“Oh my God, how do you come up with all those? And why did you buy me that popcorn? I never asked you to! And we didn’t even go out tonight, and I ordered you pizza without green peppers, and then we fell asleep on the couch and dragged our asses to bed and did not even have sex!”
“Paige, I’m trying really hard to follow you, but I—”
“I never wanted a relationship!”
He snaps his mouth shut and stares at me. Just stares at me. I’m breathing heavy, my palms clammy and sweaty, my heart racing too fast, and he’s the picture of calm.
“What did you think we were doing this whole time?” he asks after a too-long silence.
“Not that!”
“Well…” He reaches over and grabs his glasses from my side table—Jesus, he’s got his glasses on my side table, like they belong there, and I hate how much I like that—and slips them on before he runs a hand over the stubble on his jaw. “I hate to tell you this, but just because you don’t put the label on it doesn’t mean that isn’t exactly what’s been happening.”
“What? No. No, that’s not—”
“It is.” He slides his legs over the side of the bed and reaches out for me, grabbing my hand and tugging me forward between his knees. He runs his hands up and down the outside of my thighs as he looks up at me. “And it doesn’t have to change anything if we do put the label on it. We still go out and have a good time, kicking each other’s asses.”
“You mean me kicking your ass,” I cut in.
He smiles, one side of his mouth kicking up higher than the other. “We still hang out at your place or mine when we don’t feel like going somewhere. We still have sex because we have fucking amazing sex. And, yeah, sometimes we don’t have sex, and that’s okay, too. The only difference that comes with the label is maybe I don’t have to ply you with ice cream to get you to come over. And maybe I introduce you as my girlfriend when we’re out.”
Oh God. I think I might puke. Right here on uber hot, glasses-wearing Adam. The jumbled mess in my brain has migrated to my stomach, every cell in my body ready to bail. I haven’t been someone’s girlfriend in years. Years. But Adam doesn’t know that. He knows I don’t do relationships, but he doesn’t know why. And he’s not ever—
“I changed all my college plans for the last guy who called me his girlfriend and then he fucked some other girl in the front seat of my car at a pep rally.” Jesusfuck, are my mouth and my brain at all connected tonight?
I keep my eyes focused somewhere over his right shoulder. I don’t want to look at him. Don’t want to see the pity and the revulsion there. But I look anyway, and Adam…isn’t looking at me any differently than he always does.
“I’m sorry that happened to you, but I hope you know me well enough now to know I’d never do that to you. Besides, I hate pep rallies.”
Somehow, even in the face of me having the ultimate freak out and exposing my most vulnerable moment in history to the one person I wish didn’t know anything about it, he manages to make me crack a smile. Funny how every bit of that is thanks to the same guy.
He slides his hands up until his thumbs run along the edges of my panties, and his fingers tuck under my ass. “Do you want to talk about it?”
I shake my head and rest my hands on his shoulders. I can safely say I’d like to never talk about it again, especially with him. “No.”
He nods. “Good. Time to pay up on your promise from earlier.”
“My prom—”
“You were whining about not having sex. Well, I’m about to change that. And we’re going to start with your mouth on my cock.” He scoots back on the bed, his head up by the pillow as he props his arms behind it.
Adam just lies there staring at me, waiting. He’s giving me an out. Letting me focus on something other than what all this means to me. Can it really be this easy? Can I really get past this anxiety I have at the thought of being in a relationship with him, even if that’s exactly what we’ve been doing?
Having the label on it does change things, whether Adam thinks so or not. But I can do this. I can, because he’s only here for another few weeks, and then he’s going back to his life in Colorado, and that’ll be it for our relationship… Frozen forever in a perfect summer fling.
I glance down and see him hardening already in his boxers, and start to climb up on the bed before he stops me by holding up a finger. “Panties and tank top off.”
