. The awful time.”
“Oh my god. It wasn’t awful. Would you stop saying it was awful?” I pretend to strangle her, taking note for the future of how it makes her eyes cloud with desire. “It wasn’t maybe as good as the times after, but I couldn’t stop thinking about you afterward.”
“Fine, it wasn’t awful.” Her lids lower and she gets abruptly bashful. “I actually enjoyed it more than I let on.”
Yes! I knew it hadn’t been terrible!
Containing my excitement, I use a single finger to lift her chin up. “Look at me, Genny.” Her eyes flutter up to meet mine. “Why didn’t you tell me that before?”
“Because I didn’t want to like you.”
My mouth gets dry. My pulse picks up. My chest tightens, as though my ribs are trying to close the gaps in my skeleton, desperately trying to protect anything from getting inside. She’s told me this before, but this time it really sinks beneath my skin and into my blood. Into my bones.
“And you really do like me?” Somehow my words come out steady, despite how shaken I feel inside.
“What do you think?” She glances down at my lips, and I take the cue, moving in to kiss her. Her mouth molds easily to mine, even when I get brutal—which I do. I wrap one hand around her neck, my thumb lightly pressing against her windpipe—not enough to hurt her, but enough so she’s aware.
It arouses her. I can tell by the nature of her kiss, how it gets hungrier. Wanton and wild, mirroring everything I’m giving her.
Soon I’m hard and eager to press into her, but at the same time, I’m not ready to move on from this kiss. From this moment. From this out-of-breath, on-the-edge-of-a-precipice, scared-out-of-my-mind feeling scratching inside of me.
I pull away to look at her.
“I like this.” Her eyes are heavy and dark. “I like that I’m the only one you’ve been like this with.”
“I like that you’re the only one who brings it out in me.” I love it, actually.
And that’s when I know.
Goddammit all to hell.
I’m in love with her, aren’t I? That feeling in my chest, that desire to help her out with her job, my fear of her leaving—this is the explanation. This is the emotion I’m hiding. I’ve tried so hard to ignore it, but I’m fucking head-over-heels in love with her.
I’m pretty sure I should have seen this coming.
Then why do I feel like I’ve been run over by someone else as they’re stealing my Bugatti?
“Is this fast?” she whispers, and now I know she’s feeling something too.
“Don’t think about it,” I whisper back, praying that the dark and the thinness of our voices can keep the words from holding weight. From anchoring in and changing everything.
“This is fast,” she says again on the softest of breaths.
Neither of us moves, both of us completely encapsulated in this single moment, frightened and thrilled all at once. Like a roller coaster. Like speeding down an empty highway. “Fast things aren’t bad things.”
“But they’re often over too quickly.”
“Or they’re not. The thing is sometimes you don’t know how long a stretch of highway is going to be until you get to the end. All you can do is buckle up and enjoy the ride.” Funny how I sound more confident than I feel.
“Pretty sure I’ve already been buckled up with you, and yes, I enjoyed the ride.”
I grin, grateful that she’s lightened the tension. “Pretty sure I’ll be riding you again real soon.”
She licks her lips and nods once, and I’m pretty sure she’s talking about more than the next round when she says, bravely, “All right. I’m ready.”
All right then, I’m ready too.
14
I wake up to a soft nudge and the whisper of my name.
“Hmm?” My arm is wrapped around Genny’s waist, and even though I’m awake enough to take victory that I did indeed hold her all night, I’m not ready to open my eyes.
“Chandler.” She reaches around to poke my shoulder.
“What is it?” I say on a yawn, but by then, my eyes are open, and I can see exactly the reason Genevieve had woken me up. “Uh, hi, Mina.”
The three-year-old stands at the edge of the bed and bats her brown eyes at me.
“Guess I need to learn to lock the door,” I mumble in Genny’s ear, glad that the sheets are pulled up around our naked bodies. “Well, hello there, ninja-child.”
Mina blinks. “What’s a ninja?”
