I knew without looking how he looked right then.
On his back, arm cocked up, hand behind his neck, the other on his bare stomach.
I felt movement behind my back, but wasn't sure what it was, just him trying to get comfortable, I imagined.
But not a moment later, I felt a body slide in behind mine.
The pillow barrier came down.
A strong chest pressed into my back, hips cradling my butt, legs cocked up under mine, an arm across my belly.
"Tell me you were faking it, and I'll get my ass back on my own side," his voice said close to my ear, soft, like we were still sharing secrets we didn't want others to overhear. "I won't believe it, but I'll go."
"Why won't you believe it?" I heard myself ask, not knowing why I would even let those words come out of my mouth.
"Because you're a decent actress, Brin, but not that good. There was no way you were faking it when you..." he started, fingers tracing across my belly, his thumb just barely brushing the undersides of my breasts in the process, whether on purpose or not, "yeah, that," he told me as my body shivered. My head fell back, pressing into his chest as I took a shaky breath. "You want the barrier back?" he asked, voice rough as my butt wiggled against his hips.
"No," I whispered, pushing backward so I could move onto my back. His body shifted just enough to allow me the space to do so, but remained still half curled over me. Face mostly in shadow, I could still make out his deep eyes, finding them watching me as I looked up at him. "I thought you were faking it," I admitted, my mouth not seeming able to shut up and let things happen.
Warren's breath snorted out of him. "I've had to sleep on a couch for weeks to keep my hands off of you, baby. How the fuck could you think I was faking that?"
I looked away, not wanting his penetrating eye-contact for what was about to come out of my mouth. "I thought the kiss had made you decide you didn't want me after all. And were just being immature about it."
"Christ," he said, almost sounding amused, and when I looked up, he was smirking down at me. Yes, that smirk. The one I so often wanted to slap off his face. Somehow, though, I maybe liked it up this close. "No, Brin. I just didn't want to fuck this up."
"How could this fuck things up?" I asked, shaking my head at him. "We're supposed to not be able to keep our hands off each other."
"And if shit went south?" he asked, watching me. "After we got our hands all over each other." At my silence, he nodded. "Exactly. A lot is riding on this for us. We've already had issues with bad press."
"Because we weren't talking about it."
His smile was sweet, but with a hint of something beneath that I couldn't quite make out. "Don't feel like talking right now," he told me. "I feel like doing this," he added, hand sliding up from where it was planted at my side, gliding up my ribs, then sliding up over my breast, the nipple - already hardened - tweaking further through the thin cotton material. "Couldn't fucking think straight thinking of you up in that bed every night without me," he told me as his hand moved upward, sliding under the top of my shirt to move downward to touch me without a barrier.
"I wanted you to come up," I told him as my breath stuttered out of me, his thumb gliding over my ultra sensitive nipple. "I wanted..." I started, not sure how to explain the need that had been clawing at me.
"This," he told me as his huge, work-hardened hand closed around my breast, squeezing, making my back arch up into the sensation, my heart to start slamming in my chest.
"Yes," I whimpered, pressing my thighs closer together to try to ease the need growing there, a coiled, almost painful thing.
"And this?" he asked, hand moving away as his body lowered, his lips closing over the hardened peak, tongue gliding across it, making goosebumps prickle up over my skin as my fingers curled into his arm, guaranteeing crescent shapes etched there in the morning.
"Yes," I moaned as his head moved across my chest, torturing my other nipple until my body was writhing beneath him, my greedy fingers moving down his back, sinking into his ass, trying to pull him closer as my legs fell open on the mattress, needing the contact as I needed my next breath.
"This?" he asked as he lifted up slightly, giving him enough room to tug my shirt up as his head moved back down, lips and tongue tracing a line down the center of my stomach, making my hips start to rise shamelessly up, knowing where he was heading, and begging for it. His fingers snagged the waistbands to my shorts and panties, but paused, looking up at me.
It took me a long moment, unable to think beyond the overpowering need overtaking me, to realize he was waiting for an answer.
"Yes," I told him, my hand moving down, sliding into his soft hair as I once found myself fantasizing about as I watched it - a week late for a trim - fall a bit onto his forehead while he discussed plans with a few of the guys.
His eyes darkened before his head ducked.
Hands tugged, forcing my hips up off the mattress so that he could pull my shorts and panties off my legs.
His fingers found the sensitive inside of my ankle, tracing up it, my calf, the underside of my knee, the ultra soft skin of my upper thigh.
Eyes suddenly on me, his hand moved up and inward, pressing into my clit, making my air rush out of me, my fingers curling into his hair, the other grabbing him at the wrist of the hand touching me, silently begging for him not to stop, to give me an end to the torment overtaking me.
"When you were in the tub," he said suddenly, voice barely a rumble, something deep, masculine, primal, "were you thinking of this?" he asked. Mouth suddenly dry, I couldn't find words, nodding my head. "I heard you," he told me, something that - under any other circumstance - would make me stiffen, go red in embarrassment. But with his finger still gently working my clit, driving my body slowly upward, I couldn't seem to muster the self-consciousness that would require. "Think the only thing preventing me from coming in and finishing the job for you was the locked door," he admitted as his hand suddenly left me.
