by Julie Kriss
“Fine.” I put a hand on his chest and gently pushed him back, climbing on top of him as he rolled on his back. Now I could see his fine abs, the vee of the muscles over his hips, his perfect chest with its dusting of dark hair. Even his collarbones were sexy. He was looking at me, too, as I sat atop him, his dark eyes traveling me up and down.
I only wanted Andrew looking at me anymore. His was the only gaze that mattered.
I adjusted myself on his hips. “See, this isn’t so hard.”
A muscle in his jaw twitched. “Yes, it is.”
I leaned forward, braced my hands on either side of him, letting my breasts brush his chest. “Difficult, I mean. It isn’t so difficult.”
I brushed my mouth over his, and he kissed me back. Breaking the kiss, he opened the drawer of his nightstand and took out a condom. I kissed down his neck and his collarbones as he rolled it on.
I was glad we’d had our little dress rehearsal last night. Our bodies were already familiar with each other; I knew his scent and the way his hands felt. He put his palms on my hips and guided me as I lowered myself down on him. We both moaned.
“God, that feels good,” I said as I lowered all the way down.
His hands tightened on my hips. “Don’t talk dirty,” he growled. “Don’t moan like that. I’ll fucking lose it.”
I licked the lobe of his ear. “I can’t help it. You’re hot.”
“Tessa—Jesus.” He tensed again as I started moving on him, rolling my hips. I let my head fall forward to the side of his neck and I closed my eyes because it felt so, so freaking good. It was heaven. I moved my knees, taking him deeper, and he growled again.
This was definitely not awkward, or weird, or difficult. It was amazing.
Andrew moved his hand up under my hair, gently gripping the back of my head. “Tessa, I want to throw you down and fuck you,” he said. “You know I do. I want to fuck you until you can’t move.”
Now he was the one talking dirty. “I don’t care,” I said. “Just make me feel good.”
His hand slid between us, his finger stroking my clit as I moved, and I gasped as a shock of pleasure moved through me. I rocked my hips, hitting his finger again and again, and every time the pleasure built higher. I kept my eyes closed and let it happen.
The orgasm was the most natural thing in the world, pulsing through me and making me cry out. I bit my lip and buried my face in Andrew’s neck as his hands gripped my hips again and his own hips flexed up into me. And I felt every muscle as he came, his head tilted back and his eyes closed, as if he hadn’t felt pleasure like this for seven long years.
Twenty-Six
Andrew
* * *
“It was a bad year, I guess,” Tessa said.
It was night. I was sitting up in bed, relaxed against the pillows propped against the headboard, the blanket pulled up to my waist. Tessa was sitting cross-legged in the middle of the bed, wearing my T-shirt. She’d found ice cream in my freezer and sprinkled it with nuts, and she was digging in.
She’d offered me a bowl, but I wasn’t hungry. I was happy just to watch her, the way her eyes went unfocused with pleasure as she took a spoonful. I was starting to get the idea that in her life outside my house, her life as a model, Tessa didn’t eat very much. Here, she was happy to clean out my fridge and my cupboards, which was fine with me.
“A bad year?” I said.
She took another spoonful. “Okay, fine, all of my teenage years were bad. And before that, so was my childhood.” She looked thoughtful. “I always told myself it wasn’t bad, because I wasn’t abused or anything. But do you know why I wasn’t abused? Because I got into scary situations all alone early in life, and I lucked my way out of them. By thirteen I knew how to spot a creepy guy or a bad situation. Those aren’t things a thirteen-year-old should know.”
“They aren’t,” I said.
“My father left when I was six,” Tessa said. “His entire method of parenting was ‘everyone should do their own thing.’ Which is stupid when you’re dealing with a little kid. But of course, when he left and picked up with another girl, he got to say it was because he was doing his own thing. My mom went on to other boyfriends after him. You know how some single parents really worry about dating, about how the person they’re seeing will affect their kid? That wasn’t her.”
“Jesus,” I said. “Terrible things could have happened to you.”
