Love Unexpected

by Louise Bay

  Blake took a deep breath and kissed me on the forehead. “Perhaps you need to be a little more selfish. What you want is important. It can’t all be about the other person. It’s an exchange—every relationship is. It can’t be all one way.”

  I let him pull me closer. I didn’t have a response. It made sense, but I wasn’t sure that was how it worked in reality. I enjoyed making my boyfriend happy, enjoyed having men fall in love with me. That was the order of my relationships. I made my boyfriend happy, he fell in love with me, then I fell in love with him. It had always been that way. But then, in the last act, everything fell apart.

  “It doesn’t work anyway. They always leave me no matter how good I am.”

  “That’s an interesting way to have described it.”

  Images flashed through my head of me as a little girl, sitting at the top of the stairs watching my dad leave. I’d always blamed my mother for him leaving. We wouldn’t have been alone if she hadn’t cried so much, shouted at him so often. Or if I’d smiled more. He always liked it when I smiled.

  Blake pulling me closer brought me back into the moment. I wasn’t upset about my dad—it was all too long ago. It was this place that was driving me crazy. “And the shaman,” I blurted when Blake didn’t say anything. “Why did he refuse to speak to my dead relatives? If I have a problem then send me a fucking solution. All the other girls have got something to look forward to.”

  “Maybe that’s a good thing. You’ve found your guy, right? Maybe your fiancé is going to realize what he let go.”

  I squirmed at the reality of having a conversation about Phil and me with a man I hardly knew but who could make me come as easily as he snapped his fingers. It was as if we inhabited a special planet where the normal rules of dating and relationships didn’t apply. I didn’t want to taint it.

  Talking about the possibility of getting back with someone in my past with Blake sent a shiver up my spine. Although we were suspended in this altered reality, being with Blake made me hungry for something more than what my past had to offer me.

  I was beginning to realize that as much as I was sad to lose Phil, I’d been more upset that I wasn’t getting married. To anyone.

  I looked up at Blake. “Is this weird? Talking about this stuff? We hardly know each other and yet physically . . .”

  Blake shook his head. “Maybe it should be, but I don’t feel weird about it. It’s good to talk. You’re easy to talk to.”

  “But we’re talking all about me. Tell me something about you.”

  He chuckled. “Is this what you do? Deflect attention away from you back onto who you’re with? Make them the center of everything?”

  I thought about it for a second. That was exactly what I did in my relationships. It had never felt anything but normal before. “I think so. But I’ve talked about me and so now it’s your turn. It can’t just be all one way. It’s meant to be an exchange.” I grinned at him.

  “I walked straight into that one, didn’t I?”

  I nodded, smiling, and Blake smoothed his palm across my lower back. “I’m boring. There’s nothing much to talk about.” He brushed his thumb over my mouth and it was as if he were administering narcotics; my body sagged and my need for him grew.

  I caught his wrist before I lost all resistance. “Hey. If I can’t deflect than neither can you.”

  He groaned but pulled me tighter. “Don’t say I didn’t give you advance warning of how uninteresting this dilemma is.” I stayed quiet, not wanting to interrupt. “So I’m trying to decide on two job offers. One’s a promotion with the company I’m with in Oklahoma City. The other one . . .” He paused. “The other one is more of a risk. It would mean I’d have to move away from my family.” He ran his hands up and down my back and my skin tightened under his touch.

  “The second option is appealing because?” I asked. I’d been completely caught up in my drama and Blake was at just as much of a crossroads in his life as I was. How had I shared so much with him already and not known this about him?

  “Because I’ve always wanted to have the chance to really make a difference. This could be my opportunity. And I’d get to work for myself, with an investment from a big company. But I’ve worked hard in Oklahoma City. I deserve the promotion I’m being offered.” He shifted onto his back and stuck one hand behind his head, his other still stroking my back as I leaned over his chest. “And, I’d have to move back to where I went to college. And college wasn’t a happy time in my life.”

