The Thing About Love

by Kim Karr

  I sighed into his mouth.

  The kiss deepened. His lips moved strongly over mine, demanding, taking, owning, and his urgency bled into my mouth. “I can’t be the only one feeling I’m going to die if I don’t get inside you.”

  The statement was filled with warmth, and seeped into my blood, traveling through my body. “You’re not.”

  He dragged his lips away from mine. “Tell me,” he demanded.

  “I want you. All of you. I want to taste you, touch you, feel you, have you. All of you,” I said breathlessly, my heart surging as adrenaline spiked through my veins.

  His eyes were brimming with lust and arousal. “Wrap your arms around me.”

  I smiled and did just that. As if I weighed nothing, he hoisted me up. His hands slid beneath my bottom to hold me as I hooked my ankles around his waist. He strode out of the living room and down the hall to his bedroom. I clung to him and captured his mouth to give him a wild and hurried kiss.

  A kiss to remember.

  A single light from the bathroom shone into his bedroom, and it, like the rest of his apartment, was sparse and barren of any color, but the air in the room crackled like electricity ran through it as soon as we entered.

  Wasting no time, he leaned over and landed me softly on the bed with my head on a stack of pillows that made me feel like I was floating on a cloud.

  Just as quickly as he’d set me down, he stepped back and started tearing his clothes off. As soon as he pulled his shirt over his head, I felt dizzy. Dizzy with exhilaration, lust, and need.

  I grew impatient at the sight of him half-naked. His strong shoulders, muscled biceps, and hard sculpted abs had me licking my lips.

  I lifted my head as he unfastened his jeans and yanked them down his hips. His desire for me was right there to see in every inch of his tightly coiled body. He was hot. So freaking hot.

  Standing there, his erection was straining, and his eyes burned over me with blazing heat.

  My pussy throbbed and ached for him.

  Him.

  His muscles bunched as he crawled up the bed. My heart never pounded so fast. Grasping my legs, he spread my thighs open wide. I had never been so vulnerable and so turned on at the same time.

  “Oh God,” I whimpered.

  Those eyes flared and then his head dipped.

  “Oh God,” I cried out again when his hot breath blew over me, and he kissed me there. Right there. When he licked me, his tongue flicked and teased. I drew in a breath. It had been so long since a man had gone down on me. Too long.

  His lips worked my clit as he pushed a finger, then two, then three, inside me. Rough, but not harsh. He found my G-spot, and I think I convulsed around his fingers. Pleasure took my voice away.

  I could feel my climax building, the muscles in my thighs trembling and tightening. He sucked and licked at me and slid his fingers in and out. I pushed my hips upward, and he fucked me with his mouth and hands and tongue until I gasped and trembled. I was heading for the cliff’s edge. Fast.

  Trembling, I looked down at him nestled between my thighs. Passion hazed my vision, but everything became crystal clear when he paused to look up at me.

  “Don’t come yet.” His breath drifted over my wet flesh mercilessly.

  “Jake, please,” I protested.

  He moved up my body and captured my wrists with his hands as he pushed mine over my head. “No touching yourself.”

  It was a tease of course, but it felt more like torture. “Jake,” I whimpered.

  His head surged down, and he kissed me, his tongue moving against mine in such hard, quick strokes, it was almost punishing. “Patience,” he chuckled.

  My fingers curled around the headboard to fight the urge to touch myself just for a respite of relief, and I watched him as he fumbled in his nightstand for the package of condoms and slid one on.

  When he moved back over me, he positioned himself between my thighs. “I can’t go easy, Jules.”

  “I’m good with that,” I breathed out, my voice a husky whisper.

  With one hand on his cock to guide it inside me, he stared at me with those intense blue eyes, and then I felt the tip of his cock push into me. He paused only for a moment before surging fully into me.

  The shock of his entry nearly sent me over that same edge I’d come so close to moments ago, but I didn’t want to fall. Not yet. This was too good to end so fast.

