A shadow of shame flitted under her closed eyelids. This is bad. We’re not married. There’s no future in it.
Who says? Who cares?
He flicked her upper lip with his tongue, and she opened to him gratefully, glad to banish thought behind the tidal wave of sensation. Her hands slipped behind his neck. He wasn’t going anywhere this time.
Eventually, they came up for air. He smiled down at her, his eyes as glossy as hers surely were. “You do know what happens next? And you agree?”
“With all my heart.”
He undid the belt of her wrap dress, and it slid to her sides. She had only a simple bra and panties underneath.
“Beautiful. If this is what DC summers do to women’s fashions, I approve.” He pulled her hips to him, the rest of her following willingly. She ground her hips into his, and he groaned.
She made short work of the buttons of his shirt, and took care of the buttons on his jeans for good measure. She reached for his shoulders, so strong, and pushed the shirt down. “You work out.”
“Carting obese dementia patients from wheelchair to training table will do that to you. You’re pretty cut, yourself.” He matched her moves on her own shoulders, and her dress slipped to the floor. “What’s your excuse?”
“Just swimming at the Y. Dull stuff.”
“Nothing about you is dull.” He propped up a knee, bracing his foot on the door, and lifted her onto it, as if she were a cowgirl. Mouth taking hers again, she felt him dispose of her bra in a flash.
Her skin stung with sensation; everywhere cried for his touch. She thrust her breasts up, not even ashamed, just wanting. He reached under one, cradling it, flicking the bud with his thumb. Too much. Not enough. She bucked on his leg. She could feel the muscles in his face twitch up into a smile even as they kissed.
The room grew warmer and warmer. Sam’s sense of time started to waver. Had they been here a minute, an hour, a day? She never wanted to stop.
But he groaned and pushed her down and away. Before she could miss him, he scooped up her knees, tipping her shoulders into his other arm, and carried her from the entry and into the room. He put a knee, and then Sam, on the closest king-sized bed. She pulled him down over her to rest beside her.
Sam kissed one corner of his too-wide, too-beautiful mouth, and then the other. “I have no STDs; I check every year and I’ve had no new partner – no partner, really – since the last test. We don’t need condoms.” She loved his blush, rising from cheekbones up, and then down, down past a scattering of chest hair and on down.
“Of course we do.”
“Are you clean?”
“Clean? You mean, oh, yes, but still.”
She shook her head. “I had a hysterectomy. Fibroids. So, see, it all turned out for the best.” The stab of sorrow surprised her. Over such ancient history.
“No,” he whispered. “Never say that. You’re more than enough. You are everything.” He kissed her again, soaking up her welling sorrow and replacing it with a delicious heat. Where had he acquired that power?
His head moved down to lavish attention on her breast, and she arched in pleasure. The fingers of one hand slipped down to circle her belly button. The other hand slid up, thumb stroking her jaw, and then her lower lip.
The moment she took his thumb into her mouth, he flicked his other wrist and those fingers dove under her bikini briefs. He lifted his head. “So soft. So tasty.” He went for the other breast as a finger slipped down to cup her mound, tap into her core.
He drew the now-wet finger back up, circling the edges just as it had her belly button. She gave his thumb a little nip, and his fingers did the same to her. She bucked, tipping his head off her breast. “Still the squirmer.”
“Still Mr. Exposition,” she breathed.
“Watch that mouth,” he said, taking her tongue’s attention away with his own. His hand, now free, slipped under her, tilting her hips harder into the very busy hand at her front.
She gasped into his mouth, and suddenly remembered she had hands, too. They seemed to be attached to the loops on his waistband. She let go and reached for the front, pushing at his clothes, pulling. He kicked off his shoes without breaking their kiss, but the jeans were tougher. He had to lift his head up, and take his hands away, and roll all the way away from her to shimmy the jeans off. She missed him already. She couldn’t help her groan of frustration.
