Fall Away

by Zoe York

  “You can’t.” He grinned slowly as he worked at the hooks at the back of her bra. “Can I undo this?”

  “I really shouldn’t let you,” she said breathlessly, rolling her hips. “But I don’t think I’ll be able to say no.”

  “Because I’m so big and—”

  She dissolved into giggles, falling forward to brace her elbows on his shoulders. She stroked her fingers into his hair and he rolled into her touch. “You’re the opposite of bad, Trick.”

  “And you don’t need a bodyguard, but anytime you want to role play, I’m your guy.”

  “’Kay. Theatrics do it for you, got it.”

  “You do it for me.” How much she did scared him a bit. He shoved that thought away. “That feels good, keep doing that shoofy thing with your fingers.”

  “Tell me about your arm,” she murmured as she raked her hands back through his hair again. Her breasts swayed in front of him, the shadow of cleavage in the v-neck shirt distracting him with the promise of soft, delicious skin. He unhooked her bra, liking the way her breath hitched. Liking the way he saw a bit more of her swells as she wiggled out of the straps before resuming her impromptu head massage.

  “Not much to tell. X-rays looked good. This thing is really just a protective shield at this point.”

  “You’re so blasé about a broken bone.”

  “Wasn’t my first. Won’t be my last.”

  — —

  He said it like he’d stubbed his toe. When she took off his shirt, she’d tried not to react badly at the yellow and purple remnants of significant bruising on his right side, but whatever happened to Trick that broke his arm wasn’t no big deal.

  She lowered her mouth to his, kissing him partly for selfish-desire reasons, partly because he deserved something sweet for being so brave. He tasted unbelievably good, like the best salty-sweet concoction, so it was like ninety-five percent selfish and barely five percent altruistic. Every brush of his lips against hers sent electric currents skittering across her skin and each slow thrust of his tongue went straight to her core. For someone who was supposed to be getting kissed, he sure took charge in a hurry.

  Under her shirt, his left hand squeezed her side just a few inches below her breast. For all the intimacy they’d ended up sharing the last weekend, he hadn’t made a play for her boobs again—hadn’t even seen her without a shirt on yet. And it didn’t seem like he was going to make that move unless she gave him the go-ahead.

  She waited for the green-eyed monster to protest, but all she heard was the thump of her heart and the breathy whimper she let out as she pulled away from Trick’s mouth.

  “Here,” she said quickly. “Let me just…”

  If she’d had any doubt Trick wanted her, his groan and accompanying flex of his erection as she pulled off her shirt would have been proof enough. The way he was looking at her when she dropped the fabric and looked back at him through her flyaway hair was a cherry on top.

  “Wow, I like your definition of making out.” He firmly glided his hand up her fluttering midsection—could he feel her nerves? Or was that excitement?—and ever so carefully cupped her right breast, then curved his hand in a figure eight motion to stroke her left one.

  “Use both hands,” she urged under her breath.

  “The cast is rough,” he said quietly, ignoring her.

  “I don’t care.”

  “I do. Your skin is so soft. So smooth. Jesus, Gaby, I don’t want to scratch you. Besides—” He lifted his thighs beneath her bottom, shifting her closer to him again. “My mouth is so much better than any hand.”

  He didn’t go straight for the obvious goods like she expected. She had nice nipples, she thought, and only so-so boobs, but Trick seemed to like it all. The shadow between her breasts, the sensitive tissue beneath, and her puffy areolae. And when his thumb finally tweaked one now painfully erect peak at the same moment that he tugged the other deep into his mouth…that was amazing. Technicolor light display kind of amazing.

  She gasped out loud, because how could she not, and grabbed hold of his shoulders. “More,” she urged when he paused to check in, and he gave her exactly that. Overwhelmed by the rough, perfect sensations of his tongue suckling on her, she unconsciously resumed grinding, and as her body flushed from head to toe, she realized she was nearing an orgasm. From rocking against him and his mouth on her breasts.

