Keeping Secrets

by Lisa Eugene

  “C’mon.” I coaxed her enthusiastically, but I knew it was most likely the alcohol talking.

  Applause sounded in my head when her feet started moving. We got to the dance floor and I weaved my way into the center for camouflage, towing Alexa behind me. I wasn’t sure what the hell I was doing, but I was up for an adventure.

  “Wall of fame, here you come!” I shouted to her when we found a spot.

  “This is just crazy!” She tried to look vexed, but excitement glazed her eyes. Laughter bubbled out of her.

  The beat pulsed all around us, loud and reckless. Bodies moved chaotically in every direction. Then the music stopped. We stared at each other like nitwits when the tune morphed to a slow, sensuous melody. Glancing around, I saw people suddenly merging as couples on the dance floor.

  The only thing I wanted to do at that moment was pull Alexa into my arms, and I did. We’d hugged before, but this was different. After a moment of stiffness, her body relaxed. Her breast pressed flat into my chest, and her thighs molded to mine. She felt amazing and I drew her impossibly closer, sinking my nose into her soft hair. I closed my eyes and inhaled deeply, wanting to fill my lungs with her. Fill my heart with her. Fill my soul with her. I wanted to blur the line where she ended and where I began.

  We swayed together, caught up in our own rhythm. I don’t think our feet moved. Holding on to her was like holding on to my life. I pulled back and looked into her face, needing to see her eyes. They were closed. She was fully absorbed in the music, rocking slowly with a soft smile curving her lips.

  I lowered my head. My lips brushed hers. I couldn’t have stopped even if I’d wanted to. A soft gasp followed a warm puff of air. I pressed closer and moved my lips in slow, languid circles, holding my breath so tight that my lungs hurt. Alexa moaned and leaned in.

  That small movement wrecked me. Inside, I soared. I let go of the breath I was holding and devoured her lips like a starving man let loose on his first meal in days. My tongue snaked into her mouth and hers met mine eagerly. I explored, plundering deep and sliding my tongue along the edges of her teeth.

  She tasted like heaven. Like happiness. Like home. A shudder rippled through her and my hands moved to her hips, fitting her tight against my painfully stiff shaft. She rocked her hips, sending fire blazing through my groin. Arousal raged inside me, tightened my balls. I grunted, and sucked on her plump bottom lip. I was bursting out of my skin, breathing like I’d run a marathon. The music changed and I realized that we’d been in the middle of the dance floor, making out like two horny teens.

  I pulled away, my palms cupped loosely at her hips. I could still taste her. It wasn’t nearly enough. Her eyes were big and round behind the glasses. Panic filled them like gathering smoke. She stared mutely, her composure visibly friable.

  “Stats…”

  Tears filled her eyes. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”

  In a flash she turned, and then she was gone, lost in a sea of writhing bodies.

  “Fuck!” My fingers clawed through my hair. What the fuck had I done?

  I searched for over a half hour before I found her. I’d thought maybe she’d taken a cab and gone home, but I found her in the deserted parking garage, leaning against the SUV, arms wrapped around her torso and her gaze down, studying her shoes. She wasn’t crying now, but she looked as though she’d done so at some point. It was freezing on the garage’s lower level and she’d worn a thin jacket. When I saw her, I unlocked the car doors with the remote. Without a word, she hopped in.

  I crawled into the driver’s seat and sat staring straight ahead, trying to find the right words to convey my inner tumult. I’d kissed her. I wasn’t sorry. I’d realized while she was in my arms that I’d been craving her for a long time, perhaps from the first day she’d crashed into my life. This outcome was inevitable, no matter how much I tried to tell myself I could’ve stopped it.

  I knew Alexa felt differently. She’d made it patently clear that she didn’t want a romantic relationship. I respected that. I’d take whatever she was willing to give in order to keep her in my life.

  I turned to her, studying her stony profile. Slices of light cut across her face, but she was mostly in shadow. “We should talk about this.”

  She nodded quietly, pinning her hair behind her ears. I waited, but she didn’t say anything, so I started talking.

