by Lily Danes
“You need to be naked too.” Now, ideally. Josh backed her inexorably toward the bedroom. The couch was closer, but he wanted to see Ruby stretched across his bed.
Her knees hit the mattress, and she tumbled onto her back. Josh fell on top of her, bracing himself on his elbows. Even then, he didn’t slow the pace. He kissed her jaw and neck, moving down her body with purpose. He was determined to explore every inch.
He pressed his forehead to her full breast, nuzzling while he sought her nipple through the bra and thin shirt. It tightened at his touch, rising through the layers of fabric. Josh moved his lips to the peak and bit lightly through the shirt.
“Didn’t you say something about getting me naked?” Her voice hitched as he drew the nipple into his mouth.
One corner of his mouth turned up. “I’m having second thoughts. Once I have you naked under me, this might be over in two minutes.”
“I have faith in your stamina.”
He was glad one of them did. The way her body felt, so soft and hot and welcoming—it was already pushing his control to its limit. When he imagined her tight heat wrapped around his cock… Josh groaned and bent his head back to her breast.
While he used his fingers and mouth to work the other nipple to a point, she ran her hands across the muscles of his shoulders, exploring the lines of his back. “I want to feel you,” she insisted. “Your skin on mine.”
Instead, Josh moved down, lifting her shirt enough to taste the skin of her stomach. He wanted to be inside her, but he also wanted to hear her scream his name again. He wanted her to come so hard on his tongue he never forgot the taste of her.
He pulled off her jeans, and she removed her top at the same time. When he returned to her she was completely naked and staring at him with a challenge in her eyes.
Before, he’d thought she was perfect, but he’d only seen pieces of her body. Completely undressed, Ruby was nothing less than art. He wanted to trace every line, admire every curve.
She stretched, rolling her hips in the same motion. “Do you like the way I look?”
“You know I do.” Josh’s voice was rough. His pants grew painfully tight, and he unzipped them for relief.
“Then think how I’ll feel, with my tits pressed to your chest and my thighs gripping your hips.”
The words went straight to his cock, and whatever facade of control he was clinging to vanished. Josh finished undressing in record time.
Her gaze raked his body, her pupils dilated. “I might need you to last more than two minutes,” she whispered.
“You’re getting much more than that. Later, I’m going to spend hours on each curve.”
Ruby swallowed. “And now?”
He cupped her pussy with one hand, feeling how wet she was. Josh slid a finger inside and swirled it around her inner walls. “Now I’m going to fuck you until you’re hoarse.”
She clenched around him. “Good.”
Josh crawled up her body, sliding his skin over hers. His cock rested between her lips, the head on her clit, and he rocked gently, increasing the friction. Ruby squirmed, trying to get closer.
“Kiss me,” he ordered. “Show me how much you want my cock.”
Ruby lifted her head, seeking his mouth. It was desperate, demanding, her tongue mimicking the thrusts they both wanted. His shaft jerked against her.
Josh rolled off, grabbed a condom from the nightstand, and put it on in seconds. He knelt between her legs and placed a hand on her right thigh, spreading her wide. The sweet flesh glistened. “You’re so ready for me.”
Ruby tilted her hips toward him. “I’ve been ready for days.”
He leaned forward and fit himself to her opening. Josh watched her face as he slid the head of his cock inside her, then fed another inch into her perfect heat. He looked down, loving the sight of his shaft sliding into her body. It was their first joining, and Ruby lifted her head to watch with him. “More,” she whispered.
He thrust, planting himself fully inside her. Josh collapsed forward, catching himself on his forearms as he began to move.
He kept the first strokes slow, but Ruby met him each time, urging him to go faster. Josh’s hips rose and fell. Each stroke pushed her further up the bed. Their breathing grew heavy, their skin slick.
Ruby whimpered, needing more, and Josh grabbed the back of her thigh, lifting her leg so he could hit a new spot inside her.
A flush covered her chest and her legs shook, his last warnings before her orgasm took over. She arched off the bed, crying as the climax pulsed through her. Josh held Ruby tight to his chest and moaned, his hips jerking with his own release.
They collapsed together, their bodies sticky with sweat. He knew he was heavy, but he didn’t want to move.
Reluctantly, Josh withdrew before he softened and padded into the bathroom. He cleaned up, feeling more at ease than he had in years.
Josh returned to the bedroom, but instead of curling up with Ruby, he perched on the edge of the bed. He smiled at her, and she returned it easily.
“I don’t want this to just be a fling,” he announced.
15
Josh didn’t think he’d said anything so awful, but the way Ruby moved backward until she was pressed against the wooden headboard suggested otherwise. She pulled the sheet with her, using it to cover herself.
Looked like the afterglow was officially over.
“That bad, huh?” He tried to keep his voice light.
She shook her head so fast the movement was jerky. “You don’t get to change the agreement. One week. Just sex.”
She looked so put out it was almost cute, except for the part where she was happy keeping him as a human dildo.
“That was before.” Josh kept his voice even. “Before we got to know each other.”
“Really?” She squinted at him, perplexed. Like she thought it was more a matter of opinion than an objective fact. “What do you think you know?”
