by Jules Dixon
“Nice sigh, Jessen. I’ll see you tomorrow night.”
“Maybe. Mom’s not been feeling very well. We might have to cancel. Sorry.”
“That’s weird, considering I called her today to see if I could bring anything and she told me to just bring my smile.” He plastered on a cocky grin.
“She’s a nice person. I’ll let you know if it’s on or not tomorrow.”
“I look forward to hearing from you, Aurora.”
Now he’s saying my name on purpose.
I huffed at him. “Congrats again, Jude.”
“Thanks, Rory.” Jude’s mouth contorted into a perceptive smirk. I wore my feelings on the outside and I was starting not to care, because it seemed maybe Drexel didn’t either.
I heard Drexel add his congratulations to Jude as I walked away.
The spin class was almost full when I stepped onto the cushioned floor.
“Rory!” I heard from across the room.
I examined the last row and Ollie was already warming his legs up with an impressive pace.
He slowed fractionally. “How are you feeling? I came to see you at the hospital.”
“I think that probably happened with a lot of people. I got the flowers you and Holt sent. They were beautiful. Thank you. I’m doing okay.” I dropped my bag and searched through my gear for my shoes. “Didn’t expect you to be here tonight. Aren’t you usually a morning rider?”
“Chloe had a doctor’s appointment.”
“And?” I slipped on my cycling shoes with clips for the bike.
“We finally got a good look and … it’s a girl!”
I adjusted the seat. “Ollie, that’s wonderful news. And healthy?”
“Perfectly. I have a picture of her in my bag.”
“Could you be any more in love with that baby?”
“Probably not. I never knew what being a father would feel like. It’s the greatest gift.”
“You’re not the only one getting that gift this year.”
Oliver shook his head. “Presley is gonna kill Jude if he keeps blabbing it to everyone, but I can understand his excitement.”
I started a pace to match his and realized that was a joke.
Almost a month without exercise, and most of the time on bed rest.
In the ultimate in supportive moves, Ollie slowed to my speed. Reaching over, he shook my shoulder. “Hey, it’s not the pace. It’s that you’re in the room and on the bike.”
“Did I huff or sigh?”
“Sigh.”
“Yeah, apparently I do that a lot.”
The rest of the class was spent in focused mode. I concentrated. I pushed myself. Ollie rode the same pace as me, but I could tell he was holding his own performance back because he barely broke a sweat, whereas I looked like I showered in my clothes when I headed out the front door. When I reached my new SUV, a familiar voice called my name and I turned to watch Drexel jog from Triple R’s entrance.
“Rory, wait up!”
His toned legs took long strides over the pavement and his hard upper body flexed under his unzipped jacket. It wasn’t fair what the sight of his body did to me.
“I’m tired, Drexel. I’m going home.” I reached for the door handle and he stepped in front of me.
“Hey, what was all of that innuendo stuff with your dad yesterday?”
“What innuendo?” I asked innocently.
Oh, yeah, that innuendo.
I couldn’t help but grin, pursing my lips to stop a full-on smile.
He dropped his bag and his eyes held to mine as he spun us and pinned me up against the vehicle with his body.
“Drexel…” His name was cold from my lips only because of the February evening temperature. Saying the word felt mysteriously comforting to me and probably suggestive to him.
“Please don’t play games anymore. Now, why convince him to invite me over, Rory?”
That he asked me “please” made me reconsider giving him crap. “Nothing. Really. Dad used to have the monthly best salespeople over. Plus, I figured it was a good way to take the heat off of me. They want me to see a therapist.”
“Oh.” He gave me a little space, as if my crazy would rub off on him.
I grasped his jacket in both hands and dragged him back. His body was hot, both in temp and form, and I needed both. “Did you want it to be for some other reason?”
“No … well, maybe. I don’t know.” He leaned the few inches down to my face and his lips touched my cheek.
I turned my head and our lips were only a sliver of moonlight apart.
“I’m not good enough for you.” The rise and fall of his Adam’s apple accentuated a statement that made me feel as much for him as if he was kissing me. The words held emotion behind them I’d never heard from him.
I dropped my bag and my hands snuck under his jacket and t-shirt to brush against the soft but taut skin on his stomach. The muscles rippled at my touch. Hard to say if it was my cold hands or more, but I enjoyed the response either way.
“Who says I’d even want you, Drex?” I rubbed my nose along his jawline and he groaned.
He puffed steamy breaths against my skin as he slid his mouth over to my ear. “God, you smell so fucking good.” He rumbled a sound from his chest, making my nipples peak and rub against my tight exercise top under my fleece jacket. “What is that? It’s sweet, like strawberries.” His tongue flicked out and swiped my neck. “Sprinkled with salt from your workout.”
I couldn’t stop my body. I bucked against him. My fingers dug into his hips, drawing him closer. I closed my eyes as his harsh breaths in my ear spurred my own choppy and moan-filled breaths. “Drexel, please.”
He pressed against me, and his hard cock ground against my soft and craving body.
“Oh my God, Drexel, please, I need you. Come to my place, or hell, get in this truck and let’s break it in the right way.”
