Heat moved past my jaw, but the gentle contact of his lips to my neck startled me nonetheless. Kissing his way up, he murmured, “O, then, dear saint, let lips do what hands do; They pray—grant thou, lest faith turn to despair.”
From some deep recesses of my memory, the words came: “Saints do not move, though grant for prayers' sake.”
His lips broke contact, but his voice vibrated against my skin when he whispered, “Then move not, while my prayer’s effect I take.”
The second his lips met mine, I swore an orgasm was only a breath away. Never had I been so acutely aware of the light scuff of his chin or the softness of his lips. He alternately warmed and cooled the side of my face each time he breathed in, then out.
He squeezed my hands and I responded in kind when he lowered himself to me, letting his chest touch mine. A single fingertip had driven me insane, but now this closeness of his entire body wasn’t enough. I wanted more. Needed more.
Hooking my leg around his, I ran my foot up the back of his calf. He broke the kiss with a gasp, then whispered, “Do you understand what I was talking about? About how erotic it is just to touch?”
I nodded, licking my lips and searching for another taste of his mouth. He granted me a brief, light kiss, but then was once again out of my reach.
“Connor…” The words were there, I knew they were. “Connor, I…” My fingers twitched in his, and the brush of his thumb down the side of my hand did nothing to help me remember how to speak.
“I love seeing you this turned on,” he breathed. “And all I’ve done is touch you.”
“I want…”
“Tell me.” He kissed the underside of my jaw and I brought my leg up, hooking it around his waist, and when his cock brushed my pussy, he exhaled against my chin.
“Touch me,” I whispered. “Touch me more.”
His lips pulled into a grin against my neck. “I think I know exactly how you want me to touch you.” Releasing one of my wrists, he guided his cock to me and pressed against me, letting only the head tease me. “I think I know exactly where you want me to touch you.”
Moaning, I raised my hips, seeking him.
“Is that what you want, Dani?” he whispered, breathing just below my ear. “Do you want me inside you?” The unsteadiness in his voice turned the teasing question into a thinly-veiled plea. The tremor in his hand, the raggedness of his breath on my skin, those little things I would have missed had I been able to see, all conspired to reveal that he wasn’t as controlled as he let on.
“Tell me, Dani.”
“Yes,” I said.
“I want to hear you say it.” The line between teasing and begging blurred, but became decidedly clearer when he added in a hoarse whisper, “Please.”
“Yes, I want—” The words lodged in my throat when Connor kissed my neck again. “I want you inside me.”
He said nothing. A catch of his breath signaled impending movement a second before his entire body shifted. His hips brushed my inner thighs, his presence over me rose, and he was inside me.
And there he stopped.
For the longest time, we were both still. Just breathing. Being.
When at last he moved, it wasn’t to withdraw and push in again. His torso twisted slightly to one side. Then his opposite hand caressed my face, fingertips drifting up my cheek to the string holding the blindfold on.
“I don’t think we need this anymore.” He gently tugged the blindfold off.
I blinked until my vision focused, and when it did, all I saw was Connor’s eyes. We both stopped, simply looking at each other. There was something unnervingly intense about the way he looked at me. Looked into me. As if he could see layers of me that either I didn’t intend to show or didn’t know existed.
If his startled expression was to be believed, this hadn’t been on tonight’s agenda when he’d greeted me at the door earlier.
He started to speak. Hesitated. Took a breath. “Dani, I—” But before he could finish, he kissed me.
Our mouths moved, and so too did our bodies. He withdrew slowly, slid back in just as slowly. I rolled my hips with him, gained speed with him. With a gasp, he broke the kiss, but not his rhythm.
Whatever it was, that unnamed something in his eyes, it echoed in his every motion. Maybe it was just my hyperawareness lingering even after my sight was restored, but I doubted it. Even as he thrust faster, everything seemed to happen in slow, fluid motion, my nerves aware of every last place we touched, whether it was his cock moving inside me or his soft, cool hair between my fingers.
