Free Agent

by Catherine Gayle

  There were even fewer who would say it in return. Probably just Grandma, to be honest. But considering Bea had dropped everything and jumped on a plane across the country to be with me, I had a bit of hope that maybe she could fall in love with me someday, too.

  We didn’t talk much for the rest of our meal. Didn’t really need to. Usually, I’d be cracking jokes right and left, but I just didn’t have it in me right now. But Bea didn’t seem to mind. She just stayed by my side, solid as a rock, her presence keeping me calm when my mind was like a tempest.

  When we returned to Grandma’s room a bit later, she was awake again—probably because they were taking her vitals, changing out her IV bag, and shooting her up with more medications.

  “You two need to get the hell out of here,” she barked as soon as she saw me walk through the door to her room. “You look like death warmed over. Got a bit more color than you did earlier. I guess she fed you?”

  “She did,” I admitted.

  “Good. Then she’s got more sense than you. Now go sleep. That’s all I’m going to be doing anyway. At least I will be once they stop poking me.”

  “I’d rather stay here with you,” I argued, but it was only a feeble attempt on my part. And it wasn’t entirely true. There was a very large part of me that wanted to spend every possible moment I could with Grandma. But there was another part of me that realized she was right, and I needed some rest in order to make the most of those moments I had with her.

  “Do what you came here for, Bea,” Grandma said pointedly. “Take care of my boy.”

  I shot a look in Bea’s direction. She shrugged it off. Apparently I wouldn’t be getting any answers from her.

  But I was practically dead on my feet, and if I didn’t get some decent rest soon, I wouldn’t be any use to anyone. The meal had helped, but it had also forced me to recognize I was nearing the boundaries of my own limitations.

  I bent over Grandma’s bed and kissed her on the cheek. “We’ll be back in the morning. Call me if you need anything.”

  “I need that male nurse to come back. Can you arrange for that to happen? He needs to help me with my bed pan or something.”

  Bea chuckled, and I couldn’t seem to stop myself from laughing, too. I narrowed my eyes at Grandma. “I’m being serious here.”

  “So am I.”

  “Mm hmm.” I straightened away from her bed, stretching my back. “I’m going to stop by the nurse’s station on our way out of here and tell them to keep him away from you because you’re going to sexually harass him and I don’t want to deal with a lawsuit.”

  “You go right ahead and do that, Blakey. That might just get him to come see me more often.”

  I grabbed the handle of Bea’s suitcase in one hand, took hold of her hand with my other, and led her out of Grandma’s hospital room, the sound of Grandma’s gleeful cackle following us all the way to the elevator bay.

  “I like her,” Bea said softly once the elevator doors closed us in.

  “I love her,” I replied, my voice cracking. “And she’s all I’ve got.”

  “She’s not all you’ve got,” Bea said, reaching for my hand.

  There was a part of me that hoped I could believe her.

  But there was a bigger part of me that knew the truth: only Grandma had ever loved me before—no one else. I didn’t see that changing any time soon. It didn’t matter whether I loved Bea or not. That just wasn’t the way my life worked.

  BLAKE WAS SO exhausted—probably both from a lack-of-sleep standpoint and an emotional one—that he fell asleep almost as soon as we arrived at the hotel room, collapsing on top of the blankets instead of tucking himself in. I did my best to make him comfortable, taking off his shoes and wrapping one of the blankets around him, but I didn’t want to do too much and disturb his nap. The thing he needed most now was rest, even if he wasn’t in an ideal position to get it.

  Then I turned off most of the lights in the room and drew the curtains closed to block the light coming in from the street lamps and cars passing by. I always slept better in the dark, so I assumed he would, as well.

  While he slept, I set myself up at the desk and lit a single lamp near me, primarily using the light of my laptop screen, and I knocked out some lesson planning for next week. Since I wasn’t sure how long I’d be staying with Blake, I needed to design lessons that a substitute could easily follow, while still making sure they would be beneficial to my students—but also something I could modify to suit my own teaching strengths in case I returned soon enough to present the lessons myself.

