Well Played

by Jen DeLuca

  “Stacey.” My name was a whisper, a prayer on his lips. His fingertips traced a tingling trail down the side of my throat. He pulled back to catch my gaze with his, and whatever he read in my eyes must have been encouraging since he bent to me again, catching my mouth in a quick, searching kiss as if he couldn’t bear to be away. Then his mouth dropped to my neck, nuzzling just under my jaw, and my blood raced in response.

  I stretched onto my toes to get closer to him, and he stooped a little, his hands cupping my hips. We were dealing with a definite height difference here, but I could work with that. I’d climb him if I had to. I just needed to be closer to him. From the way Daniel’s touch had turned from caressing to grasping, he was feeling the same way. He leaned into me, pressing me against the door, almost lifting me against it, and I could feel myself melt against the hard lines of his body.

  And then my landline rang, and it was like being doused with a bucket of ice water. I groaned and let my head fall back, thudding onto the door behind me. “Mom.”

  “If you’re thinking about your mom right now, I’m doing this wrong.” But he smiled against my neck and slowly, slowly released his grip on me. The loss was devastating, but my phone was still ringing.

  “On the phone.” I lightly pushed at his chest with my fingertip and he stepped back. I got to the phone on its fourth ring, thank God. I didn’t have an answering machine hooked up and Mom was tenacious; she’d just let it keep ringing till I answered. Or worse: she’d give up and come looking for me.

  “Hey, Mom.” I blew out a breath and tried to slow my racing heart. I sounded pretty calm for someone who was just making out fifteen seconds ago.

  “Oh, hi, honey.” There was Mom’s usual mild surprise that it was my voice on the other end of the line. “How was the wedding?”

  I had to laugh at that. “The wedding was great, Mom. You were there.” But even as I laughed, alarm bells went off in the back of my mind. None of her health issues had ever been neurological. Could this be a new thing?

  Mom scoffed. “Well, of course I was. Emily was a beautiful bride. I hope Simon appreciates her.”

  “Oh, I’m pretty sure he does.” The alarm bells faded a little, replaced by impatience. The last thing I wanted to do right now was rehash Emily’s wedding. I loved her, and I loved my mother, but there was a much bigger priority in the room right now. A priority that was well over six feet tall and was the best kisser I’d ever experienced. So why were we having this conversation? Why now?

  “I meant how was the wedding for you? We left early. Did it start raining before it was over?”

  “It did! I’m glad you got home before it started. It came on kind of sudden.”

  “Well, I hope you had a good time before it got rained out. I saw you dancing with that tall fellow. Who is he?”

  “Oh . . .” I looked over at Daniel, who had his back to me; it looked like he was adjusting the front of his pants. The thought of what was in those pants, and what this damn phone call had interrupted, sent heat coursing through me, and I needed to not be thinking about that while talking to my mother. “That was Daniel.” He turned to me when I spoke his name, his eyes wide with alarm that I might hand him the phone. I smirked at his discomfort and waved him off; he responded with a shake of his head, scooping the forgotten towel from the floor. “He’s . . .” He’s standing right here. He was about to bang me against that door, so if we could get off the phone, that would be great, thanks, Mom.

  “Well, I won’t keep you.” It was as though she’d read my mind, and I had to fight to not breathe a sigh of relief. “I just heard you come home and wanted to make sure you didn’t get too wet out there.”

  “Oh, I’m soaked.” Was I ever. I winced at my choice of words but plowed on ahead. “It’s raining like crazy. But I’m okay. Thanks, Mom.” As we hung up the phone, though, I realized that it wasn’t raining like crazy. Not anymore. Rain still skittered off the skylight, but not nearly as hard as it had before. Ugh. No. I wanted the bad weather back. I wanted Daniel trapped in here with me, with no choice but to stay. I couldn’t believe Mom had brought our momentum to a grinding halt.

  I turned back to Daniel with a sheepish smile. “Sorry. Um. So that’s the ugly truth.”

  He raised his eyebrows. “What ugly truth?”

  “That I live with my parents.” I spread my arms in defeat. “You are now welcome to flee in terror.”

