Chapter Sixteen
Liz
I’d chatted off and on with CMDiver. We hadn’t exchanged names; the Scintilla site asked all its users to keep personal details out of the chat rooms as much as possible, so instead we’d shared brief messages about our careers in very vague terms. He seemed like an okay guy, and I had to admit I was starting to look forward to our date when we could actually get each other’s names and see if we were compatible in person.
At the same time, I was pretty pissed at Jamie still. It was rude of him to ignore me like this. We’d had sex several times, for goodness’ sake. Seemed like he could at least say hello when he came back into town. I looked out my home office window and saw lights on at his place. Jerk.
CMDiver’s most recent message blinked on my computer screen. Looking forward to Saturday. You?
Definitely. I’ll see you then.
One light went off at Jamie’s house, and another went on. It just galled me that he could be walking around over there, not a care in the world, while I was stewing over here.
That was it. I closed the Internet browser, shut off my computer, and marched downstairs. I was going to give that Jamie Tolbert a piece of my mind. I slid on a pair of flip flops and grabbed a hoodie from the hooks next to my door, then I headed out, armed with nothing but my righteous indignation.
I knocked on his door. It opened almost immediately.
There I stood, faced with the man who had taken a starring role in all my obsessive thoughts for the past week. His hair was slightly damp, like he’d just gotten out of the shower, and he wore only a pair of sweats. No shirt. I tried not to stare at his muscles. Those abs. I really tried.
Finally, I pried my attention away from his cut torso and looked directly at his face. His gaze was locked on my face, too, and I watched his eyes dip down to my mouth.
He grabbed my hand and pulled me into the house, then slammed the door after. He fumbled behind me, and I heard the lock click into place. Then he pressed me against the door and his mouth was on mine.
“Liz,” he whispered between kisses. “I missed you.”
His stubble was scratchy against my face and I loved it. So rough, manly. I held his shoulders as his arms came around me, tugging me closer to him. He palmed my ass, and I pressed my front against his hard length.
We were really going to do this. Again. A small part of me wanted to protest—because if this ended, again, like it had before, with him ignoring me and pretending nothing ever happened, then I was going to spin wheelies in his front yard and throw eggs at his house. But that part of my brain shut down as his mouth went for mine again, and another searing kiss took my breath away.
I gasped as his hand eased under my shirt, caressing the skin of my waist.
“Upstairs?” he asked. “You want the tour?”
“Yes,” I breathed.
He held my hand and led me upstairs. I hadn’t been up here before—we’d never made it this far. The art on the walls was expensive-looking, but tasteful. Some modern art, a reproduction of a Pollack. In any other situation, I would have stopped to stare at it, but Jamie’s arms were warm about me. He kept in contact with some part of my skin the entire way down the hall, almost as if he were afraid that if he stopped touching me, I’d disappear.
We reached an open door, and he walked me through it. “This is my bedroom.”
I gave a little laugh. “What about my tour?”
“This is it.” He gave me a silly grin. “This is the place where I’ll take you to new heights.”
I laughed. “Dork.”
But then he crowded into me, pressing me against the wall. “Mm, I think I’ll get you to call me something else. Sex god. Or just, oh, right there.”
“I’m up for the challenge,” I said.
“So am I.” He pressed against me, and I felt his length once more. Then he kissed me again. No thought, no reason—we were nothing but mouths and hands and bodies, touching in heat and lust. He worked his hand into my leggings, his fingers brushing over my panty-clad mound. I gasped, straining forward, desiring more contact than I currently had. He shoved my panties aside, and then his finger was inside me.
I moaned, kissing him deeper. He stroked me, and I felt myself get hotter. I felt flushed and insatiable, a creature made of want and need.
He had one hand in my panties, and the other one traveled underneath my shirt. He gently brushed his fingers over one of my nipples, the barest brush of contact.
“Oh god, Jamie, right there,” I said.
“Gotcha,” he whispered, but I didn’t care that he had me, I just wanted him to continue like that, never stopping. The pleasure built inside me until I came, feeling turned inside out in pleasure.
“Clothes off,” Jamie said, and he shoved his sweatpants down and stepped out of them.
I leaned against the wall, legs shaking from the strength of my orgasm. “I don’t know if I can,” I said.
“I was hoping you’d say that.” He came forward again and helped me out of my shirt, leggings, and undergarments, until I stood naked before him.
“This was exactly what I had in mind,” he said, feasting his eyes on my body. He stepped forward and kissed me—a kiss full of lust, yes, but there was something else in it. A yearning, a question. I answered it as best I knew how, by opening myself to him again.
He led me to the bed, our hands roaming each other’s bodies, touch upon touch. I lay beneath him, glad to have my hands free to touch him even more. The hard curves of his shoulders, the muscles bulging as he moved above me. I could feel his cock nudging my leg as we kissed, a reminder that there was so much more pleasure to be had. I reached down and found it with my hand, gave it an experimental squeeze.
“Oh, Liz,” Jamie said, and resumed kissing me. He kissed my mouth, my cheeks, my ear—which he gently nipped—before moving down the column of my neck. When he suckled on first one breast, then the other, I thought I would come undone all over again.
“I want you,” I whispered, squeezing him again.
He pulled away to grab a condom from his nightstand. After a second, he was stretched out above me once more, his cock pressing insistently at my entrance.
I opened my legs wider, allowing him more room, and then he thrust inside. My first orgasm had been good, fueled by a week’s worth of frustration and confusion and anger. But this—this was something different. I could feel that same question, that same yearning, in Jamie’s movements. This wasn’t just fucking. There was feeling in it. I hesitated to think of it as making love, because we weren’t even a couple, but it was as if Jamie was asking for more. With every stroke inside me, his gaze never wavered from mine. I closed my eyes, lost in the sensation, but he said, “Look at me, Liz. Let me see you.”
I would have given him anything right then, so I kept my eyes open, watching his eyes, his beautiful face, hardened in concentration and lust. His pelvis nudged against my clit with every stroke he made inside me, until the pleasure coursing through my body once again had a focus.
“I’m coming again,” I whispered, struggling to keep my eyes open.
He kept moving that same way, winding me up tighter and tighter, until finally I shattered once more, crying out his name.
He pumped harder and faster until he tensed above me. “Liz,” he said, freezing, and I felt him pulsing inside, taking his own pleasure, taking mine, giving it back, an endless loop of lust and affection.