When he sighed and turned the key, his eyes stayed on the line of parked cars in front of us. “There’s not much to say. It happened. It’s in the past. It was an experience.”
“An experience like, say, having an ex-girlfriend you haven’t mentioned?” I snapped.
Oh, I said that too harsh, I knew it, but the number of reveals this evening was starting to irk the fuck out of me, maybe too easily with this much alcohol in my veins.
Dean leveled a gaze at me, his jaw clenched tight.
“Well? What’s with all the secrecy? Who is she?”
“Maya, you’re tipsy.”
“So? What’s the big deal—”
“Maya.” Dean’s tone was harsh and his nostrils flared. He clenched the steering wheel hard enough his knuckles began to whiten. I’d never seen him this intense.
“Dean?” I whispered.
“Not now, okay? I’ll tell you later.”
My face fell. “I don’t understand. Why can’t—”
“I just can’t.” Carefully, he maneuvered us out of the parallel parking spot. When he accelerated on the road, he said, “Better to get back to my place, okay? It’s a long drive. We should try to beat the drunk drivers, you know?”
There was truth in that, but I still didn’t understand what all the avoidance was about. Then again, considering how buzzed I was, and how off this whole conversation felt, maybe now wasn’t the time to push it.
I buttoned my lip and looked away, floored even further when Dean reached for the radio knob. “How about one of those top-hits-of-the-year countdowns?”
We rarely listened to music in the car, since we were always more caught up in our conversation than anything else around us.
But this conversation was dead.
“Fab,” I said.
* * *
I’d dozed off during the forty-five-minute drive back to Dean’s place, but the creep of his BMW up the driveway stirred me awake. The dash clock read eleven thirty. After shutting off the car, Dean said, “We made it in time for a toast.”
Out of it, I collected the boots I’d kicked off onto the floor and followed him inside. Dean dropped his keys by the door and stripped off his coat, then helped me out of mine. He went straight for the fridge after, and once he pulled out the chilled champagne and popped the cork, he poured two half glasses. I took one when he offered it up.
“I probably don’t need more, but what the hell. It’s New Year’s Eve.”
“That it is.” Dean tapped the rim of his glass against mine. “To next year.”
“And to us,” I said, trying to shake off the murky mess of my brain from all we’d talked about—or rather, didn’t talk about—on the way to the car earlier. Dean’s pensive gaze wasn’t helping matters as we both sipped down the crisp bubbles, and an uncomfortable stretch of silence followed. The digits on the stove clock flicked to the next minute, then another.
“Should we head out to the patio?” Dean asked.
“Okay.” He led us outside, grabbing the blanket off the back of the couch on the way. A brisk fog occupied the air, so I didn’t mind him pulling me onto the recliner and between his thighs, letting me sink back against his chest with the cold mist on my cheeks. Dean curled the blanket around us. Clouds covered the moon, but its light persevered in a splash over the water below, adding a glimmer to the low swells of the waves. I rested my eyes at the sound, the dizzy feeling I had reminding me yet again that I’d had way too much to drink tonight. I cupped my champagne glass against my shoulder, and Dean encircled me in his arms.
“I’m glad you met them,” he said.
“Me too. They’re super sweet.”
When he squeezed me tighter, I trailed my free hand up and around his neck to caress the skin at the edge of his hairline. We sat there for a while, listening to the gentle lap of the waves onto shore. In the distance, I made out celebratory voices, probably a crowd gathered at the bar farther up the coastline that we’d been to before.
“I think it’s probably midnight,” he said.
“Think so?”
“Yeah.”
“Then... Happy New Year, Dean.”
“You too.” He kissed the top of my head, and when I squirmed around to try and face him, the corner of his lips turned up in a half smile. Dean stretched down to kiss me, but once I opened my mouth to sneak my tongue past his lips, he broke away. “Hey.” His voice was soft. “It’s way too cold out here. Maybe we should go inside?”
