Just One Year(51)

Her eyes shone with tears, and she echoed exactly what I’d been feeling inside. “I don’t want anyone else. I want you.”

What was I supposed to say to that? Sorry? You can’t have me?

I wanted her so damn badly right now—in every way.

“I just wish we could go somewhere right now,” she said.

I brushed a hair off her face. “Somewhere?”

“Somewhere away from everyone. Somewhere we could be alone.”

My heart beat faster by the second because I knew I was readying to give her what she wanted. “If we were totally alone, that would be very bad. You know that, right?”

“Yes, I do,” she answered immediately.

The raw sexual hunger in her eyes likely mirrored my own. I sometimes treated Teagan like an innocent girl when she was very much a woman—at least, in this moment she seemed to be. She needed me just as much as I needed her.

Pulling her by the hair gently toward me, I growled over her lips. “You want that, don’t you? You want me to lose control.”

The sounds of the city faded away.

“Yes. Very much.” Teagan trembled.

I rubbed my hands over her arms. “Jesus. You’re shaking.”

“You’ve been so scared to touch me, Caleb. I’m scared I’ll never know what it’s like to be with you, that I’ll always wonder. We’re running out of time, and I can’t focus on anything else. I feel like I’m going crazy.”

Taking her face in my hands, I brought her mouth to mine again as my heart pummeled against my chest. As our tongues collided, I knew I’d finally reached my breaking point. For the first time since I’d developed feelings for her, letting go felt like the only choice.

When I released her lips, I took her hand. “Come on.”

“Where are we going?”

“You’ll see,” I said.

She followed me down the street, our pace hurried. It was just a short walk to the Marriott Long Wharf Hotel.

When we arrived, I pushed through the revolving doors in a haze. My heart beat out of my chest as we approached the front desk. My ears pounded right along with it.

“Do you have an available room?”

Now it was up to fate. If they didn’t have a room, that would be a sign from the universe that this was all a mistake.

The clerk clicked on some keys. “Just one night?”

Thump.

Thump.

Thump.

Was that my head or my ears?

I cleared my throat. “Yes. One night.”

“One bed or two?”

I looked at Teagan. “One.”

When she smiled at me, I calmed down a bit.

He tapped on the computer some more and then looked up. “Card and ID, please.”

This is happening.

I squeezed Teagan’s hand, still unable to believe how reckless we were being right now. What is this life? One minute I was picking Teagan up for maybe a quick dinner or a movie, and the next we were about to go up to a hotel room and fuck. It felt terribly wrong—yet oddly right at the same time. There wasn’t any going back now.

“Here you go, sir.” He handed me a key card and went on about a WiFi password and other things that were completely going in one ear and out the other. Who could concentrate on meaningless information at a time like this?

“Thank you,” I said as we walked away.

My blood vibrated in my body. You’d think I was about to dive off a board at the Olympics.

Jesus. Why was I so nervous? I’d had sex plenty of times. But never had it mattered the way it seemed to matter now. Never had it mattered at all.

Teagan followed me to the lift, which was empty. When the doors closed and we were alone, I whispered in her ear. “Are you sure you want to do this?”

As nervous as I was, I silently begged for her to say yes.

She looked me straight in the eyes. “I’m sure, Caleb.”

I squeezed her hand.

Well, it seems we’ve finally lost control.

But at least we’d lost it together.

I always carried two condoms in my wallet. I’d never had to use them so unexpectedly, but I thanked God I had them with me right now.

When the lift doors dinged open on our floor, Teagan took my hand as we went down the hallway. A couple of kids wrapped in towels skidded past us, returning from the pool. The bright orange carpet with blue designs almost seemed psychedelic in my continued fog. Perhaps all of my heightened senses were causing a distortion.

I pressed the key card to the door and pushed it open. Teagan was so close, practically stuck to my back as we entered. The heavy hotel door latched shut behind us. Then, everything happened in rapid succession.

We fell together onto the bed, a mess of hormones gone awry. Never more aroused in my life, I was so hard I thought I might explode in my jeans.

“Do whatever you want to me…” She spoke over my lips. “Just don’t stop.”

The raw need in her voice drove me even further into a frenzy. Teagan lay on top of me as I worked to pull her shirt over her head, no easy feat when two people refuse to break their kiss for even a millisecond. My tongue was so far down her throat, I hoped I wasn’t choking her.

Teagan was grinding her pussy over my cock so hard I worried I’d come from the friction alone. I needed to be inside her before that happened.