Pulse - Part Three (The Pulse Series)

by Bladon, Deborah

  I push the plate of salad that's in front of me away. I have absolutely no appetite. I study his face, trying to read him. There are so many things beneath the surface and I can't place any of them.

  "Jessica." He taps his finger on the table. "Listen to me."

  That's all I've been doing all night. It's all I want to do. I want to listen until I hear him say he loves me again.

  "I took them to the hotel so they could stay there." He reaches across the table to cradle my hand in his. "I was going to come to your place to take you home with me for the night. But then you did that whole breaking and entering felony thing and everything went to shit."

  "You wanted me to meet your family?" I whisper the question.

  "I needed you to meet my family." He motions to the waiter to refill both of our now empty wine glasses.

  "Why didn't you tell me that?" I sit expectantly waiting for an answer while the waiter slowly pours the wine.

  The dim hum of a cell phone breaks the silence between us. Nathan reaches inside his suit pocket to retrieve his phone. He doesn't even glance at the screen before he quiets it. "I'm crazy about you." He pushes the phone aside before he takes my hand again. "I don't know how to do this the right way." His free hand waves in the air over both of our heads. "I wanted my sister and Travis to see what I see in you. Simple."

  It wasn't simple. None of it was.

  Chapter 16

  "You told me you only let three men fuck you." His voice is low and raspy.

  I nod.

  "How many cocks have you sucked?" He pulls lightly on the roots of my hair. "Christ, slow down, Jessica. Slow. It. Down."

  I lean back on my heels and pull my tongue over the wide crest of the head of his cock. I lap at it, listening to him spurring me on.

  "Who could ever give this up?" He leans back into the mattress with both hands still nestled in my hair. "I'll never let this go."

  I move my head down swiftly, pulling the length of him into me. I'm rewarded with a deep growl.

  "You know exactly what I need," he pants. "Stroke it."

  I wrap my left hand around the thick root, stroking it slowly and methodically as I suck just on the head. "It's so beautiful."

  "You're so beautiful." His hips snap back as a single drop of pre cum seeps out. I twirl it over my tongue and run it along my bottom lip.

  "Jesus." He stares at me. "I could come just from watching that."

  I moan as he pushes my head down again and I glide my lips over him. I snake my hands up and down slowly, milking him as I pull him in and out of my mouth.

  "I can't stand it," he growls. "It's so fucking good."

  I pump harder, wanting him to find his release. My tongue soaks in the taste of him, my eyes glued to his face.

  "I'm going to come." His body stiffens and I brace myself for it. I love the taste of him. I love how it makes me feel when I feel it inside of me.

  I moan as he yanks me up with both of his arms. "Nathan, please." I want to finish. I need to.

  "I can't." He flips both of us over effortlessly until he's hovering above me. "Christ, I want to fuck you so much right now."

  I shake my head. "No condom." I can't. I just can't. Not after seeing the phone. I can't let him inside of me like this.

  He leans back on his heels and I know he's going to get up from the bed. "I'll get…"

  "Nathan," my voice is soft and gritty. My hand is gliding over my wet folds. "Please."

  "Fuck." He leans back and strokes his cock while he watches me circle my clit with my own finger. "Touch yourself, baby. Do it."

  I close my eyes and let my head fall to the side as I feel the pleasure wash through me.

  "Open your eyes, Jessica," he's demanding. "Open them."

  I push them open and I'm rewarded with the sight of him hovering over me. He's so beautiful. So strong, so steely.

  "Nathan." His name escapes my lips. "Nathan."

  I feel the tip of his cock touch my clit and I push my hips back into the bed.

  "No." I shake my head.

  "I won't." His lips melt over mine. "Trust me."

  I moan through him when I feel the very tip of his cock circle my swollen bud. "Oh, God, please." I buck my hips closer. I need to feel more.

  He strokes his heavy cock in his palm as he slides it over my cleft. "You're going to come like this."

