She arched an eyebrow at him. “Stuff myself silly?”
The unbearable tickle of her fingernails as she raked them gently up the insides of his thighs made him grit his teeth and then laugh the higher she got.
“It’s an all-you-can-eat…gah…” Words failed him when she cradled his balls in her hand, kneaded then tugged on them gently.
“That’s a dangerous offer considering you know how much I can eat.” She tugged again and he could feel a fine sheen of sweat break out on his forehead.
He gave her as steady a look as he could manage with his eyes crossing the way they were. “I am not afraid,” he challenged, then threw his arms up over his head when she bent and licked his cock in one long motion, bottom to top.
It wasn’t exactly a blowjob, but she worked him with her mouth until he was gritting his teeth and holding on for dear life to the side of the mattress above his head. She explored her way up his body, licking, kissing, biting him everywhere.
Her hand worked his cock the whole time, stroking him from root to tip, gripping the head and giving it a maddening squeeze every time she reached it. He was close to coming by the time she circled one of his nipples with her tongue and then bit down, making his hips come off the bed as he thrust into her hand, needing more.
But not yet.
“My turn,” he managed to say, carefully removing her hand from his dick, knowing if she so much as bumped him the right way he was going to go off.
“I’m not finished,” she protested, twisting her hand out of his.
He sat up and maneuvered so his back was facing the top of the bed, took her hand again and tugged. “Come here.”
He caught her mouth in a kiss, as she crawled toward him on hands and knees. She kept moving forward, straddling his hips as he lay on his back.
“Higher,” he prompted, hands on her hips, showing her the way until she had her knees on either side of his head, her sweet pussy right above his face. “Now it’s my turn.” He held her hips and licked her.
She took over in an instant, bracing her hands on the headboard and controlling where he sucked and kissed and how much pressure he used. The way she’d reacted when he’d gone down on her the night before had been one thing. Getting to watch her from his current perspective was entirely another.
This was the true meaning of the word awestruck, witnessing the way her body undulated as she rode him, her nipples tight with arousal and her mouth slightly open the way it was. He hummed to show his approval and she ground down on him hard. His cock jerked in response. It wanted some too.
She must have had the same idea because she started to shift down his body. He held tight, stopping her before she got too far. She whispered something, but the only word he made out with any clarity was his name as he covered her clit with his mouth and flicked her hard and fast with his tongue.
She grabbed his hair and ground down once more with a sharp cry and he could feel the first pulse of her orgasm in that swollen nub. He sucked on it gently and her entire body jerked. Her head fell back and her hips rocked. He stayed with her, holding her to him until her body started to relax.
Alex got an arm behind one of her legs and tipped her so she landed on her stomach next to him, her feet toward his head. He went up on his knees and turned, lifted her hips and slid a pillow beneath them, then straddled her legs from behind.
“Oh fuck yes,” he heard her whisper as he stretched his body over hers, weight on his arms and knees, his cock nestled in the furrow made by her thighs.
He brushed her hair out of her face and she turned to kiss him, long and deep.
“Are you ready for me?” But he was already reaching down, guiding the head of his cock into the slick space at the top of her thighs, seeking and finding her cunt.
Petra nodded eagerly, grabbed a fistful of his hair and brought him down for another kiss. She was still tight but so incredibly wet he was able to thrust all the way inside her in one move, making them both groan. She arched her back, raising her ass up high, letting him go deeper.
He’d been rough with her in the shower, so he kept the pace slow. He kissed her when she turned to him for one, happy to feed off her mouth, sucking on her tongue when she offered. When she needed to catch her breath he kissed her neck, bit her shoulder, whispered to her about how unbelievably good she felt.
Every time his name came out of her mouth she pushed him that much closer to coming. It wasn’t long before she arched her back higher, prompting him to go faster. He kept the same pace, driving them both toward orgasm with a steady determination, ignoring her pleas for more.
It wasn’t until her words stopped sounding like words that he let go and fucked hard. Her mouth dropped open wide and her eyes closed. She sounded as though she couldn’t catch her breath and she had two fistfuls of the comforter in a death grip. When she drew in a deep ragged breath and let it back out in a high wail, Alex’s entire body seized and he came so hard he nearly blacked out from the rush.
When he had enough control over his body he flopped onto his back next to her. He lay there for a long time catching his breath, listening to her do the same. After a little while he found he’d regained the use of his hands, and he laid one on the smooth curve of her bottom. She turned her head and nothing else.
“Lexi?” she asked from beneath the veil of her tangled hair.
Between the two of them they managed to get it out of her face.
His heart thumped hard when she smiled lazily at him. “Yes, Pete?”
“Why has that never happened before now?”
Since Jude had been the wrong answer the first time she’d asked that question, he decided not to bring it up again.
“It wasn’t for lack of wanting,” he assured her.
She drew her arms under her and rolled onto her side. “Why did you never try?”
“I didn’t want to lose you for making the wrong move before you were ready.”
She looked at him a long moment. “What if I’d never been ready?”
He’d never been dishonest with her before. “Then I would have died waiting.”