  “I’m not sorry, Stats. You mean everything to me,” I confessed through a throat that felt filled with cotton. “I know that you have priorities, that you’re not looking for a romantic relationship—and that’s…okay.”

  She turned fully to face me now and I looked at her, really looked at her, hoping she could see what was in my heart, because I’d never been good with words. With feelings. With people. Only Stats.

  She was shaking her head, eyes glassy. Shit! I was fucking this up—badly. I leaned in, cupping her cheek with my palm, feeling unbearably soft skin.

  “I don’t want to ruin what we have. I want you in my life. I’ve experienced too much loss. I want—”

  Alexa pulled off her glasses and swooped forward, her lips crushing mine, smothering my words. She kissed me passionately, her mouth hot, ravenous, deliciously aggressive. I speared my fingers into her hair, holding her temples and cupping her head. Our teeth clinked, our tongues tangled in folds of smooth velvet, and our breaths mingled in the sweetest scent.

  Her lips moved over my face, stamping soft kisses on every inch of skin. Everywhere she planted her touch, desire grew another tendril to my groin. She nibbled my earlobe and my breath shuddered out. My cock jerked hard inside my trousers. Desire rocketed through me when her palm massaged my chest, then traveled lower to grip my cock through my pants. My shaft flooded with blood, straining for her. Christ! I could’ve come in my pants from her rough touch.

  “Fuck, Alexa!”

  She nuzzled my neck while making quick work of my button and zipper. My thighs trembled as I pushed my hips forward, giving her better access. Delving inside my trousers, her warm fingers wrapped around my thick flesh.

  “Ahhh…yesss!” I hissed when she started pumping my shaft from base to tip. All I could think of was touching her, getting my hands on her body.

  Pulling down the bodice of her dress revealed large, firm breasts. There’d been so many times I’d tried not to think of them, tried not to think of their fullness, or supple texture. Lust slammed into me at the magnificence I never could’ve captured in my mind. A little sound eked from her throat and her palms quickly came up to cover them.

  My lips trekked a path across her cheek and she turned in to the kiss, as hungry as I was for the connection. My palms covered hers over her breasts and slowly I worked both our hands, massaging the soft flesh until she was moaning into my mouth. Still kissing, I laced our fingers then lowered her hands to her lap. I wasn’t sure how I’d managed that so patiently. My fingers tingled with the desire to cup her bare flesh. I pulled back, gazing at her breasts.

  They were sumptuous, perfect, the nipples dark pink and dusky, topping full, creamy mounds, better than the accident peek I remembered from her apartment. Alexa moved to cover them again and I stayed her hand.

  “Don’t,” I whispered.

  She didn’t need to be shy. Not with me. Groaning, I palmed and lifted her breasts, then leaned down and sucked a nipple into my mouth. She moaned and arched as I twirled the tip with my tongue, wetting it, laving slowly.

  The position was awkward. I was cramped but hardly noticed. The blood cruising through my veins sizzled hot, burning me up from inside out. Alexa’s dress had ridden up, exposing smooth, white thighs. I slipped my hands beneath the fabric and pulled aside the crotch of her panties, my fingers shaking. Widening her legs, she bucked her hips, moaning and encouraging my touch.

  My fingers caressed hot, sleek moisture. Her pussy was wet, softer than the silk of rose petals. I traced a finger along her creamy slit, finding the tight knot of flesh hiding there. She gasped when I rubbed the tiny bead and presse
d in tight, unbroken circles. I captured her lips, drunk on the pleasure of finally touching her. I was possessed with the simple beauty of it.

  “Please… Dex…” She bumped her hips against my hand. I knew what she was asking for.

  Sliding two fingers into her pussy, I twirled deep and moved inside her hot flesh. A rich moan tore out of her chest and she flung her head back against the seat.

  I was breathing fast, dying now, so hard my dick hurt. I knew if I kept this up I would end up taking her here in the front seat of the SUV. I didn’t want it this way. I wanted her beneath me, wrapped in me, lost in me. I withdrew my fingers, and licked their tangy sweetness because I needed to experience every part of her, then I kissed her lips.

  “Stats, let’s go home. I need you.” My breath was hot against her parted mouth.