Pursing my lips, I slide him a look. “Bossy…”
His answer is a quirk of his eyebrow, so I tease him a bit, turning around and pulling the tank top off, then lowering my panties while bending over in front of him. When I glance back at him, it takes all of my willpower to force my legs to hold myself upright. Adam’s got his underwear shoved down under his balls, his fist wrapped around his cock while he stares at me.
“Give me your mouth, Paige.”
My body moves of its own accord, climbing up on the bed and settling next to him. Leaning over, I wrap my hand around his fist, using his fingers to squeeze his shaft as I bend forward and lick up the come beading on his flushed head. Adam’s groan spurs me on, and I suck the tip into my mouth, glancing up at him to see him staring at me. Watching me. His lips are parted, his eyes focused on me behind those sexy-as-fuck glasses, and I close my eyes to block out everything but the feel of him in my mouth. It’s silly, but after our talk, after everything that just happened, I’m afraid if I stare at him too long I might actually lose a piece of myself to him.
He moves his hand from around his cock and slides it into my hair, letting me take over, my fist chasing my mouth up his length, then down again. I get into a fast rhythm, my tongue flicking the underside of his cock at each upstroke while I caress his balls with my other hand. When his hips are lifting off the bed, trying to get himself deeper into my mouth, trying to work his cock into my throat, I pull off completely, and he curses, relaxing back on the bed.
“Careful, kitten, payback is a bitch,” he says through heavy breaths.
I chuckle and tighten my grip on his dick, pumping slowly as I lean down to lick his balls, suck them in my mouth. So focused on making Adam lose his mind, I startle when I feel his fingers at my thigh, trailing a line up until he cups my pussy in his hand.
His answering groan and the way he slides his fingers through me makes me respond in kind. “Jesus, you’re wet. This turning you on, sucking my cock?” His fingers dance over my clit, slide into me. Instead of answering him, I suck him deep into my mouth, moaning as he keeps playing with me. “Bring that ass up here. I need a taste of your pussy.” He grabs my thigh, tugging me around until I’m straddling his head. All the while, I suck him deeper, harder, and then his mouth is on me, and I can’t think about anything but how amazing he feels.
While he hooks a finger inside me and flicks my clit with his tongue, I suck him as deep as I can. His cock head bumps the back of my throat as his groan vibrates against my pussy.
I pull my mouth off his cock long enough to say, “Oh God, I’m gonna come. Don’t stop. Keep doing th—” I break off on a moan. The climb starts all the way down in my toes, cranking higher and higher and higher until I’m teetering on the edge, and then all at once, it peaks and breaks. Waves rush over me as I engulf Adam in my mouth again, and his hips piston up off the bed before he grips my thighs hard as he comes, shooting into the back of my throat.
When we’ve managed to coax every ounce of our orgasms from each other, he kisses my inner thighs, then rolls me off him. I stay flat on my back, eyes closed in utter contentment. I can’t see him, but I can feel him shifting on the bed until I sense him hovering over me.
“I hope you’re not done,” he says. “Because I’m just getting started.”
* * *
adam
I should’ve anticipated Paige’s freak out before it happened. And truthfully, I was. Whether or not I wanted to admit it, I was waiting for the other shoe to drop. And drop, it did.
Even though she didn’t say it ou
t loud, I could see her justifying our arrangement in her mind. Justifying being okay with this whole thing because I’m only here for another couple of weeks. She’s writing us off as an extended hook up, and I have to remember that. She just proved that it can’t be any more than that with her, and I have to get damn comfortable with it. I don’t have another choice.
Paige blinks her eyes open at me, looking well and thoroughly fucked, even if I haven’t had my cock in her tonight. Yet. “Just getting started? Pretty sure I just felt you come down my throat.” She laughs and glances down, and I know the second she spots my already half-hard dick, because her laugh cuts off abruptly and her wide eyes snap up to mine.
Leaning down, I run my nose along her jaw, then down the length of her neck. “Turns out he doesn’t need a lot of downtime around you. Was your pussy feeling a little neglected tonight? Is that why you needed sex so bad? Show me what you do when that happens.”
