Gage grasped her buttocks and pressed her against him tightly until the last contractions of her climax ceased. She could feel him flexing inside of her. The utter lack of motion had to be driving him crazy, she thought.
“Tell me what it feels like for you, without using the word ‘good’.” His voice sounded several pitches lower. Low and throaty.
“Like—” Now she was panting. “—It’s like coming up for a deep breath of air after I’ve been swimming underwater for a long time.” She sucked in a breath as the head of his cock butted against her cervix, reminding her that it wasn’t going anyplace soon.
His mouth crashed into hers in a soul-bruising kiss. She was overwhelmed by competing sensory input: the lush texture of his lips against hers, the density of his hair between her fingers, and the pungent smell of salt, sweat and her. She wanted this physical closeness. Wanted him to dive in deeper. Wanted to seep into his skin and disappear. When their lips finally parted, he was breathing heavily.
“It’s my turn now,” he told her. “I won’t be gentle.”
Sabrina lay back and let him take control. Every other intimate encounter seemed like a tedious, mechanical pastime compared to his deep, luxurious thrusts. He picked up the pace, slamming into her faster and deeper. One big hand cupped her buttock while the other was braced against the post of the bed, now quivering under their weight as though it had come alive. Sabrina could feel the muscles in his shoulders grow tense under her palms. He was diamond-hard now, with absolutely no pliancy. He called her name urgently, tipping her over the edge. The final orgasm was sharp and explosive, rippling through her belly and cutting into her solar plexus. She was vaguely aware of the hoarse shout that came from his throat and the animal cries that came from her own as they crashed into each other one final time. Serendipity, she thought, as his contractions throbbed against her counterpoint.
Gage collapsed against her to get his breath and bearings. Winding one leg around hers, he rolled over on his back so they still remained attached at the nether point. His chest was big enough that she could lay her cheek against it and hear the sound of his pounding heartbeat as it gradually slowed to its regular rhythm. Of all the things they’d done and body parts that had touched, this was the most intimate.
Listening to the sound of his heart.
He played with her hair idly, twirling a strand around his forefinger.
“Other than coming inside you so hard I thought I’d pass out, you know what was the best part?” he asked softly.
“I couldn’t begin to guess,” she said blissfully. When had sex ever been that good? Or had it ever?
“Making you lose control.”
“Hey, Fitzgerald. I enjoy sex as much as the next woman.”
“The past hour’s proof positive that you do,” he agreed. “But I doubt there’s ever been a man in your bed when you had multiple orgasms.”
She felt her cheeks heat up. “Could it be that I have hidden talents?”
“Could be. But I doubt it. I saw you come unglued over and over, and it scared the hell out of you, even though you loved every minute — or shall I say all eight of them?”
He’d been counting? Suddenly Sabrina felt the need for a breathing room. She disengaged herself from him and moved to a close but safe distance, using her elbow to prop up her head.
“Sexual response is tricky — in women more than men,” he went on. “The intensity of it depends on who you’re responding to. It’s that old chemistry thing.”
“So what are you saying?”
“It’s not you. It’s me.” She could see his teeth gleaming in the semi-darkness and the flutter of his lashes, that rapacious smile coupled with a sidelong glance.
“Uh-huh,” Sabrina muttered dubiously.
“I’ve met women like you before. You want only one thing from guys like me.” He folded his arms beneath his head and looked to the ceiling innocently. “But it’s probably different when you decide to get serious. My bet is that when you set your sights on your ex-husband and boyfriends one through whatever, the very last thing you considered is if they’d make you work up a good sweat in the sack.”
“There’s more to marriage than great sex.”
“I’ll never disagree with that. When it comes to what’s important in a relationship, we’re on the same page, you and me: mutual goals, similar interests and trust. I’d add respect to the list and, as clichéd as it sounds, a healthy sense of humor. All of those things lead up to great sex. I don’t know about you, but I can only feign interest for so long when somebody doesn’t stimulate my gray matter.”