  I'm so close. I try to push my hand down to take over. I need to come now.

  "No," he commands. "Don't touch yourself. This is all for me."

  I gaze into his eyes as his cock rubs my clit, over and over, faster and faster. "I'm going to…" the words stop as the orgasm races through me. I reach out to grab his shoulders, pulling on him.

  He pulls back harshly, lets out a deep, animalistic growl and finds his own release all over my body.

  Chapter 17

  "Why did you put my number in your fuck phone and not your regular phone?"

  "My fuck phone?" He cocks a brow as he massages my foot. "Is that what we're calling it now?"

  I lean back on the bed and cradle my head in my arms. "It's like a super hero phone for douche bags."

  He cocks a brow as a slight smile grazes his lips. "One point for Jessica."

  "Why did you do it?" I close my eyes. His hand moves up my leg, massaging the back of my calf.

  "Do you have a few hours so I can explain it?" His tone is raspy and quiet.

  "Yes." I nod without opening my eyes.

  His hands leave my leg and I feel an instant loss. I sigh when I feel him pull himself up the bed so he's resting next to me.

  "Turn over." His hand glides to my hip as I turn to face him. "Listen to me."

  I nod.

  "When I lived in Boston I was…" He stares into my eyes and I can see the reservation there. "God, Jessica, I was such an asshole."

  "I know," I say under my breath.

  "You know?"

  "You're still an asshole. It only stands to reason it started there." I tap him on the tip of his nose.

  "Two points for Jessica."

  I smile. "Once upon a time, Nathan was an asshole…"

  "Right." He tilts his chin. "Nathan was an asshole who fucked anyone he could get his hands on."

  The words bite right through me. I pull my gaze down to the bed. Why did I ask such a stupid question? Why do I open myself up to this much pain?

  "Jessica." His lips course hot over my cheek. "Listen, you have to listen. No lies, remember?"

  "No lies," I repeat back. I'm getting too deep again. I just wanted to use him for pleasure. I thought I could separate my lust for him and my real feelings.

  "I started randomly fucking women so long ago I don't remember when." He reaches to grab my hand and pull it to his lips. "Don’t freak out. Please, don't."

  "I'm trying." I am. I'm trying to understand. I want to understand.

  He kisses my palm lightly before placing my hand on his cheek. "I had to get away from there. I had to leave. "

  "Boston?" I question. He's never explained to me why he moved from there to New York. I've always wondered given that he races back every other weekend to see his sister.

  "When you fuck that many women, you start to hate yourself." He pushes my hand into his face as he closes his eyes. "I wanted to start fresh here."

  "In New York?"

  "I took a demanding job because I knew it wouldn't leave me any time to fuck around." He moves his hand to drape it over my shoulder. "Then I met Cassie. She had kids, and a good job and needed me."

  I cringe when he says her name. I still think about the look on her face when he broke up with her in this apartment. When he blatantly announced that he was fucking someone else.

  "It was boring. Christ, she was so fucking boring." There's nothing apologetic about the words. He said no lies. He's being direct. This is what I wanted. It's what I always hoped for.

  "God, Jessica." His hand leaps to my waist as he pulls me into his naked body. I can feel every muscle on his stron
g chest. I can sense that he's already semi-hard again. "Then I saw you."

  "At the club?"

  "Everything inside of me shifted at that moment in time." He nuzzles his face into my forehead. "It's as if the world stopped and I finally got on it. A world that made sense. A world that I finally wanted to be in."

  My breath stalls at the words. How can he do that? How can be such an utter asshole one second and so soft and endearing the next? It's no wonder I feel as though I can’t breathe whenever he's in the same room with me.

  "I've never felt these things before." He pulls his hand from me and taps his own chest. "I've never missed anyone this much when I was away from them for ten minutes. I've never craved a woman's body this way. I've never ached inside."

  "Nathan…" I can't really form anything in my mind to say. My heart is in control right now and if I allow it to have its way it's going to make me say things I'm not ready to say.