  My eyes closed as he filled me. When he moved, I moved with him. His fingers dug into my hips, and then he slid his hands up my belly to my breasts, palming them and tugging at my nipples.

  Unable to stand it, I let go of the headboard and slid my hands up his arms to settle on his shoulders. He was so strong, and I reveled in the idea of touching him everywhere, all night long.

  His palms went flush against the mattress as he fucked into me faster. Then he was back up on his hands and driving his cock deliciously deeper. He withdrew and thrust forward again, jolting my body with the force of his reentry. “Did I hurt you?” he rasped.

  I couldn’t even draw a breath. I was lightheaded from the exhilaration and anticipation. “No. Don’t stop,” I cried out when he slowed.

  His gaze seared into me, so intense that I shivered. “I won’t.”

  My gaze was riveted to him, to his mussed up hair, his hard body, his soft touch.

  He reached down, grasped my legs and pushed them both upward to wrap around his waist, and then pulled us both into a sitting position. Oh, God. Like this I was so tight around him, I wondered how he could possibly even move.

  “Jake,” I cried out at the same time he cried out, “Juliette.”

  Juliette.

  It sounded so right coming from him.

  Our gasps mingled, and the sounds of passion filled the room. Like this, I lifted my body and slammed myself down on his cock.

  This was raw. Real. Primitive. We fucked hard and fast. No boundaries. The thrill of the next surge only driving me higher and higher than I had ever climbed.

  The brink of orgasm was right there, but I had to keep chasing it up the mountain. I closed my eyes to stop myself from reaching the top. I wanted to see just how high I could go. Just how good it would feel.

  “Keep your eyes open.” He thrust deeper into me. “Fuck,” he whispered, “keep your eyes open.”

  With my hands in his hair, I found his heated gaze and lowered my mouth to his.

  “You feel amazing,” he grunted against my lips.

  I moved faster against his thrusts, my heart racing out of control. “So do you.”

  “Juliette.” His grip on my hips tightened. “Juliette.”

  “Jake,” I whimpered back as he thrust at just the right angle and I knew I had reached the top.

  “Fuck.” He started to pump even harder, faster.

  I was shuddering against him in tiny jerks trying my best to stop the fall and stay on top for just a little longer. The feeling was almost surreal. One I never wanted to go without.

  His eyes glittered. “Come for me, Juliette,” Jake commanded, his voice gruff with need. “You’re so tight. Come around me. Let me feel you go wild around my cock.”

  He was deep. So impossibly deep that I could feel nothing but the pulsating hardness of his cock as it drove inside me.

  I let out a sharp cry as my orgasm flashed, explosive and intense. The fall into oblivion was higher and longer than I’d ever experienced, and it was with an intensity that I never could have imagined. Suddenly all those clichés I’d made fun of seemed so real. The earth shifted. The ground moved under my feet. I was on cloud nine.

  As I floated back to earth, Jake held me to him and his rhythm increased. A few seconds later, his face pressed against my neck, his hips jerked, and I felt the release of his climax.

  I shuddered.

  He shuddered.

  We held each other tight until our bodies stopped trembling.

  And when our gazes met again, we both fell to the mattress in a heap and laughed.

/>   Jake moved to get rid of the rubber in a nearby garbage can and then slipped beside me. He rolled to the side with one arm and laid one leg over my body.

  I looked at him. Watched as his hand moved lazily up and down my body in smooth, flat strokes.

  “Jules.”

  “Yes,” I said.

  “That was—I don’t even know how to describe it.” His hand centered over my pussy, his fingers dipping into my wet folds.

  I opened my legs wider, loving the feel of his soft touch, and craving more, even though we’d only finished having each other a moment ago. “Out of this world. Amazing. Fantastic.” I threw a few words out there.

  He stroked my pussy. Up. Down. Soft. Softer. “Yeah, all of that,” he laughed.

  “I like it when you touch me,” I told him.

  A wicked grin crossed his lips, and he dipped his finger inside me. “I like touching you.”

