by Carter Ashby
“You do?”
“Of course,” he said with a laugh. “Like I’m sure you work hard to look like you do.”
Maya still hadn’t disrobed. “I think you’ll find I don’t work that hard.” A Zumba workout on DVD about three times a week was all she did.
Jayce was down to his boxers and then those were gone. He stood tall, grinned, and nodded toward her shirt. “You going in fully dressed?” He stepped in the shower without waiting for an answer.
Maya took a breath, stripped, and climbed in after him. The shower was small, so it was impossible not to bump into each other, but he kept his hands to himself.
“I haven’t showered with a woman in…years, I think,” Jayce said, tilting his head back into the spray and soaking his hair.
“You don’t shower with Janice?” Maya switched places with him and dipped her head back into the hot spray.
“No, Janice and I don’t actually spend a lot of time together.”
Maya grabbed the shampoo, poured some into her palm, and handed the bottle to him.
Jayce frowned at it. “This should have me smelling nice and non-threatening.”
Maya smiled as she lathered. “When was the first time you showered with a girl?”
“When I was sixteen. My first girlfriend. Her parents were out of town, so we decided to play house for the weekend. She tried to cook dinner. I built a fire in the fireplace. We watched R-rated movies. And we showered together. Tried to have sex in the shower, but it was too slippery and we ended up drying off and going to her bed. Still, it was fun trying.”
By now, his hair was foamed up with shampoo just like hers. He smiled down at her and started to reach for her hair, but stopped. “May I?” he asked.
“Sure,” Maya said, thinking he was going to help her rinse. But instead, he gathered all her hair on top of her head, twisted it up, and then laughed at her.
She grinned and reached for his hair, flattening it all into a mohawk, barely noticing the fact that her breasts were brushing against his chest. She used some of the foam from the shampoo to give him a goatee. “Does this look good?” he asked, turning his head side-to-side. “With the mohawk? I’ve been thinking about getting my hair cut like this.”
“Oh, God, don’t,” she said, still laughing. “I like your hair longer.”
“I think a mohawk would be badass.”
Maya reached up and slicked his hair back. “Maybe an undercut and then you can style the longer hair on top however you want. But not in a full, spiky mohawk. Definitely not.”
“I am a bartender, Maya. People expect me to be extreme.” He spoke while his hands went back to work on her hair. It felt good and soothing. Maya leaned into his hands as if to prolong the physical contact. He was pushing her hair up and over to one side. “This is what you need. Shave this side and then let all these loose curls cascade down the other.”
“Cascade?” she asked with a giggle.
“What?” he asked defensively.
“It’s just a surprising bit of vocabulary, that’s all.”
He grinned down at her. “I read books sometimes. I ain’t a complete meathead.”
“I never thought you were.” She tipped her head back and rinsed. While he took his turn rinsing, she washed the rest of her body. And then she stood still and watched the water running in rivulets down his chiseled abs. Mesmerized, almost in a trance, she lathered up her loofa and began washing him, scrubbing down his arms and abs. She pressed herself against him, reached around, and scrubbed his back.
He stood still for her, just as she’d asked. He kept his hands at his sides. She supposed the erection pressing into her belly wasn’t really his fault. Maya dropped her loofa, pressed her forehead to Jayce’s chest, and took his erection in her hands. “We just going to pretend this isn’t here?” she asked.
“Whatever you want,” he said, his voice mostly breath.
She stroked him, slowly at first, but with increasing speed. She kept her head to his chest and listened to his breathing, coming in short, sharp gasps. He was bracing himself against the wall on one side and the door on the other. Maya heard him suck in a breath, groan through clenched teeth, and then come in hot bursts over her hands.
She waited to feel something. Waited to find out how her body would react. She felt herself smiling and growing excited. There was an ache between her legs that was throbbing, now, aching with need.
Maya tipped her head back to smile up at him, but his head was back, his eyes closed. “Is that better?” Maya asked.
Jayce dropped his head forward and opened his eyes. “Yeah. Much better.”