Sabrina didn’t feel like arguing. She didn’t know if it was because of the dizzying afterglow or because she knew he was right. She also didn’t want to go into her adequate if uninspiring past sex life. Or how it almost always involved copious amounts of personal lubricant and quick trips to the bathroom to read passages from Anaïs Nin’s Little Birds.
He didn’t need to know that he was the first man who made her fall into complete disarray. Who’d made her feel genuine lust. Like a budding alcoholic after a first drink, she knew she’d want him over and over again at inopportune times and places.
He could easily become her addiction.
“What does getting a tattoo feel like?” She traced the intricate ink on his sternum with the tip of her finger.
“Hurts like hell the first time. Afterward? Not so much. My tats bother you, don’t they?”
She shrugged. “Not really. I just don’t understand the need for them. I like the idea of going out of this world the same way I came into it with only a handful of battle scars.”
“You’ll get out without a single ding.” He tried to affect breeziness, but Sabrina detected an undercurrent of turbulence in his voice.
“How can you know that?” she asked.
“From what you’ve told me about yourself, you’ve learned how to stay out of the line of fire,” he said. “You know when to duck and take cover. With your survival skills, you’ll live to be a hundred with no more than a paper cut and the occasional kick to the ego. The rest of us mortals don’t have a prayer of avoiding the sucker punches you will.”
Suffering. Oh, how wrong you are, Gage Fitzgerald, she thought woefully. Her thoughts jumped back to the day when she came home from debate practice only to find Nola in a darkened bedroom catatonic with grief.
While she was contemplating the hidden meaning behind his words, he fell into a deep slumber. He was one of those rare men who were still, quiet sleepers. She observed the slight flutter of eyelashes against his cheek. She felt wide awake and alert. Although she could still feel her skin tingling, the frisky brain chemicals that encouraged intimate bonding were dissipating.
Intrusive thoughts entered her mind. She had laid herself bare to him when they sat in his car and talked. She’d told him things she’d only told Molly. One minute she was recalling how Molly’s curls looked dredged in boiled pink frosting and sometime during the next, she knew that she wanted much more from Gage Fitzgerald than demonstration kisses, ballroom dancing and verbal sparring.
She had made herself vulnerable in every way to this man, and she didn’t understand why. Integrating him into her life in terms that didn’t involve the physical seemed foreign and impossible, like pressing the odd piece of a jigsaw puzzle into a picture where it didn’t belong and would never fit.
She studied his sleeping form. She didn’t know what was considered appropriate etiquette in a situation like this. She only knew that she wanted nothing more than to sleep alone in her own bed. To wake up the next morning knowing that she was the only person in the house. To see, hear and smell anything and everything but Gage’s smile, laugh or skin. She carefully climbed out of the bed. Something wet trickled down her thigh, reminding her of her carelessness. Only “careless” was a misnomer, an understatement.
Idiot. That’s exactly what she’d been, letting herself get so swept away by lust that she hadn’t insisted he use birth c
ontrol. Who did that, other than stupid teenagers and women determined to trap men into fatherhood?
The cool sheets of her bed felt welcoming. She fell into a hard sleep almost immediately. When she woke up the next morning after fretful, incoherent dreams about losing her floor badge and committee hearings that dragged on forever, Gage was gone. She hopped into a scalding shower and thoroughly soaped every part of her body and then once more for good measure to wash off his scent.
Sabrina felt more like herself after the shower. Now it was time for damage control. Throwing on her running shorts and a T-shirt, she jogged over to Newton’s Drugstore and perused the aisles until she found what she was looking for. She picked up the pale green box and took it to the pharmacy checkout area, credit card in hand. Thankfully, no one was in the store except her and eccentric Pete Carlyle, whose best quality was that he didn’t give two whits about the private lives of his neighbors, making him the least likely to spread gossip about her sex life.
Once she was back home, she tore into the box and gulped the morning-after pill down with a large glass of water. Even though an unplanned pregnancy was highly unlikely, she felt relieved knowing that she had taken an additional precaution after the fact. There was no need to tell Gage about her early-morning foray to Newton’s, she reasoned. After all, it was her body. Her life.