  “I like it when you call me Juliette, too.”

  His breath puffed hot on my shoulder and he kissed me. His lips pressed to my skin. His fingertips settled on my clit, and he circled lightly. “Why don’t you let anyone but Monty call you that?”

  I was on my back looking up at him with my legs spread wide. He was on his side looking down at me, stroking me. And yet I found myself sucking in a breath and saying, “I tell everyone it’s because I was teased so much in school about the whole Romeo and Juliette thing, but that’s a lie.”

  He stopped his stroking. “Why is that a lie?”

  I took his hand and started to move it for him, telling him in my own way I wanted to feel his touch when I divulged the truth, and he figured it out because he dipped his fingers inside me and then started circling my clit in slow, even motions. Not enough to get me off, but enough to make me feel that tingling sensation a woman wished she could hold onto forever. “I think it’s because it reminds me of my parents, and sometimes I don’t want to be reminded.”

  Jake didn’t stop playing with my clit, but he looked down at me with such intensity I felt like he knew exactly what I meant. “Do you want to tell me about them?”

  I arched up, letting the good feeling in and trying to push out the bad. “They were perfect. More in love than anyone I’ve ever known. And then they died, and I had to leave New York and come here to live with my uncle. That was sixteen years ago, and I still miss them.”

  He drew in a breath and his hand stopped.

  “Don’t stop. Please, Jake, don’t stop. Let me feel this instead of the pain.”

  And he did. He brought me to orgasm. Taking his time in a slow and steady motion, and although I didn’t climb the highest mountain, the fall was equally intense.

  When I settled against him, I took his straining cock in my hand and started to stroke it. He shivered under my touch. He was big and thick and beautiful, and his skin was so soft. I wanted to touch him forever.

  He reached for a picture on his nightstand and brought it back to show me. The light was poor, but I could see it enough.

  I stopped my stroking.

  It was of an older man in a doctor’s coat and a young man who, although much scrawnier and smaller, was still the spitting image of the older man, and there was no doubt who the younger man was.

  He set the picture back down and took my hand and started moving it. “Don’t stop.”

  I didn’t.

  I found his gaze. “Was that you?” I asked, already knowing it was.

  He nodded and let his legs fall open. “With my father, before he died,” he said, and then he closed his eyes as if wanting to block out the pain that accompanied the memory with the pleasure of my touch.

  I understood.

  I stroked up, circled his tip, and back down to circle at his base, and then lower to cup his balls.

  His mouth fell open.

  My heart pounded. He was silk and steel in my palm. I moved a little faster. Up. Down. Circling his width, stroking. I wanted to make him feel good. To help ease the pain of what he had yet to tell me.

  His mouth parted on a small gust of breath when I moved faster. He fucked into my fist, and then he was crying out, short and rough, as his orgasm jetted onto his belly.

  I watched the rise and fall of his chest, and then he opened his eyes and looked at me. “How did your parents die?”

  My lips trembled, but I held myself together. “They both died in the World Trade Center attack. They both worked there. My father was a K-9 unit officer in the Explosive Detection Division for the Port Authority and my mother worked for Silverstone Properties.”

  Jake sucked in a breath, and then he was silent for so long, I wasn’t sure he hadn’t fallen asleep with his eyes open. “My father died there that day trying to pull people out. He wouldn’t have even been there if it wasn’t for me. It’s my fault he died.”

  “Jake,” I gasped, rolling onto him, not even caring that his sperm was still on his belly. “Don’t say that.”

  His gaze was distant, and I knew he’d gone to that place I’d been to so often. That place where the hurt was so intense, you thought you couldn’t survive it.

  The thing was, I’d been there too, and because I had, I knew how to bring him back. “Tell me what happened,” I whispered, knowing if he did it was going to open old wounds that had never healed.

  Jake wrapped his arms around me and rolled us onto our sides. I was facing him, and we were close, so close, and yet he moved closer. It wasn’t until we were a breath apart that he opened his mouth to speak.

