by J. Saman
What is it about my name falling from those pretty lips?
“Yes. Say it again,” I growl into her before I can stop it, my tongue flicking her clit as I pump two fingers into her.
“Oliver.” This time it’s a piercing cry as she writhes against me, thrashing on the bed.
How long has it been since a man did this to her? Savored her? Consumed her? Gave her pleasure like this? It’s messy and wet, dirty, and I’m loving every second of it.
“Holy. I’m. Yes!” She comes hard, ripping my hair and driving my face deeper into her. My fingers pump her through her orgasm, my cock leaking with anticipation over the way her pussy clenches around me.
I swear, I’ve never been this turned on in my life.
Trailing back up her body, I nip and lick at every inch of sweet skin I can, kissing and sucking and on her breasts and nipples, until I reach her lips. My tongue pushes in, letting her taste herself on me, and then I’m up, quickly undressing and grabbing a condom from the nightstand.
She watches me the entire time, her eyes wide and her breathing ragged.
“You still okay with this?” I ask. Suddenly I’m not sure she is.
She licks her lips and nods. Again, with the nods. I took that as a yes before, but now, with this…
“Amelia? You gotta tell me, baby.”
“I… yes. Yes, I want this.”
I raise an eyebrow, stroking my cock lazily. “You sure?”
“Positive. I do. I’m just… like I said, I don’t do this. But I want to. I want tonight.”
Tonight. A frown inadvertently wrenches my lips down before I just as quickly shake it off. I climb on top of her, kissing her, tasting her lips before I roll us. I want her to be in control. I want this to be on her terms. At least to start.
She straddles my thighs and with her eyes on mine and my hands on her hips, she sinks down on me. A grunt presses past my lips before I can stop it, my neck arching back, straining. Damn. She’s tight. And so fucking good. My hands glide up her smooth stomach, cupping her tits.
There is so much rough desire swirling between us I’m already high with it and she hasn’t even started moving yet.
Slowly she rocks forward then back. Forward then back. I just about lose my mind and then she slides up and down. Up and down.
“Fuck,” hisses out. The sensation. The pace. It’s killing me. Her movements. When I wanted her to have control, I didn’t think it would be like this. So controlled. “Let go, Amelia.” Sitting up, I put us face to face. My hands framing her cheeks while my lips consuming hers. “You’re so beautiful. Pleasure yourself on me. I want to make you come again. I want to feel you come all over me. Watch as you lose your mind with how good this feels.”
She moans into me, finally relaxing her muscles and moving. And when I say moving, I mean moving. She’s bouncing up and down, using my dick like a trampoline, and holy hell. This woman is a fucking firecracker. Her hands meet my shoulders, her nails digging into my flesh as she lets go completely. My hips thrust up to meet hers.
Deep, pounding, powerful strokes that make me dizzy.
My arms wrap around her, pressing her soft breasts against my chest as I climb up onto my haunches, her legs over my thighs, and then I slam up into her. Over and over, I take her as she cries out, her head thrown back in ecstasy, propelling her breasts up and into my face. I suck her tits—because I might just be a tad obsessed with them—as we lose ourselves.
Sweaty and loud and so goddamn good.
My thumb finds her clit and seconds later, she detonates. Her face on my shoulder as she clings to me, riding it out with profound, resonating shudders. I follow her over the edge, bellowing out her name before I can stop the bastard from getting free. A smile on my face, the likes of which I know has never been there before.
“Was that the fun you needed?” I whisper.
She giggles, forcing my smile to grow with the sound of it. “Mmmm.”
“I’m taking that for a yes.” I kiss her bare shoulder, holding her tighter.
For the longest moment, we just sit like this, breathing heavily, mind spinning, heart racing. And all I can think is… wow. This woman. Because that was just… absolutely fucking earth-shatteringly amazing. Like, I want to do it all over again and then again and then again. So, we do. I take her again, this time against the shower wall before we pass out for the night, my arms wrapped around her body where I fall into a deep, blissful sleep.