Her future.
Gage would be at work now. Sabrina resisted the temptation to tune into “Fitz and Giggles” just to hear the sound of his voice. She shivered and sighed when she remembered how that gravelly timbre had seduced both her mind and her body, coaxed her into an exhilarating free fall, and shouted her name during his release.
No, she definitely didn’t need to hear his voice right now.
Instead, she brewed a pot of coffee, took her cup of Sumatra onto the sunny porch, and started the day alone.
Feeling a little bit lonely.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
“Omigod! You slept with Gage!” Molly exclaimed as she flopped on the bed and rolled on her tummy, legs swinging. Her eyes grew large with curiosity. “Spill it, sister!”
“Jeez, Molls. Announce it to the world, why don’t you?” Sabrina said.
“O-mi-god,” Molly repeated hypnotically, digging her hand into a large package of cheese-dusted popcorn. “I can’t believe it. So what was it like?” She grinned.
“Extremely enjoyable,” Sabrina told her. She sounded like she was describing the latest box-office hit.
“Oh, please,” Molly scoffed, picking a kernel out of her teeth. “No way do I believe that it was just ‘enjoyable.’ The man’s a powerhouse.”
Sabrina looked at her suspiciously. “And you know this how?”
“Sebastian and I visited Gage in Chicago, you know. He had a quasi-girlfriend — this was a while ago, though,” Molly added quickly.
“What’s a quasi-girlfriend?” Sabrina wanted to know.
“You know. A hook-up. Booty call. Floorboards were creaking in the middle of the night. Hands and knees.”
“You spied?”
“Of course not! Let’s just say that wood floors do not lie,” Molly said authoritatively. Then she added with a wicked smirk, “It sounded like la femme involved was having herself a rockin’ good time, too.”
Sabrina stared at her, aghast. “Oh, god. You’re married. Is an interest in other people’s sex lives healthy?”
“I’m married, not paralyzed from the waist down. I can wonder, can’t I?” Molly shrugged. “I have to confess that I got a little curious about Gage after that raucous tête-à-tête. Is he—”
Sabrina held out a warning hand. “Stop! We are not going to delve into size and dimensions.”
“Why not?” Molly pouted. “This is girl talk. Remember girl talk, Brini? Remember all of the naughty, naughty things I told you about Sebastian when we first started seeing each other?”
“Yes. I erased them from memory the day you announced your engagement.”
“Oh-kay, I get it. It’s none of my beeswax.” Molly shoved the popcorn aside. “So what happens now?”
“I have no idea,” Sabrina confessed. It was as close to the truth as she could get. After Gage popped the first button on her blouse, she wasn’t thinking five seconds ahead of time, much less a day, a week or even a month.
“Things like this always go somewhere,” Molly reminded her. “Remember what I told you when you and Jackson started sleeping together?”
“‘Be careful what you want, because you might just get it.’”
“Exactly.” Molly quirked one brow. “Look, I haven’t known Gage half of my life like Sebastian has. But I’ve known him long enough. I know that ‘Fitz’ is a facade. This is Austin. It’s an urban oasis for the perpetually single. But Gage is from Iowa, Brini. Those Midwestern boys get real serious real quick. I hope you’re ready for that. Because I’m not sure he’s ready for you.”
“You make me sound like some sort of man-eater,” Sabrina protested. “Gage and I are consenting adults.”
“Fine. As long as you both know what you’re consenting to.” Molly flicked stray bits of popcorn off the comforter.
“You were the one who suggested that we do things together, remember?” Sabrina reminded her.
“Yes, things,” Molly wailed. “Safe things like talking to each other over takeout. Not sex. At least, not yet. Sex is not safe — at least not with you.”
“What is that supposed to mean, Molls?”
Molly sighed. “Nothing. Maybe I’m reading too much into the situation. It’s just that I’ve known you practically all of my life, Brini. So I’m going to be concerned.”