At the sound, he paused, jeans at his knees, his dick plump and red and just within her grasp. She reached out, just a little circle stroke, and his head fell back to the pillow, seeming to forget about his jeans, there at his ankles. She felt the blood rush in, under her palm, swelling and stretching and hardening and delicious. She had to taste it. She’d dreamed of this. So many times.
But before she could lift her own head from her pillow, he had his clothes off and had hurtled himself onto his hands and knees above her, surrounding her.
“How ready are you?” His voice raspy as a rusty saw, she barely understood the words, but she could read the promise, the need, in his gaze.
“Ready.” She reached for him again, gently. With her fingers, she spread her lips for him. With a shimmy, she settled him right.
“Wait.” He bent his head toward her. “Let me just feel you like this for a minute.” But she was impatient. She’d been waiting years. Decades. She grabbed the back of his neck and pulled his mouth to hers, diving her tongue deep. He matched her frenetic moves, and his hips relaxed, pushing into her deeper and deeper. Yes.
He fit her as perfectly inside as outside. She knew she was right, all those years ago. Confirmation was as sweet as success.
This time it was his turn to groan, and hers to turn up the corners of her mouth. She loved this. She pushed a fisted hand under her spine to tilt her hips so he could slide even deeper. He passed the spot, that spot, and her eyes rolled, lids closing. Yes.
The move seemed to light a fire under him, too. His pulling and thrusting, careful and slow at first, were building and building, reaching the frenzied tempo of their tongues. He was pushing, she was squeezing, they were huffing and puffing and closer and closer.
With a cry that came out as a sob, he came, not a rolling, more an explosion.
Sam grinned, giddy with power. She’d done this. They were together, at last. If it never happened again it had happened this once. And – wow.
He groaned and rolled off her, but left his hands on her midriff. She rolled so they faced each other. His eyes were closed. She matched the slowdown of his breathing, and the easing of his heartbeat under her hand.
He opened his eyes. Why did he look so sad? “I’m so sorry.”
“For what?”
“For that. Wham, bam, squish, and out. Not much of a gentleman.” His face looked so young, so vulnerable, so disgusted with himself.
She could kiss him, the idiot. “Wait just a minute. You found me so attractive you couldn’t hold yourself back? You were so delighted with me you couldn’t stop yourself from coming? Talk about compliments.”
The tension at the corners of his eyes eased. “Generous way to look at it.”
“Besides,” she said, flicking his nipple and making him shudder. “Who says the night is over? Seems to me you’ve got two perfectly good hands.”
He slid them up, past her still-hungry breasts, to the sides of her face. “So I do.” He pulled her face to him and kissed her on the nose. “So, Dr. Dobler, top or bottom?”
“Since you asked, Dr. Greenleaf, side.” She flipped to her other side and slid backwards into him. He reached around and palmed her core, pushing her deeper into him.
This time, there was no rushing, no crazy-tongue, just stroking and circling and keeping on and building up. And oh my god so good. She felt a little nip on her neck, just under her ear, and it was too much. She was bucking, laughing, her orgasm a whole tide’s worth of waves.
After a while, she came back to earth. Lids heavy, she tried to open them wide but got only half-way.
>
“How was that?” He didn’t sound too worried.
“Brilliant. Told you so.”
He kissed her temple, and then rolled on his back, drawing her to her back too. “My arm’s asleep,” he said, pulling it out from under her.
“My whole middle is asleep, I think,” she said. She reached out for his chest, but her arm flopped out, the back of her hand landing on his belly.
“Ooof!” he bent at the middle and then sat all the way up. “That must be my signal to hit the head.”
As he walked toward the bathroom, she remembered her dress on the floor. “Would you get my dress?”
He stopped. “You’re not going? Stay. Sleep with me. That’s what we were supposed to do, anyway.”
She hadn’t intended to go, but seeing the worry in his brow warmed her even more. “I’ll stay. But hang up the dress. I’ll need it nice tomorrow.”
He scooped it up, and his shirt, and hung them both up. “It’s too sexy for work.”
She kind of liked the possessive tone of that.