  The school secretary had assured me that they’d arranged for an experienced, quality substitute teacher, but I wasn’t so sure about all of that. Most of my colleagues complained about the lack of instruction their subs could provide while they were out. How much of that was due to their students thinking they could goof off and how much was due to the substitutes’ inability to control a classroom was debatable.

  I’d planned three days’ worth of lessons and emailed them in to the school by the time I found Blake blinking at me from the bed. The heavy sounds of his breathing had slowed so gradually that I hadn’t noticed the change to recognize that he was awake until I found those dark eyes fixated on me.

  “How long have you been awake?” I asked, saving my work and closing my laptop.

  He shrugged, which shifted the blankets until they fell off his upper body, revealing the rippling muscles of his chest and forearms tugging against his T-shirt. Then he rolled over onto his side to face me. “Didn’t want to bother you. You looked busy. And I know you had to drop everything to be here with me.”

  “I wouldn’t mind the distraction, to be honest. Work can wait.”

  “You look cute when you work. You scrunch up your face when you’re thinking. Makes me want to kiss the tip of your nose.”

  An unexpected thrill shot through my body, settling heavily in my belly. I couldn’t quite catch my breath.

  “You need to keep working?” he asked.

  “I can take a break.” My whole body started tingling with anticipation—but I wasn’t sure what I was anticipating.

  Shifting his body in the bed, he inched back and patted the space where he’d been, in a clear invitation to join him.

  My stomach jumped into my throat, but I set my laptop aside and crossed over to sit on the edge of the mattress. The space he’d vacated was warm from his body, seductively urging me closer to his heat. But my unease wouldn’t allow me to settle in or get too comfortable. I held myself rigidly away from him, forcing myself into an unnaturally straight posture.

  “Closer,” he said. “I want you to lie down with me.”

  “I’m nervous.” The truth rushed from my lips before I could stop it, and I shivered even though I wasn’t cold.

  “I won’t bite,” he teased. Then he winked, lacing the strong fingers of one of his hands through mine. “Unless you ask me to. If you want that sort of thing, I’m game.”

  I studied the joining of our hands. His grip was so solid and sure. My hand seemed small and weak, further emphasized by my clammy palm. But I had to give myself a mental shake to break out of the stupor that had suddenly claimed me from the realization that I’d never looked at any part of my body before and found it to be small.

  “I don’t know what I want,” I said, but it was a lie. “What do you want?”

  The crease between his brows when I glanced up at his face again told me he knew it for the lie it was. His dark eyes were so serious as he studied me. “Guess it’s a good thing for both of us that I know what I want.”

  “What?” My voice cracked, and the word was almost inaudible.

  “I want you.”

  His admission reverberated in my mind, banging against the walls of my brain like a pinball bouncing in an arcade game. But even though I was desperate for it to be the truth, as he slipped a hand behind my neck and drew me closer, there was a voice in the back of my mind shouting that it was a lie.

&n
bsp; That didn’t stop me from wanting him, though.

  But a moment of clarity washed over me, and I put a hand on his chest to stop him. “I got birth control, but it’s not effective yet,” I found myself saying, heat rushing all over my body and especially to my cheeks. “We can’t— We need condoms. Do you have any here?”

  He shook his head.

  “Then we can’t—"

  “I don’t need a condom to make you come. Let me make you come.”

  “Oh,” I said, a wispy sound that was mostly breath.

  As his tongue teased the seam of my lips, begging entry, the voice yelled that no man could ever truly want me like that. No man could want to give me pleasure unless he was getting something out of it, too. And what could Blake possibly be getting out of this? As I opened and gave in to the heady pleasure of his tongue gliding against mine and his powerful hand inching up my rib cage and tugging the fabric of my shirt along with it, his fingers dusting my bare skin, the voice turned shrill and panicky.