There was no hiding we had a physical attraction that needed to be satiated. If there was something more, we could explore more later.
Just explore this first.
He pushed off of the truck. “I knew I could get you to beg, Aurora. I’ll see you tomorrow night.”
Before I could open my eyes, he was gone.
I sullied the virgin interior of my new SUV with every colorful word I’d ever heard. Twice.
I took a long, hot and then cold shower when I got home. The workout was great at taking away my emotional frustration, but my sexual frustration was at levels I’d never experienced. Probably exactly what Drex wanted, so I cursed his name into the steam, hoping he’d hear me and want to retort.
But when I looked in the mirror at my glowing face and broad smile, I appreciated the truth. Even as frustrated and vexed as I was, I felt more alive than I ever had.
I’d had a few of boyfriends and relationships over the last six years. The first almost two-year guy, he was eighteen and I was sixteen. There was a torn hymen and lots of crying. I’d thought I was ready, in love, and prepared. I wasn’t any of those. But the night was history, and soon, so was he. Thankfully, the next boyfriend helped me understand what sex was all about and I really got to know my body. He went off to college, I stayed here, and we drifted apart. He was great, but he wasn’t my prince. And then there was one other guy, but he was a mistake, needy and controlling, and after getting him into bed, I knew he was definitely short-term. His man parts shot off like a firework with a defective fuse. There was little time for my big bang to happen.
But with Drexel, just by how we interacted, sex would have a nuclear heat and a brutal rawness, and still, my heart told me it would be a deep connection I wouldn’t forget. Possibly changing one or both of us. Not that his little rub ‘em and leave ‘em trick outside of Triple R hadn’t made me question his intention to tease me until I almost couldn’t not want him. But a little tease and torture can be fun the other way too, right?
I lay on my bed in my fluffy pink robe and contemplated a little self-love to remind m
yself I didn’t need a man. If Drexel didn’t want to be involved, well then he could just self-love himself.
I closed my eyes and Drex’s gaze was the first thing to enter my mind. His ass was next. Both made me sigh and I slid my hand inside of my robe, rubbing slow teasing circles on my clit, imagining his tongue doing the same.
My phone buzzed on my nightstand. I glanced over and saw it was a video call.
Don’t answer. Just ignore him.
But, if curiosity killed the cat, it instigated the one between my legs. The truth was I wanted to hear his voice and my finger found the “accept” button, instead of the one it’d been on.
“What?” I answered, trying to pull off uninterested, but failing.
“Hey, Rory.” His voice was soft and the words were humble.
I could tell he was lying on his side in bed, too.
We stared at each other, alternating opening our mouths like we were going to say something more, but the silence felt okay too.
“Drexel, I’m in the middle of something.”
“I’m sorry about earlier, outside of Triple R.” He rushed the sentence.
“All right. Apology accepted. I need to get back to my—”
Self?
“It was really hard to leave you,” he said.
I rolled my eyes. “Yeah, I felt how hard it was.”
He grinned, but held his composure. “I didn’t mean that.”
“I know, but I also don’t understand why you left. Obviously, there’s something here, Drexel. Why be an ass about it? Why not go with what’s happening? I’m a big girl. I can do casual sex.”
“Sex would never be casual for us and we both know that.” I watched his breathing increase. “My life is complicated,” he added.
I narrowed my eyes. “And whose isn’t?”
“Mine is complicated-complicated, not normal-complicated.”
“Well, that made no sense. Not sure there are levels of complicated in life. Either it is or it isn’t and most of the time … it is.”
Drexel’s eyes lowered, a flash of innocence covered his face.
“I’m sorry, Drex, that was a broad and unsympathetic judgment. You’re right, I don’t know your life, but here’s the thing—I’d like to.”
Technically, I really wanted to have sex with him, but sex could wait. If losing my virginity had taught me anything it was to wait, there would be a right time. Plus, I kind of liked this weird game we had going of tease and release. Without a real release.
Yet.
His gaze came back, but his voice was quiet. “Have you ever felt like you weren’t meant to be here?”
I adjusted a pillow under my head and rolled to my side. “In what way?”
“Never mind.”
“Okay, that! Right there—how you just clammed up—is unreasonable. I want to hear what you have to say.”
“I should probably go so you can get back to whatever you were doing.”
“It can wait.” There were layers to this man and I needed to peel them off slowly, to get to the one that mattered most. “Tell me something I don’t know about you.”
“I like pistachio pudding, but I hate the pistachio nut.”
I laughed. “Okay. Mine is … I can recite the alphabet backward.”
“I don’t believe you.” He adjusted his pillow and his hair fell onto his forehead. I lifted my hand. The instinct to reach through the phone and push it back made my skin prickle with goose bumps.
I demonstrated my useless skill and he chuckled. I asked, “What’s your favorite color?”
“What color are your eyes?”
My heart beat a little faster. “My mom says they’re the color of well-loved denim. I call them azure.”
“I knew that color had a beautiful name. Azure then. How about you?”
