by Payton Lane
“Your voice is so high all the dogs in my neighborhood are barking.”
Okay. Maybe she was stretching that half-truth a bit. “I'm sharing a meal with him. No big deal.”
“You're just going to ignore me. Why do I bother?”
“Because you don't want to be right, but if you are, you get to preen a little.”
Jessica was silent on the other end of the phone for a long moment. “Okay. Maybe. Does that make me a horrible person?”
“Only a little. I love you anyway.”
Her friend sighed and then laughed. “I love you. I know why you're loveable, but I don't think he can see it. You'll just be not his ex.”
She'd had the same thoughts, late at night, after one of their extended dates. Maybe she was only a breath of fresh air. His ex said that and she didn't. His ex would think that and she didn't. His ex would disapprove. She didn't.
Yvonne hadn't been the one to rip out his heart and eat it. That and that alone was why he enjoyed spending time with her. Yvonne wasn't searching for The One, but that didn't mean she was sleeping on the job.
She pressed a fist to her forehead and closed her eyes. “Moment of honesty,” she said.
“Shoot,” Jessica replied.
“I may be wasting time with him. While I'm feeding him, I could miss out on meeting the guy I'm supposed to be with the rest of my life at the grocery store or somewhere else. Since I'm too busy making eyes with Greg, I'll miss him. But I'm having so much damn fun. No one should fault me for living. No one should reprimand me for not being perfect or logical.”
“Thanks,” Jessica said and sounded abashed. “Thanks for that. I now feel like a horrible friend for harping.”
“Good.” Yvonne smiled. “It'll keep you from having a big head.”
Jessica snort-laughed. “Have fun. Kiss his socks off and call me if you need anything at all.”
A knock came at her door. There went the butterflies in her gut. “Will do. Mwah.”
Yvonne opened the door and there Greg stood with a bottle of wine and sexy scruff along his jaw. “Do you cook at all?” she asked, instead of acting like a simpering idiot at the sight of him.
“Grilled cheese sandwiches. I can make one that would make you praise deities. My cousin taught me.”
Sandwiches? “You poor, deluded man. Come in.”
And that became the routine for the next month. She'd invite him over for dinner, she'd press him for anything new he may know how cook and they'd have a night. Each time he didn't press for more or ask for something other than food and good company. The tension grew. What was this between them? What would he feel like naked against her bare skin?
But how could she pay attention to the undercurrent of uncertainty when they had so much fun?
“Okay. Okay,” she said and held up her fork of spaghetti. They had settled into her kitchen to sit at the table. Their chairs were next to each other. “I think this is the longest noodle I have. I usually break them in half before I cook them. Easier to fit into the pot.”
“I don't know how we're going to do this.” He eyed her fork. “It's not long enough.”
“Maybe. We can do it.”
He still looked skeptical. “It was a cartoon. Why are we doing this?”
“We're doing this because we can. This theory has to be tested. Who else is here to try this?”
“Sane people aren't here. Apparently.” He sighed, narrowing his eyes on her. “And don't tell a single person I did this with you.”
She snorted. This was blackmail material but he was willing to be silly with her. That said a lot. “Move closer.”
Greg shook his head and perched on the end of his chair. Their knees touched, and then he scooted in more, shifting his his left leg until he was settled perfectly between her legs. Her kitchen was warm from cooking garlic bread and spaghetti, but the way her skin felt hot and tight had everything to do with him and his proximity.
He closed his mouth around the fork and sucked in the end of the noodle. He motioned his hand for her to go. The spaghetti noodle was short. Nothing at all like The Lady and the Tramp, but who cared? No one could see the way he was watching her with that dark gaze but there was a laugh there too.
With precision she fed her end into her mouth and sucked. His end came out of his mouth. Before she could stop the momentum, she'd eaten the entire noodle.
“Dammit,” she said after swallowing.
His dark eyes grew brighter. Sometimes she couldn't even see the sadness anymore. “Cartoon,” he said in a flat voice. “Not based on reality. I don't know why you had high expectations.”
He shifted and that leg moved closer to the heat of her core. She would not concentrate on that. If she did, she'd grab him and do...things that would make her fluster thinking about them later.
She said, her voice shaky, “Let me see your plate. We can try this again.”
Greg glanced down and poked at his food. “The shit I let you talk me into.”
There wasn't a single frown line to be found on his face. That was more than fine with her. “No one but us will know,” she coaxed. “Give me your plate.”
He pushed it to her without another argument, a grin on his face.
And sometimes they'd cuddle on her couch and she'd start with, “1998.”
“A story,” he'd say on a laugh. That sound told her he loved them despite the words. That light, easy sound told her so much more than any words he could ever speak. “Do you ever run out of any?”
Her heart would fill with warmth and she'd grin. “Of course not. Shh.”
His chest would rumble with more laughter and that too would warm her from the inside out. They weren't a couple. Or lovers. But she'd never had a groping session with her friends after dinner so he definitely wasn't that either. Neither of them tried to define it. Neither of them had tried to end it. They just were.