And all the while, that look remained in his eyes. He held my gaze with a deep, burning intensity that I could neither identify nor define. It was only when he closed his eyes and came down to kiss me that he broke that eye contact, but the intensity remained in and around us.
He fucked me faster and my lips could barely remember what to do with his. All my body understood was the orgasm that neared with every stroke, but there was something there, something between us, something on the tip of both his tongue and mine, and only our clumsy attempts at kissing kept it at bay.
The blindfolded teasing had left my skin so wildly sensitive that every place he touched me now may as well have been erogenous. When the sole of my foot brushed over his calf, when his hips moved between my inner thighs, when his shoulders warmed my fingers and palms, the effect was no different than the head of his cock sliding over my G-spot. My mind had earlier sought to simultaneously feel his touch on every nerve ending that could take it, and for all the electricity surging across and beneath my skin now, I wondered if I’d succeeded.
My lips somehow formed a few intelligible words, begging him not to stop. Then his name rolled off my tongue and onto his lips, and his kiss sent me out of my mind. He didn’t stop, didn’t slow down, just kept kissing me and thrusting hard and fast as my orgasm went on and on and on, never once breaking his rhythm until he, too, lost control.
With a gasp and a shudder, his back arched and he closed his eyes. “Oh fuck,” he moaned. “Oh fuck, that’s—” With one final deep, hard, thrust, he threw his head back and gasped. I kept rolling my hips, squeezing and releasing to draw his orgasm out, and I didn’t stop until he sank down to me with a soft whimper.
We were both out of breath, both trembling, and we held onto each other while the room spun around us.
Connor pushed himself up on trembling arms. Our eyes met, and there it was again. No, there it was still. That intense…something.
For the longest time, we were silent, simply looking at each other. When the silence was broken, it was with my name.
“Dani,” he whispered. His fingertips trailed tenderly down the side of my face. “I know I shouldn’t, but…”
Oh God, I wasn’t imagining it. I swallowed. “Connor…”
“Maybe this is a moot point with, you know, with our circumstances,” he said. “But it just is, and I can’t convince myself that I don’t—”
“I love you.”
We stared at each other. His lips were still parted for the words he hadn’t finished saying, and he neither breathed nor finished his thought. Whether or not he’d intended to say the same thing, I didn’t know. I didn’t care.
The words were out and couldn’t be erased, and I didn’t have it in me to care about the consequences. The only thing I cared about just then was the truth that had finally caught up with me.
I loved him.
I touched his face and drew him down to me.
Just before our lips met, he whispered, “I love you, too, Dani.” I put my arms around him, he slid his hands under my back, and we simply kissed.
I could love him. I could be in love with him. It wasn’t like I could force myself not to. Even falling dangerously in love with him like this still had the safety net of August.
August couldn’t be avoided and would hurt like hell when it came and went, but for now, I couldn’t deny the truth.
I was in love with Connor.
&n
bsp; Chapter Twenty-Four
Time came and went entirely too quickly, and before I knew it, it was July. Two weeks after his graduation, Connor left for San Francisco. He flew out on Saturday, and I would join him the following Friday for a few days.
In my otherwise empty apartment, I was restless. I found anything and everything I could do to keep idleness at bay, because when I slowed down, time did too. By the time I’d finished reorganizing my CDs and DVDs, dusting, rearranging my trophy case, and hand-washing the dishes instead of putting them in the dishwasher, it was only one o’clock in the afternoon.
I flopped onto the couch and sighed, glaring at the clock on the DVD player. This week would be hell. It wasn’t just the fact that I was killing time. In a matter of weeks, I’d have more time on my hands than I could kill. Every minute without him now was just something to be endured until I was with him again. So what am I going to do when he's gone?
“This is pathetic.” I rubbed my eyes with my thumb and forefinger. Shaking my head, I pushed myself up off the couch and went into the kitchen. There, I poured myself a glass of cranberry juice. I considered throwing in a shot of vodka, but decided against it. The walls in this apartment were closing in quickly, and it was only a matter of time before I had to get the hell out of here. Might as well be sober in case I decided to hit the road.
