Had she hit the jackpot or what?
“I’m still wet,” she volunteered.
“I know.” He nudged her toward the sofa.
“Yeah?” She leaned forward, bending at the waist and grasped the back of the cushions.
“I can tell by how you look at me.” He pulled her panties down to her thighs, then let gravity do the rest of the work.
She stepped out of them, the better to widen her stance. His hand at her hip tightened. Fingers slid along her pussy lips. She groaned and pushed back, seeking more contact. More of him.
“See? I didn’t need to touch you to know you were wet.” He thrust his fingers inside of her, a lazy, slow motion that satisfied none of her hunger for him.
“I see your name and I get wet.” She was practically trained.
“Stay right there.”
“Do you like telling me what to do?” She twisted to look over her shoulder, taking in the firm, round muscles of his ass while he walked away from her, toward the bed nook.
Stephen paused to grab what she hoped was a condom out of the nightstand. He turned and once more his gaze captured her, held her prisoner to his wants.
“Only because you like it,” he said.
It was a plain, unvarnished answer, and it thrilled her.
“I do like it.” I like being yours. “What do you like?”
He ripped open the packet.
A condom.
Hallelujah.
“Seeing you,” he said. The unmistakable sound of latex rolled over flesh made her breath catch.
“Seeing me how? Naked? Touching myself?”
Stephen didn’t reply. He strode toward her, cock first.
It really was better in person.
The gif was heaven sent.
He was…real.
Stephen leaned over her and grabbed her wrists, one in each hand. He pressed his knees to the backs of hers. She knelt on the sofa and bent forward while he held her forearms behind her back, one of his big hands wrapped around her crossed wrists.
She could break the hold. She could turn the tables. She was a black belt nine times over. But that wasn’t what she wanted.
“You like looking at me?” She turned her face, her head resting on the back of the sofa.
“I do.” The head of his cock slid between her folds, up and down.
“Am I wet enough?”
“Are you going to keep talking?”
“Yes.”
“Then stop asking me questions. I can’t fuck you and answer your questions. Tell me what feels good.”
She caught sight of his stark, needy expression in the corner of her eye. God, he was amazing. And right now he was all hers. She wanted to keep him, to wrap herself around him and…she didn’t know what, but she was more than glad they’d gone offline.
Stephen’s grip tightened, and his cock pressed into her. She groaned at the feel of him sliding into her. His girth stretching her. The intrusion was eased by her arousal.
“Fuck,” he muttered and paused, partly in.
“Yes, please. You feel good. Go deeper.”
“I don’t want to…”
“You won’t hurt me. I sized up my vibrator because the one I had didn’t make me think of you. It was too small. Deeper.” She had no shame in admitting what she’d done. How she felt. The extent to which he turned her on. If he didn’t already know, well, he hadn’t been paying attention.
He thrust, and she rocked forward, the cushions cradling her. He slid deeper. Another thrust and she felt his balls against her mound.
“Do that. Harder. Please?” She arched her back, lifting her hips.
Stephen pulled almost all the way out. She held her breath. He thrust deep and hard. She slid along the fabric, sucking in a breath as his balls smacked against her.
“Oh, yes. Again. Like that.”
The hand at her hip tightened before he complied. This time there was no pause between thrusts. His fingers dug into her, while he held her exactly where he wanted her. She didn’t even mind the pull on her shoulders.
“Fuck me harder, Stephen.” She closed her eyes, struggling to draw breath. His cock felt so big it drove all her oxygen out with each glide.
The cool air curled around her breasts. Her aching nipples were desperate for a caress. Their weight, freely swinging, kept the needy desire a focal point.
She could hear the slap of his skin against hers, the slick sound of their joining. Her groans mixed in. God, she wanted it to go on forever. For once, she couldn’t speak. It was too good.
Stephen’s hand slid down from her hip over her mound. His fingers pressed into her swollen folds, finding her clit.
“Yes,” she chanted.
He stroked the erect nub with firm, purposeful movements. He leaned over her, driving deeper, letting her sink into the cushions. His breath fanned against her shoulder.
“Come on me.”
The darker, raw notes of his voice ramped up the desire spiraling tighter in her belly.
“Oh—God—yes,” she groaned.
“Do you want to come on my cock—slut?”
“Yes! I want to come on your cock. Call me your slut again?”
His pace faltered, just a little, but it was there. She squeezed her eyes shut.
Stephen thrust so hard her head almost hit the wall. Would have, if he hadn’t been holding onto her so tight.
She held her breath. He wasn’t going to—
“You’re my slut.” His voice was strained.
Everything in her released all at once. Pleasure so deep, so raw she had to bury her face in the cushions, rippled through her. Stephen’s thrusts were jerky, raw, close to orgasm, but his voice was still echoing in her head.
You’re my slut.
And she was. She was. She was. She was.
7.
Stephen flopped on the bed, not even caring that he was both naked and still a little damp from the shower. Wet sheets were uncomfortable, but he had other things to think about.
Three orgasms. One night. He’d lost count of how many times Tamara had come.