He was back in a flash, warm and hard and soft and loving, and really sleepy. It wasn’t eleven yet and they were both nearly asleep, her head on his chest, his arm wrapped around her.
“Your arm will be pins and needles.”
“It’s worth it.”
****
Matt lurched awake. Four a.m. What the hell? The fog cleared, and he recognized the blasted burble of his phone: text message.
Sam had rolled away, onto her belly, but her hand still gripped his hip and her foot pushed into his shin. His mind flashed up an image of Samantha’s face as he slid into her. Glowing and giddy and then her eyes opening, filling him with her joy.
This was how it had been meant to be.
He allowed himself a full thirty seconds of happiness before duty intruded. Groaning, he rolled away from her, up and into the dry chill of the hotel room air. She stirred at his movement, and her hand gripped the seam between his hip and his thigh. He covered it with his own. She was so warm.
“Something’s up.” He lifted her hand and turned it, placing a kiss on the soft of her palm. She sighed, and then moved to wrap her whole body around his hips. This is real. He still couldn’t believe it.
The phone buzzed again. He punched up the app, but the phone didn’t recognize the number. “Doubletree 616, say hello to Chrystal and Peaches.” Matt frowned. Wasn’t that one of their rooms? He reached for his jeans. Something didn’t feel right. Suddenly, it came to him: Chip was in 614. Hadn’t he and the boys done something to Matt’s phone at supper?
“Shit!” He lurched to his feet, pulling his jeans up so hard he pinched his balls for a sec.
Sam rolled up to a seat. “What is it?”
“I have to turn the light on. Chip’s pulling some scam. He texted someone, ordered something.”
“Pizza, probably, right?” But she seemed to catch his panic, and pulled her panties on. “What can I do?”
“Get dressed. No, stay in bed. No, I don’t the fuck know.” He scrubbed his face, scrambling for some explanation, some way the text could be an innocent mistake. “You’re not even supposed to be here.”
As soon as he said it, he knew it was the absolute wrong thing to say. Her mouth set straight, and she stood. Her breasts hadn’t fallen like Cecilia’s had.
“I’ll just go and pee then. And then leave.”
“That’s not what I meant.” Stepping into his shoes, he almost missed the look she shot him. Hurt, anger, pride, defiance. Was she going to leave and never come back?
Would serve me right.
****
Even as Matt let the door to the hall slam, Samantha shut herself into the bathroom. No need to turn on the light; these hotel nightlights were bright as neon. She spent a half a minute puzzling out how the shower fixtures worked and then doused herself in the hottest water she could stand.
In the blink of her half-awake eye, he’d gone from endorphin-doped lover to god of angry red thunder, eyes blinking daggers at her.
Sam wrapped the giant fleecy towel around her, as much for protection as warmth. She’d brought her bra and panties in with her, but her dress still hung in the closet. She eyed the plush bathrobe that hung on the door, but really she should just get dressed and leave. Sneak out, like what we were doing was wrong. It wasn’t wrong.
It was. You could never go back.
She got dressed as much as she could in the steamed-up room, thankful the fan was broken. Who wanted to see what disappointment and shame looked like at four in the morning? Stepping into the quiet cool of the main room, she wrapped her dress back on and sought out her shoes. She was seated on the bed tying the straps when the lock clicked and the door burst open.
Chip was the first one in, splotchy-faced and waving. He stopped, slack-jawed, when he saw her.
Matt took him by the elbow and pulled him past her. He pushed the boy toward the second bed, still made up. “Leave her out of it. Sit.”
Chip bounced to a seat, seething sullenness.
“Now, the truth. And only.”
“I told you the truth. We texted, yeah, and the ladies—”
“The prostitutes.”
“They, they said they’d come, yeah.”
“And you told me this, when?”
Chip huffed and rolled his eyes. He crossed his arms, but his fingers fluttered, picking at invisible lint up and down the sleeves.
Matt huffed in return, crossing his own arms and leaning against the wood of the media center. “So you made the call, but I know you weren’t in the room with the … ladies.”
