by Amelia Wilde
On the next thrust, I can’t take it anymore. I’m bent over the side of my bed, feet planted in the carpet, and Crosby’s hands are firm on my hips, holding me in place. I can’t get enough of this. If it goes on forever, I’ll just accept that that’s my lot in life and die in bliss.
Of course, that probably wouldn’t be great for paying off my student loans…
The brief consideration of something as stupid as student loans fractures and disappears from my mind when Crosby reaches around, sliding his hand into the gap between the bed and my spread legs, and puts the pad of his finger directly on my clit.
“Mmmmm….” Now I do have to bury my head into the comforter, my hands balling into fists.
He starts rubbing in lazy circles.
“Don’t do that.”
“Don’t—do—what?” I can barely get the words out through the pleasure that’s arcing like lightning between my legs with every swirl.
“Don’t put your face down like that.” It’s not quite a command. He’s not quite one of those men who lives for domination and control. But it’s close enough to turn me on a hundred times.
“Why not?” I’m all innocence, even while he’s fucking me like there’s no tomorrow, like no alarm is going to ring at an ungodly hour of the morning, like we have all the time in the world.
“I want to hear the sounds you make while I fuck you.” His words are the unvarnished truth, and they tear another moan from my throat, only this time the sound is clear in the room. As if I’m going to do anything but what he says.
He picks up the pace and I brace myself. His hands are working harder to hold me still, and my opening tightens around him, again and again. Oh, shit. Oh, I’m going to—
I come hard on his cock, shifting my weight back just as he thrusts forward, and he pins me in place so that he can feel every single tremble of my body, every wave of tightness, every muscle clenching on his cock. He sucks in a breath, and his hands react, steeling his grip on my hips.
“Fuck yes.” He murmurs it under his breath, practically to himself, and I ride out the last spasms of the orgasm. Just as it subsides, he pulls out and lifts, helping me scramble up onto the bed.
I fall onto my back, grinning up at him.
He climbs up over me, leaning down to cover my mouth with his, kissing me so deeply I think I’ll never come up for air. Underneath him, I spread my legs wide, then put my hands on his hips and tug, inviting him in.
“Please,” I say between kisses.
“You want more of me?”
“I want all of you.”
He enters me again, powerfully, fully, and I let my mind fall into his body, into the smoothness of his skin, into the way he’s still a little tan from working outdoor jobs in the summer, into the way he has callouses on his hands that I can feel whenever he touches me, into the stubble on his cheeks. We get into a steady rhythm that picks up speed, picks up speed until he’s pistoning in and out of me, his biceps working to keep himself propped up over me, to keep himself from dropping his full weight onto me. He is all muscle, no fat, and if he lost his balance, I’m not entirely sure I wouldn’t break. But I don’t worry about it for an instant. I trust him completely.
I trust him completely.
A soft warning bell rings in the back of my mind when I think it. Here, drowning deliciously in the spicy scent of him, how could I think of anything else? Why would I want to? I don’t want to consider the fact that I trusted him eight years ago and I got burned. And that I’ve wanted him, wanted only him, for nearly a decade, and it’s that need that’s kept me from seeking out any other man. The need, and the fact that he hurt me. He hurt me. He could hurt me again, and the thought is terrifying. He made me see, for the first time, that any other man could do the same.
It’s just that I’ve never wanted another man like I wanted him.
Like I want him now.
Like I want this moment to last for eternity.
The lights are off. It’s just us, here in the safety of my bedroom, in the safety of my house. Crosby shouldn’t be here. He should be in his own house across town so I can get adequate rest for my day at the hospital tomorrow. But after dinner, I couldn’t bear for him to leave. It’s too convenient that his current job is right here in my kitchen. I don’t know if he ever even went to get the spare key. I don’t know if I’ll ever care about spare keys again.
Crosby growls into my ear and I feel him pulse inside of me, somehow getting bigger, and I wrap my legs around him, pulling him in tight. He rocks against me, once, twice, then pulls out, thrusts in, and comes hard, his mouth on my collarbone, filling me, stretching me, loving me in the way that only he can love me.
We freeze together for several long moments, and then I trace my fingertips down the length of his spine. He draws in a deep, contented breath, then hooks his arm underneath me and moves us up so that our heads are on the pillows. The last thing he does before he falls asleep is to pull up the sheet and comforter over the both of us.
I lay there, my head on his chest, listening to his heartbeat.
But that nagging thought comes again.
He hurt me.
He hurt me, and he could do it again.
Chapter Thirty
Crosby
“You sure you should be doing this?”
Brett peers into the hole in the middle of Lacey’s kitchen.
“Yeah. Why the hell not?”
“Your hand, asshole.”
“The hand’s fine.” Lacey’s been checking it every night, and I’m right-handed, so it’s not like I can’t fucking do the job.
“Then why did you call me over here?”
“I might have exaggerated the last part.”
Brett rolls his eyes. “What do you need help with, you delicate flower?”
There’s a knock at the front door.
“That.”
“You need me to answer the door for you?”
“Don’t be an idiot. Stay here.”