A low, pained sound came from somewhere deep in my chest at the loss.
But even as the sound was leaving my lips, his body was lowering, arms going under my thighs as his chest met the mattress.
"War..." I started, but his lips closed around my clit, sucking hard, hard enough for my vision to white out for a long second. My hips bucked upward, my hand curling into the back of his neck, holding him to me, silently begging for him not to stop, to give my body what it had been dying for for weeks.
His tongue moved out to start working me in slow, relentless circles, an unhurried demand for an orgasm that would make me see through time and space, would make me cry out loud enough for whoever we shared a wall with to bang on it in frustration, would move through my whole body.
His arm left one of my legs, sliding between us, pulsing at the opening to my body for a long while before finally stealing inside, thrusting lazily for a long moment before curling, and tapping up against my top wall.
"I..." I started to moan, catching as his tongue slid, finger tapped... making the orgasm come crashing through my system, stealing my voice and my breath for a long moment as it seemed to start at the base of my spine and shoot outward, overtaking my whole body.
My back was arched painfully as my breath finally returned to my lungs, letting me cry out on the tail end of the orgasm, calling out his name with reckless abandon as the waves crashed again.
My body collapsed back down on the mattress, weighted and damp, the sweat making goosebumps move over my skin as I looked down to find Warren watching me with heavy-lidded dark eyes, his chin resting on the triangle above my sex.
My hand released his neck, both of them moving to claw at his shoulders, trying to drag him up and over me.
His hands planted, and I thought he would come over me, but he got onto his knees to sit back on his heels, reaching down to drag me up to my knees as well. Reaching out, he snagged my top, dragging it up until my hands slid through, then discarding it to the floor.
Compl
etely bare, he hauled me up onto his lap, his hard cock pressing into my cleft, the head pressing into my swollen, orgasm-sensitive clit, making a shiver move through me as my forehead fell to his shoulder on a moan.
My hands moved down, grabbing at the thin material of his pajama pants until I somehow managed to get them awkwardly down to his knees, baring him to me.
My hips dropped down to his lap, letting his cock slide between my lips without the barrier, something that racked my body with a shudder as my breath sighed out of me, not having realized just how much I needed him inside me until I felt him against me.
His hand slid up my spine, slipping into the hair at the base of my neck, curling, and pulling hard enough to make my scalp sting, forcing my head back.
Eyes fluttering open, I found his on mine, deep, heavy, full of promise just a second before his lips crashed down on mine, searing into them, branding them in a way that said I would feel them there hours, days, weeks later.
Desire was a live wire in my body as his tongue teased over mine, making my hips grind down on him, letting his cock keep sliding between my slick lips, stroking over my clit, driving me ever upward so effortlessly.
"Warren, please," I pleaded against his lips, unable to take the pressure on my lower stomach for another minute, needing to feel him slide inside me, claim me, fill me completely.
His arm went to my lower back, bracing me as he bent me backward, lowered me down onto the mattress toward his side of the bed. His hand braced beside my body, holding his weight as the other sought the wallet he left on the nightstand, producing a condom, and making short work of protecting us.
He grabbed my ankle, pulling it up and across his body, pressing it into the other one, then cocking both my legs up at an angle on the mattress as he slid in behind, stroking his cock through my wetness for a long moment, eyes on mine, before thrusting suddenly forward, claiming me fully without warning, making a moan get choked in my throat, my hand slamming down on the wrist of his hand that was holding my thighs where he wanted them.
My mouth opened, looking for words, things that always came so easily to me, but I found none, just sensations, just the feel of him inside me, claiming every inch, making my walls tighten hard around him as he refused to move, just savored the moment, just got lost in the feelings as well.
The need overtook me before it did him, my hips rocking, begging for the motion my body was screaming for.
He gave it to me, slowly at first, watching my face for reactions, then faster as my whimpers became moans, as my muscles tensed, as my walls grabbed at him more tightly, getting closer.
The second orgasm slammed through me unexpectedly, making my legs shoot out as a strange stunted moan escaped my lips, my fingers digging into his wrist as the waves crashed again and again.
They hadn't even stopped before he was reaching for me, spreading my legs to either side of his again as he put an arm around my lower back, dragging me back up on his lap as he sat back on his heels.
My arms closed around the back of his neck for support as I moved my hips against him, almost a little tentatively at first, adjusting to the position, then faster, harder, wilder as my body somehow managed to build with need again.
Warren's eyes were pinned to mine, heavy-lidded, almost pained with his own need for release as our bodies glistened with sweat, as our breathing hitched and hissed, as our muscles tensed with the knowledge of the upcoming release.
Never before had I been so fully in a moment, so consumed with the feelings and sounds that it blanked out everything else, quieted my mind. It heightened everything, the feel of his hand at my hip, fingers curling into the flesh, likely to leave little marks to be found in the morning, the way his chest was shaking a little as he fought for control, his ragged, just barely there groans.