“Good.” Maya rinsed her hands, gave Jayce a pat on the cheek, and climbed out of the shower, pleased with what had happened. It was obvious that Jayce was completely cool about sex. He hadn’t been emotional at all, nor had he broken his promise about not touching her. As she dried off and dressed, she found herself content and excited about the rest of the night.
#
Jayce stayed under the shower for a few more seconds, trying not to cry or scream or fall to his knees and beg her to let him rock her world. God, and how hard he’d wanted to touch her. How hard he’d wanted just to hold her and kiss her.
The worst part was knowing that for her, she was just fooling around, getting him off for the thrill of it, or maybe just to get it out of the way so she didn’t have that thing poking at her every time she turned around. But for him, it was the culmination of years of hoping and wanting. Maya’s sweet hands had been around him, giving him the greatest pleasure there is. Her body had pressed against his. She’d smiled at him. Laughed with him. Showered naked with him. It was simultaneously the happiest and most miserable he’d ever been in his life.
Jayce climbed out of the shower, dried, and was about to dig some boxers out of his overnight bag when Maya popped her head in. A grin on her face, she said, “Just stay in the towel.” With that, she was gone.
Jayce grinned. Then he sighed. He cinched the towel around his hips and then stepped into the hallway. The front of the house was dark. All he could see was a dim glow coming from the kitchen…probably the stove light. There was light coming from a bedroom, so Jayce followed it. Maya was lighting candles. There was a plate with a quarter of a chocolate cake on it, sitting in the middle of the bed.
“Tell me I get to eat that off of you,” he said.
She snorted. Her back was to him. As she reached to the top of the dresser to light more candles, the little night-shirt she’d put on rose up the backs of her thighs, exposing the lower curves of her cute little ass cheeks. “God,” he muttered.
“So now, love slave,” she said, either not hearing him or choosing to ignore him, “I’m going to eat cake and you’re going to read to me.”
She crawled up the bed, lay on her side, and slid the cake in front of her. Propped up on her elbow, she took a bite of cake. “Mmm,” she moaned with her eyes closed. “Read, Jayce.”
He blew out a breath and sat on the opposite side of the bed, adjusting his towel and lounging back against the pillows. “You just jerked me off in the shower,” he said, studying her face as she stuffed it with cake. “Did that do nothing for you?”
Her big doe eyes turned up to his. “What do you mean?”
This was getting humiliating. “I mean…if I’d gotten to make you come in my hand, I’d be horny as hell.”
She blushed, smiled, and looked away. “I am,” she said softly. “I’m just enjoying my evening the way I want. Like you said I could. Whatever I want, right?”
Now he felt like an ass. This wasn’t about his ego, it was about her issues and needs. “Yes,” he said. “Whatever you want. I just want to make sure that you understand that that includes hand jobs and oral sex.”
She blushed even harder and almost choked on her cake. After a few seconds, she managed to swallow what was in her mouth and look back up at him. “I’m aware of my options, thank you.”
He grinned and shifted to make himself more comfor
table on the bed. Then he grabbed the romance novel off the nightstand and scrutinized the cover. There was a half naked man ripping the bodice off a woman in a really old dress. He opened to the marked page. “You want me to make funny voices, or—“
“No,” she laughed. “Just read it straight.”
“Okay, but what if I think it’s funny? Then can I make funny voices?”
“No. And you can’t laugh, either. This book is totally hot.”
He arched a brow at her, skeptical at the least.
“Trust me,” she said. “Books like this have gotten me through a lot of dark times. I want us to share it together, okay?”
Well, that put a different spin on it. In fact, it made his heart warm. It made him want to be the best romance novel narrator in the world. “Okay. Let’s see,” he said, as he found a starting spot. Then he began reading. “His eyes locked on hers as he caressed the milky mounds spilling out of the top of her stays…the fuck is a stay?”
“Shh. Read.”
