With Every Heartbeat (Forbidden Men, #4)(55)

She sighed and let her shoulders slump, telling me how much I’d just dissatisfied her. “I can’t. Zoey wants me to spend the day with her.”

From the attitude in the way she answered me, I didn’t believe her. In fact, I think she only said no as a way to punish me for not giving her her way. The urge to apologize rose in my throat, but I swallowed it down even though I wasn’t sorry; I just hated displeasing anyone.

Then another thought occurred to me. “Zoey wanted you to spend the day with her?” I asked, cocking my head to the side. “But she just told me she was going to the game with Caroline tomorrow.”

Cora’s brow puckered with confusion, and then she slowly shook her head. “No. I didn’t say Zoey. I said Rachel.”

“Uh...no. You said—”

“I said Rachel,” she bit out aggressively and stepped closer to me, her mouth tight with displeasure. “Maybe you have so much Zoey on the brain that’s what you thought you heard.”

I flushed and glanced away. I’d been certain she’d said Zoey, but crap, had she said Rachel? Was I thinking about Zoey too much?

Mumbling, I nodded. “Okay. Sorry.” Great, I’d ended up apologizing anyway. “Call me after the game whenever you get home then. I don’t have to work. We can do something if you want.”

Cora’s frown immediately ironed into a smile. “Sure thing, baby.” She smoothed her hand over my chest and reached up on her tiptoes to give me a kiss. I’m not sure why I shifted my face at the last moment so that she merely glanced the side of my lip instead of giving me full mouth-to-mouth contact. Kissing her right then just didn’t feel right.

I stroked my fingers down her hair, though, and gave her a smile before bidding her farewell. Then I escaped the kitchen. I controlled the next impulse I had; I didn’t glance back at Zoey’s closed bedroom door as I walked down the hall.



The next day, we won our second home football game of the season. Cora never called. I tried contacting her but was sent straight to voice mail, so I just chilled at home before heading to bed.

Late that night, I once again woke in the early hours, all because of a disturbing dream. But this one wasn’t a nightmare. Not by a long shot. Yet it rattled me just the same. Testosterone flowed so thickly through my veins that my erection literally throbbed for release. I was tempted to reach down and take care of myself, just to alleviate some of the pressure in my groin, except I felt too guilty.

It had started as a normal enough wet dream. I was rolling around naked on a bed with Cora until she pinned me down on my back and crawled on top of me, straddling my lap. Just when I swear I could almost feel her sit on me and take me inside her, Zoey appeared out of nowhere. Her heady shampoo scent filled my nostrils. She was wearing the same sleep shirt she’d been in the night before, with her bare cigarette-butt-burned shoulder on display. But this time around, her nipples were hard and poking through the thin cloth.

Her green eyes were full of heat and longing when she met my hungry gaze. “Eat me,” she begged as she gathered up the hem of her nightshirt, exposing her legs and climbing on top of me to frame my head with her thighs. I wanted my mouth on her and my tongue inside her so bad; my jaw began to ache and my mouth watered.

I closed my eyes, eager for her to sit on my face, just as Cora did sit on my dick, taking me deep and tight.

My eyes shot open as I realized I was awake and alone in my own bed, gripping myself and pumping my fist up and down the heavy column. I hadn’t meant to take care of myself at all. But I ached so much I actually hurt. And my hand kept moving, sliding up and down, no matter how loudly my brain was shrieking at me to stop; I didn’t stop until I was coming all over my stomach. And I just kept coming. It was one of the strongest orgasms I’d ever had. I ground the heels of my feet into my mattress and gritted my teeth as I humped my hips into my fist. It would’ve been so much better if I’d been inside a woman. I tried to picture Cora’s face as the last strong burst left me, but it ended up being green eyes I saw watching me, not blue.

Feeling awful because I hadn’t been able to help myself, I covered my head with my hands and physically tried to push the stray leftover images of Zoey and Cora together out of my head.

I couldn’t get back to sleep, so I ended up taking a shower—a freezing one—at the crack of dawn.

Becoming sexually active must’ve ruined me. Now that I knew what certain things felt like, I wanted them. A lot. It had been over a week since Cora and I had been together, which was actually the biggest dry spell for us.

I was a mess; there was no other way to explain it. It seemed like no matter what I did, it was going to be the wrong decision. Sleeping with Cora last night would’ve been bad because I knew I would’ve had thoughts of Zoey. But not sleeping with her had felt wrong too, because I’d already been having thoughts of Zoey.

I just needed to stop having thoughts about Zoey. Except the more I tried, the more thoughts of her that came.

Physical exercise seemed to be the only thing to clear my head when something was bothering me, so I found myself at the university’s twenty-four-hour activities center. The weight room was dead at this time of day, which left me with free reign of the place.

I spent a couple hours there.

The burn in my muscles when I finished felt good. I kind of didn’t want to stop, so I jogged another mile around the indoor track and finally hit the showers before heading home. Ten was still asleep when I arrived, so I made him some breakfast.