My heart dropped.
Why didn’t this feel right?
“We made it to midnight, at least. I’m tired, aren’t you? All the wind from the water, the alcohol...”
The secrets.
Dean watched me closely—but I did the same to him, lost in this ridiculous staring match.
It was me who caved. I said, “Fine. Let’s get inside.”
Dean rose. His sudden movement shifted the blanket at an angle that exposed my skin and made me shiver, but he wrapped his arms around me once we stood. Inside, he shut the door and chugged the last of his champagne, then reached for my glass. I gave up on the rest of my drink and handed it over. After Dean carried the glasses into the kitchen, he came back to take my hand in a loose grip, our footsteps light as we mounted the stairs. My heart echoed in my ears, a loud, steady thump, thump, thump... I was torn between all the emotions I felt for Dean, yet this weird wrench in the evening ate at me. I didn’t like this ugly pattern forming, these details Dean not only didn’t share but avoided when I asked. Things had been perfect between us, but this kind of crap wasn’t good. Not for me, or for us.
Nonetheless, I had no business trying to dig now. I might have been en route to Hangover City, and the frustration of it had me in a near pout by the time we entered his room and Dean folded back the covers of his bed. He unbuttoned his shirt while I tugged mine over my head and took off my bra, and when he moved to unfasten his jeans, I stripped mine off, too. But Dean almost always undressed me. The move was part of his seduction, the potent spell that built up to surround us in a smoldering, delicious flame—and now, the chill upstairs and between us rushed me into the sheets with Dean not far behind. We rolled together and he curled his arms around me with a hint of an erection pressing through his underwear and against my ass, but neither of us moved after that.
Guess we wouldn’t be ringing in the New Year in the way we knew best.
“Long night, yeah?” Dean said.
“It was.” I didn’t have much time to process the end of our conversation before I sank back into slumber.
* * *
I had a hangover the size of Mount Olympus when I woke.
“Fuck,” I mumbled.
The glare of the sun streamed through the window to light the room up like some sort of movie set. If I wasn’t sweltering under the down blanket, I’d have covered my head with it. Instead, I tossed it off in Dean’s direction.
Except when I rolled over, Dean wasn’t there.
He’d laid the watch I’d given him on the nightstand before getting into bed last night, and I crawled over to it to read the time. It was almost a quarter to ten. Wasn’t he meeting them at noon? I lay there for a few seconds, wiping the makeup-riddled sleep from my eyes.
Since when did Dean not wake me up?
I sat upright, and my hangover hit full force.
“Dammit.” I rubbed the throb of my temples having failed to suck down any water before bed. Off in the bathroom, I heard the thump of something falling, then the sound of streaming water.
Dean must have jumped in the shower and knocked something over.
I got up slowly, dragging my ass to the bathroom and tapping on the door as I stepped in. Fog covered the glass door, and the boxer briefs Dean had slept in lay in a rumpled heap on the floor. “Morning.”
“Morning.” His voice reverberated around the room and I watched him move through the glass.
“You didn’t wake me.”
“You looked comfy. I didn’t want to disturb you.”
Okay. That was fair. I said, “Mind if I join you?”
“Nope.”
I needed a toothbrush, badly, but it was in my bag, which I’d either left in Dean’s car, or downstairs when we’d gotten back as late as we had. I’d have to borrow his, which I could see through the glass he’d started using. At the moment, my need to pee surpassed every other thought. I kicked off my panties while Dean remained preoccupied, and once I finished, I rinsed my mouth under the sink and climbed in the far end of the shower. Dean was covering himself in soap from his neck and down his legs. With the shifts of his arms and the ripples of his chest as he worked, I marveled at how good he could look covered in soapy white suds.
He examined me and ran the bar over his forearm. “Are you going to shut the door?”
“Yeah.” I closed it, absorbing the thick steam into my lungs and hoping it would help clear my fucked-up head. “Can I use your toothbrush?”
