He was shaking. Fucking shaking. His cock throbbed behind his zipper, his need so keen every cell in his body buzzed in anticipation, waiting for Steph to say that magical word.
All because he’d given himself permission to want her, leaving his guts tied in knots and guilt rising like a typhoon over his head. He and Julia had had mutual respect. He’d loved her deeply, but they hadn’t needed each other. Not like this, where all rational thought gave way to a desire so keen he feared losing all control of himself. Steph was an addiction, and like a junkie, he craved his next high.
He stroked a hand down her cheek, reveling in the incredible softness of her skin. “Tell me you want me the way I want you.”
Her eyes danced over his face. In indecision. In torment. Then she sagged back against the wall. “I’ve always wanted you, Gabe.”
That was all he needed to hear. She might be a little gun-shy, but she wanted the same things he did.
He took her hand, pulled her beyond the threshold, taking a moment to close and lock the door, then led her through the living room toward the hallway at the back of her apartment. Once there, he moved inside, stopping at the end of her bed, and turned to her. Gaze locked on hers, he gripped fistfuls of her dress, slowly inching it up her body. He wanted to give her time to protest. Not that she did. Her breathing ramped up a notch, and she lifted her arms, allowing him to pull the dress off over her head. He dropped it at her feet, then hooked her around the waist and tugged her close.
“I believe I owe you an orgasm.” He brushed his mouth over hers, then pulled her onto the bed.
She lay down on her back, heavy-lidded eyes full of heat, just watching him. Lying beside her, he trailed his index finger along her collarbone, down between her breasts, and over her stomach. She looked so beautiful lying there, her golden hair a stark contrast to the deep red of her comforter.
He brushed a kiss across her mouth, then worked his way down her body, following the path his fingers had taken.
“You should know I can’t stay. Molly always brings the kids over bright and early on her days off. I’ll stay as long as I can, but as late as it is, it’ll be only a few hours at most.” He flicked his gaze to hers as he drew his tongue down the column of her throat, ending in the space between her breasts. “But I knew if I didn’t finish what I started earlier there’d be hell to pay later.”
He didn’t give her time to answer, but moved to her left nipple and sucked it into his mouth. She gasped, her nails gliding along his scalp as her fingers dove into his hair. Taking that as a positive sign, he moved to the other breast to repeat the torture, swirling his tongue around the taut tip, drawing it into his mouth, and sucking hard, the way she liked.
Then he let it pop from his mouth, nipped at the side of her breast, and moved slowly down her belly, heading for her sweet thighs. Every deliberate tease drew a reaction from her. Swirling his tongue down to her belly button made her shiver. Nipping at the soft flesh of her flat stomach made her moan and arch her hips upward.
By the time he’d settled on his belly between her thighs, he was trembling right along with her, his erection pressing painfully against his zipper.
Her thighs parted and bent, opening in silent invitation. “Gabe, please. Don’t tease.”
He ignored her pleas and stroked the sensitive skin of her inner thighs with his thumbs, letting them graze her lips. She shivered. Moaned. Using his thumbs, he opened her. In the soft light drifting in from the hallway, her sensitive folds glistened with her arousal, her scent filling his nostrils.
He leaned in and, unable to help himself, dipped his tongue inside. Her sweet, musky flavor filled his mouth, and he groaned.
“Christ, I’d forgotten how good you taste.” She was sweeter than the ripest summer fruit and all woman. He desperately wanted her thighs to clamp around his ears and his name to leave her lips when she came.
He wanted this to be good for her, though, to remind her how good it was between them, so he needed to go slow.
Luckily, he’d been here before. He knew exactly what it took to make her come so hard she’d lose her breath. So he leaned in again, this time pushing his tongue deep, then dragging it slowly up her slit, and ending with a flick over her engorged clit.
As expected, she groaned from down deep and her hips bucked against his mouth. “Gabe, please…”
He let out a quiet laugh. He hadn’t anticipated how aroused she was. He filed the thought away for future reference and flicked her clit again, lightly this time. “Desperate, baby?”
Her fingers fisted in his hair, and her back arched. “Yes!”
He inserted a finger, stroking her inner walls, and peered up at her. “Tell me what you want, Steph.”
He could easily give her what she craved. After all, he knew her body as well as his own. But he wanted to hear her say the words.
She was panting, her harsh breaths loud in the otherwise quiet room. Her hips bucked against his ministrations, forcing his finger to slide in and out of her.
