Chapter 13
Penetrating stare ~ Hettie
What the fuck am I doing? Poor guy. All those years between us and I came on like some bunny boiling psycho. What the hell was I thinking? I can’t let this be the end of us. Even if we never saw each other again, the last thing I want is him thinking I was the desperado I had made myself out to be at dinner.
Of course the cab driver rolled his eyes when I had asked him to take me back in the direction we had just left. Dropping me off at Gray’s hotel, I wasn’t sure how he’d respond or if he’d respond at all. I couldn’t even be sure he was in his room. What if he hasn’t come back? Then what do I do?
Adrenaline fueled my body with every step I took toward to his room. My mind was a mess, torn between wanting to punch him and hug him. Feeling my heart in my mouth, my breaths quickened as anxiety sent cascading ripples of anticipation through every blood vessel in my body. My legs felt weak, lactic acid building with every step as my breathing labored while my lungs tried to take in enough air. Several times I inhaled sharply, waiting for the nerves to settle, but they wouldn’t.
What if he lied and the girl is still with him? I talked myself out of that, fighting back the lie he told me the last day in college as I stood in front of the heavy, dark wood door of suite fourteen-twenty-seven. Raising my hand I hesitated, knowing full well if I knocked I would open old wounds that may crush my already scarred heart, and I’d drown in self-pity afterward.
Nothing could have stopped me from knocking my fist against the door, my knuckles drawing a dull hollow sound from the wood as I waited for long seconds to pass. My heart beat faster, the pulse amplified to the point where I felt the slight distraction in my neck. I didn’t hear him approach on the other side, but somehow, I knew he was there, watching me.
Even though I had been the one to set the scene, he still took me by surprise when a moment later the door opened wide. If I had thought I was struggling to breathe before, the sight of the beautiful man that set my heart on fire, took the wind clean out of me. He stood in the open doorway, bare- chested, as a few water droplets dropped from his wet hair to his dry chest. They sat like crystals against his newly tanned skin. He wore nothing but a heavy, white towel slung low on his hips, and his smile when he saw me almost suffocated me.
Despite feeling breathless, my instinct took over and I shoved him backward into his room. The only thought in my head was I wanted him badly. He could have mistaken my lust for frustration, but it was pure unadulterated desire and need that had led me back to him. I was desperate for the physical connection we once had between us even if it was only for one last time. It was my last chance to know if he had any real feelings for me.
Looking up into his eyes, I could see he took me seriously. His questioning, probing look from when he initially saw me morphed into the same penetrating stare of desire I recalled, while a sexy half smile tugged at his beautiful plump lips.
My fingers clasped around a strap pushing it off my shoulder and my purse dropped to the floor. The dull thud sounded like a full stop, ending any doubts I had about being there. Gray lay with his arms casually down by his sides where he’d fallen on the bed, his beautiful, hard body fully on display for my perusal. His cock rested, semi-interested, across his right thigh, and his intense, watchful eyes followed my every move.
Flicking the spaghetti straps of my dress off my shoulders, I pulled it down exposing my breasts, and from how Gray’s dark pupils swallowed his irises whole, I knew he was done. Reaching up as I leaned over him, he grabbed a firm breast in each hand, bringing his mouth up to meet them as his tongue flicked hungrily from one to the other. The sensation made my head swim, but before I could accept what he was doing he pulled me down on top of him and rolled me over onto my back. Rising naked above me, he smiled affectionately before it faded and his eyes darkened, focusing seriously on our perfect moment of surrender.
“Fuck, baby,” he growled as his hungry mouth closed over the sweet spot in my neck. Tasting my skin, his warm breath breezed over it sending a rash of goosebumps over my body.
“God…I’ve missed you,” he confessed before a low growl passed his lips and his hands grabbed greedily at the material of my dress. “Lift your body up,” he instructed as he dragged the tight, clingy garment down my waist. I raised my hips and dug my shoulders into the mattress.
“Fuck,” he repeated breathily unveiled my naked skin by pulling my dress down my legs. He stopped to press his mouth against my pussy, and inhaled deeply. “You smell fucking delicious. I can smell how much you want me,” he muttered. “I can’t tell you how much I wanted you earlier. How much I want you now,” he whispered in a barely there sentence as his hands and lips frantically teased me. Lifting his eyes to connect with mine, I half expected a smile but there wasn’t one. Instead I saw raw, carnal intent embedded in his eyes. It sent a shiver of delight spreading through me.
