When The Stars Align

by Jeanette Grey

  He may have only slept with one woman before, but they’d been together long enough to have experimented some. Still, they’d settled into patterns over time. Missionary had been a favorite. He’d always had idle fantasies of a woman who would want to push the boundaries a little more, though. Someone who’d push him around. Show him what two bodies could do.

  “Well, let’s see what we’re working with.” She smirked as she climbed on top of him, straddling his thighs. She worked his belt open and then his fly, and he was only too happy to help push the fabric down his hips. Grabbing the waistband of his boxer briefs, she tugged them out of the way. The air hit him, and he bit his tongue as she took him in hand. Warm slender fingers and brush of thumb over the slit. God, it had been so long since anyone had touched him like this. Looked at him like this. “Oh,” she said. “This is very nice.”

  “Glad you like.” It came out shivery and strained.

  “Very much so.” Starting up a slow rhythm, she leaned over to nip at his bottom lip, and he arched up into it, the kiss and the heat of her hand. “Just might have to take it for a ride.”

  “Oh fuck, yes.”

  That sounded so much better than a hand job.

  Shifting her balance, she worked his clothes farther down his body. When she hit the middle of his thighs, she rose up onto her knees and sat back. He didn’t waste any time getting the rest of the way undressed, kicking off his sneakers and peeling his socks away as he rid himself of his underwear and shorts.

  It took her a little longer. Her boots were blue today, nearly a match for the shock of dye in her hair, and unlacing them seemed to be a bitch. He moved to help, but she batted at him, undoing the knots with deft fingers. She finally got them gone and shoved her bottoms down, and then she was naked. Gorgeous. And urging him down, climbing on top of him. His slick tip nudged her thigh, and he choked on her name, wanting in, in, in right now.

  “One second,” she muttered.

  And oh thank fuck she was a smart one. Somehow, she’d ended up with a condom in her hand. As she tore the wrapper off and tossed it aside, he gave it a look. It wasn’t one of his.

  “Shut up, I keep one on me, okay?”

  “So much more than okay.” Kind of a turn-on actually.

  But not as much of one as her grabbing at him and rolling the latex on, lifting the length of him and lining him up.

  “Holy shit.” His whole spine arched as she sank down onto him. She was searing hot inside, smooth and tight around him, and he grabbed at her hips, blindly holding on to her while he fought for some kind of control over himself.

  Hell if she was having any of that, though.

  “Thought you said I could do whatever I wanted with it.” She braced herself over him, hands on his shoulders and spine wickedly arched as she started to move, sending tremors through every inch of his nerves.

  “Not complaining,” he gritted out. There wasn’t any keeping her still, just the torturous pleasure of the way she gripped him. He slid his hands up and down her sides, cupped her ass and felt it bounce as she picked up the pace, taking him, riding him. “Oh, Christ.”

  She had the balls to smile, wicked and sharp, and then she was leaning in, kissing his mouth. “Feels even better than I thought,” she said. “Nice and full.”

  “You feel amazing.” The smooth skin beneath his palms, the brush of her breasts as the tips of them scraped his chest, the way the piercing dragged. And being inside her like this, having her over and surrounding him…

  For a moment that seemed to stretch on and on, everything else faded away. It was just her and him and the connection between their bodies. The fire of their initial confrontations, the heat of her spark, and how it had flowed into careful touches. Cracks in her exterior. And then this. Now.

  In this room, on this island, with this girl.

  He closed his eyes and held on.

  Time sped up again a second later when she bit her way down the column of his throat. The sucking pressure of her mouth had a familiar warmth gathering in his gut. She was going to leave marks.

  “Lower.” He threaded his fingers through her hair, and she made a sound of displeasure but allowed herself to be moved. The next bite was beneath his collarbone, and the next on his biceps, and he fucking loved it. Bending his knees, he got his feet on the mattress, finding some leverage to shift his hips into hers, and she groaned, low and throaty, just like she had before she’d fallen apart the first time.