She sighed. “You’re certifiable, you know that?”
“I think we’ve both been fully aware of that for a long time now.”
She slid into the space he made when he opened his arm for her.
“Rest up because I’m not finished with you,” he warned, skimming his fingers through her hair, combing it back from her face.
She laughed softly. “You didn’t really think I was going to let you out of here after only a couple of practice sessions, now did you?”
“Did I mention Morrison’s is an all-night, all-you-can-eat establishment?”
“Mmm, good.” She kissed one of his nipples and scraped the other lightly with her fingernails. “I can feel my appetite coming back already.”
Chapter Six
It took Petra forever to feel like getting out of bed the next morning. She’d known Alex wasn’t going to be there when she woke up. She had a vague recollection of him telling her he had something going on with his mom, but she didn’t remember at what point during the night he’d told her or what that something was.
She’d slept like the dead for the first time in months. She hadn’t heard an alarm go off or felt him get out of bed, and the fact that she hadn’t gotten the chance to say goodbye had left her feeling strange and kind of blue.
He’d left a small square of paper folded in half and standing on his pillow like a teepee. It had nothing more than a heart and the letter A written on it in his neat, bold hand. She’d spent who knows how long sitting at the head of the bed wrapped in a blanket, looking between that note and the wreckage of her bed.
The comforter was nowhere that she could see. The top sheet was hanging over the footboard. One large corner of the mattress was exposed where the bottom sheet had come up. The room smelled of sleepy Alex and sex and she wished there was a main source so she could roll around in it until it was permanently
absorbed into her skin.
She could hear people moving around the house—the shower running upstairs on Rachel’s floor, the doorbell and Bree and Cooper’s voices some time later. She even thought she heard someone tiptoe down the hall to listen at her door a couple of times.
Eventually she dragged herself out of bed and made her way to the shower. Twice she had to stop what she was doing to ride out an aftershock caused by the memory of the fast, hot fuck she and Alex had shared there. And when she discovered the hickey up high on the inside of her thigh, she’d stood there staring at it until the water went cold, hating and loving it at the same time.
She’d gotten so much more out of the night than she’d been hoping for at the onset of the party. Alex had ravaged her and then some, and then he’d ravaged her some more. And then, at the end of the night when she was sure she couldn’t take any more, he’d been so incredibly tender it had just about broken her heart.
As amazing as the night with Alex had been, Petra still wasn’t sure interrupting his cold shower had been the best idea she’d ever had. She’d been lying awake with the things they’d said to each other playing on a loop in her head when he’d slipped out of bed and her room. After a few minutes of listening to the water run, she’d gotten up with the intention of starting a pot of coffee. She wasn’t sure what made her stop outside the bathroom, but the cool air drifting over her toes through the crack under the door had prompted her to go inside.
Her head had been screaming for her to stop. It was Alex. He’d just confessed that he was in love with her and she’d told him she wasn’t in the same place. His was the last heart she ever wanted to break, but her body had still been humming from his kiss, his touch. He’d woken up something in her that had been sleeping far too long, something with vicious teeth and a huge appetite. So she’d opened the door to feed the monster, and holy shit what a feast it had been.
When Petra finally made her way downstairs she found all traces of the party were gone and the house was spotless. Rachel and Bree were in the kitchen, laughing and making all kinds of happy noise. Rachel was dumping a pot of cooked pasta into a colander in the sink and Bree was cutting apart a whole raw chicken. It looked as if there were half a dozen different dishes being made at the same time, and there was a chocolate cake—Bree’s specialty.
Both of her friends froze in place when she came into the room. She opened her mouth to ask what they were celebrating, but the air rushed out of her lungs on a choked wheeze. She bent at the waist and meant to prop her hands on her thighs, but she couldn’t find them. The floor seemed to be coming up at her quickly, and then it wasn’t. Someone had her arms around her and they were helping her to the kitchen table, and then she was sitting. And she was crying. No, she was full-on sobbing.
When she could breathe again someone gave her a towel and she dried her face. A glass of water appeared and she drank. Hands soothed her back and her hair as she drew in deep breaths and willed herself calm again.
She put her elbows on the table and propped her head in her hands.
“He told me he’s in love with me.”
The following silence lasted so long she had to look up to make sure they heard her.
She studied Bree a moment. “You knew.” She looked at Rachel and found she had the same unreadable look on her face. “You both know.”
“No, honey, we didn’t know,” Bree said. “We’re just trying to process the news.”
“Petra, we never would have invited him last night if we’d known,” Rachel added.
“Or we might have waited a little longer to throw you a party and rigged the game so the two of you got together instead of the way it happened.”
Petra gave Bree as droll a look as she could with her eyes as red and swollen as they were. “I’m sure that would have turned out exactly the way you planned as well.”
Bree stuck her tongue out. “Bite me, will ya?”
Rachel snorted and they all laughed. And then Petra started crying again.
She heard the scrape of a chair and arms came around her.