  He made a show of looking around the living area, then walking past me into the kitchen. “I don’t see them here,” he said. “Are they both in the bathroom?”

  I rolled my eyes. “No.”

  “Under your bed? Kind of a tight fit under there.”

  “No,” I said again, but this time with a laugh in my voice.

  “Then I don’t see the problem.” He shrugged. “You live near your parents. You’re parents-adjacent. I knew that already, remember? You’re close with your parents.”

  “Literally.” But it was a sorry attempt at a joke, and in this moment I felt disappointed in myself. Here I was, twenty-seven years old, living steps away from my mother, who called to make sure I had gotten out of the rain on my own. Some adult I was.

  He shrugged again and glanced up toward the skylight. I did the same, gauging the state of the weather outside. Was he looking for an out? I braced myself, waiting for his goodbye. But then he looked at me and I caught my breath. The heat hadn’t left his eyes, and he held out a hand to me. No, he held out the towel.

  “C’mere,” he said. “Your hair’s still soaking wet.” His voice was hushed, and it was obvious that he wasn’t just offering to dry my hair. But I went along with the pretense, reaching for the pins in my hair as I approached him, little silk flowers scattering in my wake.

  “So no fleeing in terror?” I finger-combed my hair as it tumbled down around my shoulders, and Daniel caught his breath, his eyes darkening.

  “Not even a little.” The towel went right back to the floor again as he reached for me. I reached for him right back, and we kissed all the way to my bed under the eaves, unzipping and unbuttoning as we went.

  “We really need to get you out of these wet clothes.” Daniel pushed my dress to my waist, and I shimmied the rest of the way out of it, kicking it away. “Your mother was very concerned about you. You could catch your death, you know.”

  “Mmm, oh yes. Catch my death in July.” I let his tie flutter to the floor and tugged his shirt out of his waistband.

  “I’m a little bit serious, though.” He stroked one hand up my side, around the dip of my waist and to the fullness of my breast, taking a slow journey around my curves. “Your skin really is cold.”

  “Warm me up, then.” My voice was husky with invitation, and from the way he pulled me close and kissed me harder, it was an invitation he was eager to accept. I finished with the buttons on his shirt and squeaked a little as I slid my arms around his chest. “You should talk,” I said. “You’re cold too.”

  “Warm me up, then.” His words were an echo of mine, and a surprised laugh sprung from me. He shrugged out of his shirt and went to work on the hooks on my longline bra while walking me backward toward the bed.

  “I’m impressed,” I said, as he popped the hooks open one by one down my chest in a steady rhythm. “These things can be tricky.”

  “Probably easier to get out of than into.” The last hook popped free and we both sighed: me with relief as the loosened garment fell away from my body, and him with something that looked a little bit like worship. My instinct was to cross my arms over myself: my soft middle wasn’t something I displayed all that often, and the first time with a new partner was always a little nerve-wracking. But there was nothing in Daniel’s eyes that showed distaste. Instead he reached a tentative hand toward me, curving it around my waist, his fingertips tracing a line up my skin from my waist to just under my breasts. He sucked in a breath that was less
aroused than concerned.

  “Does that hurt?”

  “What . . . ?” I ran a hand up my rib cage, feeling the indentations left behind by the boning in the bra. Ah. He’d been tracing a literal line up my body. “Maybe a little,” I said. “Nothing to worry about. I’m used to it. Especially this time of year. Lots of corsetry in my life in the summertime.”

  He huffed out a laugh, which turned into a sigh as I caught his hand and moved it up. He got the message quick. His palm was rough against the underside of my breast, his thumb circling a rapidly tightening nipple. His touch was electric, but it wasn’t enough. I needed his mouth, his lips, his tongue on my skin. I wanted everything from him. But I forced myself to take my time, running a hand across his taut stomach and then up his chest, loving the way his muscles flexed under my touch. Up and up, tracing the line of his breastbone and curving around his neck, before I drew his head back down, meeting his mouth with mine. His hands tightened on me, breast and hip, and I swallowed the groan that came from his throat. We moved together in perfect concert, toeing off our shoes and sinking onto my bed.

