by Merry Farmer
Her heart wanted to slam her car into gear and chase after Dennis, catching him as soon as possible so she could explain. Sense had better ideas, though. Fixing things between her and Dennis was going to take a lot more than a rushed apology on a street corner. She had years of reprehensible behavior to make up for. Instead of driving straight to Dennis’s hotel downtown, she headed home to her apartment near the university.
Only when she had showered, dressed in a silk top and capris that were modest yet attractive, and did enough deep-breathing exercises to calm herself, did she head over to the hotel. She would only get one chance to do this right, and doing it wrong wasn’t an option. It didn’t help matters that the sky darkened just as she stepped outside and rolls of thunder sounded in the distance. Thunderstorms in Atlanta were about as common as mosquitos in summer, but it did nothing to soothe the feeling that she was heading into the showdown of her life.
Angelica’s heart was pounding as she parked in the underground garage and made her way up through the hotel to Dennis’s room, thanking her lucky stars that he’d given her the number the other day. Swooshing up over twenty floors in the Marriott’s glass elevators added more butterflies to the maelstrom in her gut. But as she reached Dennis’s door and knocked, everything inside of her was suddenly still. She knew what she had to do.
A shadow passed over the peep-hole in the door, and a second later, Dennis opened it. His expression was as cloudy as the sky outside the hotel window she could see over his shoulder. “Angelica,” he said.
She took a deep breath. “I’m sorry.”
Nothing happened. The faint roll of thunder underscored the moment.
At last, Dennis let out a breath and stepped back, gesturing for her to come in. Angelica held her head high and marched into the room. Dennis shut the door behind her, then followed her.
She didn’t give him a chance to tell her off or put her down the way she deserved. “I’m not just apologizing for my behavior this afternoon, although that was unforgiveable.”
Dennis crossed his arms, staring at her, his expression unreadable. Uneasiness rippled down Angelica’s spine.
“I know I gave the wrong impression today,” she went on, both glad that he was giving her the time and space to say everything she needed to say, but terrified of how he would react when she was done. “I know you think that my reactions were because I’m embarrassed to be seen with you or kissed by you.”
His mouth twitched, but not into a smile.
“But that wasn’t why.” She paused to swallow and take a breath. She wanted to pace, but everything she had to say would be easier if she stood her ground and spilled it out. “I’m not embarrassed by you, Dennis. I’m embarrassed by myself.”
At last, his expression cracked into surprise, but there was an equal amount of suspicion there. “What do you mean?”
Already, Angelica could feel things going in a direction she didn’t like. Her throat tightened. “Embarrassment isn’t the right word,” she backtracked. “More like…confusion.”
“Confusion?” Dennis frowned.
“It’s like…I don’t know…with everything going on….” She let out a heavy sigh, throwing out her arms, then letting her shoulders drop. She glanced up to him, meeting his eyes with as much honesty as she could. “I’ve known what I want in my life since I was a kid. I wanted to do something big, important. But as smart as I was, I was stupid. I thought running with the popular crowd would help me achieve my goals. At least, that’s what I told myself. But in my heart—” She clasped her hands to her chest. “In my heart, I always knew that you were what I wanted too.”
She took a step closer to him, the need to explain filling her with restlessness. “When you left, I thought that would make things easier on me, but it didn’t. I nearly lost sight of everything and gave up on science, you know.”
His brow shot up. “I didn’t know.”
She shook her head, pressing a hand to her forehead. “Without you around, those friends of mine pushed me to go to more parties, to waste time. They kept telling me I should forget about post-graduate work and research and just become a science teacher. I almost did it, until I heard you’d been accepted for graduate work at Cal Tech. That’s when I knew I had to go big or go home.”
Dennis shifted his stance, crossed his arms, and frowned. “Where does the confusion come in?”
