“Good?” he asked, brushing the sweaty hair off my face.
“So good,” I sighed.
“I can’t… I don’t want to be a stranger to you,” he said. “Not now.”
I nodded, my throat shredded from the screams I’d been swallowing. The words. I agreed because it was either agree or tell him why I was doing this. How I wanted to protect him from all the pain I was going to inflict on him.
I don’t want him to leave. But if he found out about Peter, he’d leave. And I need to tell him about Peter, which will make him leave.
I was living on a wire that ran in a vicious circle.
All at once he stood up with me in his arms and carried me to the bed like I was nothing.
And I loved that. The strength of his arms, the bulge of his bicep under my head. I put my arms around him and held on as hard as I could.
He positioned me on the bed the way he wanted, right in the middle with my legs spread while he stood at the edge of the bed and reached for a condom. And I realized we had only three left. Three left and then good-bye, and I wasn’t ready for there to be only two.
I curled my hand around him, and he stopped. Stilled. His breath coming in short sharp gasps. This was the Tommy I couldn’t not know, no matter how hard I tried.
“How close are you?” I asked.
“So close.” He said it through his teeth, barely holding on.
I tilted my head, my hair falling over my shoulder, and I sat up so I was facing him. My legs spread around his thighs. I kissed his belly. The small trail of fine blond hair that led down the smooth muscle of his lower abdomen. I licked him, sucking the skin into my mouth until he gasped.
His fingers tangled in the ends of my hair as he searched out my shoulder like he needed me to hold on to. I liked that more than I should. Pulling him to me as I kept secrets… What kind of woman was I?
“Are you okay?” he asked.
I nodded, and without saying anything I licked my palm and worked him. Slow and sure, watching his face to see what he really liked, and that’s when I saw it. When I saw how he gasped when I worked the tip faster and used my other hand to grip the base of his cock as hard as I could, I saw the way his chest went red and his hand came down harder on my shoulder.
“I want your mouth,” he breathed.
With his words I was hot and wet again in an instant, and I bent over his cock, taking it into my mouth. Slowly, keeping my lips tight like he was pushing into my pussy. I flicked my tongue against the end, stroked the sides, and I put my hand against his waist where I felt his body trembling. His muscles shaking.
I took him deep, blowing out of my nose, relaxing until he was a burning force down the back of my throat.
“You are so beautiful,” he said. “Like this. Taking me like this. I don’t…I can’t…” He shook his head and I met his eyes as he eased out and then back in, a slow, steady pressure. A fucking neither of us could forget.
“I have to be in you,” he said.
“You are,” I gasped when he eased out past my lips, a string of saliva connecting the head of his cock to my mouth. And then I took him in again, deep and hard.
His face was beautiful to watch, the fucked-out bliss of his eyes. The way his lips parted when I took him deep. The snarl of a pleasure, when I pulled him out, that was so intense it was nearly painful.
I knew exactly what it felt like.
I put my hands between my legs, finding my clit again, sore but needy.
His gaze flicked down, caught what I was doing, and he smiled at me.
Smiled at me, with his cock down my throat and my fingers on my clit, he smiled at me like the boy I knew.
Like I was the girl he knew and this was us having fun.
My heart couldn’t take it. My plans for no sex, for saving the condoms vanished, and I slipped away from him. His cock left my lips with a pop. I fell back on the bed, lifting my knees, my fingers between my legs.
“I want you in me,” I said.
He pulled the box of condoms from the table beside the bed and within seconds had one on. His knee on the bed beside me made me roll toward him.
We were connected by a desire so powerful it seemed to grow out of my body. He wasn’t touching me, but I could feel him. The inside of my leg. My elbow. The smooth skin of my waist. There were a thousand strings between us, wishes so powerful they practically glittered in the air around us.
He kissed me.
For the first time since walking into this room…he kissed me. His lips on mine. His tongue in my mouth, stroking the side of my tongue.
We were a mess, wet and sloppy and so raw it was like we were barely holding on. I wrapped my arms around his neck and whispered “please” into his mouth and then, because I was so wet, so ready, so…his, he slid inside of me between one breath and the next. My entire body arched up and he swallowed my scream just as I swallowed his groan and we were one continuous circuit.
Nothing but connection. Beautiful and painful and so real I didn’t know what would happen after this. What could happen after this?
He was thrusting into me and I was grinding into him, my clit pressed up against that smooth plane of muscle between his cock and his belly button. It was perfect, like it was made for me. Every movement brought me closer and closer until I was strung so tight all my muscles hurt.
And then he pulled his mouth from mine. He was breathing hard, his eyes glowing.
“I love you,” he said. “I love you, Beth.”
And I was done. Ruined. Shattered into a million pieces. Coming so hard I was barely aware of him jerking and groaning into my neck. His hand on my leg, holding me close to him in a grip that would leave bruises for days.
Good, I wanted the bruises.
The silence in the room was suddenly deep and thick, and I could hear the blood in my veins, his breath in his chest. The movement of our bodies against the quilt of the bed.
We were a symphony. So loud.
