by Noelle Adams
It felt so good, so familiar, and so new at the same time. Since this was my bed, my room, my home.
“Wrap your legs around me, baby,” he said, gazing down at my face as he gave a little thrust.
I did as he said, loving how it changed the angle of penetration and got him even closer to me. I pulled his head down so I could kiss him again as we started to move together.
It went on for a long time, just kissing and rocking together, and every part of it felt so good that my mind could barely process it.
I couldn’t stop. Kissing him. Holding him with my arms and my legs. Lifting my hips to meet his thrusts.
“That’s right,” Sean rasped, breaking the kiss at last as his motion grew faster. “I can feel you getting tighter. Can you come again?”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah.” I huffed out the words on each taken breath. My fingers were now digging into the skin of his back.
Sean was staring down at me as I tossed my head restlessly with the rising of my climax. “I want to feel you come. I want you to let go. Don’t hold anything back. Not from me. I want everything from you.”
His words as much as his motion pushed me over the edge, and I arched up, my mouth opened with a silent scream as the sensations pulsed through me.
He groaned as my body clamped down around him, but he managed to hold on to his fast, steady rhythm.
I squeezed my legs around him as I came down from my orgasm. I tightened my fingers in his hair.
Sean was panting now, his features twisting as he was reaching the edge himself. “That’s right, baby. Hold on to me. Don’t let me go. This is... this is what I want.”
I didn’t know if he was even aware of what he was saying, but the words sent my heart into a tailspin. I was almost sobbing as he fell over the edge, as I watched his face transform with pleasure, with satisfaction, as his body shook helplessly, as he jerked against me with a series of hard pushes.
We were both groaning and panting as he collapsed into my arms afterward. His body was hot and relaxed and heavy, and I didn’t want to let him go, even though my legs were stiff, even though I knew he needed to take care of the condom.
I finally lowered my legs reluctantly as he pulled off me.
I could barely move, so I just stayed where I was, naked on the bed, as he got up to throw away the condom.
He returned to the bed without a word, moving beside me and then taking me into his arms.
I breathed against his chest, listening to his fast heartbeat.
My heart was beating quickly too.
Sean stroked my hair.
I pressed a few kisses against his shoulder.
Neither of us said anything.
Eventually I fell asleep.
I WOKE UP WHEN SEAN was trying to get out of my bed.
I’d slept hard—really hard. I hadn’t moved or woken up at all until I was vaguely aware of Sean trying to move me off him. I didn’t want him to get up. My body really liked how it felt to sleep against him. So I clung to him, resisting the change in position.
I was vaguely aware that Sean made a strange sound, and I woke up as I tried to figure out what it was.
“Sorry,” I mumbled as I realized what I was doing. I was clutching at him, trying to keep him from getting up. I rolled onto my back and relaxed my arms. “Sorry.”
“It’s fine,” Sean said. He straightened up so he was sitting on the edge of the bed. I could hear him breathing deeply, but I couldn’t think clearly enough yet to figure out what he was doing.
I turned on my side and tried to see his face. He seemed to be staring down at the floor.
Then I looked at the clock and discovered it was three-thirty in the morning.
It was a Sunday morning. The bed was so comfortable. It would be even more comfortable with Sean in it. “You can stay,” I said. “You don’t have to leave yet.”
He didn’t move, except for his head, which turned to dart a glance at me.
“Unless you want,” I added, suddenly feeling terrified for no good reason.
He didn’t reply with words. For a while he didn’t even move. Then he stood up with a soft groan and went into my bathroom, closing the door behind him.
While he was in there, I woke up completely. I got up to find a big T-shirt and a pair of panties to pull on since I’d been sleeping completely naked. Then I sat on the bed and waited for Sean to return.
When he did, he didn’t get back into the bed. He reached down for his underwear and trousers on the floor.
He was going to leave.
I don’t know why it bothered me, but it did.
A knot clenched in my gut that got tighter and tighter as I watched him dress in silence.
Surely there wasn’t anything he had to do first thing on a Sunday morning.
He just wanted to leave.
Of course he did.
Why wouldn’t he?
We’d never been in a relationship.
We just met every other Wednesday for sex.
Yesterday had been an aberration, but it hadn’t changed our situation.
Sean was leaving.
He was a really good guy at heart, but he didn’t want anything but sex from me. He might like me—I knew he did—and occasionally he let even more feeling leak through the edges of his behavior.
But he’d never let himself feel anything more. Even if he was tempted, he would stop himself so his heart would never get ripped out of his chest again.
Every day, he made conscious choices not to change his mind.
Something had changed for me though. I knew now that I wanted so much more.
I wanted everything.
Not just in theory. Not in some flimsy daydream.
I wanted everything from Sean.
When he was dressed, Sean leaned over to give me a kiss. “See you on Wednesday night?” he asked lightly.
The casual question was like the stab of a knife in my heart.
It wasn’t his fault. It was mine. He was being who he’d always been, assuming nothing was different.
When everything was different for me.