Angelica let out a hopeless laugh and shook her head. “I don’t know where the astrophysicist stops and the woman starts. Everyone expects so much of me, but all I want—”
She looked up at him, her heart swelling to the point of bursting with decades-worth of unresolved feelings for the man in front of her. Looking at the earnest questioning in Dennis’s eyes, the scientific curiosity with which he faced the mess she was making of things, tipped her over the edge. She felt tears sting at the back of her eyes.
“All I want is to make thing right between us,” she said in a tight whisper. “I’ve done some unforgivable things, but when you left, nothing felt right anymore. When I saw you again, it was like finding that missing variable in an equation that makes everything resolve. And that tipped my world upside down.”
He said nothing, but his posture relaxed as he let out a long breath.
“I’m not used to that. I don’t know what to do with it. Seeing you again was like—” She tensed, holding her arms out and glancing up to the ceiling as if the right words would rain down from heaven. Thunder rumbled outside, and lightning streaked across the city sky, but words continued to elude her.
At last, she met Dennis’s gaze again and shrugged. “I love you, Dennis. I always have, no matter how hard I fought it. But as much as I want you, I can’t figure out how that works. I can’t believe I’ve been so stupid for so long. My whole life, everyone has told me how smart I am, but I’ve never been able to figure out the most important thing in my entire life. How can I love you so much and treat you so badly? I don’t deserve you. I don’t deserve the way you kissed me. I don’t deserve to be standing here right now. And that’s why I’m terrified that someone will see the two of us together and tell me, tell you, that I’m not worth the ground beneath your feet.”
“Angelica,” he sighed, swaying closer to her.
“No.” She stopped him with a raised hand. “I was wrong, and that’s just the way it is. I couldn’t let you leave here without explaining things to you. I didn’t want you to go back to Wyoming thinking that I pulled away because of you. It’s me. It’s always been me. And—”
Before she could finish, he surged forward and swept her into his arms. His mouth slanted over hers in a kiss that drew the last of her breath right out of her lungs. His lips teased and tormented her, even as his arms circled around her with infinite tenderness, holding her close. She sighed in ecstasy and torment, then gave herself over to the warmth of his embrace.
He could have stopped there and her heart would have been satisfied, but his touch slid up the silk of her blouse, brushing around until he cradled one of her breasts in his large hand. She drew in a breath, arching into him, letting him know she wanted more. Her senses ran riot as he raked a thumb over her nipple, sensitive even through her bra.
“I forgive you,” he panted at last. “I will always forgive you.”
“You shouldn’t.” She tried to pull away, but he kept her firmly in his arms. He studied her with heavy-lidded eyes and an openness that broke every part of her down. “I didn’t come here to seduce you into giving me more than I deserve.”
“And I didn’t come back because of some job,” he said, brushing his fingers over her cheek. Somehow, that was an even more intimate gesture than caressing her breast. “I came back because it’s time we put the past behind us, where it belongs.”
She threaded her fingers through his hair, tipping back to look up at him. Their position was impossibly intimate for the conversation. “I was horrible to you, Dennis. I don’t know how you can stand to look at me now.”
“Yo
u weren’t as horrible as you think you were,” he insisted, dipping down to kiss her heated lips. “I could have walked away at any time, but I didn’t want to. You were always special to me, even though you had your other friends.”
“I shouldn’t have. They turned me into someone I didn’t want to be.”
He stole another kiss, and she moaned plaintively in the back of her throat. His hands raked across her torso until he grabbed the hem of her shirt and pulled it from the waist of her capris. When his palms and fingertips circled around the bare flesh of her sides, the rush of desire that hit her was so strong it nearly buckled her knees.
“Would I want you as badly as I do now if you were so irredeemable?” he murmured against her ear, tracing his lips along her jaw until he captured her mouth once more.
“But this afternoon,” she argued when he moved on to nip at her neck. “How can you forgive me.”