“Make me come, Gabe. With your tongue. Your fingers.” She let out a needy moan. Her hands dropped to the bed beside her, fingers curling into the comforter beneath her. “You know what to do. Please.”
He groaned with her this time. The most erotic sound in the world was her in the throes of an orgasm, and he wanted it almost as badly as she did. Unable to resist any longer, he slid his hands beneath her ass, lifting and angling her, and buried his mouth in her heat.
He’d far underestimated her need. A few flicks of his tongue, and she went rigid beneath him and drew a sharp breath. When he sucked on her clit, she let out a high-pitched cry he was sure they heard two apartments over and began to tremble. Determined to make her orgasm last as long as possible, he kept at her, licking and sucking, and that glorious sound filled his ears. Hands fisted around the comforter, Steph screamed her pleasure, belly and thighs shaking.
When she finally collapsed back on the bed and closed her legs, they were both panting. Gabe kissed his way back up her body. As he settled over her again, her thighs cradled his hips, but the heavy-lidded tenderness in her eyes caught him.
He lifted a hand, brushing the hair off her forehead with the tip of his finger as the emotion rolled around in his chest. He’d been attempting to deny it for years. The guilt it brought would crush him.
“I missed you, too.” He prayed she understood, because he didn’t have it in him to explain, wasn’t sure he even wanted to dissect the feelings behind the words. She’d told him something similar on their first date, and he’d talked his way around it. Now he needed her to know that feeling hadn’t been one-sided. For whatever the hell that was worth to her.
She didn’t say anything. Instead, she lifted up and brushed a tender kiss across his mouth. He knew a stall tactic when he saw one. He was a master at distraction. So he leaned into her, allowed himself a moment to luxuriate in her soft lips tangling with his, then pulled back.
He caressed her bottom lip with his thumb. “Tell me what you’re thinking. I can still see it, you know, when you’re not telling me something. You get the same look on your face you used to get back then.”
“It’s nothing.” She gave him a smile as phony as saccharine and looked off to the left. The tension filling her body didn’t escape his notice either.
He ducked his head and turned his mouth to her ear. “You do realize I can still tell when you’re lying to me, right?” He nipped at the soft flesh of her earlobe. “Out with it.”
When he pulled back again, her gaze searched his face. Finally, she blew out a heavy breath and closed her eyes. “It hurt when I stopped hearing from you. I’ve done the math, Gabe. Charlotte is ten, right? That means she was conceived about two months after you left.”
Guilt tightened his chest. Damn. He’d always figured she had to feel that way. Betrayed. Hurt. He’d done exactly that—he’d dropped her like yesterday’s underwear and moved on to the next woman.
He rolled onto his back beside her and held out an arm, but Steph didn’t curl against him. Instead, she sat up and left the bed, striding toward the doorway. When she got there, however, she stopped, one hand on the frame.
“I’m not holding it against you. It was eleven years ago, and we’ve both changed in that time. But if you want me to pretend it didn’t hurt or that I don’t hesitate to spend more time with you, I can’t do that. I told you. I wanted a weekend with a nice guy, and I’m grateful to you for that. I needed it, in ways I can’t even begin to tell you. But I can’t pretend I’m ready to just jump into this.”
She didn’t wait, but strode through the doorway and down the hallway.
Panic tightened in his chest, setting his heart hammering against his rib cage. Why did it feel like he was losing her all over again? If she walked out of his life, he couldn’t say he’d blame her, but he’d just found her again. He had no desire to let her go yet.
“I thought about you a lot over the years.” He raised his voice, calling out to her as he got out of bed and followed her. He hadn’t a damn clue why he was telling her any of this. It likely wouldn’t dissuade her. All he knew was he couldn’t let her walk away without a fight. Not again. “When Char was born, I ached to call you. When I woke in the hospital, after I lost my leg, you were the first person I wanted to talk to.”
The urge to share with her every triumph over the years had come strong. Eleven years and a lot of distance hadn’t faded the need.
Rounding the hallway, he came to an abrupt halt. Steph stood outside the bathroom, one hand on the knob. When he came up behind her, stopping beyond her personal space, she folded her arms. “Yet you didn’t.”
Her tone was hard to read, and her stiff posture told him she wasn’t giving him an inch. Clearly there was more to this than she’d let on.
Honesty. Right now he needed to be honest with her. In a way he should have been eleven years ago.