“Someone who’s good at sneaking up on people. Like you.” I’m already preparing for the lecture that Hudson is sure to give me later. But seriously? Kid needs to learn some rules about privacy.
Mina smiles, accepting my words as a compliment. “I didn’t even try to sneak on you. I’m a reawy good ninja, aren’t I?”
“Really good. Whatcha doing in here, anyway, kid?”
“Gramma Sophie said you were ‘spending the day in bed’.” Not an unattractive idea. “Are you sick, Uncle Chandler?”
Genny stifles a laugh as I glance at the clock on the wall. Jesus, Mom, it’s only nine-thirty.
“Nope. Not sick. Just sleeping in.” I sit up, careful not to reveal anything too, uh, traumatizing. For me. Not her, necessarily.
Apparently, I wasn’t cautious enough because next thing I know, she’s tilting her head and asking, “Uncle Chandler, are you naked?” She’s an observant little ninja, my niece is. “My mommy says that people sleep together naked when they love each other.”
“Um.” Awkward. Because, yes, I do love Genny. But this isn’t quite how I want to say it for the first time. And I certainly don’t want her to feel pressured to say it back.
Then Genny floors me when she says, “That’s right.”
Two words and my heart is pounding in my chest like a bass drum. Did she just…?
Genny looks over her shoulder at me. “I wouldn’t want to undermine anything her parents have taught her.”
“Right,” I say, my breath still caught in my lungs. That’s what she meant by that. Still, I can’t help but think there’s a layer of honesty to her statement. We’ve hinted at feelings for each other now, and yet we keep dancing around actually saying it. But moments like this? I have to think the words aren’t that far off.
My stomach twists at the thought, in a mostly pleasant way. And a little bit not so pleasant. I mean, this is a big thing we’re talking about—or not talking about, exactly—and while it’s exciting, it’s also fucking terrifying.
Also terrifying is what comes out of Mina’s mouth next. “Are you going to have a baby now?”
I scrub a hand over my face. “Wait…what?”
“Mommy says that when two people—”
“Hey, Mina,” I cut her off once I get the gist of where she’s going with this. “Why don’t you go downstairs and see if Millie saved me any of her famous pancakes? I’ll be down in just a minute, okay?”
She paus
es, not completely sold on the idea of leaving me, but then suddenly she says, “Okay,” and darts out of the room.
“Damn. That was…” I trail off, not sure how best to finish the sentence.
Genny finishes it for me. “Precious. That’s what it was.”
“God only knows what she’ll say to everyone else about this encounter. I better get down there.” Reluctantly, I hop out of bed.
Genevieve stares after me with glassy eyes. “You’re going to be a really good father, you know.”
“Now that’s really terrifying.” I use the excuse of digging through my suitcase to hide my face from hers because, seriously, I’m imagining children waking us up in the future, children that don’t belong to my brother.
I wonder if Genny’s imagining the same.
Which reminds me of something else that we should probably address. “We haven’t used a condom these last few times.” I pull on a pair of jeans and turn to face her. “This isn’t your way of saying you’re not really on the pill, is it?”
She laughs. “No. I’m definitely on the pill.”
“Not that it wouldn’t be okay. I mean, we’re too young. And just met. And we have other agendas right now. But it would be cool. If you were. You know, just in case.” God, I sound like an idiot. No wonder she calls me goofy.
I meet her eyes, and yes, she’s laughing at me, but there’s something else too. Adoration, maybe? It’s how I imagine I must be looking at her.
“I’m not worried about it,” she says, completely in control of her speech, unlike me. “I’m not worried that I’ll get pregnant,” she clarifies. “But I’m also not worried about what would happen if I did. I know you’d be supportive.”
Supportive? I’d be goddamn-father-of-the-year if I had the opportunity.
Whoa. This really is moving fast.
I take a deep breath as I throw on a T-shirt. We’re just talking. That’s all. The kind of conversation all responsible adults have when they start having sex without latex. It’s all good.
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