  “And the second option? It’s a now or never deal?” I asked, tracing my fingers up his thick, tight arms.

  “Yeah. I have a week to make up my mind.”

  Here I was drowning in all my madness, oblivious that Blake had this huge life choice ahead of him. It summed up how different our interactions were compared to previous men in my life. I was so used to focusing on them and pushing myself to the background. It wasn’t usual for someone to want to know about me. Blake’s decision was huge—a choice between his old life or a new one. I kinda knew how that felt.

  “So you’ve come back to—”

  “Get some space, talk to Brianna, much good that did.”

  “What did Brianna say?” I asked, intrigued that she was giving advice to Blake as well as the paying guests.

  “She didn’t understand. She called me a chicken shit. It just descended into pre-pubescent madness.”

  “Chicken shit?” I laughed for the first time that day. “How come?”

  Blake pulled in a deep breath. “I don’t know. She thinks if I stay in Oklahoma City it’s because I’m scared, but I genuinely like it there. It’s not as easy as she says it is.”

  “So you’re happy in Oklahoma City, and this start-up would be better work but you don’t like the location?”

  Blake scrubbed his face. “Kinda. The start-up could let me really make a difference, but of course nothing is certain. It could be a big failure, but there’s an outside chance it could be exactly what I was put on this earth to do. But it feels like I’ve been asked to jump out of a plane without a parachute.”

  “Wow.” What was I here to do? I’d lost all sight of the big stuff because I’d been so focused on my plan. The things I wanted to do with my career had fallen by the wayside and really I’d been in a holding pattern for a couple of years—waiting to get married and have kids, I guess. “That’s big, Blake. Huge.”

  “Yeah, but so is being happy. As Bentley always says: there’s nothing wrong with Oklahoma.”

  “He’s your brother?”

  He nodded. “Yeah. He works on the ranch, loves it. Never quite got why it didn’t work for me.”

  “It’s difficult to understand people’s choices sometimes. Hell, most of the time I’m not sure I understand my own.”

  Blake chuckled and I pulled him closer.

  “You like being in Oklahoma though, even if it’s not Christie? You don’t want to move out of state?”

  “I don’t know anymore. Maybe I am scared. Growing up, I never imagined I’d be still living in Oklahoma. I expected to be off curing diseases, making people’s lives better though science.”

  “And you don’t do that in Oklahoma?” I asked. “Isn’t biochemistry the same wherever you’re doing it?”

  “Kinda, but the best brains, the best labs—they’re not in Oklahoma. I wanted to be doing cutting edge research, stuff that I was really passionate about.” He shook his head. “In Oklahoma, I’m a small cog in a very big wheel.” He paused and his gaze flicked in front of him as if a hundred different thoughts fought for his attention. “It’s still science. It’s good. It’s just . . .”

  It wasn’t enough. I knew that feeling.

  “How do you feel when you think about giving up the opportunity to make a difference and working for yourself?” I asked as I looked up at him. “Pretend you said no to the start-up. How do you feel in your gut? Your heart?”

  The light in his eyes faded and he just shook his head. “I can’t think about tha
t.”

  I smoothed my finger across his jaw. “I think you have your answer. If you’re the kind of guy who wants to make a difference, then you won’t be happy until you at least try.” I often made decisions by working out how I’d feel either way. When I contemplated the real possibility of getting back with Phil, I was pretty sure the light in my eyes faded just as Blake’s had when he thought of his dream disappearing.

  “Sorry, did I overstep?” I asked.

  Blake narrowed his eyes. “You’re really good at this.”

  “At what?”

  He shifted again so he was facing me, our limbs tangling together. “Making me feel better, putting me at the center of everything.”

  My cheeks heated. I wasn’t sure if he was giving me a compliment or telling me how manipulative I was being. “I told you; it’s not fake. I’m not deflecting from myself. I thought this was an exchange—”

  He put his finger over my lips. “Nothing about you is fake. That’s not what I was trying to say. Just that talking to you makes me feel good.”

