Retreat

by Jay Crownover

  I could feel him pulsing heavy and hard in my mouth. I was ready to explode watching the way the corded muscles in his stomach contracted and released. I wanted to touch myself while I watched his eyes cloud over as foggy gray rolled in and made everything dark and dangerous looking. His jaw clenched and the hold he had on the top of my head shifted so that his hands were around the base of my skull. I was skirting my fingers across the flexing surface of his ass, aiming for those soft little sacs that were drawn up tight and anxious for release, but he didn’t let me reach my destination.

  I wanted him to finish, he wanted me sprawled out on the bed underneath him.

  He was bigger, so he got his way and before I could utter a protest through swollen and shiny lips. He had the button on my jeans undone, a wide hand spanning the space between my hips and a rough, calloused finger on the center of my desire. That little point pulsed so hard against his touch that it made my back bow up off the bed and my eyes cross as I moaned his name. My underwear was shoved to the side, the buttons on my shirt flew in a million directions under impatient hands, and my aching nipples rose up in victory as they were set free as he shoved the cups of my bra up and out of his way.

  It was my turn to thread shaking fingers through thick hair, as his dark head lowered to my chest, so that his strong teeth could scrape across begging flesh. It made me whimper and it made my entire body quiver under the weight of his. He urged me to lift my hips up so he could pull denim and cotton out of his way, but he muttered the words around my puckering nipple that he refused to let go of. The pressure from his mouth and the bite of his teeth felt like some kind of glorious torture. I never wanted it to end, and I was excruciatingly sad that I knew what it felt like, because I was going to miss it when it was gone.

  I whispered his name as he finally rose up over me enough to get the rest of my clothes out of the way. My legs shifted restlessly against the side of the bed, as that heated spot between them throbbed heavily for his touch. He watched the motion with hooded eyes and I couldn’t stop myself from letting my limbs fall open under his intent stare. I put a hand low on my belly and the other on the breast he had left wet and ready. I touched where I needed his hands and he watched me like I was his favorite movie.

  He shook his head slowly and ran his tongue over the curve of his bottom lip. It was puffy and slick from my ravenous mouth. “There are so many things I want to do for you, and do to you. The list is endless and I feel like I’m working against the clock here, Leo.” He leaned forward and pressed his mouth against mine. This kiss light, precious. I was surprised that it felt like it would last just as long as the one that had hurt. “I want you on my tongue. I want you to come all over my fingers and I want to come all over those perfect fucking tits.” His head shook again and the corner of his lips quirked up and a slash of white broke through the darkness in the room as he grinned at me. “I want to let you finish sucking me off. I want to bend you over and take your ass. I want you to sit on my face and let me leave razor burns all over the inside of those pretty white thighs. I want all of it and there isn’t time for any of it.”

  I gulped and moved the hand that was playing with my nipple to my throat. I’d never done most of those things, but hearing him list out all the ways in which he wanted me, it made me furious with fate that I wasn’t going to experience them with him and if not with him, then never. I trusted him. That was the thing that had been missing from the men in my life all along. I could never open myself up to them the way I did with Cy, because I didn’t trust them and I didn’t trust myself.

  I reached up to grab him and sighed when he let me pull him back down on top of me. He braced his weight above me with an arm crooked over my head and we both let out a sigh of contentment when I wrapped both my legs high around his waist. His hardness found my wetness with little work and I panted a choppy little breath as he dragged the tip of that hard erection through silken and damp folds. I felt myself pulse and blood pound in anticipation but my hands held him tenderly, reverently.

  “There’s no clock right now, Cy. There’s just me and you. We would hear it ticking because there’s no place for the sound to hide. All I can hear is your heartbeat and mine, racing to keep up with it. All I see is you and all I feel is the way you make me feel special and important. There wasn’t a lot of time for you to do that, but you did. So, right now we focus on the ways we can have each other and not on the ways we can’t.” Because if I started thinking about everything I would be missing once day came, and I focused on the experiences with him that I would never have, then I would fall apart and this sexy goodbye would turn into a tearful goodbye and I didn’t want that for either of us.