  He’d already been about to do it, but she grabbed his wrist and dragged his hand to the place where they were joined. It wasn’t easy with the way she was moving on him, but he curled his hand into the crease of her thigh, got his thumb up into all that softness. The edge of his thumb slid along the length of his own cock before he found her clit, and she made this beautiful sound.

  “Can you come again?” he asked, because he didn’t have a whole lot left in him, not the way she was taking him apart, but he’d hold out if it meant he got to feel her.

  “Guess we’re about to find out.” She dropped down onto her forearm as she rode him with prejudice, slipping one hand to tug at her own breast.

  He joined her, twisting the barbell through her nipple at the same time he rubbed her harder with his thumb.

  “Oh—” She clenched up around him, her mouth dropping open, and if she’d been gorgeous in orgasm before, it was nothing compared to this. Her skin was slick with sweat, a hot flush covering her chest, and she groaned like she was dying.

  And he couldn’t take it anymore.

  He left his one hand between her legs and slapped the other to her thigh, keeping her steady as he thrust up into her. Pounded into that tight, wet heat, let himself really feel it…

  His eyes snapped shut and he threw his head back as the pleasure overtook him. He emptied himself into her in a rush, turning inside out with the sheer expansiveness of it, the connection.

  The inevitability. For all that they’d spent so long working up to it.

  It felt, somehow, that they’d always been meant to end up here.

  Chapter Twelve

  Jo’s whole body thrummed with satisfaction as she gave in to the shakiness in her arms and legs, letting herself collapse onto Adam’s bulk. They were sweaty and disgusting, but he smelled good and felt better, and when she clenched around him, wringing out the last licks of pleasure, he twitched inside her in the best way.

  He let out a soft, embarrassed laugh and wrapped his arms around her, and that was… different. He didn’t slap her ass or thank her for the fuck and show her the door. Instead, he held her like she was precious, like he had no real intention of moving anytime soon. It made something uncomfortable and warm unfurl in her gut.

  She refused to think too much about it, lying there on top of him, working to catch her breath. Finally, though, the swelter got to be too much. Fucking in the tropics was going to be such a pain in the ass. “God, you’re like a furnace,” she muttered as she peeled her chest from his.

  He was a good, responsible sex partner, easing his hand between them to hold on to the condom as he slipped free. Collapsing to the side, she got out of his way as he rose to deal with the cleanup. She craned her neck to watch him stumble across the room.

  Hot damn but the boy had a fantastic ass. He’d looked good from the front, but the bare expanse of flesh he showed her when he turned was another entire level of hotness.

  “You don’t have any tattoos.” She said it without really thinking, letting her gaze sweep over miles of virgin skin.

  “Nope.” He made a soft sound, then drew a couple of tissues from a box.

  “You ever thought about it?”

  “Not really.”

  “You sure seem to like them, though.”

  He dropped the trash into a wastebasket in the corner of the room before facing her again. And maybe she’d been wrong. The front of him looked damn good from this angle, too.

  Grinning, he gave her a none-too-subtle once-over. “I like looking
at them. Doesn’t mean I like needles.”

  “Wimp.”

  “Whatever.”

  He stood there gazing at her for a moment too long. A flicker of self-consciousness broke through her haze as she remembered herself. Sure, he’d held her with an unusual amount of tenderness, but this was typically the part of the evening where she picked up her clothes and beat a dignified retreat.

  Except before she could act on the impulse, his smile deepened. He crossed back over to the bed and climbed onto it, lying on his side, curled around her. His fingertips grazed her neck where her tattoo spilled over. “I like looking at them a lot,” he said, intensity shading his tone.

  Too much intensity. She glanced down, away from his eyes. “Yeah, I could kinda tell.” It was supposed to be a joke. He’d been so obviously turned on by all the things she’d done to her body. But it came out weak.

  “Hey.”