  I sighed and let myself sink against him. “Talking to you makes me feel good, too.” It was true. The last thing I normally did with a man was whine on about how I was feeling. I knew it wasn’t what men wanted to hear. Sharing my feelings with Blake had been different, but the normal rules didn’t apply to him. I could be totally open, needy or not, because I knew there was no future for us. I’d never see him again after our trip. So it didn’t matter if I frightened him away—he was never destined to be mine.

  “You make me feel good in every way,” I whispered, sliding my hands around his back and over his ass.

  “Red,” he mumbled, pulling me closer to him. “If you touch me like that, I won’t be able to hold back.”

  “That’s okay. I don’t want you to hold back.” I wanted to feel his weight on top of me.

  His hands snaked down to my thighs. “You’ve had a tough day. You need—”

  “I want this. Want you.” I wasn’t sure I’d ever asked a man for sex simply because of my desire. Sex with Blake was never just because it would make him feel good. It always made me feel good too.

  “And you’re not saying that to make me feel—”

  I pressed my fingers over his lips this time. “It’s never like that with you. I can tell you what I want.” We had different rules out here in the wild. I didn’t have to be Boston Mackenzie. And that felt good.

  “You can. You always can,” he whispered against my neck.

  I started to unbutton his shirt. The scent of him—earth and skin scorched by the sun—washed over me. “I do.” I placed my palms on his hard chest. As if touching him gave me strength.

  He raised my chin with his thumb, forcing me to look at him, then dove to my mouth. What had started as slow and sensual was overtaken by need and lust.

  His tongue crashed against mine and then he pulled away, moved down the bed and grasped at my PJs. I lifted my top over my head and he groaned at the sight of my breasts. A rush of liquid reached my thighs. I’d always been self-conscious about my small chest, but Blake acted like I was made for him. It was as if confidence mixed with lust had been shot into my veins. He left my PJs halfway down my legs and palmed my breasts. His hands were large and rough and shocks of desire splintered through me as he kneaded my skin, his eyes fixated on what he was doing.

  I kicked off my pants and tried to reach for the buttons on his jeans. Even in the dim light, I could see the denim tight across his crotch. Impatient for the feel of him, I slid one hand down and found him thick and hard. My breathing sped up. I knew what he could do to me. What he wanted to do to me.

  His hands knocked mine out of the way, and he undid his jeans. It was awkward and cramped on the bed, so he stood and stripped naked in a second. I couldn’t stop staring, his thick, erect cock pointing up against his tight, flat stomach that bled into that beautiful, defined chest.

  He didn’t look like a scientist. There was nothing geeky about his broad chest or his bronzed skin, tight across his muscles. There was nothing nerd-like about his thighs that I knew were capable of pinning me to a door, or his stare that could leave me breathless.

  As I met his eyes, he shook his head. “You like my body?” he asked.

  I nodded. “I do. I really do.” I reached out, wanting to touch him.

  “Was it in your pile of stones?”

  “Your body?” I squinted at him, not quite sure if I’d heard what he said correctly.

  “A man’s body. Something that makes you happy in a relationship.”

  It hadn’t been. But I didn’t have a physical type. I’d always thought it shallow to want someone physically. That was how men thought, but women had to be more . . . practical . . . Didn’t they?

  I shrugged.

  “You’re allowed to want, Red. You’re allowed to say that you like my body. That you like the way I make you come.” He took a step toward me so his knees were touching the edge of the bed.

  “Yes, but this is us, here, suspended in some kind of fantasy world. Real life doesn’t work like this.”

  “Real life works exactly like this. As you said, there’s nothing fake about you and there’s nothing fake about me.”

  He wasn’t getting it. “But a relationship can’t be all about what I want. It’s selfish.”

  He slipped a foil packet under the pillow and lay next to me, both of us totally naked. “It’s not an all-or-nothing situation. It’s about balance. Look at you with your friends. I’m pretty sure they didn’t come here for any reason other than you asked them to.”

  “Hmmm, more told than asked,” I confessed.