I chewed my lip and stared into my drink. Maybe going to San Francisco with him, even for the weekend, was a bad idea. Interstate flights to see each other took this relationship out of the realms booty calls and friends with benefits, planting it firmly into something that was worth the headache of airport security and sardine-can seating.
Then again, no matter how much I tried to convince myself otherwise, we’d long since stepped out of those realms. When I wasn’t looking, I’d gone and fallen in love with him, which would make the end of this a hell of a lot more painful. And no matter how much I wanted to fantasize that it wasn’t, his move to California would be the kiss of death for this relationship. A long distance relationship was a bad idea. Maintaining something like that only created more stress while it delayed the inevitable. If we were going to put a thousand miles between us, we might as well just call it quits and get it over with rather than draw it out.
I drained my drink and set the glass in the sink. Then I grabbed my purse off the counter, pulled out my keys, and headed out. Even as I locked the door behind me and went downstairs, carefully ignoring the place on the stairwell where my mind’s eye wanted to superimpose an image of us, I didn’t know where I was going, only that I was going.
I started the car and put my seatbelt on. Staring out the windshield, I pursed my lips, trying to decide which way to go.
The sun shone brightly in a clear sky. Good day for a trail ride. Without giving it another thought, I pulled out of the parking lot and started toward the barn.
The gravel parking area beside the barn was packed with the familiar cars of clients and boarders. When I stepped into the aisle, every set of cross-ties was occupied and the rafters echoed with chattering voices and clattering hooves. The arena was undoubtedly just as crowded, so it was just as well I was going for a trail ride.
I didn’t even bother with a saddle. Instead, I grabbed my bridle and a brush out of the tack room and slipped out to the pasture where Calypso was turned out. When I whistled for him, he looked up from grazing, grass hanging out of his mouth and ears pricked up. He greeted me with a shrill whinny and trotted to the gate when I stepped into the pasture.
“Hey, you.” I scratched his neck. He sniffed my pockets, searching for grain or candy, and I laughed. It didn’t matter what was on my mind, their childlike innocence and adoration always melted my heart.
I ran the brush over him, getting rid of some of the dried mud that had crusted on his coat after his morning roll. A pig didn’t enjoy mud as much as Calypso did. Still, he was easier to clean than a blanket, and just brushing him was enough to soothe some of my nerves. I must have spent hours grooming my two horses every day for a month after Matt and I had broken up.
I needed a little more than that today, though, so I put the brush aside and lifted the bridle off the fencepost where I’d hung it. Calypso put his head down, looking at me as if to say, “Aww, Mom, do we have to?”
“Come on, you like trail rides.” I pressed the bit against his lips. He tried to turn away, but I pulled him back and nudged his mouth again. After a second, he reluctantly opened it to take the bit. “There, see? That’s not so bad.” He just quietly chewed on it while I fastened the throatlatch and cavesson.
I opened the gate, then hoisted myself onto Calypso’s back. As soon as the farm was fading behind us, my stomach started to settle. One by one, my nerves calmed while Calypso plodded down the narrow, sun-dappled trail through the woods. The world around us was silent except for the dull cadence of hooves on dirt.
My stomach still kept itself tied in knots, but I was infinitely more relaxed than when I left my apartment. This would be a long ride, of that I had no doubt. The longer I rode, the better I’d feel. Out here, nothing else mattered. Just a woman and her horse, leaving the rest of the universe to its worries and stresses. I knew of no better way to escape.
When the trail split, I steered Calypso to the left. We had no one to race, but I needed the adrenaline rush of a few sprints up some hills.
Up ahead, the trail swept upward into a long, steep hill. Calypso danced sideways, chomping at his bit. I knew what he wanted, and normally I’d make him walk when he got antsy like this, but today, I wanted the same thing he did.
