The Breakup

by Erin McCarthy

  Pleasure rushed over me. A sweet, hard ache. “Yes?” I breathed.

  “Roll over.” He pulled his thumb away.

  The loss was disappointing. So I rolled over and started to rise up. “On my hands and knees?” I asked, assuming he wanted doggie style.

  “No. Flat on your stomach.”

  I honestly wasn’t sure what that was all about, but Christian hadn’t let me down so far. Feeling a little lazy, the multiple orgasms releasing some of my tension, I just went down onto my stomach, letting my legs drift apart naturally. I turned my head to the side, my hands palms on the mattress. I could feel the moisture Christian had coaxed from me rubbing against the sheet and a mild tinge of embarrassment rose inside me. Yet it also felt sexy.

  My whole body felt tingly, sensitive.

  When Christian slid inside me from behind, I was surprised at how easy the angle was. To me, that wouldn’t have even seemed like it would have worked. Apparently I hadn’t experimented enough with sexual positions, because this was an easy, lazy, sensual position. He didn’t seem to be working too hard, and I wasn’t doing anything at all. I was just lying there, corpse pose, like I was getting a massage, feeling very Zen. Except his cock was inside me, stroking me deliciously.

  It made him seem bigger, more expansive, as I could feel the heft of him pushing me into the mattress. I gave a soft, low moan of pleasure. His hand shifted on my hip and suddenly his finger was there, teasing at my clit. He had a good sense of rhythm and was adept at reading me. Because if I shifted my hips or made a slight sound, he continued without interruption.

  My eyes were closed and it just felt so good, so easy, that I wasn’t even surprised this time when a slow, relaxed orgasm swept over me. I did press my hips down to make sure Christian didn’t move his finger, but otherwise I made no movement. I just let him pleasure me. He knew when I had finished coming and pulled his finger away, picking up the pace of his thrusts.

  But it wasn’t frantic, just steady, hard. He came with a small grunt, nothing more, and I felt the throbbing deep inside me.

  After a few seconds he had retreated and settled down onto the mattress next to me. I sighed and rolled onto my back. His big hand draped over my waist. He didn’t speak and I was grateful. I felt empty of words, emotion, and it wasn’t a bad feeling. Just the opposite. I felt more relaxed than I had in months. So much so that I actually dozed off.

  It wasn’t a true sleep. Just a hazy in and out of steady breathing, warm air, and the heavy feel of Christian’s hand on my hip. It was like drifting down a lazy river, my thoughts empty, senses acute.

  “Hey,” he murmured to me finally, sounding satisfied. “How was your nap, princess?”

  “Good,” I said, yawning. “I’m hungry.”

  “Thank God, because I’m starving. How about I go pick us up something? You probably shouldn’t go into town right now.”

  I knew that should concern me. My runaway bride status. But as I lay there in that caboose, Christian big and strong beside me, our bodies sticky in the summer heat, I stared at the rounded ceiling and felt nothing but relief. I didn’t want to be alone though.

  “I’ll go with you. I’ll just duck down in the car.”

  Twenty minutes later, we had both taken a quick shower back in the cabin and we were dressed. We climbed into Christian’s car and rolled down the driveway.

  “People are going to see you,” he said, shaking his head in amusement at my attempt at camouflage. I was wearing his baseball hat and my huge sunglasses I’d had stashed in my overnight bag. “And that is not a legitimate disguise.”

  “I told you, I’ll duck down.”

  “You should practice that then,” he said.

  I tried to bend forward but he said, “No, turn sideways. Put your head in my lap.”

  It wasn’t until I was bent over obediently, mouth perilously close to the front of his jeans, and he laughed that I realized he had been joking. He just wanted me to stick my face in his junk.

  “Hey,” I said, attempting to rise, indignant but amused too. “What are you, twelve years old?”

  “Come on,” he said. “Just stay there a minute. Think about how you’re torturing me.”

  It was a total con, yet oddly intriguing. I rested my head down on his thigh, and fluttered my fingers over the fabric of his jeans. “Hmm, why would this be torture?”