He was breathing hard against me, his head bowed, his forehead pressed to my breast. He let go of my thigh; his other hand, fisted in my hair, let go, the stinging pain of pulled hairs barely noticeable in the blown-out nerves of my body.
He loved me.
That was all I felt. Like an electric current all the way through me.
He loved me. Then, sure. We’d been kids. More hormones than anything. It was easy to be in love then, when we’d been so starved for it.
But he loved me now. When we were damaged and silent and guarding our secrets with all our might.
Now, when our desperation for love had made us dangerous to each other.
“You all right?” he whispered. I could feel him looking at me, and I couldn’t quite look at him.
“Good.” I stroked his arms. “I’m so, so good.”
He pulled out of me and I winced.
“Are you okay?”
“Sensitive,” I said. “That’s all. Really.”
He got up off the bed and walked to the bathroom, and now that his eyes weren’t on me, I watched shamelessly. Every inch of his body. Coiled and curved and sleek and smooth.
“Tommy,” I said, and he turned, looking at me over his shoulder as he tied a knot in the condom and tossed it in the garbage.
“Yeah.”
“I need to tell you something.”
“Wait…let me go first.”
I blinked, relieved when I should have been adamant. “Okay…what do you want to say?”
“I didn’t mean to freak you out. Earlier.” He pointed at the bed, like we’d be able to see his words tossed across it like my underwear. “I really didn’t and I can see that I did. But you need to know…” He took a deep breath, his massive chest rising and falling. He was completely naked in front of me. And not just his flaccid penis, resting in the blond curls between his legs. Not just his arms and legs, his long feet, his wide hands. He was so naked it was like I was looking at his soul. I sat up, realizing I needed to pay attention. Realizing
something real was happening. “I’ve loved you since that first morning at church at St. Joke’s, the first time I heard you sing. I’ve loved you every minute we were together and every second we’ve been apart. And…”
I waited, sitting now at the edge of the bed, like it was a cliff I clung to.
Don’t, I wanted to say, even as I sat there, so eager for his words. Don’t do this. Don’t cross this bridge because we can’t go back and I’m lying to you. Hurting you and you don’t even know it.
“And I figure I’m going to love you the whole rest of my life.”
“You said we couldn’t be together.” I don’t know why I said that, why I needed to remind him of something I didn’t give a shit about. Maybe because he’d been so convincing when he said it. Maybe because half of what he was feeling could probably be attributed to me sucking his dick.
That wasn’t fair. And it was mean.
And it wasn’t at all the truth.
“I did,” he said. “I think because no one in my life has ever wanted to be with me. Just me.”
I had to look away, my hand on my chest like I could rub away the ache his words had put there. Like I could make it go away through my skin. By not looking at him.
But it didn’t.
“So it’s easy to assume that you won’t either. It’s easy to pretend that it’s too hard. Or too complicated. But I think…mostly…I’ve been too scared to try.”
“And now you’re not?”
“Now, Beth, now I’m too scared not to try. The last few days with you I realized I have nothing to lose. Nothing. And everything to gain.”
I pulled in a breath and held it so I didn’t sob.
“I don’t…I’m sorry,” he said the longer I didn’t look at him, and he stepped forward, touching my shoulder, my hair. I could see the bare skin of his calves, and I reached my foot out, touched him with my toe, even as I didn’t look at him.
Could I be worse? Could I be more awful?
“There’s no pressure on you to say anything. Or want anything more than what we do in this room. I want you to know I’m okay with that—”
Oh God, because he was so used to expecting nothing and getting even less.
“I’m okay with sex and…ploughman’s lunch and whatever else we have here until you decide you’ve had enough.”
“I’ll never have enough,” I whispered and looked up at him. “I’ll never have enough of you.”
He smiled at me, radiant and beautiful. “Then we can figure that out, too. Whatever happens next.”
“You may not want that, Tommy,” I said. “I’ve made so many mistakes. I’ve done so many shitty things.”
“You think I haven’t?” he asked. “We come from the same place, Beth. We’re survivors of the same fucking disease. The same fucking people. My mom, my grandparents didn’t give a shit about me, just like yours didn’t about you.”
“That’s…that’s not totally true,” I said, edging my way into the truth like a fucking coward.
“She drugged you, Beth. She made up conditions you don’t have. She made you believe you were a problem that needed to be fixed—that’s not love.”
“That’s not what I’m talking about.”
He was silent, blinking. “What do you mean?”
The way we were sitting, it was like before when we were having sex. I could lean forward and lick his stomach like I had just minutes ago. I could take his dick in my mouth and put off this conversation until we’d had our fill of each other. I could keep him up here, fucking him and not talking for as long as possible.
“Beth?”
And I leaned forward. I didn’t kiss him or take him into my mouth. I just put my head against his stomach, the smell of him so familiar and new at the same time that I could not get enough. I would never get enough.
“Beth?” he asked. “Are you okay?”
“Just…hug me for a second, would you?”
He didn’t hesitate, and he didn’t make me ask twice. He wrapped his strong arms around me, pulling me right into his body, and then he shifted and went down on the bed, holding me against his side, kissing my forehead like he wasn’t going to let me go.