  His hips pressed forward at the same time he lowered himself so that our chests were touching as our tongues tangled and our hearts marched forward together, my beat matching his perfectly. I was nothing but liquid want and warm passion, so he sank in deep and rocked his pelvis into mine in the most delicious way. I thrashed a little as my body adjusted to take all of him in. Muscles quivered around rock hard flesh and sensitive nerves danced happily along the veiny length. I loved the way he filled me up, took up every single bit of space, like he was right to do so. I liked the way his weight pinned me down and made his movements and mine more deliberate. I liked the way he fucked me, and the way he encouraged me to fuck him back. I liked the way our bodies grew slick and slipped against one another. I liked the way he made love to my mouth, his kiss mimicking the sexy, raw way his cock pushed in and out of my body. His tongue teased mine the same way he teased my greedy, aching center by sliding almost all the way out so that I was begging, pleading for him to pound back into me, only to have him inch back in, so slowly that I thought I was going to lose my mind. I almost died when he gentled the hammering, thrashing thrusts by cupping my jaw and running his thumb lightly over the curve.

  He was taking what he needed from my body, giving me what I needed with his, but he was also taking the time to remember this, to remember us. His eyes never left my face and I could tell he was watching, waiting for that moment he gave me so much pleasure I couldn’t take anymore. He wanted to keep what I looked like when he broke me, split me open with desire and longing, someplace safe so he would never forget it. He wanted to know that he was the only one who could make me look that way and I didn’t need to tell him, because my entire body attested to the fact.

  My head tossed from side to side. My toes curled. My thighs clamped around his sides like a vice. My fingers scratched furious lines of passion into his back. My lips screamed his name over and over again. My center went molten and flooded with satisfaction. My nipples drew into points so hard, they had to be poking into his chest. My cheeks heated and filled with a sex flush that I knew would take hours to fade. All of it he could see, he could feel. All of it was proof that together, we made moments that were meant to last. The only secret I had, the only thing his unwavering eyes couldn’t see was the way my soul shattered and my heart fractured. I didn’t want just this moment . . . I wanted all the moments and I wanted them with him.

  As soon as my pussy pulsed and clamped down around him, as soon as he watched me fall over the cliff of pleasure he had been pushing me toward, I felt him let loose. His thrusts lost their calculated rhythm. He was pounding into me, chasing his own moment, his own release and he didn’t have very far to run. His legs tensed, his back locked hard under the clasp of my legs, and his pretty eyes went coal dark. He grunted my name in a thick tone and then let his head fall forward so that his nose was buried in the curve of my neck while his teeth clamped down sharply on the ridge of my collar bone.

  He filled me up in a different way and I took it all in. The furious rush of desire made my head spin and the still way he lay on top of me after he was spent and burned through, made everything inside of me feel like it was churning and whipping around, furious underneath my skin. I didn’t want to go but I also knew I couldn’t stay.

  “Best goodbye ever.” I whispered
the words into his ear and felt him sigh into the side of my throat.

  He lifted his head, eyes infinitely dark and unreadable. “The goodbye doesn’t matter. It’s everything that came before the goodbye that is important. I’ll forget about the goodbye in time . . . everything else . . .” he trailed away and I wanted to tell him I would remember all as well, but I couldn’t get the words out. I was greedy. I wanted more than memories.

  I ran a hand over the side of his face, let his whiskers tickle my fingers, and traced the silver specks that made him look so distinguished and rugged at the same time. I felt my lips quirk up in a grin that was similar to the one he usually gave me and lifted my eyebrows up even though I wasn’t sure he could see my expression in the dark. “So, about that thing you said where I get to sit on your face . . .” I let out a yelp as he rolled us over with a laugh that quickly turned into a growl.