  "There was that one night." He pulls back so he can look at me directly. "Do you remember that night?"

  I search his eyes for a clue. "What night?"

  "You were dancing with the chef," he groans. "I saw you across the club. You were so gorgeous. Fuck, just so beautiful." He grazes his lips across my forehead. "I felt things I never felt before. I couldn't stand the idea of you being with him. I almost took him outside.

  "He only wanted my number."

  "No, Jessica." He shakes his head. "He wanted to fuck you. He wanted to be inside this tight little body. He was practically drooling over you."

  I chuckle at the visual of that. "It wasn't like that."

  "You can't see it." He pulls back and grabs my shoulder in his hand. "You can't see what you do to men."

  "Just to you." I roll my eyes. "Drew didn't want to fuck me. Well, he did technically, but…"

  "You don't understand." He studies me. "Men want you. How can they not?"

  I reach to embrace him. "You want me. Don’t think that means other men do too."

  He grazes his hand over my bare back. "I can't take that chance. That's why I wanted your number."

  My heart dips at the words. It's not from elation, that's not it. I'm disappointed that once again he's confessing that he wanted my number to keep me from sleeping with anyone else. "You asked for it that night because you felt threatened by Drew."

  His body tenses beneath me and I immediately know I've struck a nerve. "Not threatened," he corrects me in an even tone. "That's not what it was."

  "What then?"

  "I asked for it because I realized that if I didn't, you were going to slip away from me."

  I jerk back so I can look into his eyes. "You put my number into your fuck phone." It's meant to sound hostile. It's an insult, regardless of how he spins it.

  "I've never been in a relationship, Jessica." He bows his head as if he wants to run from the truth.

  "Are you serious?" The question sounds so much more callous than I wanted it to. "How is that possible? You're thirty-one."

  "I started sleeping with women when I was a teenager." He pauses as his glides his hand over my arm. "I've dated a few women but it never went anywhere. I like being alone. I like keeping my business life separate from my work."

  "That's why you had a phone just filled with women you fuck?"

  "I could leave it alone when I'm not in the mood. I could forget about all of them. I wanted to leave that all behind me. When I took your number that night, I had that phone in my pocket. It wasn't because I was going to call someone else to fuck. It was because I was ready to toss it."

  "You put my number in there with all of them." The gravity of the statement stings as I hear myself say it.

  "I put it in my phone." He stresses the last two words. "Right after you left, I put it in the phone I have with me all the time. It was a big step for me. I wasn't ready to call you from it because I didn't know how to explain it. I've always kept my fucking separate from the rest of my life."

  "That's why you had that hotel suite?"

  "I arranged that shortly after I arrived here because I felt the same old urges to…"

  "To fuck random women?" I fill in the uncomfortable blank.

  He buries his face in my neck. "I'm not proud of who I was. I wanted to change. I tried and I didn't fuck anyone until I met Cassie."

  "You took her to the room?" I need to know. I want to tell myself it doesn't matter if he did, but that's a lie. He told me he only had sex with her twice. He told me it never happened in that hotel suite.

  "No, never." The words whisper across my skin. "You were the only one."

  I pull back. I can't absorb that when he's so close to me. I can't think straight when I can feel his breath hot on my body.

  "Jessica, don't run." He grips my arm. "Don't do this."

  "I'm not." I try to reassure myself as much as him.

  "You are." His tone is level and calm. "You want to race out of here because you're afraid I'm lying to you."

  "You are lying." There I said it. It's what I feel.

  "You were the only woman who ever set foot in that hotel suite other than my sister. The only one."

  "I don’t believe you." I can't lie. I won't lie to him.

  He pulls me back into his body. "I'll prove to you that I'm not the man you think I am."

  Chapter 18

  "I was wondering if it was possible for me to get tomorrow night off?" This is the first time I've asked for a night off from work since I've started. It's a special occasion though. Rebecca just got a promotion and a group of people she works with are celebrating. I want to be there for her.