  I blew on his crotch, purely out of instinct.

  To my surprise, Christian actually jerked a little. “Princess. Not funny.”

  But his response had emboldened me. I sat up a little and pulled his zipper down. Now he gave a little growl in the back of his throat. “Bella.”

  “Yes?” The motion of the car driving down a country road felt very fast in my current position and I glanced up at him, really wanting to embrace the freedom I was feeling.

  He glanced down at me. “I was going to tell you to stop, but what am I, a fucking idiot? Just stay low and I’ll let you know when we’re almost in town.”

  “Okay.” I pulled his cock out. It occurred to me that if anyone glanced in the car, they would probably be able to interpret what was going on. But I also figured it would take another car being parked beside us for anyone to really be able to look down into Christian’s lap. Two cars passing in the opposite direction on a country road couldn’t see all that much.

  So I was reassured that no one would report back to whoever might listen that Bella Bigelow was blowing a bartender in his car.

  That thought made me grin. The thrill of this, the sense of impropriety, was freeing. Exciting. I took Christian’s cock into my mouth and went deep. He made a sound in the back of his throat.

  This wasn’t my area of expertise, but oddly the fact that Christian was big—way bigger than Bradley—seemed to actually help me. There wasn’t as much movement. There was only one option: open wide and slide my mouth up and down on him. He tasted like soap and skin and I liked the warm heat of being in his lap, my hair spilling over his thighs.

  Christian gripped the back of my head, but he didn’t take over my movements. He just petted and stroked my hair, giving me encouraging sounds. I went at it, actually enjoying myself for maybe the first time ever.

  But then he pulled me off of him. “What?” I asked, glancing up the length of him, breathing a little hard from my exertions.

  He glanced down at me with those pale blue eyes, his jaw clenched. Then he focused back on the road. “Too much, babe. It feels too good and I’m not coming in you in the car. But also, we’re almost to town. You need to sit up.”

  “Oh, okay.” I wiped my mouth and sat up, pleased with myself. I gave him a smug smile.

  “Don’t look at me like that.”

  “Like what?”

  “Like you got exactly what you wanted.”

  “But I did.” Then I realized the irony of those words.

  I hadn’t gotten anything I had thought I wanted today.

  And I wasn’t going to hide in the car either.

  So, wearing my sunglasses and my hat, I strode into the pizza place with Christian. He had placed the order on his phone, and when I saw he had a two-liter soda to go with our pizza, I looked at him in question.

  He grinned. “You owe me a serenade of the alphabet song.”

  I laughed. With anyone else I would assume he didn’t really expect me to burp for him, but with Christian I knew he meant it.

  He wanted to see the real Bella, belching and all.

  It was like an entire lifetime of pleasing other people was shaken to the core.

  I could be me, even if I didn’t entirely know who that was.

  “Is there anything else I owe you?” I asked, meaning it to be suggestive.

  But Christian leaned on the counter and smiled at me. He reached out and tucked my hair behind my ear. “Baby, you don’t owe me an
ything. This is all about you. All of it.”

  The sounds of the cashier ringing up our order and the hum of voices from the kitchen faded into the background. My eyes teared up behind my sunglasses and my heart squeezed. Christian really was a good man.

  And I realized that I was just vulnerable and still gullible enough that I might actually fall for him.

  I couldn’t let that happen. I took a step back, shifting out of his touch, and grabbed the pizza box off the counter.

  “I’m going to hold you to that,” I said, lighthearted and flirtatious.

  This was about sex. Nothing more.

  I needed to remember that.

  Chapter 9

  Bella sat across from me at the oak table in the cabin and ate four slices of pizza. Four. I was downright impressed. It was like she hadn’t eaten in a week because she didn’t even hesitate between slices. She was chatting and laughing with me and eating without missing a beat.

  “This is so good,” she sighed as she bit the end of the crust of her fourth piece. “God, I forgot how good pizza tastes.”