He peered at the clock, surprised to find it wasn’t all that late. They’d started early. The morning was going to be hell. He doubted he’d be able to concentrate on class at all.
“What’s this?” Tamara asked.
He picked his head up off the pillow and peered across the apartment at her.
“Oh. It was a joke.”
“You’re an honorary Navy SEAL?”
“I worked on developing some equipment for them. While I was in San Diego, I’d go do runs with the guys. I think they thought it was funny. One of them printed that off as a joke, I think. I kept it, though.”
“That’s pretty cool. Did you draw these?”
“The stuff above it?”
“Yeah.”
“Those were my first drone prototype sketches.”
“Wow, is this the kind of stuff in your sketchbook?”
“The rough ideas, yeah.” She remembered his sketchbook? After all of this he barely knew he had one.
“You’re really talented.”
The bathroom light flicked off, plunging the apartment into near-darkness.
Tamara strolled toward the bed, naked, her hair piled on top of her head. How she was moving was beyond him. She was a goddess, as far as he was concerned.
She was real. And she was in his apartment. They had issues, but so what? Everyone did. If the look on her face were any indication, she’d be in his bed soon. It was difficult to believe she was there at all. That she hadn’t taken one look at him and bailed. He was so used to that reaction anything else was…new territory.
Tamara crawled up from the foot of the bed. She didn’t seem the least bit tired or worn out. He’d have to step up his work-out just to keep up with her. If she meant to stick around.
What if this was a one-time thing? What if it was the novelty of meeting up once and that was it?
“You’re thinking.”
She kissed his stomach, his ribs, her body stroking against his in the most erotic fashion.
If only his dick were up to the challenge, but she’d wrung him dry.
She settled in next to him like she belonged there, her thigh over his, her head on his shoulder, her arm around his waist. It was a completely natural pose. So why was he this tense?
“Why the tattoo?”
“I fell in love with robotics watching Transformers.”
“I dig it. Professor in disguise.” Her fingers traced the lines on his skin, following them up his stomach and chest. “This looks fairly new.”
“Two years. Well, I started on it two years ago. Finished it about seven months ago.” He’d learned a lot about himself in that time. Something about the process, thinking through his choices. It’d been the right thing to do at the time.
Funny enough, he could trace the unrest that had sent him from that very last session, to the chat room, to here.
“What are you thinking about?” Tamara lifted her hand and stroked his cheek.
He knew her—and yet he didn’t. The woman he’d spent hours talking to online was her. And yet, she was still a stranger to him. There were things about her he didn’t know and wanted to.
“What I said in the shower—was that okay? I thought I got a little carried away.” This morning he’d never have imagined uttering those words to a woman.
Tamara’s lips spread into a wide smile and she curled her toes against his knee.
“Totally okay,” she said.
“Are you sure?”
“I like dirty talk.” She lifted a shoulder. “If it bothers you, I can try to tone it down, but everything you’ve said is perfectly fine.”
“Really? Because I called you a…” He couldn’t make the words come out now.
“What? A slut? Or when you called me a cum slut?” She chuckled, totally unfazed by the words that would be a relationship-ender for other women.
“Yes.”
“Which one?”
“Both.”
“You can’t say slut now, can you?” She laughed and squeezed him tighter.
“It’s just—I’d never want to…disrespect you?” Was that the right word?
“I don’t think you are, and besides, I asked you to call me a slut. It’s not like you just said it.”
“Okay.” He hadn’t screwed up. “Can…I ask why?”
“I don’t think I’ve ever had a guy ask me that before.”
He peered down at her, dark tendrils of jealousy snaking through him. He knew she was baiting him, avoiding the question, and he was falling for it. Why? Why didn’t she want to talk about it? Was she hiding something? Was this her deep, dark secret he could Google? That the rest of the world knew, save for him?
“Are you giving me jealous eyes?” She poked him in the ribs.
“Can you blame me?”
“Can I be jealous, too, then?”
“I don’t control you.”
“You did during sex. You have a bossy side.” She kissed his shoulder. A bit of her hair had come lose and the strands tickled his skin.
“That was different.”
“You’re getting frustrated with me.” She didn’t laugh or smile, there was nothing coy in the statement.
And he was frustrated. Because this mattered. And he didn’t know where they stood.
“What’d I do?” Tamara propped her chin on her hand, looking down at him.
“I don’t expect you to be a nun, but I really don’t want to talk about your other boyfriends when I’m with you. At least not in bed with you.”
“I don’t have other boyfriends. I don’t have anyone but you.”
“How is that possible?” he asked before he could think better of the question.
“That I don’t have a boyfriend?” She shrugged. “It’s hard to escape the Asian fetish when it comes to the kind of guys I like. And if they don’t care about that, then they care about my reputation and what they think they know about me. It’s why I went online in the first place. I was lonely for someone who would see me for me, and I found you. I didn’t need anyone else.”
“In all this time, you really haven’t been with anyone else?”
“No. Have you?”
“No.” He stared at her, really looked. She had a stark honesty that he appreciated. He needed. Figuring out the multi-layered meaning of what a woman meant was a science beyond him. “Then…what do you want?”
“What do I want what?”
“You came to find me.”
