Infusion

by Liz Crowe

  The sip of wine Gayle had been indulging morphed into a gulp and shot down her windpipe. Evelyn leaned over and pounded her between the shoulder blades until she was able to breathe again. But even then, with her eyes streaming and her face burning hot, she refused to meet her friend’s curious gaze. “I don’t know what you mean,” she finally managed, taking the bottle of water Evelyn handed her.

  “Don’t bullshit me, my friend.” Evelyn smiled at her and patted her knee. “I say go for it. I remember him from Nexus. He’s pretty damn hard to forget, isn’t he?” She raised an eyebrow and sipped her doctored water, wincing as she swallowed. “God, this is so gross.” She flipped a switch near the door. The late-summer evening was hot, but the humidity gripping the area for the last few weeks had broken the night before thanks to a loud, showy thunderstorm that had kept Gayle awake—or rather had given her an excuse to sit and obsess over Noah. The ceiling fan above them on the enclosed porch whipped strands of their hair around their faces. Gayle stared at her friend, her throat frozen with a combination of embarrassment and a need to spill the whole damn thing.

  “I…um…I’m…I don’t… Shit.”

  Evelyn sipped her lemon water, waiting Gayle out. As they always managed to do, tears burned her eyes. She clenched her jaw, willing herself not to scream, to cry, to curse, yell, throw things. She’d never in her life felt more conflicted. Even when Ethan had continued to pursue her after their first, steamy, near accidental encounter, she’d never experienced this torn-in-two sensation in her chest and guts. It had been like a cat-and-mouse game with Ethan. This…this was more like a dance—a two-steps-forward, five-steps-back thing leaving her breathless, giddy, ashamed and somehow even more needy.

  She hated it. And yet, these last three days she’d gone incommunicado had been beyond unbearable. She loved talking to him, listening to him, laughing at his jokes, tossing his increasingly overt raunchiness right back at him. She missed him. And for that, she hated herself more than ever.

  She sipped her wine. Evelyn left her to her thoughts. “I don’t deserve…this,” Gayle said, more to herself than anyone. “I don’t. I don’t.” She set her glass down before she shattered it between her fingers. Suddenly horrified, she yanked her phone back out and stared down at the date until her vision blurred. She wiped away the single tear that landed on the device’s screen, stood and headed inside.

  “Mommy! Come in the water with us!” Rose’s high, childish voice hit Gayle right between the eyes. “Come on, Mommy! Daddy’s getting all prune-y and wants to get out!”

  “Later, baby. Mommy needs to talk to Miss Gayle a little longer.”

  Gayle felt an arm around her shoulders, but she knew she was fading. She’d never been able to look at Rose—at any children her age. She’d even managed to shut out their voices most of the time. But now, the little girl’s voice pierced her soul.

  “I have to go,” she choked out, stumbling over the step up into the kitchen from the deck. She couldn’t see. She couldn’t hear. She could barely even breathe. She had to get in her car, roll down all the windows and drive as fast as she could—somewhere. Perhaps simply into the nearest oncoming truck. Or better yet, a brick wall.

  Here it was again. The day her longed-for son and beloved husband had died in a no-doubt terrifying fireball crash into some fucking corn field in that goddamned private jet. The day she had begun this odd journey from privileged and ecstatic to lonely despair. The day she’d wished she’d been on the stupid plane too, so she didn’t have to be left behind, pretending she was all right when she’d never be all right again.

  “Gayle, wait,” Evelyn called behind her, but Gayle didn’t slow her race across their front lawn to her car. How in God’s name could I have let this happen? I…forgot about it? About them? No. Never.

  She jumped into the car’s oven-like interior and touched the ignition button. But nothing happened. She tried again, her swampy mind retrieving the fact that she’d left her keys in her purse on Evelyn’s coffee table. She had both hands wrapped tight around the steering wheel, figuring she could simply sit in here and asphyxiate herself, die of heat stroke and thirst.

  Austin appeared with her keys, hit the Unlock, and Evelyn crouched beside her, brushing sweaty stands of hair off her face. “Gayle, honey, it’s all right. You haven’t done anything wrong.”

  She glared at her friend, baring her teeth like some kind of feral animal. “You don’t know anything about this, so leave me alone.” She sensed rather than saw Austin pulling Evelyn to her feet and taking her place.