“She gasped in pleasure and felt a moistening between her legs.” He paused and shot Maya a glance, but she just nodded to him to keep going, while her cheeks were puffed out with cake.
“Okay…she reached for his heavy, throbbing member. ‘We only have a few moments Reginald,’ she said. ‘Take me, here, now, lest we never have another chance.’” He coughed to cover up a laugh. “‘But Cecilia,’ he said, with warmth in his eyes, ‘When you’re bedded by your husband on your wedding night, he’ll know that your virginity is no longer in tact.’ ‘I don’t care, my love. I want you to be the one to usher me into womanhood.’” Jayce squeezed his eyes shut and fought back more laughter.
“all right, all right,” Maya said. “Let it out.”
“Fuck, I’m sorry babe. It’s just too funny.”
Maya sat the cake on her nightstand and sat up on her knees. She grabbed the book from him. “Listen, it gets good. ‘My darling, if he were to get angry and hurt you, I could never forgive myself,’ Reginald said. ‘Let me worry about that,’ she answered. ‘The memory of what we do together tonight will sustain me. Reginald, I’ve loved you for so long. I only wish you’d returned my love sooner, but you didn’t and now I must marry him. You have to give me this one night, Reginald. You owe it to me and I’ll have you right now or else I’ll throw myself off this balcony.’”
Jayce wasn’t laughing, now, as he listened to Maya read, as he gave her an encouraging smile when she glanced up at him.
She scooted closer so that her leg was touching his leg. “Reginald resisted no longer. He grabbed the neckline of her dress and ripped it downward, exposing more of her cleavage. He ravished her mouth with his tongue while he filled his hands with her milky breasts.
“They tumbled onto her bed, rolling over and over until he was on top. He shoved her skirts up and sheathed his engorged member in her wet, silky folds.”
Jayce watched her in awe. Her cheeks flushed as she read the ridiculously over-descriptive sex scene, but she was so intense about it. She even gripped his thigh as she read.
“As they lay there in the afterglow of their passion,” she read, “Cecilia gave her heart to Reginald, knowing that even though she would share a marriage bed with another man, she would only truly belong to this one.” Maya closed the book and held it to her heart. “Isn’t that just beautiful?” she asked, her eyes wide and honest.
It wasn’t beautiful. It was sentimental crap, but if it made Maya happy, then Jayce was willing to declare it the greatest literature of all time. “Yeah,” he said. “Beautiful. Kind of sad, too.”
“Oh, don’t worry. She runs away with him in the end and they live happily ever after.”
She was still hugging the book, a dreamy, far off look in her eyes. She’d used this book and others like it to escape her painful existence. It hurt so much to think of her alone and in pain. He’d lived in this same town, not five minutes drive from her house, all these years. He’d pined over her all these years. If only she’d called him, he would have gone to her house, knocked Damon flat on his ass, and taken her and the kids away.
But she’d never known of his feelings. She still didn’t. Jayce watched her for another moment, holding his breath. Then he let it out. “I’ll read it right this time,” he said, reaching for the book.
She let him take it, and then she lay down alongside him, resting her cheek in the crook of his shoulder, her hand on his belly. He read out loud, not laughing this time. Page after page of smut, but smut that she’d wanted to share with him. Page after page of a world she’d invited him into, a world where she’d once found peace. He read until he heard a very soft, very quiet snore.
Craning his neck, he saw that she was asleep. Her lips were parted slightly and puffed out on each exhale. Jayce closed the book, sat it on the nightstand, and turned off the lamp. He managed to adjust himself and her to a more comfortable position. Then he wriggled out of the towel, which was too uncomfortable to sleep in, and pulled the comforter over them both.
He doubted he would sleep, holding the object of his affection at peace in his arms for the first time in his life, but he closed his eyes anyway.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
The first tendrils of consciousness seeped through Maya in the blue, pre-dawn light. Her very first awarenesses were physical and primal. First there was heat and flesh next to her, against her. Then there was fire and need within her…desire for the heat and flesh next to her.