“Nobody was. They never made it out of the hall. Dad to the rescue.” The boy’s tone was bitter, but even Sam could see there was more misery than anger in his face. “What was I supposed to do, tell you?”
Matt closed his eyes, and then slowly opened them. “Being an adult means choosing the right path. Keeping secrets hurts everyone in the long run.”
“Seems to me adults keep plenty of secrets.” Chip met his father’s gaze. “Seems to me I’m a walking secret.” The boy flung his arms wide, hands fisted. The motion lifted him off the bed and up to his feet.
Matt flinched but held his ground. Sam frowned. That bruise she’d seen, on his cheek. What if this wasn’t the first time?
The thought brought the blood rushing past her ears. She stood and reached for Matt’s cheek. “Does he hit you?”
Matt grabbed her hand before it reached his face, but his angry gaze followed the boy.
“Like father, like son,” she heard Chip say as he moved toward the window. “That’s the way you think. Text some chick and have her come over.”
“Enough,” Matt said, still holding her hand. “Apologize to the lady.”
Chip didn’t turn around. “Apologize yourself.”
Sam let the “some chick” pass, though she knew that one would come back to torment her later. “Matt, I mean it. If he’s abusing you, you have to tell someone.”
“What?” His attention snapped to her, his gaze so hard she felt she’d been slapped.
“Boys shouldn’t hit their fathers.” Her voice pleaded her case.
“You don’t know anything about boys.”
He couldn’t mean it. “Listen to yourself. Making excuses for him?” She lifted their twined hands, reaching for his bruise, to remind him.
He thrust his hand down, pushing hers, pushing her. “It’s not my fault you never had kids.”
She blinked at the pain his words had dredged up, but the anger was close behind. “It’s not my fault you’re fighting with your kid. Don’t yell at me for caring.”
“You don’t know anything.”
“I do know one thing. I know when to leave.” She stepped away from the bed, away from him. She grabbed her bag from the floor and reached for the door handle. Already her vision was wavering. Not now. Wait till you get outside.
“Sam!” Matt’s voice creaked, as if under an extra atmosphere of pressure. She
knew she shouldn’t, but Sam turned around. Matt had taken a step toward her, but it was his son who drew her in. Tears streaked his cheeks.
It’s all too much. She felt the waterworks rimming her own eyes. Pushing herself through the doorway, she shut the door on them.
****
In the bedroom, Matt brushed his hair straight with his fingers and started to pace. Demanding an apology from a glowering kid with a gaping wound in his soul was a rookie parenting mistake. He slapped himself silly mentally for that, but soon enough went back to punching himself over the smoking crater he’d made of this trip.
Some great chance to bond with his kid, smarting over last year’s divorce, by making a pass at an old flame. Show the kid how little he really means, why don’t you, brilliant boy?
No, Chip would have done some bone-headed teenager prank with or without Sam, Matt’s snot-assed brain talked back. He shook his head. Maybe he should go back to that divorce shrink. There were way too many conversations going on in his head for one man.
Pivoting, he stopped short. Chip had belly-flopped onto the bed. Matt resumed his pacing. “What are we going to do?”
The boy’s shrug was the one patented to make Matt scream in frustration. He bit the inside of his cheek instead, and tried another tack. He sat on the bed next to his boy, pushing his legs, forcing the closeness. Chip craved touch, like his dad.
It didn’t take more than five seconds before the boy rolled up to a seat. His shoulders dropped their hunch, and his arms swung slowly wide. “Sorry, Dad. They’re my friends.”
Matt spun that out in his mind. “They’re more important to you than I am?”
“You don’t need me. Mom sure doesn’t.”
Matt could see the path now. He felt his own shoulders relax. “You are the most important person in the world to me. Do you hear?” He took one of Chip’s basketball-long hands in his. How had he grown so much?
“Dads aren’t supposed to talk that way.”
The Science of Second Chances (Romance on the Go) Page 4