  She tongued my mouth and greedily sucked my lips. Her hand reached for my cock again. She stroked and jerked it hard, making me grunt as pleasure shot up the burning length. I looked down at her hand circling my cock. My shaft was thick with lust, the purple head shiny, swollen to bursting as it stuck up through the V of my zipper. Precum leaked from the tip, dribbling down onto her fingers. My hips moved of their own accord, stabbing savagely into her strokes.

  “Fuck, Stats. You have to stop. That feels so go-good. Let’s. Go. Home.” The words broke apart as they left my tongue, but my hips continued to pump.

  Before I could process what was happening, Alexa slid off her panties and crawled onto my lap, straddling me. She barely fit in the tight space. I pushed the seat back all the way to ease her back off the steering wheel. Fitting her wet slit against my shaft, she rubbed, coating my aching dick in heated bliss.

  Shit. Shit. Shit. I could hardly think. I could hardly breathe. Her pussy felt incredible gliding against me. Slippery. Hot. I could come just from this. Wanted to so badly.

  “Ahh…Stats, Shit! You’re killing me.” I grabbed her hair with my fist, tugging her head back and exposing her delectable neck. I was losing control. Fast. Raw lust stampeded through me. My lips fastened against her skin and I panted roughly, helplessly, “I want you in a bed. I want to see your body and love you all night long. I want to put my tongue in every fucking hole in your body, Alexa. Not here. Not like this.”

  “I need you inside me, Dex,” she breathed, her eyes wide and deceptively innocent. “I know you must have a condom.”

  I squeezed my eyes shut, trying to find the willpower to slow this shit down, this violent need that snuffed out reasonable thought. She dragged her slick pussy all the way to my tip and slid her lips down slowly, torturously.

  My balls clenched. My cock throbbed with an excruciating ache to be buried deep inside her. With an oath, I shifted and pulled my wallet from my back pocket. Fingers fumbling, I plucked out a condom and ripped open the foil while she eased back so I could roll it on.

  Before I could remove my fingers, Alexa lifted and tucked my tip between her folds. She sank down, balls-deep, in one glorious stroke.

  “Oh, God! Stats!”

  Pleasure surged in my belly, slid down my spine and tightened every muscle of my body. Her breathy moans took over the car, the sound like beautiful music. The smell of sex and leather perfumed the air as she rode me hard, her hips grinding into me, her arms clinging to my shoulders. It felt so incredibly right, but somehow wrong at the same time.

  Alexa meant so much to me. I wanted to make love to her, not have sex with her for the first time in the front seat of a car. I tried not to think about the fact that we could be discovered at any moment.

  She was panting harshly now, her lips against my ear. She was close. I palmed her ass and I worked her up and down on my shaft, trying to control her erratic rhythm. Punching my hips out of the seat, I gave her every last inch as her muscles fluttered around my cock, quivering in tight spasms. I needed to see her face, to look into her eyes, to know what I was doing to her.

  “Look at me, Stats! Look at me!” I grated out the words, barely hanging on myself. Sharp pleasure…oh God! The pleasure lashed at me with every stroke, shredded me. My body clamored for release.

  She pulled back. Our gazes held and locked. There was a storm in her eyes and the force of it ripped through me. With a grunt, I bit back the words that wanted to tumble off my tongue. Instead, I quickened my thrusts, pounding my cock deep into her sex. My name exploded from her throat as release pulsed through her in long, rolling waves. She dragged me along, drowning me with pleasure. With a deep, belly groan, I bucked and shot what seemed like endless jets of cum into the condom.

  Alexa collapsed against me. We stayed unmoving for a small eternity. Our choppy breaths broke through the quiet of the dark car and our arms wound tight around each other. I held on, so afraid to let go.

  Holy shit! Did that just happen?

  I kept asking myself the question, but the spasms still coursing through me left no doubt that I’d had one of the most mind-blowing experiences of my life.

  Eventually, I had to let go. Slowly Alexa crawled off me, covering herself and awkwardly making her way back to the passenger seat. She kept her face averted, her eyes down. I had no idea what was going through her head. Instantly, I wanted to pull her back into my arms and hold her close, but she didn’t seem as though she’d be open to that. In fact, I wondered sadly if regret was already worming its way into her head, her heart.