Until one day at the end of that month, she'd opened her and he stood on the other side of the threshold. Spring showers had welcomed in April. He hadn't worn a jacket so his shirt stuck to his skin, outlining every ab muscle, every inch of his broad shoulders. The water may have been cold, but the way his jeans plastered against his thighs, legs and his manhood made her swallow. His gaze unreadable.
“What's wrong?” she asked, her heart pounded.
His nostrils flared and his shoulders seemed to eat up the door way. “You know what's wrong.”
And she did. They couldn't keep tiptoeing around each other and acting like the need that was hot and pulsing between them didn't exist.
He stepped forward and kissed her. No greeting, no jokes just his lips bruising hers. He slammed the door behind him and then wrapped his hands around her waist, pulling her into him.
Yvonne fell into the tight embrace. The past month they'd always ended their groping sessions right before things became way to heated to turn back. The way he was kissing her that option was off the table.
And maybe her give meant she was trading on the hope he wasn't the kind of man to say ‘we will have sex or have nothing’. A man like that was horrible. She had chosen to believe he wasn't that man after their third date, and he'd told her how he and Drew became best friends, not just cousins.
Yet, why it mattered that he wasn't that kind of man...she wanted to blatantly ignore those reasons too.
But he was touching her now. Running his hands beneath her shirt and cupping her breasts. His caresses were rough, urgent. Every time his fingertips would brush along her skin, she'd shiver.
When he'd expertly taken off her bra, he used fingertips to trail over her nipples and the sensitive curves. She was drowning in sensation and they weren't even naked yet. He used his mouth and hands to blank her mind, beat back any reservations. It was just Greg feathering his tongue over hers, nipping at the corner of mouth with every breathy moan.
She tore at his wet shirt and almost lost it when her hands finally, finally roved over his dark brown skin—bare. Maybe one day she'd co
nfess how turned on she was that his nipples were as responsive as hers to the cold, to touch. But not tonight, not when his sole intent seemed to be devouring her every moan.
Losing her patience, she unbuttoned her jeans and stepped out of them. Then there was the chuckle, deep in his chest, vibrating through the both of them because they stood so close. He pressed his hand to the small of her back. She stood in front of him in her panties so that simple gesture forced a tremble through her limbs.
She didn't know what happened to make him come into her home like this, to take her like this, but complaining wasn't a top priority. He'd pushed his hands into her underwear and cupped her ass. Always-the-gentleman Greg had left the building. He broke the kiss and dragged his lips down to her neck, licking and sucking the skin.
In response, she ripped at the button and zipper on his pants. It was only fair to return the favor of driving him crazy. Only logical to tumble to the floor with him on top, him spreading her legs with his as he brought his mouth back to hers. His kisses had turned dark and potent, longer with each stretch. So by the time he closed both hands on her breasts and his mouth had followed, she was his for the taking.
They didn't need words. She only needed his mouth to keep trailing down to her torso, lower and lower until he tasted her between her legs. He used that wicked mouth of his to suck her clitoris until she couldn't breathe. When the first orgasm wrenched at her insides, leaving her tight and wet, all she could do was pant was his name. She was still panting when his mouth brushed along her jaw and rested on the crook of her neck.
“Yvonne,” he groaned and stilled as though trying to hold back.
His musky scent surrounded her. His weight pressed against her. She never wanted this moment to change. Never needed to know what someone else would feel like inside her. Just Gregory Woods.
Him.
She scraped her nails down his back to grip his ass. She'd ogled it more than enough the past month to know it was a thing of beauty. “I want you inside me,” she whispered.
He groaned again and then she could feel the hard length of him pushing against her sex. He turned his head as he pressed into her. She gasped. He caught the sound with his mouth and kissed her hard as he worked his way inside her.
She was slick so it wasn't long before his strokes went deeper, harder, faster. He filled her, filled her everything and she was lost in him. Her heart raced at the overwhelming sensation of that, but soon he was groaning her name again and again. He stopped, shifting long enough to find her hands. He entwined their fingers and worked inside her.
Why hadn't they done this three weeks ago? Oh, God. Why did it feel like her heart was breaking? If this was going to end badly for her, she never wanted to have a single regret about this moment between them. Telling him about her family, maybe. Showing him how she organized her bathroom cabinet, well that she’d regretted the second she showed him and he'd laughed. But this...never.
She tilted her chin up. He met her half way and kissed her. Their lips were still locked when she started to tremble and moan, her sex tightening around him and then she climaxed. He buried his face in her neck, letting go of her hands to brace himself on the floor but she still heard the long groan of satisfaction before he stilled. He'd come too. She trembled harder that time, aroused again so soon.
She had his whole body to explore with his fingertips. So she did even well after his breathing had steadied.
He said, and she could hear the smile in his voice, “I guess we've been building up to that.”
She chuckled. “One could say that.”
He lifted his head and met her gaze. “We should consider that was round one.”
A twinge squeezed around her heart. This next step into a physical relationship was a natural progression, but why today? Why this moment? Yvonne didn't get all those coveted spots in dance companies because she doubted she was good or deserved it. Maybe that just meant she had a massive ego, but confidence had served her well in life. Listening to her instincts had taken her further than any teacher had believed she could go.