The next morning, I wake up with a voracious hard-on that has her name on it only to find my bed cold and empty. My great-grandmother’s engagement ring sitting atop my nightstand. No note. No phone number. No thanks for last night it was the best sex of my life.
Nothing. Just gone.
The ring left behind with no way to contact her.
And no matter how many times I tell myself I should be relieved, I’m anything but.
Dammit. That’s not how this was supposed to go.
5
AMELIA
I shouldn’t have left like that, and my mixed emotions about last night are compounding my exhaustion. With a yawn I check the underside of the pancake, getting ready to flip it when a “Hey, you’re up early,” startles me so bad the spatula jerks and the pancake goes splat on the floor. “Sorry,” Layla says, going for the paper towels, taking off too many sheets and balling them up to the point where I grimace for both the waste to our planet and the cost of new paper towels. “I didn’t mean to startle you like that.”
“It’s fine,” I tell her, taking the paper from her hand and cleaning up the mess I just made. “I just didn’t hear you come in. How’d you sleep?”
Layla folds her arms over her shirt that says, ‘all the cool kids are reading’, her eyebrow raised pointedly in my direction. “Nice deflection. How was the reunion?”
“Oh. It was good. You know, nothing crazy.”
“Uh-huh. I didn’t hear you come in last night. Must have ended late. So late, in fact, you’re wearing your sacred Red Sox T-shirt inside out.”
Am I? I glance down. Dammit, she’s right. And because I can’t jinx their amazing four-game win streak right now, I quickly whip it off over my head and fix it.
“You must have not only gotten in late but been either so tired and distracted or you know, the world exploded. Amelia, when have you ever put on anything Red Sox inside out unless it’s a rally hat? What happened last night?”
And now I blush. A lot. Because there is nothing like having a night of unbelievable sex and sneaking out to do the walk of shame home in your dress, heels, messed up hair, and then having the doorman of the guy you just slept with offer to have the residence car take you home and you’re too broke to say no because an Uber would have been like thirty bucks, and then having to hide it all from your much younger sister.
Which is why I go back to pouring more pancake batter into the pan. Because pancakes are Layla’s favorite breakfast and I’m feeling a bit guilty I was out so late, and a lot confused and conflicted about last night with Oliver.
“Amelia?”
“Huh? Oh, yeah. It ended late.”
“That’s it?” she whines, sagging back against the counter. “You’re too boring with the details. Give me something good. Something juicy.”
“The fire alarm went off.”
“Amelia!”
“What?” I squawk. “It did.”
Her eyes roll derisively before narrowing as she goes about taking out plates and silverware from the cabinets in our tiny kitchen, setting them out on the table.
“You’re so boring. I want details. I want to know if those hags tripped over their Louboutins when they saw you. I want to know if you drank expensive champagne and ate canapes. I want to know if you danced with someone.”
Cue the blushing again. I’m like a robot with an on-switch Layla keeps hitting. “No one tripped in their heels over me. It was the same with those girls. Nothing’s changed with them and that’s fine because they’re not people I would want in my life any
way. I did sip on some champagne. No canapes and the alarm went off before the dancing could really get going.”
“Still,” she sighs dreamily, “it was a night out. I was hoping you’d land a hot date out of it.”
I choke on my sip of coffee, sputtering while it drools down my chin. Awesome.
“You okay?” She pats my back, making sure I’m not about to die. I wave her away, giving her the universal I’m fine thumbs up. She opens the fridge and then groans. “No OJ.”
Thankfully Layla moves on quickly.
“It wasn’t on sale this week.”
“Milk?”
“Milk.”
And coffee. I’m already on my second cup because after I got home around three this morning, I tossed and turned. Uneasy. Obviously insane if I put on my beloved Sox tee inside out. I was debating and second-guessing my move to run out after he fell asleep. But I had to get home before Layla woke up and since she’s not a normal teenager who likes to sleep in, I didn’t have a choice. I figure it saved us the awkward morning after, last night was fun and maybe I’ll see you around some time conversation.