“Come on. We’ve spent hours together. Most of it with our clothes on.” He glanced down. While Ruby was inching away from him, Josh sat there with his dick hanging out. He grabbed his underwear and yanked them on. “We’ve been talking for days, about everything.”
“Everything? I know you live in Briarsted. You’re afraid of heights. You work in a hardware store. You’re friends with the head of security at camp.”
“See?” He tried keeping his voice light, but the words gnawed at him. Ruby didn’t know more because there wasn’t more. That was his life.
She huffed out an exasperated breath. “I could get that much information on a dating profile. It doesn’t mean I know you. And you don’t know me, not any more than you could have learned by Googling my name.”
“But you told me not to search for you,” he reminded her, “because you wanted me to know who you are now, not who you were. It worked. I like you, and I definitely like being naked with you. You feel the same. Why not date?”
“I told you from the beginning I don’t want a relationship.”
“Why not?” he pressed.
“It doesn’t matter. Even if I wanted something more serious—which I don’t—you live here. I’m moving to D.C. I’m not starting a long-distance relationship with a guy I met three days ago.” Her eyes blazed, and she tightened the sheet further around her body.
There it was. The reminder that she thought he was a stranger. A fun stranger who made her scream when she came, but still just a stranger.
He held his arms wide. “Then ask. What do you want to know?”
Ruby studied the room. As she considered each wall, her frown deepened. “Do you actually live here?” The words were joking, but the tone wasn’t.
“What do you mean?”
She pointed to the walls. “Decent paint job. Nice gray tone. Looks new, but you haven’t hung any prints or photos.”
“I’m not much of an art collector.”
She ignored him and nodded at the dresser. “The furniture is well maintained. Older pieces,
but it looks like they were re-stained them at some point, probably by you. Nothing on top of them. No souvenirs or silly stuffed animals an ex gave you.”
Josh was starting to wish he’d pulled on his jeans as well. He was feeling too exposed under Ruby’s scrutiny. “You want me to have stuff from an ex-girlfriend around the place?”
“I want you to have anything.” She leaned over the bed, then popped up a second later, holding his T-shirt. She slid it over her head and swung her legs to the floor.
She looking freaking adorable in his shirt, but he didn’t get the chance to appreciate it before she was in the next room. When he joined her, she looked disturbed.
“How long have you lived here?”
Josh tried seeing the room through her eyes. It was a little plain. His dad never cared much for decorating, and Josh hadn’t been inspired to update it. “A couple of years. Would you prefer a typical bachelor pad?”
She pulled a face. “At least bachelor pads have piles of video games on top of consoles or books strewn about. A shelf with your favorite DVDs. Maybe some boxes of junk food on the kitchen counter. I could learn what you like.”
He sank on the sofa. “This is the first time anyone has complained because my house is too tidy.”
“That’s not what I’m saying. But I’m going to walk out of here knowing less about you than I did when I entered.”
After what they’d just shared, the words were a punch to the gut. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”
“What am I supposed to think?”
“Maybe that I don’t like clutter. I use an e-reader. I don’t play video games. My movie collection is digital, and I keep the potato chips in a cupboard. The photos of my dad are tucked away because it hurts to look at them. You’re really going to jump right to ‘the man with no personality’ because I don’t decorate?”
“You’re twisting this around.” Her voice rose with her frustration. “We had sex, and you immediately start talking about long-distance dating. I’m pointing out that we’re strangers. I like you, but I don’t know you.”
He struggled to keep his own voice level. “I’m a guy who works twelve-hour days six days a week and doesn’t have a lot of time to go shopping for art, okay? I’ve repaired and remodeled this place from top to bottom, but you don’t see that.”
Ruby’s shoulders softened, some of her tension disappearing. “So you like making things more beautiful. That’s a start.”
As she relaxed, Josh hunched forward. “That’s not what I’m saying. But I was raised knowing how to do this stuff. It’s a bit of fun.” He didn’t know why he was arguing. Ruby seemed happy to have new information, but she was creating something out of nothing. Josh needed a project. That was all.
“So you’ve redone this room?” She wandered into his kitchen and ran her fingers thoughtfully across the painted wooden cupboards. “It looks original.”
His laugh came out on a snort. “Not at all. Not from the original house, at least. Mostly, I used replica items, though a few things came off the internet.”
She traced the beveled cupboard. “These are lovely.”
“I built them.”
Her head snapped up. “All of it?”
He wasn’t sure if he should be proud she was impressed or insulted that she sounded so surprised. “Like I said, I was raised with a hammer in my hand. Some wooden boxes on a wall aren’t that hard.”
Ruby leaned forward to study the new tiles. He’d placed a few of them against the bare wall to confirm the design would work. “You know,” she said, “this is the first time I have a real sense of who you are.”
He scowled. A week of hanging out, and she thought his kitchen helped her know him better? “This is a replica. All it tells you is I know how to copy images from old magazines.”
“It tells me you took the time to look at those magazines and find the individual pieces. That you care about the past. And you’re really good at this. Couldn’t you get your contractor license? You could do this professionally.”
Josh narrowed his eyes. This conversation was getting off track fast. “I own a hardware store. It’s downstairs. I don’t need a second job.”
