by Lara Norman
The second he touched her clit she arched against his hand and gave a shout. She was so sensitive, and he kept up with his sucking and licking and pinching on her nipples until she screamed incoherently.
“I love watching you come, Alex.”
She fumbled for his cock, gripping it in trembling hands when she found it under the towel. He shuddered, and she smiled in triumph, stroking it at a smooth pace as he inched closer to her warmth. She helped him toss the towel and guided him to where she wanted him before he rutted against her hip, a small laugh morphing into a gasp as she felt his thickness push inside her body.
If she thought she’d already reached the pinnacle, she was mistaken. If she thought that they had shared the most intimate aspects of sex together already, she couldn’t have been more wrong. He looked into her eyes as he moved in and out, and she held his face in her hands as she kissed him. She met his thrusts with abandon and watched as he was the one to come undone.
He rested his head on her breast when he pulled out, and she played with tendrils of his hair. She didn’t care that she’d already fallen in love and that he probably wasn’t there yet. She didn’t care if he needed to go back to the way things had been until he caught up to her feelings. She had what she wanted, what she needed, right there at that moment, and she would hold it to her heart and remember it always.
Chapter 12
He stayed the night. He couldn’t find any sane reason why he shouldn’t, and he wanted to wake up next to Alex. He wanted to witness her Sunday routine, to participate in it, even. He didn’t want to worry about old man comments or whether he’d settled for the first woman to show him a good time in months. He pushed away the pervasive thoughts that he was following the same exact pattern as always. Alex was perfect for him. That was all there was to it.
When they woke, it was to a neighbor blasting music from their car right outside the bedroom window. Alex groaned and shifted, brushing her thigh against his cock. He smiled into her tangle of hair and let his hand drift down until it rested on her abdomen. He couldn’t think of much that would be better than lazy sex on a Sunday morning.
“Good morning.”
Her eyes popped open, and she sat upright. “Um, I’ll be right back.”
He watched her naked ass as she fled to the connected bathroom. He could hear the water running and assumed she felt the need to brush her teeth. He idly wondered if he should do the same before he entertained the idea of making her scream his name at least once before breakfast.
She came back looking like she’d scrubbed her face. Grant got up and spent a minute in the bathroom before heading back out to find Alex. She wasn’t in the bedroom anymore, and he sighed in disappointment. He’d just have to track her down.
She was in the kitchen cracking eggs into a bowl. “Since dinner failed to impress last night, I thought I’d make breakfast,” she said when she saw him out of her periphery.
“You don’t have to impress me, sweetheart.” He stepped close enough to kiss her temple, and she angled her face for a better kiss. He was right; she tasted of toothpaste.
“I want to spoil you, I guess.”
“Cereal for dinner is fine by me if I get to spend the hours before and after wrapped up in your arms.”
She felt her insides melt into goo at that. “Mmm.” It didn’t take much for her to sink into his arms and find that he was hard and naked and demanding her attention. “Grant, really?”
He kissed the tip of her nose. “I could eat. This isn’t going anywhere anytime soon.” He waved at his erection.
Alex nearly changed her mind as he thrust into her hip and she felt the beginnings of tingling neediness creep up her spine. “You’re going to make me sore.”
He stepped away immediately. “We don’t want that, now do we? Can I help you with breakfast?”
She felt the loss of body heat and wanted to cave, but she decided she’d better go ahead and feed them. “No, I don’t need help. I’m just gonna throw some sausages in a pan and scramble these eggs.”
He left the room and returned wearing his boxers. He passed behind her and began opening and closing her cabinets until he found the plates. She smiled to herself as he set the table that sat just outside of her galley-style kitchen. She was going to regret having to go back to real life at the end of the day.
“What do you have going on this week?” he asked as she was plating the eggs.
“It’s my turn to supervise student pick up in the afternoons. Then on Thursday we have an open house for the parents to come in and see what their students have been up to.”
“Sounds like fun.” She set a plate in front of him. “Thanks.”
Alex sat with her own plate, thinking about the open house later that week. They didn’t typically have a huge turnout, but they were required to be there in case one of their students came with their parents. It was a bit of a chore, but she could always grade papers or something while she was sitting around. She lived close to the school, so it was easy to go home and then go back. “How about you?”
“You got lucky; I don’t usually have weekends off, but Floyd owed me after he was sick.”
She watched him eat for a few minutes before saying anything else. “Do you normally at least get two days off out of seven?”
“Sure, but not consecutively. It’s kind of like retail. We’re open every day but Thanksgiving, Christmas, and Easter. We’re open from seven to seven. We rotate shifts, but I’ve been there long enough that I always open.”
“So you get up early and go to bed early,” she stated. It sounded like her schedule.
“Yeah, and I eat dinner early. It worked out when Reagan was home because she was on a similar schedule being in school. It doesn’t usually work out with dating because women don’t want to eat that early and they’re always disappointed when I want to be in bed by nine-thirty.”