I don’t think I could have looked into his eyes as he gave me the universal brush-off speech I knew inevitably was coming.
It’s not like Oliver and I were going to start dating or anything. He’s a notorious player. A heartbreaker. A billionaire. Men like him don’t date. And if they do, it’s certainly not women like me. They break hearts not keep them, and I don’t have the luxury of going through something like that.
I’m too damn busy trying to juggle a life I’m not so great at juggling.
I plate up two large pancakes for Layla and one for myself since my second one already hit the floor, and then I join Layla who is strangely quiet, staring at her phone at the table.
“You have your interview at Wilchester in a couple weeks. You still want to do this?”
“It’s the best shot I have at getting a scholarship for college,” she says absently.
I nod, taking a bite of my pancake and forcing myself to chew and swallow. I know why Layla wants to go there. She’s smart. Gifted even, and she deserves the best shot at going to the college she wants. Her current high school just isn’t cutting it for her. She needs a scholarship to get into Wilchester, which they don’t give out all that often and only partial ones at that, but since I’m an alumnus, and our dad worked there, they’re willing to meet with her and then make a decision.
We’re keeping our fingers crossed. Her, that she gets in. Me, that she has a better experience there than I did. Oh, and that they’ll bend a billion rules and give her full tuition otherwise, I have no idea what I’ll do.
I do my best. I earn a good salary as a nurse working for a prominent plastic surgeon—it’s why I took the job instead of working in the hospital as a floor nurse. But life is expensive. Life in the city is expensive—even in a not-so-nice apartment in a not-so-nice neighborhood.
Plus, there is how we survived for the first two years after my parents died.
On my student loans and credit cards. A debt so thick I’ll be paying it off until my dying day at this rate. So, by the end of the month, things get tighter than they already are. I save what I can for Layla’s college, but it’s nearly impossible.
All of this is.
I was in my sophomore year when my parents died and just like that, my medical school dreams were gone. The guy I had been with for over a year—the guy I was endlessly in love with and who I thought was in love with me—wasn’t. I transferred back here, finishing at a community college to be a nurse instead of a doctor, grateful I had all my prerequisites under my belt.
I had debated dropping out entirely and just finding a job, but I knew graduating with a degree in nursing was my best shot at job security and a decent living for us, so I trudged through for both of us. Those two years when I was in college full time and unable to work were the hardest of my life.
I don’t regret the sacrifices I had to make when my parents died.
I don’t regret giving up on med school and becoming a nurse instead.
I don’t regret taking care of my sister, who was only six when my parents died—the baby they had always tried to have after me, who finally became their miracle after multiple miscarriages. No, I don’t regret any of it, not even losing the guy.
I just wish it was easier.
Layla continues to swipe through her phone, somehow managing to scarf down her pancakes one-handed. “Hey, I was thinking since the weather is nice today that maybe we could—” She freezes mid-sentence, fork full of pancake in one hand, phone in her other. “Um. Why is there a picture of you with your arms around Oliver Fritz’s neck and he’s about to kiss you?”
“What?” I shriek. I don’t even ask how she knows who Oliver Fritz is. Everyone in this city does.
“It’s all over Twitter.” She drops her fork with a clang and starts attacking her phone with both thumbs. “Amelia, there are like dozens of pictures of the two of you.”
“Dozens?!” Oh my god. My stomach flips.
She keeps working and then suddenly stops on something before screaming at the top of her lungs, “Oh my god, you’re engaged to him!”
Shit. “It says that?”
“Yes! Look!”
She flips her phone around just as I fly out of my seat, hovering over her. Sure enough, there’s a picture of me dancing with Oliver, both of us staring into each other’s eyes, smiling. And right there, front and center, is his great-grandmother’s diamond ring on my hand. The caption reads, “Oliver Fritz, prominent Boston Billionaire Bachelor suddenly off the market.”