“I know. A few of her boyfriends were creepy, but none of them lasted very long. I figured out how not to be alone with any of them, ever—even the nice ones. Because you never knew. As you may have gathered, I don’t trust people.” She glanced at me. “Am I talking too much?”
“Tessa,” I said, “literally the only thing I want to fucking do right now is listen to you talk.”
She lowered her bowl and spoon for a second. “Sometimes you say the nicest things,” she said. “I don’t even think you know you do it.”
“Just keep talking, okay?”
She paused, then nodded. “I went off the rails as a teenager,” she said. “I was the textbook definition of running with the wrong crowd. I hung out with people who partied and did all kinds of drugs. I tried all of them sooner or later. I blacked out more times than I could count. I lost my virginity in the backseat of a smelly truck to a guy who was twenty-five. I was so drunk I only half remember it. I had no curfew, and my mother never asked when I was going to be home. I thought I didn’t matter. I hated myself.”
My hands were clenched in the sheets, my heart pounding. I may be a mess now, but my teenage years had been fucking great. Sure, our parents pretty much ignored Nick and me, but otherwise we were rich, good-looking guys who liked to have fun. I’d lost my virginity to my first girlfriend; we’d planned it for weeks. We were sober, and we tried to make it great for both of us. We both failed, but that was nobody’s fault.
Before the accident, my life had been so, so fucking good. I had that.
“What happened?” I managed to ask.
Tessa shrugged. She stirred the ice cream in her bowl. “I got drunk and high more and more. I realized it was because I never wanted to be inside my own head, just me and my thoughts. I was spiraling. The people I hung out with weren’t really my friends; the guys I slept with barely knew my name. My mother didn’t care. I started to fixate on the idea that if I disappeared, it wouldn’t matter. That people would be better off. And it sounded really good.”
I closed my eyes for a second. I knew that feeling. But I stayed quiet and let her talk.
“Part of me, though, got scared,” Tessa said. “Part of me didn’t want to do it, but I didn’t feel in control. So one night when I was seventeen I went to the emergency room of the closest hospital and told them I needed help or I was going to kill myself. I saw one doctor, then another. They recommended I spend some time in a rehab center. They tried to call my mother because I was a minor, but she was at a yoga retreat in Costa Rica and couldn’t be reached. They let me go in anyway.”
“Did it help?” I asked.
She nodded. “I was in for three weeks. It was mostly group therapy, and of course there were no drugs or alcohol. If we had more money, I could have gone somewhere nicer. But at least I learned that I wasn’t alone, that there were people like me out there who were getting help. That the drugs and alcohol weren’t helping. That if other people could get through it, then maybe I could, too.” She took the last, melted bite, her mood seeming to cheer up again. “When I left, I packed my bags and moved to L.A. I got away from those people, from the girl I was. I got jobs and made my own money, and I tried to make something of myself as a model. I didn’t really succeed, but at least I tried. And then my grandmother died. And here I am.”
Something clicked. “What you went through—that’s part of why you want to be a nurse.”
“Yes, it is.” She put her empty bowl on the bedside table. “It’s stupid, right? Thinking you might be able to help someone someday, the way you were helped. I shou
ld be more cynical.”
“It isn’t stupid,” I said. It was fucking amazing. She was fucking amazing. Tough and smart and indestructible.
She looked at me. Her hair was still messed from the sex we’d had, and she was wearing my shirt. If there was ever a better sight in the universe, I’d never seen it. “So now you know about me,” she said. “Which of us wins the screwed-up Olympics?”
“Still me,” I said. “Definitely me.”
“Okay, you’re probably right. But do I win anything for second place?”
I thought about it. “You win complimentary access to my air conditioning and my kitchen. And the undeniable pleasure of my company.”
Tessa sighed. “Those big words.” She came forward on all fours and moved closer to me. “I like your company.”
I could smell her—sex, shampoo, woman. I cupped the back of her head when she got close and kissed her, me sitting up, her on all fours. It got hot, fast. She tasted so incredibly good.