  The kitchen manager smiles at me as she looks at the schedule on the wall. "Sure, I don't see any reason why not."

  I almost reach over to pull her into a tight embrace. "This means so much to me."

  "What does?" Drew's voice echoes in the air behind me.

  "I'm taking tomorrow off." I'm going to do this in front of the kitchen manager so he can't twist things around and fuck it up for me.

  "That's not going to work for me." His voice is harsh and unyielding. "We'll be too busy."

  "I'll come in early and do all my prep." My words are meant for the kitchen manager although my eyes never leave his.

  "We're good, Jess." She pats me on the back. "Take the entire day. You've been working really hard."

  Drew stands in stunned silence as we both watch her walk away.

  "I need to get back to work." I pivot on my heel to turn back towards the stack of cucumbers I've been assigned to julienne.

  "Where are you going tomorrow night?" His breath is on my neck.

  I move to the side. "It's none of your business, Drew."

  "Are you going out with the lawyer?" There's no denying his distaste for Nathan. "Is that why you needed a night off?"

  I turn sharply and tap my finger against his chest. "Back off, Drew. My life is none of your business."

  "You're actually going out with him again?" He's so smug.

  "I'm going to a party with my roommate. I'm not going out with him."

  "When you kissed me that night, you wanted me, not him." It's meant to provoke me and it does.

  "Shut up."

  "You would have slept with me when we went out for dinner that night, but then he showed up at your place before I got there." The mention of that night hangs in the air, thick and heavy, between us.

  "Maybe things would have been different if he wasn't there." It's a small offering. It's the truth. I was so fucked up then that I can't be sure what I would have done if Nathan hadn't appeared in my doorway.

  "He's going to dump you." His eyes rake me over. "I'll be waiting."

  "Don’t hold your breath."

  ***

  "You should have invited the cute chef to come with you." Rebecca smiles at me across the table.

  I pull my hand through my hair, wishing I had tied it up for the night. "That makes perfect sense." I don’t even try and hide the sarcasm in my voice.

  "Drew is
so angry because he's so horny," she tempers her tone as she gazes at her coworkers who are seated around us.

  "Do you still work for Cassandra now that you're promoted?" I noticed almost immediately that she wasn't in attendance. I was grateful given the fact that I still carried so much guilt about what happened between her, Nathan and me.

  "We're colleagues now." She pulls air quotes around the words. "I get to travel, and wine and dine clients and I get an expense account."

  I smile knowing that all her Manhattan dreams are finally coming true. "Things are looking up for you."

  "I guess." If I was looking for excitement, there was none to be found in her dismal mood.

  "What's going on?" I push the bland food around on my plate. If there was one thing you could count on with this group of people, it seemed to be their lack of culinary taste. I was going to need to make myself a sandwich after this sorry excuse for grilled tuna.

  "Do you think I'm too young to get married?"

  That came out of left field. "Married?" I try not to choke on the bite of risotto I just took.

  "I think I want to have a family soon." She pouts her lips. "I'd make a good mom, don't you think?"

  "Are you pregnant?" I spit the question out with way too much shock and surprise attached to it.

  "Pregnant?" For the first time this evening she's finally got a wide grin on her beautiful face. "You have to get screwed for that to happen and there's no action going on in there." She points towards her lap. "It's a virtual dead zone."

  "You'll meet someone," I offer. I know she will. She's got everything going for her.

  "Right now, Jess." She scoops her finger towards me and I lean in closer. "All I need is a really good fuck."

  Chapter 19

  "You're such a good fuck, Jessica," he purrs into my ear.

  "What?" I almost knock him completely off my bed. "How did you get into my room?"

  "That guy you live with let me in? Bryce, right?" His hands deftly pull the sheets off of my body. "Why the hell do you sleep in the nude? What if he walked in on you?"

  I leisurely rest my hands over my head, putting my entire body on display for him. "I like the way it feels."