  “Stop.” I grabbed hold of his wrist, halting his progress before he uncovered any more of my loose, sagging skin. “Hold on for a minute.”

  “I’m sorry.” His apology was out before he even knew what the problem was, as if by rote, as though he assumed that he’d done something wrong.

  But this wasn’t anything he’d done. This was all me. All my own insecurities and fears. “Don’t be sorry,” I choked out.

  Confusion clouded his eyes.

  “The lights,” I explained. “I just need to turn out the lights.”

  “I want to see you.”

  Hot tears of shame sprang to my eyes. I didn’t even know why I should feel ashamed, but I did. My mortification slogged through my veins like cooling tar. “I can’t. I need it to be— Please.” The whispered words crackled with an electric sort of ache in the silence.

  For far too long, he studied me, his dark brow creased with a combination of concern and confusion that made me want to get up and rush from the room without looking back. But then he kissed the bridge of my nose before reaching for the switch next to the bed, cloaking us in darkness. “Better?” he asked.

  A hint of light peeked in through the curtains, but I could only make out shadows—nothing solid or substantial. Almost immediately, my unease started to dissipate. “Better,” I replied, my nerves still going haywire but no longer threatening to send me into full-blown panic.

  He touched his lips softly to mine, a tender, featherlight brush of warm flesh that was gone before I could adjust. “Can I touch you now?” he murmured. “I want to touch you. I want to make you come. Is that all right?”

  “Yes.” I could barely hear my reply over the pounding of my pulse, so I reached for his hand and guided it back to where it’d been before I’d had my minor freak-out.

  The heat of his palm seared my skin, working better than any of Dani’s warming fabrics had ever done. He splayed his fingers along my ribs, slowly inching toward my breast. I moaned against his lips when he squeezed me through the stretchy fabric of my bra. I couldn’t breathe at all when his thumb and fingers found my hard nipple and gave it a pinch. There was a hint of pain, but it wasn’t much and I welcomed it because of the heady pleasure that followed soon afterward; my entire body leaned in toward him almost of its own volition, silently begging for more.

  “I want to take your clothes off,” he murmured, his lips pressed to my forehead. “I want to taste you everywhere. I want to suck your tits and rub your clit and make you come all over my hand. All over my tongue.”

  For whatever reason, those words had my body thrumming with an unfamiliar ache. Some unknown force had me reaching for the hem of my shirt and lifting it up and over my head.

  Blake helped me free the shirt from my arms. He tossed the fabric to the floor and leaned over me until my back and shoulders hit the mattress, and he licked a path from my jaw to my collarbone that left me shuddering.

  “You taste good,” he murmured, and his fingers were unhooking the clasp of my bra. “Your skin’s so fucking sweet.”

  As soon as the fabric was free from my body, my breasts slumped to the sides and my hyperaware self-consciousness returned full force. I tried to contain them, to cover them up, but Blake was faster than I was. He took one in each hand, gently cupping them as my nipples drew up and hardened against his palms.

  Thank God I’d insisted on keeping the lights off. I couldn’t bear the thought of him witnessing my embarrassment. The idea of him seeing the way they flopped around was just— I couldn’t even let myself go there.

  He kept kissing my collarbone, gradually moving lower, alternately suckling and nibbling and licking my skin until I was tingling all over, my body straining up for more of his touch. When his tongue circled one of my nipples, a moan fell from my lips that made it sound like it’d been ripped from the dead.

  “Oh, God,” I cried. “I didn’t know it could feel like that.” I’d touched myself before—I mean, who hadn’t?—but this was different than anything I’d ever done on my own, or anything I’d ever dreamed of, for that matter. Nothing could have prepared me for the sensations roaring through my body.

  But he didn’t back off at all, chuckling against my skin as he suckled my tit between his lips until I was squirming to get away even though I was frantic for more.

  With lips and teeth and tongue, he made a trail down my belly, stopping at my waistband. “Can I take these off?” he asked, his fingers hovering over the button and zipper of my jeans.