I wanted Sean badly but not enough to damage myself trying to keep even the little parts of him I currently possessed. I knew exactly what I needed to do.
If he wasn’t going to let himself love me, then I couldn’t hurt myself making do with the little he would give me.
“I... I don’t think so,” I said.
I saw Sean’s body jerk slightly. He was silent for a beat. Then asked, very softly, “You won’t be there?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
Despite the clause in our contract that claimed we didn’t owe each other an explanation for ending our affair, I knew I did owe Sean an explanation.
I just wasn’t sure what I should say.
I took a ragged breath and shifted slightly from where I was sitting on the bed. “It’s... It’s just not enough for me anymore. I know I was totally wrong about John. I know I was stupid. But I still think that what I wanted from him—what I wanted from a relationship—was valid. I want someone to love me. I want someone to love. And what I have with you is... is great. It’s really... great. But it’s not love.”
I don’t remember ever baring my soul so completely to another person. The words stripped me bare and hung in the air for a long time after I spoke them.
I knew what I wanted to happen.
I wanted Sean to come over and take my hands in his. I wanted him to kneel down and admit that he did love me, that he wanted me to love him. I wanted him to say the Wednesday night meetings weren’t nearly enough for him either.
I wanted him to want everything too.
It was a long shot. Obviously. But after what had happened between us the night before, I thought it could be possible.
He’d seemed to be feeling more for me than just lust and companionship.
Or maybe I was just imagining it. Making it up in my head—like I’d always done before.
Because Sean
didn’t come any closer. And he didn’t reach out to take my hand or touch me in any way.
He stared at me for a long time. Then he finally murmured, “All right. I understand.”
It was the worst thing he could have possibly said to me, proof that he didn’t even feel enough for me to argue, to get upset.
He was just going to let me go.
I pulled one of my knees to my chest and hugged it. I had to swallow a few times before I could speak through the lump in my throat. “Okay. Thanks. I... I’ve loved the time we spent together.”
It was the closest I could come to telling him that I loved him.
Because I did.
I loved Sean Doyle.
More than I’d ever loved another man in my whole life.
“Me too,” Sean murmured, his voice just slightly thick. He leaned over again and gave me one more, very light kiss.
Then he was leaving.
Walking out of my life.
Walking out of my life for good.
It didn’t feel right.
It wasn’t the way the universe should have turned.
But there wasn’t anything I could do to stop it.
I’d known from the beginning that Sean had loved a woman once, and he was never going to let himself do it again.
In a different world, he and I could have been happy together.
But that wasn’t this world.
In this world, he was who he was.
When I heard my front door close, I curled up in my bed and cried.
It was terrible. Absolutely terrible. To lose Sean the way I had.
But even in my grief, I knew I’d done the right thing.
Sean would never be second best to me. Not anymore.
And it would be a lie—an absolute lie, to him, to myself, and to the world—if I continued to act like he was.
Ten
I’D BEEN CRYING IN my bed for about five minutes, and I had no plans to stop anytime soon.
Then part of my mind became aware of a noise in my apartment. I couldn’t think clearly enough to place it before I saw the silhouette of a man in my bedroom doorway, standing against the light of the hall.
I squealed and sat up, my fight-or-flight instinct kicking in before I realized the man was Sean.
He must not have locked the door on his way out, so he’d been able to walk back in.
“I’m sorry,” he said, his voice sounding very rough, very strange. He strode across the room and took both my hands in his. “I’m sorry. I just came back in. I wasn’t thinking I’d scare you.”
“You did!” I gasped. “What are you doing? I thought you’d left.”
“I had,” he said, still sounding so strange. His face was twisted with what looked like emotion. I’d never seen him like that before. He was always, always so controlled, so self-contained. He knelt down on the floor in front of me, still holding my hands in his. “But it was wrong. It was all wrong.”
“It wasn’t—”
“I know it wasn’t wrong for you,” he interrupted. “It was wrong for me. I shouldn’t have left. It was wrong. I know you want more, and I know you think you’ll never get more from me—but I really...” His voice seemed to run out, and he swallowed, cleared his throat, and tried again. His face was damp with perspiration, and his eyes were nakedly emotional. “I really think I can give you what you want and need. I think I can if you’ll give me one more chance.”
I was frozen, breathless, staring at him blurrily. My mind simply couldn’t keep up with what I was hearing.
This wasn’t really happening.
It couldn’t be.
It had to be part of a desperate, needy dream I’d concocted through my heartbreak.
He didn’t seem to mind that I hadn’t said anything. His words kept spilling out in a clumsy overflow so uncharacteristic of his usual articulateness. “You were right about everything you ever said about me. I thought up this Wednesday evening plan on purpose to protect myself. I liked what I saw in you from the very beginning. I liked it so much it scared me. I had to protect myself so I wouldn’t fall again, so I wouldn’t be hurt like I’d been hurt before. You were right, and I was selfish. Selfish and—”
“I never said you were selfish!” I don’t know why this was the detail that finally pushed me into speech, but it was.