“It just so happens that I keep a similar schedule,” she said with a nudge of her toes to his calf.
“I hadn’t thought about that.” That would be an interesting change.
“Yeah.” She gave him a smile. “I get up early and go to bed early, too. Some nights I don’t even bother with an actual dinner, I just eat a snack while grading tests. Occasionally, I even get to watch TV.”
“I’ve been there. I hated cooking for myself when Reagan went to college. It felt like such a waste. Sometimes I’ll cook on a Sunday if I’m off and then stock the fridge for the week.”
“So you’re a decent cook?” She thought she might enjoy someone else cooking for her.
“I’m pretty good.” He gave a laugh. “Unless everyone’s been full of shit and blowing smoke up my ass, I can cook.”
“So then when you leave today, it’s grocery shopping for you?” Alex was trying to get a feel for what Grant’s usual routine was.
“Usually, yeah, days off are for groceries, laundry, and picking up around the apartment,” he responded. “However, today may be a little different. You see, when it comes to the usual chores . . . well, they can’t compare to what I truly have in mind for the rest of the day.”
Alex felt herself flush at that remark, but couldn’t restrain herself from asking, “And just what did you have on your mind, Grant?”
“I can tell you, sweetheart, it sure as hell ain’t laundry and groceries.” Grant pushed his plate away and reached across the table to move Alex’s from in front of her. Rising from the chair, he moved to her side of the table with his erection leading the way.
“Looks like you have something on your mind,” Alex sputtered as she palmed him over his boxers.
“Just how sore are you, Alex?” Grant asked as he ran his hand from the side of her neck down to her collarbone.
“It’s nothing a soak in the tub can’t cure.” Alex was already aroused at the thought of what was coming. Pure nerves had been the catalyst for her rushing to the kitchen to cook instead of lingering in the bedroom when they woke. She wanted so badly to make him happy and not spook him.
“Well, then, let’s make sure we earn the need for that soak in the tub.” Grant picked Alex up and carried her directly into the bedroom to enjoy the lazy Sunday he’d pictured. Shit, he could get groceries after work, and he had plenty of clean clothes. There was nothing on his mind at that moment beyond spending some quality time with his girl.
She was only wearing a nightshirt she’d quickly thrown on when she was feeling overwhelmed and embarrassed first thing after waking up next to Grant. It was easy for him to peel it off of her, to lower to the bed with her, to kiss her neck and show her how he was feeling. He needed to be inside her now. He found Alex wet and ready for him as he stroked her with his fingers, not wanting to be so terribly impatient that he hurt her. She arched under him and he took the opportunity to suck a nipple into his mouth as he flicked at her clit. He strained in her direction, realizing that she propelled his need so high that he tended to lose all sense of reason. He pressed closer, driving into her as she lost her breath on a gasp of heightened sensation.
“More, more, more,” she moaned as he pushed in hard and fast.
“Alex, you make me crazy with need.”
She writhed and lifted further up to meet his body, her heart beating harder and faster in her chest as he held himself above her. She twined her legs around his lean hips and held onto his arms for support as he pumped in a furious pace. She felt the first tickle of sweat beading on her forehead at the same time as he hit that place inside her that never ceased to make her marvel.
Grant pulled out and she pouted. “Here, roll over. I want to see your ass.”
She was huffing by the time she scooted out from under him and turned onto her stomach. With her ass in the air she felt incredibly exposed in a new way, but Grant wasn’t thinking about her dimpled skin or the size of her thighs. He ran his palm over her cheeks for a second before plunging back inside her body. Up on her elbows, Alex gripped the sheets as the feelings he gave her were too much for her to take. She moaned loudly into the mattress as he slid in and out smoothly, hands never leaving her as he caressed her ass, her back, and finally took a handful of her hair to pull her up to meet him. With her back to his chest, she angled her head for a kiss that resulted in bumping mouths and exchanged breaths. Since she was upright, she played with her nipples and cried out as he slammed into her faster and groaned in her ear.
“Fuck, you’re so hot.”
He hadn’t let go of her hair, and she didn’t even know where to focus for all the gathering sensations. She was going to come any minute, and she’d never experienced anything this good before, not even with Grant. He made her feel like she really was hot, like she was the hottest woman he’d ever seen. He made her feel like she was more to him, and the emotional side of her translated to the physical side until she was calling out his name and tears were streaming down her cheeks. She was so overwhelmed.
As he let her go, she fell forward to the soft sheets, and he covered her body with his. His movements changed to a slow, deliberate pace that made her heart flutter. He stilled after a few strokes and she smiled to herself as he came. They had just learned the difference between having sex and making love.