Jayce.
It was the only thought in her higher intellect. It was as though her body so desperately craved this one thing that her mind only had enough power to put a name to it.
Jayce.
Mine
She peeled her nightshirt off, hating that the thin fabric was separating her from him. Beneath the cover, she kicked off her panties and then slid on top of him and rubbed her breasts up and down his chest. Her hair fell alongside her face and stuck to her lips, but she could only think of this one thing, this one need, this one food for her desires.
He was fully erect, though only just now stirring. Maya slid onto him—something she’d been so terrified of, something she’d feared she’d never be able to do again—she did it like it was nothing. His thickness filled her, stretched her, and made the ache of need explode like wildfire.
Jayce awoke like a dying man coming to life, with a gasp of air and an arch of his back. “Oh, fuck! Oh, fuck!” he cried.
Maya fisted her hands in his hair. “It’s okay,” she said. “Open your eyes.”
He did, taking forever to focus. Maya moved up and down, back and forth, grinding her clit against him, drawing out her own pleasure, feeding off his desperate moans and touches. His hands grappled at her as though struggling to find a good hold. She grabbed them and guided them to the bed posts, which he gripped until his knuckles turned white.
“No,” he gasped. “Please let me touch you.”
“I like it this way.” Maya sat up, her hands braced on his abs, and swirled her hips.
Suddenly his hips thrust upward, nearly bucking her off, and before she knew it, he was in control, even in this submissive position. Now she was the one grappling for a hold. She finally fell forward, her hands fisting in the blankets on either side of his shoulders as he slammed into her faster and harder.
“Maya!” he cried. “Condom.”
“Don’t stop,” she gasped. “Don’t you fucking dare stop.”
He cursed, cried out, and came inside of her. Maya took back control as he was coming and finished herself off with two more thrusts. She fell forward, dug her nails into his shoulders, and sobbed through an orgasm ten times more intense than she’d ever had before.
At last she collapsed on top of him and waited for his arms to come around her. When they didn’t, she remembered that she hadn’t given him permission. “Hold me,” she whispered.
His arms went around her. “I brought condoms,” he muttered.
“I’m on the pill.”
His mus
cles relaxed, some. Sweat cooled between their trembling bodies. She felt Jayce pull the blanket back over them. It must have gotten kicked off. Jayce’s fingertips trailed up and down her spine, and Maya found she couldn’t stop smiling.
“It was better this way,” she said softly. “Barely conscious, acting only on my urges.”
“I would like to be here every time you’re barely conscious.” His voice was raspy and…tense.
“That was easily the best sex I’ve ever had,” Maya murmured.
“It’ll always be good with me, Maya.”
At first she thought it was a cocky thing to say. But then she realized that he meant sex would always be better with him than with Damon. “Because you’ll never hurt me?” she asked softly.
“Never as long as I’m alive.”
The morning light was gradually brightening, but it was still so early, Maya wasn’t ready to leave the bed. “It’s encouraging to know that there are men like you out there,” she said. “Maybe I won’t have to be alone forever.”
He didn’t say anything. It wouldn’t have been unusual…there were lots of times when he remained silent. But this silence felt different. It felt like it was holding a secret. Jayce’s arms tightened around her and she realized he was holding his breath.
“Or, I guess I could just fool around with you forever,” she said.
Even his laugh was wrong. “Yeah,” he said. “That would be fun.”
“Just fun, though, right?”
“Oh, yeah, Maya. Just fun. This is definitely nothing serious. Not for me, anyway.”
She finally sat up and frowned down at him. His eyes were squeezed shut, but quickly opened when he sensed her watching him. For a moment, his expression was utterly vulnerable, unlike anything she’d seen in him before. He quickly masked it, but it was too late. “Jayce, this is just fun,” she repeated.
“I know,” he snapped. “Didn’t I just say that?”
“Yeah, but—”
“But nothing, Maya.”
“Then…what’s wrong?”
“Nothing’s wrong? Did I say something was wrong?”