“I’m sorry,” Bree said, her lips touching the top of Petra’s head. “I’m so sorry. We never meant for things to go the way they did. We were only trying—”
“Stop.” Petra straightened and took a deep breath. “I’m not angry with either of you. There was no way either of you could have known Christie was going to shove her hand in the bowl and mess up your plans. I’m angry with myself, no one else.”
And she was already sick to death of crying, she thought as she started up again.
To Petra’s horror, she could hear men’s voices in the backyard. She rubbed at her eyes with the heels of her hands, but it didn’t help stop the tears.
“Go upstairs with her and I’ll recruit the guys into helping me finish cooking,” Bree said to Rachel, and then Rachel was helping her out of her chair.
Petra glanced out the kitchen window and saw Ben holding the back gate open for Cooper, the propane tank for the grill propped on his shoulder. Cooper had a case of beer in one hand and a bag of ice in the other. She didn’t know if she was relieved or disappointed that Alex wasn’t with them.
Rachel led her up the stairs to her bathroom. The shower curtain was closed, but Petra was hit with another memory of how cold Alex’s skin had been when she’d touched him, and how quickly he’d heated up after that.
“I have to tell you, I’m really worried about you right now,” Rachel said, maneuvering Petra so she sat on the closed toilet seat. “I’m trying, but I can’t remember that I’ve ever seen you cry like this.”
“I cried when Jude left.” Her breath gave an embarrassing hitch on the last word.
“Not like this.” Rachel ran a washcloth under cold water. “Not unless you broke down more than we were aware of when no one was around.”
Her friends had hardly left her alone for weeks after the morning she came home to find Jude packed and ready to leave. He’d called Rachel, Bree and Alex to let them know Petra was going to need them and they’d rallied around her within minutes of the cab taking him away to the airport.
“Thank you.” She sighed as she pressed the cold rag to her heated face.
She heard the shower curtain slide open.
“So, did you sleep with him?” Rachel asked from her perch on the side of the tub.
A thrill burned through Petra and she nodded.
“I take it by the way your neck just turned red that it didn’t suck?”
She laughed softly. “No, it definitely did not suck.”
“So let me make sure I have this right. A very good, kind, redheaded god of a man, a man who has been your friend a long time, I might add, is in love with you.”
She nodded. “Right so far.”
“And he’s good in bed?”
“No, he’s amazing in bed.”
Rachel laced her fingers together and leaned forward, elbows on knees. “I’m having a hard time understanding what you’re crying about, Pete.”
She laughed without humor. “I can’t hurt him, Rachel.”
“So don’t.”
She gritted her teeth and bit back a flash of anger. “Because it’s that easy.”
Rachel shrugged as if to say yes, it was that easy.
“You already love him. Just be with him.”
“No.” She dabbed her eyes with the washcloth. “I don’t want a boyfriend, or a fucking friend with benefits, or any kind of significant other who’s just going to leave some day.” She got a tissue and blew her nose. “I need to put an end to this now before I do something to make it worse than it already is.”
Rachel blinked once, slowly. “Don’t be stupid.”
“It’s the smartest decision I’ve made in a long time.” Petra stood and turned on the cold water. “Jude was my one love, just like Momma and Busha had their one love, and he’s gone.” She splashed her face a couple of times and reached for a hand towel. “I’ll move Momma and Busha in here with me and we’ll be
a fine bunch of crazy cat ladies.”
“That would be fine if you didn’t dislike cats so much.”
Rachel was standing behind Petra when she finished drying her face.
“I’ll preface what I have to say next with I love you. You have been and always will be my very best friend, but enough with the bullshit excuses. Forget that nonsense about the women in your family being cursed to only love once, and fuck Jude.”
Petra turned very slowly, caught off guard. Rachel was usually the gentle one of the three of them. This wouldn’t have surprised her at all coming from Bree.
“After all the years you were together, Jude ran you over as though you were nothing more than a speed bump on the road of his life, not the life you had together. I know you loved him, and I know it still hurts, but he’s gone. Honey, it’s time to stop letting his choices control your happiness.”
Petra bristled and opened her mouth to say something else but Rachel stopped her by taking her face in her hands and stepping close.
“Petra, Alex is sunshine. He has the biggest, most loving heart of anyone I know. He goes to work every night and makes sick, frightened children laugh and smile and then he comes home and does the same for his friends and family. He is the fucking sun itself Petra, and he deserves you.”
Petra dropped her gaze.
“There’s more to the story,” she said quietly. “About Jude.”
Rachel brushed Petra’s hair out of her face. “What about Jude?”
“He didn’t just leave.” She stepped backward out of Rachel’s hands and leaned against the edge of the sink. “We’d been fighting about it for months.”
She knew her friends might never forgive her for what she was about to confess, but it needed to be said. She’d let them go on and on about how unfair it was that he would just pack up and leave because it had validated her anger. In the process she’d been dishonest not only with her friends, but with herself as well.
“He’d been talking about joining an organization similar to Doctors Without Borders since before he passed his medical boards. There were many times he tried to talk to me, to figure out how we could stay together while he did what he felt he needed to do, but I didn’t want to hear it. I can’t leave my Busha, Rachel. She’s getting old and she and Momma are going to need me here to help.”
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