“I’m fine. I’m always fine.” Sabrina grabbed a hand of popcorn from the bag. “You don’t need to worry about me.”
“I’m not worried about you,” Molly said seriously. “I’m worried about Gage. From what you’ve already told me, you’re not interested in pursuing a relationship with him. So before you start angling for another shag, maybe you should ask yourself if maybe — just maybe — he might be investing more into it than you are. You know … once more, with feeling?”
“Maybe you should ask yourself if you aren’t projecting your own relationship with Sebastian onto me,” Sabrina told her. Despite Molly’s wide range of experience with all of the bad boys, she was still quite naïve. “You and Sebastian knew you were in love. Not everyone is that lucky, Molls. Gage and I are two different people.”
The fact was that Sabrina didn’t know what had been knocking around in Gage’s head while they were having mind-rattling sex. She assumed nothing. Typical men who were not Sebastian Cole didn’t get sentimental about things like that. Gage was a typical man, wasn’t he? She was about to explain this to Molly, but the oven timer went off just in time to prevent further discourse on sexual ethics.
“I’ll get the food,” Sabrina said, rushing from the room.
The asparagus and mushroom risotto bubbled in the oven happily. Just as she was slipping an oven mitt over her hand, her cell phone rang. She retrieved it from the pocket of her cardigan and propped it against her ear with one shoulder while she opened the oven door.
“Hey,” Gage said.
“Hey to you too.”
“Have you recovered from last night’s catharsis?” His voice sounded deep and throaty, like he just woke up from a power nap. Sabrina blinked her eyelids rapidly to keep from falling into a swoon.
“I’m fine. Great, actually. I’m at Molly’s.”
“A hen session.” She could hear the smile in his voice.
“It’s not what you think,” Sabrina told him hastily. “I don’t kiss and tell either — at least not in great detail.”
“Damn. That’s too bad. I need all the good PR I can get.”
“Gage,” she sighed.
“So I’m hosting a sponsored event at some Irish pub downtown,” he went on. “Looks like it’s going to run late.”
“Oh?”
“Yeah. Then I’m coming straight home so yo
u can pull my hair some more.”
The plate of risotto tipped precariously in her mitted hand as a stab of lust rippled through her loins.
“Gage.” His name came out in a soft, low protest. Damn it. He knew exactly what he was doing to her when he primed her with subtle verbal foreplay. She needed a good long workout at the gym. Running the treadmill. Hoisting weights. Anything to take her mind off of the smell of his skin. The moist, steamy aroma of mushrooms wasn’t helping.
As though reading her mind, he added, “You might want to save your energy if you want to make it ’til morning,” and hung up.
With unsteady hands, Sabrina dumped the risotto in two large pasta bowls and set them on a serving tray, along with a plate of mixed berries, smoked Gouda and rye crisps. She found Molly propped up against a large reading pillow, waiting with ill-concealed glee.
“That was him, wasn’t it? Wasn’t it?”
“Yes, it was him,” Sabrina confessed.
“So?”
“Nothing. We just talked.”
“‘We just talked’,” Molly mimicked in innocent voice before she let out a dubious snort. “Oh, c’mon, Brini. That’s exactly what I used to tell my mom after I heated up with wires with my high school beaux. You cannot fool me.”
“I’m never going to hear the end of this, am I?” Sabrina reached for one of the strawberries.
“Look, it’s not like I have anyone else to tell. Sebastian and I can’t have sex for another three weeks. My convalescing days are boring.” Molly fell back on the bed and threw a hand over her forehead somewhat dramatically. She peered at Sabrina from under her fingers hopefully. “Humor the invalid?”
“Okay, you win,” Sabrina said, resigned. “I suppose I should start at the very beginning…”
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
If she wasn’t safe she’d be sorry.
Really sorry.
Sabrina examined the small blue case circumspectly. Its contents should still be in mint condition and were in fact brand-spanking new insofar as they’d never seen the light of day outside of a manufacturing plant.
Something About You (Just Me & You) Page 26
