by A. J. Sand
Bryson nudged her in the ribs with his elbow before hooking his arm around her shoulders. “You should hire me to scout clients for you.”
“Not with your rates!” she teased, leaning against him and wrapping her arm around his torso. Her head found a natural position against his shoulder and the warmth of his body provided a sense of familiar comfort. His body felt firmer than before, more toned. In fact, he looked trimmer overall. He had never been overweight, but he had never been particularly muscular either. She had been the one more concerned with exercise and working out. So, who in the world was he getting fit for, she wondered, struggling to rein in the sudden burst of jealousy gnashing at her throat.
Bryson tucked some strands of hair behind her ear, and he squeezed her against him tighter. “I lied. I really miss the red,” he whispered softly. Two spheres of heat hit her cheeks.
“How about I’ll think about it,” she said to Donnie once she pulled away from Bryson, “but only if you two do me a favor. Fitz is upstairs and I need to get him into his car… We got a deal?”
The two of them followed her up, and thankfully, Fitz had retrieved his keys from the toilet himself and had made an attempt to rinse them off in the sink, which he was now dry heaving over. Erica hoped the remote wasn’t waterlogged. The guys draped Fitz’s arms over their shoulders and shuttled him down the stairs, trailing her outside as she aimed the keyless entry remote in the air to locate his car. She heard the beep sound from a black Lexus sedan near a few houses down the hill.
“So, what are you two, anyway?” Donnie asked. Erica turned around to give a vague and ill-prepared response, but he was talking to Bryson alone.
“We’re…complicated. We’re each other’s complication.”
Erica didn’t know whether to laugh or wince at that reply. But she would take “complication” over nothing. Complication meant reparable. And tonight hadn’t been awful; in fact, it had been a far less unpleasant reunion than she had imagined. But how would he feel when he found out she hadn’t been able to trust him with her secret? How would he feel knowing that the person he had intended to marry felt that there were things not worth sharing with the person she wanted to spend her life with?
“Oh. Right,” Donnie said in confusion. They stuffed Fitz into the backseat of his car, and he barely reacted after he rolled down into the space behind the front seats. Erica thanked Donnie and exchanged phone numbers with him before he went back to the house. She was already strategizing with a mental list of what she wanted to do for Fading Fast: social media presence, venues to book, music bloggers to contact.
“Do you want me to drive back behind you?” he asked.
“No, I’ll be okay,” she promised.
“All right. Drive safely then,” Bryson said after he slammed the back door shut, and then he walked her to the driver’s side.
“I will,” she said with a smile as he held the door open for her, but before she could get in, Bryson shut it again and stood behind her. She gasped when his hand brushed her hair off her back, exposing her neck, but she felt no apprehension as she anticipated more of his touch. She had only been with one other guy, Scott Baker, before him, and they had lost their virginities to each other. Sex had been out of curiosity back then, and literally just figuring the ins and outs of the act, but with Bryson, it had become an awakening, an understanding of what it meant to truly experience another person’s body while sharing yours with them.
Erica shut her eyes as he ran one of his fingers up and down repeatedly from the nape of her neck to the top of her strapless dress. A path of warmth unfurled down her chest and into her loins. She bit her lip to keep from moaning out loud from the delicate touch.
With his lips hanging just below her ear, and his breath puffing out onto her shoulder, he said, “You liked it when I kissed you right here…” His fingers pressed deeper into her upper back and moved with light taps down her vertebrae, causing Erica’s knees to bend just slightly from weakness before a shiver of lust shook her. It had been a looong time. “…Every morning to wake you up. You’d ignore it the first few times, pretending you were still asleep. So, I’d try it again, and wait for you to wiggle, and then…I’d press right up against you…you always liked that.” She was secretly disappointed that he didn’t do that now because her skin was tingling in wait, wanting so very badly to feel the hardness of his body again. She remembered how one night they had made out against a stranger’s car for several minutes after dinner at Soho House West Hollywood, neither caring who saw nor how they reacted when he lifted her against it, but just giving in to the intensity between them that had left them both breathless when they finally stopped.
