by Jess Dee
“Christ, Katie” he groaned above her.
She loved how he filled her mouth, how his salty, male tang placated her hunger. She loved how he writhed beneath her and how he called her name over and over.
She massaged his testicles. Stroked him in the smooth area between his balls and ass, and listened as he hummed in his throat. Now was not the time to decide whether he stayed or left. It wasn’t the time to choose between Tyler and Steve. Now was the time to rediscover the love of the man who had stolen her heart seven years ago.
She laved him with her tongue, sucked him with her mouth and caressed him with her hand. Tyler didn’t fight her. He simply tightened his grip in her hair and gave her fair warning. “Do that any more, and I’m going to come.”
She did it again, and then a third time for good measure. When she did it the fourth time, he froze for a second before he let go, shooting his release into her mouth. He yanked at her hair, pulling the roots, but she held tight, taking in every last drop he offered. When at last he stopped bucking and pulsing in her mouth, she swallowed it all and licked his tip clean.
Then she collapsed beside him, as sated as he.
An indeterminate amount of time passed before they spoke again.
He stretched out on his side, resting his elbow on the bed and his cheek in his hand. She rolled over languorously and planted a kiss on his mouth, then on his cheek and down across his jaw. The light stubble on his chin tickled her lips, and she paused to touch her tongue to the five o’ clock shadow.
His sigh reverberated through his chest, and she lowered her head so she could nibble her way down his neck.
“Katie?” His voice was soft.
“Uh-huh?” The skin above his shoulder was warm, and she slowly rolled her tongue around it, sucking it gently into her mouth.
“Did you mean what you said earlier? That you’d have stuck by me if you’d known about the Huntington’s?”
She lifted her head to look him in the eyes. “Of course I meant it.
How could he think otherwise?”
“Even if I’d never done the genetic testing?”
She gave him a sad smile. “Whatever you decided to do, whatever the test results had been, I would have stayed with you if you’d given me the choice.”
“Why?” He looked genuinely confused. “Why stay with a bloke if you know he has a dodgy future?”
She stared at him, a little bewildered. “You really have no idea, do you?”
“About what?”
“About how darn much I loved you.”
He shook his head. “But we’d only been together a month.”
“It wasn’t just a month. It was a month and five years. I fell for you the first time we met, Ty. Every time I saw you after that, I fell a little bit more in love with you. God, I would have done anything to be with you.”
Anything. She tripped over her words and had to swallow hard. “I just thought you didn’t want me as much,” she ended on a whisper.
He cupped her cheek with his free hand. “Don’t ever think that. It just about killed me to leave you.”
“I thought I could make you stay. I figured if I loved you enough you wouldn’t go.”
“And I thought if I went, I’d be able to love you a little less.”
“I guess we both failed miserably at our goals.”
“I was the failure, Katie,” Ty whispered. “Not you.”
“Katie swallowed hard. “Thinking you might have an incurable disease hardly qualifies as failure.”
“But neglecting to tell you about it does,” he countered.
Katie tried to think of an appropriate response, but came up blank.
She chose silence instead. For a long while they lay side by side, neither of them speaking.
“Ty?” Katie said eventually.
“Yeah?”
Every bone in her body ached at the idea of asking her next question. She did not want to know the answer. But this wasn’t something she could ignore. The issue had plagued her since Tyler first brought up his risk of inheriting Huntington’s. Never mind Katie, Ty’s response might just provide Steve with an explanation he’d sought for two years. “Wh… what about your sister?”
Tyler’s shoulders stiffened instantly and his breathing slowed. He was silent for a long time.
Apprehension prickled her spine.
Finally he shook his head. “I don’t want there to be secrets between us, Katie. Not anymore, not after everything I kept from you.
But this answer isn’t about me. It’s about someone I love very dearly, and I have to respect her need for privacy. This whole experience it’s been a lot harder on her than it has on me and it totally fucked me up.