“Because I love you too,” he answered, straightening enough to look her in the eyes. The tears Angelica had been fighting so hard to hold inside broke free. “Because I do understand you. Not all the time,” he rushed to clarify, his mouth twitching into a playful smile. “And not in every way. There were times when you really did hurt me. But we were kids, and kids are cruel.”
“But—” He silenced her with another soul-searing kiss. The heat that coursed through her made it impossible to come up with an argument. Her core ached with the need to be under him, to have him inside her. All she could think about was getting naked with him and letting him take out whatever frustrations he had left in the most primal way possible.
“I forgive you,” he repeated, his voice growing hoarse, his hands sliding down. He cupped her backside and lifted her against his erection. The wild need to be possessed by him flared a thousand-fold. “I forgive the past and today,” he continued between kisses that left her senseless. “Nobody’s perfect, and I’m sure we’ll find new and exciting ways to piss each other off, but if you really thought I was useless, you wouldn’t be here now. If you agreed with your friends that I’m a dork, you wouldn’t have come all this way to ask for my forgiveness. I forgave you when you knocked on that door.”
She let out a sound somewhere between a sob and a cry of victory and pressed herself up to kiss him from the bottom of her heart. He responded by lifting her off her feet, hands sliding under her backside. She wrapped her legs around him. The feel of his hands so close to the part of her that needed to be filled with him combined with the intensity of their kiss, left her in no doubt of what she wanted, now and forever.
“Make love to me, Dennis,” she said, wriggling against him. “I have wanted you inside of me for so very long.”
Any lingering fear of rejection she had was shattered as he growled and pivoted to sit her on top of the hotel’s bureau, her legs falling open. That freed his hands so that he could grab the bottom of her blouse and pull it straight up over her head. She thanked God she’d worn something easy to get out of and raised her arms. He’d unclasped her bra and tugged it off before she could lower her arms, then filled his hands with her breasts.
Angelica gasped and cried out as he crouched to suckle one breast. She arched into the hot, wet pull of his mouth, grabbing handfuls of his hair. His tongue teased sensations in her that went light-years beyond the adolescent fumbling they’d managed so many years ago. She arched her hips as best she could in the awkward position, the heat and ache between her legs almost unbearable. She wanted him so badly that she was in danger of coming without him even touching her there.
His hands left her breasts, heading south to the fastenings of her pants, but his mouth continued its magic. She shifted to grip the edge of the bureau as he made short work of the button and zipper, then pushed her hips up as he pulled the fabric down. She didn’t know when she’d lost her sandals, but with a few hard yanks, her capris and panties hit the floor, leaving her fully naked. With scientific focus, Dennis pushed her knees to the sides, opening her fully, then brought his mouth down to her.
Angelica came close to shouting as his mouth covered her. He sank to his knees and held her hips as he buried himself in her heat. His tongue flickered over her clit, then traced over the wet cleft of her sex, leaving her desperate and panting. She gripped the edge of the bureau until her hands went numb as he returned to licking and sucking her clit. It was so raw, so magnificent, that she threw her head back and mewled in ecstasy as she came. Her orgasm was so strong that she swore she could feel it in her breasts, her arms, her toes.
Before the last tremors subsided, Dennis rocked back and looked at her. Another shiver passed through her at the thought of what she must look like, naked, glistening with sweat, legs spread, nipples taut post-orgasm. The hunger in his eyes needed no words. He reached for his jeans, unzipping them and pushing them down enough to free his erection. It sprang up, full and hard, and he breathed a sigh of relief.
It lasted for half a second before he muscled himself up enough to sit against the edge of the bed, directly across from the bureau, and shuck his jeans and underwear completely. He pulled his t-shirt up.
Before he could reveal more than a taste of his decidedly grown-up body, Angelica was in motion. She pushed off the bureau and sank to her knees between his spread legs. Mouth watering to taste him, she closed her hand around his penis, then covered the tip with her lips. He was big—bigger than any other man she’d been with—but she didn’t let that intimidate her as she drew him into her mouth. What had always felt like a degrading necessity before was suddenly mind-blowingly sexy as she went down on him. He tossed his shirt aside with an appreciative groan and leaned back on his hands.
