“Is this okay?” he whispers. “I need this to be okay.”
I don’t answer with words.
Instead, I cover his mouth with mine and reach for the hem of his shirt.
Is this okay?
No. It’s not okay. It’s the absolute wrong thing to do, and even through the sleepy haze and the lust and desire battling in my chest, I know that.
As his peppermint breath mingles with mine, I wonder if it’s so wrong why it feels so right, like every single dream I’ve had for the past two months and ten years is finally, finally becoming a reality.
I pull his shirt over his head and toss it. I don’t know if it ends up on Brian’s bed, somewhere beside us or on the floor. It doesn’t matter. What matters is that it’s gone and there’s no barrier between our chests, between the smooth skin of his back and my fingertips.
His chest slides against my breasts, stimulating me with all the pent-up desire I’ve silently held inside for him as he moves over me.
It’s true that I’ve already gotten off twice tonight under the skilled maneuvers of another man. I’ve never been with more than one man in a single night—probably not even in a single month. This isn’t me, this animal that’s gyrating against a rock star, but an ache has stabbed at me since the single night I shared with Mark Ashton. No matter how many times his brother has pleasured me in the days since I was last with Mark, the ache is always there, penetrating my core and ungluing my mind.
“One night wasn’t enough,” he whispers as his hips slam against mine. His jeans are rough against my naked skin, and I let out a grunt as I wrap my legs around him. He feathers kisses against my neck, trailing toward my ear. “You can’t be here like a goddamn goddess while he gets to be with you and I don’t. It’s fucking torture.” His voice is low against my ear as his agony reverberates through my chest. His hips slam against me again. His erection pressing against the zipper of his jeans has grown harder and thicker in the split second between each buck of his hips, and a cry rips out from my chest.
“I’m sorry,” I grunt, my voice shaky and choppy from his rhythmic thrusts. He’s not even naked yet and I think I’m about to come.
His mouth moves against mine and his tongue glides gently with mine in some rhythmic language only the two of us know. He kisses me like he’s worshipping me, and I believe this is real. This isn’t a dream or a game or some competition. This is how it’s supposed to be, and it’s that thought that allows me to slide my hands down the back of his jeans and grab a fistful of muscled ass. I pull him tighter against me as I push my pelvis toward him, and he groans into my mouth. I skate my nails up his back.
He pulls back from the kiss and gazes tenderly down at me in the dark, and every emotional moment from that one night we shared is pushed back to the surface. Every feeling of passion and desire and possibly love flows between us like a beam of light pulling us together. His face is shadowed, and I can’t see the color of his eyes, but I can still see the need there. I palm his cheek, and he closes his eyes as if he’s in pain.
I move my hand and he opens his eyes again.
“I need this…need you,” he pants.
I nod, my eyes hot on his, and the one flick of my head mixed with the desire in my eyes is all he needs. His jeans are off in an instant. He grabs a condom from the nightstand beside us, and while the thought that we’re using Brian’s condoms to do this should throw a bucket of cold water over what we’re doing, it doesn’t. I push him from my mind and forge ahead willingly because this moment has no alternate ending.
Mark plunges his finger into me, moving it in and out at an agonizingly slow pace. My hips buck of their own accord to meet the excruciating thrusts. His lips find mine again, just for a few glorious seconds, then he trails down to pull a nipple between his teeth. I cry out from the pleasure twisting through my body. He owns me.
He knows exactly what to do, how to touch, when to kiss, where to suck. I fall apart beneath him in the dark shadows of another man’s bedroom. I cry out as my body contracts around his fingers, pulsing and throbbing until I think I might die from the pleasure, and just as the tightening starts to subside a little, he pushes his steel erection inside me.
“Jesus, fuck, that’s so good,” he mutters.
He pushes in as far as he can go and holds himself steady inside me as my body continues its slow throbs. We both moan at the pure carnality of it all. The only thing holding us separate is the condom, and I wish it wasn’t there. I wish it could be just us, silk against velvet, skin to skin.