  “Gayle,” he said, his low growl of a voice making her want to scream. “Come back inside. Calm down a few minutes, then I can drive you home if you want.”

  “Leave. Me. Alone.” She stared straight ahead, terrified that if she looked at her friends she’d give in, let them lure her back into their giant, comfortable house with their sweet little girl and their wine cellar and their in-ground pool—all the shit she’d once had. And hers had been much nicer, since her house had overlooked the Pacific Ocean.

  Austin Fitzgerald was a rich trust fund kid who’d jumped into the craft beer scene early enough to be super successful and was still making money at it. Ethan Connolly’s wealth made Austin’s look like a piggy bank on the dresser. Gayle closed her eyes and pressed her forehead into her hands as Ethan’s handsome, lined face swam into her consciousness and stuck there, smiling, his thick, graying hair messy, like he’d just gotten out of bed. His blue eyes shone in a familiar, lusty way—the way she’d given in to once, then again and again. And finally, had admitted she loved.

  “Oh God,” she said, tears finally bursting out of her, coating her cheeks and her hands, and her lap.

  She let Evelyn pull her out of the car. Let Austin half carry her back up to the house. Let them both settle her on the couch with her wine and some expensive-looking cheese and bread. Noticed they made a point to keep Rose well clear of her, shushing the little girl and promising her a movie in her room with Daddy.

  She sipped her wine and forced her mind to go blank. When Evelyn re-emerged, bringing the pizza which had materialized at some point during her freak-out, she attempted a smile. “I’ve turned into that woman, haven’t I?” She sighed and put her feet on the leather ottoman, finishing off her wine before holding it up for a refill.

  “What woman?” Evelyn ignored the pizza, choosing her lemon water instead. Gayle tried hard not to yell at the massive unfairness of this, of her entire life, of where she found herself right now.

  “The one everyone tiptoes around, trying not to set off on one of her silly fits.” She stared down at her recharged glass. “I’m sorry.” She sipped, shocked she could even swallow anything. “I’m really sorry.”

  “Honey, you don’t have a damn thing to be sorry about.” Evelyn sat next to her and slipped her arm around Gayle’s shoulder. “You’re right. I don’t know anything about what you’re feeling right now but please know I love you and I want to be here for you. Okay?”

  Gayle nodded and pressed her face into Evelyn’s shoulder, shedding a few more of her endless supply of tears before sitting up and sniffling, surprisingly hungry. The last two years’ worth of this particular gruesome anniversary she’d gone almost a week without eating, unable to contemplate doing something so innocuous—simply because Ethan and Liam no longer could do it with her. Guilt slammed into her, making her drop the pizza slice back into the box and slap her hand over her lips to hold back the scream.

  Chapter Fourteen

  When the doorbell rang, Evelyn jumped up as if she’d been expecting someone. Gayle sniffled and sipped and stared at the food she wanted but couldn’t bring herself to enjoy. Muttered voices from the foyer barely made an impression on her so, when she lifted her gaze from the pizza and saw who stood next to Evelyn, she flinched, spilling wine down her hand and wrist to the Turkish rug under her feet. “Shit. I’m sorry.” She glared at her friend. “Why is he here?”

  “He reached out to me e
arlier today, to make sure you were accounted for, that you had someone to be with, since you weren’t answering his texts.” Evelyn shrugged, looked from Gayle to Noah and mumbled something about checking on Rose before heading up the back staircase. Noah sat in the chair to her right, elbows on his jeans-clad knees, staring at her. She sighed and looked at the ceiling, then back at him.

  “I want…” she began, biting her lip hard, tasting blood with the effort to not finish the sentence. Noah leaned closer to her, took her hand and pressed it to his lips before putting it alongside his clean-shaven cheek. He smiled, tilted his head slightly, keeping her hand under his. They sat like this for several minutes, Gayle’s pounding heartbeat slowly calming.

  “We should clean this up,” he said, letting go of her and heading into the kitchen. When he appeared with a damp cloth and some cleaning solution, she nodded and took her wine glass to the sink while he did some damage control to the rug. She stood watching him, unable to tear her eyes off his ass, until he finished and took everything back into the kitchen.