I go to the front door. Pete’s right on time.
“Jesus, Pete,” I say when I pull the door open. “You couldn’t have been late, like a regular person?”
“Not a chance.” He grins, then shoulders past me into the house, carrying a toolbox and a flashlight. “Where’s the leak?”
“That’s the thing. I’m not sure there is a leak. But it’s fucking weird that the floor rotted if there’s nothing. Can you check it out?”
“Only for you, old buddy.”
“You’re going to be out of a career, then.”
Pete greets Brett with a handshake and rests the toolbox on the floor. They both cross their arms over their chests and look at me.
“So, friend, what did you need the both of us here for? Is this some kind of plumbing intervention?” Brett cocks his head to the side, eyes wide and innocent.
I give him a look. “The access panel for the crawlspace is right in front of the water heater.”
Pete rolls his eyes. “And you couldn’t go down there because…”
“Because it’s a fucked-up crawlspace, Pete, and I have an injured hand.” I wave the bandaged hand in front of him with a mournful gaze. I don’t try to convince him that I would have gone down there already, but the damn thing is a mess.
It’s in a tiny-ass room off the kitchen. Pete goes in first.
“Shit,” he says, after a minute. “Is this actually an access panel?”
“I’ve looked all over the house,” I call in after him. “That’s it.”
“We might need the Jaws of Life to get in here.”
He’s not wrong. Unlike most of the guys from high school, I haven’t let myself go, but you do need both hands to pry it open. Pete tries as hard as he can, but after a couple of minutes he comes out into the kitchen, wiping his forehead, color in his cheeks. “Fuck.” He looks at me. “You weren’t lying.”
“Pete, I’m offended that you thought so in the first place.”
I give Brett a meaningful
look.
“Wow,” he says, raising his hands in faux indignation. “You brought me here to be the muscle? What, you don’t value my intelligence?”
“I didn’t want to be the one to tell you this, but—”
“Shht—” He tries to cut me off, but it’s too late.
“Not even Addi values your intelligence.”
Brett flashes me a gesture that’s understandable in just about every language and disappears into the room. There’s some muffled heaving, and then he comes back out. “All set.”
“See? You’re good at what you do.”
“Better than you are, you old bastard.”
We both laugh, and Pete disappears with his flashlight, climbing down what has to be an extremely narrow staircase down into the crawlspace. A few moments later, his light flashes up through the plastic that’s covering the hole in the floor.
“Oh, yeah,” he calls up to us.
“Tell me you don’t get your jollies from being in a crawlspace, Pete.” Brett is impressed with himself for the joke.
“Bunch of this is rotted.” Pete goes on like he didn’t hear Brett. “Yep—here’s the leak. Hang on.”
He shuffles back out into the kitchen a minute later, brushing off his clothes. “I’ve got the stuff to fix this. Who do I bill?”
“Me.” I don’t even hesitate.
He nods. “Okay. Be right back.”
He heads back out the front door, pulling it closed behind him.
“She’s not going to care if you have her plumbing fixed?”
“Nope.”
“You talked about it?”
“Yeah, we talked about it. What do you think I am, some kind of guerrilla home improvement asshole?”
Brett shrugs. “Maybe.”
“Right. Maybe.”
He’s looking at me with narrowed eyes. “What’s going on here?”
“We’re fixing a leaking pipe. And the kitchen floor.”
“Don’t give me that.”
I look at him with wide-eyed innocence. “What else would we be doing, Brett?”
“You. Are you living here?”
“No.”
“Your truck has been here for two days.”
I put a hand to my neck like I’m clutching a strand of invisible pearls. “Are you stalking me?”
“No, dumbass, I live in the neighborhood.”
“Right.”
“So you’re…staying over.” A strange grin plays over Brett’s face.
“What’s it to you?”
“Are you?”
“Yeah.” I don’t care. I don’t care about hiding it. I don’t know why I’m being so damn coy.
The grin gets wider. “Wow.”
“How long are we going to do this?”
“Congrats, man.” I want to give him another sarcastic reply, but instead I just smile. Like an idiot. Like a lovesick fool. “So she—she forgave you?”
“I guess so.”
“Damn.” He nods his head, approving. “You’re lucky, man.”
“I know it.”
“Girls on the brain?” I didn’t hear Pete come back in.
“Not girls, asshole. The woman I’m with.”
“Who’s that?”
“Lacey O’Collins. You wouldn’t know her.” Pete didn’t move here until after high school. Until after Lacey was already gone.
“She hot?”
“She’s gorgeous, and don’t ask me that again.” A weird tightness comes to my chest, and my fingers start to curl into my palms. Pete doesn’t see that. He’s setting out a few things, getting ready to go back into the crawlspace.
“My bad.”
“You’re forgiven,” Brett says with a ceremonial tone, and it breaks apart some of the tension in my gut.
“How long do you think you’ve got?” Pete says, obviously not reading the room.
“Before what?”
“Before you fuck things up with her.” I’ve known Pete for a few years now. He knows I never last long with women. That’s all he’s referring to. I know it.