  Which squeaked under us.

  Kind of loudly.

  I ignored it and ran my hands up Daniel’s back; his skin was no longer cold under my hands. He braced his hands on either side of my head and rolled his hips to mine, aligning our bodies. He rocked against me, hard, and I gasped. The only thing between us were his pants and my underwear, but that was still too many clothes. I ran my fingers down the dip of his spine—he shivered and kissed me harder—and made quick work of his belt and the button and zipper on his pants. He bucked his hips as I reached inside for him.

  “Jesus, Stacey . . .” He was huge in my hand, hard and hot, and I didn’t mean to tease but I couldn’t help mapping his size and girth with my fingers. The heat of him, the size of him, I couldn’t get enough, and it didn’t take long for mapping to become stroking, in a slow glide from base to the tip. His breath came hard in his chest, shuddering in his lungs, and I couldn’t keep the grin from my face as he rocked against me, thrusting gently into my hand in a steady rhythm. He felt good. This felt good. This was . . .

  . . . loud. When had my bed become so damn squeaky?

  Daniel stilled his movements and pushed himself up on his hands, looking down at me.

  “So. Um . . .” There was that laugh again, that quiet one that was like a rush of breath.

  He looked up at the wall behind my head, as if he could find something important there, then looked back down at me. “I don’t know about this.” He pushed himself off me, away from me, and I missed his weight immediately. Everything felt cold without his skin touching mine.

  “Okay . . . ?” I hated how small my voice sounded. How defeated. He’d undressed me a few minutes ago, but this was the first moment I felt naked. But it didn’t take long for defeat to dissolve into anger. Frustration, even.

  “So what’s the problem?” I pulled at the blanket I kept folded at the end of my bed, tugging it around my chest as I sat up to face Daniel, who was sitting on the other side of the bed, as far away from me as he could get.

  “Problem? No . . .” He shook his head and reached for me, but I shrugged away from his touch.

  “Then why did you . . .” Frustration mounted and I surged to my feet, wrapping the blanket around me like a kind of toga. What exactly had I misread here? Him dry-humping me into the mattress, or the helpless sound he’d made when I had his dick in my hand? But asking him why he didn’t want me anymore was mortifying. “You changed your mind,” I finally said.

  “What? No, I didn’t.”

  “Yes, you did.” I folded my arms over my chest, partially in annoyance and partially to help keep my blanket-toga in place. “You stopped”—I waved a hand, indicating the space between us—“all this.”

  “Because your parents are on the other side of that wall, and your bed won’t shut the hell up.” He nodded his head back toward the wall behind him. “Shouldn’t we be a little . . . quieter?”

  All my anger and hurt feelings melted away, replaced by . . . I wasn’t sure what. Maybe still a little bit of anger. Definitely some frustration. But mostly relief. “Are you serious?” I threw up my hands. “My old bedroom is on the other side of that wall. All that’s in there now is a treadmill, and believe me, they never use it.”

  “Are you sure?” He looked over his shoulder, as though my mother might materialize through the wall and ask him his intentions.

  I rolled my eyes. “Yes, I’m sure.”

  “Okay, then.” Doubt cleared from his face, replaced with a slow smile as he turned back to me. “Then why are you all the way over there, and wearing a bedspread?”

  “Maybe I look good in this bedspread.” But I took his outstretched hand and let him pull me back to where he was on the bed. He bracketed my body between his spread knees, tilting his head back to look up at me, and whoo boy, there was a throat I wanted to nibble on. So I did.

  “God, Stacey, you feel . . .” His hand tightened around mine, and his other hand went into my tumbled-down hair. He swallowed hard, and I felt the movement against my lips. “You feel better than I ever imagined you would.”

  I smiled against his neck. “You imagined me?”

  “For months. You have to know I did.” He pulled away to take my mouth with his again, and I felt his kiss all the way down to my toes. I moved closer to him, crawling into his lap and letting the bedspread fall from my shoulders.