I don’t think of his past, don’t think why that might be a bad idea, not when he’s inside me, but I want it wholeheartedly. I want him—every bit of him, every flaw and every virtue. I want to go to dinner with him, to hold his hand, to snuggle in his bed.
I want a life with him, and as he stills inside me, for that one moment...I believe it can happen.
He pulls his hips back before propelling forward, and I close my eyes to relish every sensation. I don’t want this to end—ever—but nothing lasts forever, and this moment will pass me by just like every other moment I never wanted to end. I focus on every feeling I can, every movement. I memorize it all, because what if this is the last time? What if this never happens again? There are so many what-ifs, so many unknowns, and I’m terrified for it to end, to face any of it in the morning when all I want is for this never to stop.
He holds himself up by one tattooed arm as he thrusts in and out of me, caressing my face, my arms, my chest. He kisses me as he moans, his hips gentle against mine, occasionally holding still inside me before slipping back and driving forward again.
He whispers tenderly to me between groans and moans as he nips my neck. “You’re all I’ve wanted since that night.” “Better than I remember.” “Perfect.” “A little like destiny.”
His words are a total contradiction to what I’d have expected out of him. He’s tender and gentle, sweet and sincere. It’s reminiscent of our one night, yet it’s different and intense. He pushes me higher as I pant beneath him, not sure what to say, not sure how to respond to his words, not sure if I should even be doing this as I’m conflictingly confident this is exactly how it should be.
It doesn’t matter that I want this to last forever; my body betrays me. Despite the three times I’ve already come tonight at the hands of two different men, I’m sent spinning into a fourth orgasm, and it’s by far the strongest and most brutal of them all. I stiffen everywhere, and Mark grunts above me. “Holy fuck,” he murmurs, and then he lets out a low growl as his thrusts pick up speed and I lose all control beneath him. The spring breaks and I claw my fingers into his back as waves of pleasure repetitively pulse through me. I can’t stop crying out as the throbbing goes on and on and on, my body constricting around him and milking him forcefully inside me. He cries out, too, as he falls apart above me.
I open my eyes to watch his face as he comes, a beautiful sight to behold. Pleasure twists his expression. I almost need a shield against the pure devotion I see—something I never thought I’d see from his eyes to mine. He’s this untouchable rock star, this god among men, and he’s looking at me with all his pent-up emotion.
It’s too much for me to take, so I close my eyes and lean my head back. His lips land unexpectedly on mine, and I kiss him with everything I’ve bottled inside. All the feelings, all the desire I’ve had for this man for so long, all the fantasies I’ve had about him for ten years plus the darker and deeper turns my heart has taken in the last couple of months. I want this, want him, and I want it forever.
As the glow starts to wane, though, I’m hit with what I know.
He doesn’t do forever. No matter how much I see there in his eyes, I’m seeing what I want to see in the quiet moments after a ruthless orgasm. No matter how much I want it to be true, I'm afraid it just…isn’t.
And even if it is, he’s Mark Ashton. He’s a rock star adored by women everywhere. I would never fit into his lifestyle no matter how much I want it.
He kisses me forever. I lose track of time as his tongue moves in my mouth, tasting me tasting him. Somehow even after all that, I still get a hint of peppermint, and I want to live inside this feeling for the rest of my life.
Eventually he stops and rests on top of me as he slips out. I miss him instantly, miss that connection we shared.
He kisses my shoulder. “I should go,” he murmurs.
I’m snapped back to reality.
He’s leaving.
He’s leaving because he has to leave. This is his bed in his house, but it’s not.
It’s his brother’s bed. His brother’s room. His brother’s girlfriend.
I don’t respond because I’m afraid he’ll hear all the unshed tears in my voice. I wait for him to put his jeans back on, to find his shirt and pull it over his head, for him to kiss me gently one last time as no further words are exchanged between us.
He slips out of the room, and that’s when I’m done waiting. The unshed tears drop from my lashes.
It’s over, again.
I don’t even have the consolation that it’ll happen again, because I can’t let it. I can’t do it to Brian.
I won’t.
It was a one-time indiscretion that won't happen again.