  She stilled, expecting him to say something else. A second passed and then another. But instead of speaking, he tucked two fingers under her chin and tipped her head up.

  When his lips met hers, it was soft. Gentle. She let him deepen it, but the pace stayed slow. The warm brushes of his mouth were building toward something, though—something that wasn’t sex. Overwhelmed, she slumped against the pillow and closed her eyes.

  He gave her a second to get herself together. The bed jostled as he half sat up, grabbing the thin cover of the sheet and dragging it over their lower halves. She accepted it, tucking the fabric under her arms so her tits weren’t hanging out before opening her eyes.

  Even partially covered, he was gorgeous, his warm skin a contrast to the white of the sheet. He lay on his side, propped up on his elbow, his other hand resting in the scant inches of space between them. Expression soft, he gazed at her, not seeming to expect anything. But something about him said he’d accept whatever she decided to volunteer.

  “Hi,” she said. She wasn’t embarrassed, not exactly, but this wasn’t usually a part of sex for her. She didn’t know how it was supposed to go.

  Reaching across her body, he swept her hair from her eyes. His fingertips lingered on the edge of her face for a moment. Just when it threatened to become uncomfortable, he dropped his hand, moving it to rest on her stomach instead.

  He nudged her ankle with his. “So how was your week?”

  “Really?” The word was out of her mouth before she could stop it, a barked-out half-laugh of a question. All that intimacy and kissing and orgasming, and now he wanted to have a normal conversation? Like this?

  Forget that they’d scarcely had a normal conversation in all the time they’d known each other, not without other people pushing them along. They’d had weird, brief moments of oversharing, and arguments, but not small talk.

  His eyebrows rose to match hers. “Why not?”

  “It’s just…” After a moment, she settled on, “Weird.”

  “Not really. We haven’t seen each other in a few days. It’s pretty typical for people to want to catch up after that.”

  “Is it pretty typical for them to tear each other’s clothes off first?”

  “Typical is a strong word.” Consciously or not, he stroked his thumb just under the curve of her breast through the sheet. “In my limited experience, though, people are usually even more interested in how each other are doing if clothes-ripping-off is also a thing they like to do.”

  She shook her head. “Your limited experience is really different from mine.”

  Sadness darkened his eyes, but in the end all he said was, “Humor me.”

  “Okay.” She drew out the end of the word. “Um, my week was pretty boring. I worked a lot.”

  “Shocking.”

  “No, like, a lot a lot.” She twisted a few strands of her hair between her forefinger and her thumb. “Unhealthy a lot.”

  She really didn’t want to have to fill in the blanks. The work had been work, because that was what she did. But the unhealthy part of it had all been his fault.

  He seemed to hear enough of what she didn’t say, because his expression softened, a soft smile curling his lips. “Okay. More work than normal, even for you. Check. Get anything cool done?”

  “Yeah, actually.” And she was preparing to self-censor, except she didn’t have to with him, did she? Letting herself relax, she recapped some of the progress she’d made with her project, told him about her observing run. As she did, she shifted to rest her hand atop his on her belly. “It wasn’t as much fun, though. Babysitting the telescope alone.”

  And hadn’t that been a surprise? After all those team projects where she’d fought for the right to work by herself. Now, all of a sudden, she was eager for a partner?

  Adam nodded, tapping a finger against her abdomen. “I’ve got another session scheduled with it this week. You wanna come and keep me company?”

  “I guess. If I’ve got time.” Inside, her heart leapt at the chance.

  “Cool.”

  She hesitated before she spoke again. She didn’t have a whole lot else to say about herself, and all week long she’d been wanting to know… had been dying to hear about…

  In the end, she decided to ease into it. “How about you? How was your week?”

  He gave her a laugh that was almost too easy, too casual. “Not that different from yours, actually. You know how conferences are.”

  Oh. So he was going to dance around the subject, too.

