by Reid, Ruby
And before Alex could come up with any awkward reply, Amanda was crying. He could see her trying to hold it all back but it came out in a flood. Usually very stand-offish in matters like this, Alex was surprised to find himself instantly getting out of his chair and going to her.
He placed his arm around her shoulder and gave her an innocent squeeze. “It’s okay,” he said.
“But it’s not,” she said through a sob. “It’s really not. I need to pick my life back up and I need to be able to do it without feeling guilty about Stephen or feeling as if I’m making myself do it. And..and…oh God, I’m sorry to do this to you.”
“Do what you need to do,” he said. “Crying won’t make me run away.”
She smiled through her tears. “I’m really not a big crier, you know?” she said, still trying to get control of the sobs. “I know that’s hard for you to believe based on our very brief history.”
He chuckled at this and then hunkered down on the floor. She was still sitting in her chair, her mostly empty plate in front of her, so this allowed him to look into her face. “Here’s the thing, though,” he said. “You can’t just cry on me like this and not expect me to offer a hug.”
He then wondered, Have I ever said anything like that in my life? What the hell is this? A cheesy romance novel?
But she nodded and said, “That would be nice.”
So he wrapped his arms around her and brought her to him. She relaxed against him and he held her as innocently as he could as she brought her sobs to a stop. Her breath eventually slowed and her breathing became more regular. As she got control, Alex felt her hands gently kneading at his back and he wondered if this was something more than just her hugging him back.
Don’t do that, he thought to himself. Don’t try to make this more than it is.
But then he felt her breath on the side of his neck, just an inch or so below his ear. And her grip on him was growing tighter. Then there was her voice in his ear, her breath hot against his skin and sending a chill through him.
“Alex, would you kiss me?”
Everything about it felt wrong to him. Surely this was taking advantage of her, wasn’t it? “I don’t know,” he said. “I don’t want to take advantage and—”
“No advantage. I haven’t kissed a man in two years. I haven’t even felt an embrace like this one in that time. I want you to kiss me. But I won’t beg.”
Her hands were still at his back and her body was pressed awkwardly against him as he knelt by her. Her breath was hot on his neck and later, when he looked back on it, he’d think her breath was what had pushed him to his decision.
He broke the hug and looked into her eyes. They were seeking, almost desperate. He then looked to her lips. He didn’t think he had ever wanted to kiss someone so bad in his life. He took her face gently into his hands and brought his face to hers.
He kissed her softly, intending to give her a soft and brief kiss without any pressure, force, or tongue. But five seconds in, he couldn’t pull away. He could feel himself sinking into her, nearly falling over in his awkward kneeling pose. She then parted her lips and opened her mouth. When he felt her tongue slip into his mouth and find his own, he forced himself to back away. At some point very soon, he was afraid he wouldn’t be able to stop.
He pulled away and got to his feet. He did so in a way that was not quite abrupt or rude, but still implied urgency. Usually, his time spent with women was simple. There was usually very little kissing. There would be a heap of clothes on the floor, some semi-aggressive sex that lasted anywhere between two minutes to an hour (depending on how much he’d had to drink) and then an awkward goodbye in the morning.
This was new. And, truth be told, this was scary as hell.
“Thanks,” she said, sitting back in the chair, her eyes a little dazed.
“Thank you,” he said, startled by how that seven second kiss had rocked him.
He stood there for a moment in the silence of the kitchen among the smells of bacon and coffee. She sat in her chair and they looked at one another for several seconds, doing nothing. Alex was waiting for some cue to either leave or sit back down to the table for another cup of coffee.
Instead, Amanda got to her feet and took three slow steps towards him. Her eyes met his and never left. She reached out and took his right hand, bringing it forward and placing it on her waist. He held it there, not quite gripping, but applying pressure.
She then took another step forward and their chests were touching. Her breasts were just slightly above average size and he was very aware of them as they faintly pressed against him. He almost said something to stop it but he had no time. She was kissing him again, this time with force and passion. He went rigid for a moment, trying to find the strength to pull away.
Instead, he found his hand on her waist pulling her tighter to him. When he did and their kiss intensified, Amanda let out a little gasp of surprise.
And that was the last straw.
Alex wrapped his arms around her back and pulled her even tighter against him. Their kiss was fire now, their tongues dueling and their mouth opening wide for the other. Alex felt her hands in his long hair, then at his chest, then at his back, trying to pull him even closer.
As their hands got braver, his hand brushed against the side of her breast and he moved it quickly, not wanting to be too presumptuous. But as soon as he moved it, she grabbed his hand and placed it back where it had been. More than that, she pressed against his hand, instructing him to touch her there.