  “Exactly.” He tucked a strand of hair behind my ear. “And they want things from you at times. It’s give and take, isn’t it?”

  He made it sound so easy. “I guess.” Wasn’t it different when you were in a relationship, in a marriage? Weren’t you meant to put the other person first?

  “Why would it be any different between two people having sex?” he asked.

  He looped his leg over mine. “Remind me what two people having sex looks like again? I think I forgot,” I said, grinning at him.

  He shook his head and slid his hands over my ass and up to find my boobs.

  We’d veered from the one-night stand route and found ourselves on a different course. This wasn’t just about the relentless pursuit of lust. It was about more than that. We’d shared thoughts and aspirations. I’d told him things I’d never told anyone. It was intimate and personal and real. More real than I’d ever known.

  He trailed his fingers up my stomach, between my breasts, then down again. Abruptly, he stopped and scrubbed his hands over his face. “Fuck,” he said.

  What had happened? Why had he stopped? Did he not want me?

  Suddenly I felt self-conscious, too naked. I’d given too much away, shared too much. Instinctively, I crossed my arms over my chest, hiding my small boobs.

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m impatient. I want all of you, to feel every part of you. I’m greedy, but at the same time I need to savor you. I know our time here will be over soon, and I’m not sure I’ll have had my fill of you by then.”

  “Oh.” I relaxed. It hadn’t been what I’d expected to hear. In fact, it had been pretty much the opposite. When I was with a new man, I studied him carefully, working out what he responded to and what he didn’t, learning to emphasize the parts of me he seemed to like and damping down the ones he didn’t. With Blake, I’d done none of that because I’d not been looking past one night. He’d seen it all, right into the center of me. And he was still here. With me.

  I uncrossed my arms, my limbs and heart loosening as I reached for his chest. “We have all night. And we don’t have to sleep.”

  He closed his eyes as if savoring my touch and bent forward to kiss me. He trailed his tongue across the seam of my lips.

  “They’re idiots,” he mumbled against my skin as he began to kiss down my neck and over my breastbone.


  I threaded my hands through his hair. “What?”

  “All those men who never took the time to know you.” He took my nipple between his teeth, worrying the other between his thumb and forefinger.

  Blake’s fingers found my clit and I moaned at the contact.

  “Shhhh.” His mouth curled up at the edges as he grinned.

  It wasn’t that I’d always been a complete mute during sex, but I’d never had the sounds ripped out of me. With Blake, loud was all I could be.

  “I’m sorry. You know exactly what—” His fingers slid deeper. I was so wet I was sure his whole hand would be covered in me. He bent forward and licked and flicked my nipple with his tongue.

  I ran my fingernails down his back as he pushed his hard dick against my thigh. His hand dipped lower; his thumb pressed harder. I squirmed as pleasure flickered across my body and my orgasm approached quickly. But he clasped his hand over my belly, keeping me in place.

  “Just let me make you feel good.”

  I grabbed his face in my hands and pulled him to my lips. How could I tell him that I’d never felt so good? That no man had made me feel like he did?

  “I can read your body now. You’re close,” he said between kisses.

  My back arched. I needed his fingers deeper. I grappled for his other hand as I felt a scream gather in my stomach. I placed his palm over my mouth as I began to howl against his skin. My orgasm burst from me as if it had been bubbling under the surface, building and building until we were alone together and he could set it free.

  His fingers stilled and my body went limp, melting into the bed underneath me.

  I opened my eyes.

  “I love being able to do that to you.”

  “I love you being able to do that to me.” I reached behind my head, under the pillow, and pulled out the condom he’d placed there earlier.

  “You’re insatiable,” he said.

  Only with you.

  I was desperate to feel the weight of him. I needed to be reminded of the right now as intensely as I could. I wanted to block out the future, real life, and drown in this fantasy.

  I reached for him, enjoying the feeling of his velvety cock in my hands. His jaw tightened and his eyes hooded. He shifted, quickly covered himself with the condom and positioned himself above me.