“Goddammit. You should be coming home to me after dropping Fitz off, E. With me. Not going to some place in Culver City. Fuck.” He dropped his hot forehead to her shoulder just for a second. “I thought I would see you and just know what to do. I thought I could handle this, but it’s taking everything in me not to beg you to come home to me.” He stepped back away from her, and she’d heard the movement as his shoes tapped the pavement but, more importantly, she felt the crushing gain of distance. It was so illustrative of everything that had transpired between them. “I don’t know anything right now.” His footsteps drifted away.
“Good night, Bryson, thank you,” was all she could think to say as tears filled her eyes, and her chin quivered violently as she slid into the car. Don’t cry. Don’t cry. Don’t cry...here. Just make it to down the street. The engine emitted a soft sound when she twisted the key in the ignition. With trembling hands, she pressed Hayden’s House on the in-dash GPS. Tonight, Bryson had been testing himself, she realized, testing to see if he could stand to be around her, because the reality was she was something that brought him anxiety and pain.
The first tear made it down to her chin. Her heart was twisting so much that it hurt to breathe. She choked on her cry as she lowered her forehead to the steering wheel. L.A. would be unbearable like this. It was a huge city but they ran in the same circles. Erica put the window down and stared at Bryson walking slowly to his car. “Thank you for coming tonight,” she called out compulsively, not wanting him to leave like this. It was a selfish want, because she had left him in such a disastrous, unforeseen way, even if she’d felt like she had a justifiable reason for doing so. As she yanked the gear into drive and peered at the side view mirror, she gasped, watching his silhouetted figure grow bigger and bigger upon approach.
Bryson stopped about three feet away from her window and hung his head, refusing to look at her. “I feel like you ruined me, and I still don’t know how to hate you, E. Or if I even want to. But tonight made me realize I kind of wish I did.”
Things Lost – Chapter 2
Erica smiled at Bryson when he stepped out of the shower behind her as she brushed her teeth. She was shameless about ogling her boyfriend whenever she got the chance, especially now that he was completely naked and wet. He was taller than average height for a man so, thankfully, still taller than her 5’10” frame, and he had broad shoulders and a thin core down to the waist. In modeling, she had seen a lot of male bodies so chiseled with muscle that one had to assume that God sometimes picked favorites, but there was something far more appealing to her about a body that was less brawny, one that seemed to take hers in when she was against it. Bryson didn’t have a completely soft body, but he never cared to put in the time to define it in the ways the guys who made their livelihood on their looks did. And that was just the way she liked it.
Spotting her grin, he walked up behind her when she bent to spit, and she squealed as he bumped her with his bare pelvis. “Hey, put that thing away before you start knocking stuff off the counter,” she said.
He reached for a towel on the rack and wrapped it around his waist. “Try ‘knocking down the walls,’ baby…” he said with a smirk as he leaned down over her, trapping her between his arms and the sink. Bryson touched a kiss to the nape of her neck and slammed his hips against her again
.
Locking eyes with him in the mirror, she said, “Walls? Whoa, whoa…let’s not get carried away, buddy…” She trailed off into a giggling scream when he lifted her into his arms and set her down on the countertop. Erica didn’t bother attempting to escape the droplets of water he shook into her face from his wet hair. Bryson was usually playful, but he seemed to be in a particularly giddy mood this evening. Actually, he had been that way since the morning: whistling while he made breakfast, breaking into uproarious laughter on the phone with someone after a long and whispered conversation, and then insisting that she dance an awkward waltz with him before he went off to run some mysterious errands.
“How was your morning run?” he asked as she smoothed his hair back while he stood between her dangling legs. The words had barely gotten past his lips before he stopped trying to hold back his smile. “Did you see the cupcakes I got you when you got back?”