Dean paused his scrub to pass it and the tiny tube of paste he kept on the ledge of the shower my way.
“How’s your hangover?” I asked, loading up the toothbrush.
“Don’t have much of one. You?”
“Awful.”
“Sorry.”
I brushed my teeth while he resumed washing himself, running his hands over his stomach, then along his cock.
His slowly hardening, soapy cock.
I spit out my toothpaste, making sure not to hit his feet. Dean spun around to rinse his front side, and after he turned around, tilting back his head to rinse out the shampoo in his hair, I decided on the perfect cure for the pound of my head and the distance from the night before.
I dropped to my knees.
Dean was still rinsing when I slipped across the wet floor, so I surprised him with the circle of my hands around his thighs and a slow lick of his cock.
He straightened. “Maya.” His lips parted, and his eyes widened once I took another lick, but he knew how much I loved sucking him. I ran my hands higher, digging my fingertips into the flesh of his thighs to brace myself before I engulfed him in my mouth. Dean’s voice rushed out in a higher, concerned pitch, a near stutter as I brought my lips millimeters from his cock. “I have to meet them soon. We don’t have much—”
“I think we need some time. You’ll be fine,” I purred. Then I opened wide, gliding along his length and feeling him fully harden against my tongue. Sex between us was magic, and after last night, we needed a little magic.
I roamed my tongue on the underside of Dean’s wet cock. When I drew back and took him in again, he exhaled a heavy groan. He brought his hands to my shoulders, sprinkles of water misting around him to hit me in the face. I didn’t care. His eyelids fluttered when I moaned and shifted down until my nose sank into his flesh. With the steam coming off the water that rained over my knees, it was hard to breathe—but I wanted this. Needed him in my mouth, this moment of connection again. The taste of his skin was delicious, the hint of a soapy scent wafting into my nose, and as I pulled back and swallowed him down, he sucked in a huge gasp. I fisted the base of his shaft and started to move faster, loving his solidity and the lace of his fingers in my hair before he braced himself on the wall with his other hand.
“Oh, yes,” Dean said.
He tightened his grip in my hair, regaining control. He used his hold to start shifting me along his cock as equally as he let me devour him. I raised my eyes, captivated by the lusty expression on his face and the hunch of his body while his breath sped. He moved me faster with his grasp on my head, and I took him deeper, squeezing him in my hand in the way I knew would send him into overload when I moaned.
“Christ.” Dean’s voice poured out gravelly and thick, his eyes clenching shut. Whatever headache I’d had started floating away, replaced by blinding lust. I wanted Dean riled. I wanted him to come, to fuck me. His groans filled my ears against the backdrop of falling water, and the taste of his cock stiffened my nipples. I banged him against the back of my throat, his noises growing louder for the few seconds he held me in place. Then he let me slide back into my own motion, his stomach flexing as he started to shake. “Oh, God...”
Dean gripped my skull and released a garbled cry. When he came, his semen coated my tongue in a salty shot. I groaned while he opened his eyes and stared down at me. Knowing I had his attention, I didn’t swallow all of his come. Instead, I let some dribble out of my mouth and over my thighs, so that it streamed down to mix with the water in a dirty show of pearly, viscous gobs.
“Fuck, Maya.”
I grinned, savoring the pungent taste of him in my just-brushed mouth. Dean’s cock fell out from between my lips, the hook of his hands under my arms to hoist me up surprising me before he shoved me back against the tile wall. When he pressed his body on me and his lips neared mine, I whispered, “I missed you last night. And this morning.”
“Did you?”
I nodded. Dean seized my mouth in a frantic kiss and nestled his fingers into the slick pool that had formed in my cunt from sucking him. “I did,” I mumbled on his tongue. His fingers were rough like his kiss, his tongue wild, and I gasped at his deep thrusts while he clawed my side with his free hand. Dean leaned back when I cried out, but his fingers didn’t cease their urgent strokes. I fought to breathe with how good it felt until last night tripped into my head, too loud. Too distracting. “I don’t like the distance, Dean. The secrets...”