  We’d been impulsive, unthinking. We’d given in to physical pleasure. But for me it had been more than that.

  I discarded the condom into a napkin and straightened my clothes while she did the same. We both needed the time to collect our rambling thoughts.

  “Are you okay?” I asked eventually, the silence killing me.

  She had her glasses back on now and was staring out the window like the most interesting thing in the world was happening out there. She nodded without looking at me. I clenched my teeth so hard my jaw almost cracked.

  “Stats…”

  She turned and smiled reassuringly. I wasn’t buying it.

  “No, really. I’m good. You?” she asked.

  What just happened was amazing! You are so beautiful. I want you over and over and over again. “I’m good, too.”

  She turned back to the window. “We should go.”

  I knew this wasn’t the time to press her, to demand a status update on our relationship, but I wanted to know where I stood. If I pressured her, it could very well backfire on me. We’d spent a lot of time together over the last few months and never had there been this unpleasant tension between us, never had there been this brittle uncertainty.

  My biggest fear was that she’d turn to me and say this wasn’t going to work out, that she’d remind me of her priorities, her career goals. I’d expected her to reiterate that a romantic relationship didn’t factor into any of that. I looked at her, waiting, hoping she’d say more, but she kept her gaze trained out the window. With an internal sigh that sounded more like a roar in my head, I put the car in reverse and headed out of the garage.

  We drove to her apartment in a loud, abrasive silence. At a red light, I covered her hand with mine and left it there because I couldn’t stand not touching her. She didn’t pull away, but her stiff posture worried me. She was deep in thought and I didn’t like the vibes I was getting from her.

  I’d thought after the kiss on the dance floor that we might be able to go back to being just friends, that I could take whatever she was willing to give me as long as I could keep her in my life.

  Who had I been kidding? We’d zoomed over that friendship line, full speed ahead. Now we were broken down on a desolate road of troubled uncertainty that seemed to stretch for miles. I wasn’t sure what was ahead, but after what’d just happened, there was no going back.

  At her building, I parked the car and walked her to her apartment door. I hovered at the threshold, my gut squeezing. The door stayed open and my car keys dangled in my hand.

  “Stats, we should really talk about what happened,” I said softl
y when she walked into her apartment.

  She turned to me with those big blue eyes and my heart did a somersault. They were round and shiny, twinkling like a collection of unreachable stars. Her hair was disheveled, her face flushed, and her lips raw from the scrape of my teeth. I could still taste her kiss on my tongue, the glaze of her passion on my lips. Alexa wore the just-fucked look beautifully. I wanted to make her look like that all the time.

  She sighed wearily and pushed up her glasses. “It’s over. I don’t want to talk.”

  So this was it, then. I fought the urge to move closer to her. An ache started to throb deep in my bones. “We can’t just leave things like this.”

  Her gaze met mine. “Then don’t.”

  “What?”

  She swallowed, then waited a few stunned heart beats. “Then don’t leave. It’s over. What’s done is done. I don’t want to talk about it or belabor it. It already happened. Stay with me. Stay the night.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  Dex

  I wasn’t sure I’d heard right, but her face softened and everything changed. I closed the door with my foot, then stepped forward and drew her to me, relief erupting like a geyser.

  “Are you sure?”

  Her head scrubbed up and down against my shirt. “I don’t think I’ve ever been more sure of anything.” She pulled back and lined up our gazes. “But only if you want to.”

  I laughed out loud. “Are you kidding me?”

  She smiled, and taking my hand, led me through the door to her bedroom. I had to bite my lip to suppress the asinine grin wanting to break out. I was a kid on Christmas morning and the birthday boy all at once.

  Her bedroom was small compared to the living room, and in the shadows I could see her bed pushed up against the wall. It was hard to make anything else out in the almost total darkness. Alexa stepped away and I heard the rustling of clothes.

  “Turn on the lights,” I said, swiveling my head in a vain attempt to find a lamp.

  She moved close. Her arms circled my waist and she pressed against me. “No. Let’s leave them off.”