“Why me?” I asked her when we finally broke the kiss. “Of all the guys. Why me?”
“Some things are just fate,” Tessa said. “Don’t you think?”
I couldn’t answer, because she kissed me again. I could taste ice cream on her tongue.
She slid her hand down my stomach and beneath the sheet, where I was getting hard again. She broke the kiss as she stroked me. “I bet I can think of something you haven’t had in seven years,” she said softly.
My voice was choked. “That isn’t necessary.”
“I think it is.” She kissed her way down my chest, my stomach. Lower.
She was right, of course. Seven years.
We fixed that.
She told me it tasted better than ice cream.
Twenty-Seven
Tessa
* * *
Four days later I was the Millwood Market, rolling my cart down the produce aisle. I had mooched enough of Andrew’s food; I figured it was time to chip in for some groceries. The least I could do was feed him.
It was hot out, though the brutal heat wave was gone. The sky was blinding blue, the wind summer-perfect. It was the kind of day that people took off work to go to beaches or parks, the kind of day to lounge in the shade before firing up the barbecue. I was wearing roomy cargo pants, a white tee, and flip-flops, my sunglasses pushed to the top of my head as I shopped. I paused my cart by the dairy case, stared blankly at a display of cheese, and realized I was happier than I could ever remember being in my life.
Seriously, I was so happy my feet felt like they were barely touching the floor. The past few days with Andrew had done that.
It wasn’t just the sex—though, to be fair, the sex was amazing. Andrew had a brochure with twenty-six suggested positions in it, and we spent our nights experimenting with as many of them as possible. Some of them worked better than others, but it was always slow and hot and perfect. I’d never been with a man so focused on giving me pleasure, on getting it right, on making every time better than the last. It turned out I didn’t need elaborate acrobatics or Fifty Shades of Grey. I just needed him. Only him.
But it honestly wasn’t just the sex. Instead of sleeping afterward we usually talked, sometimes for hours, curled up and relaxed in the dark together. By day, we hung out, fully clothed, trading jokes and keeping each other company. Andrew was hard at work on the Lightning Man comics, and he had his appointments. Yesterday I’d met his psychotherapist, a fiftyish man named Dr. Costas who was very dignified and serious, though the crow’s feet around his eyes crinkled warmly when he greeted Andrew, as if he liked him a lot. The crinkling crow’s feet meant I approved of Dr. Costas, and I left them alone to do their session.
I was busy; I had lawyers’ meetings about my inheritance and errands to run. I had to pick up my check for the modeling gig and my one and only paycheck from Miller’s. I had started packing up some of the things in my grandmother’s house to donate or sell. I was starting to think of the house as mine, pondering how I might make it look if I stayed there.
Because it looked like I was going to stay there, at least for the foreseeable future. I had no desire to leave Millwood, no wish to live anywhere except across the street from Andrew Mason. I’d picked up information for applying to nursing school. If they accepted me, I was going to do it, which would keep me here for at least the next few years.
For the first time in my life, things felt settled. They felt good. I didn’t know where Andrew and I were going, but at the moment I sure as hell liked it. But I spent a lot of time at his house, eating the food from his kitchen. So here I was today, balancing that out.
I put fruit in my cart, and nuts and Greek yogurt. Andrew was a healthy eater, which was why he had such a hot body. He also worked out in his workout room every day, and I approved of the resulting muscles. Yum.
I turned the corner to the cereal aisle, and someone blocked my way. I looked up. It was a man—a handsome, pretty much gorgeous, man. He had tousled dark hair, stubble, and muscles for days under his dark gray tee. His low-slung jeans hid what was obviously a perfect body. His Converse sneakers were practically disintegrating. I looked back up to his face and saw that he was scowling at me.
I’d never seen this man before, but I recognized him as clearly as if I’d met him dozens of times. It was in the cheekbones, the eyes, and definitely in the scowl. This could be no one else but—
“Nick Mason?” I said.