  “I wish I had.” I rocked against him, the friction of my panties and his pants between us both delicious and frustrating. “I wish I’d known it was you, all that time.” That was the one regret I had in all of this. Not so much that he’d lied: we were past that now. But that I hadn’t known the truth. A fine line there—but now that I knew the man behind the words, I wished I’d always known. I wished I could have fantasized about the right man all this time. Because the man in my arms right now was better than Dex had ever been. Better than anyone I could have ever imagined.

  “I’m sorry.” He cradled my face in his hands, pressing his forehead to mine. I was drowning in the ocean of his green eyes searching mine. “I’m so sorry. I should have . . .”

  “No, it’s okay.” I punctuated the words with another kiss. “I know why you did.”

  “No, but . . .” He sighed, his breath ghosting across my lips. “It’s so stupid. All of it. But . . . I’m not my cousin. I don’t know what kind of moves that guy has, but he obviously knows what he’s doing with women. And I didn’t know how to break it to you that I wasn’t . . .”

  “Shhhh.” It was my turn to cradle his face in my hands. I let my thumbs trace over his cheekbones, trying to soothe whatever ache inside him made him feel he wasn’t good enough.

  “I knew you’d be disappointed, and I kept telling myself that I needed to come clean. I just didn’t know how to . . .”

  “I know.” I dropped a kiss on his cheek, his mouth, his chin. The past was behind us. All I wanted to do now was look forward. “I don’t care about his moves. He’s not here. You’re the only one I see.”

  “Yeah?” But his hand was back in my hair, his other stroking down my back, urging me closer with a gentle pull. I scooted a little closer in his lap, and we both drew in a breath at the contact.

  “Do that again.” He moaned the words into my mouth, tilting his hips up in a slow grind against me, and why were we still wearing so many clothes? We had to do something about that.

  “I think it’s time you show me your moves,” I said.

  “You think so, huh?” His hand tightened in my hair, holding my head just where he wanted to kiss me more thoroughly. His tongue glided against mine, drinking me in, and I gave as good as I got. I let my hands wander up his chest, learning the planes of his body, the sprinkling of coarse, dark red hair against my palms, and the heat of his skin. His other hand smoothed around the dip
of my waist before sliding into the back of my panties, cupping my behind and pulling me more firmly into his lap. A lap that was . . . well, firm. Extremely so.

  Before long he lay back in the bed, taking me with him. My breasts were crushed against his chest, and I wanted us to be that close everywhere. He was easing my underwear over my hips, and my hands slid down between us, returning to his open pants. I eased up onto my knees, straddling his hips, alternately rocking over him and wrestling his pants down. Finally. Time to . . .

  He broke off our kiss with another quiet laugh. “Seriously. What is wrong with your bed?”

  “Nothing!” But he wasn’t wrong. The springs let out a little squeak of protest every time we moved, and the more into it we got, the more . . . rhythmic the squeaking became.

  He looked up at me, laughter in his eyes and his hand still down the back of my underwear. “You’ve never noticed how noisy your bed is?”

  “Well, no.” He was still hard beneath me and I squirmed on him, making him catch his breath. “I guess Benedick and I don’t move around much when we’re sleeping.”

  “Well, I’m planning to move around with you quite a bit.”

  “So you keep promising. Will you shut up about my bed already?”

  “Hold on.” He slid an arm around my back, and took a firmer grip on my hip.

  “What are you—oooh!”

  Without warning, he sat up, taking me with him, and from there got to his feet, wrapping my legs around his hips. I locked my arms around his neck to help hoist myself up his body while he took me . . . where?

  “What are you doing?” I couldn’t keep the giggle out of my voice. I wanted to protest that I was too heavy to be carried, but he didn’t seem to have any trouble. The blanket from my bed was still tangled between us and he took it with him, dragging it behind us like the train of a wedding gown.

  “Getting away from that bed before your mother comes storming up here.”

  “Oh my God!” My giggle blossomed into a full-on laugh. I would have smacked him on the shoulder but I also didn’t want him to drop me. “Will you stop worrying about my mother already? My parents can’t hear anything that goes on up here.”