He obliged and their kiss grew even stronger. She pressed her waist against him and found him hard. Her hand trailed down and stroked lightly. Everything after that was a blur and somewhere in that haze of kisses, gasps, and exploring hands, they ended up sinking to the floor.
Their clothes came off quickly. Alex was barely aware of his shirt landing directly on top of his now-empty plate, as he was too distracted by Amanda’s shirt being pulled over her head. She removed her bra and threw it to the side. It was fast and fairly desperate and urgent, but at the same time there was a passion lying at the center of it all that Alex was not accustomed to.
What happened after that, happened far too quickly as far as Alex was concerned. Yet, although he didn’t last very long, he was able to live with that knowing that Amanda had gotten her climax quickly. He wasn’t sure, but he thought she might have gotten another one near the end.
The final seconds of it were what would stick out in his mind later. She had managed to position herself on top of him near the end and as they both slowed and settled down when Alex was spent, she remained on top of him, sitting up and rocking slightly. She looked down into his eyes and he found her eyes filled with something that was so close to happiness that it scared Alex. But still, he took her in, enjoying the view of her nakedness and the expression of satisfaction on her face.
When it was over, they lay on the floor, saying nothing. They both looked to the ceiling, speechless, trying to figure out just what in the hell had happened.
CHAPTER TEN
Oh. My. God.
These three words kept spinning through Amanda’s mind as she lay naked next to the man she had just met the night before. More than that, they were on her kitchen floor. Had she ever had sex on a kitchen floor? No, she hadn’t. She figured it was one hell of a way to break a two-year long dry spell.
They lay in silence for just over a minute before she propped herself up on her elbow and looked at him. She wanted to say something, but she didn’t know what. The truth of the matter was that she had not planned on this happening. But when he had come to her when she had been crying and placed his arm around her, she had wanted him to hold her so badly that it had ached. And then once his arms were around her, everything else just simply felt right. There was something in the way he had held her that told her he was attracted to her—something she found hard to believe.
But even as she now looked at him, he was looking at her. His eyes were traveling over her body
with an appreciation she had worried she’d never again experience.
“I feel like I should apologize,” she said finally.
“Are you serious?” Alex said. “If anyone needs to apologize, it’s me.”
“I wanted that, though,” she said. “I didn’t know it until it was happening. And I don’t think I wanted it just to get it. I wanted it from you.”
“Because of last night?” he asked.
“I don’t know,” she said. “I think so.”
She was glad to know that this was the truth. She was beyond satisfied and, truth be told, she could easily go again. But for the life of her, she could not figure out why. Yes, he was attractive. But there was something more than that about Alex that she didn’t understand. She had never given herself away so easily—not in high school, college, or the small span of dating she had done before she had met Stephen.
So what was it, then?
She supposed that was how the female body reacted to a handsome, well-built man with his arms around you after a two year absence of a man.
“Awkward question for you,” Alex said.
“What’s that?” she asked. She stretched a bit, on purpose. She loved the feel of his eyes on her. Before he gave her his awkward question, she watched him eye her breasts and flat stomach. God, she’s gorgeous, he thought.
“What now?” he asked.
She snickered. “I don’t know. There’s no real respectable way to just get up and get dressed, huh?”
“I guess not,” he said. “That being said, is there somewhere I can clean up?”
“Yeah,” she said, sitting up. “The bathroom is down the hall, second door on the right.”
“Thanks,” he said, getting up and collecting his clothes. He laughed a bit when he picked his shirt up off of his plate.
Amanda watched him go, taking her own moment to appreciate his body. He had a very faint six pack in the ab region and his arms were well built and defined. She couldn’t help but compare him to Stephen, whom had been rather skinny but still fairly well built. They were vastly different from one another, which made her feel guilty in a way that made no real sense. But then she saw his shoulders glistening in the kitchen light as he walked towards the hall and that guilt was replaced by a quiver below her waist. She wasn’t a fan of tattoos at all, but the single one on his body—on his upper arm—made her want to trace it with her tongue.
When he was in the bathroom, she stood up and collected her own clothes. She dashed into the bedroom, checked herself in the mirror, and then put her clothes back on. As she primped herself slightly in front of the mirror, she realized that the question Alex had asked her was a tricky and rather sad one.
What now?
The simple answer was he would leave and be on the way to Chicago in about two hours. As for her, she had some work to do but, God help her, she already knew her mind would be replaying the scene on the kitchen floor over and over for the next few days. What good would it do to have those two years wiped out by a hugely pleasing romp with a man she found devastatingly hot, only to have him leave immediately afterwards?