I was drunk on all of it, every touch, every sigh, every wave of pleasure.
I never wanted to lose it, this moment, this one flawless, perfect moment when the whole world stood still just for us.
But my body was losing control, getting pushed closer to the edge, begging to be thrown over.
And then it did, falling over the edge with a distinctive bottomless feeling to my belly, making me fall forward into Warren for support as the orgasm started at the base of my spine and sparked outward over every inch of skin as my walls spasmed around Warren, as he hissed and cursed as I stole away the last threads of his control, and he came with me, holding onto me as I was to him, like if we didn't, we might not make it through.
Spent, muscles weak and weighted, I collapsed forward into Warren, letting him hold me up as I fought to steady my breath, to calm my frantic heart, to wrap my head around the moment.
See, sex was sex.
An action leading toward a goal.
A bodily need being fulfilled.
Practical, almost impersonal if you didn't romanticize it.
But this?
This was not that.
This was something I was sure I had never felt before, a connection that had been more personal than any I had ever experienced.
My body felt a mix of wholly satisfied, contended, and achingly, beautifully exposed. I felt raw as I rested against him, more exposed than I ever could have anticipated, open and receptive, guards decimated.
I wanted to find the words, to express them, to see if he was experiencing something similar, but my mouth stayed stubbornly silent as my thoughts came trickling back to me, warning me about the risks associated with exposure, about opening yourself up too fully with someone, about how many men got scared away if your eyes so much as glistened after sex, let alone you tell them you somehow felt... changed from it.
That was dangerous territory.
And Warren and I had proved many times before that we never had the best footing.
So I steadied my breath.
I slid away when the moment felt right.
And I slipped under the sheets as he made a short trip to the bathroom.
I let him pull me to him, settling into his chest, letting my tired eyes rest, my sated body relax into his hold.
But I kept the moment selfishly to myself.
And I drifted off to sleep.
TEN
Warren
It needed to be talked about.
What happened the night before.
But, somehow, we had both forgotten to set alarms, waking up just an hour before we were due to arrive at the set for makeup.
We seemed to realize it somehow simultaneously, waking in a sort of dreamy stupor, just letting the sleep creep away. And then shooting apart at the same moment, hearts slamming, bodies stammering to try to catch up as we rushed around the room, fighting for bathroom use, dragging on clothes as we tried to force our hair into submission without showers to help the process.
"We can't," she objected when I suggested grabbing breakfast in the dining room before heading out.
"We can't have our stomachs growling while we get interviewed either," I reasoned with her, making her turn on her heel at the last possible second to rush into the breakfast area, grabbing things we could eat on the go, and nearly running out to catch a cab.
We made it there with five minutes to spare, being whisked away to separate areas to get made up and briefed.
There was simply no time.
But it had to happen.
The talk.
Because shit had gone down the night before. Things had changed. I know she felt it too. There was no way it was just me, no way that what had happened hadn't had an impact on her as well.
It had been a long couple of weeks, trying to avoid her, trying to put space between us, trying to avoid the seemingly inevitable.
I was supposed to spend that time regretting putting my hands on her, but all I could do was think about it again, finding myself losing focus during work because she walked past, and all I wanted to do was push her up against a wall again, get a taste of her, get my hands all over her, get inside her.
A
nd all that pent-up tension on both our parts had exploded into ever more vicious arguments and resentment. The latter more so on her part since she blamed me for it all. Rightfully so. She'd been right. If I hadn't been avoiding her, if we had maybe been adults about it, things wouldn't have escalated quite so much.
But, also, sometimes shit happened because it was supposed to.
We chose not to discuss it, our lives became a pressure cooker, and when things finally started exploding outward, and those around us could see it as well, they started talking. The talking led to the tabloids which led to Rachel forcing us on a date. Which led to us finally giving into the feelings that we'd both been harboring for so long.
Maybe some things were meant to be that way, even if while you are going through it, it is miserable.
Life worked that way sometimes, everything so much clearer in retrospect.
I just wished we'd gotten up earlier, that we'd had a few minutes to stretch, be lazy together, say good morning.
And talk.
Because the more hours we put between the events of last night and the talk, the less likely it would have the same impact, the same points of interest.
Namely, this was going somewhere.
In case that hadn't been made clear to her.
In case she hadn't allowed herself to feel what I had felt the night before.
And not just the sex, though that was something I didn't quite have the right words for yet. But the date, the talking, the being close and actually not snapping each other's heads off.
We fit well.
We'd been fitting well, even when we were trying to avoid each other, for months. We knew each other's rhythms, what foods we liked and disliked, what movies, music, TV shows, what we were like when we were hungry, tired, frustrated, proud of ourselves.
All that little stuff that comes from months of dating someone, we'd already learned that. We were ahead of the game. Now it was time to explore each other more deeply. She'd opened up a bit about her family life at dinner, as I had too. We were letting down our guards, getting closer.
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