  She panted his name and he switched sides. His right arm, scratchy cast and all, banded around her butt and held her in place.

  “Are you going to come like this?” He scraped her nipple ever so lightly with his teeth. “Because you should. You should come so hard for me, Gaby. You’re so gorgeous, and I’m so fucking lucky to have you in my lap.”

  “Uhhhh,” she moaned, incapable of more advanced speech, but he seemed to translate that no problem. It only took another minute of the most teasing, most delicious, most unexpected breast play ever before she was trembling her way through an orgasm that seemed to twirl on and on and on, a spiral of pleasure that started between her legs and radiated down each limb and up her neck.

  Trick held her against his bare torso, his skin warm and inviting against hers. She sagged into him, relaxing as his strong arms tightened around her as if to say, I’ve got you. She lolled a bit to one side as she found a way to both lean on him and look up at him at the same time. He grinned down at her. “See? I told you. Hot.”

  “Yes, you are.” She was slurring her words a bit, all sleepy and sated in her post-orgasmic bliss. So this is what boneless contentment feels like. The orgasm he’d given her the previous week had been spectacular in a different way, but their emotions had been pulled tight. Today, there was none of that. Just sweet luxuriating in a secret shared attraction.

  She shifted again, wanting to burrow deeper into his warm skin stretched over hard muscles—a more perfect combination of masculine presentation she couldn’t possibly imagine—when her inner thigh rolled over another hard muscle.

  “Oh, you…”

  He made a noncommittal noise, but fair was fair.

  “Nope. It’s your turn.” She slid over his body and dropped between his spread legs. He sank a bit further into the couch, watching from behind half-hooded eyes as she stroked her palms up his heavily muscled thighs and hooked her fingers behind his belt. “You want to come, too, don’t you?”

  He choked on a laugh and reached out to cup her cheek with his big, callused hand. “That’s a dirty word, pretty girl.”

  “You used it.” She tried to keep a straight face, but the hum of electricity between them made that too difficult. He brought out the smirk in her, that was for sure.

  “Yeah, I want to come for you.” His voice dropped a few notes as he said it, trailing into a groan as she traced the shape of his erection through his pants. “Unzip me.”

  Hands shaking, she did just that, but as soon as she wrapped her hand around his straining shaft, Trick covered her fingers with his own.

  “You want this, right?”

  “Oh yeah,” she breathed.

  “Hot damn,” he muttered, guiding her fist up and down his erection twice before dropping his hand to his hip.

  Clear drops formed at the slit on his crown, and all of a sudden, her hand wasn’t enough for her. She wanted—needed—to know how he’d react to her mouth. Wanted that power, although she already felt pretty fucking powerful when it came to him.

  Gaby had never felt more beautiful or desired in her entire life. No comparison, never.

  She hovered over him for a minute, loving the way he strained his hips toward her open mouth. She breathed in the scent of him there, so similar to the rest of him, but…different. He smelled like sex, in the best way possible. She lowered her mouth around the crown, her lips stretching wide to take him all in. There was no way she’d be able to swallow his whole length, but in a few bobs she’d worked her way down to her fist, and as she licked and sucked, getting him all wet and sloppy in the process, the up-and-down motion got ea
sier.

  And hotter.

  His hands gripped her arms tightly, like he needed to hold on there to keep himself from jamming his hands on her hand and driving deep into her throat. She hummed around him at the idea of that—probably hotter in fantasy than reality, but there was no way that Trick would ever hurt her, not even for his own pleasure.

  Helpless, almost angry groans and grunts spilled from his mouth and rumbled through his body as she matched his breathing and sped up. Faster, wetter, harder. She thought of the way he’d gone down on her, how he’d lapped at her like he couldn’t get enough of her taste.

  She knew the feeling. It was heady, having him in her mouth. Dirty, but not dirty. Right and perfect and special.

  He squeezed her shoulder, which she took as an early warning. She ignored it, taking him as deep as she could. Special. She swallowed his release, relaxing her mouth to let his softened cock slip fully into her hand only when he was completely clean.