  She followed him, her heart calm, her mind made up, every inch of her skin prickling in anticipation. She waited while he tucked the cleaner away, rinsed the rag and hung it on the empty dish rack. When he turned, she saw something in his eyes that gave her pause on her current trajectory. Something she’d never seen in their gold-brown depths—something that made her believe he truly was the nice guy he claimed to be.

  He looked scared.

  She took a step closer to him so they were only separated by six inches of highly charged air. Putting her hand over his heart, she smiled when it raced under her palm. “I want you to take me home and make love to me, Noah Stokes.”

  He blinked a few times. His heart beat even faster. He shook his head and backed away, stopping when his butt hit the granite-topped island. His eyes darkened and his face flushed, but he kept shaking his head as she approached him and put both her hands alongside his cheeks. “I want this. I need this. I’m ready…”

  “You don’t and you aren’t,” he declared, taking her hands off his face. Fury roiling up in her, she yanked him closer, went up on her toes and kissed him, hard, shoving her tongue between his lips, relishing the taste of him, the sensation of his strong, hard body pressed against hers.

  He resisted for about a quarter of a second, before sliding his hands up her back into her hair and meeting her halfway with the kiss. Their tongues tangled. Their teeth clicked together with unpracticed urgency. His hands were on her ass, then her back, then her hair again. Gayle felt alive in a way she’d hadn’t since Ethan’s death—since before Liam’s birth. Her every nerve ending danced with urgency. The distinct press of Noah’s erection against her stomach made her gasp, reach down and unbuckle his belt, unzip his jeans, wanting to feel him in her hand, to understand the reality of this moment. But he stopped her, breaking the kiss and zipping himself back up.

  “But…I want…” She reached for him again, feeling like a damned kid in a giant candy store. She’d always been hyper-sexual. It was how she and Ethan had ended up fucking inside his pool house while dozens of company employees partied on the other side of a locked door. She was truly a needy woman, physically speaking. But ever since word had come of the plane crash, her body had gone into total shutdown mode. She hadn’t even had the inclination to masturbate, which was something she’d once enjoyed, sometimes once a day. Granted, she’d woken up from some seriously hot dreams about this young man in the past few weeks, but she’d let the moment pass without touching any part of herself. More of her self-inflicted punishment for not being dead along with her son and husband, she supposed.

  But now…now…now she wanted him on her, inside her, all over her. It was a little scary how badly she wanted all these things all at once. But given she’d caged her robust libido for exactly three years to this very day, it wasn’t terribly surprising.

  “God, Noah, please,” she whispered, pulling him to her and kissing him until she saw stars. He was a real master at it, she marveled, his skill not lost on her. He liked to tease, nibbling, licking her lips, then plunging in deep, his hands in her hair, his tongue probing and invading her mouth in a way that made her groan and her thighs go weak.

  I am, without a doubt, going insane. I’m now even thinking in romance novel language.

  He cradled her face between his hands and pressed his forehead to hers. Their breathing was ragged. Gayle wanted to leap out of her clothing and tackle him to the floor. She honestly believed if she didn’t get him between her legs in the next five minutes she would implode. He traced her lips with the rough pad of his thumb. She licked it, then bit down on it, making him flinch and grin at her. His face filled her vision and the clean, clear odor of his lust filled her brain.

  “Where can we go?” he asked. “Don’t you live at your mom’s house?”

  “Not anymore. I closed on my loft yesterday. Keys are in my purse.”

  He pulled away from her and ran his hand around the back of his neck. “I don’t know, Gayle. I’m not sure you’re—”

  “So help me, Noah Stokes, if you say I’m not ready one more time…” She placed her hand along the impressive length of his erection under his jeans. “I’m going to go down on my knees right here in my friend’s kitchen and show you how ready I am.” His eyes shone as he slid one hand up her shirt and cupped her breast, using his other to grip her ass and yank her close so he could grind against her. “That’s more like it,” she whispered. Her mind tried to recapture her, to shut her down, to remind her this day was for mourning, not for fucking some kid who’d been following her around like a goddamned puppy dog for the last month and a half.