“I know, but you meant it. I know you did. And I was. I was selfish and scared and tried to arrange this whole thing to suit my needs, without ever thinking... See, you were in love with the jackass, and I thought it would be safe. You have no idea how much I hated him. Oh how I hated that man. It hurt so much when you started to date him, and then you stopped seeing me, and I knew I hadn’t protected myself the way I’d tried, but I thought it was too late.”
He stopped, taking a few ragged breaths and staring down at my hands in his.
Mine were trembling. There was no way I could make them stop. My throat hurt, and my eyes burned, and it felt like the whole world was starting to crumble at the edges, like it would cause a landslide I’d be buried beneath forever.
Sean raised his eyes to mine again, and I still couldn’t believe what I was seeing in them, something out of my most over-the-top daydreams. “Then you dumped him and wanted to start again, and I was... I was terrified. My grandmother is right about me, you know. She said that I only feel comfortable if I have a mission, a structure and a purpose to channel all my feelings into. That’s why I had to hold on to our contract and our Wednesday nights. It was the only thing making me feel safe. But again, I was just thinking about myself. Not you. Of course you need more. I should have offered you more from the very beginning. That very first night, when I followed you into that bar, I should have asked you out on a real date. Because I... I liked what I saw in you so much.”
I was gaping at him now. Literally gaping. I would have been embarrassed by my reaction had my heart not been exploding with something else. I tried to say something but couldn’t.
Sean didn’t appear to expect me to talk. He was still rambling on like he couldn’t stop. “I didn’t mean to fall in love with you. I was... I thought I could do it. I thought I could keep you at a distance where it was safe. But I couldn’t, and I did fall in love, and then I didn’t know what to do. So I guess I was trying to change things between us without actually doing it—taking you to the wedding, meeting my grandmother...” He shook his head hard, and his mouth twitched up in a smile for the first time since he’d reentered my room. “I never thought I’d be such a fool, but I guess I am. I am for you.”
“You—” My voice broke. I was still shaking helplessly. “You love me?”
“Of course I love you.” He frowned. “That’s been pretty obvious for a while now, hasn’t it?”
I stared at him speechlessly.
“You knew that, didn’t you?” He was obviously serious. He looked confused, surprised, and strangely frozen. “I’ve been falling all over myself around you for two months now. And I’ve been... acting like a besotted boy. I brought you to meet my grandmother! Obviously, I love you. I thought you knew, and that’s why you’ve been so careful around me and why you tried to let me down so gently just now.”
I was almost choking on my surprise. And exhilaration.
And joy.
It was definitely joy that was trapped in my throat.
“I didn’t know!” I managed to rasp. “Damn it, Sean. I didn’t know! I was being careful for me. Not for you!”
Sean blinked and clenched my hands hard. “Really?”
“Yes, really!” I was slammed with so many feelings at once that they had to come out some way. I pulled my hands out of his grip and hit him on the chest with both of my palms. “How the hell was I supposed to know when you always act so cool about everything?”
He blinked again, but I could see enlightenment dawning on his face.
So much else dawning too.
Coming to light, breaking into life, in the transformation of his expression.
&nb
sp; “I always act cool,” he said in a thick voice. “It doesn’t mean anything. I thought you knew that.”
“I knew you felt things beneath it, but I didn’t know... I didn’t know... you felt things for me.”
“Of course for you,” he murmured, his voice even rougher with emotion as he grabbed my hands again and held them tight. “Especially for you.” He swallowed visibly. “So does this mean you... you feel things for me?”
“Yes, I feel things for you.”
“What things?” His eyes were searching, urgent, fierce with barely contained excitement.
“Lots of things.” I felt ridiculously shy, ridiculously scared, which made no sense after what he’d just admitted to me. So I pushed away my hesitation and said, “I love you too. That’s why I had to end it. If you weren’t going to love me, then I couldn’t—”
I wasn’t able to finish my sentence because Sean had pushed himself up off his knees and grabbed my head to kiss me.
I didn’t mind at all. Whatever I was going to add to my confession just wasn’t essential at the moment.
What was essential was Sean’s lips against mine, his body pushing me down onto the bed, his heat and his weight and his urgency and the deep feeling I could feel coming off him in waves.
“You love me, Ash?” he murmured against my lips.
My hands were clenched in his hair, and my legs had wound around his hips. “Yes. I love you.”
He groaned and kissed me again. Then he kept kissing me as he mumbled, “I love you, I love you, I love you, baby. I love you so much. I can’t believe you didn’t know.”
The last bit caused me to break the kiss and give him a little glare. “Don’t try to put this on me. You’re the one who hid how he felt.”
His eyes were laughing and caressing me at exactly the same time. “And you didn’t?”
“I might have too. Just a little bit.”
He chuckled and kissed me again, and he didn’t stop for a long time.
Eventually the kissing deepened to fondling and then to taking off our clothes. When he was buried inside me, my legs bent up toward my chest and hands holding on to his neck, when we were rocking together in a fast, needy motion, he was still trying to kiss me, still muttering about how much he loved me, needed me, never wanted to let me go.