  She snickered to herself. Clean, as in covered in her saliva. And she was soaking wet again. Giving an epic blow job apparently had that effect on her.

  “How about that shower now?” Trick said, his voice thick and slow.

  “Mmm-hmmm.”

  “In a minute, then. Just a minute.” He sucked in a shaky breath, then stroked her hair. “Thank you.”

  She shook her head, smiling against his thigh. “It was good for me, too.”

  “How good?”

  She bit her lip. “Good enough.”

  “Good enough isn’t in my vocabulary.” He tugged her arm, and she climbed into his lap, but he pushed her backwards with his index finger until she was flat on her back. He unsnapped her shorts, growling when he found her commando beneath the denim.

  Two orgasms later—both hers—they stumbled into the shower, which was pretty tame in comparison, just a lot of touching and some kissing as they washed each other from tip to toe.

  When they got out, Trick had to let his cast drain into the tub for five minutes, which Gaby found extra hilarious because it was more unexpected than anything.

  “I don’t see why it’s so funny,” he muttered good-naturedly as she dabbed on some vitamin E lotion he had in the cupboard in lieu of her usual moisturizer.

  “It’s not,” she said, hiccuping, which only sent her into another fit of giggles.

  He gave his cast one final shake, then wrapped it in a towel and stood, a giant, naked, man mountain beside her.

  “What?”

  His lips twitched in an almost-smile. “I like having you in my bathroom.”

  She almost-smiled back. “Okay.”

  “Do you need a hair dryer?”

  “Sure.”

  He disappeared and returned a minute later with a never-before-opened box. “Here.”

  “Why do you have a brand-new hair dryer?”

  A laugh tore out of his throat. “Because my mother is insane. She’d love nothing more than for me to settle down with a girl, so she’s forever bringing me things to domestic my home.”

  She took the box and opened it. “When did she give this to you?”

  “Last year sometime?”

  And Gaby was the first woman who would use it. That did funny things to her heart. “Thanks.”

  He grinned and disappeared. Music came on in the other room, and when she finished drying her hair, she found him fully dressed and prepping what looked like a stir fry for dinner.

  She found her clothes and pulled them on again, skipping the soaking wet panties.

  “Hey,” he called out from the kitchen.

  “Hey what?” she yelled back, but before she could go to him, he appeared in the doorway, then steered her backwards to the couch.

  “I want to ask you something,” he said, settling them side-by-side after a kiss. “Stay over tonight.”

  “Is that a good idea?”

  “We don’t need to have sex.”

  “We won’t be having sex. One step at a time, right?”

  “Just cuddles.”

  She laughed. “Well, not just cuddles.”

  “Don’t dismiss that as a valuable offer unto itself. I have it on good authority I’m an excellent snuggler.”

  “I bet.”

  “That was the wrong sales pitch, wasn’t it?” His eyes twinkled like he knew it didn’t really matter to her, and it didn’t. This felt too right.

  “Definitely.”

  “How about, I miss you when you go. It’s only been a week and I’ve been crawling the walls for at least five days of it, hungry to see you. And I think we should extend our weekly date to the morning. Besides, I don’t sleep well alone.”

  “That’s not fair.”

  He grinned, a feral acknowledgement that he knew he had her. “What did it?”

  She mumbled her answer under her breath. She didn’t need to give him any more advantage than he already had.

  “Pardon? I didn’t hear you.”

  She winced. “You said you’re hungry to see me. You said it before…you know.” She made a face of defeat. “I really like it.”

  “Yeah, you look like you like it.”

  “Well, it’s kind of like kryptonite. I don’t think I’m supposed to like how weak it makes me.”

  “You haven’t seen Superman, have you?”

  “No. Why, did I get the reference wrong?”