His lusty expression dissolved, the course of his fingers stalling in me. He murmured, “You want to talk about that now?”
“I just want to talk about it.”
Dean yanked away, his fingers leaving me empty. Even with the heat between my thighs, I felt a chill in reaction to the shake of his head. “Not now.”
“But—”
“I have to go.”
My mouth fell open. “You can’t be serious?”
The thick steam suffocated me, but Dean backed off to finish rinsing. “I have to meet them soon. You knew that. Now is not a good time.”
“Great. Will there be a good time?”
The look on his face made me chomp down on my tongue.
“I’ve got to go.” Dean put his hands on my shoulders and swung me around him until my shoulders were under the water. “You finish. I’m going to get dressed. It’s almost an hour drive. I’ve got to get moving. Sorry.”
His race out of the shower didn’t seem sorry.
What the fuck? Are we fighting?
Why couldn’t he tell me what was going on?
I grabbed for the soap, my hangover bleeding back into my brain. Everything felt so goddamn off.
I tilted back my head to wet all the strands of my hair and remembered my shampoo was with my toothbrush, wherever it was I’d left my bag. Fuck it. I’d have to wash my hair at my place. I hustled to finish rinsing off, then climbed out of the shower to make my way home, while Dean went off to meet Niko and Cassie.
Just like they’d planned.
Chapter Ten
The beginning of the year felt no better once I got back to work on Monday. The weather was putting on its usual vacillating show, kicking the week off with a dismal, cloudy sky outside the windows of the office to make everything dimmer and darker—including my mood. It didn’t help that Dean had been more quiet than normal over the weekend. Sure, I’d gotten a couple of brief texts, and Cassie and Niko were occupying his focus since they’d be in town for a while longer, but things were off. I frowned after checking my phone for the umpteenth time, but Maddie startled me when she spoke from right next to my cubicle.
“How about we take our first coffee brea
k of the year?” When she saw my hand flutter to my chest, she said, “Sorry. Scare you?”
“Yeah. A little.” I peered at my computer screen before slipping my phone back in my purse, way too wrapped up in my mind. “But yes. Let’s do it.”
“Cool.”
We scooted out the door after letting Tania know we’d be back in fifteen, then headed to our favorite café around the corner.
Maddie snugged her coat around her torso and raised her head to take in a breath of the air. The temperature had to have dropped about fifteen degrees since Friday. “It’s almost like we’re having a miniwinter, finally!”
“I hate it. It’s fucking cold,” I grumbled.
Maddie snickered. “Fussy! You native Californians are spoiled. This is cold, sure, but it’s nothing like Chicago. That place is fucking cold.”
“Brrr. Sounds awful.” I fastened the top button on my coat, a thin, half-poofy, half-sweater-sleeved thing that usually worked for a Bay Area winter. We didn’t tend to get ice here, and we definitely didn’t get snow—but my favorite time of year had been summer since I was young, because I preferred tank tops to long sleeves and lived in flip-flops. I gave myself a squeeze and tried not to think about how many more weeks we’d have to endure this chilly weather. “Did you guys enjoy the holiday?”
“We sure did. Henry and I shared a bottle of champagne after we put Timothy to bed. We rang in the new year right, if you catch my drift.”
“I do. Nicely done.”
“Yep. Still got it.” Maddie stretched her arms out like she was pumping up, and I tried not to snort with laughter as we reached the café door and she held it open for me. With there not being much of a line today, we stepped right behind the two people placing their orders. “How about yours?”
“It was okay.”
“Just okay?” Maddie frowned and we moved up to the front of the line, the cherub-faced cashier glancing between us. I recognized him as the young guy who’d started working here not two weeks before. He was cute but clumsy.
“What can I get for you ladies?”
“Hi. I’ll have a mocha please,” I said.
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