Vindicate (Recovered Innocence #1)(58)
This morning is a whole other story. There’s a throbbing more incessant than in my finger. She shifts, grazing her thigh across my rock-hard dick. I don’t know if it’s pleasure or pain or some perverse in-between that makes me want to roll her over, part her legs, and drive into her. Or at least play with her a little. I smooth my good hand up her thigh, raising her nightgown. Her skin is soft. I could touch her all day. The edge of her panties is little barrier. I slip a finger under, then another, circling around the edge of the fabric to where she’s hot and…wet. Holy shit. Sliding a finger into her, I stroke through her slickness.
She stirs. This time I know rubbing her leg across my dick is anything but accidental.
“You’re sure you’re up for this?” she asks, her voice still heavy with sleep. “Your finger.”
“Right now I can’t feel anything except what I’m doing to you and what you’re doing to me.” I turn us so I can look down at her. “Are you up for this?”
She widens her legs, giving me better access. “Mmm, I’m getting there.”
Staring down into her amazing blue eyes, I can’t believe what a lucky bastard I am. She’s warm and willing, and in this moment…mine. But she’s made it clear that I’ll get only a few of these moments and that’s it. There is nothing for us beyond this summer.
I kiss her, not giving a shit that my mouth reeks of morning breath or that my body probably stinks just as bad after running down the stairs carrying her. I want her. I want her to want me. Most of all I want her to want a future with me beyond September, beyond Beau’s case. I put everything I’ve got into making love to her. I use all of my tricks. She’s panting, practically begging me for release, but I won’t give it to her. I can feel her annoyance building right along with her need.
She sits up so I can pull her plain cotton nightgown over her head. It floats down onto the bed next to us. She’s naked, looking up at me like I’m everything she needs. But I know I’m not. I can make her come a thousand times in a thousand ways and it won’t change a damn thing between us.
She fists the front of my T-shirt and drags me down on top of her. I’m so f*cking hard for her I can hardly breathe. The scent of her arousal permeates the air around us. I take her in with each inhale. She’s inside me the way my body demands to be inside her, to join with hers. I know what she likes now. I know how to make her beg. I try to make her as hot for me as I am for her, but no matter what I do to her I know she never will be.
She’s close. So damn close. Her head falls back, her lips part. She’s half moaning, half panting, and she’s so goddamned beautiful it makes the backs of my eyes sting. I push her over the edge with my mouth, just the way she likes it. I watch in amazement as her orgasm slams into her. Her whole body goes taut. She grips the sheets, twisting them as she cries out. I pump my dick once, twice. It takes nothing for me to come with her, spilling onto her stomach on a barely suppressed growl.
I’m empty afterward. In every way. I leave her to get a washcloth to clean her up. I can feel her confusion. She expected to lose her virginity. I expected to take it. I told her I would. When it came down to it I just couldn’t.
I can’t take what’s not mine. She’s not mine.
I don’t look at her as I clean her off. I don’t entirely understand the way I feel. She’s going to have questions I have no answers for. The one thing I know for sure is that it has nothing to do with finally getting to have sex with her or making her a trophy like Savannah accused me of. I could have her. In ten or so minutes I could push her back onto the bed again, get her hot for me, and push inside her the way my body cries out to do whenever I’m with her.
It has nothing to do with me being freaked out about being her first. I’m not weirded out by her virginity and it doesn’t add a sick twist to my desire for her either. It’s a factor in that I want her first time to be something she looks back on with good memories and no regrets. It’s a part of her, the way her blue eyes and her chewed-down pinkie nails are.
I need something from her that I can’t express. Until I figure out exactly what that is or if it’s even possible I can’t have sex with her the way she wants me to. And that realization scares the shit out of me because I think I might need her to love me the way I love her. No. It’s more than that. I think I might need her to marry me.
God, I’m such a girl.
If I told my friends any of this shit they’d give me never-ending crap about it. And if I told Cora…Hell. I can’t tell Cora. She’d run so far and fast from me that I’d never recover. She may have already ruined me for anyone else. If she left now, that would be some shit I’d never get over.
I rinse the cloth out in the sink and throw it in the laundry room next to the other jizz-soaked washcloth. At this rate I’ll have to buy Mike a whole package of new washcloths. When I get back to the bedroom, Cora is sitting up in bed, talking on the phone. She pulled her nightgown back on. Her knees are drawn up to her chest underneath the gown and she hugs them, staring out the window at the ocean. She doesn’t acknowledge me or even turn to look at me as I pull my boxers on.
“No,” Cora says into the phone. “I can’t.” There’s a pause. She rocks back and forth. “I don’t think that’s a good idea. Yeah, I’ll let you know if I change my mind, but I doubt I will. I just don’t think of you that way.”