Whatever Pen has or hasn’t done with regards to the disease has been a profoundly personal experience. She’s not ready to delve into it with anyone, and it’s not fair for me to speak about it.”
She touched her hand to his brow. “Hey, I understand.” Or she tried to understand, anyway, but it was hard to justify his sister’s actions. In the same way Tyler’s silence had caused massive devastation in her own life, Penelope Bonnard’s secrecy had destroyed Steve’s happiness. “I’m just thinking about Steve…”
Tyler sighed deeply. “So is Pen.”
“Is that why she’d gone to London? So that Steve would never discover her risk? What…”
Tyler pressed a finger against Katie’s lips, effectively cutting off her question. “Don’t ask, my sweet. Please. Pen knows I planned on telling you about the disease, and she understood why I had to do it.
But she swore me to silence about her situation. I love you, Katie, and I promise there will be no more lies. But I have no choice with this one. I cannot discuss it further without betraying my sister.”
“You can’t break your sister’s confidence.” Of course he couldn’t.
The Bonnard siblings were incredibly close. Tyler would never let Pen down in that manner.
Katie lay back on the bed, almost more troubled than before. Ty’s unwillingness to answer her question complicated matters significantly.
Now, not only did she have no idea if Pen had inherited the gene, she was also left keeping another secret from Steve: Pen’s. It was not her place to explain the Bonnards situation to her fiancé. As much as she longed to tell him the truth no matter how tragic it might be only Tyler or Pen could take that responsibility.
Fierce pangs of guilt dug into her ribs. More secrets. Pen’s, Tyler’s and now hers: she’d slept with Tyler. How much more unfaithful could she be to her fiancé?
Still not ready to face her sickening transgression, Katie changed the subject. “You know, I’d wondered what happened to you in London, why you became such a daredevil. I couldn’t quite fathom your reasons for taking up a dangerous hobby like skydiving.” She laid her hand on his chest. “You did it because you thought you were going to develop Huntington’s, didn’t you?”
“Yep.” He shrugged. “I figured if I was going to die anyway, I might as well go out the way I wanted to. With a little dignity, a little pride and a lot of fun. I preferred the idea of falling to a sudden death than surrendering to a hideous illness.”
“Christ! What a choice. And the motorcycle?”
“It’s not dangerous,” Katie, he said in an I ve-told-you-a-thousand-times tone of voice. “Not if you know how to ride it.”
“It’s dangerous if you have an accident.”
“A car’s dangerous if you have an accident.”
“A motorcycle is more so.”
He smiled at her. “Okay, my sweet. If it makes you happy then I bought my first bike because it gave me a rush.”
“Nothing about the bike makes me happy.” She frowned. “Can I ask you another question?”
“Ask me anything. Just as long as it has nothing to do with Pen.”
Neither of them needed to voice the unspoken words.
“Why’d you do it, Ty? Why did you get involved with me if you knew you wer
e going to leave anyway?”
His eyes turned black with memory. “Because once I knew I was leaving, I was safe.” He ran his fingertips over her face, as though memorizing it with his touch. “I could feel what it was like to be with you before I gave you up forever. I just wanted a taste of what my life could have been like.”
She stared at him, filled with an infinite sadness.
Then he smiled, and her stomach leaped into her chest. “Besides, any red-blooded male would be a fool to say no to you.” His voice changed, his tone deepening. “When you came to me in Noosa, I’d wanted you for too damn long. All I could think about was kissing you.”
He pulled her close, and kissed her. “Touching you.” He ran his hand down her arm and up her side.
“Making love to you.” He cupped her breast, groaning. “Christ, Katie.
I wanted to make love to you so bad.”
“I know.” She remembered sitting on the umpire’s seat, watching him dance his victory dance and knowing if she didn’t make love with him soon she would surely die from the lust.
He rolled onto his back. “After I left, I craved your body and your company. I’d lie in bed at night fantasizing about you. No other woman could even come close.”
A bristle ran down her spine. “There were other women?”
He turned to her. “You’re jealous?”