  Say what you mean . . . I wanted to tell him that I was pretty sure I could love him . . . and maybe more importantly, I could let him love me. But I kept the words to myself because he would hear that I meant them, and I had a feeling he would say something similar back and that would make leaving even harder than it was already going to be.

  No Time to Waste

  I thought once I was back in the Bay Area, my life would settle into the familiar grind and rhythm that I had been sleepwalking through for years. It was what I knew. It was habit and routine. I thought I would be able to bury the longing that engulfed me the minute I stepped on the plane and went back to day-to-day business. That everything inside me calling to the wild and calling to Cyrus Warner would be drowned out by the sounds of the city and commotion I used to distract myself with.

  I was wrong. So very wrong.

  Chaos came crashing down around me as soon as it became clear there was no way Em was fit to be left on her own. She was listless, skittish, and acting like a shadow of her former self. She wouldn’t talk to her family. She refused to go back to work, even after the bandages came off of her face and the stitches came out. She isolated herself from the rest of her social circle and holed herself up in my guest room. She only came out when I made her or when I got a message from Cy updating me on Sutton’s condition.

  She seemed to live for those moments. Every time news came through email or a brief text message, her face lost some of the sallow, haughtiness that had overrun it. It was the only time I could see a glimmer of life spark in her dull gaze.

  Sutton was improving. The progress was slow, agonizingly so, as there had been complications during the surgery to remove the fragmented bullet. Cy didn’t elaborate, but the gist was that his middle brother was having some mobility issues and was far from being released from the hospital. There was no telling how permanent any of the damage was at this stage, so everyone was trying to keep Sutton’s attitude on the positive side of things. It wasn’t surprising the grumpy cowboy was fighting them every step of the way. Cy’s messages were never long, always to the point and lacking any kind of personal touch. As happy as they made Em, they had the opposite effect on me.

  I knew there was no point in making promises we couldn’t keep, to draw out the moments that weren’t meant to last. That didn’t mean it didn’t feel like a knife in the heart every time I clicked a message open. I knew he wouldn’t say he missed me, and knew all I could do was reply back just as formally. It was painful to not tell him that I had no idea how he had survived after losing half his heart when his ex left him, because I felt like I was dying without him. I may have been living an incomplete life before my eyes were forced open, but that paled in comparison to living as half of a person. I swore the majority of my soul, and everything that it was made up of, was left high in the backcountry of Wyoming. I left it in the hands of a man who was still undefined, and yet had my heart identifying him as belonging to us. There was no logic to it all, which made me think it had to be love or something scarily close to it.

  If dealing with Emrys’s emotional state wasn’t enough of a full-time job, I had to go back to my actual job a few days after I got back home. I was out of vacation time and had to use the last couple of sick days I had to get Em settled into my place and to bully her into going to see the doctor. I wanted her to talk to a specialist about the scar on her face and the ones that were left on her chest, but she flatly refused. I would catch her staring at herself in the mirror in the bathroom, tears running over her now less than perfect face. She never said anything about it, and I didn’t push. I was afraid she was fragile enough to break and I wasn’t sure I had the skills needed to put her back together. I knew she was going to need a professional so between work, dodging worried calls from Em’s parents, and the emotional vortex at home, I spent my time researching victims’ advocates in both the Bay Area and in Wyoming. I didn’t delve too deeply into why I felt compelled to look in both places, but in either case I was armed with the names of the top qualified professionals when she was ready to take that step.

  I wasn’t sure what it was going to be like having to face my ex’s wife again. Before I had been so worried about how the truth would affect my career and my reputation. Now carrying it around was affecting my conscience and my integrity. I still had a few months left on the contract with her company, and things were going so well I knew she was going to make an offer to extend the work my team did for her. Every time I walked into her office and sat across from her, that picture of her happy family smiling stared right at me, taunting me. The ball of regret, and remorse grew in my gut. I knew, without a doubt, that getting fired was far from the worst thing that could happen to me in this life. One only had to the look at the shattered woman using my home as a refuge to know that. I also knew whatever the outcome of me coming clean with Chris’s wife was, it couldn’t hurt as bad or leave me as aching and raw as walking away from my not quite a cowboy had.