  She was actually ahead of me. I was only on my third slice but I eyed her, curious. “Please don’t tell me it’s been eleven years since you’ve eaten pizza either. I can get how you might be able to avoid doughnuts for a decade, but pizza? It’s basically a food group.” I had decent eating habits, but I also worked out a lot and had a high metabolism, so pizza was definitely a part of my life I wasn’t willing to eliminate.

  “Just six months. Wedding prep.” She licked her fingers and I was instantly reminded of her sucking my cock in the car.

  Bella was a combination of sexy and sweet that I had just never encountered before and it was really doing it for me, no doubt about that. She never intended to be sexy, she just was. Her blow job wasn’t the best I’d ever had, but it was the most attentive. She had wanted to please me, and more important, she had wanted to please herself. It was the hottest thing in the world.

  “Eat until you’re full,” I told her. “And if you want more, I’ll order another one.”

  “I think I’m good for now,” she said. “But thank you. I didn’t eat much this week. I was having trouble swallowing.”

  My eyebrows shot up. She never knew when she said something that could be taken as dirty. “Well that’s a shame. I was hoping to finish what you started in the car.”

  Bella wiped her fingers on a napkin, then blotted her lips. “Oh, I’m fine now. I seem to be cured. I can swallow anything you want.”

  Damn. She was just…everything. Perfect. Adorable. Fuckable.

  I wondered how long realistically I had. Twenty-four hours? Maybe forty-eight tops? How many times could I take her before she was shoving me off her? I wanted to take full advantage of our limited isolation.

  Before long her parents or her former fiancé or her sister were going to be storming the cabin, demanding answers and whisking her away. I had seen her phone, tucked in the side of her bag, and heard it buzz repeatedly with notifications. “I’m ready whenever you are,” I said, turning my chair so I was facing out and spread my legs. “Come here and kiss me.”

  We hadn’t done enough of that. I had tasted her pussy more than I had her lips and I wanted to make out, like we had endless time and nowhere to be.

  “Ew, no,” she said. “I have pizza breath.”

  “So do I. What difference does it make?”

  “It’s gross.” She sipped her soda and eyed me. “You won’t like it.”

  The way her mind worked was a total fucking mystery to me. “You don’t know what I like and don’t like. Now get over here.”

  She stood up, though she looked unconvinced. “What?” She hovered in front of me.

  “I told you,” I said, pulling her down onto my lap. “I want a kiss.”

  Some of her makeup had come off in the shower and I liked her like this—stripped down. More real. She had pulled off her fake eyelashes and didn’t blink as much now. She just perched delicately on my thighs and studied me. “You didn’t say the magic word.”

  She had a cute sense of humor. Not dark, not dry. But sweet and silly. “I want a kiss, please. With sugar on top.”

  Leaning forward, she bent closer to me. And closer. I shifted, anticipating her lips on mine.

  Then she burped. Right in my face.

  It was clearly an accident, and her eyes went wide and her cheeks turned red. I started laughing. I couldn’t help it. It was fucking hilarious.

  “Oh my God!” she cried. She hit me on the shoulder. “It’s that stupid soda! I cannot believe I just did that. This is your fault for making me kiss you without brushing my teeth first.”

  That just made me laugh harder. “How is this my fault? And who cares? Everyone burps. You already told me you do. It’s your special talent, remember?”

  “Yeah, but not without warning and not in your face. I have pepperoni breath!”

  She looked like she wanted to die a thousand deaths, which made me laugh even harder. I gave her a kiss, despite her squirming and protesting. “I don’t care, Bella.” I stood up, which made her shriek.

  I had her under her ass and carried her to the bed and tossed her down unceremoniously. “I’m turned on by you. All the time. Nothing you do is going to change that. Doughnuts or pizza or burping or an irrational fear of water. I want you. Get over it.”

  She was already trying to get off the bed. “Just let me brush my teeth and take a shower and I swear I’ll do whatever you want. I mean, within reason. If I like it.”

  I pushed her back down in a tangle of limbs and stripped her dress down over her tits, her waist, her hips. “You’re not listening to me. I don’t care that you ate pepperoni or that it’s been a whole two hours since you showered. I don’t care.”