“No!” She looked down, studiously avoiding his gaze. Yes. She hated every one of those women. “Was there anyone serious?”
“There’s never been anyone serious, Katie,” he said quietly. “Besides you. There were warm bodies on cold nights. Company during the times I was most isolated. They… they helped ease the pain of missing you.
He brushed a strand of hair from her face. Well, for a while anyway.
The pain always came back afterwards. Always. No one could ever replace you.”
No one had ever eased Katie’s pain either. Until Steve. “I hate the idea of you being with anyone else,” she confessed.
He pressed his lips together in a thin line. “Now you know how I feel when I see you with Steve. Only it’s worse, because I know him, and I can’t fault you for being with him.”
For a few minutes they were both silent. Steve lay between them, his invisible presence as tangible as a concrete wall. Guilt nibbled at the edge of her subconscious, but she refused to acknowledge it. She’d concentrate on Steve soon, but not yet.
“You left me, Ty,” Katie said after an eternity. “I didn’t know why.
All I knew was that we loved each other, but you left me anyway. I was alone. For so long. God, the loneliness had been unbearable.” She stared upwards, studying the shadows that played on the ceiling behind the light. “I’d had enough of being alone. I wanted to be happy again.”
“And the only man you could find to make you happy just happened to be my oldest friend?”
The bitterness in his voice startled her, and she twisted to face him. “And my best friend. You voluntarily walked away from me,” she reminded him. “I didn’t think you’d object to my marrying a man I love regardless of who he is.” Her voice caught in her throat. “I didn’t think you’d object to my marrying anyone.”
“Ah, Katie!” He pulled her into his arms and held her against the length of his hard, tense body. “I definitely objected. The thought of you marrying anyone other than me ripped my gut out. The knowledge that you’re with Steve…” His voice broke, and he finished in a gruff whisper. “It hurts, Katie. It hurts so damn much.”
Tension radiated through his body. He lay stiff and rigid, and his arms tightened and loosened around her.
“We… we wouldn’t be hurting so much if you’d been open from the start.” If he’d just trusted her a little.
“I know that, Katie. I wish I had been. I wish I’d had more faith in you. In us. Knowing I didn’t…” His low groan of pain reverberated through both of them.
Her heart began to ache. It ached because they now found themselves in a tangled web. It ached because Tyler had hurt her, and because she’d hurt Tyler, and because now they were about to cause a man they both loved immeasurable grief.
It ached because no matter what had happened since he’d left, and no matter why he’d left, she still loved him. There was no way this intolerable situation could be resolved without someone getting more hurt.
Tyler’s hand caught in her hair. “Love me, Katie. Please. Love me as much as I love you.” He shifted beneath her, and his cock twitched and grew. “Take our pain away.”
Their lips met in a desperate kiss. His chest mashed against her breasts. His erection wedged below her belly, and his tongue delved into her mouth, possessing her, claiming her.
God, yes, she’d take the pain away. Even if only for a night. She’d make damn sure neither of them felt anything put pure, unadulterated pleasure.
Tonight there would be no more pain.
She pulled away from him to kiss his jaw and his neck and down to his chest.
Tonight was theirs. Whatever tomorrow might bring it would not interfere with now. Not when the flavor of the man she loved filled her mouth, making it water. Not when she inhaled him with every breath, or smelled the dangerously sexy aroma of his aftershave. Not when her hands ran over the magnificent length of his lethal body.
And lethal it was. She pulled away. Lifted her head so she could study him.
He was bigger than before. The muscles in his previously lean arms were better defined. His shoulders a little broader. His chest, which had always made her want to burrow into it, now made her want to take up permanent residence. The grooves of his washboard abs and flat stomach tapered to slim hips. A sprinkle of hair dotted his chest, stopped, then resumed in a thin line from his navel down. She swallowed her hunger and caught his eye. Desire masked the pain in his gaze.
“Don’t stop,” he rasped, and she leaned forward and ran her tongue over his hard nipple. “Don’t ever stop, sweet Katie.”