“Well, I want to say the color of your eyes, but it sounds dorky.”
“Not if it’s the truth.”
“It is,” I whispered. We stared at each other. “Tell me something about your family.”
“Not much to tell. My parents are dead, almost five years now. My sister lives here in Omaha but won’t talk to me, and my brother and his husband live in San Francisco. He’s been there for almost ten years and I’ve never been there to visit him and he only came back here to bury our parents.”
“I’m sorry about your parents.”
I could tell the subject wasn’t his favorite as his eyes diverted from mine. “They worked themselves to death. My mom had a brain aneurysm and my dad a massive heart attack. They died within three months of each other, my mom first.”
“That’s really sad.”
“I suppose. Truth is, I never really knew them and I don’t think they ever knew me.”
Just that one sentence told me so much about him. He was an orphan before being orphaned.
He tried to smile, but it was forced. “So, what were you doing when I called?”
“Masturbating.”
Truth, Mason.
His mouth dropped open.
“Drexel, come on, you left me all riled up. You couldn’t really expect me not to take care of myself, right?”
“Let me help you, then.” His eyes softened and I almost invited him over to have him watch and get a little dose of his own teasing medicine.
“I think I’ve got this one,” I said while parts of me under my robe heated with the fire of his gaze.
“You’re sure?”
“I’m positive. Not the first time, definitely won’t be the last.”
“Damn, Rory, you’re so fucking hot.”
“Right back at you, Drexel.”
I didn’t know how much time passed while we stared at each other, but if it had been all night, I wouldn’t have been surprised.
“Just five minutes, I swear I’ll get you to explode like you’ve never come before.”
I almost couldn’t stand how sexy his golden, sparkling eyelashes were surrounding those lax eyes.
“Let me see your goods first,” I said and he laughed.
“I think we should save that for another day.”
“If you insist.” I sighed.
“I hate it when you make that noise.”
“Well, I’m sorry! I guess I just sigh a lot.”
“Why?”
I thought about it. Every answer made me sound like a spoiled brat. “Because I don’t like being disappointed,” I blurted out.
“Are you disappointed in me?”
“No! I’m disappointed with…” I didn’t want to say it. “With not getting my way.”
Drexel smiled. “And not seeing my penis disappoints you?”
I started laughing. “Wow, when you say it like that, it sounds pretty creepy.”
“Rory, are you naked?”
I swallowed hard, and nodded. “Are you?”
“Yeah.”
I rolled to my side, my robe falling off my shoulder. “Maybe you should come over and we can talk in person?”
“Rory, I’d like to be there, but I don’t think your dad would appreciate that.”
“Why do you worry so much about what he’ll think? I am an adult, Drexel.” His name rolled from my mouth on his own special sigh. Just gazing into his clear, summer-sky blue eyes, I was hypnotized. My heart started pounding in my chest.
“I don’t need to get fired in the process of helping you to get off.”
“Please. I want you”—my head spun, as I wanted to finish the sentence right there—“to help me.”
“Prop the phone up on a pillow so I can see your face.”
I did as he asked.
“Okay, can you still see me?”
“Yes.”
“You are so beautiful.”
I closed my eyes. “Right, me and my huge scar.”
“Aurora … Aurora, open your eyes!” His voice was forceful, but it softened. “Aurora.” I opened them. “You are more beautiful to me now than ever. That scar doesn’t make you imperfect … it makes you spe
cial. Believe me, I know what imperfect is and you are far from it.” He cleared his throat and his gaze roamed my face through the screen. “Rory, I want to watch you come because I know it will be something special I’ll never get enough of.”
“I want to watch you, too.”
“Damn, you don’t know what you do to me.”
“Probably a lot like what you do to me, when we’re not fighting.”
“Okay, no fighting for now, back to getting you off. Slide your finger into your mouth and get it nice and wet. Now slide that wetness down your neck and imagine it’s my tongue flicking along the path of your long neck and along your collar bones.”
I moaned.
“Keep moaning like that. My hand is wrapped around my cock and I’m working it slowly.”
Our eyes met and the heat passing between us should’ve made the glass screen melt.
“Rory, grab your nipples and tug lightly on them for me. I felt your nipples through your workout clothes tonight. They were like two hard diamonds. Tell me how they feel.”
I grabbed both and my back arched from the bed. “They’re sensitive and every time you tell me to do something they get more responsive … your voice does that to me, Drexel.”
“Tease your fingers down your stomach, through your belly button. I can’t remember what it looks like.”
“Close your eyes, Drexel.” He did as I asked and I moved the phone to view my stomach. “Open now. There you go.”
“Fuck … me. It’s flawless, and that diamond, damn.”
“Inny-outty with a piercing.”
“Best of all worlds, baby.”
I guided the phone back up to my face. I’d given him a good look at my chest, but from the look on his face, the visual was worth it.
“Double-D, damn. Now, let’s get back to your self-love. I did only give myself a few minutes to get you there.”
I set the phone back down.
“Wet that finger again.”
I did as asked and he moaned when I popped the finger from my mouth with a swirl around the tip.