  She stopped wiggling and eyed me. “Really?”

  “Really.” I wanted to tell her she had some issues that needed working on, but that was none of my business and I didn’t want to kill the moment anyway. She looked like she might actually believe me. “Now shut up and kiss me.”

  To my surprise she did, with an enthusiasm I wasn’t expecting. It made me instantly hard. I yanked down my jeans and kicked them off. I kissed her back, feverishly, stroking my tongue across hers. I wanted her to understand sex could be raw and spontaneous and very fun. I didn’t need her spritzed and brushed and cleansed and posed. I just needed her.

  I didn’t even wait to push inside her. I just took her, hard, wanting her to let go and enjoy herself. Wanting to take what I could while we still had time. She moaned in the back of her throat and dug her nails into my back. Then she shocked both of us by having an almost instant orgasm. “That’s it, baby,” I told her, my dick throbbing inside her. I heard the excitement in my own voice. She had no idea what she did to me and how sexy she was.

  “Yes,” she said, sounding breathless. “Oh yes, Christian.”

  Then I bent down and kissed her, hard, wanting to drive my point home. “You make me need to come, baby.”

  “You really should,” she said, like she was encouraging me to try for a new job or take a vacation.

  It amused me. I exploded deep inside her, loving the way she held on to me, her eyes rolling back in her head.

  And when I slowed down and rested my forehead briefly on hers, kissing her slightly greasy pizza lips that she was so insanely stressed about, I realized that this was trouble on a whole other level.

  Fuck my life, I actually liked her.

  * * *

  —

  I had thought that for the first time in a week I would be able to sleep. That the relief I felt and all the carbs and a few glasses of wine, the multiple orgasms, would knock me into a sleep so sound and deep I would wake up at 10 A.M. on Sunday morning, groggy and sluggish. I wanted that. I wanted oblivion.

  I didn’t get it.
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br />   Christian lay next to me in bed sound asleep, and that in itself was unsettling. It had been four years since there had been anyone other than Bradley in my bed. I knew his habits, his breathing, his sleep sounds. Christian was bigger and took up more space. He eschewed the covers and lay sprawled out bare-ass naked on his stomach. It seemed important to him to always be touching me. We had started out spooning, then when I shifted away from him and he rolled onto his stomach, he flopped his arm across my middle.

  It was sweet and I appreciated the intention behind it, but I didn’t like it. His arm was heavy, the weight oppressive. Bradley never touched me when we slept and I was disconcerted by Christian’s dominating contact. But then everything about Christian was disconcerting. Especially how easily he brought me to orgasm. It was unreal.

  My body warmed at the memory, and even though I was actually a little sore from having sex three times I also wanted more. Real life was going to hit me hard and I wanted to avoid it as long as possible.

  But as I lay there in the quiet darkness of the cabin and felt sick to my stomach from both the pizza and thoughts of my wedding, I couldn’t avoid reality. I wondered if the reception had just gone on without me. I wondered if Bradley was still in town or if he had immediately gone back to Boston. I wondered if I could get my job back. Or my apartment. Or if our honeymoon to Bora Bora was refundable. I knew Bradley wouldn’t go on it solo. That wasn’t his style.

  I thought about the mothers I had been working with whom I had passed off to my colleague Sandra and I felt terrible. I loved my job. The relief those mothers felt when they were reassured by the adoptive parents they would love the child was amazing. And the joy of the adoptive parents was always beautiful to see. I had walked away from that and now I wasn’t sure if I could go back.

  Then I realized the most obvious answer was I could never go back to any part of my old life. That was the life of a woman who got everything she ever wanted. Only none of it was real.

  Peeling back Christian’s arm, I climbed out of the brass bed. It was creaky on the floorboards but I tiptoed over to where my dress was lying on the floor and pulled it on over my head. I put on my sandals, pulled my phone out of my bag, and opened the door as quietly as possible. There were four chairs in the yard arranged around an old fire pit and I sat down on one, sinking back so I could look up and see the stars. When was the last time I had looked at the sky?