  She let him, for a little bit. His descriptions of the lectures he’d attended were interesting enough, and there were a couple of papers she’d have to look up when she got into the office tomorrow to learn more. But that wasn’t what she’d been asking.

  When he started to wind down, she walked her fingertips up his wrist, watching her own movements instead of his eyes. “And after the conference?”

  “Oh. Right.” The motion of his throat, bobbing as he swallowed, drew her gaze. “Shannon came.”

  Jo had kind of figured as much, and really, it wasn’t as if she didn’t already know at least part of the outcome. Adam was here with her, after all, naked and postcoital. But uneasiness still plagued her, making her ribs tight. “How did that go?”

  “Really well, actually.” His voice went fond and just a little bit wry, and it made her chest squeeze harder. “We had a good time. Went out to dinner, had ice cream, walked around the city.”

  The affection in his tone was what did it. Jo wasn’t going to overreact, wasn’t going to screw this whole thing up. But this was important. “Did you fuck her?”

  His gaze snapped to hers, creases forming between his eyes, and it was like he hadn’t even considered the question, much less that she would actually want to know the answer. “What? No.”

  “It’s a valid question.”

  “Of course it is. But… but how could you…” He visibly took measures to calm himself, breathing out through his nose and closing his eyes for a second before sitting up and turning so he faced her. “Believe me,” he said, looking down at her with fire in his gaze, “we would not be lying here like this if I had.”

  “Well, how was I supposed to know that?” For all she knew, they could have decided to break it off after getting it on, or figured they’d have one more go at each other before they parted ways.

  Or their breakup could have been a whole lot less final than he’d implied.

  She squirmed. She didn’t like him having the vantage point over her that he did. Keeping the sheet wrapped around herself, she scooted up the bed, coming to sit with her shoulders braced against the headboard. She crossed her arms over her chest and stared at her feet.

  “Jo.” He paused for a beat, waiting before repeating her name. “Jo.”

  Ugh, he was doing that thing again where he wanted her to look at him before he told her something. Begrudgingly, she lifted her gaze.

  It was such a subtle change. Talking about Shannon, he’d had this warmth to him, this soft affection, but it had been directed at nothing. He’d been looking off in
to some middle distance. Now all of that was trained on her, layered with that same intensity from before that had made her want to pull away.

  She wasn’t sure if it was really all that different at all.

  “Look,” he said. “You know me and Shannon were together for a really long time.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “You know how important she was to me. Is. She’ll always be someone I care about.” He put his hand on her leg, pulling her focus and keeping it on him when she wanted to look past him. “But we’re friends. Just friends now. I think we have been for a while.”

  He hadn’t acted like it, those first few weeks they’d been here.

  “What changed?”

  “I don’t know. Me. Her. Everything. We had a good long talk about it, while she was there. About how people can come into each other’s lives at these points when they’re exactly what you need. But then as you grow, maybe things don’t fit so well anymore.” He shrugged. “Sometimes you hang on too long.”

  It struck Jo all at once. When Kim had been talking to her about making the most of a summer fling, Jo had doubted her. Nothing about Adam had said short-term. He’d basically already told her that he would throw himself into it and give her everything. And when it was over, when it came time to part ways…

  He’d hold on too long.

  It was what he did. He loved with the safety off, while Jo scarcely knew how to love at all. Yet she was going to have to be the one to keep whatever this thing between them turned out to be in check. Really, if she wanted to save them both a lot of heartache, if she wanted to keep him from wasting months trying to make this work, she should cut it off now.

  But she looked at him, gazing back at her with those guileless eyes. She took in the dirty blond of his hair and the warmth of his cheeks, the cut of his jaw and his shoulders. His chest. There were still so many things she wanted to do with him.

  “Yeah,” she said, vaguely helpless to it. “I see how that could happen.”

  She did see it, and she knew the smart course of action. But the smart course sucked. There wasn’t any point giving it any real consideration. And anyway, she was smart enough that maybe she could walk the stupid path and not get burned.