Overnight Sensation(82)

I inhale, taking in citrus and warmth.

Heidi.

I’d begged her to come to my hotel and warm my bed. But I hadn’t counted on needing a night of solitude to get my crazy head in line. So now I lay very still and slow my breathing, asking my body to sleep. It’s the only way to get out of my head.

But Heidi’s scent is too present, her skin too warm, her curves tucked against my greedy body. Unbidden, my thumb strokes the underside of her breast. And the sigh she makes is full of awareness and heat.

My blood stirs. Of course it does.

Right after Lissa died, I assumed I wouldn’t think about sex ever again. But I was an eighteen-year-old guy. My libido barely took a vacation. I spent the year after I lost her horny and upset about it. Then I went off to college, where nobody knew me as the boyfriend of the dead girl. So I started hooking up on the regular. No relationships, of course. Just sex.

And that was the way it went for six years. Until now.

Heidi tries to roll over, reaching for me. But I can’t let that happen. She’ll see all the pain I’m in.

So I use my strength to stop her. I force her to remain on her side, facing the other way. So what if she lets out a shocked gasp at my rough treatment? She likes me in control. I kiss the back of her neck as a show of tenderness. She tastes sweet, and I let my tongue linger. Meanwhile, I give each of her nipples a rude pinch.

She moans, and I close my eyes against that sound. It feels wrong to do this. I shouldn’t fuck one girl while I’m all tangled up over another one. Worse—I shouldn’t shut Heidi out. She cares about me. I know in my gut that she’d want to hear what’s on my mind.

If I stopped right now—if I wasn’t slipping my hand down between her legs—she’d be happy to listen. She’d hold me and say all the right things. There’s probably a unit at charm school for what to say to the fucked up and grieving.

But I don’t do the right thing. I lock my arms around her, dipping my fingertips into her pussy, sliding her wetness over her clit until she clenches her thighs around my hand. I suck on her neck and tease her until my hand is drenched, and my cock is so hard I can’t stand it.

Heidi and I have the kind of sex that you don’t have with strangers. It’s raw and trusting and free. I’ve really let down my guard with her. I see that now.

And maybe that was a mistake. As I lift her leg and line up my cock, I feel unhinged. So much for keeping my emotions on lockdown. With a broken cry, I push inside her slick heat. No condom. We discussed this already, so it’s not a violation of her trust. We’re protected against pregnancy, and I just got tested.

But I’m not protected against losing my ever-loving mind. Tonight I’m all about the pain and the self-torture. She feels so good that I have to hold still for a moment, groaning into her hair, clenching my muscles around her small body. My eyes are hot, and my skin is on fire.

I don’t deserve to experience such intense physical pleasure. My heart shreds itself into tiny pieces as I begin to move. I’ve got Heidi in an iron embrace. She struggles, clenching her sweet body around my cock, rocking her hips—or trying to.

But everything is on my terms. It has to be. Anything else will break me tonight. So I slow my breathing and fuck her slowly. She moans every time I slide deeper inside. Her smooth hands are locked onto mine. They’re begging me to touch her further.

I close my eyes and try to hold on to this exquisite moment. My mouth explores the side of Heidi’s neck, as I try to drown all my senses in her body. My teeth find the cord of muscle between her neck and her shoulder. I bite down gently, and Heidi whimpers.

Then she gets impossibly wet, and my control begins to slip. I fuck her more urgently. I slip a hand over her pussy, and she sobs in gratitude, riding my hand, taking my cock in heated thrusts.

Usually I run my mouth during sex. Tonight words fail me. In the silence, I hear Heidi take a deep, shuddering breath. Then she gasps as she climaxes around my aching cock. I feel every ripple, every flutter as she comes. And I just lose it. I make a broken sound, and shoot inside her, biting my lip, groaning, and trying not to remember that the last person I filled up with my come had disappeared from this earth forever.

“Jesus,” Heidi breathes into the sheets a moment later.

I still can’t make myself talk. But I do roll her gently onto my chest and kiss her mouth. My hands wander lovingly through her hair, and my fingertips caress her back.

Right now I’m two people. One of them is closed off and silent, unable to get past the horror of years past. The other one is a tender lover, returning affection like a good boyfriend should.

“Are you okay?” she whispers, curling closer to me.

“Yeah,” I lie. “Of course.”





32





Heidi


“Heidi, slow down,” my sister says into my ear. “You’re not making a whole lot of sense right now.”

She’s right. I’ve been rambling into the phone at her, because everything is wrong, and I don’t know how to fix it.

“Let me get this straight—you said Jason is acting too much like a boyfriend. And then you said he isn’t acting enough like a boyfriend. Do you see why I’m confused?”

“But it’s true,” I hiss. “He went completely caveman-protective of me, and I didn’t like it.”