Stop? She was just getting started but if she continued at their frenzied pace, it’d be over before it even began, and this night had to last they might not have any more.
When she lightly bit his nipple, his words were replaced by the deep, familiar hum in his throat. The sound echoed in her ears, rousing her own need.
She switched her attention to his other side, pulled the tiny bud into her mouth and circled it with her tongue. Meanwhile, she ran her hand over his stomach, lovingly tracing the grooves between the muscles of his abs. Before, she’d known every crease, every line on his body, and now she took her time learning them all again. Banishing their pain.
She moved lower, rediscovering his firm male flesh. When she kissed her way slowly down his chest, her hand found his shaft and wrapped around it.
He jerked into her palm with a low groan.
He was warm and thick and pulsing. Katie simply held him, glorying in the ability to touch him once again. Holding him, loving him, felt as familiar as breathing and as exhilarating as freefalling from a plane.
She lay her head on his stomach. Holding his cock, she ran her thumb over the tip, spreading the pearly beads of moisture over his head. He thickened, and his groan rumbled beneath her ear.
She reached out with her tongue, catching the moisture, and he yanked reflexively on her hair. It stung mildly, erotically. She licked her way down his shaft, circling so as not to miss a single centimeter.
She caressed first one testicle and then the other, and when she wrapped her lips around him and took him in her mouth, he tightened in her hand.
He murmured above her. “Katie. Sweet, sweet Katie.”
She worked him with her lips and her tongue, then opened up and took him in as deep as she could. He called her name again.
Tyler’s responses to her ministrations, and the way his fingers tangled in her hair, massaging her scalp, fanned the flames building between her legs.
Moisture slid down her inner thighs. More than anything she wanted him moving inside her. Wanted to
reconnect with him. Wanted to take their pain away.
He must have sensed her need for the hands in her hair became more insistent, tugging her head upwards until Katie was forced to release him.
“It’s too good, my sweet,” he said hoarsely. “If you carry on like that it’ll be over too soon.”
She arched an eyebrow. “And that’s a problem?” His balls were still in her hand, and she stroked them.
He laughed a gruff, hoarse laugh. “At another time, no. But now I want to savor you. Savor us.”
She grabbed a condom from the bedside table and sheathed him with it.
“Come here.” He held his arms open to her, and without a moment’s hesitation, she straddled him, wrapping her arms around his shoulders.
For a moment he stared into her eyes and took her breath away with the depth of emotion she saw reflected in them.
Tyler loved her. If she’d ever had any doubts, he’d silenced them.
With a contented sigh, she rolled over onto her back, and he followed. In seconds, his cock touched her aching folds. She didn’t question it, didn’t think. She merely opened up and invited him in. He drove into her, filling her, completing her. Her naked breasts pressed into his chest, and she wrapped her legs around his waist, taking him deeper. His mouth found her lips. Their kiss was both tender and steamy. It tasted of love and of sex, and as his tongue explored hers, she became more aroused, more incited.
She moaned and twisted, and was rewarded with a deep thrust.
Slow and unhurried, he pulled back and thrust in again. Slow and unhurried, she matched his movements, lifting up, and sliding back down. Tonight was theirs, and they took it, making love in the soft glow of the moon as close as a man and a woman could get.
Katie dropped her head back as pleasure coiled through her. Tyler leaned down and caressed her breasts with his mouth. The sensation that unfurled as his tongue stroked her nipples and his cock drove into her was shockingly delicious. Shocking enough to kick her need up to another level, delicious enough to make her want it to go on and on and on.
“So wet,” he murmured as he glided into her. “So hot.”
She gasped as his tongue found her nipple again. His muscles rippled beneath her hands as his actions intensified, as his thrusts became more ardent. Her control began to crack. Lust turned to urgency. Tyler drove into her, called her name, and her world splintered. Pleasure pure, unadulterated pleasure flowed through her as wave upon wave of ecstasy hit her. Just as she thought the waves might subside, he stiffened above her and his restraint fractured.