“So fucking beautiful, baby,” he whispered, his voice oozing adoration. My heart leapt at the praise. “I’ve never forgotten how you feel in my hands, under me,” he told me. My dress still clung to my legs as he made his way up and down my body, peppering slow, tiny, wet kisses, and swirling his tongue as it lapped at my skin.
Gray took a breast in each hand again. His mouth paying equal attention to both. The sensation of pleasure and pain when he sucked hard burned deep, igniting my need to a crazy pitch inside. “If we do this, I won’t be able to be gentle, Hettie,” he warned, his eyes weighing up mine for my reaction.
“I know,” I said, swallowing roughly, as my mouth went dry in anticipation. My whole body hummed with the expectation of more while his warm palms continued to cup my breasts. I moved my legs, wiggling the dress down to my ankles until it slid off my feet onto the floor. Lifting my knee, I rubbed it up his thigh until it tapped and stroked his sack. His pelvis tilted in a tiny thrust, the effect of my touch making him spread his legs wider.
“Come here,” I ordered, licking my lips in anticipation of taking things up a notch.
Gray snickered, a soft sexy smile playing on his lips. “Are you really sure about this?”
“One hundred percent,” I confirmed, my voice laced with lust.
“In that case anything to oblige,” he stated.
Crawling up the bed until his knees were spread at the side of my shoulders, he looked down and smirked right before I took his cock in my hands. Gray hissed, loudly. Stroking it steadily as I stared into his lust-filled eyes that were fixed hard to mine, I brushed my thumb across his smooth, purple head. Pre-cum oozed from the slit as a hiss left his beautiful, plump lips and his eyes closed for a second. “Fuck, I’m shaking,” he confessed, and I noted the slightest vibration rippling through his legs into my shoulders.
Reaching behind him, his hand slid down my belly, the sensation spiking another wave of electricity through my flesh and my core pulsed with need. When he reached my panties, his fingers slid slowly beneath the lace. His middle finger reaching into my wet core and down toward my entrance. My breath hitched and my grip tightened around the silky skin of his thick, ridged cock. “Taste me,” he demanded, tilting his hips toward my mouth.
Pulling his hand out of my panties he leaned over and grabbed the headboard as I ran my tongue over his smooth head in one sharp lick. “Damn,” he cussed, his head rolling back on his neck for a second. Glancing up at him, I saw his head bend forward and he looked down at me. “Never thought I’d see you from this angle again,” he murmured. “You’re so damn beautiful, Hettie,” he praised.
Gray gasped when I slid his cock further into my mouth and flicked my tongue around his tip. A primal growl tore from his throat. I was just getting started when he pulled himself free of my mouth. “I can’t. I’ll come, it feels too good,” he said in a husky voice.
Turning over he repositioned himself in the opposite direction from me, swept one arm under my thighs, and lifted my ass up to meet his mouth. Using his other elbow to part them he slid his hand under, holding one ass cheek in each as my legs fell open. Instantly his mouth engulfed as much of my pussy as he could. He sucked my panties into his mouth hard as he blew burning air into my core when he exhaled.
Dropping my ass to the bed, he crawled over to face me and kissed me hard. For a second I thought my heart was going to burst out of my chest when his wet tip trailed over my belly and stopped. It felt hard between my legs. Seconds later he rose above me, caging me in with his limbs. “Can’t do this foreplay any longer, I gotta be inside you. Will you let me in?”
He’d never asked that question before. No one had. Hearing him say it, I knew he was still checking, giving me one last chance to back out. Hell would have frozen over before I backed out.
“Yes, I want you…please,” I begged. A heartbeat later, Gray tore my panties down my legs in a frantic need to rid me of them. His hand clamped over my pussy, a callused fingertip instantly dipping inside while his thumb expertly circled my clit in tiny, fast circles that had me on the edge in seconds. My whole body felt as if it were dissolving under his touch. I was quickly overwhelmed with so many pleasurable sensations, I felt light-headed.