  He laughed. “Yes and no.” He rolled her beneath him. “So when I say I’m hungry to have you in my bed…”

  “So you can sleep? Because you’ve gone without a bedmate for weeks on end and it’s so awful?” She said it archly, but her lips were twitching into a smile she couldn’t hold back even before the sentence was past her lips.

  “Yes on the first point. No on the second, and don’t make me want to spank you. I’m still uncoordinated with my left hand.” He reached out and touched her cheek. “I missed you this week, Gaby.”

  Leaning into his palm, she closed her eyes and admitted to herself that she’d missed him, too. But just to herself. He didn’t need anything else to use against her. She took a settling breath. “We didn’t talk about spanking.”

  “We didn’t talk about it being off-limits, either.” He kissed her as he stroked his palm down her hip and tapped the side of her butt. “Would it be?”

  God, he was going to be the sexual death of her. “No,” she whispered.

  “Okay.” He grinned. “One step at a time, though. I’ll let you think about that while I make dinner.”

  — TEN —

  Gaby sighed and stole a look at her phone resting quietly on the edge of her desk.

  It was only Tuesday. Three more days until she could call Trick and invite herself over to his place for a few rounds of “Let’s See What We Can Do With Our Hands and Mouths.”

  A shiver racked through her at the memory of the past weekend. Their third weekend together in the new and improved Trick and Gaby 2.0. Easy, breezy, orgasm-please-y. He’d come over to her place—Lila had been gone for the weekend, taking any possible embarrassment out of the equation—and they’d driven up to the La Jolla tide pools. Then spent the night at his place before a late diner breakfast and a long, slow kiss goodbye midafternoon on Sunday.

  She could so easily get addicted to him. It wasn’t just that he was impossibly good-looking and had mad sex skills. He was also smart and had a closet geekiness that made her want to buy him Doctor Who boxer shorts. He asked all the right questions and listened to the answers. He cared about his job and his friends and his family and shared more than she expected about all of the above.

  He was perfect.

  And not a forever kind of guy.

  She really needed to have that tattooed on her hand, because if she let herself slip into wanting Trick to be something other than what he was, she’d miss out on how special it was to have him in her life.

  Their plan was a good one. Have fun on the weekends and not get too clingy during the week. She didn’t need to weave him into every facet of her life. It w
ould make it that much harder to move on when they were over.

  She took one last look at the phone and headed for the craft area. The kids were great about cleaning up at the end of the day, but there was always some restocking and cleaning needed, plus prep for the next day.

  She was almost done when a knock sounded at her classroom door. Expecting it to be one of her fellow teachers, she called out for them to come in and tried one last time to shove a sheaf of construction paper onto the top shelf before giving up.

  “Need some help?”

  At the sound of a rough, rumbling voice she was now intimately familiar with, she lost her grip on the paper and turned to face him as it rained down around her. “Trick!”

  “Oh, shit.”

  She shot him an alarmed look, a natural censoring reaction when someone swore in her classroom, and he gave her an apologetic shrug as he dropped to the floor and started gathering up the red and blue and yellow and green squares. With both hands.

  With extra care, she reached out and touched his right hand. “You got your cast off!”

  He tugged up his long-sleeved t-shirt to reveal a black flexible brace wrapped around his forearm. “Still have to be careful, but I like this better.”

  She narrowed her gaze at him. “Wait…did you go to see a doctor?”

  “Look at all these papers. Whatever do you get the cute children to do with them?”

  “Trick…”

  He winked at her. “Gaby, I think fussing about a cast falls into girlfriend territory. Leave it be.”

  He’d meant it as a tease, she knew that, and he was right, but it still felt sharper than she expected.

  You’re kidding yourself if you don’t think you want that.

  “Okay,” she said, barely squeaking out the word.

  “What?” He must have picked up on the weird vibe, and she mentally kicked herself. He didn’t mean it like that.

  “Nothing. Really. I’m just surprised to see you.” She smiled. “It’s a good surprise. What’s up?”

  “I just wanted to see you.” He raised his hand. “Let’s call it an exception to the agreed-upon parameters.”