Drumming the backs of her hands against his stomach, Erica shrugged while studying that stunning smile of his. Bryson Ellis was up to something and nearly bursting out of his skin because of it. “I did and you’re evil. The run was good. Abe and I went to Runyon Canyon. I beat him on the way up. He’s lucky he has his looks ‘cause he complains way too much.” Erica then mimicked Abel’s signature smirk. “‘How much further, Erica?’ ‘Really, Erica, again?’ ‘I’m not sprinting! Why are we sprinting!’”
Bryson laughed at her carefully crafted Abel Elliott impression, but his brow furrowed right after his chuckling ceased. Erica linked her fingers at the back of his neck and mimicked his expression as if it would somehow link their minds and she’d be able to draw out his unsaid words.
“You had fun with Sue?”
“Yeah, Mom made sweet tea and I kept her company while she gardened. We did that every Sunday when I was a kid. She was so excited to tell me that they got new neighbors and now she has a new friend to walk the dogs with. So, my day was…good before. Great now. Better later.”
Erica narrowed her eyes in the silence following his elusive response. “Okay, Ellis, what’d you break? Is it that cool vase I bought from that guy who doesn’t sell stuff at Venice Beach anymore? One of those fancy plates I told you not to buy? Is there an ‘I’m sorry’ bracelet inside a little blue box somewhere? Or…oh my God, did you buy something ridiculous? There’s a million inch TV being delivered today, huh?”
“Maybe any of those things…or maybe…” A grin devoured his meditative look, and instead of sharing his secret, he left it unspoken, his silent lips lacing a trail of kisses up her neck. “I’m just glad you’re home,” he added, pressing his forehead to hers before cradling her face and kissing her. There was always fire behind the touch of his mouth on hers. Firm pressure, a soft sucking of her bottom lip, followed by a tongue desperate to pry open the space between. And there was no resisting the way his tongue caressed her lips, and she let it tangle with her own before he moved to explore other areas of her mouth. With his lips working harder against hers, she felt his fingers curl against the back of her head and she knew the need to taste her was so strong then. One of his hands traveled up under her shirt and grazed the top curve of her breast and then rounded her nipple a few times.
“I missed my girl today,” he said, nearly panting when they pulled apart. She was close to breathless herself, needing a moment for her brain to fit his words together coherently, as she fought against the heat from his touch and from how much she desired more of it.
“I missed you, too, baby…” Erica squeezed his legs between hers for just a beat. “And I’m so excited about tonight!” No matter what else was going on, Saturday date nights were an established part of their week—as old as their relationship itself. Just about three whole years of date nights.
“And, no, I’m not telling you where we’re going! It’s still a surprise.” Bryson pressed his damp mouth to her cheek before she turned her face and brushed her lips against his. His hand went to her stomach, and a fiery feeling ravaged her body, rousing an urgency to have him right now. His touch, no matter how slight, always boiled her desire into torturous craving.
Erica intensified the kiss, slipping her tongue between his parted lips. Bryson responded with a soft hum when their tongues touched, and he tugged her closer by gripping under her knees. Truthfully, at the moment, she didn’t care what the surprise was; she was too focused on just being with him.
Erica rubbed her palms across his chest and let her fingers slide over his soft shoulders and down his chest and stomach, but she froze at the top of the towel and pulled her face back to reveal a slow-spreading, conniving grin.
“Still not going to tell you,” Bryson said in a labored exhale.
“That’s fine…”she lilted, and he shuddered when she pulled the towel away from his waist, revealing just how hard he’d gotten in the few minutes. Lifting one hip and then the other, she let him slide her shorts and panties to the floor.
“Take this off already,” he joked, pulling the front of her shirt down and peeking at her breasts as he stroked his erection.
“So bossy!” she teased, but she yanked her top off and flung it to his feet.
“Bossy, huh?” Bryson shot a smile at her as he drew her hips to the edge of the counter and tilted them up toward him before guiding just the tip of his penis into her, but he quickly pulled it out. “You do it.”