Back to the drawing board, she thought.
She went back into the kitchen and started cleaning off the table. She was halfway through when Alex came back into the kitchen. Without being asked to do so, he pitched in with cleaning up.
“Are you going to be okay?” he asked her as he washed the frying pan in the sink.
“Yes,” she said. “That was poor impulse control. I thank you for trying to put up a fight.”
“That was pretty difficult,” he said. “I wanted you right away…from that first little kiss.”
“Mmm,” was all she said.
God, I want him again. Right now. This is stupid.
“But we’re okay, right?” he said.
“We are,” she said. “Especially since we won’t see each other after today.”
“That’s what I meant,” Alex said. “I know that some women handle one-time hook ups pretty hard.”
“I knew that’s what it was when I started,” she said. “It’s okay.”
He nodded as he continued to clean. “I have to say…that was the best breakfast I’ve had in quite some time.”
“The food or…?”
“Both,” he said.
They finished washing the dishes in silence, but it was a comfortable silence. For reasons she did not understand, Amanda found herself thinking of the dream she’d had where Alex had been beckoning to her while she stood at Stephen’s grave.
“I should probably go,” he said almost out of nowhere.
The thought of him leaving and her being alone again made her sad, but she hid it very well. She searched for the satisfaction that still lurked in her, anchored by the slight twinge of pain in her back from their time on the floor. It was enough to keep her strong—to keep him from seeing that she did not want him to go.
“Yeah,” she said. “A long day of riding, I guess. How long is it from here to Chicago anyway?”
“Maybe another eight or nine hours,” he said. “As long as we leave by noon, we’ll be okay.”
As if it had all been orchestrated, she suddenly found herself walking him to the door. It happened too fast for her liking and when she reached out to open the door for him, it was like moving underwater. He stood in the opened doorway, the street and the bright morning waiting behind him. He looked gorgeous.
“All of that stuff you were saying before we ended up on the floor,” Alex said, looking at her. “How bad did it get?”
An image of the pills she had nearly taken to end her life flashed in her mind but she shut it down. She wasn’t going to tell him that, especially now that he was on his way out. What sort of guilt might that cause him?
“Not too bad. Just a lot of self pity.”
“Well you have my number now, right?”
“Right.”
“So at any time you need someone to talk to, please call me. Will you do that?”
“Yes, I can do that.”
“Good,” he said.
He leaned in and hugged her. As he did, she thought: One more kiss, please kiss me, one more time…
But he apparently felt the same lure she did. If they kissed again, it was not going to stop at just a kiss. So he made sure to keep his cheek to hers as they hugged. They squeezed one another tightly and then, just like that, it was over.
“Take care,” he said. “And seriously…call me when you need someone to talk to.”
“I will. You be careful on that bike.”
“I always am,” he said, waving to her as he headed down her sidewalk.
Amanda stood in her doorway and watched him climb onto his bike. They exchanged a wave as he kicked it to life. There was something about seeing him on his motorcycle that made him look different—more defined and proud, perhaps. It was as if he belonged on it.
He started rolling away and when he neared the end of her street, he gave another wave that Amanda could barely see. She returned it and even after he was gone, she stood there staring at the street, wondering what might have been.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Having what he had always known as a One and Done was usually something of a bragging right to Alex. A One and Done was, by definition, very much like a one night stand. It was having sex, knowing you would never see the other person again. Usually, it was designed this way. Given his line of work and his life with The Unknowns, he’d had quite a few One and Dones with his fair share of women. He’d left those encounters feeling satisfied and somewhat fulfilled.
But as he pulled his motorcycle into the hotel parking lot, he didn’t feel that. Sure, he was satisfied; in fact, the sex had been incredible. As he had replayed it in his head on the drive back to the motel, he couldn’t get over the sight of her. From the way Amanda’s hair had fallen over her face when she had climaxed, to the way her breasts had perched perfectly above him for the brief amount of time she had been on top…it was all perfect.<
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And for the first time, he felt something very much like guilt because of the fact that he was leaving. It was more than the fact that she was in the midst of emotional struggles, but he could not put his finger on why it was bothering him so badly.
He did his best to make it appear as if nothing was bothering him as he walked into the room he and Slim had rented. He found Slim sitting on his bed, dressed and ready for the day. He was flipping through channels on the TV and sipping from a Styrofoam cup of coffee. When Alex entered, Slim looked up and gave him a devilish smile.
“It was that girl you left with last night, wasn’t it?” he asked.
“Yeah, it was,” Alex said.