“You’re amazing, baby, so fucking beautiful,” he whispered, his voice full of admiration. His mouth and hands teased me until a burst of light flashed in my eyes and a heady sense of euphoria rose from my core, scattering the feeling of ecstasy in all directions. “Open your eyes, baby, open them,” he urged as my eyelids fluttered open and my eyes rolled back into focus. When my gaze connected with his, he slowly gave me a sexy, heart-stopping smile. I was glad I was lying down because it made me feel weak.
“Hmm, that was easier than I remember,” he joked as he took his weight on his elbows and settled between my legs. “No fucking condom, right? Skin on skin, I’ve only ever done this with you,” he stated, a serious tone in his voice. Something in that made me believe I was more to him than the others. “I’m gonna fuck you so good you’ll never be able to forget how much I’ve wanted this. How much lust and desire is inside me for you, Hettie Lawson. I said it before, it’s not going to be gentle. You trust me, right?”
His warning was the second in a short time, and the element of threat in his voice wasn’t that he’d hurt me on purpose. It was more like a confession he wasn’t able to hold back. I smiled my reassurance because like he said, if it was the last time we ever connected in this way, I’d be left wanting if he never gave it his all.
Nudging my legs further apart, he stroked his body over mine. The warmth between us, his smell and his skin on mine made me moan with pleasure. “Feels so fucking good, right, baby? I’ve never forgotten how we were that last night. Best night of my life…and the worst,” he disclosed as he rose up over me and dropped his forehead to mine. “You’ve always been in here,” he said, rubbing his brow over mine as he lined himself up at my entrance.
“Take me, Gray, I’m yours,” I said then chided myself for letting something so needy fall from my lips. For a split-second he hesitated, his eyes narrowing. Swallowing roughly, he cocooned my head in his arms, but still made as much contact as he could before gently and slowly, he entered me. I’d forgotten how full he made me feel, that initial stretch and burn as my internal walls adjusted to his size, he was the biggest I’d ever been with…and the best.
For God knows how long we went at it, but he fucked me hard and took me with relentless abandon. He spun me every which way, keeping his word to the point where he slapped my ass when I almost passed out, then kissed the sting away. There was nothing soft and gentle from the moment he made the first buck of his hips. It was a wonder security weren’t called with the noise we both made—well, mainly me with the screams that tore from my lungs. Tugging my hair tight, he extended my neck, biting and marking me. I bit him back more than once, drawing blood when I raked my nails down his back, and pulled his hair at the roots as I clung to him.
Eventually, we collapsed on the bed with me still on top, my head resting over his heart and his hand strumming up and down my back in a way that soothed me. His heartbeat was strong and steady, much slower than it should have been for his efforts, but he was a fit man, and from memory, he’d always recovered quickly back in college.
For someone who had no apparent emotional attachments, he stood out in the bedroom in every way. He wasn’t a gentleman and took what he wanted, but he was far from selfish. He knew when to take charge and when to yield, and he was different from any of my other lovers in that he’d always held me close after sex. He paid attention to me even when he lay exhausted in the afterglow of his lust.
After a while his hands stopped moving when they softly caressed my head and my butt. Once secured me to his side I felt a soft kiss on my temple then he fell asleep.
I lay there listening to him breathing deeply, and with every single breath I felt myself falling deeper into him, but that couldn’t happen because nothing had changed. Gray was still a wandering musician and I didn’t even have a home anymore.
I’d taken a liberty moving in with my sister, but his arrival had opened my eyes to everything Harris was not. But sex between Gray and me wasn’t enough. At thirty-two, no matter how much I loved him—and I knew without a shadow of doubt that I did—we had no future. I wasn’t giving up my life on a whim. I had wasted enough time on men who seemed to like my physical side, but I needed more than that.
After an hour, when Gray was dead to the world, I shed a few tears and eased my way out of his bed. I couldn’t use the bathroom for fear of waking him, so I wiped myself with my panties and pulled on my dress then stuffed my underwear in my purse. I grabbed my shoes off the floor, and quietly crept out of his hotel room.
Once in the corridor, I headed to the elevator stopping to pull on my sandals and I prayed that at that time of night no one would see me do the walk of shame. Heading for the restroom on the ground floor, I made myself as decent as I could, and left the hotel by the side entrance. Taking a cab, I headed home with silent tears and another memory of Gray crushing my heart in my chest. I’d been a fool to go backward, but I wouldn’t have missed being with him for the world.