  I braced myself.

  I heard my pulse start to race.

  What he was about to tell me was going to hurt both of us, but this time we had each other to help ease the pain.

  And I knew it would make a difference.

  It had to.

  Drastic Times Call for Drastic Measures

  JAKE ~ SIXTEEN YEARS EARLIER

  IT WAS TUESDAY.

  I hated Tuesdays.

  Hated them ever since my father moved out three years ago and used his day off as his visitation day.

  Rory was too young to know the difference. She thought it was fun when Dad came over and took us to school and then picked us up and brought us out to dinner.

  I hated it.

  Hated him.

  For leaving us.

  For leaving us with her.

  Monica Alexander Kissinger.

  Our mother, and completely incompetent.

  My father worked at New York Presbyterian Hospital in the city and recently moved from Connecticut to the city to be closer to work. He also refused to let us come live with him. Well, he hadn’t exactly refused. He was working on that, but the laws regarding custody weren’t that easy, or so he’d said.

  And then there was the fact that Monica was a well-known socialite with connections and was fighting him tooth and nail.

  Whatever.

  All I knew was that Monica was passed out in her bedroom, and I was the one getting Rory ready for school.

  So he could fuck himself!

  Pissed off that Monica wouldn’t even get out of bed and I had to deal with all the shit that was his responsibility, I texted him a message and told him not to come. That Monica had insisted on taking us early to meet the teachers since school had just started back up and didn’t want to have to see him.

  That was a big, fat lie. Not the not wanting to see him part. Monica loathed him. But the part about school. I didn’t even think she’d ever set foot in either of our schools or knew what grade we were in, or even where our schools were for that matter.

  I looked around at the mess in the kitchen and heard the stumbling on the stairs. Monica had come down looking peaked and a mess. She rushed to the sink where she vomited. Looking over at me, she said something I couldn’t understand.

  I didn’t care enough to ask her to repeat it. “I can get us both to school,” I barked, and walked away, assuming she was apologizing again for her bad behavior.

  The thing was I’d been covering up for Monica my who
le life, and I was tired of it. I’d been filling in, doing what she was supposed to do, and keeping it to myself. Which was why I was in the place I was.

  I got Rory on the bus, and then walked to school. I was early and hit the basketball court for a not so friendly game of pick up.

  When the bell rang, we all hustled inside.

  I glared at the teacher when she returned my paper with an F. “See me after school, Jake. I want to discuss this with you.”

  I flung the paper onto the floor. “Don’t bother. I really don’t give a shit.”

  She stood with her mouth opened and pointed to the door. “Principal’s office, now!”

  Whatever.

  I took my time walking to the office and realized what a dumbass thing that was to do. She would just call my mother, who wouldn’t answer, and then she’d call my father, who would. He’d be pissed off, disappointed in me, and give me the lecture about how if I wanted to be a doctor like him, I had to do better in school.

  I

  Did.

  Not.

  Want.

  To.

  Be.

  Like.

  Him.

  “Wait outside,” I was told when I arrived.

  I sat on the bench with my head down and pondered what to say.

  I could come clean and tell her I was drowning.

  That I couldn’t take care of my sister and my mother and do my homework and come to school and lie to my father and get good grades.

  It was all too much.

  That my mother had now started bringing strangers home at all hours of the night and waking me up with the noises she made while banging them.

  That in order to make sure Rory didn’t wake up and hear her, I’d carry my sister out to the car until the dude or dudes would leave.

  The door opened, and when I looked up, I saw the horror on Principal Mears face. “Jake, go back to class.”

  I blinked. “But I was sent down here.”

  “I know.” She was crying. “Please go back to class.”

  Okay, I thought. That was easy, but why was she crying?

  I didn’t have to wonder for long.

  Her voice came over the PA. “Students, there has been a great tragedy. A plane has flown into the World Trade Center. The reason is unclear, but we are canceling school for the day.”