  Agreeing, I lifted my hips to help him in removing them before my nerves could kick in to stop me.

  It only took him a couple of quick tugs to have my jeans and panties all the way down my legs. He tossed them somewhere and bent over me, and then his hot mouth and authoritative hands were on me.

  He pushed my thighs up and spread them apart, leaving me completely open. But he had to be able to feel the loose skin drooping all over the place. I wanted to shove him away, but he swirled a pointed tongue over my clit, and I forgot all about my unease.

  He used his lips and tongue in sinful ways.

  I was lost. A total goner.

  Whatever mortification I had been feeling dissipated almost as quickly as it had built, because Blake’s wicked tongue took over my brain.

  My toes curled, and I made a fist in the sheets because I thought I might come up off the bed if he didn’t stop soon, but I didn’t want him to stop. He slipped a finger inside me, then added a second, curling them up and brushing them gently against some wonderful, unknown spot. The suction of his lips on my clitoris was more than I could take. My hips rocked up off the bed, as if seeking something elusive of their own accord, and then it hit me like a firecracker of sensation down below. A zing of electricity followed by boneless weightlessness.

  I was well and truly spent.

  I’d never felt weightless before. I was always overly conscious of my weight, my body.

  After a minute, Blake shifted his body up mine to lie next to me. I was limp and slack everywhere, all my recently discovered muscles having had enough for now, but he dragged me up against him. I wrapped my limbs around him and held on with all the strength I could muster.

  His warmth was addictive. His scent was a drug.

  He trailed the fingers of one hand lazily through the thick waves of my hair while I tried to remember how to breathe. I was a lot more active these days than I ever used to be, but even though I’d been lying down through the whole thing, that had been one heck of a workout. I needed time to catch my breath.

  “You ever make yourself come like that before?” he asked after a couple of minutes.

  Good thing the lights were out so he couldn’t see my embarrassment. “Not quite like that,” I hedged.

  He chuckled, a deep, rich, cocky sound that made me want to give him cause for a laugh like that more often. He tugged me closer until I was practically halfway on top of him. His body was all muscle beneath me. Solid, hot, addictive muscle—so completely d
ifferent from my body of mush.

  “I want to make it happen more often,” he said into the dark. “I could get addicted to making you come.”

  Our intimate proximity made me self-conscious, particularly since I was naked and covered in sweat and he was still fully clothed. I shifted, angling myself away from him slightly, but Blake only tugged me closer. He dragged me all the way on top of him. The heat of his very hard erection pulsed against my belly. I felt guilty that he hadn’t found any relief yet, but I wasn’t sure what I should do about it.

  I licked my lips for courage. “Tell me what to do.”

  “Hmm?”

  He brushed my hair back from my face, so I propped my head up and looked down into his eyes.

  “Tell me what you want. What you want me to do,” I repeated.

  “You don’t have to do anything.”

  “But I want to…help you,” I said for want of a better word.

  It was hard to be sure in the dark, but it seemed like the hint of a smug smile crossed his features.

  “You have no idea how fucking hot it is to hear you talking like that.”

  Yet again, I was glad of the dark. “So? Where do I start?”

  “Will you touch me?”

  “How?”

  He held out a hand. “Give me your hand.”

  Trying not to shake, I put mine in his. He guided it down to the bulge in his pants. He was a lot harder than I’d expected, and there was so much heat warming my palm.

  I trailed my fingertips over the smooth fabric.

  “Fuck, baby,” he murmured, burying his face in my hair. “I can’t even begin to tell you how bad I’ve been wanting you to touch me.”

  “Like this?” I asked.

  “Harder. Squeeze me.”

  I added more pressure, and he groaned against the side of my head.

  “I want—” I cut myself off, not sure how to ask. “Can you take off your pants?” I finally spluttered.

  “Fuck yes.” In about three seconds flat, he’d whipped off his clothes, underwear and all, and tossed them onto the floor, barely dislodging me in the process.