But an electric spike of anger pierces my heart.
Because the truth that I’ve been trying to deny this entire time is that the time is short. It’s always short, and I always fuck it up. I just don’t know how badly things will go this time. That’s the only fucking mystery of my life, and that’s how awfully I’m going to hurt her.
Chapter Thirty-One
Lacey
The woman’s wail is ear-shattering, a piercing howl that echoes ominously through the entire ER.
She’s standing next to the man’s bed—was he her husband?—and I am awash in a numb sickness that’s so thick in my gut I’m not sure that it will ever pass, ever end.
We couldn’t save him.
My jaw goes tight, trying to keep the shock buried somewhere deep down below. When I got to Lockton, I was sure this wouldn’t happen right away. I don’t know how I got through med school with the idea that a small town would experience less death than a big city, but that illusion has been stomped under a boot. I didn’t see it coming.
It’s dinnertime. All across the city, people are sitting down around tables with their families, framed by their picture windows as the warm, cozy light of home streams out into the street. And this woman—she can’t be much older than me, if she’s even older than I am—is standing by the bedside of someone she loves so much. She cannot still be living while he is dead.
I move.
I can’t do anything but move. I can’t stay still, staring at her. How long have I been standing here? Dr. Howard is on the phone, but the words he’s saying don’t register. The nurses have cleared out to give her privacy, but she’s weaving, swaying, and then she slaps her hands over her mouth, cutting off the sound like she’s done something embarrassing.
I’m in the room, I’m next to her. I put my arm around her shoulders, and she gasps, a loud, choking gasp, and her body shudders, once, twice.
“He was such a dick,” she says, and her voice is so laden with sobs that at first I don’t make it out. “God, he was such an asshole.”
“I—” I have no idea what to say.
The woman bursts out into a hollow laughter that rings as loudly as her cries. “Jesus, he was the worst.” She steps away from me, puts her hands to her eyes, and then whirls around. Tears are still streaming down her face, falling down from the line of her jaw to the front of her jacket. “He made such a mess of me.”
“I’m so sorry.” I don’t know if I’m apologizing for the fact that the man lying motionless and cold on the bed—his name was Jeremy, that’s the only thing I caught during the flurry of activity surrounding his arrival—or the fact that Jeremy was apparently an asshole. My heart beats in a jagged rhythm.
“I am, too. Isn’t that fucked up?” She gives me an awful smile, red eyes, still crying. “I always thought that if this happened, then at least all the fighting would be over. At least he wouldn’t come home at three in the morning and make me feel like shit for the dishes in the sink.”
I’m in over my head. I shouldn’t be in here, shouldn’t be having this conversation, but there’s nobody else, and she shouldn’t be alone. Where are the nurses? I—
“I thought it would be a relief. I thought—” Then her eyes are on mine again, wild, frenzied. “He had a heart attack.”
“Yes, he did. We weren’t able to resuscitate him.”
She presses her lips into a thin line, juts her jaw out, crosses her arms over her chest. More tears. She makes no attempt to stop them, no attempt to wipe them away.
“What am I supposed to do now?”
I drive home in the dark, that woman’s face etched on my mind, her words ringing in my ears. “He was such an asshole. What am I supposed to do now?”
I can hardly process what it all meant, and roiling in my chest is a warmth that goes cold, then white-hot.
This thing with Crosby—it’s not a guarantee, is it? It never was. I thought it was, ba
ck in high school, when every day after class he’d be at my side, holding my hand, damn everyone else for thinking he might be less of a man for it. He kept hanging on in every class so he could get into State and go with me, so I wouldn’t have to be alone, even though he didn’t care about that stuff then and probably still doesn’t.
But he still left me.
What if, deep inside, he’s more of the man who walked away from me eight years ago than the man who wants to be with me? What if this deep desire to be with me now is just a flash in the pan? What else might make him so mortified that he thinks he can’t face me, thinks the better option is just to leave?
What if he’s the only one I’d ever cry about like that in the hospital?
What if we’re already on our way to failure, to disaster?
What if the rest of my life is like the past eight years, and I have to live every day knowing that he’s the only one who ever mattered?
No.
I shake my head and put my hand to my face, only to discover that there are tears trailing down my cheeks.
I’m just rattled by what happened at the ER today. That’s all. There’s no point in dwelling in the past when the present is going so well.
It is going well, isn’t it?
The creeping doubt churning in the pit of my stomach is unnerving, but I don’t know if it’s really about Crosby or if it’s about today. I felt so confident about this choice, but now—
It’s just because it was my first time losing a patient. Even Dr. Howard said so, one heavy hand steadying my shoulder.
A shiver goes through my entire body, even though I have the heat in the car running full blast.
In the driveway, I hit the button that opens the garage door. Crosby put the clip on my sun visor the other night. The door rattles upward, and I pull in and shut off the ignition.
I could end up without him.
That’s what scares me most of all.
And my life is empty without him, empty and dull and colorless. I don’t have college or medical school to bury myself in anymore, and getting too consumed with the ebb and flow of the ER might undo me completely.