“What do I want from you?” One side of her mouth kicked up and her hand slid down his stomach. “Your cock?”
“Let it rest.” He captured her hand and brought it to his lips.
“I had to make sure you knew I wasn’t Piper. I know that the idea of someone out there thinking she’d do porn…is triggering for her. So I had to make sure you knew I was me. After that…I don’t know what I want, to be honest. I’ve felt close to you. I was scared it would be different in person.”
“Is it?” He sensed the shadow in her eyes without seeing them.
“The sex is way better when it’s really you inside of me.” Her smile…it made him ache inside. As if he’d always been missing that look. Her unbridled freedom to say and do whatever she felt like was refreshing. “I’m more comfortable than I thought I’d be. You make it easy to just be me. What do you want? What is it you keep thinking about?”
“I want to know if this was a one-time thing.”
“Is it?”
“You tell me.”
“I think that’s really up to you. I’m the one who fucked everything up.”
“I wanted to meet you because I wasn’t satisfied with just text.” He flattened her hand over his pectoral. In the months since they’d begun chatting she’d burrowed her way into his heart. He wanted more.
“Are you satisfied now?”
“I’m exhausted now.”
They laughed.
“Satisfied, though?” He stared at the ceiling, his answer weighing him down. “No. I want to see you. I want to take you out on a real date. Be with you.”
“But no fucking?”
“I think I need a more aggressive work-out regimen if I’m going to keep up.”
“Sex is good aerobic exercise, you know.” She leaned over and kissed him, a lingering press of lips. It would be so easy to take it further, but for once he just wanted to talk to her.
“You don’t want to talk about the slut bit, do you?” He couldn’t let it go, even though part of him knew he should. He’d pressed for more, to see her, and he’d gotten that. He should be patient. Wait until she trusted him more, but the question just slipped out.
She sighed and shifted, staring up into the darkness. “Because saying I like it isn’t enough. I mean, my best answer is that when I let you call me your slut what I’m saying is that…I’m free to do and enjoy anything with you. But that’s never a good enough answer, because you’ll come back with something else, and ask me if I had a good family life or if I was raped or if this or that and eventually I’ll tell you that yeah, I was raped. I don’t like talking about it. But I liked dirty talking before that happened.”
“Wait—what?” His body went cold and his stomach dropped. The one thing that rose to the top of the sudden chaotic mix of thoughts was—he needed to protect her. Was this what haunted her? The thing that plagued her?
“My therapist says I get really distant when I talk about it, that it’s my coping mechanism. Maybe I’m emotionally locked down. Whatever. I deal with my shit my way.”
He tightened his hold on her, wanting to fix the past. Her present. Her future. There wasn’t a better reason to go ahead with those time machine blueprints. But she was still talking, powering through—because that was Tamara. She didn’t shrink from the hard stuff, she charged on in once she got ready.
“I was raped six years ago, at a con. It’s why I don’t date in my social circle, because everyone knows
about it. I was drugged and raped, and they thought I wouldn’t talk about it, that I’d be horrified if anyone knew, and I turned around and went to the cops. When they wouldn’t listen, I got a lawyer the very next day—and you know what?” She tipped her chin up and looked at him.
“What?”
“I’m glad I did. Knowing those guys went to jail gives me some peace of mind, but it didn’t change who I am. It only changed how people look at me. And…I don’t know. Maybe things would have been easier if I’d just rolled over and kept quiet, but it wouldn’t be right, you know? I had to do that for me. My parents raised me to fight for what I wanted, and I wanted to be heard. And I was. You can Google the whole thing. I think I still even have a hate club out there.”
He could just imagine the shit storm she’d brought down on anyone who stood in her way. The real crime was that it’d happened at all.
“And…that’s how Piper and I met. Everyone knows or has seen the shit her ex put online after their break-up, about a year before all the crap that happened with me. A friend of ours, Miranda, introduced us because she thought we could help each other. I’d just gone public and was getting a lot of flack over it. Then there was Piper. She was…my shoulder. My strength. We clicked. She’s my best friend. We even have the same therapist. And I get where she’s coming from, though it never went that dark for me.”
“I don’t understand,” he said slowly. Was it his imagination, or was that a tremble he felt from her? He shifted, holding her closer. “What do you mean?”
“I was raped.” She blew out a breath, and yes, that was a tremble. “By guys I didn’t know. Was it a violation? Yes. Was it wrong? Yes. But Carl… He took their entire relationship, all the years they were together, and shit on them. Then he dragged her through the mud. And the way things have gone the last few years in our industry…it was a dog pile. All on Piper. She came through the worst of it, but she’s still healing. I’m…over it. Yeah, I have bad days and sometimes I get…I don’t know, paranoid maybe. But most of the time, I’m good. But…Piper’s a lot more sensitive than I am. She’s come a long way, but…sometimes I wonder if she’ll ever leave it behind her. And now I’ve hurt my best friend. I hate it.”
“And you’ve turned a conversation about you into one about your friend.” He stared at her. “You’re really upset by all of this, aren’t you?”
Beauty and the Geek (Gone Geek Book 1) Page 7