The swivel of his hips as she slid him in and out of her mouth, dragging her tongue along the underside of his penis and the head, the pleasured, almost painful sounds he made as he let her explore him, and the salty taste of him all had her throbbing far faster than she’d ever recovered from orgasm before. All she could think about was how he would feel inside of her.
“Stop,” he panted, raising a hand to stop her from sucking him any deeper. “I’m too close.”
“Good,” she panted.
She braced her hands on his knees and climbed up onto the bed with him. A wicked part of her reveled in the feeling of sliding her naked body up along his, licking his abdomen and chest until she reached his mouth. She kissed him savagely, gasping hard when he grabbed her backside and kneaded it.
She was inches away from impaling herself with him when he panted, “Wait, wait.”
“No,” she whispered.
He laughed and moved her to the side, twisting out from under her. Angelica’s moment of disappointment melted at the sight of him as he stood. He was so hard, dark and slick from her teasing, that part of her wanted to do nothing but look at him. Look at him while touching herself, which she did shamelessly.
Dennis opened the top drawer of the bureau and took out a box of condoms. “I got these when—” He turned back to find her watching him, biting her lip, and rubbing her clit. “Never mind,” he croaked.
He tore into the box, ripped open a foil packet without detaching it from the strip, took out the condom, then threw the box aside. He rolled the condom on and was back on the bed, fitting himself between her parted legs almost before she could move her hand out of the way. And then, at last, he positioned himself and pressed into her.
Angelica nearly arched off the bed, the sensation of him inside of her was so good. She cried out as his full, thick length stretched her to the limit. Her heart blossomed with the love she felt for him, the love she’d always felt, but damn, he felt amazing inside of her. He knew how to move too, long, deep strokes at first, then harder, faster ones as his control began to slip. She wrapped her arms around him, digging her fingernails into his back and panting in time with his thrusts. He raked a hand along one thigh, pulling her knee up and plundering her more deeply. Everything about their mating was raw, rough, and amazing.
A second orgasm took her before s
he realized she was there. It burst through her as fiercely as Dennis’s thrusts, leaving her wild with passion under him. He must have felt what he’d done to her. Moments after she hit the crest, he cried out and his thrusts turned frantic.
What seemed like a few seconds and an eternity later, his thrusts slowed to a sudden stop and he collapsed on top of her. Angelica’s body went limp with satisfaction, but her heart continued to sing. At last. She’d found the place where she belonged in life at last.
Chapter Eight
Post-coital feelings of contentment and peace were the biological norm, but that alone didn’t explain the quiet bliss that Dennis felt as he and Angelica lay tangled up in each other, dozing as the thunderstorm played itself out. It was as if all of the patience he had nurtured over the years had finally paid off.
No, it was more like the results of an experiment he’d been running for years had finally been reached, and they were everything he’d hoped they would be. And more.
Angelica stirred beside him, drawing in a breath and stretching. Her lithe arms and legs reaching around him coupled with the arch of her torso had him ready for more, in spite of his still hazy mind. When she let out a sigh of satisfaction that carried an edge of soreness with it, Dennis grinned from ear to ear.
“I can’t believe we did that,” Angelica purred, snuggling closer to him.
“What, you hadn’t figured out we’d end up in bed together eventually?” he teased her, brushing his fingertips along her jawline.
She laughed low in her throat. “I suppose the thought had crossed my mind. But no, I can’t believe we did it like that.”
“It was kind of wild, wasn’t it?” He couldn’t stop the chuckle that rumbled up from his gut.
She caught it and dissolved into a fit of giggles. The two of them lay there laughing—at themselves, at the situation, and at the whole mad world. Dennis felt like he would keep on laughing forever, if only Angelica would stay with him. He rolled to his side, facing her.