He crossed his arms over his chest, which did interesting things to his biceps. He had a wedding ring on his left hand. There was no doubt that Nick Mason was objectively a very attractive man, though the entire package did nothing for me physically. Which was curious, because Nick’s brother pressed every single one of my sex buttons.
“You’re Tessa Hartigan,” he said. His voice was different than Andrew’s, deeper and more growly. Andrew’s face was a little thinner than Nick’s, more mature from what he’d been through. Nick didn’t move out of my way. Instead he looked me up and down, his gaze disapproving. I felt like he’d caught me coming off a stripper stage wearing a thong instead of grocery shopping on a summer afternoon in my most comfortable clothes.
I bristled at that look, the way it assessed and dismissed me. “I’d say it’s nice to meet you,” I said, meeting his gaze head-on, “but something tells me you disagree.”
His expression went hard. “You’re fucking right I disagree,” he said. “I don’t know who you are, and I don’t care. You need to get out of Andrew’s life. Now.”
Twenty-Eight
Tessa
* * *
No. Oh, hell no. I might be stupidly happy and made soft by great sex, but I was still the toughest girl in Millwood, and I had no time for Mason brother intimidation tactics. “Thanks for the advice,” I said drily to Nick. “Now get out of my way.”
He didn’t budge. “I don’t think you’re listening.”
I pushed my cart against his jean-clad thighs, but he still didn’t move. I pulled my cart back, then rammed it forward harder, hitting his legs. Did he think he could actually scare me?
He finally moved aside, and I moved on down the aisle. “See, this is why I like your brother better than you,” I said. “He doesn’t try to physically intimidate me. Guys who can walk are overrated.”
He walked next to my shoulder, sticking to me like glue. “Are you making fun of him?”
“I’ll mace anyone who makes fun of him,” I replied, picking up a box of Andrew’s favorite whole-grain cereal. “Are we done here?”
“No. You need to get out of his life.”
I obviously wasn’t going to get rid of him, so I sighed. “Why? Do tell.”
“Because you’ll hurt him.”
I turned the corner to the next aisle. “Considering you don’t know me, that’s a far-reaching assumption.”
“Jesus, you even talk like him. Those big words.”
“Which is strange, because apparently you’re the writer of the duo. You could try articulating you
rself beyond growly threats to strange women in grocery stores.” I paused as a thought hit me. “Wait a minute. Why did you follow me to the grocery store? You know where I live.” I stopped my cart and put a hand on my hip. “It’s because if you came to my front door, Andrew would see you on his security camera. Right? You don’t want him to know you talked to me.”
A muscle in his jaw twitched, but he didn’t deny it. I could feel the tension coming off him in waves. I was pissing him off, which pleased me. If he thought I would play the demure, sweet girl, he was wrong. I turned and pushed my cart again.
“I am not threatening you,” he said after a minute. He was still walking at my shoulder as I shopped.
“Oh?” I said. “And what will happen if I don’t get out of Andrew’s life? You’ll send me a strongly worded email?”
“Listen,” Nick said. “You don’t understand what you’re dealing with here. You don’t understand my brother.”
“I understand him pretty well, actually.” Including how he kisses and his favorite sexual positions, I thought. But I didn’t say it, because it was none of Nick’s business.
“Andrew isn’t like other guys.”
“That’s why I like him.”
“You still don’t get it. He isn’t just some Tinder dude you can date and then dump when you’re bored. He doesn’t play the dating game. If you dump him, you’ll mess him up.”
“And who says I’m going to dump him?”
Nick snorted. “So you’re in this for a long-term relationship? You want to marry him?”
“It’s none of your business what I want,” I snapped. “Besides, maybe Andrew doesn’t want a long-term relationship. Maybe he’ll be the one to dump me.”
I sounded snarky, but it was a cover. Andrew might want to dump me after a while. He was grumpy and independent and used to being on his own. Once the glow of sex wore off, would I just be in the way?