She picked her next words carefully. “But do you like working at the store? You never want to talk about it.”
Josh stared at her for a beat, then strode through the living room and into his bedroom. The sheets were rumpled from earlier, and he inhaled the scent of their joint pleasure as he entered.
“What are you doing?” Of course she followed him.
He zipped up his jeans and dug another T-shirt out of the dresser. “If we’re having this conversation, I’m not doing it in my underwear in the middle of the kitchen.”
She glared at him for a second, then she whipped off his shirt. He swallowed at the sight of her gorgeous body, but she was too annoyed for him to mistake her actions for a seduction. When she found her own clothes and yanked them on, she might as well have hung a caution sign on herself, warning him to stay five feet away at all times.
“This is what I’m talking about,” she said, waving her hands in frustration. “I don’t know you. The first time I try learning more about you, something real, you walk away. You really think we could handle long-distance? What are you going to do, disconnect FaceTime whenever I ask a personal question? I’m not ready for a normal relationship. I couldn’t handle a long-distance one. I’d always wonder—”
“Wonder what?”
She tightened her lips and didn’t finish the sentence.
“I have no idea how it would work, but I like you. Maybe this happens all the time for you, but it doesn’t for me. This isn’t a marriage proposal. I’m asking if you want to try. We don’t need to go our separate ways when camp ends.”
She shook her head. “Yes. We do. I’m catching a plane to D.C. I have a job waiting for me.”
He felt an ugly sneer spread across his face. “How exciting. A job. Maybe the hardware store doesn’t excite me, but I know I don’t want to be a contractor.” He shuddered at the thought of spending all day on someone else’s project. Whatever else he could say about the hardware store, at least he was his own boss. “I’m not giving up on a dream by working there. I saw you after you performed. You were completely alive. You’re meant to be on that stage. Instead, you’re going to, what? Work in some small studio and pretend you weren’t born to sing?”
Her dark eyes flashed. “You’re right. I love performing. Maybe I’ll go back to open mic nights, but I’m not dealing with the public side again. I won’t do that to myself. I hate the way my dream ended, but at least I went after it. I don’t even know what you want.”
Josh ran a hand through his ruffled hair. He wanted her, but he knew that wouldn’t be enough. She expected more from him.
He felt like he was watching the last week fade. He couldn’t even say what they were fighting about, not really.
Except that they both thought the other one could be something they weren’t.
That was no way to start a relationship. Josh dropped onto the bed, exhausted. “You’re right. It was stupid to ask. I don’t know what I was thinking.” It was a lie. Even now, he couldn’t look at her without wanting to gather her in his arms, but he wasn’t going to beg.
He expected her to be relieved, but if anything, her expression tightened even more. “Good. That’s…good.” Ruby glanced around his apartment, looking lost. “Can you give me a ride back? Emma’s car is at Boone’s.”
Silently, they finished dressing, and Josh grabbed his keys. It only took a few minutes to get back to the bar, and the drive was over too soon. It wasn’t enough time to figure out the right words to say, the ones that would magically make things easy again.
Josh put the truck into park, but Ruby didn’t reach for the door handle. “Will you be at camp tomorrow?” She sounded fragile.
He ached to agree, to promise her a couple more days of no-strings summer fun. But that was over. Seeing her would hurt too much. I
t would be a reminder of what he couldn’t have. Every playful smile would be forced. Whatever they talked about, he would only be thinking of the words he couldn’t say—that he wanted something more.
“Probably not.”
“Okay.” Her lips curled into a small smile, though her eyes remained sad. “You were a great camp crush while it lasted.”
They didn’t move. When she left, that would be end. They both knew it.
But eventually, the silence grew too heavy. She pushed open the door, letting in the cool air that carried more than a hint of fall. Summer was nearly over.
He was her camp crush. That was all. Maybe, with time, that’s all she would be for him too.
16
Ruby sleepwalked through the next day. For the first time since contracting poison oak, Emma joined her. Her friend no longer needed to worry about unflattering pictures, since she’d already posted the worst one imaginable. After the photo went up, six people unfollowed her. Four hundred others added her. They left dozens of comments, sharing their own stories of poison oak and complaining about how hard it was to look put-together all the time. One theme showed up over and over. They thanked Emma for being so honest and showing her true self, even though it wasn’t what people expected to see. Ruby knew there was a lesson about her own career in their response, but it wasn’t one she was willing to explore. Not right away.
Because at the moment, it was all could do to get through the next few hours without falling apart.
She’d been the one to walk away. She’d said they couldn’t date. It was her choice, so she had no right to feel so wretched. Her stupid heart thought otherwise.
After Ruby returned at three in the morning with red eyes and no desire to talk about it, Emma snapped into best-friend mode—except instead of tubs of ice cream and Netflix, she decided to drag her from one activity to the next.
They spent the morning kayaking the perimeter of the lake until Ruby’s arms felt like rubber. Next, Emma took Ruby to drunken arts and crafts in the lodge. It wasn’t intended to be drunken, but Emma sipped a double bloody mary while painting her ceramic vase. Even tipsy, she created a perfect self-portrait on the side.