Chapter 13
Grant left at the end of the day, leaving Alex with a lingering kiss at the door. When he got back home, he discovered that the apartment seemed quieter and lonelier than usual. He thought he’d reached a place of comfort after Reagan left, but the feelings of isolation and loneliness were back. A small part of him wanted to work toward getting Alex in his life on a more permanent basis, but the rest of him knew it was too quick. While he’d known her for months, they had only just grown closer over the weekend. His infatuation had moved into a deeper emotion, a more complex combination of caring and devotion. It made him nauseous as he thought about it.
At work the morning after, Grant was having a hard time focusing. His mind wandered to Alex time and again. He’d wanted wild sex, public sex, to try something daring for a change. But he couldn’t deny that spending the weekend at Alex’s apartment had solidified for him that what he was good at was relationships. He liked spending all of his spare time with one woman. He enjoyed being committed to one person and knowing she was committed in return. It was who he was, and trying to change that hadn’t brought him happiness. It had only brought him confusion.
Josh came down to the pit to ask about a car Grant was working on. “How’s the Sonata coming?”
Grant looked over at his friend and wiped the sweat from his temple on his sleeve. “It should be done by the end of the day.”
“So I can tell her to be here by three?”
Three was end of day for Grant, and Josh knew that. “Yeah, that’s fine.”
“How did your weekend go? I thought you might hit me up to go out.” Josh wasn’t looking at Grant as he asked, he was writing on his clipboard.
“Oh, I spent the weekend with Alex.” Grant went back to the car he was working on.
Josh looked up in surprise. “Whoa, what? I thought you were looking to live free? Walk on the wild side? What the hell happened to that?”
Grant sighed. “That’s not me, Josh.”
“God, no. No fun for you. You’re such an old man. I knew that wouldn’t last.”
Grant gaped at him with a frown. “You knew I would end up wanting to date Alex?”
“Dude, you couldn’t even fuck more than one woman at a time. You were doing crazy stuff, but it was all with the same girl. Because you’re a steady, straitlaced old man.”
“I’m not an old man,” Grant said in frustration.
Josh threw his hands up. “Sure thing, Grant.”
Grant watched Josh climb the stairs and then went back to finish his task. He couldn’t pinpoint why, but Josh’s words bothered him more than they should. He knew who he was and deviating from that hadn’t made him happy. It had only made things worse. It had weighed on his mind that he wasn’t being fair to Alex, that he was being too reckless. The thoughts in his head swirled around and around. Was he settling too quickly? Was he giving up the option for something more interesting; daring, even? Should he commit to Alex or should he take a step back and focus on something else? Someone else?
He managed to finish the Sonata before the end of his shift, but it took him longer than it should have. He was too preoccupied with thoughts of Alex and his work nearly suffered because of it. He was quick to leave the auto shop and jump on his bike, but he didn’t go home. He drove around town trying to clear his head. He went past the park where he and Alex had gotten together when he came back to town after visiting Reagan. He could picture the way she’d sat on his lap in a bold gesture that he never expected her to follow through on. He loved the thrill of fucking her in public. It was new, exciting, different. It was scandalous and maybe even a little dangerous. It was everything Grant wasn’t.
By the time he got home, it was closing in on four. Had it only been the evening before that he was thinking of asking her to be his girlfriend? He couldn’t quite settle his heart with the problems in his head. He threw his keys down on the kitchen counter and yanked open the fridge door. After staring into the contents without blinking for several minutes, he slammed it closed and stalked over to the couch. He couldn’t believe that only a few comments from Josh had ruined his day. He was weak; that was his problem.
It didn’t stop him from the mild panic he felt crawling up his spine.
He couldn’t settle for the first girl to come along in years. He couldn’t assume that because the sex was good that they were compatible in every other aspect. He didn’t want to be strapped down to one woman so soon after getting to know her. What had he been thinking? That he was falling in love? That was ridiculous.
Maybe worse was that he wanted to see her again. He wanted to call her right then and ask if she was available, but surely it was only because he was horny. He didn’t know what to do anymore. He was sick of the old man jokes and the accusation that he was boring. He was sick of letting th
at bother him, but it seemed that he couldn’t help himself. He was right; he was weak.
Heaving a frustrated sigh before shoving off the couch, he went back to the kitchen and went about slapping together a sandwich. It was irritating to go from happy one minute to miserable the next. Second-guessing himself was not in his nature, and yet there he was; running hot and cold. He was surprised at how conflicted he felt when it should have been cut and dry. Date Alex exclusively or don’t. So why didn’t it feel that easy?
He went to bed, hoping for the oblivion that sleep provided. His dreams were filled with faceless women chasing after him. He woke several times, flopping all over the bed and trying to go back to sleep. Nothing was working. He was hot, the bed was lumpy, and every time he closed his eyes he saw Alex frowning at him before he walked away. He thought he should cut her loose now before they got in too deep, but the thought of that sent pain through his chest. That would be a dick move.