Clutching his hips, Erica pulled him into her body. Her mouth fell open just slightly from the sensation, and Bryson’s body shook with one involuntary jolt as he sucked air between his clenched teeth. “Damn,” he whispered, “you always feel so good, baby.” She wrapped her legs around his torso and cupped his neck as Bryson held her low on the waist with one hand and planted the other on the countertop.
“Show me how good,” she demanded in a whisper, and caught the flash of lust in his eyes before he pushed in a little deeper. “Show me.”
“So fuckin’ hot when you talk like that.”
“You bring it outta me.”
Gripping her hip in a tighter hold, he pressed his entire length into her and kept it there for an excruciatingly hot few seconds. Erica curled her nails into his neck from the agonizing pleasure of the withdrawal.
“You’re gonna kill me, Bryce…” she said after a staggered breath.
He smiled then rocked into her again. Bryson grunted with his thrusts, dotted kisses on her chest, and plucked at one of her nipples until the sensitivity was almost too much to handle. She was crying out, which triggered a similar reaction in him until he had to slow his movements.
“Don’t stop… Please, don’t stop,” she said, breathless. Bryson pulled all the way out of her then stroked against her opening, sending her to near insanity, before sinking into her again. Erica closed her eyes with a soft whine when his mouth landed on her neck, his tongue sailing down to her shoulder and collarbone. Being with him had a way of intoxicating her, and she drifted further into the connection of their bodies, losing herself in the way he filled her, like only he was meant to. “Bryson…” she sighed and he adjusted his stance so that they made eye contact. His stare melded with hers, and nothing else mattered, nothing, except the pleasure they both felt.
Erica clawed the back of his neck as he pressed into her with faster movements, and then with a hard hit to the mirror, Bryson braced his hand on it, his rapid breaths shooting out before he released a loud, final exhale. “Shit.” He dropped his head on her shoulder, pushing a weak kiss into her skin as she hugged him.
“Wow. That good, huh?”
His head rocked against her collarbone as confirmation. “Every freakin’ time! That’s it, you’re no longer allowed in here when I’m in here,” he said with a sexy grin when he stepped back. He looked amazing—sated, naked, glistening and flushed. It was always an ego boost making him react like that, especially because Bryson was far more experienced than she was. He had been so patient in the early time of their relationship, and it had been fun learning how to please each other. He had been e
specially eager, and she didn’t have a single complaint, so now she liked making up for when her technique had been lacking.
Barely down from the thrill, her body was already longing to feel him again. He pressed out a knowing smile but shook it away. “No. Oh my God, Erica, get in the shower before we never leave the bathroom!”
“I would’ve been in and out already if you hadn’t hogged it and then seduced me in it! You’re not allowed in here when I am! What kind of boyfriend gets in the shower before his girlfriend, anyway?”
“The kind who knows she’s going to take five freakin’ hours.”
“Oh really? I’m gonna make it five and a freakin’ half now, you jerk! And nice ass!” she called out after him as he disappeared into their bedroom. But Erica took a quick shower and dried her hair while simultaneously trying to figure out what to wear and where they were going. Maybe her favorite little black dress, and Piccolo, an Italian place in Venice Beach, since they hadn’t been there in a while. She smiled as she breathed in the lingering scent of his soap when she entered their bedroom and pulled the strapless, cotton dress from her walk-in closet. It wasn’t particularly fancy or expensive—a stellar thrift shop find in her opinion—but her boy liked it on her. Erica clicked play on her iPod, which was docked in a set of speakers, and danced around the room. Three years, and she still got excited about date night. She still got excited about him. It was crazy to be this in love at twenty-one, but she was, in an inevitable-butterflies-in-her-stomach-and-heart-flipping-when-he’s-nearby kind of way. The kind that made her think about what forever looked like.
After pulling on the dress, she spied his closet, still trying to figure out where they were going. Several shirts had been tossed on the bed, all collared, but not button downs. And his Chuck Taylors were gone. This was a rare occurrence. So they were going low-key tonight. Suddenly, the lights outside the room went out. He’s trying to scare me, she thought to herself.