“What?” Her hands are resting on my biceps, her voice breathy.
“When you want sex and you don’t come get it from me, show me what you do.”
“I still don’t—”
I lift up, hovering over her again. “Get your purple toy, Paige.” I lower myself and nip at her bottom lip. “I want to watch you fuck yourself with it.”
She stares at me for a minute, her eyes flitting between mine, her lips parted. A flush works its way up her neck to her cheeks, and I don’t have to be a mind reader to know she’s thinking about me watching her use it. And she likes it. “Oh God, I’ll come before I even turn it on.”
“Good.” I push off the bed and stand off to the side. “And then you’ll come again when it’s inside you. And then you’ll come again when I pull it out and put my cock in there instead. You wanted sex tonight? You’re gonna get it. Now grab the toy.”
For a moment, she doesn’t move, and I almost think she’s going to deny me, but then she scrambles over to her side table and pulls out the battery-operated cock she thought was a good substitute for me. We might only be together for the short time I’m here, but I’m going to do everything in my power to make sure everything she uses after I’m gone will pale in comparison to the real deal.
When she’s got it, she lies back on the bed, her head on the pillows and her legs bent and spread, feet propped on the mattress. “I’ve never done this before,” she whispers, tentatively running the head of the vibrator through her slit, looking more vulnerable than I’ve seen her.
I grip my cock hard, because the thought that we’re doing something she’s never done before makes me want to come like I’m buried deep inside her. Makes me want to shoot all over her stomach and breasts, mark her even more. My voice is gruff when I say, “Good, me neither.”
That seems to relax her, and she spreads herself open with one hand, all that perfect pinkness peeking out at me, and guides the vibrator over her clit, then lower, before repeating it all over again.
“You’ve got the prettiest pussy, you know that? All pink and swollen and fucking delicious. I’d have you for every meal if I could.”
Moaning, she bites her lip, shuddering as she watches me while tormenting herself with the head of the vibe. And that’s exactly what she’s doing—tormenting. I can see it in her eyes. In the way her body shakes as she barely touches herself.
I grip my cock hard, fisting it in a punishing hold, just enough to keep me on the edge, but not enough to push me over. “You gonna turn it on?”
She shakes her head, her eyes fluttering closed before she opens them and drops her gaze to the fist I’ve got wrapped around my dick. “Not yet.”
Watching her get herself off is better than watching porn. Jesus. Seeing her tease her clit, how she brings herself almost to the point of coming, her entire body taut, then pulls back, removing the vibrator from her pussy completely until she’s relaxed once again. And then she does it all over again.
Finally—finally—she slips the vibrator inside her, and I watch with rapt attention as the curved, purple head disappears into her pussy, her lips spreading wide around it. Paige moans and closes her eyes, pressing a couple buttons, and then a whirring starts up and her entire body jolts.
“Oh fuck,” she breathes as she pumps it in and out.
“That’s not as thick as I am, is it? Not as long either. Does that satisfy you anymore?”
“No. Not since I’ve had you.” That’s the most honest she’s ever been, revealing something she’d probably have kept to herself if she wasn’t already half lost to pleasure.
“You wish that was me inside you instead, Paige?”
She whimpers out a breathy, “Yes,” and I have to force myself to stand there. To not give her what we both want and let her get herself off this way first. I grip my shaft, pumping slowly as I watch her. I want nothing more than to match the fast pace she’s set on herself, but if I do, I’ll come in about three-point-seven seconds, and I’m not coming again until I’m buried deep inside her.
Paige continues to fuck herself hard, one of her hands going up to trace her nipple before she tugs it between thumb and forefinger. Her eyes are closed, her near constant moans telling me she’s close. And, Jesus, I need her to be. I want to be inside her right fucking now. Want to show her how much better it is with me than it is any other way she can get it.
She opens her eyes and stares right at me, cock in hand, watching her get herself off, and then she does. She keeps her eyes connected with mine as she moans, body arching off the mattress, and I can’t wait another second.