  I waited for a day we were both working late. I knew the conversation was going to be unpleasant and that it could very well end with me getting handed my walking papers, so I didn’t want witnesses or a scene. I practiced what I was going to say all day long. I went over it a thousand times in my head and even prepared myself for things to get violent and ugly. I would let her get a swing in if she needed it. That was only fair, but she was only going to get one. The rest she would have to take home to her philandering husband.

  When I asked her if she had a minute, she smiled at me and it made me feel like slime. She was smart. She was successful. She was pretty and she was nice. The cosmetic contract had been one of my favorites to date and it made everything inside me clench and squeeze to know that I had had a part, no matter how unwittingly, in deceiving her.

  “I’ve been meaning to talk to you, Leora.” My full name made me jolt. I was so used to being Leo, the little lion, I forgot that another me even existed.

  I didn’t want to sit down, this felt like a conversation we should be having while standing up, but I took a seat and crossed my legs. I folded my hands together so tightly that my nails pricked my skin hard enough to hurt.

  “About the contract?” I didn’t want her to offer up an amazing opportunity right before I brought her entire world crashing down around her. That didn’t seem fair or right.

  She nodded at me and put her hands together so that her manicured fingers were steepled and hovered over her meticulously painted lips. “Yes, I want to speak about the contract and I want to make sure you know that if we do extend it, I want you to head up the team. You’ve done a marvelous job here and I want to keep you on board.” I opened my mouth to interject that I had something important to say when she held up a hand and lifted a perfectly sculpted eyebrow at me. “I need to know that when I bring the new contract forward to your bosses, that your personal relationship with my husband won’t be an issue. I need you to work closely with me as we expand the brand and look at the global market. I can’t have your personal life interfering with your professional one. I let your hesitancy slide these last few months because it’s clear you’
re brilliant at your job, but moving forward I need you to sweep that under the rug and put your game face on.”

  I felt my jaw unhinge like a snake trying to swallow a rabbit whole. I heard my breath wheeze out of my lungs, and I was pretty sure I blacked out for a second because when my eyes refocused on her, she looked impatient and aggravated, not shattered or heartbroken.

  “I . . . we . . . you . . .” the words wheezed out as I lifted a hand to my throat and told myself to focus and calm down. “How long have you known that I had an affair with your husband?”

  She waved a hand in front of her and rolled her eyes at me like it was a silly question to ask. “Chris is nice enough to look at, gets the job done in bed and he’s a passable father. He’s neither a rocket scientist nor is he a challenge. He doesn’t flaunt his affairs but he doesn’t hide them either.” Her other eyebrow lifted to match the first. “I’ve always been the breadwinner and the one with drive and ambition and he’s supported me in everything I’ve done. I wanted an empire, he wanted to get his dick sucked. When I wasn’t around to do it, he found someone, anyone who was willing. As long as he doesn’t bring his girlfriends around my kids or parade them in front of the people I do business with, I let him have his fun, and honestly, I have mine.” She leaned forward in her chair a little bit and her gaze locked on mine. “You were the first one I actually worried about. I knew I needed your particular skill set but if you were willing to fall for Chris’s particular brand of bullshit, it made me question how bright and dedicated you really were.” She grinned at me and while I thought she was going to be malicious and nasty it actually seemed like her typical, friendly smile. I was so confused that I felt a little nauseous. I wondered if she’d be as nice about me throwing up on her floor as she was about me fucking the man she was married to. “You kicked Chris to the curb as soon as you saw the picture on my desk. I still question your taste in men, but not your integrity. I think your guilt made you work even harder.”