Something had made him walk into her home and change their relationship. It was as though he needed this, whatever they were, to be sexual. And she needed him, wanted him more than anything she had before. She didn't fall this hard, this fast...this deep, but he was funny, sexy and solid.
So when Yvonne murmured, “I'm falling in love with you,” she already knew how that news would be taken—not well at all.
She'd uttered the word “love” after having sex. She said it to a man who was running from that word—period. His back stiffened beneath her fingers. Yvonne sighed. Yeah, maybe she wasn't confident or didn't have keen instincts. She had faults. Serious faults.
As the silence went on, she felt the need to fill it. “Don't say thank you, at least.”
His eyes were dark when he said, “Yvonne, I—”
That sounded like a speech in the making. A speech she didn't want to hear. “Don't.” She inhaled and it was a shaky breath. “I know. I should have said this when you first came in. Now we're going to be awkward and you're going to find some excuse to leave, sooner rather than later. I know.”
He framed her face with his hands, his was contorting into a mask of anger. “You're going to make me the bad guy.”
Those simple words confirmed what she knew. If it were possible to feel every cell in her body stop, that moment was it. They were naked, but even if clothed she'd never felt more vulnerable. “Just don't be Drew when you break it off.”
“Yvonne...”
She kept letting her fingers roam. She couldn't stop, especially knowing he was working his way up to being the guy who broke up with a woman after dropping the “L” word.
“You're petting me,” he said, stating the obvious.
Her smirk was bitter. “Copping a feel while I can.”
He pressed his forehead to hers and laughed softly. “Stop being charming.”
If she dropped the mask, she'd start crying and there was no way they could come back from that. “Just go. I'll call you when you I sell the ring. Deposit the money in your bank account.” That shaky breath turned into a full body shudder. “Just go.”
He murmured, his breath brushing her cheek. “I don't want to.”
Her carpet was starting to bite into all her bare parts and it had to be eating his knees. “Don't humor me, because you don't want to be a dick.” Anger pooled in her stomach, wrenching it tight. “Get off me.”
He pulled back, giving her the room she needed. “That's not what I was doing.”
She'd sat up and he was still right there in her space. She could smell the scent of them in the air. This was messy. As messy as one could get. The last thing she needed was for her heart to spill from her mouth. He hadn't lied to her, but finally one man had made her wish that he could change, that she could change how he felt about love.
Her face screwed up as tears stung her eyes. Not wanting him to see, she turned her back to him and put more space between them. “Go.”
She rose from the floor and didn't bother to cover herself. He'd touched it all, seen it all. She definitely wasn't modest after all those years of dancing and being critiqued as though she was a piece of meat. And covering herself would mean hiding from what had just happened. She couldn't. They couldn't.
His heavy breath was the only thing to fill the silence. She plopped on her couch and grabbed her favorite pillow. He didn't speak again until he was fully clothed.
“Yvonne...” His tone wasn't a plea and anger still filled it. As though she'd screwed up. Messed up whatever the hell they had had. “I don't want to go.”
He kept saying that, but he didn't mean it. What he really meant was he didn't want to leave with things sour between them. He didn't want to be that guy, the one who slept with women and left them. No. No. He didn't want to be the man who put his heart out there again.
She forced herself to meet his gaze. “Are you falling for me?”
&nb
sp; He frowned as though he had to think about his answer. “How can you ask me that?”
How could he just stand there calm about this? They'd screwed up. “Easy.”
He drew a hand down his face and sighed. “That's not what we are.”
She fisted her hands in the pillows. “Then what are we?”
“Not that,” he said with a certainty that hurt.
“What? Say it. Say the words, Greg,” Yvonne pushed and then scoffed because she knew he wouldn't. “Like I said, I'll call you when I make the sale. The people I contacted are chomping at the bit. So it should be soon.”
He stuffed his hands into his pockets and didn't move for a long while. “Fine,” he finally said and left.
Her skin prickled. She hadn't even felt the wet and cold he'd brought in from the rain, but now she could. Yvonne sprawled on her couch, naked as the day she was born and smooshed her face into the pillow. Doing anything else just might make the tears fall.
CHAPTER SIX
Two days later, his bank called him while at work to verify a deposit. The rest of his day, his attitude was less than stellar. It went even further downhill when he opened his door to find his cousin sitting there grinning like an idiot. On his couch like it was his home.
“I hear you're a single man again.”
Never in his life had he wanted to punch his cousin so much. “Who are you talking to get this information?”
“The woman I met at the ballet studio. She told me during...dinner.”
That made sense. Women gossiped. He'd spent enough time at the studio, watching Yvonne dance to make himself a regular. With every step and move, she showed her passion, didn't hold back. His gut tightened as the memories washed over him. So many in such a short amount of time. All of them leaving him a little lightheaded.
“Yeah,” he said, his voice hard. “We're done.” Halfway to the kitchen, he had to stop and face his cousin. “If you know then why are you grinning?”
Drew passed him and went into the kitchen. He grabbed two beers from the fridge and handed one over as he went back to the living room.