The color drains from my face as my knees start to give way. I think I’m going to pass out. How did I not anticipate this? People taking pictures. Them ending up online.
I fall back into my chair, covering my face with my hands. “Oh god. This cannot be happening.”
“Amelia, you’re freaking making out with him in this one. What the hell happened last night?”
“Watch your mouth,” I grumble through my hands, my stomach churning all over my barely digested pancake that’s suddenly threatening to come back up.
“Right,” she snorts. “Okay. Sure. I’ll watch my mouth when you start telling me the truth from yours.”
My hands fall to my lap, my mind swirling with what to tell my teenage sister. “I got to the reunion and Christa Foreman was there collecting money. It was a hundred dollars, which I hadn’t realized, and she was being nothing but nasty. Oliver stepped in and told Christa he was with me. He paid for me, and then he and I talked. He told me some stuff and I told him some stuff. Then he suggested we go in together as a fake engaged couple. It was meant to be our private joke. A way for us to show up the people who had hurt us in the past. It was all pretend, Layla.” I shake my head, my teeth biting my lip so hard I’m shocked I’m not drawing blood. “I had no idea people were taking our picture.”
“But you’re kissing him,” she protests, flipping her phone back around for me to see. It’s us standing by his car mauling each other, hands all over, lips pressed, tongues in each other’s mouths. Lovely. It’s one step below porn and my sister is looking at it.
I don’t know what to say. I can’t tell Layla that I went back to his place and had meaningless sex with him—even if it really didn’t feel meaningless to me at all—and then ran out.
“It wasn’t real,” is what I go instead, because it wasn’t, was it? “We just got swept up in the moment.” Because that’s all it was. A night of make-believe that got out of hand. “I’ll likely never see Oliver again.”
But even as I say the words, they hurt. I had fun last night with him. Too much fun. So much fun I started to like him. Again. Stupid, I know.
“But. So…” She stares at me with wide, unblinking, slightly devastated eyes. “You’re not dating him or whatever? I mean, I know you’re not actually engaged, but…”
Have I mentioned my sister loves to read romance novels, same as
I do? We even read the Twilight series together last year. Sweet Valley High before that, and any other young adult romance series she can get her hands on. Even in Harry Potter and The Hunger Games, she swooned over the romantic undertones.
I already know she’s not going to let this go lying down. Case in point, “You haven’t had a real date in years.”
“So you like to remind me,” I grumble.
“I’m not a baby anymore, Amelia. You can go out on dates. You can’t let what that jerk face did to you in college keep you from meeting someone and giving them a real chance.”
“I give them a real chance.”
She laughs. Actually laughs. “You’d have to date someone first for that to happen and anyone you have ever gone out with has never made it past the second date.”
I huff out a breath, really, seriously, desperately not wanting to get into now after last night. “I don’t have time for dates and where would I meet a guy anyway?” One who is into a woman with more debt than she can handle and is the guardian of a teenager. Men see that and run as fast as they can—trust me.
I work five days a week, eight to five. I come home, make dinner while Layla does her homework. Then we watch a little TV or read before bed and somewhere around ten, I pass out only to wake up and do it all over again. My weekends are spent doing laundry, cleaning the apartment, and grocery shopping. And when I’m not doing all that, Layla and I hang out because neither of us has that many friends.
Me because everyone else my age is either living the single life of bars and hookups or has a significant other. I don’t have money for restaurants, clubs, or bars. Layla because she’s never really connected with other girls her age. She’s hoping the honors program at Wilchester will change that. Again, my fingers are crossed those girls are good to her and can look beyond the scholarship she comes with. That obviously never worked out well for me.
“Still, Oliver Fritz is hot. Like so freaking hot. Amelia, you kissed him!”
I hum something out of the back of my throat as I get up to start doing the dishes. Layla joins me, helping me dry off everything before putting it away and mercifully letting the topic of Oliver Fritz drop.