He blew out a heavy breath. “I didn’t contact you because I wasn’t sure you’d even want to hear from me anymore.” When he’d left Seattle and gone home to Oregon, he hadn’t handled their relationship with anything even resembling the respect and care she’d deserved. He’d been overwhelmed and had simply acted on instinct. One foot in front of the other. His parents’ deaths had altered his whole life, throwing him into a loop that had taken him years to finally come to terms with.
He’d fucked up, plain and simple. All the sorry in the world didn’t atone for it. All he could do now was explain and hope for the best.
“I never told Julia about us because our relationship started on shaky ground. Knowing about you would’ve hurt her, and I couldn’t do that to her.”
He’d missed Steph in ways a man married to another shouldn’t. The guilt alone had eaten him alive. If he told her the truth, would she hold that against him or understand he’d never stopped caring about her?
“I just wanted you to know I thought about you. A lot.”
She turned her head and stared at him, eyes reaching and searching. It wasn’t the most romantic thing he’d ever told a woman before, but the admission was of the heart on the sleeve variety. He hadn’t ever done that with anyone but her. Sadly, not even Julia.
Finally, her shoulders relaxed. “Thank you for being honest with me.”
She didn’t give him time to respond, but pivoted and moved into the bathroom, shutting the door behind her. He stared at the dark wood for a moment. He ought to leave now, let her have her space.
The pain twisting his gut into knots, however, wouldn’t let him. Not like this. So, he returned to the bedroom and took a seat on the end of the bed. He’d let her have her space, but he wasn’t letting this go that easily. He’d waited eleven years to clear the air with her. To tell her she’d meant more to him than a casual fuck. He needed her to know it, to believe it.
He shoved a shaky hand through his hair and glared at the opposite wall. He also wanted more time with her. Goddammit. Maybe even more than a casual fling, if he was really honest with himself. He hadn’t expected to want to move on so soon, but he liked the way he felt when he was with her. Steph made him want to live, and he wanted to run with that feeling.
When Steph finally returned to the bedroom a few minutes later, she came up short in the doorway. “I thought you’d have left by now.”
He pushed to his feet, slowly crossed the space, and stopped in front of her. He wanted to give her time to object, because if he pushed her too far, he had a feeling she’d bolt. “If you want me to leave, I will, but not until you tell me what you’re thinking. We used to talk to each other, Steph. Stop shutting me out.”
“What do you want me to say?” She shot him an irritated glance and moved around him to the dresser. There, she pulled open the top drawer, reached in, and came out with a pair of red silk panties. After stepping into them, she went into a lower drawer for a T-shirt, got one out and tugged it over her head. “It was eleven years ago. It’s over.”
He turned to watch as she climbed into bed. He wanted, ached, and needed to follow her, but clearly she didn’t want him to, so he wouldn’t push. At least, not tonight. “Then why do I get the feeling you’re not telling me something?”
She slid beneath the sheets but kept her gaze on her lap, hands smoothing, restless, over the comforter. After a moment, her hands stilled, and she let out a heartfelt sigh, her shoulders rounding. “It’s very disconcerting that you can still read me so well. You’re right. I’m not. Maybe someday I’ll share it with you, but I’m not comfortable doing it now.”
His gut clenched. Damn. There was that wall again.
He crossed to the bed, took a seat, and picked up her right hand. Despite her stiff posture, she didn’t pull it back, but neither would she look at him. She was putting up big walls against him, and he hated it with every fiber of his being. He’d seen that look on her face too damn many times. She used to give him similar ones in college, but he’d been too wrapped up in himself to figure out why.
“Give me a month, Steph. I won’t make you any promises I can’t keep, and you can uphold whatever boundaries you need. But I need you, and I think you want the same thing. Clearly I’ve hurt you, and I’d like a chance to make up for it.” He stroked his fingers over her knuckles, heart in his throat. “For now I’ll go. But this isn’t over. Not by a long shot.”
He leaned over, kissed her shoulder, and rose from the bed. He’d give her space, but one thing had become crystal clear. She didn’t trust him.
He hated it. It ate away at his insides, because he couldn’t help wondering. Was this stony wall because of him? Or because of that asshole who’d stood her up? Either way, he knew one thing right then: he’d earn her trust or die trying. Damned if he didn’t want to be the one to prove to her that not all men were like her ex.
Despite her hesitations, she still responded to his touch. She was comfortable with sex. So that was where he’d start.