  But she jammed the thought aside and leaned back on the island, so he could kiss her neck, tease her nipples, kiss her yet more with those incredible lips. Finally, she pushed him away. “I’m ready for more. Let’s go.” She grabbed his hand, plucked her purse from the coffee table and headed for the front door. “Evelyn, we’re heading out,” she yelled up the stairs. Noah yanked her around and pressed her up against the wall, his eager hands up her shirt, his thigh between her legs. “Oh, Jesus,” she whispered before he shut her up with a kiss and pinched her nipple so hard she moaned into his mouth and realized she was thrusting her hips forward, rubbing her clit against his thigh right there in the foyer of her friends’ house. She closed her eyes and let the small glory of a quick orgasm suffuse her. She was notoriously hair-trigger, coming fast but coming often, which was way better than taking forever and only coming once, she’d always declared.

  “Oh…yes…” Noah hissed into her neck, his other hand pulling her higher on his thigh and she rode it, climaxing with gusto and energy she’d forgotten she possessed. “Oh, damn, that was…” He let go of her and pulled his hand out of her shirt, wincing as he tried to adjust himself under his zipper. She smiled, still battling the guilt threatening to overtake her.

  “That was just the beginning, I hope.” She grinned, amused by his seeming astonishment at her behavior. “I’m still doing the thing on my knees thing. Just later. Come on.”

  He nodded and followed her out of the door, across the lawn and to her car. She opened the passenger’s-side door and he shook his head.

  “You drive,” he said. “I’m pretty sure I’d have a wreck if I tried to.” He grinned at her and got in, tilting the seat back and continuing to adjust himself under the jeans. She stared over at him, wondering at the possibility of what was about to happen, at the sheer unbelievable oddness of it, on this day of all days. He met her gaze. “You all right?” His brown eyes were chocolate-dark with lust.

  She swallowed hard, unable to find actual words, and drove them to her new home. It was a short ride and spent in uncomfortable silence. Gayle’s nerve endings sang with desire but her brain was beginning to yammer even louder at her, reminding her she was not doing this for the right reasons. Noah was a nice young man and she was about to use him for nothing more than a pure, physical outlet.

/>   But, oh, what an outlet… It was calling her name, screaming it into her ears, demanding she take action, take control, take what she wanted. Because she sensed that Noah was more than willing to give it to her.

  “Shut up,” she muttered under her breath, parked in the lot under the building and got out. Noah was at her side in a heartbeat, tucking her hair behind her ears, kissing her nose, her cheeks, her lips. She closed her eyes and tried to go back to the amazing place she’d been, but it eluded her. Aggravated, and yet still humming with horny energy, she pushed him off her and hesitated, pressed up against the side of her car in the dark, unfamiliar confines of the underground lot.

  He stood with his hands on his hips, chest heaving. “Having second thoughts?” His voice cut through her befuddled haze, forcing aside the encroaching, guilty misgivings about what she wanted to do, about what she wanted him to do to her.

  “No,” she said, her voice weak. She cleared her throat. “There’s the elevator.” He grinned and ran for it, beating her there by a few steps. “Sixth floor,” she said. The doors slid shut. He touched the stop button and turned to her, hand on his belt buckle. She grinned back at him. “Always wanted a blow job in an elevator, mister?” She let her purse fall to the floor and yanked him forward by his belt loops.

  “Nah,” he said, as she unbuckled and unzipped him, sighing with relief when his long, elegant cock was released into the stifling hot space. “I’ve done this plenty of times. You?”

  “Nice,” she said, stroking him from root to tip, touching across the fluid beading the head then putting her fingertip in her mouth. He tasted of earth, of grass, of the sort of base essence of a man she’d missed without realizing she was missing it. Ethan had been a big fan of this sort of thing, so she’d made sure she gave the best blow job on the planet. “I seriously doubt you’ve ever had one like this.”

  He propped his hands on the elevator wall when she slid down his body, pulling his jeans with her so she could get at all of him. Closing her eyes, she took his cock into her mouth, relishing the moment he tensed right before she let the tip hit her throat. He groaned and thrust forward. She released him, keeping one hand under his heavy sac, loving when his balls contracted as she teased around the edge of his head, knowing exactly the right sensitive spots to tantalize before she deep-throated him again. She stroked, letting her finger move back, closer to his ass before she released him again, smiling up into his beet-red face while she stuck her tongue into the cum now beaded up once more.