Holding on with my thighs, I leaned forward and prodded him gently with my heel. Like a shot from a cannon, he burst into a gallop and thundered up the hill. I eased my grip on the reins and just let him go, closing my eyes against the wind that whipped my hair and clothes.
At the top of the hill, I brought him back down to a walk, patting his neck while he caught his breath and continued up the trail. My heart pounded and my skin tingled from the wind. Though my worries still coiled themselves in my stomach, they were quieter now, grudgingly allowing themselves to be pushed aside and stressed over later.
Yes, this was what I needed. I’d heard it said that there was nothing a good day on a horse couldn’t cure, and today, I realized how true that was. This wouldn’t solve everything in my life. It wouldn’t make my relationship with Connor any easier to leave behind, it wouldn’t get me back to Cheyenne, it wouldn’t make my boss a tolerable human being. But it made me feel better now, and that was as much as I could ask for.
Closing in on another hill, Calypso danced sideways. I gathered my reins, leaned forward, and let him carry me away from the rest of the world.
Chapter Twenty-Five
My ringing cell phone startled me.
I muted the television and picked up my phone off the coffee table. As soon as I saw the caller ID, I groaned aloud. Connor had been in California for a few days and I was much too busy being pathetic and feeling sorry for myself to deal with Matt, but he was calling anyway.
Knowing him, he’d leave a voice message if I ignored his call. If I ignored the message, he’d call again. Might as well nip it in the bud now.
“Hello?”
“Hey, Dani,” he said.
“What’s up?” I tried not to sound as irritated as I was, but didn’t particularly care if I did.
“Listen, you know that stuff you picked up a while back?”
I craned my neck and gave the unopened boxes beside the couch a quick look. They were still in the same place I’d unceremoniously dumped them a week or two after I’d picked them up, when they were taking up too much space in my trunk. “Yeah, it’s all right here.”
“I think I might have given you the wrong box,” he said. “I still have one here that’s got your stuff in it, and I’m missing a box of—” He paused. “Some stuff I need.”
“Let me take a look.” I pushed myself up off the couch and didn’t bother trying to hide the groan of
annoyance as I did. Cradling the phone on my shoulder, I opened the first box.
This was definitely my stuff: A few photos, some candles, a pair of shoes I vaguely remembered looking for a while ago. I set it aside and reached for the other box.
“Do you see anything?” he asked.
“Hold on, I’m looking in the second one now.” I moved the phone to my other shoulder and pulled open the second box’s flaps. As soon as I did, I couldn’t help but clench my teeth.
A little wooden box I’d never seen before. Three or four romance paperbacks. A shimmery purple jacket that definitely wasn’t mine.
“This must be what you’re looking for,” I said. “I’m assuming it’s not yours?”
“Um, no, it’s—” He cleared his throat. “Anyway, yeah, I need to get that from you.”
“I’ll bring it over.”
“It’s all right. I can come and—”
“No, I’ll bring it over. I need to get out of the house for a bit anyway.” And I’d rather you didn’t know where I live. “I can be there in twenty or so.”
“Well, okay. It’s your call.”
“I’ll be there in a few.”
I threw my purse on top of the offending box and left my apartment before I had a chance to talk myself into not going to Matt’s. Though “something to do” beat sitting at home and wishing Connor was there, visiting my ex wasn’t high on my list. Still, the sooner I got his—her—things out of my house, the better.
On the drive over, it occurred to me more than once that she might be there. I wondered what she was like, this woman whose existence had never been directly confirmed. Thus far, I knew her only as an abstract shape of a person, a collection of nebulous hints that alluded to her existence. She liked Vogue. She wore shimmery purple jackets, drank espresso, and read romance. She kept houseplants alive and kept warm one side of a bed that used to be mine.
It still stung that someone had moved into my world before my relationship with Matt was lukewarm in the grave, but I couldn’t find the energy to be jealous. Whatever part of my mind once manufactured things like jealousy and bitterness was occupied now with creating copious amounts of impatience and longing for this week to be over so I could be in Connor’s arms again.
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