I fumble with a condom and roll it down my shaft as I climb on the bed. Kneeling between her spread legs, I brush her hand away before pulling the vibrator out of her. She’s still shuddering from her orgasm as I hook her legs over my elbows, opening her wide for me, and drive home. Paige moans deep, reaching up to grip my face and bring our mouths together. She slips her tongue between my lips, sliding it against my own, as she lifts her ass off the bed to meet my unforgiving thrusts.
Pulling back to breathe, she slides her hands down my neck and over my shoulders. “God, Adam, shit…”
“This is what you wanted, isn’t it?” I sit back on my knees and grip the backs of her thighs, holding her down while I pound into her harder. “My cock. Not just to come, but to come from my cock.”
“Yes, yes, yes,” she chants, her head restless on the pillow, eyelids fluttering closed as she clenches at the sheets, at my thighs, at anything she can to get purchase.
“Keep your eyes open, Paige. Watch me fuck you. See who’s about to make you come.”
She does as I say, her eyelids fluttering open.
“Who do you want to fuck you? Tell me.”
“You, Adam. God, it’s you…”
I thrust into her faster and faster, circling her clit until she’s coming around me, pulling my orgasm from me and taking me with her. Her answer makes me crazy…wild…even if I know the honesty behind it is only temporary. As soon as the afterglow wears off, her walls will be back up again, keeping herself safe from anything more that could happen between us.
The only way this is safe for Paige is the one way it’s not safe for me. Even still, I’m in. In this with her, for as long as I can get her. For as long as she’ll let me be.
TWENTY-SIX
adam
A couple weeks later, I’m at my parents’ house for dinner. So far, requesting elaborate dinners from my mom has worked in keeping her from asking to come to my place. Considering my time is dwindling more and more each day, I might actually escape this without her ever having to set foot there.
“Adam, honey, how are things going at the store? Be honest with us,” my mom says, shooting a worried glance at my dad as she picks at her dinner.
“They’re going good, Mom. Really good.” I wash a bite of meatloaf down with some milk. “The profits have been growing steadily every week. The rentals are the biggest moneymakers, at least at this time of year, so we’ll want to look at maybe expanding the selection. But I just cr
unched the numbers today, and if we keep going at this pace, you’re on track to be in the black again by February.”
When I finally glance over at my mom, she’s got her hand over her mouth, and her eyes are brimming with tears. Quickly trying to reassure her, I say, “February really isn’t that bad, Mom, all things considered. I know it seems like a long time, but with the amount of debt stacked against us, it’s a strong improvement.”
Shaking her head, she waves me off, then gets up and walks away from the table, heading into the kitchen, and I look to my dad with panic. “What the hell did I do?”
He chuckles and scoops a bite of meatloaf. “Not a damn thing.” He shakes his head as he looks at me over the rims of his glasses. “You’ve been on this earth for twenty-five years, and you still can’t tell the difference between your mother’s tears?”
I shrug. “Tears are tears.”
“Not with her. Your mother cries for every emotion. Empathy, sadness, happiness, anger, frustration…you name it, that woman sheds tears for it.”
“Yeah, okay, so what were these?”
“Pride.”
“What? Why?”
He shakes his head and points his fork in my direction. “Because of you, idiot.”
“Gee, thanks, Dad.”
“I don’t know if you’re being humble or just stupid.”
“Apparently just stupid.”
“Come on, Adam. Everything you’ve done here for us? You’ve single-handedly pulled us away from bankruptcy when you didn’t have to. When you probably shouldn’t have. We’re your parents, and yet we’re the ones who needed saving. You have a life in Colorado, and you dropped everything, dipped into your savings to be able to take three months off work just to help us.” His voice gets a little gruff, and he looks away, clearing his throat. “We’re just thankful. More than you can ever know.”
Paige in Progress (Reluctant Hearts #3) Page 19