Now. You have to do it now. If you don’t, it’s really unforgivable. If you tell him everything, he might not be too angry. He might understand.
I pushed myself up on my elbow and opened my mouth to tell him the truth, but I got one look at his face, the easy, relaxed smile, the eyes still dazed from the sex, but mostly so damn hopeful it hurt. So instead of telling him one truth and hurting him, I told him another one and made him smile.
“I love you too,” I said. “I’ve loved you since the graham crackers.”
And it was true. And it was real. But it was not right. It was not right to say it now. Like this.
But if I didn’t say these things now, I’d never say them. The moment would be gone. And Tommy wouldn’t know. The little boy that thought no one wanted him had grown up into a man who thought the same thing.
He needed to know.
“I will love you,” I said, “for the rest of my life.”
His throat worked, and I knew he was swallowing back tears because I was blinking back mine. He leaned down to kiss me. So sweet. So gentle.
It was a kiss, a real kiss between Beth and Tommy. Like we’d been. And suddenly I was desperate. I would tell him tomorrow. I would tell him in ten minutes. But I needed this—him loving me without the pretense of Jada. Without the game or the lie or the distance that kept us safe.
Just when I had the power to hurt him the most, I stripped away all his defenses.
We were on our sides facing each other and I felt his dick growing hard against my stomach and I felt his hands, rough against my skin.
At that moment the alert on his cell phone went off. A string of beeps and buzzes that jerked him out of my arms.
“Shit,” he breathed, laughing a little in the way people did when their fight-or-flight impulse had proven unnecessary. “What was that?”
“Your phone,” I said, laughing too in the way of a person who’d dodged a bullet. “The satellite must be overhead.”
He sat up, rubbed his hand over his face. “Normally I’d say fuck it, but it might be your assistant, looking for you.”
“Or it might be Bates looking for you.”
“Let’s hope it’s your assistant,” he said over his shoulder, and he stood, grabbing his phone from the top of the dresser where he’d put it. He opened a screen and then, after reading the messages, which were still coming in, though slower now, the bings at random intervals and not quite so lightning fast, he smiled.
“Beth. For you,” he said and handed me the phone. “I only read the first one. But she seems…excited.”
I took the phone, and the pressure building behind my chest was alleviated by Beth’s enthusiastic response to my texts.
I didn’t realize how worried I’d been that she wouldn’t respond. Wouldn’t care.
Truth was, I deserved her cutting me loose. And that she did respond and did care was only a testament to how decent she was.
Fuck, I thought. I couldn’t help but screw over every decent person in my life.
OMG! You’re okay. Are you okay?
Jesus, Jada, tell me you’re okay.
I have been freaking out. Ever since the party. I came back into the room and you were GONE! I tried to get the cops to go after that driver… but I didn’t have anything to tell them.
I’ve been freaking out until I saw those pictures of you. Nice shirt.
Your mom is all over the place telling people you’re not well. And I’ve answered every reporter with the same statement: you have no relationship with your mother and that you question her motives.
I don’t think it’s working.
It might be making things worse.
Sherman isn’t answering my calls. His statement has been a total no comment.
Where are you? It’s probably the middle of the night where
you are? Are you even getting these texts?
Are you still with the driver? What the hell is the story there? He was hot. Super hot.
Please text me back. I don’t want to freak out anymore.
The texts went on, but there was no point in texting her back. I needed to call her. I looked up at Tommy, and he already had his underwear back on, his navy blue boxer briefs that made everything he was covering up only look more appealing.
“You need to talk to her,” Tommy said. “And you need to stop looking at me like that.”
“I can’t, Tommy,” I told him, waggling my eyebrows at him like some lecherous old man—or woman in my case. “You’re just so beautiful.”
“Go,” he said, handing me my clothes. “Straighten out what you can. Me and all my beauty will be here when you get back.”
And so would everything I needed to tell him.
I threw on my clothes, and we both heard Pest scratching at the door.
“Poor girl,” I said. “I’ll take her with me.”
“What about the other dogs?” he asked, clearly worried about his pet he liked to pretend wasn’t actually a pet. Pest? Who was he kidding? He should have named her Beloved.
I glanced out the window, and it was getting dark. Peter took his dogs in at night, but he wouldn’t have done it yet.
“I’ll have Peter put his dogs inside,” I said. “It’s no big deal.”
He still seemed skeptical, and I stood up, pulling my shirt on over my head, forgoing a bra and underwear as I shimmied into my jeans. “It’s going to be fine,” I said. “Promise.”
“Well,” he said with a sigh. “If you promise.”
He opened the door, and Pest came running out, a little ball of excited energy.
“Sorry, girl,” I cooed, picking her wriggling body up in my arms. “We shouldn’t have left you in there that long.” I headed for the door with Tommy’s phone, his pet and, oh right, his heart. I felt, in the back of my mouth, a certain tang. An anxiety I hadn’t felt in a while, thanks to Dr. John and his horrible bag of tricks. And for a second I wished again for the bag of tricks, just to get a break from the guilt.
And that too was a shitty thing about me.
Where I Belong (The Debt Book 2) Page 8